Dragon Age Central

Quote: Posted 07/14/04 16:29:28 (GMT) by TheYeti

Simple solution: GPL. (open source "general public license"). If it works for Linux, it'll work for Dragon Age.

Uh, I don't think that would work.

a) If it's "I put so much work into my PW, I want to make some cash with it", being forced to open source your module will not be very well received.

b) If you have a successful PW module and open source it, people will grab it, run a server as well and collect cash with it as well. I doubt many PW builders would agree with that. Just check out the complaints about "stolen PW modules" we already have on these boards. Add money to the equation and it will get exponentially worse.

c) It cuts out the creative people in the community that make the content. Since they can't charge for their content, they will have to watch how others make cash from their work (i.e. that cool werewolf script or that cloak model) while they can't make anything themselves.

d) It will alienate a part of the community. Before I joined BioWare, I scripted a lot of generic scripts and objects - http://gulbsoft.de/phpBB2x/g_viewcat.php?f=23 , at some point I would find these scripts in nearly every single module published or PW I joined. I personally would not have liked to see anyone making money of my work. I contributed it to a non profit community for global use, not for commercial exploitation.

e) It would collide with our approach to make the game modules open source as well. We could never release any part of our work under a viral license like GPL.

No, using the GPL will not solve the trouble that money will incite into your community, in fact it will aggravate it.

Quote: 
Aha! But that leaves an opening for buying the "DA Developer's License" for $500 building my own PW and at least trying to break even. Doesn't it?

I wouldn't rule anything out at this point, but I doubt it's very likely

Quote: 
"- User Experience/Consistency [people buy your game for 50$ and suddenly find out that they can't play on 80% of the servers they try to join because people want cash for it, people get pissed at BioWare]"

Well, again, I'm not talking about the servers, I'm talking about selling modules. As for consistency, (also) again, you face that issue whether or not the modules are free.

NWN was very successful with the open module approach. I doubt that the community we have right now would exist in this form if the open module approach was abandoned.

However we are investigating the possiblity of contracting some of the talented members of the community to create modules for our Digital Distribution project, you can read more about it in the Witch's Wake Forum.

Quote: Posted 07/14/04 14:46:26 (GMT) by Merlinious
By the way, did you have to make me a Kobold Kensai Mage in Throne of Bhaal?

I didn't have to, but it was fun.

Quote: Posted 07/14/04 16:32:07 (GMT) by bumf
because your reasoning seems to be "why be a king when you can be a god"

Is that our reasoning? Oh. I guess we shouldn't vary from it if it's a rule or something, then.

Quote: or is just me who ends up being a God in all of your games?

I'll assume by 'god' you mean 'a very powerful character' since you actually become a god in only one of our games.

But maybe you don't mean 'very powerful', as that's a pretty relative term. Maybe you mean 'ridiculously powerful', in which case I ask (speaking from the level-based standpoint, as that's been our MO to date) what would be appropriate for the stories we've done? 5 levels? 10? Would it have been a better story if the PC had been 8th level by the end of Throne of Bhaal?

If the answer is yes, then what about the gameplay aspect? Isn't that equally important? Don't some people find character development fun? Aren't rewards necessary?

I have my own thoughts on the matter, as well as to why in the NWN OC in particular leveling was uber-quick, but since you seem to know what they are please do explain them to me. I'm curious.

Quote: Posted 07/14/04 16:20:05 (GMT) by bumf
Bioware obviously doesn't agree with me on this, it's selling point and reaoning seems to be; "why be a king when you can be a god".

And why do we obviously think this? Please explain. I'd be interested in hearing what our thoughts are.

I can give you some things that were added to NWN after release and Hordes of the Underdark as a direct result of the forum community:

- the Robe system (which is far more than just robes, as you will soon see:)

- The whole item property merging thing for the Shifter Class (quite some impact on this class) came from a board suggestion.

- A whole load of engine changes to make things more accessible/hakable for modders. The "average gamer" wouldn't really care about these. More of those to come in 1.63.

- New scripting commands like SetAppearance, SetDeity, SetSubrace, ...

- Disable the "edit character" functionality in HotU for Server Vault games.

Not so sure:
- A certain drunken halfling in SoU
- A certain dialog between goblins and kobolds in SoU

That's very specific things I remember to be a direct result of community input - the biggest impact of the community however is probably that they supply team members with convincing arguments for their favourite features for use in feature/team meetings, etc.

If we were going to include something like cloaks, I don't think it would be a horribly large stretch to imagine that we might borrow (in some form) any related technologies we might need from Jade...

Quote: Posted 07/14/04 15:25:17 (GMT) by PIPBoy3000

My understanding is that Dragon Age does use the NWN engine

Pretty much no.

The main problem in understanding things like this is that people have trouble (including myself ) between what is the engine and what is not.

We have used BIFF files, talk tables, 2DAs and the like since BG1. Yet we constantly read on our forums on how KotOR used the NWN engine, because people saw BIFFs, talk tables, and 2DAs. There is more to an engine that just data file formats.

Quote: Posted 07/14/04 15:32:07 (GMT) by TheYeti
...
Yeti

Hey,

While nothing has decided yet as far as I know, I am very sure Dragon Age will have the same/similar restrictions.

As for some of the legal issues, please refer to my previous post, I think someone linked to it. I'm not a lawyer so I can't/won't talk about specific legal issues and how they might impact the game, that's what we have lawyers for and that's why publishers have an army of lawyers.

Like I already said, the problem has multi facets, not just legal:
- Negative impact on the community
[A creates a module with custom content from B and C decides to host it and ask for cash. A & B are pissed because they created the stuff for the community, not for commercial exploitation, etc (see previous post)]
- Publisher level (Some might remember the month long discussion about the EULA for NWN here)
- Support (if we would sublicense PWs, we would have to officially support them, which is not in the scope of DA)
- Legal (see previous post)
- User Experience/Consistency [people buy your game for 50$ and suddenly find out that they can't play on 80% of the servers they try to join because people want cash for it, people get pissed at BioWare]

Short: The chances of buying DA for i.e. 50$, building your own PW and getting rich are virtually non existent. There might be other solutions for module builders associated with our DD initiative - but I doubt they will have impact on the PW sector.

Yes, it may be hard to assemble a good team without using cash to keep them reliable, but believe me, it also opens a nightmare of other problems, including fraud, distrust, legal and tax implications and possible lawsuits - because as soon as you start paying people, you are running a business and the rules change dramatically.

It is possible to run huge scale teams without cash for a long time, feel free to discuss this with the larger community projects like DLA, SMP or CEP. Adding cash sounds like a magical way to make volunteers reliable and solve your motivation problems - believe me, it isn't.

Quote: Posted 07/14/04 14:09:37 (GMT) by TheYeti
I'm only asking because I'm wondering if it's even worth engaging in these huge debates over skill and magic systems, races, campaign flavor, the role of the Hero, etc. Some subtle guidance, such as participation in threads relevant to ongoing internal debates, would be hugely rewarding and confirmatory.

It's difficult to trot out a list of things that have been changed at the community's behest because except for very minor things it's simply not a matter of the community requesting something and we directly change it. It's a matter of influence.

If someone from Bioware comes here and hears a persuasive debate on a topic, it will influence our thoughts on the topic as it might influence anyone else. When we make a decision on it later, can we directly say "the community is responsible for that decision"? Not really. But they had a part in it. We have to take a lot of other things into consideration than your average community members might even be aware of, so I'm not sure that the community could play a larger role than that... but that doesn't make them insignificant.

We will also look for feedback on the things we've already done. Voice your opinion. I would be willing to say that an example of where this worked was the extra mile that was taken to put robes into NWN... I don't think they would have made it had it not been apparent the community wanted it. Mind you, for those who think otherwise we can tell the difference between general consensus and a few very loud voices. And in this respect especially, one well thought-out argument is worth more than a hundred whines.

Insofar as influencing some of the broader topics like the general game systems, that's a tough one. Many of the more general things are at least already partially hammered down, as I've said before. We couldn't have proceeded past the early stages of rules-making without doing so, after all. Some things could change (we've done massive changes to the rules on short notice before) but most will not... but we're also not ready (yet) to start saying what's set and what isn't. So if you argue a general topic about which little has been confirmed, you're taking your chances.

How you feel about that level of influence is up to you. Obviously the game isn't being made by committee. We do, however, listen to our forum-goers more than some companies and look forward to having an active and participating community ready for the post-release era where things really get exciting.

I hope that answers your question.

Quote: Posted 07/13/04 23:06:00 (GMT) by Rasch_0
I sure am glad I'm not working on that language of yours for DA. Just imagine how frustrating it must be to have this new language "pick up" words from "common", which could be English, French, German etc.
Must be a real pain that one

Heh... well, that's true. If the human nation is one that speaks the "common tongue", you're not going to be pulling much out of it on purpose. You could, however, add "common slang" words that come from other cultures. If the dwarven word for something is "bhairen" and the common tongue picks it up and turns it into "bharn" then "bharn" it is whether we're speaking English, French or German, right?

So long as the reference is explained in-game as soon as it's used, naturally.

At any rate, I never thought it would be that complex until I listened to a PhD explain what's involved. Believe me, you'll think you're plenty smart and educated until you try to follow that conversation.

Quote: Posted 07/13/04 23:01:45 (GMT) by PIPBoy3000
So, it's not just a simple matter of throwing zots at it. I think of it more as a trade off as to what's critical to making a quality CRPG.

That would be my thoughts on the subject, as well. A full physics engine is far from an impossibility, but it all depends on where you want to spend your focus. A game like Half-Life is an excellent engine for what it does, but the reason they spend so much time making realistic physics is because that's integral to what the game is all about. Movement and combat are the priorities there.

And taking such an engine and turning it into something that can support an RPG is certainly a possibility as well. But it doesn't save us much (if any) time, to be honest, and it depends on what kind of RPG you were focusing on to begin with. There are certainly types of RPG where it could work. A multiplayer-capable party-based RPG is probably not that animal, however... at least until advancing technology and an increase in broadband use/speed makes its integration that much easier I suppose.

Quote: Posted 07/13/04 22:38:28 (GMT) by heffergod
On a similar note, why does "Common" always have to be English?

It isn't. Technically it's whatever language the game is translated into, isn't it? That's rather the point.

Quote: Couldn't a form of Dwarvish be the cultural norm?

I believe the dwarvish tongue is the norm in Earthdawn, actually. Though since it's the common tongue, naturally it is still English if you or I speak English, right?

Quote: Humans always seem to be the people in control, and the idea seems to get a bit over used.

One tidbit I like about how our languages are being built is with regards to the absorption of cultural-specific words into other languages when the cultures have interacted for long periods of time.

So if you have a human nation and a dwarven nation that interact and trade a lot, you might find that human tongue start to pick up various dwarven words (and subsequently start changing them to suit), especially with regards to dwarven concepts that a human society wouldn't readily have words for already (and vice-versa). Organic languages are fun!

Please try to stay on topic and away from the personal attacks, thanks.

I want to follow this conversation, but I'm still stuck on Grom's use of imagery with the the PC's slightest fart sending stars colliding and raining comets down like cherry blossoms thing...

Quote: For some reason, I always thought you were from Grande Prairie.

Nope. That would be James, plus several others of the original crew at Bioware.

Quote: Posted 07/13/04 22:06:55 (GMT) by SlipShadow
Question more on topic: Do you know yet if the humans of DA will be using a varient of English(common) as per this thread or a new language?

Well, that all depends on where they come from, nation-wise.