Wish I could be there. 
But, I do have a question about something. Is that bulge on the females just art mix for pictures and not in actual game? 
Also, that new picture with female/male picture of, who will you choose to be, can be set as a cover for the back or front of the game box or where everyone will see it that don't go online much?
*Adds these to my small but growing list of questions. I'll see what I can find out for you, aTigerslunch.
At this point, I'm mostly curious about two things:
I'd love some more details on class specs. As someone that prefers archers, I'm really hoping it's more viable than it was in the last game.
To tie into Tiger's post, is there going to be a reflection in the main ads (the ones that'll be shown heavily on sites like blip and on TV) that there will be a choice in not only race, but also in gender? In short, we will see major advertising for both male and female Inquisitors?
So lucky! I have a question that I'd love to get an answer on:
I'd love to know whether Dragons regen health if you fight them, but don't kill them, before they fly off/you get away. (Or if they fly away, does it mean you can't come back to slay them later.)
I'd like if someone could ask how Disengage* works. Do you just have to run away a set distance before your enemies will give up?
*I think the whole idea sounds silly tbh, especially when dealing with NPCs. "Sure, let's give up and let them run away so they can return and kill us all later".
But, I do have a question about something. Is that bulge on the females just art mix for pictures and not in actual game?
Bless ya Tiger!
Why dwarf don't have a romance . I haven't seen anywhere the WHY .
Oh, how I would love to meet Mark Meer and Raphael Sbarge! Sheperd and Kaidan in da house!
Questions noted, thanks. I'll see what I can do for you Natashina, Darth Krytie, ascendedflame and AlexiaRevan.
Ooooh, that Sunday panel sounds interesting, "Preparing for the Impending Inquisition".
Hey, first I hope you have a great time at the expo. 
Couple of quick questions if you get a chance to ask.
Also, that new picture with female/male picture of, who will you choose to be, can be set as a cover for the back or front of the game box or where everyone will see it that don't go online much?
To tie into Tiger's post, is there going to be a reflection in the main ads (the ones that'll be shown heavily on sites like blip and on TV) that there will be a choice in not only race, but also in gender? In short, we will see major advertising for both male and female Inquisitors?
Love both these questions thanks aTigerslunch & Natashina. To tie in with these will they at least mention in the blurb on the box (failing actual pics of a female inquisitor) that you can pick your gender and race etc?
Also will you be able to customise/choose your outfit for the Orlesian ball? In particular can an inquisitor wear a ball gown if they so desire?
Seriously though have a great time ladyiolanthe 
I'd like if someone could ask how Disengage* works. Do you just have to run away a set distance before your enemies will give up?
*I think the whole idea sounds silly tbh, especially when dealing with NPCs. "Sure, let's give up and let them run away so they can return and kill us all later".
Well, in fairness, many of the enemies you end up fighting are not necessarily out to kill you, you simply stumbled along them doing their thing. I mean, if you stumble into a templar/mage battle, and kill all the templars, and only one or two mages before retreating, it would make logical sense for the mages not to **** with you for a variety of reasons. Personally, I hope that there is a disengage distance, but that it's fairly long, so it takes quite a bit of work to escape an encounter.
Awesome. Looking forward to seeing vids and hearing cool news. For all attending, enjoy!
All right, so first off, video isn't allowed by the organizers of the Expo, out of courtesy to the guests, which is kind of what I thought might be the case. But I did take notes in the one BioWare panel today, which was about working for BioWare. It wasn't really the appropriate venue for any of the questions people have indicated they would like to know answers to - however, Mike Laidlaw and David Gaider will be showing up for at least one of the two remaining panels, and they'll be able to answer some of the questions people have asked, I think.
That being said there were some highlights from the panel today that I thought I'd share in case anyone is interested in working for BioWare. These are from my notes so any errors are my own. I am probably not going to spell any of the BioWare staff names correctly, so my apologies for that...
Conal Pierse, of Spit Takes with Alix Wilton Regan fame (he's the stoic gentleman holding the bucket to catch water but getting soaked) led the panel. Other participants included:
Jonathan Warner (Senior Project Manager for the as-yet-unannounced new game)
Rob deMontarnal (Manager of the Business Development Team, and he works on BioWare licensed products, among other things)
Amy Fraser (she is on the Admin Team, so she does usual administrative stuff, but also makes sure everyone at the office gets breakfast,and organizes special events at the office)
Shanda Wood (Recruiter - she liaises with the U of A co-op program, and does many HR type things for BioWare)
Each panelist spoke a little about their jobs and why they love them.
Little tidbits:
New game setting is still in concept phase. (Jonathan)
Sanshee is releasing "My Talking Elcor" ME plush toy. (Robin)
How to get a job in the video game industry:
Shanda: It's best to focus on one thing - what is it you're really interested in doing? - and really focus in on it. Do your research - find out what schools offer the best courses for your discipline and try to get into them. Ask people in the discipline where they went for their education. Make connections. Networking is key - a lot of BioWare staff are hired because another staff member met them somewhere and was impressed by them, and recommended they be added to the team. For programming positions, you need a computer science degree. For art & design, it depends on your school and your portfolio. It's a good idea to zero in on the genre and/or company you're interested in and prepare a portfolio of a similar feel & calibre to the studio's current designers.
John: You must love games. Next he likes it if you're well-read. You really need to be well-organized so that you can take a nebulous idea and bring it to fruition. You also need to work and play well with others, because AAA games are a team effort.
The floor was opened to questions, here's what attendees asked and what they got for answers:
Q: How do you become a voice actor for BioWare?
A: BioWare hires through talent agencies, so you'll need to look into those, and make sure you have supplied your chosen agency with everything they request from you so that they can represent you well. This will probably include something like a demo tape, among other things. Show the variety of voice work you can do, but focus in on what you're best at. You can help get your name out there by putting yourself online and getting feedback and incorporating it into other work as you build your repertoire. You will need a Screen Actors' Guild card.
Q: How can I start to learn more about art for game design?
A: You need to do your research and figure out what you want to do - 3D design, concept art, etc. It's really helpful if you can practice and play around with software used by the industry. Put a portfolio on the internet - some people do recruit this way.
Q: Do you only hire people with the education, or do you hire people who have the skill set but no formal education?
A: BioWare values education but they have offered positions to people based purely on their portfolio.
Q: Do you hire sound engineers?
A: Yes, they have a whole group of staff who are dedicated to this. Many of them come from the Vancouver Film School, which has an excellent sound design program. And, pretty much everyone hired in the past few years as sound engineers has been referred - so again networking is essential.
Q: What do you look for in writers?
A: It comes down to what's in your portfolio. As part of the hiring process, you will have to do a written assessment. You need talent and passion as well as the ability to write. Very importantly, you need to be able to accept direction and criticism, because writing at BioWare is an iterative process.
So that's it in a nutshell, folks. Have a good night!
9/28/14 Edited with correct names.
Ask if what are the other current/future Bioware projects are about.
All right, so first off, video isn't allowed by the organizers of the Expo, out of courtesy to the guests, which is kind of what I thought might be the case. But I did take notes in the one BioWare panel today, which was about working for BioWare. It wasn't really the appropriate venue for any of the questions people have indicated they would like to know answers to - however, Mike Laidlaw and David Gaider will be showing up for at least one of the two remaining panels, and they'll be able to answer some of the questions people have asked, I think.
That being said there were some highlights from the panel today that I thought I'd share in case anyone is interested in working for BioWare. These are from my notes so any errors are my own. I am probably not going to spell any of the BioWare staff names correctly, so my apologies for that...
Connell Pierce, of Spit Takes with Alix Wilton Regan fame (he's the stoic gentleman holding the bucket to catch water but getting soaked) led the panel. Other participants included:
Jonathan Warner (Senior Project Manager for the as-yet-unannounced new game)
Robin (didn't catch his last name - he's the Manager of the Business Development Team, and he works on BioWare licensed products, among other things)
Amy Fraser (she is on the Admin Team, so she does usual administrative stuff, but also makes sure everyone at the office gets breakfast,and organizes special events at the office)
Shanda Wood (Recruiter - she liaises with the U of A co-op program, and does many HR type things for BioWare)
Each panelist spoke a little about their jobs and why they love them.
Little tidbits:
New game setting is still in concept phase. (Jonathan)
Sanshee is releasing "My Talking Elcor" ME plush toy. (Robin)
How to get a job in the video game industry:
Shanda: It's best to focus on one thing - what is it you're really interested in doing? - and really focus in on it. Do your research - find out what schools offer the best courses for your discipline and try to get into them. Ask people in the discipline where they went for their education. Make connections. Networking is key - a lot of BioWare staff are hired because another staff member met them somewhere and was impressed by them, and recommended they be added to the team. For programming positions, you need a computer science degree. For art & design, it depends on your school and your portfolio. It's a good idea to zero in on the genre and/or company you're interested in and prepare a portfolio of a similar feel & calibre to the studio's current designers.
John: You must love games. Next he likes it if you're well-read. You really need to be well-organized so that you can take a nebulous idea and bring it to fruition. You also need to work and play well with others, because AAA games are a team effort.
The floor was opened to questions, here's what attendees asked and what they got for answers:
Q: How do you become a voice actor for BioWare?
A: BioWare hires through talent agencies, so you'll need to look into those, and make sure you have supplied your chosen agency with everything they request from you so that they can represent you well. This will probably include something like a demo tape, among other things. Show the variety of voice work you can do, but focus in on what you're best at. You can help get your name out there by putting yourself online and getting feedback and incorporating it into other work as you build your repertoire. You will need a Screen Actors' Guild card.
Q: How can I start to learn more about art for game design?
A: You need to do your research and figure out what you want to do - 3D design, concept art, etc. It's really helpful if you can practice and play around with software used by the industry. Put a portfolio on the internet - some people do recruit this way.
Q: Do you only hire people with the education, or do you hire people who have the skill set but no formal education?
A: BioWare values education but they have offered positions to people based purely on their portfolio.
Q: Do you hire sound engineers?
A: Yes, they have a whole group of staff who are dedicated to this. Many of them come from the Vancouver Film School, which has an excellent sound design program. And, pretty much everyone hired in the past few years as sound engineers has been referred - so again networking is essential.
Q: What do you look for in writers?
A: It comes down to what's in your portfolio. As part of the hiring process, you will have to do a written assessment. You need talent and passion as well as the ability to write. Very importantly, you need to be able to accept direction and criticism, because writing at BioWare is an iterative process.
So that's it in a nutshell, folks. Have a good night!
Sounds like a tough industry to get in to. I admit, reading all that kinda sucked out a little bit of enthusiasm in me.
Saturday, September 27 - Behind the Scenes of Dragon Age Inquisition's Online Development Destinations
As previously mentioned, these are highlights from notes hastily made during the panel; all errors are my own.
Today's panel was led once more by Conal Pierse (I can learn how to spell names!) who is part of the Community team. He was joined by (no guarantees any of these names are spelled correctly):
Jeff Roussell (Tech Lead, Dragon Age Keep)
Jeremy Smereka (works on the Keep and artwork for tweets)
Justin Edmond (online programming)
Renata Cronin (Associate Producer, DA Keep, also is the person who does DA Keep tweets)
Missed the 5th panelist's name - probably Fernando Melo
Leah Shinkewski ((Producer for DA Keep)
Ryan Warden (Producer, DA Inquisition HQ)
Inquisition HQ for MP (Ryan)
Ryan started off with a brief history of BioWare MP, then showed us some stills of what the Inquisition HQ looks like. It's an online location for checking out your MP character's stats. It is an asynchronous website which you will be able to access anywhere, on anything you have internet access with. With it, you can:
- optimize your MP stats in advance of MP sessions
- you will be able to work on your MP character's ability tree
- you will be able to go through your inventory and manage your crafting - so you can stock up on potions or whatever you need for your MP session
Dragon Age Keep (Leah)
Leah told us how the Keep started out (lots of issues with the user interface, artwork was all in too many shades of grey) and what it is now after all the beta testers' input (thank you, beta testers!). So I think the UI issues are pretty well resolved now, and she showed us some of the artwork, which is very pretty and colourful. It's all in the iconic sort of art deco-inspired style that has been used in previous DA games. Looked really nice!
From what I could gather, you'll pick your world-state choices using brief descriptions of all the ways our paths could have forked in DAO and DA2, accompanied by pictures representing the choices you made. The pictures will all be assembled in what they are calling a 'tapestry'. DA Keep will also keep track of the choices you make as you play DAI.
It will be fully responsive; you'll be able to use it on mobile devices.
They did a demo of the Keep live on the big screen in the room; it appears really thorough - if you make a choice that contradicts another choice, it will ask you to revisit that other choice. Eg. you choose to do the DR but you also choose that your warden, Loghain, or Alistair dies killing the archdemon - that is not logical, so the Keep will double check with you on all those contradictory choices.
World Vault - plot flags and solver (Justin)
This guy and his team have put a heck of a lot of work into the Keep. To accommodate all the possible outcomes of all the possible choices we have been able to make in DAO and DA2, he and his team had to create 1.89 x 1021 logical switches. Yeah, that is intense.
Questions from the audience about the Keep resulted in the following extra information:
Didn't play one or both previous DA games? No problem. You can have the Keep randomize choices for you if you like. If you want more control over your world state, then you can watch a short interactive movie narrated by none other than Varric Tethras, which will take you through key events of DAO and DA2. You can pause and play the movie so you can select your choices based on what you just saw.
BioWare is looking to add elements of story from the comics and books - they are not in there yet, but it's something they're working on.
If you are a hardcore DA fan and know all your choices, you can probably set up your world state in ~15 minutes. It will probably take a little longer for people who don't have everything from their playthroughs memorized.
Even such seemingly inconsequential choices as whether you helped Elora's halla in DAO are covered in the Keep.
You can store up to 5 world states at this time; this may change (in a good way, I got the impression).
The Keep will be live ~1 month ahead of release... so in about three weeks? ^-^
You cannot upload saved games to the Keep. That being said, there is value to going through the Keep process, as it will keep a permanent record of your world-state that can move with you to future installations of Dragon Age... even if you don't play DAI.
9/28/14 - Edited with correct spellings of names.
aTigerslunch - I asked Steve Middleton, an animation tech lead at the BioWare booth about the bulge evident on some of the lady inquisitor shots - he was surprised and concerned, and asked me to send some examples on Twitter, which I'm about to do. Will keep you posted with what he says.
I'm at the BioWare booth from 10-1 today. Come talk old school. Might even tell you to get off my lawn.
It was nice meeting you today, Lukas, along with all your colleagues with whom I spoke. You are all awesome.
Thanks for taking the notes! Although most of the keep stuff was already covered in their twitch. Interesting to hear about comics and books. I hoped they filmed their panels. Or someone recorded audio.
You're welcome, Kantr - I missed the twitch unfortunately, so it was new to me. And going in to the panel who knew what they would be telling us? So I think it was worthwhile going, anyway. Today's panel, we were told yesterday, would be revealing some totally new stuff. So I am pretty excited for it.
Taking flash photos and video during the panels was discouraged by the Expo organizers. However, there have been Expo staff with video cameras, so it's possible some of the panels will be made available to those who didn't attend them. I really only remember noticing it during the first panel I attended on Friday night, though. So there may not be anything made available - hard to say.
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