16177 réponses à ce sujet

[UnitedWashclothExpress]

@The Mass Effect 1&2 being made in Unreal response:

Mass Effect was created with a hybrid of the Aurora and Unreal engine. What Bioware did was essentially take Unreal and craft it on top of Aurora. This sounds like getting a mouse and an elephant to mate, and was most likely as difficult to do as such.

But anyways, there you go.

[Count Viceroy]

Wonder if they can use that engine hybrid with DA2.

[RogueWriter3201]

Brockololly wrote...

glenboy24 wrote...
However, as mentioned, the Doctor's rushed to change things and the end result of that choice is what is now plaguing you Awesome Modders so much. Dialogue options that seem out of place or mixed up. Missing conversations, and even missing scenes. The fact is, Bioware learned thier lesson when KOTOR2 was released by Obsidian unfinished and bug ridden. It's not something they wanted to repeat with DA:O. Sadly, last minute Story and Character choices sort of put them in a bad place and sacrifices were implemented poorly. 

Now, on to the Silver Lining. Recent Interviews with the Dev teams, and you can find these interviews here in the Forum or on sites like Kotaku or IGN, hint clearly that for DA2, the lessons have been learned and we're in for a much tighter and far more complete Story experience. The Devs now know that we *Want* to remain as The Grey Warden, not as some new nameless Hero without giving us a choice. It's almost certain that BioWare will allow us to port the Warden into DA:2, or make a New Hero if we so choose.

So, despite the fact that I do not own DA:O for PC, and it's almost certain that DA:2 (which will be using the Unreal Engine just like ME2) will not be able to run on the PC I have now, I will have to contend myself with the Console version and take some small solace that the Sequel will be more of a complete experience than it's predesessor.  

Ummm... I won't pull the whole "source?" card on you, but at least with some of the things you mentioned I don't think it was some nefarious scheme by the Dr's to vastly alter DAO at the last minute to conform to a ME style of narrative. I think the fact of the matter is that DAO is a freakin' huge game and cuts inevitably have to be made- surely there is stuff that likely was meant to be in the final game that for bugs or poor coding wasn't properly implemented, but I doubt it was all due to some last minute scramble to alter things due to ME's success.

I've been following DA since the beginning in 2004 and its gone through its fair share of changes, but they;ve always said DA is going to be a franchise of games- not just a trilogy or series of games revolving around the Warden. I hope as much as anyone that we can continue on as the Warden at least through DA2, but read most interviews or comments from Gaider, Kirby or Chee on this forum and with a little reading between the lines, its clear we won't necessarily be staying as the Warden much longer. Either way, they haven't announced it one way or the other so we just have to wait it out- I just wouldn't be so confident in asserting that DA2 will let us import our Warden when Bioware has said nothing on the matter as of yet.

Oh and just to clarify, I do know 100% sure that DA2 is not going to be using the Unreal Engine- that just doesn't make any sense, why would Bioware spend years getting the DAO engine working only to abandon it for the Unreal engine, which wouldn't be suitable for an RPG like DAO? Zeschuk has mentioned they're working on the tech and the engine for DA to be "super hot" but they surely are not using the Unreal Engine for DA.

And as for how DA would run on your PC at minimum specs, frankly it probably wouldn't look too good.  DAO is a fairly processor heavy game but at low settings its not that pretty. Not sure how it would compare to the console version, but if your PC had trouble with the Witcher, I'm not sure how it would fair with DAO. You might be able to run it, but it probably wouldn't look too hot.

There's no need to pull the *card* on me, because I made it clear that it would just be too much of a pain to link all the Misc. forums where all the subsequent interviews are located. Yes, in truth, it does put one in a situation where they have to take what I say with a grain of Salt, however, for those that wish it, most of these interviews can be located by delving deep into the Forums here as well as the fourms on other sites like Kotaku and IGN.

If it's true that you have been following DA since the initial concept stage back in the early 'aughts, shortly after the release of KOTOR, than you know that the game, as you mentioned, as gone through various drastic changes in development direction. Several interviews with Gaider even go into detail on this. If you have been paying close attention to every posted interview and inquiry you know that towards the end of development the game did in fact go through a last minute adjustment, and though nothing was mentioned outright, it's really common sense to conclude that the change was influenced by the success of ME.

Yes, in it's early stages, and even as recently as last year, the Devs mentioned that Dragon Age was going to be a series and not a Trilogy; however, they also said that the Warden would not be the main protaganist of the series and yet they have gone to *Great* lengths to see him returned in Awakening, to the point where the continuity doesn't even match up. Put the clues together, do some digging, and it's clear that Dragon Age is going in a much different direction that originaly intended.

As to the Graphic's Engine, the Doctors (and I never said they has some *nefarious* scheme) even let Slip on an interview with G4tv's Adam Sessler that DA2 would benefit from a complete updating of the Graphic's Engine. Now, it's fairly safe to assume, and yes I did say *assume*, that they will just go with the ME2 Engine since they know all the ins and outs, as well as the fact that fans were Really not impressed with Dragon Age's dated look. It's still a decent looking game, but when compaired to ME2, it would be like Ferrari making a Pinto as well, no? 

So, yes, *nothing* is set it stone, and much is based on interviews from all over the place, however even if you don't follow as closely as some, it's easy for anyone to put enough clues together concerning where Dragon Age is going, *especially* with EA looking over BioWare's shoulders.

[blademaster7]

Umm... where exactly do I find the cut-scene where Anora/Alistair asks you about your plans?



I'm wondering what kind of decisions and boons actually matter.

[Master Shiori]

blademaster7 wrote...

Umm... where exactly do I find the cut-scene where Anora/Alistair asks you about your plans?

I'm wondering what kind of decisions and boons actually matter.

During the coronation ceremony.

Alistair/Anora will first proclaim you the hero of Ferelden and grant you a boon. After that he/she will ask you privately about your plans.

[Terra_Ex]

glenboy24 wrote...

I know I'm not a member of the Modding Community, but I wanted to toss in my Two Cents. Digging around on gaming sights and fourms not too long ago I came across a number of casual interviews with the Dragon Age Dev Team members over the course of Dragon Age's production. From what I've been able to compile, when the DA series was originaly envisioned it was thier intent to make the series more Akin to the Neverwinter Nights series and it's expansions, i.e. each adventure would take place in the same world but have a new primary protaganist for each outing with the chance of encounting characters from previous games.

When the game was being promoted, BW called it the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, but frankly it's obviously more inspired by NWN, at least in implementation. Anyway, as mentioned, the Original plan was to have the game follow NWN's course; however, almost towards the close of production, when the game was ready to almost go Gold, the success of Mass Effect changed the game-plan.

The Dr.'s realized that people *Want* to continue a Heroes journey across an Epic story far more than playing a *New* character each time. In light of this, they had to scamble to change many aspects of the game to leave the Warden's story open as opposed to closing it out. In point of fact, one interview (and I'm sorry, I can't recall the link) indicated that, Originally, the Ultimate Sacrifice Ending had been intended to be *The* ending for the game and Warden. In Essence, closing things out and paving the way for a New Hero (The Orlesian Warden) to come in for the Expansion.

However, as mentioned, the Doctor's rushed to change things and the end result of that choice is what is now plaguing you Awesome Modders so much. Dialogue options that seem out of place or mixed up. Missing conversations, and even missing scenes. The fact is, Bioware learned thier lesson when KOTOR2 was released by Obsidian unfinished and bug ridden. It's not something they wanted to repeat with DA:O. Sadly, last minute Story and Character choices sort of put them in a bad place and sacrifices were implemented poorly. 

Now, on to the Silver Lining. Recent Interviews with the Dev teams, and you can find these interviews here in the Forum or on sites like Kotaku or IGN, hint clearly that for DA2, the lessons have been learned and we're in for a much tighter and far more complete Story experience. The Devs now know that we *Want* to remain as The Grey Warden, not as some new nameless Hero without giving us a choice. It's almost certain that BioWare will allow us to port the Warden into DA:2, or make a New Hero if we so choose.

So, despite the fact that I do not own DA:O for PC, and it's almost certain that DA:2 (which will be using the Unreal Engine just like ME2) will not be able to run on the PC I have now, I will have to contend myself with the Console version and take some small solace that the Sequel will be more of a complete experience than it's predesessor.  

@Glenboy24

Well, I certainly hope that BW revised their vision, as NWN was the point when I totally lost interest in what they were making. It was only due to BW putting out ME that they drew me back into the fold. With NWN I felt they completely lost their way, went against the grain and abandoned pretty much everything that made their previous games great. Dragon Age definitely redeemed them in my eyes, bugs and all.

Regarding Dragon Age as a series, I believe they said it was the beginning of a new franchise, and various other connotations of that phrase were touted about. The ideal way that *I* would like to see things play out is that you play as one character within a particular major story arc, with that arc spanning x games and x expansions with the final game wrapping up all major plot points of interest to the player, then the next game would move to a new arc - a new time period , this I would be happy with. We'll have to see what happens though. As I've said before though, comparatively, I feel my Warden is at a similar stage to how the godchild was at the end of BG1 - he's done a lot, but its still just the beginning of his journey - that's just how my playthroughs feel to me though.

As for engines - I'm not sure they'd want to ditch their in-house developed engine for in favour of Unreal for DA2 though; the whole thing is a lot more traditional-rpg centric than even their own customised Unreal build is. I'd appreciate a link to the post that says they intend to use Unreal for DA2.

BTW - The Witcher (an awesome game btw) has a horrendously unoptimised codebase, an issue which has plagued it since day one. You can have an absolute beast beast of a system with a quad core, tri-SLI setup, the works and you'll still get issues.  Regarding the min specs for Dragon Age, you could probably run it with everything at low - but I'd suggest that you aim to meet at least the recommended specs if you want it to run at something approaching smooth.

Brockololly wrote...

But like ME, I just wish we knew whether or not we were going to get closure with the Warden. Bioware announced from the get-go that ME was Shepard's story and would be a trilogy. The possibility of the whole Ultimate
Sacrifice ending throws a wrench in things, but I wish Bioware would just say yes or no whether we can expect to play as the Warden with some sort of meaningful continuity in the future or if future DA sequels will just have new heroes and the ex-packs will plug up anything leftover from the main games.

And we come to the crux of the matter, instead of sitting here getting hyped up thinking "What's gonna happen next" we're left in the dark (oh the irony.) ME fans are able to revel in the fact that the series will continue to a likely fantastic conclusion and they know that "their" Shephard will be a part of it, they have that luxury - we, sadly do not.
This is the current issue, I could pull up a dozen quotes from various sources and read into it however I want, its all speculation till BW announce something, I'm just hoping they go for a continuation otherwise I foresee my interest in the DA universe to wane dramatically - if you don't intend to to conclude a story arc in a manner that enthralls and involves the player (and paramount to this is maintaining the Warden character to continuously build and retain the player investment in the story) , don't begin it in the first place.

Brockololly wrote...
Ultimately though, I really love Origins despite its flaws and while I also really love the ME games, I personally would rather have the "kick in the balls" Morrigan romance than the kind of bland ME1 romances. The ME2 ones are a bit better but I hate how in ME the romances only culminate in sex and then thats it. I think thats why I enjoyed Morrigan's romance because the sex was really just the beginning and made it way more complicated but more
enjoyable to me. Sure the romance has its bugs and what not, but as it is I enjoyed it and at this stage can only hope that Bioware chooses to let us Morrigan fans continue the romance in future DA games.

I'm with you on this one, the ME romance endings have practically no bearing on the story, they are literally annexed onto the main plot, the fact that there's no bleedover of character relations into the main plotline makes the whole thing feel artificial, and as I said earlier they don't really add or subtract anything to the experience for me - in addition to the lack of any female romance options for my femshep - *sigh* she was lonely through ME2...
Thank you Brockololly for stating that sex is just the beginning of the Morrigan romance - my feelings exactly, its one of the things that makes the whole thing more interesting - its not the final goalpost of the relationship. but thats a whole other rant  It's one of the many facets of her character that people just don't seem to get - similarly to how the insult/counter insult system is actually a very sophisticated series of wordplays she's using to challenge the player.



Back to Morrigan's dialogues however:

*SNIP* *SNIP* What's that noise? Yep! More cut corners, the latest victim of the scissors is within the "We've never talked about our nights together." branch.

This same branch also features another classic Morrigan line:
"An odd question, is it not? What do you foresee? Marriage? Children? Shall we settle in the countryside, you paint the shed while I bake the bread?"

DIALOG FLOW:

PC :       "We've never talked about our nights together."
Morrigan: "What is there to speak of? Chuckles Do you wish me to tell you how wonderful you are? Shall I say you are virile and manly?"
PC: "Suddenly I feel like I'm none of those things..." Several other possible responses
Morrigan: "Oh, has my poor widdle man's feelings been hurt? What do you say I kiss it and make it better, hmm?"
PC: "I like that idea. Let's do that."
Morrigan: "Good. I hate long discussions."

This path is supposed to trigger a sex scene (or the standard kissing scene if you are not using Luchaire's mod.) At the moment the game is checking whether the player has made love with her before (a pointless check since its a prerequisite to trigger this dialog branch) and then doing absolutely nothing. The sex/kiss scene has now been restored.

While this particular dialog path isn't necessarily the best choice for those wanting to get to know Morrigan, (the other paths tend to lead to more amusing responses and allow the player to pry answers out of her) it's definitely worth restoring to what was originally intended,

You know, I wouldn't mind about some of this stuff as much if it was genuinely difficult to put in, but it's like they just gave up and called it a day. Ah well, it's fixed now.

------------------

Also the bug with the player receiving more than one "Morrigan's Ring" should be fixed now.

Modifié par Terra_Ex, 13 avril 2010 - 02:02 .

[Count Viceroy]

Sweet. Can't wait for the complete thing. Though I wouldn't mind beta testing it

[blademaster7]

Terra_Ex wrote...

And we come to the crux of the matter, instead of sitting here getting hyped up thinking "What's gonna happen next" we're left in the dark (oh the irony.) This is the current issue, I could pull up a dozen quotes from various sources and read into it however I want, its all speculation till BW announce something, I'm just hoping they go for a continuation otherwise I foresee my interest in the DA universe to wane dramatically - if you don't intend to to conclude a story arc in a manner that enthralls and involves the player (and paramount to this is maintaining the Warden character to continuously build and retain the player investment in the story) , don't begin it in the first place.

I think my interest is waning with each passing day.

They put too much work to create all these amazing characters in order to make the audience love them, and then all of a sudden they just drop everything(see: Awakening).

I hope they don't continue this route in the future. The rumor about Leliana returning is a good sign.

Her voice actor admitted that she recorded some lines back in February. Coincidentally, that's in the same time-frame they released that stupid FAQ that created an uproar.

People don't want a game where all you do is *kill darkspawn kill kill*
Let us hope they learned their lesson.

[blademaster7]

Just how many kisses are missing?



I knew about that discussion but I was under the impression it worked correctly.



Much better reactions if you trigger that discussion outside of camp btw.

[ejoslin]

blademaster7 wrote...

Terra_Ex wrote...

And we come to the crux of the matter, instead of sitting here getting hyped up thinking "What's gonna happen next" we're left in the dark (oh the irony.) This is the current issue, I could pull up a dozen quotes from various sources and read into it however I want, its all speculation till BW announce something, I'm just hoping they go for a continuation otherwise I foresee my interest in the DA universe to wane dramatically - if you don't intend to to conclude a story arc in a manner that enthralls and involves the player (and paramount to this is maintaining the Warden character to continuously build and retain the player investment in the story) , don't begin it in the first place.

I think my interest is waning with each passing day.

They put too much work to create all these amazing characters in order to make the audience love them, and then all of a sudden they just drop everything(see: Awakening).

I hope they don't continue this route in the future. The rumor about Leliana returning is a good sign.

Her voice actor admitted that she recorded some lines back in February. Coincidentally, that's in the same time-frame they released that stupid FAQ that created an uproar.

People don't want a game where all you do is *kill darkspawn kill kill*
Let us hope they learned their lesson.

I think the thing is, there's a LOT of games out there that are "kill kill kill," and some even have really good story lines.  What made DAO special was the character interaction.  When you can fall in love with a pixelated character, MORE than once (I fell in love with Alistair, got my heart broken, and then fell in love with Zev -- laugh at me all you want, but I'm just being honest about it) it's amazing writing within an amazing story.

What annoyed me more than anything about Awakening was the interview done with (gah, who was it?) where he was saying that the romances were absolutely acknowledged blah blah blah.  Yeh, I think the faq caused a complete uproar and they rushed to put in a few things, and didn't quite succeed.  But that was incredibly deceptive.  

Edit: Heh, you can tell Nathaniel, "Some of my best friends have tried to kill me."  How hard would it have been to put in a line for someone who was at 100 Love with Zev, "I met the man I love when he tried to kill me."  Little touches like that would have gone a LONG way.

Modifié par ejoslin, 13 avril 2010 - 02:39 .

[Terra_Ex]

blademaster7 wrote...

Terra_Ex wrote...

And we come to the crux of the matter, instead of sitting here getting hyped up thinking "What's gonna happen next" we're left in the dark (oh the irony.) This is the current issue, I could pull up a dozen quotes from various sources and read into it however I want, its all speculation till BW announce something, I'm just hoping they go for a continuation otherwise I foresee my interest in the DA universe to wane dramatically - if you don't intend to to conclude a story arc in a manner that enthralls and involves the player (and paramount to this is maintaining the Warden character to continuously build and retain the player investment in the story) , don't begin it in the first place.

I think my interest is waning with each passing day.

They put too much work to create all these amazing characters in order to make the audience love them, and then all of a sudden they just drop everything(see: Awakening).

I hope they don't continue this route in the future. The rumor about Leliana returning is a good sign.

Her voice actor admitted that she recorded some lines back in February. Coincidentally, that's in the same time-frame they released that stupid FAQ that created an uproar.

People don't want a game where all you do is *kill darkspawn kill kill*
Let us hope they learned their lesson.

Well, as I wrote elsewhere/maybe earlier in this thread. The budget EA provides for an expansion will never be enough to create an expansion that meets the fans expectations. It would not even cover hiring the necessary VA cast back in to record new lines - only the budget for a full blown sequel could cover this. Return to Ostagar had what - Wynne / Alistair who spoke and that was it. Awakening likewise, unavailability of VA's was cited as the reason for several shortcomings iirc.

As a result, each expansion will continue to fall foul of fan expectation, as we are graced with 2 or three if we are lucky companions talking with each other (which I can't fully attribute to BW really), I just hope they don't squander what could be a potentially brilliant plotline in a DLC/underfunded expansion. On the subject of Leliana returning - do people you really want her to return and only be able to converse with "selected" party members? Would you like her to return and not be able to catfight with Morrigan since Claudia was "unavailable"/budget wouldn't stretch. I know I wouldn't.

blademaster7 wrote...
Just how many kisses are missing?

I knew about that discussion but I was under the impression it worked correctly.

Much better reactions if you trigger that discussion outside of camp btw.

I honestly have no idea what the reasoning was behind cutting some of this. I totally agree with what you touched upon earlier- I think there were supposed to be variants on the "base" kissing, with maybe a more impassioned variant, etc. These likely didn't get done, and hence the dialog just cuts out.

On a somewhat related note, I'm certainly seeing what ejoslin was talking about with this stuff - some of the script files tell an interesting story - lots of TBDs (presumably "to be done") littered throughout and yet it seems a lot of it... just didn't get done.

ejoslin wrote...
I think the thing is, there's a LOT of games out there that are "kill kill kill," and some even have really good story lines.  What made DAO special was the character interaction.  When you can fall in love with a pixelated character, MORE than once (I fell in love with Alistair, got my heart broken, and then fell in love with Zev -- laugh at me all you
want, but I'm just being honest about it) it's amazing writing within an amazing story.

What annoyed me more than anything about Awakening was the interview done with (gah, who was it?) where he was saying that the romances were absolutely acknowledged blah blah blah.  Yeh, I think the faq caused a complete uproar and they rushed to put in a few things, and didn't quite succeed.  But that was incredibly deceptive.

This is what makes the current situation such a bitter pill to swallow, DA:O was the first game in god knows how many years where I actually LIKED the entire cast of characters - which is no small feat. Key to this was indeed, character interaction - not just between the player and the npc but also the all important inter-party banters. (An area where ME2 notably fell down)

For the reasons I stated above, I'd probably prefer if all expansions / dlcs ignored the romances, as it'll only be squandered/ruined by bugs etc based on what I've seen so far.

Modifié par Terra_Ex, 13 avril 2010 - 03:09 .

[blademaster7]

Terra_Ex wrote...

On the subject of Leliana returning - do people you really want her to return and only be able to converse with "selected" party members? Would you like her to return and not be able to catfight with Morrigan since Claudia was "unavailable"/budget wouldn't stretch. I know I wouldn't.

You missed my point. I said it was a good sign. Something to give us hope. It's not just  "Oh, great Leliana is coming back".

The fact that they contacted her voice actor leads me to believe that they didn't completely forgot about our companions.

Of course, there is always a chance it will be some lame DLC that takes place before the landsmeet and her dialogue would be something like the Wynne/Alistair banter. Hopefully, they won't do that.

[Addai]

Terra_Ex wrote...

This is what makes the current situation such a bitter pill to swallow, DA:O was the first game in god knows how many years where I actually LIKED the entire cast of characters - which is no small feat. Key to this was indeed, character interaction - not just between the player and the npc but also the all important inter-party banters. (An area where ME2 notably fell down)

For the reasons I stated above, I'd probably prefer if all expansions / dlcs ignored the romances, as it'll only be squandered/ruined by bugs etc based on what I've seen so far.

I agree, and sadly I agree with the latter bit, too.  I'm still optimistic that IF the original dev/writer team is allowed to work on it and IF they are given the freedom/resources they need, they could make a good sequel.  I have no idea how big those IFs are.

I know nothing about gaming politics or engines, but a message from Morrigan to all the modders working on her fixes:  The pain will make the loving all the sweeter. 

[Brockololly]

ejoslin wrote...

What annoyed me more than anything about Awakening was the interview done with (gah, who was it?) where he was saying that the romances were absolutely acknowledged blah blah blah.  Yeh, I think the faq caused a complete uproar and they rushed to put in a few things, and didn't quite succeed.  But that was incredibly deceptive.  

Edit: Heh, you can tell Nathaniel, "Some of my best friends have tried to kill me."  How hard would it have been to put in a line for someone who was at 100 Love with Zev, "I met the man I love when he tried to kill me."  Little touches like that would have gone a LONG way.

Totally agree- I think one of the devs mentioned that the romances would be acknowledged in a small way or something in Awakening. Well, yeah I guess a little epilogue slide that is potentially bugged would be a small way. They didn't need to do anything crazy- I would have been fine if maybe when chatting with Anders about being an Apostate, you could bring up how you knew another specific Apostate in your travels. Just a little thing like that- or the missing letters from Leliana and Zevran. Surely those sort of things couldn't have been too difficult or costly to implement?

[Brockololly]

glenboy24 wrote...

As to the Graphic's Engine, the Doctors (and I never said they has some *nefarious* scheme) even let Slip on an interview with G4tv's Adam Sessler that DA2 would benefit from a complete updating of the Graphic's Engine. Now, it's fairly safe to assume, and yes I did say *assume*, that they will just go with the ME2 Engine since they know all the ins and outs, as well as the fact that fans were Really not impressed with Dragon Age's dated look. It's still a decent looking game, but when compaired to ME2, it would be like Ferrari making a Pinto as well, no? 

On the PC with everything cranked up, DAO doesn't look too bad, but sure it could use some extra visual polish. But I'm quite sure they won't abandon their DA engine for Unreal: http://www.gamespy.c.../1077742p4.html

"GameSpy: Greg, I believe you recently commented on the future of
the Dragon Age franchise lying in a new engine...

Dr. Greg Zeschuk: No, no, I
think we're always evolving our technology. I think it's fair to say
that future Dragon Age stuff will be considerably stronger, visually and
everything else.


It's interesting, there's two parts to that story. Obviously we're going
to work on our technology, we have been working on our tech, it's
getting a lot of serious refinement. But the other side of that whole
coin is actually knowing how to use your tools. I think typically,
especially in a game as expansive as Dragon Age, it's hard to bring
everything... By the time you finish a game, you typically know how
everything works, how your tools work, how your lighting works, how you
tweak everything. And then you have to go back and say, "Oh, man, how
are we going to bring all this up to the level we now know we can
reach?"


So I don't think there are specifically new engine plans, so much as,
let's make the technology better. There are always new things you can
add. I think the great thing about the way we built our engine is how we
can pop the modules in and out and improve them. And secondarily, take
that knowledge and link it up really tightly with the art direction and
the technical art, and make stuff that's much stronger visually. I think
there's a lot of stuff we can do to improve on it, so it's really just
that life cycle of continuous improvement.


You look at the progress from Mass 1 to Mass 2... We actually redid the
lighting system in that, and it's a very different, dramatic lighting,
both in combat and also particularly in conversations. So it's just a
natural evolution. Building a project as big as the ones we do, you
learn a lot of things. The great thing about sequels is that's where you
can apply it. The follow-on product is where you take what you've
learned and actually put that in."

[blademaster7]

Brockololly wrote...
Totally agree- I think one of the devs mentioned that the romances would be acknowledged in a small way or something in Awakening. Well, yeah I guess a little epilogue slide that is potentially bugged would be a small way. They didn't need to do anything crazy- I would have been fine if maybe when chatting with Anders about being an Apostate, you could bring up how you knew another specific Apostate in your travels. Just a little thing like that- or the missing letters from Leliana and Zevran. Surely those sort of things couldn't have been too difficult or costly to implement?

The romances are acknowledged in Awakening silly. Did you miss the part where Alistair kisses his queen on the cheek? [/sarcasm]

The whole campaign of DAOA was based on false marketing. "The best RPG of 2009 just got better" my ass.

More like "The buggiest game of 2009 just got buggier".

Anyway, I really like your idea. It's those little things that matter in continuation. You get to hear Oghren moan about his child and you don't even have a response to tell him "Shut up moron! At least you get to see your child."

When my PC was captured by the Architect and woke up in the cell, I freaked out. I was like "That bastard took my ring!".

Instead of actual recognition, we have missing letters and bugged epilogues.

And the worst part? The won't even admit it. A simple "We're sorry. We are aware of these issues and we're working on fixing them. Your romance is supposed to be recognized." would probably calm down alot of people.

But no... they only visit these forums to ask for support. Anouncements like this and this

Modifié par blademaster7, 13 avril 2010 - 04:37 .

[Terra_Ex]

blademaster7 wrote...
The whole campaign of DAOA was based on false marketing. "The best RPG of 2009 just got better" my ass.

More like "The buggiest game of 2009 just got buggier".

Anyway, I really like your idea. It's those little things that matter in continuation. You get to hear Oghren moan about his child and you don't even have a response to tell him "Shut up moron! At least you get to see your child."

When my PC was captured by the Architect and woke up in the cell, I freaked out. I was like "That bastard took my ring!".

Instead of actual recognition, we have missing letters and bugged epilogues.

The many dialog errors and cut corners aside, at least 1.02 wasn't crashing all the time, and yep that would be a great response to Oghren. 

blademaster7 wrote...
And the worst part? The won't even admit it. A simple "We're sorry. We are aware of these issues and we're working on fixing them. Your romance is supposed to be recognized." would probably calm down alot of people.

But no... they only visit these forums to ask for support. Anouncements like this and this

You've got to be kidding me, more posts asking for more help from the fans to let BW win some competition. Yet, turn the situation on its head - fans asking for a fix and what do we get... nothing - sorry, scratch that, we get the Feastday DLC . I had a nice full lockup when playing Awakening last night -  no doubt that's categorised as a "feature".

Modifié par Terra_Ex, 13 avril 2010 - 04:53 .

[RogueWriter3201]

Brockololly wrote...

glenboy24 wrote...

As to the Graphic's Engine, the Doctors (and I never said they has some *nefarious* scheme) even let Slip on an interview with G4tv's Adam Sessler that DA2 would benefit from a complete updating of the Graphic's Engine. Now, it's fairly safe to assume, and yes I did say *assume*, that they will just go with the ME2 Engine since they know all the ins and outs, as well as the fact that fans were Really not impressed with Dragon Age's dated look. It's still a decent looking game, but when compaired to ME2, it would be like Ferrari making a Pinto as well, no? 

On the PC with everything cranked up, DAO doesn't look too bad, but sure it could use some extra visual polish. But I'm quite sure they won't abandon their DA engine for Unreal: http://www.gamespy.c.../1077742p4.html

"GameSpy: Greg, I believe you recently commented on the future of
the Dragon Age franchise lying in a new engine...

Dr. Greg Zeschuk: No, no, I
think we're always evolving our technology. I think it's fair to say
that future Dragon Age stuff will be considerably stronger, visually and
everything else.


It's interesting, there's two parts to that story. Obviously we're going
to work on our technology, we have been working on our tech, it's
getting a lot of serious refinement. But the other side of that whole
coin is actually knowing how to use your tools. I think typically,
especially in a game as expansive as Dragon Age, it's hard to bring
everything... By the time you finish a game, you typically know how
everything works, how your tools work, how your lighting works, how you
tweak everything. And then you have to go back and say, "Oh, man, how
are we going to bring all this up to the level we now know we can
reach?"


So I don't think there are specifically new engine plans, so much as,
let's make the technology better. There are always new things you can
add. I think the great thing about the way we built our engine is how we
can pop the modules in and out and improve them. And secondarily, take
that knowledge and link it up really tightly with the art direction and
the technical art, and make stuff that's much stronger visually. I think
there's a lot of stuff we can do to improve on it, so it's really just
that life cycle of continuous improvement.


You look at the progress from Mass 1 to Mass 2... We actually redid the
lighting system in that, and it's a very different, dramatic lighting,
both in combat and also particularly in conversations. So it's just a
natural evolution. Building a project as big as the ones we do, you
learn a lot of things. The great thing about sequels is that's where you
can apply it. The follow-on product is where you take what you've
learned and actually put that in."

Thanks for the quote. I'll try to post the link to that Interview from G4. Basicaly though, despite all the things I've read, the points you and Terra_Ex have won't be swayed by my observations, so I won't deign to change them. I will say I agree with the points made that where-as this is a *new* franchise, it would be nice to have the Warden's Story wrapped up before they move on, or force *us* to move on, to a new Hero Character. As to the whole Engine thing, Personally I would prefer a huge update to it, though I'll have to keep my fingers crossed that if they do so it won't negatively effect the Console versions since we've pretty much gotten *too* much of the shaft as is.

[Brockololly]

blademaster7 wrote...

The romances are acknowledged in Awakening silly. Did you miss the part where Alistair kisses his queen on the cheek? [/sarcasm]

The whole campaign of DAOA was based on false marketing. "The best RPG of 2009 just got better" my ass.

More like "The buggiest game of 2009 just got buggier".

Anyway, I really like your idea. It's those little things that matter in continuation. You get to hear Oghren moan about his child and you don't even have a response to tell him "Shut up moron! At least you get to see your child."

When my PC was captured by the Architect and woke up in the cell, I freaked out. I was like "That bastard took my ring!".

Instead of actual recognition, we have missing letters and bugged epilogues.

And the worst part? The won't even admit it. A simple "We're sorry. We are aware of these issues and we're working on fixing them. Your romance is supposed to be recognized." would probably calm down alot of people.

But no... they only visit these forums to ask for support. Anouncements like this and this

I guess thats part of my issue with Awakening- If you look at the box, the official title of the game is Dragon Age Origins: Awakening. So, if you're going to have Awakening claim lineage from Origins, I expect a certain measure of continuity besides being able to import my gear over. Like I said, it doesn't have to be anything huge, but just have some acknowldgments of your past actions otherwise there really isn't much point to importing at all and we may have been better off with just the Orlesian Warden.

  Expansion packs should expand upon the previous game, not just create a little side adventure, IMO. And to me, the vast majority of my enjoyment from Origins was from my interactions with the characters; the whole plot was good and had its moments, but towards the end of my 1st playthrough I was compelled to keep playing not because I had the urge to save Ferelden, but because I wanted to know what was going to happen to Morrigan, Alistair and the rest of the companions.

And yeah, the 1.03 patch seems to have goofed up more things than it has fixed. It did fix my issue of the long loading times, but on the other hand, now my game crashes almost whenever I go into combat and mages try to cast any big spells...

[Barbarossa2010]

Terra_Ex wrote...

blademaster7 wrote...
The whole campaign of DAOA was based on false marketing. "The best RPG of 2009 just got better" my ass.

More like "The buggiest game of 2009 just got buggier".

Anyway, I really like your idea. It's those little things that matter in continuation. You get to hear Oghren moan about his child and you don't even have a response to tell him "Shut up moron! At least you get to see your child."

When my PC was captured by the Architect and woke up in the cell, I freaked out. I was like "That bastard took my ring!".

Instead of actual recognition, we have missing letters and bugged epilogues.

The many dialog errors and cut corners aside, at least 1.02 wasn't crashing all the time, and yep that would be a great response to Oghren. 

blademaster7 wrote...
And the worst part? The won't even admit it. A simple "We're sorry. We are aware of these issues and we're working on fixing them. Your romance is supposed to be recognized." would probably calm down alot of people.

But no... they only visit these forums to ask for support. Anouncements like this and this

You've got to be kidding me, more posts asking for more help from the fans to let BW win some competition. Yet, turn the situation on its head - fans asking for a fix and what do we get... nothing - sorry, scratch that, we get the Feastday DLC . I had a nice full lockup when playing Awakening last night -  no doubt that's categorised as a "feature".

I'll support Bioware further, as in voting for them over Blizzard, when they support me (us).  They provided me a game and I gave them $59.99 for an XBOX 360 version.  We're even at that point.  But for me to continue buying their product and support them in other ways, then they will have to provide a product more to my liking, which in this case means doing better editing in certain aspects of a gaming story that takes about 80 hours to play and fixing the bugs that have degraded certain aspect of that story.

Surely that's language that Electronic Arts (who I'm becoming more and more convinced is the real culprit here--trim here and there and still build demand for a sequel) can understand.

Modifié par Barbarossa2010, 13 avril 2010 - 11:06 .

[Master Shiori]

I agree with what's been said in this thread regarding the bugs and cut content in DA:O.



For me however, the big factor that will decide whether or not I'll continue buying future DA games is the ability to continue using my Origins Warden and how Bioware handles the whole Morrigan/Dark Ritual thing.



I for one didn't invest all this time and money in Dragon Age products only to never see my character and his favorite companion again.

[Terra_Ex]

In the small amount opf free time I've had, I've been taking a look at some more of Morrigan's dialogues and while I do not want to stray too far from the vanilla dialog conditions, I find some of the conditions are a bit odd. In her "City Gates" dialog, where she tells you she intends to leave regardless of what happens in the final battle:

"Once this is done, no matter how it turns out I will be gone. You are aware of this, yes?"

there are two lines that romancing wardens would likely be drawn to:

- I will find you Morrigan. I swear it.
- I was hoping you might have changed your mind.

Now, of the two, only the second option is attached to an ongoing romance, as in it will only display if the player is romancing her. The first option will be available regardless, which I feel is a bit strange... Would a female warden who made Alistair do the dark ritual swear to find her? Would a male/female warden who is friendly with her swear to find her? Would a warden who hates her swear to find her? I'm not sure...

Personally I would have thought the first option would be attached to the ongoing romance - primarily because the second choice is a somewhat... impotent player response (though it does yield a pleasing response from Morrigan) The first choice is pretty definitive, setting a clear precedant as to what the player intends to do (and I would guess would be most Morri-fans first choice.)

What are people's thoughts on this? Should "I will find you Morrigan. I swear it.":

-be left as is (always available)
-depend on an ongoing romance
-depend on an ongoing romance or friendly

If this is just me reading something into the conversation that isn't there or seeing things with rose-tinted glasses and all please call me out on it. I don't want to arbitrarily change the conditions unless its justified,

Modifié par Terra_Ex, 14 avril 2010 - 12:15 .

[ejoslin]

Terra_Ex, I thought a LOT about this one, but I decided to leave it as is because of the baby. No matter who sired the child, there is a motivation there for the Warden to find her.

[blademaster7]

Nothing wrong with that. The "I will find you Morrigan. I swear it." should be available for everyone IMO.

You agreed to unleash an old god into the world so you kinda feel responsible. Even if your PC hates her gut, keep in mind that, he may be the father of the child. It only makes sense to say that.

As for female PC's, they're just as responsible, if not more, because you are the one who arranged the whole thing and dragged Alistair/Loghain into the same mess.

Leave it be.

Modifié par blademaster7, 14 avril 2010 - 12:36 .

[Terra_Ex]

ejoslin wrote...

Terra_Ex, I thought a LOT about this one,
but I decided to leave it as is because of the baby. No matter who
sired the child, there is a motivation there for the Warden to find her.

Yeah, I was really torn about that. Fair points from both of you, so it shall remain as it is.