Dragon Age Central

I just finished it too and I have to echo a lot of Chris' statements. Had a blast playing it, and like he said, I want to play it again with a different character and make difference choices.

Edit: Removed part of quote.

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Again, check the creatures tab. We have already talked about Deep Stalkers, Bronto, Fanged Skeletons, Devouring Corpses, Mabari Hounds, and Werewolves none of which are "darkspawn".

While I appreciate you want know more, we have spoken about "non-darkspawn" monsters and we'll speak about more creatures in teh future. Just be patient.

David loves video games and BioWare but I would never dare to put words in his mouth about his future.

Still... that J.K. Rowling woman made a little money as a writer. I know I would be willing to accept all that money in exchange for giving up crunch time and Edmonton winters. Still, that's just me.

Heh, I do tend to annoy mages. Something about questioning the species of their mother's mates I think.

Potato/potato.

Well, I can't answer all of the questions (plus, like you said, it makes me gigle to see your pain), but I can say a few things.

I was a dwarf berzerker using 2 handed weapons. I'm not giving away any otehr hints about background, moral choices (I think you all know what I would choose to do given the "save or kill the princess" sort of choce anyways) or otehr details.

Part of why I liked Dog so much was, for an NPC that had no real dialog, he was a great communicator. I totally didn't expect it. And neitehr did Morrigan on many instances.

I am not "Dragon Age" team (like Dan Tudge, David Gaider, Stan Woo, etc). As part of the Community team I am a part of all teams, but not directly part of any one. I do get to play all of our games (one of my best "perks") so that I can speak to y'all on the forums or at live appearances (like the upcoming New York Comic Con).

My Xmas break started Dec 20 and ends Jan 5. I didn't play each day as I did go to visit my inlaws a few times and to spend time with my wife.

I won't give you a time estimate for 2 reasons:
1 - I didn't really keep track. Some days I only played for 3 or 4 hours, some days (my wfe's vacation was not as long as mine) I played for 8-10.
2 - I cheat. Seriously. I know the default script to kill all of the hostile targets on the screen and I used it many many times. I was determined to make it through the game at least once, so I usually fought my way through new encounters (new monsters, new areas, etc) but would use the cheat to get through to the next area.
Because of this my time is completely borked. Now, some will say "ok, so that is 14 days times about 4ish hours a day so maybe 50 or so" or whatever. Again the game isn't done. It isn't balanced. I cheated. I did as much as I could, but I know I missed stuff as my journal still had unfinished quests at the end. Don't use this as anything but one cheaters playthrough of an incomplete game.

Spouses are inheritantly trusted by BioWare (they suffer so much putting up with us and our hours we really have no chocie). My wife is not a gamer at all. In my 8 years at BioWare she has yet to play one of our games or any video game except Jeopardy. However, she did come into the computer room one day and looked over my shoulder just as I reached a cutscene. She watched it and then asked me a bunch of questions about who that was, what they were, why what was happening was happening, etc. She even told me to tell her what happened in the end. This is definitely the most drawn in I have ever seen her.

As for the "would he say something bad about BioWare" question, I sure would. Ask people who have met me in person or at conventions to see if I speak my mind on our games. The truth is I personally am more interested in Mass Effect that Dragon Age. I am more of a Sci-Fi geek than a Fantasy geek (Jay Watamaniuk is the exact opposite, so we balance nicely). Like you all, I'm a pretty big gamer (and an even bigger nerd in general) and I know what it is like to have smoke blown up my butt by some marketing shill with "THE BEST GAME EVER" only to be disappointed with the real result. If I make a lot of flase promises to people here, I get called on it. I am among the most public voices at BioWare and if I lie, I lose trust and respect for what I say (and I usually start somewhere in the negative anyways cuz I hate you all so very much).

DAO IS cool. I have had a blast playing my first playthrough. I've had a little break and I thought I'd wait till I got back to the office. Instead, I think I'm going to start a new play through as a mage.

It really is a very good game. And Priestly's one up on me. Despite my two years on the project, I have never played the game from start to finish. I simply haven't had the time due to all the work I have to do. I have, however, played the heck out of nearly every single part of the game and can tell you where an individual character or plot occurs in the game, and quite possibly all the various ways to go through it.

I think players will find a wide variety of side quests in Dragon Age: Origins. Some will be story-heavy, some will not be. Some will relate to the main quest, some will not. Some will offer a variety of ways to complete them, some will not. Some will be early in the game, some will be later. Some will be different depending on your character, some will not.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: holy chipotle, there are a lot of quests in this game! Players will enjoy the variety, I think.

Quote: Posted 01/03/09 00:39 (GMT) by Ashi984
Like we'd expect a BioWare employee to say anything bad about the game.

Like the community would want to hear something bad about the game on the game's official forums.

We were all given the option to take home a copy of the build over out Xmas break to try out, note bugs, play test, etc. Since I was having a quite Xmas at home with my wife and lots of time to be on the computer, I took up the offer.

While I have played most of the origin stories, I always seem to end up restarting and playing from the beginning without getting too far into the game. This mostly happens as there are frequently new builds to update to (while at work) and the need to start afresh each time. This was my first chance to play through everything start to finish.

Wow.

I won't give away any spoilers or anything, but this is likely the best ending we have ever had in one of our games. The combats around the ending, the emotion, the incredible choices that have to be made... wow. I both immensely enjoyed my ending while at the same time regretted some of the choices I made as I played through the game that allowed me the way it ended.

Other little details:
No, it isn't finished yet. There is still work to be done (combat balance, treasure balance, finishing cutscenes, bugs, etc), but everything that I have seen so far shows that this will be an amazing title that fantasy and RPG fans have been craving.

It took me much longer than I thought it would to get to the end. I had anticipated getting in 2 or 3 playthroughs over the break and I just finished the first.

Man, is there a LOT of stuff to go back and play through in different ways. Different origins, different dialogs, different sub plots, etc. Definitely huge replayability here.

I LOVE the party interactions and dialogs. We generally pride ourselves on creating excellent NPCs and DAO is definitely going to have some personal favorites for me. We've mentioned some like Alistair, Morrigan, Sten and Dog (of which I especially enjoyed Morrigan and Dog) but my favorite I can't talk about just yet. Hopefully soon in the New Year.

Combat is suprsingly challenging. Admittedly, part of why is that the game is not yet balanced like it will be at the end, but there is definite thought and choice involved instead of the "run in and hit them with sword" aspect in many fantasy games. I was not a magic user (my concentration was in two-handed weapons and berzerker), but I frequently found myself "taking over" Morrigan to use her spells.

Well, that is enough for now. I'm going to go and take a break. You are SOOO going to love this game.

Quote: Posted 01/02/09 23:03 (GMT) by Darthain

All this talk of tactics makes one question rise. Can we just set our wizard to negate the other wizard, sort of counterspelling and such?

Yes, but the enemy is tactical as well. Do you think the ogre is just going to let you take out the mage without offering assitance?

Quote: Posted 01/02/09 22:19 (GMT) by Sylvius the Mad
Then how have we been talking about it for weeks?

Who violated an NDA?

No, no -- it's available for pre-order and such, and obviously you guys know about it, but there's been no official press release and promotion done for it yet. That's all I meant to say.

Quote: Posted 01/02/09 14:45 (GMT) by hyrulehistorian
i was just surprised to see it because i hadn't ever seen it mentioned.

It hasn't been "officially" announced, yet.

Not DAO related anymore and unfair bashing of our company, gets this closed.


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