Hi all! In the last part of the history of the Dragon Age series, I said that the director of the Scott Graig project, in his interview with EA 2004, confidently announced the readiness of the final version at the end of the winter of 2007 or at the beginning of 2008. However, the team came across numerous difficulties due to the engine and internal misunderstanding.
Problems of prologues
Probably one of the most difficult parts where they could not come to a common opinion was the prologue of the game. Let me remind you that they wanted to make the beginning of the story unique for every race or type. Because of this, both the writing of history and programming when transferring text material to the code are complicated.
Each background showed one of the individual conflicts, which hung out a world threat, explained the role of the player in future events, taught combat mechanics, research, interactions and the like. When developing several different backgrounds, the developers had to decide how it is logical to enter all this into the world of the game and invent the situation on the basis of which training was included.
So it took a rather huge work, it would seem, for a regular prologue for 2 hours. And they also abandoned the Nemesis system. Each introductory story should contain characters appearing in certain plot moments. They decided not to invent all this from scratch and simply chose certain heroes who 100% at least once will come across after a certain prologue.
Looking at the final version, which can be purchased at various sites, you can see that the player is offered to choose from three races: a person, an elf and a gnome. The first two has a separate story for the magician. Here, although two options, but this is considered one, nevertheless, the place of action and events are identical, only the race differs.
Further, a person has an option with a noble warrior/robber, and for the elves, for this class, a division into an urban look, living in elven, and wandering forest (dolly). In total, we already get four points in the entrance in the prologue. And a noble dwarf and a commoner for classes warrior/robber are also added. Total in the mythical ideal six times requires to prescribe the plot and program code, but since we are in the real world, everything was much more complicated and, of course, led to the rejection of additional prologues.
Of the simplest, this is that the magicians were locked only in the corresponding tower of the circle, which is why they did not show heroes who hide their unnatural forces, both for the race of people and for elves.
Playing for a person-person, a player would be a son or daughter of a farmer, whom the Gray Guard Duncan saves from the creatures of darkness soon. On the one hand, they wanted to write a story for commoner, where he lived a simple and boring life, and then inspired by his savior and decided to become a gray guard also. On the other hand, it was planned to make him a killer or thief who was put down on trial, but this would be like a prologue with a gnome.
At some point they wanted to completely switch to barbaric origin. In the history of Dragon Age, in the early period of the development of the world in the southeastern Tedas, one of the oldest human tribes, called Alamarri, settled. One part of the tribes settled in the mountains, and the other in the marshy forest expanses and in the tundra, which over time began to be called the Wild Land of Corcars. The highlanders were called the Avvars and were considered freedom -loving, proud and stubborn.
Swamp tribes (Hasinda) hit magic and shamanism. They were so much afraid that on the border with them they specially built the reconnaissance and defense fortress of Ostagar. It is also believed that once Flent with her daughters joined the Hasinds. They gathered such a powerful army that all the North armies could not resist them. Only after a long time they were defeated by the United Army Alamarry and Gnomes. Therefore, these tribes are not trusted even after many years.
It was because of such features that the team believed that the barbaric tribes require a special and specific system of dialogs. Also, the tribes, although they were human, the culture and life of the Ferldenstsy should have been incomprehensible to them, which made it possible to introduce a new system of research on the world.
Naturally, this sounded difficult, and during implementation the process was slowed down. Plus, the artists had to think through the specific clothing designs for barbarian tribes, but after many attempts they refused this. Actually, the prologue with the barbarians was also frozen.
In addition to these stories, a ton of processing touched the introductory part for the magician. It is easy to guess that the problem was to create an otherworldly space called a shadow, which in the plot was separated from the real world with a metaphysical barrier – a curtain. This place was to become the abode of various spirits, demons and other otherworldly creatures. In addition to this, the main character could do what is impossible in the real world of Tedas. For example, transformation in other creatures could be applied.
More or less it was possible to build and even force to work, but due to severe implementation, this functionality was used only in one mission. The main character could reincarnate in a stone golem, a mouse, an obsessed magician (witchcraft) and a fiery man. But, unfortunately, most of the episode is sharpened to overcome obstacles using reincarnation into one of the forms. It so happened that the player was very limited, because of which it will not be possible to fully enjoy the transformation process.
From golem https://piratespinscasino.org/withdrawal/ to the mouse
From golem to the mouse
The introductory story of the magician was rewritten four times. The first three writers were either not able to create the right atmosphere, or their plans were virtually impossible to reproduce. A successful attempt was the writer Cheryl Chi, who became responsible for this prologue.
Even from interesting points on this prolus, it is worth highlighting that in the magic room with various artifacts there is a statue of the wolf Fen’haryla. The scriptwriters already said that this character will play an important role in future stories if the game becomes successful. So, it is worth making a reference even at the very beginning, when no one will immediately guess that they met such an important hero.
By the way, according to the plot, this statue blows up the stone wall, but in fact the engine was not capable of such. They got out of the situation as follows: they took the third -party effect of the explosion, stretched it so that all the stone blocks disappeared, and before the final action they simply removed the wall. Well, they did not forget to put the camera in a horizontal position so that the whole picture was a little at an angle and the whole secret of the focus is not
Even here they got it Feng‘Harela
Even here they got it Feng‘Harela
You can still find out in the magician of the magician about the ritual of pacification. If the student is not able to control his strength or is not able to pass the final exam, where he should resist the demon’s attempts to master it, then his connection with the shadow is blocked. It is from there that magicians draw strength, and since demons live in the other world, there is always a danger of becoming obsessed.
The ritual itself is carried out quite simply: a special lyrium stigma is applied to the student’s forehead, thereby creating a protective seal. And just the same, the artists completely forgot to demonstrate this important detail. In Dragon Age: Origins, not a single pacified press on the forehead. Outwardly, they are no different from the usual ones, and if it were not for a specific unemotional speech, it will not be possible to understand that a special ritual was carried out. In subsequent parts, this defect was fixed.
Monsters
Along the way with the above problems, of course, new. As I said earlier, at first there should have been various forms of demons in the game. Take the same archdemon who was converted into a dragon. It’s funny that misunderstandings also arose with a demon of desire.
James Olen was an ardent Dungeon and Dragons fan, so he immediately noticed several monsters, which can be used as a basis for a new design. He made appropriate notes and sent them to all. And on one of the lines the link "Sukkub" lit up. The artists clearly immediately understood by the name: since it was a demon of lust and debauchery, then it is necessary to portray a sexy girl with the corresponding identification signs.
As it turned out, there was a detailed description inside the link, which should be taken into account when creating. Naturally, the scriptwriters went deeper into him and did something like … a likely genie. And in the struggle for the choice of final design, artists certainly won. Nevertheless, it was limited, and no one wanted to do full redrawing.
Equally got a simplified look and several other characters. For example, the spirit of valor was not originally a transparent templar, but looked many times more epic. And the idleness demon was fully dyed in only one quest in the middle of the game. In the prolon, he was transformed into a small Bear-Wordalak, which significantly reduced labor costs.
It is entertaining that along with this the team did not want to add a large number of animals as enemies to the game. Yes, many locations consist of forests or fields, but a group of the same bears would look too usual. It was not possible to add snake-like or creatures with tentacles because of the “beautiful” engine, but in the caves and deep paths they were not shy about throwing the good old spiders. And all why? Yes, because they are easy to simulate and copy, which again leads to a strong reduction in labor costs. According to artists, the creation of ordinary creatures takes about three weeks. The larger the size, the more difficult the situation, so the archdemon spent as many as six weeks.
But the revived trees of the Silvanov were almost cut out of the game. The animation did not work correctly, and from powerful enemies they turned into an incomprehensible something. However, several developers decided to waste their free time to correct these models. So only thanks to them the Silvana survived to the final version.
The year of revitalization of the game
Calculation of scenarios, redrawing locations, monsters, characters and the like lasted from the beginning of development until 2007. What such a turning point occurred in the year when the production of the game was to almost end?
Let’s go back a little, namely, by April 12, 2005. On that day, Jade Empire was released, which was entrusted with very high hopes, since it became the first BioWare game, not based on some franchise. However, everything went awry.
Yes, the game of critics mostly praised, but the sales were unstressing and far from the planned plan. Initially, Jade Empire was an exclusive for the first Xbox. Everything would be fine, but the new version of the Xbox 360 was released only a few months later from the release of the game, namely November 22, 2005. Accordingly, to hope that the game will be massively dispersed after such a loud release was quite reckless.
Here, as usual, there is also the reverse side of the coin. The company simply did not have so many means to make a game on an improved gland. I have no doubt that BioWare’s leadership knew about the upcoming May announcement of the new console in 2005.
The risky step was not justified, and doubts about the successful release of Dragon Age and Mass Effect were born. The proposal for help came from the private investment company Elevation Partners. Moreover, among its founders was the former president of Electronic Arts John Ricciello.
And on November 3, 2005, Elevation invested $ 300 million in creating an alliance between the developers of the BioWare and Pandemic Studios video game, which made it one of the largest independent developers in the world.
Nevertheless, Elevation did not provide for subsequent budget complications. Analysts from BioWare came to the conclusion that the new games on the Xbox 360 requires twice as much money than used earlier. The situation gradually worsened and reached its peak in February 2007, when John Riccitello left Elevation Partners and returned to Electronic Arts.
Then he invited his former colleagues to redeem BioWare and Pandemic Studios for $ 800 million, 620 of which will be paid in cash, 145 shares, and another 35 – issued in debt to the end of the transaction, which will be held in January 2008. And on October 11, 2007 it was announced that both companies were leaving under the wing of Electronic Arts.
Having bought BioWare and Pandemic, EA acquired not only 800 employees working in four studios, but also a whole collection of brands, thanks to which the company closed the void that arose from the lack of role-playing games and an action-and-item.
Let us return back to 2006, when BioWare announced that their new Dan Taj officer, who was previously president and founder of Exile Interactive, will be the director of the Portable Games development project for Nintendo DS. Then a small survey was even conducted among players, whether they would buy portable versions of RPG Games BioWare.
Nevertheless, the project did not become starry, and in 2008 the first and last game from BioWare for Nintendo DS called Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhouse was released. But now it’s not about that. It is unclear under what conditions and how did Dan Taj so established himself, but he changed Scott Graig to the position of the director of the Dragon Age: Origins project. And the ice finally started, the team received new installations, and most importantly, a fresh goal appeared: to show the first gameplay video and trailer for E3 2008.
The team grew up again, and Mike Laidlow, who compiled the company for leading designers, was among the new arrivals. Officially, he began to work only when creating Jade Empire. Partially helped with the addition of Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark, for which he received special gratitude. Before Dragon Age, he worked on Jade Empire 2, but since the game was stagnated and the project was on the verge of closing, Mike was invited to a new team.
Then, to improve the development of December 18, 2007, Bioware was skilled with Pipeline FX to use its QUBE program for improved rendering management. Of course, the first project where it began to be used was the game Dragon Age: Origins. According to one of the developers, the program has several times increased labor productivity, which made it possible to create a new content in the vacant time to create a new time.
By the way, even before the merger with EA on February 13, 2007, Bioware said that the Dragon Age has used the SpeedTreert software package from Interactive Data Visualization, which allowed to automatically change the levels of leaves, the effects of the wind in real time and several coverage options. So at least with the realism of foliage on the trees the team had no problems.