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[Capone666]

Just finished up my EXTENSIVE interview with David Gaider, leader writer for the series.

 

We spoke a lot about cut content especially in DA I, the game originally was intended to end with a "Quest for Solas' playable epilogue but through iteration it just didn't work-

 

Hundreds of things just like in the interview- here are some of the tweets during. 

 

#Biowarechat @dragonage origins originally was intended to be told retrospectively....by an old woman...MORRIGAN! @davidgaider  

#Biowarechat on Gay romances making the game sell more 

#Biowarechat on creating transgender character in the Dragon Age universe- KREM FOREVER 

 

Acknowledging the character Serendipity "Fucked up" 

 

#Biowarechat ran the idea of Krem by the transgender world during it's creation @davidgaider @dragonage 

#Biowarechat The next step is to find a transgender performer for the next trans gender character @dragonage @davidgaider


#Biowarechat DA2 happened so quickly, it started not even as a standalone game @davidgaider @dragonage 
 

#Biowarechat In DA2 look at the difference creating an established character vs prologue blank slate @davidgaider @dragonage 

#Biowarechat @davidgader on the cuts of mage specific stuff in DA2 @dragonage

#Biowarechat @davidgader on cutting some mage specific storylines in DA2, entering in the Fade @dragonage 

#Biowarechat @davidgader yelling and screaming about cuts in DA2, in retrospect- he understand now why they had to be @dragonage 

#Biowarechat @davidgaider speaks more on the decision to include the Qunari  in DA2 @dragonage 

#Biowarechat On rivalry and Friendship in DA 2 

#Biowarechat On the controversial nature of all characters in DA2 @dragonage @davidgaider 

#Biowarechat Initial story of Dragon Age Inqusition was meant to be much MUCH longer @davidgaider 

#Biowarechat @davidgaider had to take a month off after the DA2 expansion was cancelled QQ @dragonage 

#Biowarechat @davidgaider explains DAI was originally TWICE as long as it ended up being @dragonage 

#BiowareChat The ending of DAI was redone several several times @dragonage @davidgaider

#Biowarechat There is one cut in @dragonage inquisition where there is a "Quest for Solas" epilogue @davidgaider 

#Biowarechat @davidgaider same amount of content cut from DAI as DA2 @dragonage 

#Biowarechat The ball at Halamshirall went through several different iterations @dragonage inqusition @davidgader  

#Biowarechat I would have liked to have ALL characters from the @dragonage universe in DAI but it couldn't be done! @davidgader 

#Biowarechat We always wanted to make more established back races, they weren't going to make them but they got an extra year to create it

#Biowarechat 80% of the people that played DAI played humans, still appreciated the options to play any race @dragonage @Davidgader 

 

#Biowarechat on the power of choice in the @dragonage universe @davidgaider 

#Biowarechat on the creation of the @dragonage Keep in @davidgaider 

#Biowarechat on content that worked and didn't in @dragonage in @davidgaider 

#Biowarechat Doesn't want to break the fans hearts describing some ideas he had for the game @dragonage @davidgaider 

#Biowarechat I always love #Morrigan @davidgaider @dragonage 

#Biowarechat Originally worried Cassandra would be inherently unlikeable @davidgaider @dragonage 

#Biowarechat On the concept of faith in @dragonage @davidgaider 

#Biowarechat do we have gay characters an avoid the issue? Or do we explore it as something that defines their character @davidgaider #Drag

#Biowarechat HUGE changes made on Dorian @Dragonage inquistion

#Biowarechat His message to fans of the @dragonage franchise @davidgaider 

#Biowarechat @davidgaider on handing off his character Cole to @PatrickWeekes "Stay away from him you ....!" @dragonage

#Biowarechat "I've never played a @dragonage from beginning to end" @davidgaider 

#Biowarechatt EXCLUSIVE INFO on new @Bioware project....it will be cool and fun! @davidgaider @dragonage 

Finally @davidgaider speaking to the fans as he leaves @dragonage HUGE THANKS for talking to me for hours and hours 

HUGE thanks to the fans who kept him going and going and going 

[David Gaider]

Having said that, I'm taken aback by all the people wanting world expanse severely cut back in favor of a more involved main story.

 

This is pretty typical -- "if they remove the stuff I don't like, they'd obviously have more time to work on the stuff I do like".

 

I'm afraid it's comparing apples to oranges, however. You could remove all the exploration content in the entire game, and that still wouldn't amount to a single additional major plot on the crit path. Different people, cinematic designers in particular, who did little to no work on the exploration content as it was.

[David Gaider]

It'd be even funnier if they left it on the cutting room floor? Imagine the rage. Have to cut it because they can't afford to add it, but then can't add it later because they still can't afford it, but if they try to sell it to cover the cost of producing it, the BSN will go ballistic, figuring they're "owed" anything they make that even mentions Solas "because cut content"...

 

With the caveat that you might want to listen to the actual interview before discussing what was said as if you've already heard it, I'll just say that IF (and that's a big "if") such a thing were to be put out as DLC, it would not resemble what was originally at the end of the game at all. If you picture the mentioned epilogue as some involved, epic quest, you would be very mistaken. It was an epilogue, and it was short, and ultimately it was decided that it wasn't worthwhile to pursue in that form. That's why it was cut, and it does not/did not exist as something that could be put elsewhere and sold -- even if we wished to.

[David Gaider]

Yes - I do find it interesting that the writer of a game wouldn't play the game at least once to see how everything flows... I wonder how common this is.

 

Of course I played the game -- during production. I never played it from beginning to end once it was finished, however, and that's true for all the games on which I've worked. By the time the game is 100% done, so am I (and I'm usually on a new project, to boot).

[David Gaider]

Not having played the finished or "final draft" of the game as part of what is expected of the job still seems strange to me. I understand it is Bioware's policy, but it seems a strange company policy, like an author letting something go to print without reading the final proof. 

 

As the project goes into the final stages, the possible changes a writer could make become less and less. It's not a matter of just going in and tweaking whatever we don't fancy -- every single thing we write needs to go through a pipeline to be translated and recorded, and that's ignoring changes which would require more work from designers or artists or who knows what.

 

The iteration and bug-fixing process is long, but while that's underway the game is not the game as you understand it. It crashes, not all the content is even present, and chances are it can't even be finished properly -- but we play it, again and again and again while there is still time for us to make those changes. That's where we're looking to see how the whole thing flows together. Once it's beyond that point, however, our hands must come off the throttle, and like I said that's usually when we move onto the next project. Our part is done: we're the first ones in the pool, and the first ones out.

 

Maybe that's hard to understand, I don't know. But the "final" game, the one where all the cinematics are finally in, all the level art has been finalized and the bugs mostly ironed out -- that's one that doesn't come until the last minute, and that's the one you see. I don't play it at that point, though I've tried. I just know everything too well, inside and out. There are no mysteries for me, and the pleasure of seeing everything 100% in its final form just isn't enough. Some of the other writers are different, however, so it's certainly not the same for everyone.

 

If the suggestion is that my not doing so is somehow shirking my duty, however, then I would kindly suggest that person kindly blow it out their rear.

[David Gaider]

I normally appreciate this argument, but I cannot see how it applies here.

 

If you have enough resources and people to make well over a hundred hours worth of exploration content and ten open-world areas, far exceeding anything the previous games had to offer, but not enough to produce a main storyline that's at least the same length as the previous games then clearly something happened at the planning / resource allocation stage that skewed things in favour of exploration.

 

It's not like it was written in stone that the game had to have 100+ hours of exploration, 10 open-world areas and a relatively light main questline the instant the game was conceived. It was entirely possible to just have less exploration content designers/producers working on the project in the first place and take on an extra cinematic designer instead.

 

It's not "Remove the stuff I don't like", It's "Balance the resources so that the amount of side content doesn't outweigh the main story by such an insane margin". Even as somebody who really liked Inquisition, and the side content, I felt there was simply far too much of it compared to the other elements of the game.

 

There is, however, not one single batch of "resources" that you allocate.

 

There are different people with different skills, and different kinds of content require different people to work on them. One cannot necessarily work on another. The main storyline quests, for instance, are very cinematic-heavy...if you cut content that has no or little cinematics, you can cut to your heart's content and you will not free up any resources for the main storyline. You will have a lot of level designers twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone to work on whatever they've created.

 

That's how it works. We're quite aware of the need to balance our resources -- insofar as whether the team "learned" anything about balancing the amount of exploration content vs. cinematic content, I suppose you'll have to wait and see what Mike and co. do in the years to come. I think they've been pretty up-front about the focus on exploration content, so I suspect you'll see refinement and iteration rather than a complete axis shift on that front...but who knows? DA is sort of the Aliens franchise of the gaming world, in terms of its willingness to redefine itself.

[David Gaider]

http://www.gamespot....y/1100-6423362/

Plays like an mmo too. I see a lot of parallels with swtor in terms of design too. There were just too many constraints

 

I think you misunderstand what that article says -- perhaps intentionally, I suppose.

 

Blackfoot was a separate DA game. It was multiplayer-only, but nothing even close to an MMO. The only relation it has to DAI is the techline, as Mark Darrah says in that article -- meaning the underlying technology for the multiplayer gameplay, which both ME3 and DAI used.

[David Gaider]

David! (hug)

 

I think people also forgot new engine plus trying to juggle so many platforms. Didn't you folk have to build all the RPG elements from scratch too? All adds up.

 

Switching to a new engine was the biggest hurdle -- as it always is. Many of the games I've worked on where we've switched to a new engine (such as DAO), that's actually what the majority of the development time was spent doing: getting the underlying tech to simply work, and then figuring out how to make it work like you want it to.