42 réponses à ce sujet

[Ginasue]

I just want to tell the writers of the story how much I have enjoyed the little talking actions that goes on between characters as you travel about.  Never before have I enjoyed a RPG as much as I have this one.  I will stop what action I'm doing, just to sit and listen to whats going on between them.  There are times I get a good laugh at what some of them say to each other.

This is one of the best games I've ever played and I"ve been doing RPG's since back in the 80's.

[David Gaider]

Ginasue wrote...
Sometimes I wish I could have a say in what is said. Instead of what you have a choice to say, that you had a way to say something yourself to the others. Yet we can't because so many people would say things that maybe just aren't right and it would mess up the game

Actually, the fact that the player can't participate in the banter was something we couldn't avoid. I would have liked to do it, but the way the engine works you either have the full cutscene-like conversation -- which stops all action and zooms in to provide you with reply options -- or it's ambient dialogue that is going on around you. We didn't want banter to force the player to stop and listen to it if they didn't want to, and there's no way for us to provide response options to ambient dialogue you may not be paying attention to.

Glad you enjoyed the banter, however.

Just to point it out, this can't be laid solely at my doorstep -- Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby are responsible for just as much writing as I was, and some of their stuff is far funnier than mine is.

Modifié par David Gaider, 07 janvier 2010 - 05:43 .

[David Gaider]

MrHimuraChan wrote...
Oh, Hi Mr. Gaider! Can you tell us wich characters you wrote? (If you wrote Oghren you deserve a barrel of ale, i'll pay!) My cumpliments again!

I wrote Alistair, Morrigan, Zevran and Shale. Sheryl wrote Leliana, Dog, Wynne and Oghren (although Jay Turner wrote a lot of Oghren as well, I think). Mary wrote Sten and (the spoiler companion). Typically, however, we each wrote of the lot of the other characters in the banter.

Modifié par Torias, 07 janvier 2010 - 07:20 .

[Ferret A Baudoin]

Although I didn't write any of the companions, I can say it was wonderful writing in the Dragon Age setting. I especially enjoyed writing Master Wade and Herren. People were staring at me when I was writing them and laughing to myself. I'm not mad I tell you. No, the voices tell me I'm quite sane.

[David Gaider]

Torias wrote...
One request (might be patchable):

Could banter be triggered when I visit the party camp? Maybe if I walk up to the camp fire...

Not the way banter works currently. When you enter the camp, you no longer have anyone in your party... everyone is "kicked out", as it were, until you leave. So it's not something we could patch in without changing the way banter works (which always checks to see who's in your party currently), even if we wanted to... and I'm not sure I'd be willing to make the camp a "dialogue zone" any more than it already is. To be honest, I'd almost rather make it so that the only way to truly develop a party member's relationship with you is that you have to take them along in the active party. But that's another thing entirely.

[Ferret A Baudoin]

Hee hee, I'm glad you liked them. I wrote a lot of the characters in the Denerim Marketplace and some of the folks in the Alienage. And some other stuff here and there. Slim Couldry, Master Ignacio, Ser Landry, and many others. I did a lot of the scripting for them, as well.

[Ferret A Baudoin]

Tassiaw, when I'm in a writing mode I definitely have characters talking to each other in my head. Or when I'm planning my sit-down games. Sometimes I'll write things completely out of order because I have an exchange in my head that I have to write down.

[David Gaider]

AndreaDraco wrote...
A quick question: we know which writer wrote which companion, but do we know which writer wrote each origin and each Treaty Quest? I'd be interested to know who wrote Broken Circle, Nature of the Beasts (my favorites), and who wrote the Mage Origin and the Human Noble Origin

With the plots it's a bit more difficult to pinpoint -- some of them went through multiple hands, and the last writer that took ownership of it inherited all the problems that went before. BUT with that in mind I can say who did the majority of the writing for each plot (if not always the majority of the design):

Origins:

Human Noble - me
Mage Origin - Sheryl
Dalish Elf - me
City Elf - Daniel
Dwarn Noble - Daniel
Dwarf Commoner - Jennifer

Game plots:

Nature of the Beast - me
Arl Eamon/Redcliffe - me
Broken Circle - Sheryl
Urn of Sacred Ashes - Sheryl
Paragon of Her Kind - Luke/Jennifer
Landsmeet - Mary

[David Gaider]

MoSa09 wrote...
May i ask: what about Ostagar/Korcari Wilds and Lothering. Liked both parts very much, especially Lothering. It's where you really get the feeling of a country at war and the bitter fate of all the refugees.

I think I wrote most of Ostagar and the Korcari Wilds... although that went through a lot of handling, as well, so it may be hard to tell. Lothering is definitely mine, however.

[Sheryl Chee]

AndreaDraco wrote...

Anyway, I must really keep an eye on you and Sheryl, since you two wrote my favorite segments of the game (and my two favorite companions: Zev and Wynne), and I must say that I really enjoy how Sheryl worked many intriguing puzzles into her storytelling, providing that it was her who came up with the bridge brain-teaser (Urn) and with the multi-layered gameplay of the Fade.

I wasn't responsible for the puzzles. I'm very... puzzle-challenged. The riddles were mine but the bridge puzzle was Grant Mackay's brilliant work. I basically went: "Grant! You're my favourite person! We need a puzzle here. A really cool, awesome puzzle! *puppy dog eyes*"

And the Broken Circle Fade puzzle was Ferret's brainchild, implemented by Gary Stewart.

[David Gaider]

Ethical Scabs wrote...
I mean no offense David, but it really looks like you wrote about 30% of the game, not counting the novels.

Your life---does it exist?  You must have a wonderful work ethic.

You have to remember I'm one of the few people on the project who was here from beginning to end.

[David Gaider]

TheMadCat wrote...
I may be wrong, he'll no doubt correct me if I am, but the universe of Thedas is pretty much almost all of David's creation.  He is to this universe what Tolkien is to Middle Earth.

Err... taking into account that I created that world given set parameters. It's not like I'm the game's Lead Designer and created a world of my choosing and then said to the rest of the team, "Now fly, my pretties! Fly!" But I did have a big say in forming the world, yes, and the rest of the team has been really great in running with it. And I do really happen to love fantasy.

[David Gaider]

AndreaDraco wrote...
I know that you're probably not at the liberty to say, or something like that, but - since I appreciate so much the world as it is now - I wonder what these parameters were, like if someone ever told you "No, we won't do this" or "I want you to do that".

I've said this in interviews before, haven't I? I was asked to make a traditional fantasy world, but one where we could put our own spin on some of the traditional archetypes. Naturally this also had to be something playable, and not just something that looked kind of fascinating on paper. The task wasn't especially heinous -- like I said before, I do like fantasy. Even traditional fantasy.

And really, who gets to do this sort of stuff for a living anyhow? I mean come on.

[David Gaider]

MoSa09 wrote...
David, did the ones who wrote the characters also wrote their personal quests, and, if that character was romancable, their indicidual romance romance plot, as each romance evolves differently, or was that done by the whole group or a single writer?

Yes, the person responsible for writing each party member did the primary writing for their main dialogue (basically the stuff when you click on them to talk), their personal quest and their romance plot. They would also have been the one responsible for checking any other writing of that character to make sure their tone was consistent.

[David Gaider]

aries1001 wrote...
Did you know that in BG2:TOB there is sort of hommage to the old text adventures? You have to actually tell the player to go n,s,w,e - just like in the day of the text adventures. This is certainly a feature I would like to see included in DA:O (again).

A clever modder could maybe make a little mod that works the way, you've explained in this thread - or maybe a Bioware employee will take a shot at it?

Well, I don't know if we would actually do anything text-related, but I'm not above a bit of an homage to text adventures of old. I broke my teeth on Infocom games -- to this day, I still think "A Mind Forever Voyaging" as one of my all-time faves.

That and I'm scared of grues.

[David Gaider]

glenboy24 wrote...
I have to ask if there were 'any' moments or lines of dialogue to which you were partial that you were forced to cut from the final cut of Dragon Age?

Oh, sure. Some of them were painful, too, and made the story less reactive than I might have wished. That's part of game development, however. Unlike with a movie, the story can't be our only focus -- it has to be a game, as well, which is why writing is only one amongst the equally-important Design disciplines. Sometimes you need to do the best you can, and overall I think we did pretty damned well.

If so, I would very much like to have a few examples and wonder if we might see those moments brought out, modified slightly, and shown in future chapters of the DA Saga, and if so, which ones?

Oh, I don't know that I really want to get into the "Might Have Been" game. The trouble with talking about such things is that folks tend to leap on them and start picturing them as these perfect gems that were unfairly cut -- rather than how they probably would have ended up had we attempted them, with the limited resources we had to allocate. I think everyone's still a little too emotionally invested to start teasing them with that stuff.

And some of them are really just too painful for me to discuss, yet. You think the "Might Have Been" game is bad for you guys? Us developers have a bit of trouble looking at our own projects objectively towards the end... we see every missed opportunity, every story that was short-cut out of necessity, every plot that didn't turn out like we'd pictured, and often these things become all we can see. You have to remind yourself sometimes in those dark, final days that there's still good there at all and that most people will never see behind the red curtain quite as thoroughly as you do.

As for seeing these things in the future, it really depends. A lot of it was just variants to the story, things like alternate ways the game ended or variations on how some of your companions turned out, and they're pretty specific to this story -- they're not really things you can use again. A few things, like some of the cut companions or specific plots are things I wouldn't mind using again elsewhere. I won't go into details on those, either, because I probably will.

Maybe later there will be enough distance to start talking about the Lost Tales of Dragon Age. But not today.

Modifié par David Gaider, 09 janvier 2010 - 07:54 .

[David Gaider]

purplesunset wrote...
But after further reading, it appears that there are no black people anywhere at all on Thedas. Not the Qunari, who are arab/mediterranean, and certainly not the Chasind, who  seem more like Native Americans. So, it's not like this is something they could explore in a future expansion.

I think what you're looking for is in Rivain. The Rivaini are dark-skinned, and while I don't know if we'll ever actually go to Rivain the further north we travel the more common a sight the Rivaini will become. Sorry you felt left out.

[David Gaider]

MoSa09 wrote...
What i always forget to ask: i actually liked the elvish language you can hear fron the Dalish and sometimes also in the Alienage? Did you invented that kind of language, is it just modification of a common language, a known fantasy language or just some invented random sentences that do not make sense;)?

The elven language is mostly my doing, just as the qunari language is mostly Mary's. It's a made-up language, but we keep in mind the grammatical structure and keep a big glossary of all the words we've used so we don't lose the vocabulary.

AndreaDraco wrote...
If it depended entirely on you and you alone, without any kind of external input, and if you were just about to write DA2, where would you like tìit to be set? Ferelden once again or another region?

If it were up to me alone, of course we would go elsewhere. If you look at Origins as a baseline, we've introduced a world and in the future you would want to show the player what else is out there now that their familiar with the basics. It's easy to compare a setting like this to the Forgotten Realms or to Middle Earth, but one has to rememeber that it took multiple stories/adventures for those settings to reach the level of coverage that they achieved. We'll get there, with any luck.

Naturally it never is up to me alone, so the question is mostly academic.

Modifié par David Gaider, 09 janvier 2010 - 06:58 .

[David Gaider]

purplesunset wrote...
After reading David's response and the subsequent posts, I feel like I am the one bad apple, or the uninvited party guest, or the one fly in the ointment amongst a thread filled with effusive, laudatory posts. This was not my intention, but now I'm starting to feel bad I said anything.

I wouldn't feel bad. We're not going to see every thread, though I do remember you bringing this topic up elsewhere once before. I imagine there's something to be said about us writing what we know, and I suppose it's fair to say that we need to be reminded from time to time that our audience is larger than that. While I've no interest in making Ferelden specifically reflect our own society, that doesn't mean we shouldn't let our players feel that people like them have a place in our world -- whether or not it's a fictionalized version of medieval Europe. My only intention in responding to your post was to point out the existence of Rivain, that's all.

[David Gaider]

EJon wrote...
I have a question Mr. Gaider. It was recently said by a Bioware employee that the writers have begun work on DA2. I was just wondering if that was true, and how is it coming along? If you are unable to answer the question, then I understand completely.

I cannot comment on unannounced projects, sorry!

Phoenix Swordsinger wrote...
Mr. Gaider, I have a question if you will. Is Alistair Fiona's son? In which case Goldanna isn't really his sister at all. Or is he still out there somewhere?

And I'm going to leave this one to speculation, at least for now -- as I've mentioned elsewhere.

I guess this is my non-answer post.

Modifié par David Gaider, 09 janvier 2010 - 07:06 .

[David Gaider]

Apocalizz wrote...
I can tell you, you did achieve to make me cry!

Thank you! I realize not everyone shares this view, but as with movies I believe that the goal of a game's story does not have to be the happy ending. Emotional engagement is a reward in and of itself, and if people are distressed by their character's situation it's because they feel it keenly. Which is good. There are certainly people who say "that's not why I play games", but I think what we're going for here is entertainment as an experience... not just as a happy resolution, traditional as that might be.

That said, I don't think that every story should end sadly. I like happy endings sometimes, too, so long as they're meaningful.

[David Gaider]

Just a caution here to avoid talking about specifics with endings and characters, please. We are in the non-spoiler forum, after all.

[David Gaider]

smore006 wrote...
Does this mean that the entire work of the linguist working on the Thedas languages (his forum nickname was Beesechurger, real name Wolf, if i'm not mistaken) has been scrapped during the development? I remember him from the old forums and thought those words/phrases were the remains of his doing - seems i was wrong? 

Yes. Our use of a linguist was an experiment that just didn't work out like we'd hoped, I'm afraid. I notice that some of the phrases he quoted when he was posting on the forums are on the DA Wiki, but they're out of date.

[David Gaider]

MoSa09 wrote...
David, did any one of you writers ever thought about inter party relationships from NPC's? I have no idea if this is feasible in any way, i just thought sometimes that it would be nice if for example Alistair would fall for Leliana, they seem to be a good match.

Yes. Inter-party banter can have a progression (this is how some conversations can refer back to previous conversations) and thus we could have NPC's develop relationships if we wished. We didn't pursue that with DAO, since the romances were already pretty entangled, but I think I'd like to explore that option in the future.

Modifié par David Gaider, 09 janvier 2010 - 07:55 .

[David Gaider]

Err... no offense, but I don't want to turn this into a discussion of the expansion. There's another thread for that. It really isn't a "let's ask David Gaider questions" thread either. While I don't mind answering questions, it seems I'm derailing the thread myself. Sorry!