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[Inhuman one]

With Bioware being Canadian and not European, they are at a disadvantage regarding sources for folklore, museums and castles and other historic monuments to visit.

This does make Bioware's achievements regarding fantasy stories more impressive, but still I do think that there is room for improvement.

So I am curious about a few things, while I direct my questions to the Bioware writers and artists and anyone else of Bioware involved with creating the worlds and everything in it, the topic of inspiration is free for debate of course. Its a forum after all.

Have you ever visited museums, historical monuments and other sources of history and folklore in Europe or other locations for inspiration?

Many companies that produce fantasy games, mainly those outside of europe making medieval fantasy games, seem to use other games as an example instead of going straight to the source of creatures such as dwarves, orgres, elves and other fantasy beings. As a result many such creatures are left rather simple and uninspired in many games.  Armor and weapon designs often look like it wouldnt be functional at all either, and the construction of some buildings can seem odd at times.

Dungeon Keeper 1 and the fable games are good examples of games that did go straight to the source, as a result it really shows a very immersive fantasy world, although in the fable games the need to try and be funny undermines the immersion at times. While the fable games have a weak story thats nothing compared to Bioware's stories, they do give you the feeling you are walking around in a fairytale.
Dungeon Keeper is old, but the typical designs of the creatures, heroes and the dungeon really enriched its feeling of fantasy and folklore. I could only wish that modern games would use the same style of design.

My advice would be to the Bioware team to go on a eurotrip to visit museums, castles, cathedrals and other monuments, such as stonehenge in England for example. While fairytales are told in Canada too I am sure, far less tales might be known there. I advice looking up the lesser known stories.

There is always more to learn and to improve, medieval fantasy goes far beyond Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons.

As a Dutchman I can give some tips of places to visit here in the Netherlands, and I would like to ask people from other countries of europe to give our good friends at Bioware some tips and suggestions about places to visit in their country as well.

For folklore, go to the Efteling in Kaatsheuvel.
It is a themepark mostly based on fairytales. I believe a tale or two where designed for the park, and furthermore it features many well known and barely known tales.
Go ahead and take a look at the site.
http://www.efteling....me/thepark.html

For ships, go to Bataviawerk in Lelystad.
It is past the medieval period, but a reconstruction of the VOC ship Batavia which was originally build in 1628 lays here, and a second ship, "de zeven Provinciën" is under construction. This used to be the flagship of Michiel de Ruyter, a great naval commander of the Netherlands which was contructed in 1664-1665.
This might give some very good information about how ships where build. Sure it can be found on the internet, but actually visiting such a place and walking over the Batavia and seeing the unfinished zeven provinciën would be far more impressive.
And here is the link to the site.
http://www.bataviawe...who-are-we.html

Het Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam cannot be forgotten either. Its possibly the greatest museum of the Netherlands. It contains older and newer art, many beautifull paintings of the famous dutch painters through history. Sadly I have not yet visited the rijsmuseum myself yet, but it is something I plan to do this year. It contains far more than paintings though, here is the link.
http://www.rijksmuse...dex.jsp?lang=en

Thats all my suggestions, I might have missed some things so my countrymen are free to add to the list, and of course I am curious about the suggestions people from other countries of Europe will make. This wont only be interesting to Bioware, but to everyone interested in history and fantasy.
I visited two castles in my life, Loevenstijn and het Muiderslot, but those are rather small compared to the castles seen in other countries so I did not add them to the list. It would be better to go to Brittain or France to visit castles.

[Inhuman one]

no suggestions at all for Bioware?

[Inhuman one]

If no one else will talk about the subject, I will.



Almost ten years ago I have visited Crete and visited Knossos, the replica remains of the anchient ruins. Yes you heard that right, they made a replica of the ruins instead of reconstructing the whole palace. This did make the place of origin for the Mythological Minotaur rather underwhelming. Its not that I expected a Labyrinth, but I did expect that the ruins would be real.

[Inhuman one]

come on, its a good topic.

[Inhuman one]

Definatly. Actually walking around in a castle gives far more inspiration than mere pictures or even a video ever could, just to give an example.