121 réponses à ce sujet

[Bob McCabe]

A burglar breaks into your house and an off-duty officer who just pulled a double-shift happens to notice the broken window and investigates. In the process, he discovers the burglar, calls for back-up, and makes the arrest. Aside from the broken window, all of your possessions are safe and sound. The cop heads back to the office and writes up the report. He messes up a few details on the report. And then someone comes along and tells him he's a lazy cop. Mistakes are bad. We should always strive to overcome them. But we never will. That's why we worry more about the bottom line.

[David Gaider]

T1l wrote...
   I find it really strange that you didn't have something similar? A database that every creative person can enter information, collaborate and reference would seem, to me, like a necessity for a project like this.

Oh, of course we have a database -- I think what you have to understand is the magnitude we're talking about. There's no way we could fit all that on a wall. There's always a great deal of legacy information (info that goes out of date but has not been completely purged) and there's always an issue keeping it 100% up-to-date. Eventually it became so massive that our editors were turned onto trying to keep it organized, but it's never easy -- especially when shared amongst such a large group of people. You're talking about controlled chaos at the best of times.

[Bob McCabe]

Nevermind. David answered the question well.

Modifié par Bob McCabe, 08 décembre 2009 - 04:23 .

[Sarakinoi]

Good job on the novels btw, found them very nicely written and far superior to your typical game franchise novels.

Indeed. I read the first to test the waters, and ended up enjoying it. Then I got the second and it was even better (mainly corrected the one issue with the first and delved more into ferelden's lore), and I very much enjoyed the ending with the Alistar... No spoilers, let's just say "revelation".

From my perspective it would be much easier if all the information from various writers on the project was in one massive, easily-searchable and (more importantly) constantly updated database. That would be cool, even if I don't think it's going to happen.

Hey a kind of wiki customized for collaborative writing's needs. With access to the codex database, an easy search of all references, a smart semantic text parser that could detect inconsistencies (extract information from texts using known sentence structures and compare it against the character sheets/object). Sounds like something I would enjoy working on.

[Symms]

David, I'd just like to say thank you to you and the DA:O team for spending the last five years or so in creating a fun, story driven, epic scaled RPG that this PC gamer and RPG fan hasn't seen since the Baldurs Gate series. There are very few games right now that I actually finish, mostly because I've got a job, a young family and I can't sit in front of my computer and play for 39 hours straight like I did in university anymore.



Yes, there are inconsistencies, a few glitches and bugs, but I tend to judge a game by how fun it is. I'm not quite done yet, I've put in 90 plus hours and I'm having a blast!



Once I'm finished the game in my first play through I will post some recommendations for what I'd like to see in future games or DLC in a different thread of course.



I just finished the Calling and I enjoyed reading it. It seems like there are a lot of Duncan fans out there, including myself. I hope you will continue to write about Duncan's story and give us more insight into the Gray Wardens.



Your comments and responses to the various threads shows me that not only do you really care about this game but you have a passion for it, which I find rare in this day and age of profit driven, depressingly shrinking (thanks consoles - sorry i'm a tad bitter), small niche that is computer gaming. Not to mention that you are probably responding from home unless you live at the office.



I also like your attitude to the criticism you have received. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and at least you are willing to respond to it in this open forum.



Kudos to you! Now that I've thrown in my 2 cents, sorry but I've got to get back to playing DA:O now...

[Wolfva2]

So Infinite, you have 0 experience with any of this; everything you say you would do is purely theoretical based on what you THINK you would do from a position of extreme ignorance.  Having no first hand knowledge of what you speak of course you think it would be easy to do all the things you claim you would.  Those who have no clue always think things are easy.  Why, heart surgery is easy.  I mean, c'mon.  How hard can it be?  Cut the chest open, clamp off the veins and arteries, clip 'em, pull out heart, drop in a new one, sew the veins and arteries up, close the chest and WALLA!  You're done.  Heck, I've even done most of that, having removed the still beating heart of a rat in college bio.  But, unlike you, I am wise enough to realize that there is a whole lot MORE involved in heart surgery that I am clueless about.  So, if you ever need a new heart and came to me I would point you toward a heart surgeon.  I wouldn't attempt to do it myself.  Now, you would probably rail at me for being 'lazy' and 'pathetic'.  Me?  I'd point out I'm in law enforcement and not a Doctor and then tell you to chill or  I'll have to bust you for dissorderly conduct.

Until you have actually walked in the shoes of an author you can't realy judge them as 'lazy' and 'pathetic' because they didn't spend large amounts of money and resources with an overly bulky fact checking redundancy system which missed a very small and hardly noticed mistake.  And don't hide behind your wife...SHE'S the English degree holder and hopefull author, not you.  Knowledge does not pass by osmosis; just because your spouse knows something doesn't mean you do.

[T1l]

David Gaider wrote...

Oh, of course we have a database -- I think what you have to understand is the magnitude we're talking about. There's no way we could fit all that on a wall. There's always a great deal of legacy information (info that goes out of date but has not been completely purged) and there's always an issue keeping it 100% up-to-date. Eventually it became so massive that our editors were turned onto trying to keep it organized, but it's never easy -- especially when shared amongst such a large group of people. You're talking about controlled chaos at the best of times.

Thanks for the candid answer, David. I find this kind of thing really interesting; you're absolutely right, I can't begin to fathom how much information any one person would have to be considering at any one time to work on a project this large. As you said earlier in this thread, I think a small faux-pas here and there is to be expected.

Thanks again and keep up the good work.

[Staylost]

DJoker35 wrote...

Just amazingly rude.

I get irritated by lore inconsistencies, but I have to agree.

[SuperD-710]

Bob McCabe wrote...

A burglar breaks into your house and an off-duty officer who just pulled a double-shift happens to notice the broken window and investigates. In the process, he discovers the burglar, calls for back-up, and makes the arrest. Aside from the broken window, all of your possessions are safe and sound. The cop heads back to the office and writes up the report. He messes up a few details on the report. And then someone comes along and tells him he's a lazy cop. Mistakes are bad. We should always strive to overcome them. But we never will. That's why we worry more about the bottom line.

OMG VOICE OF REASON!!!

A lot of you sound like one of those people who would snap at a waitress for bringing him coke instead of pepsi, instead of just politely informing her of the mistake. Non of the inconsistencies mentioned in this thread is a big deal. It's not like they messed up Duncan's gender.

I believe the purpose of this thread is to clear up some inconsistencies and find out which is canon, but thanks to a few crybabies we never got around to that.

[fluffyamoeba]

Infiniteone2 wrote...

If i ever made a mistake, I would personally punch myself in the balls 50 times as hard as I could, beg for forgiveness instead of saying "My b", and then probably hire and personally pay 2-3 very dedicated helpers to double check me.  Not to mention nearly get myself fired to make sure it was fixed asap in-game.

"i" - should be I
"personally punch myself" - personally and myself are redundant
"2-3" -  should be two to three
"double check me" - double check for me
"asap" - A.S.A.P. but probably shouldn't be abbreviated.

By my count that's 250 punches for two sentences. Ouch.

[Curlain]

fluffyamoeba wrote...

Infiniteone2 wrote...

If i ever made a mistake, I would personally punch myself in the balls 50 times as hard as I could, beg for forgiveness instead of saying "My b", and then probably hire and personally pay 2-3 very dedicated helpers to double check me.  Not to mention nearly get myself fired to make sure it was fixed asap in-game.

"i" - should be I
"personally punch myself" - personally and myself are redundant
"2-3" -  should be two to three
"double check me" - double check for me
"asap" - A.S.A.P. but probably shouldn't be abbreviated.

By my count that's 250 punches for two sentences. Ouch.

I think he's gonna need to think about storing sperm for future family planning at the rate things are going, that or just learn to not to freak out over a minor continunity issue that is to be expected in a massive protect like this of which he has zero experience working on or writing at all(all I can say is he'd better stay away from comics all together, cause they have continunity issues all over the place ) and in which Gaider as already both reasonbly explained and given his view over what is canon in his view of Duncan's partentage.

Modifié par Curlain, 08 décembre 2009 - 01:52 .

[Templar80]

Complete non-problem for me its already been stated that the codex is made up mainly of conjecture and theory rather than 100% truth. You are reading the victors version of history so to speak a few bits maybe slightly off but that's point.

[Dark83]

David Gaider wrote...

I'm in a good mood. I've helped write a massive game with a massive amount of lore to keep track of and then penned two books that have also been received well by the fanbase. If this is the worst of my crimes, I think I'll live.

I must say, if this was the sequence it was done, then it further supports my supposition that Game-Portrayal is distinct and seperate from Book-Portrayal. This is a digression into what Loghain apologists keep referencing, however, so I won't go on about it here.

[Frostaxt]

So when is the free fan patch coming out fixing Duncan´s heritage?

[Yxiomel]

Got to laugh at Mr Nip-It-In-The-Butt-Punch-Myself-In-The-Balls (see, if you let someone rant long enough, they eventually top themselves).



Anyway, I have to say I am very much enjoying The Calling, and enjoyed The Stolen Throne, so I would like to congratulate Mr Gaider, and thank him for his work. I think The only criticism I had was that I giggled everytime I read "incredulous" in TST, but that's a minor issue

[Ashton W]

David Gaider? Make a mistake involving a character's parents? Shocking!



I'm kidding, I swear, no offense meant, I'm just surprised no one has mentioned the whole ToB thing. Or maybe I'm just silly and easily amused. Either way I have nothing but love and respect for David Gaider's work and can forgive all sorts of mistakes.

[Ulicus]

David Gaider wrote...

From my perspective, the book is correct. Duncan's mother is
Rivaini and his father is Fereldan, and they moved from Highever to
Orlais. I don't remember when the original info was written, but it's
difficult when you write things over six years like this -- we ended up
with a lot of legacy lore, especially from things that were changed, so
some inconsistencies are bound to creep in. Dragon Age has a huge
amount of lore written by different people, so it's not easy to keep
track of.

The book might be at odds with the codex but it backs up what's in the game itself: Alistair tells us, in no uncertain terms, that Duncan said he was from Highever. I'll take spoken dialogue over a codex entry any day.

Besides, he's called "Duncan", a name perfectly at home with "Bryce" and "Fergus". It'd be weird if he wasn't from Ferelden.

I'm more interested to learn why Duncan was getting so close to the Calling (again, per Alistair) when he had only been a Grey Warden for 17-18 years by the time DA:O rolled around.  (Though there's a potential explanation for that in The Calling itself)

[Kerilus]

Ashton W wrote...

David Gaider? Make a mistake involving a character's parents? Shocking!

I'm kidding, I swear, no offense meant, I'm just surprised no one has mentioned the whole ToB thing. Or maybe I'm just silly and easily amused. Either way I have nothing but love and respect for David Gaider's work and can forgive all sorts of mistakes.

You have too much love and respect for Mr. Gaider to attempt a proper sarcasm.
Let me try one: It strikes me as utterly irresponsible and unprofessional as a game+novel writer who just finished a great and enormous game and two novels under the same lore to slightly mistaken the parentage of a character that is not quite important to the game! I demand seriousness and professionalism!

[Vae_Victis]

It's NOT HARD at all to make sure there's no discrepancies, all it takes is [] some hardwork.

Heh.

[ChemicalGreen]

How could anyone get so upset over such a minor discrepancy is beyond me. These things happen, we're all human, humans make mistakes.



Besides, the idea that writers oughto remember every minor detail of their creations is laughable at best. Sure, documenting religiously every minor detail and obsessively fact checking after every chapter would produce almost no inconsistancies, but can you imagine just how much that would delay a project with multiple writers working concurrently?

[Ariella]

David Gaider wrote...

T1l wrote...
   I find it really strange that you didn't have something similar? A database that every creative person can enter information, collaborate and reference would seem, to me, like a necessity for a project like this.

Oh, of course we have a database -- I think what you have to understand is the magnitude we're talking about. There's no way we could fit all that on a wall. There's always a great deal of legacy information (info that goes out of date but has not been completely purged) and there's always an issue keeping it 100% up-to-date. Eventually it became so massive that our editors were turned onto trying to keep it organized, but it's never easy -- especially when shared amongst such a large group of people. You're talking about controlled chaos at the best of times.

I suddenly have am image of a closet in David's house having a "conspiracy wall" ala Life

http://en.wikipedia....piracy_wall.jpg

[MBirkhofer]

Its like people don't even know what Editions and Addendums are.



A reprint is a reprint. A new Edition, is a modified version of an original text. Usually done to update the older version with eliminate inconsistency's. False data in textbooks, ret cons in fiction.

An addendum is a note at the back of the book with additional info, done post completion. Often correcting errors.



Not a new practice. Been around for a very long time.