Questions about DLC, item descriptions, last-minute changes, and much more have been answered in the latest developer responses on the official Dragon Age: Origins forums.
Mike Laidlaw on backstabbing:
If you take the right talents in the sword and shield tree, you can make yourself pretty much immune to being backstabbed. Some enemies have those talents as well.
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Backstabs are a specific, rogue-only type of attack that occurs whenever the rogue is positioned behind a foe, and the foe does not have immunity (as per the shield tree example noted above). They do improved damage compared to regular attacks and can be further improved by rogue talents.
Critical hits are a random event that can occur for any character. They do improved damage over regular hits, and can interact with certain conditions, such as causing a “shatter” on someone deep-frozen by cone of cold. There are talents and equipment items that can improve the odds and damage done by a critical hit, and also talents that ensure a critical hit, so long as they are accurate.
So, the two overlap a little, but rogue backstabs are very predicatable damage boosts, while critical hits are less predictable, but can interact with other abilities.
Mike Laidlaw on tactics auto-disabling:
Tactics disable themselves when you are controlling a character.
There’s nothing worse than trying to control someone who keeps trying to do things that you don’t want to do. You can, of course, set up tactics for all members of your party, main character included, so that when you’re controlling, say, Morrigan, the main PC will act in predictable ways.
Mike Laidlaw on making tweaks close to the game’s release:
It would seem like that would be the case, but it isn’t. The problem with “little tweaks” is that regardless of what you change, you have changed something. As developers, we go through a process called certification that takes anywhere from 2-4 weeks, or longer. In the case of a game that can easily take 100+ hours for a single, completionist play through, it’s into the realm of longer.
Certification is an exhaustive test that ensures that the game is ship-ready. When you are dealing with the game of the scope of dragon age, any tweak, regardless of size, forces that long process to restart, meaning very real game delays for you guys.
I understand that this is something of a hot-button issue for the OP, and I think that some constructive suggestions have been advanced in this thread, and for that, you guys rock. But at this point, I’m not prepared to delay the game over a single talent choice. That would not be fair to…well…everyone.
The starting talents that are there reflect the training you received when you were younger, they even support the story. They also ensure that you have at least one active skill when you play, letting you get used to the combat system with a character-appropriate ability. Not everyone’s going to agree with that reason, but it is a valid one, and one that I don’t think hurts the game experience, when put up against the 20+ talents you can acquire later.
David Gaider on the lack of half elves:
Nobody in the world uses “adaptive genes” as an explanation for why the elves breed as they do — or even knows what genes might be, for that matter. I used it as an attempt to explain the phenomenon in a way the original poster might understand. Someone has to be willing to suspend their disbelief and allow that it might work this way in this world, the same way as magical spells working as they do or the fact that when everyone dreams their mind enters an alternate dimension full of demons.
Getting caught up on the word “adaptive” is a little silly. I could have simply said “magical genes”, if you prefer, but I was trying to be more descriptive — certainly I was not attempting to be scientific. If you’d prefer to come up with a scientific explanation, I’ll leave that to you to work out. Attempting to elucidate is hardly going to work if someone is going to sit there with their arms crossed and be unwilling to play along with the notion in the first place, fantasy world or no.
David Gaider on companion specializations:
Provided that all other prerequisites are met, yes — you can have your party members take specializations. There are, however, some party members that will refuse to take certain specializations.
David Gaider on whether we can let the world burn instead of saving it:
Right — there are a lot of variations as to how you defeat the Blight and what you choose to get out of it, but we’re not going to spend our time trying to convince you to take part. As with most of our games, this is not just a simulation where you exist and elect to do whatever you like and go wherever you wish. This is a plot that you can take part in and direct according to the desires of your character. But if your character’s desire is to turn around and go somewhere else — well, there’s always the “off” button. Up to you.
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Like I said, there are different ways that things can play out– meaning different endings, yes. Choosing not to take part in the plot, however, is not an option. That’s all I was trying to say.
Fernando Melo on DLC and expansion packs (lengthy):
There’s been a few questions over time on the whole ‘why DLC’ thing, so, deep breath…
First, I think about half the questions are answered purely if you just change perspective or terminology a little. It has been mentioned already that from our perspective there is no ‘DLC instead of Expansion pack’ concept, it is all part of the DLC plan – if it helps, just rename DLC to post release content.
>>>I pine for the glory days of boxed expansions and world peace, where has it all gone?
The truth is that the marketplace has changed a lot in these last few years, particularly since we last released NWN.
Retailers are less inclined to carry traditional boxed expansions (unless it is for something like WoW) as the lower price point normally doesn’t give them a lot of margin to make it worth their while.
Also, have you gone to your local games shop are glanced at the PC section these days? Increasingly these are becoming an endangered species world wide – being replaced with larger and larger used and new console games sections.
Add to that the proliferation of online and downloadable content in general, and it is a much more preferable way to get additional content out to more fans than ever. This is going to be a fact of gaming moving forward. That’s not to say there won’t be retail expansions however, just that as an industry you’ll see a shift continue to digital means.
>>> Why smaller content vs bigger content (traditional expansion sized)?
That is probably a much more valid question. And really it has a lot to do with time to create content vs how long there is a demand for the content.
Think of it this way (and i’m generalizing) – most players are probably more likely to buy additional content for a game that they are playing or have just finished and are still into, than stopping a game they are currently playing through to jump back to a game they enjoyed several months back because a new piece of content was released for that one.
The challenge for developers (and publishers) these days is two fold: Time to make content is increasing. And how long players are sticking with a game is decreasing.
Smaller DLC allows developers to deliver more timely content and more frequently to fans. Also each time you release something there is an opportunity to attract new fans to the game – maybe the fact that red balloons are now in the DLC (plus the main game’s price has probably dropped over the few months since release) is enough to get them to engage now, etc.
So again, this isn’t to say larger content won’t be available, but as an industry you’ll see more and more a move towards small-medium content pieces as it has the best balance of time/cost & price/value for everyone.
I think the DLC challenge is that it is still not an exact science (or art for that matter), and there is definitely some content out there that doesn’t live up to its price. Hopefully as DLC matures, you’ll also find price points settle and players getting great value for their additional content.
Lastly – i’ll also say that for some players, the smaller/medium sized content just doesn’t do it for them. But usually, these are also players that are more willing to wait a bit longer for a larger content release.
For other players, they just want to consume anything and everything as long as it is ‘now’. And I’m sure we’ll also find difference in tastes across the 3 platforms.
In the end, we need to cater to all – and that too is part of the long term plan. Stay tuned
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I completely agree with your point in general about more substantial offerings being able to increase the audience, and we have a few things planned in that regard.
The Valve examples are actually very interesting, and that’s a very smart bunch – we’re big fans of their games (and not just us) for good reason but I don’t think those examples fall into a normal view of post release content.
They are their own retailer in a sense. So their perspective of players moving on may be different – they are still largely in touch with those gamers regardless, and that may (I hope) afford them a bit more time between releases.
HL2 is also as much about it being an engine, as a game. Games like TF2 and Portal are full games in their own right – they just happen to have been made on the same engine – and definitely deserve their own merit as such.
But they don’t really land in post release content territory (my opinion), otherwise in that sense anything ever released on the Unreal engine (Mass Effect included) could be considered post release content for the Unreal game.
And the HL2 episodes, depending on your definition of episodic (which, let’s face it, is like saying ‘new media’ or ‘next generation’), can be seen as much more akin to sequels – certainly in the time of their release relative to HL2, and as being available completely stand-alone.
But to your point, there’s no doubt those are successful in growing their overall audience – in fact, as I type this i’m staring at an Orange Box on my shelf.
But in DA terms, where we are at with respect to launching a new IP it only makes sense for us to focus on producing content that directly supports and grows that world as a franchise.
It is too early to consider using DA as a way to branch into new game directions – we still need to establish it as something players will want to care about first.
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I can’t speak for Bethesda, but I suspect their data like ours may tell a different story.
The one thing to keep in mind, which I talked about in the previous post, is that different content can serve very different audiences and purposes.
As you say, larger more substantial pieces can add to the audience. Smaller content can serve to sustain people already engaged with your game longer, or as a build-up or awareness piece for upcoming larger releases. Some content works wonders on one platform, and may completely bomb on another – but overall that too can help serve a purpose.
The trick is putting all of these pieces together into a coherent long term strategy. And I think that’s where DLC in the industry will mature – we will (should, I hope) see less of the spam of random content at launch and then nothing for a game, and more of a steady but meaningful pattern of additional content releases (some of which may not always appeal / or appear to appeal to some members, but does its job in strengthening the overall health of that fan community).
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Yes, the intention is to release simultaneously or as close as possible to it across the platforms.
Being realistic, it is hard to predict what the next two years have in store for us, but at least for now that is our intent and a goal that we’re walking into each of the DLC with.
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Again, it’ll be a little bit of everything – we want to have things that are cool for not only PC gamers that can mod, but also not forget console gamers who cannot.
I wish I could sit here and guarantee we will never disappoint over the next two years. Given our forums, I’m sure that regardless of what we do we’ll probably end up upsetting some fans with some of the DLC at some point.
But I am expecting that not everything will be for everyone, and that is ok – something else will be around the corner that will appeal.
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We’re trying very hard to keep the game and content accessible to as many players as possible. Having disc versions of DLC would be great, but its a challenge to get something like that into retail to be honest – we’d like to and are trying to make it happen.
Also, while we have said we do have plans to roll out everything from items onwards, the Memory Band itself won’t be on the store. For the longest time the MBand as the first public facing DLC that was completed, becoming our test piece of content for the system, and evidently was on that journalists’ build by mistake – there’s no intention to actually sell the MBand on the store.
The store is one of the ways we can present additional content to you – it is not meant to be an items marketplace, which is more the Sims route. Actually, in the case of DA:O the majority of things on the store will not be small items at all.
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Social site is accessible through your PC’s browser, although all platforms can send character stats and data to the site, which you can share with other community members.
Content created by builders (modders) will only be available for PC. In-game, all platforms will have access to a DLC store which specifically for consoles ultimately grabs content from 360 marketplace or PSN – think RockBand. From the DLC store in the game itself, you will also be able to enter in your codes that come with the box to get DLC like the Memory Band and The Stone Prisoner.
Fernando Melo on confirmed CE contents worldwide:
Nearly there folks – we’ve been able to confirm a few things and gather up more info for you.
I’m working with Chris Priestly to prepare an update across the forums as soon as we can, instead of piecemealing it out – we have a few folks out of commission coming out of PAX which is slowing this down however, but hopefully sometime this week.
As mentioned before, we will likely close or unsticky this thread but create a new sticky with just the facts ma’am. Bear with us.
As to the more frequent questions on here…
PC CE box:
North America
– steel book (aka. metal tin), map, etc as per our page.
– English only box & docs
– Quebec: See France note
Germany
– steel book (aka. metal tin), map, etc as per our page.
– German only box & manual, however map & bonus content is still in English
UK
– Only the GAME exclusive edition is available
– Plastic dvd case with cardboard sleeve, no map
– English only box & docs
France
– Sorry, there is no French box & docs which means it will not be able to be sold there due to Toubon law
– Haven’t been able to confirm, but I believe this would mean it will also not be available in Quebec
Rest of World (yes, incl rest of Europe, Nordic countries, Oz, etc)
– steel book (aka. metal tin), map, etc as per our page.
– English only box & docs
Note 1: there are limited numbers of these (particularly the Rest of World), so it may still not show up in some countries or shops – as always, make sure you check with your local retailer
Note 2: Some territories won’t carry all languages that the game supports. When we do the full update I’ll try to call out the ones we are aware of – again, best to check with local retailer or EA Store if you have one
Digital Deluxe:
Rest of World
– as per our page
UK
– does not include the 3x CE items are these are exclusive to the GAME box edition
Note 1: There are a lot more pre-order sites coming ‘online’, with more in the upcoming weeks. You should start to see not only the regular digi edition but also the deluxe edition at your prefered digi sites in the upcoming weeks.
Fernando Melo on the availability of Warden’s Keep:
Warden’s Keep will be available at launch – folks that grab the digi Deluxe version get a code to download it for free, and anyone else can purchase it if they want the extra DLC.
All DLC will go out supporting the game’s languages at the same time. So whatever language you are playing DA:O in, the DLC will just follow suit.
Brian Chung on console targeting:
You can also use the D-pad to cycle the targets around.
You can always tell who you have targeted because you’ll see a “[Name of Target]” sign floating over them, and an arrow pointing down.
You can also see a health bar under the name, so you can do the group targeting the weakest creature tactic.
David Sims on the length of item descriptions:
Item descriptions are actually relatively short, at least compared to BG. If an item has lore, it’s added as a codex entry when you get the item.
David Sims on the best inter-party dialogue:
Well Sten and Morrigan do have some excellent banter. As do Alistair and Leliana, and Wynne and Zevran, and Ohgren and dog…
You know what, it’s all good. It’s all really good.
Except maybe Wynne and Leliana. Their interactions are a bit too friendly for my tastes.
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Dog is a bit like R2D2. You don’t understand what he’s saying, but you can learn a lot from what the party member is saying to him. As for quantity, dog has as much banter as other party members, but not as much dialog or as many interjections.
David Sims on hearing all party banter:
For banter, that is the ambient back and forth conversations between party members, it’s possible to game the system and hear everything: just try all the different combinations and wander around a lot.
There’s a lot more to the followers than just banter however. Those who replay the game will see new content if they switch up their party, no matter how thorough they were the first time.
David Sims on skipping cutscenes:
There’s no way to exit a conversation other than to select responses until it ends, as was the case in KOTOR, JE and ME. Hitting escape will skip any cutscene or line of conversation. To select a line you have to press a number key or click on it with the mouse.
Stanley Woo on speeding through the origin stories:
We worked really hard to put a lot of content into each and everyone of the origin stories. not so little that it seems rushed, and not so much that they seem heavy, but just enough to give you a taste of the story, the world, and various world concepts (eg. how city elves live, what mages go through, what dwarf nobles have to deal with, etc.) before sending you off into the main story.
That said, it is indeed possible to just speed through the dialogues and go straight to the combats, if that’s more your thing.
Stanley Woo on making changes to the game this late in development:
Nope, for a number of reasons.
1. It’s waaaaaaaaay too late for any changes to the game at this point.
2. Players often don’t know enough about the inner workings of the game when making suggestions. Their suggestions may be too expensive or difficult to implement, or may not work with the kind of game we want to make. Or they may consider something very easy to do, when in reality, it is not.
3. You won’t find many developers who look to an online forum to tell them what to do. They hire full-time professional developers whose job it is to figure out what to do and how to do it.
4. Some suggestions made are mutually exclusive. You’ll see one player who wants real-time combat. Another will want turn-based combat. Who do you listen to?
5. Some players believe that, if players disagree on a given feature, we should implement the feature and give players the option of using it or not. Many also believe that this is a quick, cheap, easy way of doing things.
6. We may just disagree on what makes a good game/idea/suggestion.
7. Keep in mind that a patch is generally used to fix a bunch of problems in the game, not to change the way the game works.
To put it simply, there is no “realistic” chance of it happening, but please don’t let that dissuade you from making suggestions. A developer might like the idea and keep it in mind for a future game, or the idea might inspire him. Also keep in mind that DA comes with a toolset, where users can create their own content. An idea that isn’t picked up by us may be picked up by community developers for their own projects.
Stanley Woo on Leliana’s weapon choices:
I had Leliana dual-wield, more often than not. Once she got to higher levels, she became ridiculously awesome. I won’t say unstoppable, because she wasn’t as well armoured as I would have liked, but she was certainly able to help me out a lot.
Sydney Tang on managing aggro and running into NPCs:
I personally avoid using the abilities that exist only to manage aggro.
With all the other options available to you, it’s never necessary to use those abilities, not even on Nightmare difficulty.
I find it much more fun to control the battlefield by relying on positioning. And by positioning, I don’t mean a static wall of meatshields. Combat is usually much more dynamic than that. My squishies kite the enemy fighters and move out of line of sight of enemy archers. My melee party members take an active role, intercepting, body blocking, and using slowdowns, stuns, and knockdowns.
The party coordinates their movement so that, for example, friendly targets are conveniently out of the way and hostile targets are bunched up just as friendly-fire area-effect spells become ready.
If you prefer a more hands-off approach rather than controlling the individual movements and ability use of all your party members, then the aggro management abilities can help make that easier. It’s up to you.
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I’ve never had to worry about non-hostile NPCs blocking my way in DAO. They generally stand and move about where this won’t happen.
As for hostiles blocking a doorway, you may be able to fix that with a knockdown or knockback. Conversely, they might be able do the same to you.
Sydney Tang on health/mana regeneration:
The die-or-knocked-out inconsistency bothers me too, but I understand that it is necessary to avoid reloading for people who hate reloading. Having characters die in combat but at the same time allowing the game to continue is not an option because you’d soon run out of party members to recruit.
Personally, I always reload if any of my party members go down in a fight. I do this mainly because I like a challenge, but you can also do this as a way of avoiding the issue of your party playing by different death rules than everyone else in the game.
Sheryl Chee on where the character names came from:
I’m fairly certain that at least three or four of the party member names were names of characters in a roleplaying game that David was running. I’m not too sure of the details, you’ll have to ask him when he gets back. It could have been a LARP or a tabletop game and they were either names of NPCs or of characters played by his friends. I’m pretty sure Leliana is one of them. Morrigan might be one too.
Mary Kirby on in-game racism:
There was never a period when elves and humans were friends and “made babies together.” The elves were the only people in Thedas. Then the humans showed up out of nowhere. The elves tolerated their presence, but only just barely. The humans brought diseases with them that the elves had no defense against, which made them sick and even killed some of them. Then the elves realized they were becoming mortal and aging like humans. They withdrew from humans as if the humans all had cooties, which, let’s face it, they probably did. Cue the war.
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It seems very likely the ancient elves must have had some contact with the dwarves who were right there, but it’s hard to say for certain because:
a) The dwarves have no interest in surfacers. They might have recorded King Somebody being really clever and making a lot of money or finding some new source of supplies, but they wouldn’t have thought to mention that it came from trade with non-dwarves.
b) The elves have nothing of their ancient history but fractured stories. And if they knew about the dwarves, that didn’t make it into the oral traditions that survived.
As far as most historians are concerned (which is to say, the Shaperate and most human scholars) the dwarves enter the picture when the ancient Tevinter sought them out and befriended their king.
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They have very precise records going back for thousands of years before they made their agreements with Tevinter. They just don’t care in the slightest about people who aren’t dwarves before they ally with Tevinter. The Memories don’t mention surfacers. And they only just barely acknowledge the existence of the human kingdoms after that point.
Mary Kirby on becoming an open-minded templar:
You learn Templar techniques. You do not become a Templar. You can pick the Assassin specialization without assassinating anyone, too.
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You could not have been a Chantry Templar and a Grey Warden at the same time. Wardens are required to be politically neutral. If you were a member of a craftsman guild or the army of Rivain or an Orlesian Chevalier, you would have been made to renounce your ties to that guild, nation, Empress, etc. when you were taken as a recruit. You certainly can’t be a Grey Warden and then go join some nation’s army. The Chantry is no different.
What if a Blight starts in the qunari lands? Or in Tevinter? The Wardens have to put aside all concerns of faith or politics in order to do their jobs.
Whether or not they always succeed at doing so is sort of the question…
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Templars have officers who hold them accountable for their actions. They have Revered Mothers and Grand Clerics and the Divine herself who hold them accountable for their actions. They’re not recruiting rapists and murderers off the street just because they say they love the Maker.
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There’s no requirement for them to maintain thoughts of goodness and virtue in order to function as anti-mage troops. There’s no possible way for the Chantry to determine someone’s “moral center” aside from letting him join and seeing what he does.
The Knight-Commanders of the Templars have a tendency to assign those templars who seem a little to eager to smite mages to other, less people-oriented positions, like standing ceremonial guard duty in the Chantry. Or washing dishes in the monastery kitchen. Or guarding the Revered Mother’s vegetable garden from rabbits. Much like any officers in any army when finding some soldiers who, while perfectly good at combat, don’t have the best judgment.
Chris Priestly on console “balancing”:
Yes. It means we have dumbed it down. Console gamers are all fools and knuckleheads and require only the most simple of twitch based, tea-baggingly simple combat to enjoy as they are mouth-breathing dolts amused by headshots and shiny objects, like house keys.
Why does the first thing always seem to be “it means dumbed down!”? I know that wasn’t the intents and there were other possibilities mentioned, but it always leads with “dumbed down” for consoles. There just seems to be some innate prejudice that console players only play “dumb” games.
The console version was rebalanced as, for memory reasons, there are generally fewer NPCs on screen at once for the console versions. So if we wanted the overall difficultly of an area to be “10” we could have one “3”, two “2” and 3 “1” enemies on the PC. For the console we would make this two “3” and two “2” oe create a wave system or whatever.
The balancing was done to keep all the fun and challenge in the game no matter what version/platform you play.
Chris Priestly on combat mechanics:
You essentially did the same thing in Mass Effect (which you seemed to have enjoyed). In ME, you chose biotic or tech abilities and combat powers through the radial menu. It was still real time (if you chose not to use these powers, the game kept attacking you and vice versa).
Dragon Age: origins works essentially the same way. On the PC you can drag powers, spells, abilities, etc to hotkeys. On the console, you can either hotkey prefered spells/abilities or you can access them through the radial menu. Should you choose not to use them, the game keeps on attaking in real time.
There is no “turn based” combat in Dragon Age: Origins.
Chris Priestly on needing a rogue:
No, you do not HAVE to have a rogue in your party. Also, you do not HAVE to have a mage or a fighter.
If you do not have a rogue in your party, there will be things you cannot do (like open some locks for example). If you do not have a mage, you will not be able to cast magic. If you do not have a fighter, melee combat will be tougher.
Yes, there will be combinations of party members that work better or worse for some players (I personally like the standard 2 fighters, 1 mage, 1 rogue), but it will be up to you to take along who you want.
A party of PC Mage, Wynne, Morrigan and Leliana would definitely be possible as would one of PC Warrior, Sten, Alistair and Dog. The choice is yours.
Chris Priestly on in-game racism:
Indeed. There is an undercurrent that runs through the whole game of racism and how you choose to play it (ignore it or embrace it) will be up to you. As mentioned, some humans have great disdain for elves. Dalish elves have great mistrust, and in some cases outright hatred, for humans. Dwarves don’t trust anyone who is not a dwarf and even have racism within their own caste system.
Now, whether you choose to play a character that is overtly pro or con a particular group, that is up to you. However, you will encounter a number of NPCs with different reactions to you based off your race.
Chris Priestly on whether there’s a cleric-like class:
There is not a “cleric” (as in D&D) type class in Dragon Age: Origins.
As mentioned, you can create a healing mage and have them wear armor or wield melee weapons, so that would be similar to a cleric. A mage can wear armor or wield weapons just like any other class, as long as they meet the requirements (such as a minimum strength score for example) to do so.
Chris Priestly on bows vs. crossbows:
There is little difference between the standard bow and standard crossbow firing basic ammo (arrows or bolts). The bow has slightly more range, the crossbow slightly more damage. As will all weapons, there are a number of different bows/crossbows with a number of different bonuses based off of their materials or their magical enhancements.
The special abilities (like Aim or Rapid Shot) apply to both the bow and crossbow.
