Dragon Age 2 - Afterthoughts Interview @ 1Up

[Dhruin]

1Up has an "Afterthoughts" interview with Mike Laidlaw, where they ask some surprisingly good questions of the Dragon Age 2 lead. Laidlaw sticks to the company line but its a reasonably good read overall:

1UP: Since Bioware is known for taking consumer and critic feedback, and figuring out how to apply the most useful data gathered for the next title, it makes me wonder: If DA2 started work before DAO went out there, how did you arrive at the decisions that were made for developing DA2?
ML: That's a hard question to answer, because that implies that decisions were made and never revisited, which is absolutely not the case. We are constantly looking at it. I would say some directional decisions were made, like looking at the combat speed and responsiveness -- that was something that while we were working on the consoles, we understood as, "wow, this really feels awkward on the consoles." However, we wouldn't want to torpedo the overall control scheme and the way it feels on PC, so is there a way to -- now that console and PC are in harmony as top-of-mind -- see what steps we can take to increase the overall speed and the way that characters execute the orders that I give, as opposed to awkwardly waiting to get there. So some early decisions were made, and certainly some visual decisions for overall style were made, in part because we had a better understanding of the engine and how stylistic changes could result in greater performance, archer combat, and so on. So they were made early, and then evaluated again as we proceeded into Origins feedback and so on.

More information.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

Moderately interesting interview. What bugged me the most about it was his lame excuse on repeated content. He talks about having to choose between quality and quantity and wanting to give players more quests, which is a dodge. The real issue of course was they had very little time but couldn't release a 20 hour game, so they made a 20 hour game and then repeated it twice over. If he had just said "hey we had no time" I would have respected him more.

Then of course the EA bosses would be mad, which is probably why he is still obfuscating.

 

[azarhal]

They won't ever "say they had no time". Coorporate bosses don't understand that concept when it come to software development. In fact, I'm not sure if they understand what "developement" mean.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

After reading the "EA spouse" and the "EA louse" stuff I tend to agree with az (why did you chose this difficult-to-remember name ? - My brain ALWAYS wants to insert a "k" there ! :lol: ).

 

[aries100]

Moderately interesting interview. What bugged me the most about it was his lame excuse on repeated content. He talks about having to choose between quality and quantity and wanting to give players more quests, which is a dodge. The real issue of course was they had very little time but couldn't release a 20 hour game, so they made a 20 hour game and then repeated it twice over. If he had just said "hey we had no time" I would have respected him more.

Then of course the EA bosses would be mad, which is probably why he is still obfuscating.

I once read a review (which I can't seem to find right now) that the map in DA2 comes in a day and night time version. If this is the result of people wanting a day and night cycle in the game, I'll happily see this feature gone as long as it means giving us more content e.g. more original ares, and quests, to explore.

As for the EA bosses, yes, it seems that EA do not know that it takes at least 2½ hours, if not longer, maybe 3 or even 3½ years, to make a game.

 

[sakichop]

I found it weird he admitted they held up the realease of dao on pc to wait for the console. When they adamantly denied it prior to release.

 

[Holly Avenger]

Mostly marketing spin yet again...

What I find more interesting is looking at the bottom line - sales. And the best way I can do that is to look at sales charts on retailer sites. Take play.com for example - for all three platforms Dragon Age Origins is now AHEAD of Dragon Age 2 in the sales charts. That's just a week after release of DA2 here in UK... pretty damning. On PS3 DA:O is number 6 in the charts, with DA2 at number 18!

I guess people are holding off purchasing now the truth is out... I certainly have.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

I once read a review (which I can't seem to find right now) that the map in DA2 comes in a day and night time version. If this is the result of people wanting a day and night cycle in the game, I'll happily see this feature gone as long as it means giving us more content e.g. more original ares, and quests, to explore.

Every city area other than Darktown has a night and day version but they're not much different. Less people on the streets and some bandit mobs at night, that's all.

I found it weird he admitted they held up the realease of dao on pc to wait for the console. When they adamantly denied it prior to release.

No they didn't. They admitted the delay was to release everything at once for marketing reasons, though they did say the extra time would allow for more polish.

 

[spiraling69]

Mostly marketing spin yet again…

What I find more interesting is looking at the bottom line - sales. And the best way I can do that is to look at sales charts on retailer sites. Take play.com for example - for all three platforms Dragon Age Origins is now AHEAD of Dragon Age 2 in the sales charts. That's just a week after release of DA2 here in UK… pretty damning. On PS3 DA:O is number 6 in the charts, with DA2 at number 18!

I guess people are holding off purchasing now the truth is out… I certainly have.

I really hope that trend continues to prove a point. I'm sure more units willl be sold once the price gets lowered a bit though. I must confess, I bought the game after telling myself "never!" It was more out of curiosity and desire to get my hands on another RPG. I feel that it is entertaining though, although I do prefer DAO.

Maybe they will accept the mistake they made and do the fans right next time around...

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Every city area other than Darktown has a night and day version

It's all night there, I guess ?

 

[SAGO]

EA to Biowear in the near future.

YOU HAVE FAILED. RELEASING CONTROL.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

It's all night there, I guess ?

It's underground, so I guess their intent was to say no one would know if it was dark or light outside.

Funny enough though, and a sign of yet more rushing and lack of polish, there are areas of Darktown that have light coming in from above whether you have the menu set to night or day.

 

[azarhal]

After reading the "EA spouse" and the "EA louse" stuff I tend to agree with az (why did you chose this difficult-to-remember name ? - My brain ALWAYS wants to insert a "k" there ! :lol: ).

You can just use Az, I do it all the time.

It's the name of my first BG2 character, it's a deformation of "hazard".

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Ah, thanks for your explanation !

 

[Corwin]

Strange, one of my favourite games Daggerfall reused dungeon assets all the time and yet I don't remember people making a huge issue out of it. U7 did the same thing with large parts of the world; reusing assets makes cost effective sense. The waves of mobs popping out on top of you annoyed me MUCH more than the reused assets!!

 

[rune_74]

Every game reuses assets. Ask any indie developer why. It's all about money and time.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

Strange, one of my favourite games Daggerfall reused dungeon assets all the time and yet I don't remember people making a huge issue out of it. U7 did the same thing with large parts of the world; reusing assets makes cost effective sense. The waves of mobs popping out on top of you annoyed me MUCH more than the reused assets!!

It's not the assets. I would have little problem with reused assets. The problem is the game literally has about 3 dungeons and 5 or 6 building interiors and it uses them over and over again. Interiors as in the exact same interior, design-wise, asset-wise, floor-plan, etc.

 

[Nerevarine]

It's not the assets. I would have little problem with reused assets. The problem is the game literally has about 3 dungeons and 5 or 6 building interiors and it uses them over and over again. Interiors as in the exact same interior, design-wise, asset-wise, floor-plan, etc.

Exactly. Damn near every game reuses assets to some degree - for example, do we really expect developers to make every individual piece of furniture a unique, standalone asset? The problem is that the game makes no effort to hide this fact, reusing the exact same layouts multiple times, with identical encounter locations. The trick is to create each dungeon layout by hand and place unique/new encounters, items, enemies, traps, etc. alongside the basic reused assets to at least create the illusion that the player is not literally in the exact same place that they have already been several times before. The failure to moderately distinguish each new location - and the blatant recycling of identical locations - is another symptom of the rushed development cycle (or perhaps outright laziness when it comes to dungeon design).

 

[Gragnak]

It's not the assets. I would have little problem with reused assets. The problem is the game literally has about 3 dungeons and 5 or 6 building interiors and it uses them over and over again. Interiors as in the exact same interior, design-wise, asset-wise, floor-plan, etc.

Holy words!

 

[Daddy32]

It's not the assets. I would have little problem with reused assets. The problem is the game literally has about 3 dungeons and 5 or 6 building interiors and it uses them over and over again. Interiors as in the exact same interior, design-wise, asset-wise, floor-plan, etc.

Wasn't this the case of Mass Effect, too? All side-quest have taken place in the same damn ship - I kept thinking: "I've already cleared this place, didn't I?"