Dragon Age Central

Wynne is not a shapeshifter

Quote: Posted 06/05/09 19:09 (GMT) by swirlwind


[unintelligible] and I follow orders.

"I like swords, I follow orders. There's nothing else to know about me."

Both male and female models have similar undergarments should their clothing be removed (something I imagine will disappear via modding less than a week after release). It's not medieval in style, no, but looking at the underclothes that were worn in that period they would look very... strange... to the modern view. Downright puritan, in fact.

I get that some people get perturbed by anything that doesn't align exactly with our own medieval past, but as has been mentioned before we're not going for a medieval simulator any more with the underwear than with the weapon sizes.

The alternative would have been to go completely nude, of course, but we didn't want to do that. So this is where we settled.

Morrigan's main outfit is fairly unique to her, as has been mentioned. Most other women in the game are much more modestly attired, as per the cultural norm, and as Bruce said you can always switch Morrigan into another outfit if you prefer.

Quote: Posted 06/05/09 12:44 (GMT) by kar98

Throwing knives - are they in or out?

Nothing on the wiki that I could see. A forum search found these:

bow
crossbow
short sword
long sword
great sword
axe
great axe
mace
maul
dagger
staff (mages)

Are there any others you know that are not listed? (like throwing knives )

There are grenade-like items (acid flasks, fire bombs) that can be thrown but there are no weapons that can be thrown.
There are ranged weapons (including a staff for the mage)if you are the type of player who likes to play as a ranged fighter. And, Alistair makes a great meat-shield.

Quote: Posted 06/05/09 11:49 (GMT) by lollers1

Um, yeah Morrigan wearing a bikini in a medieval fantasy setting had me confused. Didn't modern bikinis only exist around 100 years ago? Less?

Morrigan's outfit was designed to fit her backstory. When you meet her it will be apparent why she is dressed the way she is.

All of the Followers you acquire in Dragon Age Origins are fully customizable, so if you want her in something else, you are free to haver her wear another set of robes or armor.

Quote: Posted 05/29/09 20:44 (GMT) by Dave of Canada


Would having no "kaddis" give a bonus as well, for those who hate the look?

No. Kaddis is one of the upgrade slots for the dog, similar to armor or weapons for the other party members. (Dog needs toys too, when you're passing out shiny new swords and stuff to everyone else.) Maybe you prefer to see your party members naked rather than armored, but we don't give you a bonus for that either.

Companion back stories are indeed in teh game and, imo, we handle them even better in DAO than we did in BG.

Quote: Posted 05/27/09 03:23 (GMT) by Ellestor

Wait, if qun is 'kyoon', then is qunari 'kyoon-AR-ee'? I have been saying 'koon-AR-ee' all this time. Bah.

Sten tends to pronounce it, "kun-AR-ee." Slightly shorter u sound.

Quote: Posted 05/26/09 23:59 (GMT) by Heavenblade

Quote: Posted 05/26/09 23:55 (GMT) by David Gaider
Well, seeing as you've already got him all figured out, there's no need to take him along to find out. I'm sure he will be crushed.

Can we leave him in the cage?

Of course you can.

Quote: Posted 05/26/09 23:15 (GMT) by Heavenblade

I always thought two-handed swords were two-handed because of the length of the blade and how they are weighted in general. If they were heavy, they'd never be used. You don't want your troops sword arms tiring out before the enemies...

Anyways. What exactly is Sten? The wording leads me to believe that he isn't human. But he isn't an elf either.

What exactly is he? A Half-giant?

Sten is a qunari.

Quote: Posted 05/26/09 23:02 (GMT) by Bio-Boy 3000

You make him almost sound like a stereotypical samurai that western filmmakers portray them to be.

I watched Yojimbo and Seven Samurai a dozen times while writing Sten. Not for research. I just really like Kurasawa films.

Quote: Posted 05/26/09 19:31 (GMT) by reflir

I have a specific question. From what you have told us (specifically the philosophy as a way of life thing and the vulcan/borg crossbreed metaphor) it seems to me that the Qunari place an enormous amount of emphasis on logic and rationality, that they place the group before the individual and that that what they believe is right is rather important to them (ie. that there is only one truly right belief system and that it is what they believe). So my question is, how do they deal with contradictions? What would happen to Sten if I asked him "Does the set that contains all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself?" To us normal people this isn't much of an issue, because for us (Sylvius excluded) rationality is not a way of life or a guiding belief system. But for Sten, everything depends on rationality being absolutely perfect, and things like logical contradictions (or Godel's incompleteness theorem, if Sten was into math) demonstrate that even pure rationality can be perverted. How does he deal with that?

Also a smaller question, what sets Sten apart from Dak'kon?

Sten would most likely respond to anyone asking him about a logical paradox by saying, "Is this really what you waste your time thinking about?" The Qunari are like Vulcans only to the extent that they are extremely disciplined. They have emotions. They don't even particularly hide this fact. They are rational, but they don't live and die by logic -- they would find that as foolish as if you were to live wholly governed by your emotions, or by superstition.

Quote: Posted 05/26/09 09:51 (GMT) by Lurklen
I think Sten has the same hair as in the concept it's just tied back. He looks like a bit of a jerk so he'll probably be alot of fun to have around.

Yes, it's pretty much the same hair, just tied back like you said. The initial concept had him being much more barbarian-looking, but that's not really what the qunari are like. They're about as barbarian as the medieval-era Muslim world was barbarian. Which is why it was changed.

Quote: And Alistair, the concept looks like him in a few years after he's seen some rough stuff. He sounds like a character thats glib on the surface but has some real depth.

Alistair's initial concept had him as a bit older, more of a Grey Warden veteran. That wasn't really working out, however, and he was turning out a bit boring so we changed him to his current incarnation.

There is many factors that play into such a decision. Here's some examples:

--- Cost: Pathfinding, AI, character updates, etc. are expensive. So are models. We're not talking about a bunch of 2d sprites here like in BG, our character models include complex facial structures for dialog, lip synch, high poly models, etc. Player party members are the most costly objects on screen most of the time, since their AI has to update almost instantly and we can't use level of detail on them as the player can switch between then any time. All this needs to run on a the minspec targeted machine.

Let's be clear here: In the 2d 'golden days', adding another creature to the screen was basically the cost of a bunch of sprites - roughly the same for each creature. Today, in 3D, adding a creature involves loading a custom 3D model and animation rig in many cases (e.g. dog) along with unique textures, facial structure, weapons, etc. There's a limited number of such unique appearances you can display before you run out of resources. An additional permanent party member could have meant we would have to sacrifice variation in enemies - something we thought was not worth it.

--- Non-permanent followers. If point each party member could summon another controllable follower, at which point do you cross from RPG into RTS. What if these temporary followers had abilities they can use on their own?

---- Dialog interjections and staging. Our conversation system follows Mass Effect's high quality cinematic approach. Your followers will interject themselves often in conversations and they often respond to comments made by other followers. Too many, and the complexity and amount of writing needed spirals out of control.
Additionally, you need to be able to fit the party into many cutscenes and conversation stages - you can chose to not show temporary followers - but that isn't true for real followers.


---- Combat complexity. Party members in DA have a lot more abilities available to them than the BG series. We don't have spell memorization, so you can cast any spell you have in your spell list at any time if you have the resources. In BG, memorization limited the amount of unique options in battle and therefore battle complexity. Also, Warriors and Rogues had less active abilities available to them in BG than in DA. Ultimately, we found 4 major party members the best number that supported the combat experience we wanted create.


All these factors together, the perfect number for DA is 4+(0-4) controllable characters

I'll let David address the more "socio-politcal" implications (if any) of such a question. I can confirm that there are whores in Dragon Age Origins that you may or may not encounter.