Dragon Age: Origins Fragments of Ferelden Mod Released, Interview

If you’re in the mood for three more hours of adventuring in Dragon Age: Origins, you may want to grab the newly released Fragments of Ferelden mod over on BioWare’s social network. Here’s what you should expect:

This is a stand-alone playable module taking a new character from level 1 to level 9-11. It offers around 3 hours of adventure with a balance of dialogue and challenging combat, and forms the basis for future add-in modules.

In this module you play a young knight-errant forced to stand alone against a horde of Darkspawn in a very different vision of Ferelden. Pieces of Thedas were drawn into a mysterious planar Labyrinth a century ago; now the descendants of the survivors try to keep their fragile communities alive without losing the traditions of their ancestors. The Templars of the Tower – no longer witch-hunters but a small band of heroes chosen for ability and virtue – are their first and often only line of defence against the horrors of the Labyrinth.

This module was created very soon after the release of the toolset, and thus only leverages some of its power. However I hope you’ll agree that even that fraction allows for some great gameplay, and an exciting foundation for add-ins to come.

Additionally, fansite GreyWardens.com has kicked out a three-page interview with the mod’s creator, Mengtzu:

What made you want to break out of Dragon Age canon with Fragments of Fereldan? What elements of Dragon Age appealed to you, and what did not?

The real answer is that I quickly realised I didn’t want to use the level editor at all. For those not familiar with the toolset, what you might normally understand as a level (say Denerim Market) actually has two components a level layout and an area. The level layout is all the static visual content for the area buildings, trees, lighting etc. The area is the dynamic/gameplay content creatures, interactive objects, scripting triggers etc.

It’s pretty easy to reuse an existing level layout for your own areas and put whatever content you like in them. I didn’t have to remove anything before putting my stuff in for Fragments. So if like me you’re terrible at visually building an environment but OK at filling it with gameplay, it’s a great solution.

So I knew all my levels would be exactly the same as they were in the main game. I wanted to make a standalone module because I didn’t want to accidentally mess with people’s savegames, and because I wanted to tune and balance my encounters. I needed a reasonable fictional excuse!

The Labyrinth is the setting for my home D&D game. It’s fun because it combines exploration (literally anything could be around the corner) with a history and relationships (you know your old allies and enemies are out there, but you don’t know where). I’d already used it for my practice module in NWN2, and it seemed natural to bring Ferelden into the Labyrinth and have an excuse for using those level layouts in whatever configuration I liked.

I don’t know how obviously it comes across in play, but there’s an implication that someone is deliberately trying to mold your Fragments PC in the image of the PC from DA:O. Right down to arranging the furniture of the tower in the same way the Grey Warden would have seen it (ie a total mess).