Dragon Age: Origins Interview

Polygamia.pl has interviewed Mike Laidlaw of BioWare, lead designer of Dragon Age: Origins during the Wardens’ Quest event in London.  The interview covers a variety of topics, such as:

Recently there’s been a shift towards merging action games and RPGs. Do you think it’s inevitable, or will there be also place for more traditional RPGs?

I think there’s place for all kinds of games and when we think we’re getting action in our RPGs, all it takes is to look at something like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and look at all the RPG that got into a game that’s supposed to be just about driving and shooting. You could level up your driving skills, your sex-appeal, your muscle mass. San Andreas got a lot of RPG in there and it’s actually my favorite entry in the franchise. So I don’t think you have to look at it as an opposition. When people actually look at the old-school RPGs, I don’t think anyone wants to go back to really obscure interfaces, really hard to use things or typing in text commands again. I think what people are really looking forward is a grand experience and a story that is reactive. But I don’t think that in any way you have to look at some of the improvements that we got from the action games like the interface and say “oh, we don’t want those”.