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[Ariella]

Okay so I'm sort of taking Dragoon's advice and not posting this in his three things in DA3 thread, however, the use of language as the franchise continues does concern me a bit.

What I'm talking about is word choice, and the maturity of that choice. This is important, especially in the face of many people raving about the mature language used in The Witcher 2. Now, I've played TW2, and found that the tendency of the characters to curse reached the point of inanity. Having a great number of swear words in a game and calling the language "mature" is one of the worst of all cop outs. Add to that the fact the overuse of certain swears lessens the visceral impact when such a word IS called for in dialogue.

And before anyone asks, I had the same problem with Jack's limited vocabulary as I did the cursing in TW2.

Now we get to DA2. While there is cursing, it's not over used, and it is used effectively in the sparse moments that it does happen. The language in general also doesn't play to the fantasy stereotype of feeling it has to be stilted and archaic, while still holding the spirit of the setting, This is a trend I hope to see continue in future installments of the franchise.

This kind of thing is hard to quantify. And while I realize that many people didn't like the story of DA2, there is a something to the way words fit together into phrases and sentences, and I'd have better luck trying to herd cats or game developers than I would trying to express that magic when words, phrases and sentences become more than just strings of letters on a screen. This is one of the most important, if not the most important thing, that should be considered. Keep pushing the language, but push it in a smart way. Hell, use words we all crammed back when we were studying for the ACT/SATs if they're what's needed. Make mature language smart language. From my own observations, while I'll admit somewhat limited with some of the writing staff, the team's has the chops to do it. They have done it, in fact. I just hope they keep pushing the envelope without feeling the need to fall back on "colorful metaphor" to show "maturity".

Ariella

[David Gaider]

Our rule with profanity is "occasional but impactful", with the occasional allowance for a character that swears as part of their personality-- indeed, for such a character the profanity would more or less fade into the background.

The only profanity we argued about was the f-bomb. We had it for a while but eventually removed it as it seemed too distracting.