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[Salaadin]

They probably didn't want to crowd the second half of the year with Knights of the Old Republic and ME3 both due up.

I wouldve preferred they delay DA2 until early 2012 and still give us TOR and ME3. I bet a lot of our complaints would be fixed if this game saw another year.

I wonder if there are any lessons learned for EA/Bioware in all this. If this game goes on to sell better than DA:O in a shorter time frame, are they just going to do it all over again and give us DA3 in a year? Tbh, Im so put off by the DA series now that I wont even be buying the next game until I read forum impressions.

 

[JoeBoy101]

'party banter'

I loved Varric and Aveline after the first start of the game. If I got it correctly, Varric is taking Aveline's exploits, putting a male protagonist in her place and selling the stories off, with Aveline reluctantly agreeing. Then apparently, they start selling really well.

I wouldve preferred they delay DA2 until early 2012 and still give us TOR and ME3. I bet a lot of our complaints would be fixed if this game saw another year.

I wonder if there are any lessons learned for EA/Bioware in all this. If this game goes on to sell better than DA:O in a shorter time frame, are they just going to do it all over again and give us DA3 in a year? Tbh, Im so put off by the DA series now that I wont even be buying the next game until I read forum impressions.

Good GOD, yes! So much of this game suffered from being rushed, but had enough good parts and brilliance at times that if they hadn't pulled it out of the oven so quick, the game would have stood well against the original.

 

[water_wendi]

Actually, interestingly enough Dragon Age Origins had three lead designers, Mike Laidlaw, Brent Knowles, and James Ohlen.

Brent Knowles left after Dragon Age: Origins and James Ohlen is living in Austin working on SWTOR, so unless they added more lead designers, Mike Laidlaw is the only one left.

Fall 2008-Summer 2009 from Brent Knowles blog

We were nearing the end of active work on design content for Dragon Age… there was still a lot more bug fixing/polishing/ and fill-content generation ahead but the core plot/writing and level design was finished. My work was rapidly shifting into that of reviewing what the team had put together.

Discussion on Dragon Age 2 began around this time and looking ahead I knew that I wasn’t going to be satisfied with what Dragon Age 2 would be. Party control/tactical combat are huge factors in my enjoyment of a role-playing game as is adopting the role of the hero (i.e., customizing my character). I was fairly certain Dragon Age would transition towards more of a Mass Effect experience, which while enjoyable is not the type of role-playing game I play. Could I be the lead designer on such a title? Certainly… though if I were going to work on a game adopting a set-in-stone protagonist I’d rather work on something lighter, like a shooter.

Through a series of circumstances it was decided that with my not wanting to participate on Dragon Age 2 it was time to transition in a new lead to finish the Dragon Age console versions and ramp up for Dragon Age 2. I moved out of an active lead role though I stayed on for several months performing quality assurance and helping with the transition. I completed the game several times during this period and racked up the second or third highest bug totals… so, still busy but doing something quite different.

Since Laidlaw is the Lead for DA2 perhaps he only got Lead credit for DA:O because of this late transition during the porting phase? i dont know.

 

[Nirolak]

Fall 2008-Summer 2009 from Brent Knowles blog


Since Laidlaw is the Lead for DA2 perhaps he only got Lead credit for DA:O because of this late transition during the porting phase? i dont know.

I think Brent was the "lead lead designer", if that makes sense.

Though at EA, technically the Executive Producer is the equivalent of the game's director, so Mike Laidlaw isn't officially the head of the project. Then again, Dragon Age Origins also had two different executive producers...

Edit:

On an unrelated note, I finally found that interview I was talking about.

ZAM: As a final question then, to get back to Dragon Age 2… In comparison to Dragon Age: Origins, would you say that your level of satisfaction and confidence in Dragon Age 2 is much higher than Dragon Age: Origins?

Mark: I'm actually much happier with Dragon Age 2 than I was with Dragon Age: Origins. Don't get me wrong, DA:O was a great game, but when you do development on DA:O for as long as we did (five years), the game starts to drift a little bit, in terms of overall vision. Dragon Age 2, because it was developed over the course of about a year and a half, has been able to stay a lot truer to its original vision, so it's a purer implementation, I would say.

ZAM: So it's like the writing process; if you write a book over five years, it can drift around as you chase different narrative threads, but if you write a book over the course of a year, you stay focused on the path you choose, and you end up with a cleaner story. Is this approach of more focused development going to be the path you plan to take with development in the future?

Mark: I'm not saying that we'll be doing a Dragon Age a year (chuckles), but I don't think we'll go away for five years again.

Source: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=24559&storypage=3

 

[Gvaz]

Yeah.. unless Bioware started months after the release of DA:O there is no way that DA2 was being worked on for only 1 year.

Like I said, he stated but didn't exactly prove anything. He did mention he never worked on the DA franchise so it could be hearsay from a different development team.

On an unrelated note, I finally found that interview I was talking about.


Source: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=24559&storypage=3

That sounds like faulty logic to me, the last part.

 

[Sir Garbageman]

Good GOD, yes! So much of this game suffered from being rushed, but had enough good parts and brilliance at times that if they hadn't pulled it out of the oven so quick, the game would have stood well against the original.

Agree 100%.

I haven't beaten the game yet so I can't comment on the main plot but I feel like the core gameplay elements are great, it's just lacking a lot of polish and variety. If another 6 months worth of development time led to:

more art assets and diversified environments
more customization and better loot
better encounter design (not every single battle needs 2+ waves of enemies)
improved dungeon design (is there a single puzzle in the whole game?)

DA2 would have been amazing.

 

[Lostconfused]

That sounds like faulty logic to me, the last part.

Not logic, spin. Either extreme leads to problems. Too little time and you get DA2. Too much time and you get GT6 or Duke Nukem Forever. Considering that western devs like to get a full build of the game done and then start polishing it, more time is usually a good thing. Too much time on the other hand might lead to needless features being added in or stuff that is mostly superficial or isn't well thought out.

 

[endaround]

There was limited amount of time and the decision was made to focus more on redoing the art assets and the animation than doing a full game. It was a choice to go with a dialog wheel and swooping cameras than doing more dungeon environments. There was a deadline and them team focused on the sizzle instead of the steak. Because steak isn't awesome.

 

[subversus]

So I finished Act II. The ending was awesome, Bioware still can deliver goods. I didn't expect some things happening, so I got a question if it is my walkthrough or everybody had the same:

Spoiler

I romanced Isabella, but refused to give her The Book and said that she must deliver it to Qunari. She ran away with it but reappeared when I got to Arishok and returned the book. Arishok demanded her as a prisoner, I refused. So the first question: has anybody with Isabella's rivalry or neutrality got the same ending? And if Isabella returned in your walkthrough have you sacrificed her by accepting Arishok's demands? If you did what happened after that? No boss fight?

So they built the assets in 8 months? Thats nice and all but the "DA2 is pretty good for only a year" is an excuse. If we are to believe your side the concept phase lasted from the 4-6 months before DA:O shipped (when Brent Knowles stepped down to let another lead take over DA2 while he helped with the ports) to just a couple months ago. That means the concept phase went from mid-2009 to July 2010?

They had to rewrite a lot of engine code and prototype new gameplay systems on top of that. Usually games which had engine building in their dev cycles suffer from content and quality POV.

 

[Gvaz]

So I finished Act II.

Enjoy act 3 being much like act 2 beginning, and then just railroading you into the ending there.

 

[Interfectum]

http://i.imgur.com/8jokZ.jpg

This old image just about sums up DA2 for me.

 

[Confidence Man]

Good GOD, yes! So much of this game suffered from being rushed, but had enough good parts and brilliance at times that if they hadn't pulled it out of the oven so quick, the game would have stood well against the original.

Not as long as you've got the same people in charge. You'd have a more polished game with more unique areas, but a lot of it would still be Mass Effected to shit because they still want to capture all those people who quit playing Origins after an hour.

 

[Owzers]

From the 1up interview:

WARNING: MASSIVE ENDGAME SPOILERS BELOW. SKIP THIS UNTIL YOU SEE THE BIG HEADING AGAIN

Spoiler

1UP: So, specifically, was it always intended to have the player fight both Meredith and Orsino? It almost felt like there was a fork in the path, where by supporting the Mages you would fight Meredith and supporting the Templars would get you to fight Orsino. So it actually surprised me to have the player fight both...

ML: It was considered, certainly. Any time you have two opposing villains or forces, that kind of thing gets considered. But to be fair, from the beginning, our goal with Dragon Age 2 was to not have either side be the "good guys." Even up to the player who thought, "I'm choosing the good guys, so I'm going with the mages," the revelation that even at the top level, that mages were still susceptible, was something very important to us. To show that normal people can become villains in the same way that normal people can become heroes.

If he were the president of the united states, i'd yell out " YOU LIE" in the background. It was "considered" translates directly to " we didn't want to/have the time to deviate two different paths"

 

[delirium]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwa-mKETJW0

Hmm, I don't remember this in the game.

 

[Interfectum]

1UP: So while we're talking about development resources and decisions, I have to ask: Can you also explain the process of why the dungeon assets seem to get re-used a lot? That is one of the more prominent and universal sticking points from both reviewers and consumers.

ML: Absolutely, and I think it's a fair critique, and it's not one that I'm going to leave unaddressed, frankly. What we ran into was the situation where we had the ability to have more plots, more content, some side stuff that we knew would be optional, but we didn't have the assets to create entirely new levels for. So we took a long look at that, and said, "Is it important to have more content in the game, or is it important that the content be 100-percent unique?" So we tried to strike a balance, and tried to evaluate a good way to use this. I think the one thing that caught us a little bit off-side was, with the caves having much more interesting features than just "generic cave with left bend," -- you know, having things like collapsed or old masonry and so on -- is that end up probably creating a larger sense of repetition than we thought would originally occur. And the end result is something I look at and go, "Okay, I think that is a shame, and that is a fair critique, and something we can easily address in the future."

haha wow

It's crazy how egotistical Bioware has become. They reused assets to give us gamers more content but those assets ended up being so nicely detailed that it lead to a greater sense of repetition.

So I'm guessing they'll address this by giving us more generic dungeons in the future that they can reuse without much blowback.

 

[subversus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwa-mKETJW0

Hmm, I don't remember this in the game.

"Enchantment!"

"That's more like it."

lol

 

[Lostconfused]

"Enchantment!"

"That's more like it."

lol

if only.

 

[Owzers]

haha wow

It's crazy how egotistical Bioware has become. They reused assets to give us gamers more content but those assets ended up being so nicely detailed that it lead to a greater sense of repetition.

So I'm guessing they'll address this by giving us more generic dungeons in the future that they can reuse without much blowback.

ughhhhhhhhhh this franchise, i like it and absolutely hate it at the same time and the developers are just trolling me.

 

[subversus]

Enjoy act 3 being much like act 2 beginning, and then just railroading you into the ending there.

yeah, I expect it to be short.

 

[Peff]

the one thing that caught us a little bit off-side was, with the caves having much more interesting features than just "generic cave with left bend," -- you know, having things like collapsed or old masonry and so on -- is that end up probably creating a larger sense of repetition than we thought would originally occur.

Uh... Wha-

 

[JoeBoy101]

Not as long as you've got the same people in charge. You'd have a more polished game with more unique areas, but a lot of it would still be Mass Effected to shit because they still want to capture all those people who quit playing Origins after an hour.

Eh. I didn't mind the changes that much, especially considering is not really a sequel to the first game. Also, the changes would have gone down better if more time had been spent to iron them out. Only really objectionable things I had were towards the class changes and the removal of player racial choices.

 

[subversus]

Eh. I didn't mind the changes that much, especially considering is not really a sequel to the first game. Also, the changes would have gone down better if more time had been spent to iron them out. Only really objectionable things I had were towards the class changes and the removal of player racial choices.

same here, but they really simplified some stuff. I don't mind cinematic approach, but everything else...

 

[Fimbulvetr]

They reused assets to give us gamers more content but those assets ended up being so nicely detailed that it lead to a greater sense of repetition.

So I'm guessing they'll address this by giving us more generic dungeons in the future that they can reuse without much blowback.

He's right obviously. It's not like you can have a large world with many areas that are detailed.

rite gias?

 

[JoeBoy101]

same here, but they really simplified some stuff. I don't mind cinematic approach, but everything else...

Some of that simplification probably was design, but others because of the short dev cycle. Frankly, the class changes with War = Agro, Rogue = DPS, Mage = DPS infuriate me way more than the removal of racial choice. And I was very annoyed at the removal of racial choice.

 

[WanderingWind]

Three classes and one goddamn race in a party based RPG is terrible, period. It wasn't good in DA:O either, and was one of the things I was hoping they were going to fix in the sequel.

 

[subversus]

Three classes and one goddamn race in a party based RPG is terrible, period. It wasn't good in DA:O either, and was one of the things I was hoping they were going to fix in the sequel.

um?

 

[The Technomancer]

He's right obviously. It's not like you can have a large world with many areas that are detailed.

rite gias?

Geez, that would be almost as hard as rendering towns in HD.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

"I think the one thing that caught us a little bit off-side was, with the caves having much more interesting features than just "generic cave with left bend," -- you know, having things like collapsed or old masonry and so on -- is that end up probably creating a larger sense of repetition than we thought would originally occur. "


Shades of...

""I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh...people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and...I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our..."

 

[WanderingWind]

um?

Hawke (another terrible decision) could be any race you wanted. As long as you wanted to be human.

 

[TheChaos]

He's right obviously. It's not like you can have a large world with many areas that are detailed.

rite gias?

It's funny because if you look at the map of Thedas (the continent Dragon Age is on) the Free Marches is a huge area with tons of towns and locations. I guess Bioware thought those areas aren't important enough.

 

[subversus]

Hawke (another terrible decision) could be any race you wanted. As long as you wanted to be human.

You said "party-based" so I assumed you're talking about your party.

I have no problems with Hawke being only human, but I wish they still had origins.

 

[dimb]

It's funny because if you look at the map of Thedas (the continent Dragon Age is on) the Free Marches is a huge area with tons of towns and locations. I guess Bioware thought those areas aren't important enough.

Let the intricate story of The Wounded Coast never wander from our hearts.

 

[WanderingWind]

You said "party-based" so I assumed you're talking about your party.

I have no problems with Hawke being only human, but I wish they still had origins.

Odd, because I had every problem with the only choice of character being a human named "Hawke." Boring and 90s style EXTREME lameness in one terrible decision.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

It's funny because if you look at the map of Thedas (the continent Dragon Age is on) the Free Marches is a huge area with tons of towns and locations. I guess Bioware thought those areas aren't important enough.

But if there was more than one town you'd be forced to kill a generic dragon instead of a deep set of human villains.




So what happened to that whole "Kirkwall is so political compared to Ferelden" stuff?

Odd, because I had every problem with the only choice of character being a human named "Hawke." Boring and 90s style EXTREME lameness in one terrible decision.

I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but it certainly was a step back. I think the origins were more important though and Hawke severely needed one.

 

[Patryn]

I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but it certainly was a step back. I think the origins were more important though and Hawke severely needed one.

In their defense (and I hate to defend them), one of the two areas that they acknowledge needed work was the beginning, and they admitted that some players were finding it hard to connect to Hawke. (The second area is naturally the reuse of dungeons).

 

[subversus]

I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but it certainly was a step back. I think the origins were more important though and Hawke severely needed one.

He had one, lol. Well, at least they could've made two origins but 8 months etc etc

 

[Fimbulvetr]

He had one, lol.

Don't get to see Hawke's life before the blight -> Start out running from the darkspawn where we are expected to care that a character in Hawke's life we don't know has just died -> Get into Kirkwall -> Huge ass time skip

 

[WanderingWind]

Also, that year of servitude with whomever you choose is so clearly a DLC decision it's not even funny. If they don't come out with a "Hawke: The Lost Year" DLC, I'll eat my inconspicuous skull-capped mage staff.

 

[Desi]

someone play Dragon Age Legends with me :C

 

[Van Buren]

So what happened to that whole "Kirkwall is so political compared to Ferelden" stuff?

They actually said that ? Heh, guess we can file that statement away next to their grandiose claim that DA2 will approach BG2's quality in design.

 

[Lostconfused]

Also why is carver just wearing some kind of a shirt/jacket thing with sleeves cut off? Was his armor too heavy, couldn't run away from the battle fast enough huh?

 

[Confidence Man]

Also, that year of servitude with whomever you choose is so clearly a DLC decision it's not even funny. If they don't come out with a "Hawke: The Lost Year" DLC, I'll eat my inconspicuous skull-capped mage staff.

I don't think they'd make you start a new game to play DLC. Probably just short on time and figured they could chop it out and focus on bigger events.

 

[Desi]

who have to remember this game is being told by 2nd hand knowledge. Would not seem out of place if Varric is asked to retell some specific moments he may have skipped out on for time sake.

"Step back a minute; I remember the champion being brought into kirkwall by ship. You mentioned that before, what really went on back then?"

The player gets temp de-leveled to play that area or Varric tells another one of his tall tales.

 

[WanderingWind]

who have to remember this game is being told by 2nd hand knowledge. Would not seem out of place if Varric is asked to retell some specific moments he may have skipped out on for time sake.

"Step back a minute; I remember the champion being brought into kirkwall by ship. You mentioned that before, what really went on back then?"

The player gets temp de-leveled to play that area or Varric tells another one of his tall tales.

Yeah, but then how does Varric know about anything that happened when he wasn't around? And why would he bother to regale the tale of the time Hawke found some torn trousers or a piece of garbage in a box?

 

[Moofers]

And why would he bother to regale the tale of the time Hawke found some torn trousers or a piece of garbage in a box?

He's not. You need to assume he's telling the relevant information and the rest is the detail required to make the game fun. Its not like he's telling the details of how the weapon stand in Hightown had exactly one sword, one axe, and two shields on the table either, they are just there to provide a more complete picture for the player, like everything else.

 

[HadesGigas]

They could do that if they wanted. Since they could make it load from the main menu like much of the DA:O DLC, import your save file from the main game, and drop off rewards in the main game after you finish.

Though one thing that would make me think they wouldn't choose this time for DLC is there is two different paths you can go there (merc or smuggler). They'd have to basically create two different DLCs as one that you'll only play half of.

I could see them going into detail about other party members time either before the game or during one of the time skips though, like Leliana's Song.

 

[WanderingWind]

He's not. You need to assume he's telling the relevant information and the rest is the detail required to make the game fun. Its not like he's telling the details of how the weapon stand in Hightown had exactly one sword, one axe, and two shields on the table either, they are just there to provide a more complete picture for the player, like everything else.

Yeah, I know. That was my point.

 

[Nirolak]

They actually detailed their DLC plans in a couple of ways that might be useful here.

1UP: What can you say about DLC plans? Would it be more like Mass Effect, where it's Shepard either adding a party member, or taking an existing party member through a new quest? Or more like how Origins had some of that, but also DLC quests that were side-stories with a completely different cast of characters, or a quest where the Warden would be paired with new temporary party members rather than familiar ones?

ML: Absolutely. With Origins, we were being pretty experimental. DLC is still a pretty new beast, and figuring out exactly how it integrates with the game is something that, with Origins, we think led to becoming a pretty good success in being a franchise that tells the story of a world. We wanted to see the reactions to more experimental pieces like Leliana's Song; that provided a side story on a popular follower -- a very popular follower -- but not a story that directly involved your character. The takeaway, I think, is that people really liked the elements of deepening Leliana's story -- they loved that! But what they did not like was how their Warden was not included. Or things like how the loot you get might have been brought in, but not the XP or skills or so on and so forth. We kind of came away with the impression that consistency of experience is something that people are desiring -- more so than just additional storylines.

That's giving us more of a direction; I think for future DLC you'll be seeing very much a focus on Hawke and expanding his adventures -- whether it be across the timeline or extending into the future. But definitely things that stay central to the character that you've grown connected to, but still take some of those lessons like from Leiliana's Song -- adding to the followers, making sure they're incorporated or enhanced or deepened in some way -- is something that resonates really well. Especially because the kind of people pulling down DLC are people who are engaged with the story, or the party, or the history of the world, and they want to learn or know more; and maybe feel like they have this cool piece of knowledge that their friends might not know. It's like that fun little bit of trivia that you looked up just before the party.

Source: http://www.1up.com/features/dragon-age-2-afterthoughts?pager.offset=4

 

[Lostconfused]

Shame that the interview thread died down. You can have a lot of speculation about what Laidlaw said in that interview.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

Funny they should mention Leliana's Song. I didn't realise it while playing it, only when she started recounting her story in the main game later, but the two don't match up. Not a big deal but somewhat annoying.