Dragon Age Central

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Greg Zeschuk: There are two things we’re doing with Dragon Age. We won’t talk too deep on either, but one is we’re going to make the toolset available. That’s part of the plan, which will be interesting. It’s not exactly a distribution method, but it’s certainly a communication method. We looked at the Sporepedia and the Creature Creator and said "holy cow!" You give the fans something to occupy themselves with, and they go nuts. So, that’s one thing.

The second thing -- and we’re not going to be going too much into this -- but an ongoing relationship with the consumer is also important. It’s not so much about the distribution method of the game itself, but what happens after. Like downloadable content. We’re going to be doing a lot of stuff that, over time, people will see that Dragon Age: Origins is almost like the game that never ends. We’ll just keep building it. It’s exciting for us because we’ve always wanted that. We think particularly in the fantasy space, there’s a real good audience that just wants to keep playing. At the end a game, it’s like "I want to keep building my character!" So we’re going to do a lot of cool stuff to let that happen.

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GameSpy: What exactly will players be able to create with the Dragon Age toolset?

Greg Zeschuk: That’s one thing we can’t go into detail on yet. Unfortunately, I can’t answer it apart from "stuff can be created."

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GameSpy: You guys gave the game that subtitle "Origin." Are you suggesting that it’s the first part of an ongoing story, or a prequel to something else entirely?

Greg Zeschuk: I would say both. We’re trying to signal pretty strongly that this will be enduring. I know for us, we tend to, every time we go out, we swing for the fence, really have that franchise-creating possibility out the gate. It’s also just the clarity around us returning to our origins. All things play a part in the name. We’ve used the Dragon Age name for a while, but we felt that adding "Origins" to it would give better depth to what we’re trying to say.

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The way we’re structured at BioWare, we tend to have teams that have different types of interests. The Mass Effect groups are into sci-fi, and the folks on Dragon Age are the ones that are very passionate about high fantasy. We call it "dark heroic fantasy" because we tend to equate high fantasy with the less gritty, less impactful, dancing elves, laughing hobbits kind of world. More whimsical. Dragon Age is not whimsical. It’s brutal, it’s tough. Heroes are heroes, and they’re larger than life, and the dangers are gigantic. It’s also an "M" [for mature] game, it’s a hard "M" game where the writing and the combat, and all those things together create a very impactful experience. It’s almost like the opposite of whimsical fantasy.

Which I think there’s a demand for. There’s a desire for things like "300," the sort of "punch in the gut" impact. That sort of experience is what we’re trying to create.

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We’re very particular about products and platforms. We really do want to match what the ideal and optimal platform is for any given game. For us, it just seemed to make a lot of sense to go back to the PC as a key part of this. We’re thinking about consoles in the future. There will be something at some point, we’ll see how it all goes. But the real gist is that, the experience we’re trying to create, with the tools and the downloadables... obviously there are downloadables elsewhere, but nowhere are downloadables as free and easy as the PC, nowhere is it easier to share what’s created than the PC. All these things just make a lot of sense. It just seemed to fit there.

When we [decide on] platforms, we’re also very particular about doing a good job on them. Some people just spam every platform under the sun and put generic versions of their game on every one, and they’re all just okay. We’re dedicated to making sure every version we do for every single platform is really, really good.
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during BioWare president Greg Zeschuk’s demonstration of Dragon Age: Origins, the executive revealed that the game would arrive on consoles in addition to the PC. Unfortunately, the developer would only say that the titles would arrive "in the future," and Zelschuk did not elaborate on whether the title would surface on all platforms simultaneously.
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EA expects to release the game as part of its current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2009.
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Zeschuk referred to the game as a "spiritual successor" to Bioware’s lauded Baldur’s Gate series
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Described as a dark fantasy game that will let players form their own personal origin story
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We know the game is coming to the PC first, and Zeschuk said, on consoles "in the future."
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The over-the-shoulder view you’ll notice in a lot of the screen shots is a little deceptive. When the need for strategic acuity arises, you’ll be zooming the camera out so as to spy the action from a better vantage. BioWare’s trademark "pause ‘n play" mechanic (which has earned a snappy name, apparently) is present, and it works just like you remember. You can queue up commands when you freeze the action, and watch them play out when you resume. The pace playing out on-screen felt familiar, and the nigh-fully-populated MMO-style hotbar dressing the UI would lead you to believe that BioWare’s designers also thought that Mass Effect’s PC version was a big improvement over the original.
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Tudge played a melee-type for about half the demo, and the abilities on display were more or less what you’d expect: shield bashes, multiple-slash flurries, and plain old auto attacks. Things got much more interesting when he switched to a "mage" (his words; he also confirmed during a brief Q&A demo that "There will be ‘classes’ in Dragon Age for sure."). While the spells his mage hurled comprised your typical fantasy fare (fireballs, blizzards and the like), the ways that their effects interacted seemed straight out of BioShock. Example: after spilling a "grease" spell effect on the ground, Tudge’s mage set the puddle ablaze by following up with a fireball. In another instance, an enemy’s grease fire was extinguished by a blizzard. When he unleashed a tempest (think: a low-grade local thunderstorm), it almost looked like he agitated the targeted grease fire. Tudge referred to this as the "spell combo" system, and said that while many effects will be spelled out throughout the course of the game, others will be revealed through experimentation.

The combat portion of the demo culminated in a battle with an ogre, who displayed some moves wholly uncharacteristic of the typical hit point-laden, particle effect-radiating punching bag that constitutes the average drone. He’d rip chunks off the ground and hurl them at party members, pick up those nearby and pummel them with his other fist (hit point totals would notably diminish on the appropriate character portrait with each blow), and perform a brutal booty-ground-pound that would make a lesser Mario wannabe turn green.
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"You’ll notice that we actually chose to use your own voice when telling the story. You’re able to create such a custom character, and really, the party is you -- you are the hero. So we wanted for you to be able to tell that story in your own voice, rather than imposing one upon you." So think KotoR instead of Mass Effect. All the other characters spoke, however, and did so well, reinforcing the chasm that seemingly exists between voicework in BioWare games and those of most other developers. Their facial expressions and body language were emotive and naturalistic, barring a few awkward gestures and the odd glazed-over look, and despite the overwhelming feeling that it’s all pretty generic, the narrative goings-on made one feel that there was definitely some thought put into this world.
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"Origins" refers to the character development system [...] asically, the choices you make early in the game -- the "origins" -- develop your character in a new way not seen before in a BioWare game, and these decisions affect both how your character can play the game, and how the game plays out for you. The rules set is distinct to Dragon Age, and you’ll have several character classes and traits to customize.
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Though the third-person, over-the-shoulder perspective resembles more recent games like "Mass Effect and enables you to zoom in for a close view of the action, you can also pull the camera back and manage your game from the more traditional, and tactical, top-down view. It’s from this perspective, with the highlighted circles under your party members, that the game begins to look remarkably like a modern-day Baldur’s Gate
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Managing your party uses the classic BioWare pausable combat, where you stop action to queue up attacks. The party AI also allows for you to have multiple battles at once. We saw two party members in one room fighting off a beast while two others carried out another fight elsewhere. Parties will have a maximum of four players -- two fewer than the six possible in "Baldur’s Gate II" , which Zeschuk says is a compromise that enables them to achieve maximum "graphic fidelity" while also giving players enough "chess pieces" to move around the board. It’s not, however, a result of the game design being dumbed down -- an understandable fear held by many PC enthusiasts, given BioWare’s recent focus on console games. "It’s a balance point," says Zeschuk. "You don’t want to get overly detailed. In playtesting, we found that four was a nice number. You can mix it up with different characters but it’s still easy enough to control, [yet] still detailed enough that people felt what they were doing was meaningful." Zeschuk also points out that by streamlining the number of characters players control, the team was able to focus on making other aspects of the game more epic: bigger enemies -- a room-filling ogre was shown during the demo -- as well as larger battles with dozens of combatants
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The dialogue system also hearkens back to games of yore. In stark contrast to Mass Effect’s highly interactive and well-acted dialogue, here your character is mute. Other characters speak, and you select your responses from a classic tree, but you never hear your character’s voice. "It’s an interesting issue," says Zeschuk, when asked about the seeming backward step away from Mass Effect’s more immersive and cinematic dialogue experience. "We’re very dynamic with the dialogue choices and who you are, and there’s a lot of variety in who you can be in the game," he says. With all these choices, managing the various dialogue possibilities for the main character turned out to be overwhelming, and likely impossible to fully voice. It wasn’t a decision taken lightly. "We went through a whole process involving a ton of people in the studio, and thought a lot about it, and at the end of the day [leaving out the voice acting for your character] fit the type of the game we were making. This is that classic, return-to-the-roots flavor."
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Graphically, the game looks incredibly detailed, right down to the blood that appears on your party members’ armor after a fierce battle.
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We saw a mage drop a grease spell across the floor of a room, which then was lit up by the group’s flaming weapons, causing a stunning conflagration that engulfed the enemies. In another spot, one party member paralyzed the baddies while his cohorts picked them off one by one. It’s these tactical opportunities and multitudes of different combat possibilities that gave classic RPGs such depth and replayability, and Dragon Age looks to be a truly worthy of the tradition.
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"But we really do cater very carefully to the platform we build [it] for. We’re thinking about it, and something’s probably going to happen, but quite clearly, [dragon age] is a PC game."

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Dragon Age can be played two ways. For most of the demonstration, it had a Mass Effect or Knights of the Old Republic style of camera, where you watch from third-person as your character runs around the level. Conversations happen in Mass Effect style, with cinematic angles and cuts. However, the game features what is called a pause-and-play feature for combat, which lets you pause the game at any time and give orders to your squad. You can also pull the camera back to top-down point of view similar to that of Baldur’s Gate. Zeschuk told us that you could play the game entirely from that angle, as well.

The game is set in a world where an elite society of warriors known as the Grey Wardens battle the Blight, an evil infestation that appears to be the side-effect of the presence of an arch demon. The level that was demonstrated had the player character accompany Duncan, a mentor and friend, to help him and his army battle the Blight. Duncan is young and eager for battle and glory [editors note: the writer has character names mixed up]. The conversation system looked similar to other BioWare games in that you have multiple options, so you can basically respond in friendly, neutral, or rude manner. BioWare showed off some of the possible actions that can change the story. For instance, in one town there’s a prisoner in a cage. He explains he has a key to a magical chest that he will give you if you get him food. You can do so and he’ll give you the key, or you can just knife him and take it from his body. Your decision will have consequences later.

BioWare also wanted to show off the combat system and the scalable battles. The recent trailer that has an army of monsters rushing toward a human army is basically taken from the game, and it’s an in-engine cutscene. However, your goal is to not participate in that battle but to light a bonfire atop a tower to summon reinforcements. However, the gunlocks (the gremlin-like enemies) have taken the tower, so you must battle your way to the top.

At the base of the tower is a guard who warns you about the situation and you can recruit him to come along to help or have stay behind. You might use him as cannon fodder, and he’s not a story NPC. The tower itself is swarming with enemies, and the demo runner had a four-man party with a female elf magic user for some extra firepower. (By the way, character creation will let you create a male or female character with the wide range of customization options.)

The combat system looks like a close-up Baldur’s Gate style of combat, as you can pause the game at any time, give orders, and then unpause the game and watch the action unfold. What’s important is using tactics. In this case, a shield bash to stun an opponent and then toggling assault, which orders up four rapid sword strikes. Magic effects the environment, so the heroes rushed into a trap with the floor covered in grease and the enemy lit it with fire. The elf magic user used a blizzard spell to extinguish the blaze. It’s important to use teamwork and coordinate attacks, so you’ll use pause-and-play quite a bit, just like in Baldur’s Gate.

The end of the demo had the heroes storming the top of the tower, where a huge ogre awaited. This guy has special attacks of his own, like grabbing stone blocks and hurling them, charging them, grabbing them, and more. He’s a tough foe, so you need to use different tactics and spells. But if you can kill him, you can finish him off with a cinematic kill move that involves leaping atop his falling body and jamming your two-handed sword into his skull.

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Meanwhile, Zeschuk said that BioWare was developing the game on the PC, playing the game on the PC, and designing the game for the PC, though the company does plan on delivering Dragon Age to consoles sometime the road.

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this game represents a return to BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate roots. The name also represents the heightened role that your individual character’s origin is going to play in the way he or she sees the world and how the world responds to them. Though Dragon Age is a new IP and a PC exclusive, Greg revealed that he hopes it becomes a running franchise and even finds its way to the consoles.
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BioWare Presents Dragon Age: Origins

New Details To Be Revealed About BioWare’s Dark Fantasy Epic At E3 2008

EDMONTON, Alberta–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Leading video game developer BioWare®, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS - News) today announced details of the highly anticipated dark fantasy Role Playing Game Dragon Age™: Origins which will be featured as one of the premier video games at the 2008 E3 Media and Business Summit, July 15-17.

As the spiritual successor to BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate™, one of the most successful role-playing games in the industry, Dragon Age: Origins represents BioWare’s return to its roots, delivering a fusion of the best elements of existing fantasy works with stunning visuals, emotionally-driven narrative, heart-pounding combat, powerful magic abilities and credible digital actors. The spirit of classic RPGs comes of age, as Dragon Age: Origins features a dark and mature story and gameplay.

“We’re thrilled to be returning to BioWare’s fantasy roots, with Dragon Age: Origins representing the culmination of over a decade of experience,” said Ray Muzyka, co-General Manager and CEO, BioWare and Vice President, Electronic Arts. “Dragon Age: Origins is a dark heroic fantasy that doesn’t pull any punches. Our fans are in for the most emotionally intense gaming experience we’ve ever created, and we hope to surprise them with just how dark and gritty it gets!”

BioWare will be demonstrating some of the compelling features of Dragon Age: Origins behind closed doors at E3, including:

• Epic Party-Based Combat – Dragon Age: Origins will introduce an innovative, scalable combat system, as players face large-scale battles and use their party’s special abilities to destroy hoardes of enemies and massive creatures.
• Powerful Magic – Raining down awesome destruction on enemies is even more compelling as players apply “spell combos,” a way of combining together different spells to create emergent unique effects.
• Deep Customization – Players will develop their characters and gain powerful special abilities
(spells, talents and skills) and discover ever-increasing weapons of destruction.

• Your Story, Your Way – With its emotionally compelling story, players choose with whom they wish to forge alliances or crush under their mighty fist, redefining the world with the choices they make and how they wield their power.
• Origin Stories – Players will select and play a unique prelude that provides the lens through which the player sees the world and how the world sees the player. The player’s choice of Origin will determine who they are and where they begin the adventure, as they play through a customized story opening that profoundly impacts the course of every adventure.

Dragon Age: Origins is scheduled to ship for the PC in early 2009. For more information, the latest updates, or to join BioWare’s Dragon Age community, visit www.dragonage.com.

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Dragon Age is going to be "one of the premier titles" showcase at E3 next week
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I have an appointment to play the thing next Tuesday
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You’ll get your first look at Dragon Age this Friday, as first footage of the game will be featured on the next episode of GameTrailers TV on Spike.
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[dragon age will be] officially known as Dragon Age: Origins
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BioWare has re-titled its Dragon Age game, to Dragon Age: Origins.
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