Dragon Age Central

A powerful jet of fire erupts from a wizard’s fingertips, threatening to burn anything in its path, including one of the enemies that cowers as sheets of flame roll over him.

The wizard spell ‘Tempest’ fills the air above a poor Genlock as the party fight indoors.

The party is surrounded by burning debris as they battle the enemy.

A male wizard casts Tempest outdoors.

A photo of a banner featuring Morrigan and an assortment of other characters, used to decorate the Dragon Age booth at GenCon 2008.

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A second interview for GameTrailers featuring Greg Zeschuk [gz] and Dan Tudge [dt]. It features some of the same interview clips as their other interview with Greg alone. Likewise, it features the same gameplay clips seen elsewhere. Transcript follows:

[dt] ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ is the dark, heroic fantasy that the team has worked on. We often refer to it as the spiritual successor for ‘Baldur’s Gate’.

[gz] The game itself is incredibly emotionally engaging; great cinematic scenes and interaction between the characters. And then the combat is really tactical. You have a party of players on your side - a party or team members - that you actually will arrange on the battle field, almost like a chess game.

[dt] We call it tactical play combat. It’s ‘pause & play’, really the evolution of ‘pause & play’. So you can pause the action at any time, you can zoom out, you can issue commands, issue all your tactics, and zoom right back into the action and get splashed with the blood of your enemies.

[gz] The cool thing is it’s actually a real-time combat system where you select the moves and they execute it, so it’s not like a button-pressing type thing. But it’s very very action-oriented because there’s a lot of things going on. You feel a good sense of urgency; you can jump around between characters to see how they’re doing.

[dt] I’m not really going to talk about enemy scaling at this stand point, but I can say that when we develop the universe - the Dragon Age universe - and the areas that we’re using in ‘Dragon Age: Origins’, we chose those areas to support the story. And those areas have very specific creatures, very specific people that you will meet, and those are supporting the story, rather than having the scale for a random dungeon. Scalable combat is really a key pillar of what we’re doing. So a lot of times the combat’s one-on-one, and other times it’s your party against many. How many? Not really ready to talk about right now.

[gz] The game itself is structured so there’s a lot of what we call the critical path, the main story. There’s a ton of stuff off to the side. You know, the game, it’s... when you’re doing the game you’re always going to be pulled aside to do cool stuff; other characters in your party will want to do cool things as well. So it’s a very unique experience in that way. The length of the game itself we haven’t really talked about yet; we’re still, frankly, working out the details - we’re finished it now. But it’s big. It’s a good, meaty, awesome experience and a lot of replayability for a variety of reasons as well. One of the things in the game, the way we describe it, is you can choose to be a hero, a tyrant or a martyr. The game itself is an ‘M’ game, so it’s quite a mature... you know there’s a little bit of blood.

There’s definitely a class system in the game, so really when you pick your party you want to select your characters in the most effective way to deal with the battle. So you’re going to have a set of folks to choose from, and you’ll choose them based on story elements and things like that; pick them up based on what’s going on. And then when you actually go into battle you’ll decide is it going to be a rogue I’ll be using, or warrior...

[dt] We have mages in the game, there’s this really great thing I like to talk about a lot, it’s called spell-combos. And spell... magic in the game can interact with each other, so you can use spells like grease and then hit them with fire and light the grease on fire. A lot of these combos are going to be documented, but a lot you’re going to have to experiment with yourself, find out what they are.

In regards to ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ as a title, we spent a lot of time developing Dragon Age as a universe, and ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ is really just the first product in that universe.

[gz] With Dragon Age we’re actually making it a single-player game, so it’s really an experience of you as the hero in the story. We are going to have a lot of online features in this game, where you can compare things with other players, but also a lot of downloadable content. There’ll also be a toolset that we provide. So all these things will keep the community integrated. The game itself, the story where you’re the hero, you play by yourself.

You know, we’re doing PC, it’s coming out in early 2009, don’t have quite the date set out yet, but you know, early 2009. And, you know, down the round we’re thinking about consoles in the franchise. We’ve said that, you know, the Dragon Age franchise will have console games, with no details on those - that’s gonna be down the road. So, that’s it, and we hope people dig it.

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Looking the worse for ware, Greg Zeschuk is interviewed for GameTrailers. Previously seen gameplay clips are shown as well. Transcript follows:

[greg zeschuk] ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ is a return to Bioware’s roots. We’ve taken that classic formulae we’ve built classically like ‘Baldur’s Gate’, brought it up-to-date, added next-gen technology. So it’s almost like old-school revisited but awesome technology. Things like the face technology we built in ‘Mass Effect’. The game itself is incredibly emotionally engaging, great cinematic scenes and interaction between the characters.

People have been calling this the spiritual successor to ‘Baldur’s Gate’ and there’s a couple of reasons why that’s the case. First of all there’s a lot of folks working on this [that] worked on the original ‘Baldur’s Gate’ at Bioware. Second, the game is designed very much with the same kind of aesthetic sense, the same kind of story sense, really epic battles, really epic characters, and just the actual visuals themselves - the old ‘Baldur’s Gate’ games have this tactical view where you can arrange your party members - and this game you can do that. You can pull right back with your mouse wheel and you look down and there it is. You can arrange your guys, play like that, or you can jump right in. It really will remind people who have played ‘Baldur’s Gate’ that it’s something like the game, but brought right up-to-date.

It’s actually a real-time combat system where you select the moves and they execute it, so it’s not like a button-pressing type thing, but it’s very very action-oriented because there’s a lot of things going on. You feel a good sense of urgency; you can jump around between characters to see how they’re doing. Then you can also - a Bioware classic feature we have for many years is - pause it. So, you can sit back, pause it, decide if you’re going to shoot off some spells... you know, what you’re going to do. So very good detailed level of combat, but also really exciting and urgent.

The game itself is an ‘M’ game, so it’s quite a mature... you know, there’s blood, there’s also this really touch story choices - stuff that we’ve probably never put into any other game before in this game that you really have to make decisions on. We’re just trying to really always up the ante and try and make a better game each time. Turning out definitely the case in ‘Dragon Age: Origins’.

And that’s it. We hope people dig it; it’s going to be, we think, a real return to Bioware’s roots, satisfying those fans that have been waiting for a game like this for - frankly - 10 years, and it’s very exciting for us to get it finally, almost done.

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1UP interview Greg Zeschuk (GZ) at E3 2008. There are brief clips of the E3 teaser trailer seen elsewhere, but it mostly focuses on the people talking. Transcript follows:

[1up] So, ‘Dragon Age: Origins’. It’s back! And now it’s called ‘Origins’. Can you just bring us up to speed on why the name change?

[gz] Yeah, sure. I think one of the big things about the name ‘Origins’ is there’s really two parts to it. One is the origin stories which are really the lens through which you see the world, a part of the game that’s at the beginning of the game, and each is unique to each player, and then also how the world reflects on you in terms of things that you do. These ‘origin stories’ are just central to the experience. The other thing really is a return to the roots - this is probably the big message we want people to get for E3, is, you know, everyone’s fond of the good old ‘Baldur’s Gate’ and ‘Baldur’s Gate 2’ games that we created a long time ago. This is really the return to that type of gaming.

[1up] I’m assuming that due to the level of customisation that you guys have talked about already that that’s why the dialogue doesn’t work the same way the way that it does in, say, ‘Mass Effect’ where your character’s dialogue is all voiced?

[gz] Yeah, it’s an interesting issue. There are so many choices you have in dialogue, it’s actually... they even depend... it’s very dynamic dialogue choices depending on the origins story and who you are and stuff, so... secondarily there’s also a lot more variety in who you can be in the game: male or female, other races and stuff - we’ll give the details on that stuff - but again, when you start multiplying that stuff out you start going ‘Hmmm’, it’s almost impossible to sort of calculate out.

[1up] But that must have been a hard decision having come off of ‘Mass Effect’ which did that so well, and really created this cinematic interactive experience.

[gz] It was definitely a big decision where we sat back and made the choice, you know in the sense that we actually went through a whole big process involving a ton of people at the studio - not just the couple of folks at Dragon Age, but, you know, everyone in the management team and a lot of the other teams - thought a lot about it and at the end of the day it just seemed to fit the type of game we’re making.

[1up] The things that Bioware has done in the past, especially in the ‘Baldur’s Gate’ series has been really focus on your party and the inter-relationships between them and between the player character, and so I’m wondering if the amount of customisation options that you’re going to allow... are you still going to be able to provide that kind of interaction between all of the characters and non-player characters?

[gz] Like, I’ve talked a little bit about the high concept of the other players in your party, and I think... so they really do serve two purposes. No game sort of did tactical combat like ‘Baldur’s Gate’. Even to this very day it’s still kind of the pinnacle from our perspective of like, you know, the complicated chess match - wizard... you know, the spells going off and the traps, and just everything to try and like manage that. And the other thing is, the really key thing that you noted is the value of other characters is they are like the mirror to the world. I mean, I think that there are a few comments that they make even during the demo that are just kinda funny and entertaining; you know, they’re just there to liven things up. I think secondarily though they do provide companionship, and I think that’s actually the most important thing that we... probably the most important thing that we found them to do, because it just reflects the story, makes the story more real. Otherwise, you know, it’s hard for you to really feel like you’re part of the world. But when you’ve got these people that are literally travelling with you, yeah, it adds a lot.

[1up] So, ummm, how many characters can you have? I think we saw up to four in the demo.

[gz] Yeah, so it’s four at a time in your party. There’s of course a pool you can choose from. For us, part of it ended up being just the graphical fidelity we wanted to have - like, it’s a nice balance between like, you know, really good razzle-dazzle effects with enough pieces, chess pieces in a sense, to move and actually have meaningful tactical combat.

[1up] So it wasn’t dumbed down because of your experience building consoles in the past few years?

[gz] No, it wasn’t. I know obviously that’s been a fear that people have had - these bad console things have gotten into our heads and we’re like ‘oooh’... But actually it’s sort of like a balance point, I guess ease and manageability. I think one of the challenges we had with ‘Baldur’s Gate’ was - we had some pretty big battles - but we trying to have like larger sets of enemies, and that’s one of the big things. And secondarily larger enemies themselves - so you saw the ogre and the impressive large creatures. So we’re actually mixing it up a little more.

[1up] So may I ask a somewhat imperten... rude question? I don’t know if it’s rude... I don’t know if it’s rude! I can’t think of the right word... So I know you... I know... I know you’ve built a new engine and I guess the question is, is that what’s taking so long?

[gz] That is a good question, one we’ve been very up-front with. What’s taken so long - typically in Bioware’s history we kind of get started, announce the game,
then show it at four E3s while we’re developing it. This time we decided let’s just announce it the not show it for the next four E3s and then show it when it’s, you know, nearing completion. And secondarily what happened was we actually had a bit of a perspective shift; not even a new one, but a good strategy for us even while we’re doing all these games is kinda focus on one in the public eye at a time. So you know it was the ‘Mass Effect’ year for like last year - ‘Mass Effect’, ‘Mass Effect’, ‘Mass Effect’. Now we’re onto the ‘Dragon Age’ year.

[1up] The RPG trend has seemed to be a [?] for Bioware, and well to some degree Bioware as well has been seen to simplify, simplify, simplify. You know, let’s get rid of massive numbers of classes and race combinations - even Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition has, you know, is a simplified version of Dungeons & Dragons from what we all remember growing up. So why is... so does ‘Dragon Age’, this return to its roots, is that the main reason, you’re trying to return to your roots, or are you just bucking the trend? How did that decision come about?

[gz] I think at some level, you know, often you are doing the right thing when you are bucking the trend. Because, eventually the trend gets tedious. That’s the other thing that’s interesting about PC gaming. I think PC gaming typically has a higher level of detail and higher level involvement. Its a little more of a relationship with the product. If you look at things like ‘Sims’, or what ‘Spore’ is going to do, ‘Spore’s going to be huge because there are already, what, 1.8 million creatures. And that’s just in a few, you know, a few weeks. I mean it’s... I think that’s actually the difference is where, you know like a lot of console gaming - and hey, we make console games - but sometimes the relationship with a console game is a little more short, a little more focussed on that of entertainment, whereas PC is a longer term thing.

[1up] You mentioned in the demo that blood stays on the armour and stuff, so, ummm, how does that work? Does that, sort if they’ve had a night at the inn are they clean the next day, or?

[gz] Yeah, I think... I think it’s probably like, you know... it’s not quite to the point where like little rain will wash it off... I think it’s simply, you know, how many things you’ve killed in a certain period of time is the density. We’re also reflecting the fact that our typical fan is well past the ‘M’ age and wants to play games that are engaging and maybe a bit cerebral in terms of planning and thinking. At some level we’re not as excited about the very light kind of ‘happy happy’ fantasy as we are about the gritty, more realistic, tougher kind of fantasy that we’re doing in this game.

[1up] Speaking of ‘M’, your ‘M’ audience, how far would you guys be willing to take the romantic relationships you guys have sort of pioneered in gaming. It’s not the kind of thing that most other developers even think to put in their games.

[gz] In many ways the relationships within your party, which really do try and reflect realistic relationships. I think it’s something we think is really important. I think the problem with a lot of games is they just don’t have the basis or the foundation to do that. It was very funny in the first ‘Baldur’s Gate’ because, you know, we really didn’t do too much marketing research then - we just kind of make it - and we discovered like if you asked people "hey, is the romance thing an important part of the game"... "nah no way"... but they totally loved it, like people, like, you know, who was romancing who was like a big huge deal to players. We’re very open to portraying realistic human emotions, and sometimes human-elf relations and other things right, so its - and aliens - ... I think the thing is that’s it’s interesting to explore those things. We like the medium because it gives us the chance to do that.

[1up] Umm, have you guys talked about multi-player at all?

[gz] We actually... it’s a single-player game. It is a single-player RPG. You’re giving me the evil squint?

[1up] Yeah, you really get the evil squint for that. Like, no multi-player at all? Like, no lan?

[gz] No, there isn’t multi-player in this game. Like it’s a single-player game...

[1up] I’m leaving, this interview is done [laughter]...

[gz] Really? No...

[1up] I mean playing ‘Baldur’s Gate 2’ multi-player lan is one of the pinnacles of my gaming life, so, ummm...

[gz] I think one of the interesting... the interesting challenge of multi-player is... I mean it is a challenge, you have to compromise stuff in the story, stuff in the interactions. I think that was the challenge. I think for us, we really said we want make this game about your story, you being the hero and you being the focus. Yeah, and you know what it’s a tough one - you get very emotional reactions to it. You get your reaction...

[1up] I’m... I’m chocking back tears...

[gz] ... and you get another reaction we’re they’re like "thank you so much". It is, in a sense, it’s a balancing of all these compromises and I think that what you have to do is try make the very best game for the people who’ll love it. And I think that that’s really our goal and sometimes it doesn’t quite turn out the way you want and sometimes it does and sometimes you exceed your expectations.

[1up] Is there any chance this game would come to console?

[gz] You know, I think the reality is, hey, we’re part of EA, EA’s a very multi-platform company. But the other thing is, we always make sure - and I think people saw this for ‘Mass’ PC - is that we really really do cater very carefully to the platform we build on. We aren’t just a, hey, just slap it broadly across a bunch of platforms and hey we’re done.

[1up] You know, that brings me to a question, you know, that we... earlier today was the Sony press conference and Jack Trenton made the comment that consumers are moving away from the PC and into the living room. So, given the timing of your game, how do you feel about that?

[gz] You know, I think the really fundamental thing about the PC market is that it’s evolving, it’s changing. I wasn’t aware that most WoW players were playing from their living room. But they might be, it’s quite possible. Some of the traditional gaming that was on PC has moved to console. Then, meanwhile PC has evolved, getting much more connected games, you know. The reality is PC is all about flexibility, in connecting people... there’s reasons in ‘Dragon Age’ we’re going to have toolset, we’re going to be having a lot of downloadable content - we’ll talk details of those later - but there’s things that we want to create that kind of creates a community around the game. You know, it’s very different than the console. I think that’s using the PC for its strengths.

[1up] So you’re basically in disagreement?

[gz] I disagree.

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Camcorder video of a video being shown at E3 featuring some of the people behind the scenes working on the game. There are some brief teaser and gameplay clips, but nothing especially new. Transcript follows:

[ray muzyka, co-founder] We started Bioware because we have this passions for video games; we love video games. That’s where it all started.

[greg zeschuk, co-founder] We still remember ourselves as being those young upstarts, you know like we started out in the basement with the blank piece of paper saying how do we start making a game?

[caroline livingstone, voice over director] Bioware games have this really strong cinematic style.

[dan tudge, project director] We really want to create engaging and immersive experiences.

[fernando melo, producer] The story just being very rich, the characters being very memorable. And it all wraps up into making this great experience that you never forget.

[dt] Dragon Age is Bioware’s next-gen dark heroic fantasy.

[tony de waal, lead cinematic animator] It’s going back to Bioware’s roots of role-playing games.

[gz] It harkens back in a sense to our past, but with current technology as the foundation.

[matt atwood, senior pr manager] The player will be faced with a ton of choices, and those choices are going to have massive consequences.

[gz] You really are literally picking and choosing the good and the bad things you do, who you save, who doesn’t survive.

[dt] At times you’re up-close and personal, other times you’re back tactically assigning your party and just unleashing hell upon your enemies.

[tdw] There’s so much customisation that you can do, it’s a very deep, deep game.

[dt] Dragon Age has an awful lot of content and making all that content and tying it in with the story has been very very challenging.

[dean anderson, art director] Dragon Age is huge; how do you keep the same consistency across hundreds of levels [... ?? ...] definitely a lot higher.

[rm] The world itself definitely feels alive.

[fm] And I think that’s something that is fairly unique; there are not a lot of developers that are able to do that.

[cl] You’re going to put it down and you’re going to say "I want to get back to it" because I want to know what happens to this character.

[benoit houle, principle project manager] We’re releasing a really classic RPG game, and I think we’re going to be able to really delight the community.

[rm] In the end, for us, it’s about delivering these worlds that you want to be a part of. And that’s sort of the mission for Bioware, is that we’re delivering the best story-driven games in the world.

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G4 interview Greg Zeschuk (GZ) at E3 2008. As the interview progresses we see an expanded view of the first-floor battle seen in the first 3m direct-feed gameplay video from Bioware that briefly shows the inventory UI.

The inventory shows items as a list on the right-facing page of a book, with the ‘paper-doll’ of the character and various item slots on the left-facing page. There are 12 slots which might correspond to head, weapon, neck, body, legs, feet, quiver, shield, second weapon, unknown, ring and ring.


Interview transcript follows:

G4: All right, please welcome the co-general manager of Bioware, Dr. Greg Zeschuk. Bioware! Come on! All right, so, what’s initially notable about this is that we’re dealing with a PC game. So you guys are getting back, getting your hands dirty on that. And it’s a fantasy game that is not from Dungeons & Dragons: it’s your own creation.

GZ: Yup, ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ is really a return to Bioware’s roots. That’s one of or part of the ‘Origins’ name, or what it means to us. And it’s really us going back to what we did with the classic formulae in Baldur’s Gate years ago, bringing it up-to-date in terms of technology and what we’re delivering is going to blow people away.

G4: Now, for those people - and there some young folk out there - that haven’t played the great Baldur’s Gate, what is that type of combat that you’re returning to?

GZ: What you’re seeing on screen right now is... I’m starting out with one of my guys - I’ve got a party of four so it’s a party based game - and what happens is you can control the actions of all of your party. You’ll see here this guy is going to get stuck in kind of a... this guy is going to cast a spell at him... pause it play... you can pull back... here stuck in some grease which is going to lit on fire. The whole game is actually very tactical and you actually control the characters and what they do at every moment - your entire group and plan it almost like a chess match.

G4: Now, will you be moving one character’s directions and the others follow you? How will you be managing all four?

GZ: You decide. You can actually program the AI, you can actually have them follow you, you can have them act as a group, you can have ‘plays’ you can call. You’re seeing right now this is the classic Baldur’s Gate view - the top-down isometric so you can really control the tactics. So the cool thing then... and then you can jump in and enjoy... what we’re doing here is the mage is about to throw a blizzard on top of that fire, put it out... pause the game here... about to turn it off, you can see her [person playing the demo] kind of coming back [moving the camera back], make sure you put the spell in the right place - you’re seeing choosing which spell or which talent to use; she’s going to cast a spell and pop it back into the action and let it rip. So here we go. She’s put out the fire... blizzard’s put out the fire, the guys can run through, we’ll show some other guys fighting... It’s very engaging both from a combat perspective but also emotionally and in the dialogue and everything else.

G4: Now yeah, that’s what I wanted to get to. Obviously with Mass Effect you have perfected the art of story-telling inside of a game - are we going to see similar techniques that you used there inside of Dragon Age?

GZ: A lot of the technology is the same, like that same face technology, same realistic characters that we had: it creates this emotionally engaging experience. The world of Dragon Age is very serious - heavy world, you know it’s an ‘M’-rated game, lot of blood, lot of really serious situations - you know, that’s just what the team wanted to build.

G4: Now, in terms of how the story goes, does it branch enough that you would like to see people play repeated times to find different surprises?

GZ: Absolutely. And the way the game starts is something called an ‘Origins’ story and that’s a very special personal thing that you experience that is the lens through which you see the world and also how the world sees you. And you really do choose if you’re going to be a hero, a martyr or a tyrant.

G4: And I want to make sure that you guys get your own ‘props’: you’re not using the Unreal engine as you did with Mass Effect, this is your own technology?

GZ: Yeah, absolutely, the team - just call out the Dragon Age team they’re awesome, a lot of folks at Bioware worked on this engine. You know, it’s a little bit different style of engine than what we did with Mass Effect and obviously we built upon the Unreal engine in that case; this is really designed to support all the data and all the information you have in an RPG.

G4: Now, I guess the other question is when do you think we might be playing it?

GZ: Well this is a little bit different than our usual style which is when we announce the game, show it for a number of years... what we did is we announced it a while back, kind of let it stew, fans got excited; we’re showing it here, it’s totally playable, guys can play it in our booth, and the exciting thing is it’s coming early 2009 which is not far away.

G4: Wow, well that’s great. Listen, since I have you here, anything about Mass Effect or KotOR?

GZ: I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. I know we’re talking about this Mass Effect stuff, but you know I’m kinda... I’m losing... I... I... I’ve had a long day and my memory is really kinda weak right now; I’ve kind of lost it, sorry.

G4: Well all right. I’m coming up to Edmonton and going to sleep outside of the offices. Greg, thank you so much for coming. It is an honour, always to be with the men from Bioware.

On the same day that it was shown to the press at E3 so they could write their preview articles based on it, Chris Priestly (Community Communications Coordinator) and Jay Watamaniuk (Community Manager) provided a treat for fans by uploading the 3 minute gameplay video to a ‘secret’ area of their website.

It features brief cuts of walking around in various locations, a scene of dialogue with King Cailan, but the focus is on the battle with the ogre seen in some of the E3 screenshots. The zoom level is changed throughout the video, showing off over-the-shoulder gameplay and more traditional top-down-tactical gameplay.

Detailed description and transcript follows:

[camera rotates around a male human fighter with round shield and sword strapped to his back]

[outdoors, the pc approaches a woman orating on a stage]
[woman] ... the death that may await. Death is no failure my friends. Should it find you, you will not have failed your king. You will have served your maker. Die in this....

[a different male fighter pc runs down a street at night. cuts to a dialogue scene, camera close over the shoulder of the pc, as king cailan addresses him]
[king cailan] Every Grey Warden is needed now. You should be honoured to join their ranks.

[pc is atop a wall as a battle rages somewhere below. an explosion damages people]
[off-screen voice] Release the hounds!

[a party of 4 characters (classes: rogue, warrior, wizard, ? another warrior ?) enters the tower of ishal]

[they arrive at a burning grease fire on the ground. the game is paused, the camera moves and pans about, the centre of the fire is targeted and the wizard in the party casts a ‘blizzard’ spell to put the fire out.]

Blizzard
Cost: 30
The caster conjures a vicious snowstorm to cover a large area around the designated lcoation. Within seconds of finishing the spell, the ground becomes slippery due to ice, reducing enemy movement. Enemies inside the area take cold damage increasing as the storm gains intensity. Any creatures still within the area of effect when the storm reaches it’s height are frozen solid.

[meanwhile the rogue and the warrior fight a genloc, which at one point is stunned before being killed by the party]

[another fight ensues against more enemies. one of the characters is able to resist some enemy effect. the wizard casts a grease spell covering the floor with grease before casting ‘fireball’ to kill the genlocs]

Grease
Cost: 25
The caster causes a large area around the designated location to become slippery with oily slick. Movement within the area of effect is slowed. If a fire is brought into the oil slick, it can set it on fire.

Fireball
Cost: 25
The caster hurls a flaming projectile towards the target location, spawning a large explosion on impact. Creatures caught within the blast immediately take major fire damage and continue to burn for a short duration.

[the party reaches the top floor of the tower and rush in, but halt in surprise as they come across the ogre, who is seen from behind eating some poor creature]

[after the cut-scene introducing the ogre is over, it promptly picks up one of the party members and starts beating him as the other party members try to kill the ogre.]

[as the battle progresses the wizard casts lighting and healing spells, and other are revealed.]

Shock
Cost: 15
The caster shoots an arc of electricity from this hands. Any target caught in the area of effect receives moderate lighting damage and mana/stamina drain.

Lighting
Cost: 40
The caster unleashes a powerful bolt of electricity, dealing a high amount of damage to the target.

Winters Grasp
Cost: 15
A medium damage cold attack especially effective against fire based creatures.

[clearly a difficult battle, eventually all but a warrior is left standing, but with one final cut, the ogre is defeated with a spray of blood and a brutal finishing move that involves the warrior leaping on to the orgre’s body and administering a coup-de-grâce. during this animation the other party members get back on their feet, revived, and afterwards the wizard casts some more healing spells on the warrior.]

Variants

• t_dragonageorigins_e32k8_gp_h264.flv
  53.9MB 960x540 3m1s vp6f (slightly lower resolution, much smaller file size, FLV)

Close-up of an evil looking character, a quiver of arrows at his back, set against a backdrop of a crumbling town.

An evil-looking character with straps around his face shows off for the camera, surrounding himself with magical energy.

Ground-level shot reveals the party in dire straights; members laying dead or unconscious and one human left, slowly picking himself up from the ground, to tackle a mighty ogre.

On the top floor of the tower of Ishal the party face an ogre. Even with a magnificent electrical spell from the party mage, the humans still look in danger, one of them having fallen already.