Dragon Age News Thread

I would much rather keep getting the kinds of involved cinematics we have, especially for romance scenes, if that means sacrificing body types. If Dorian puts his hand on my human Inquisitor's waist, that's because the animator knows where the waist is on a human male because the height and weight are fixed.

While it's admittedly an extreme example due to the unique size, John Epler had to put in a lot of extra work to make Iron Bull compatible with all race and gender combinations. And that was without custom bodies and knowing where things would be for each of those fixed options.

In the DA2 days, he told an anecdote about working with just male/female animations and the differences caused by the gender swap. In that example, there was a scene in Mark of the Assassin where Hawke swats at a bee on his/her arm. He had to keep working on the female animation because she kept clipping into her arm. That was with the same race, but different genders with fixed bodies, to say nothing of potential headaches with custom bodies.

Serious question, because my gaming experience is so limited: can anyone point to a game or games with custom bodies where there are involved animations, including interactive animations between models (like romance scenes)? Skyrim has a weight slider, but there aren't involved person-to-person animations in that game, outside of limited mod things.

Solas looks fine until you put him in certain armors....then it's MY EYES! MY EYES!!

The eyelashes comparison is on point, though. Maybe that was the wrong thing to pick, but the larger point is, if it's a cost trade-off, there's other stuff fans would rather give up than a little body diversity. I'm not saying fifteen degrees of freedom, like Arnold Schwarzenegger to Danny DeVito, or even The Iron Bull to Cadash, but a couple of additional degrees would make a huge difference to immersion, identification (if it's the player character) and visual interest.

And we have existence proofs where body size variability is made in an animation rigging-neutral way, like for Saints Row The Third. The skinny/fat/strong triangle used the same skeleton, just varied the model over those dimensions.

High cost in and of itself isn't a showstopper. Hell, having both 4k and 2k textures for everything, or physically-based volumetric rendering, are high cost too, but games manage to deliver those. And then the people with low-end rigs who can't even appreciate the 4k textures or volumetric rendering end up with a trade-off they didn't want and can't benefit from anyway.

I really don't care to have body sliders, so I would think giving something else up to get them would be a bad deal. They offered us a choice of 4 different races to play, people want body sliders on top of that?? Never going to happen. Maybe if they went the DA2 route and only allowed you to play as a human, you could get some body size choices in there. SWTOR offers different body size choices, and from what I've seen they all work well in cutscenes/animations. I have no idea how that would translate into other games though, and it's on a totally different engine.

DAI's problem with races was that they were added as a result of that extra year of development time. If the game is built with them from the beginning I don't think there would be much of a problem.

Also, people just have a mental block when it comes to the role of Inquisitor and comparing it with the Warden. In DAI, just as in DAO, the Inquisitor transcends race. People believe you are the Herald of Andraste, regardless of whether you refute them and regardless of whatever race you refute them with, even human. DAO seems like it had more racial content because of the origins themselves, and also because there were some unique dialogues when Wardens of whatever origin "went home," as it were, and did that quest hub -- dwarves going to Orzammar and getting unique dialogue. Aside from those things, the game plays the same, regardless of your origin because being a Warden transcends that. It's the same with the Inquisitor, only DAI had no origins to flesh out that racial content.

For DA4, I think the better compromise would be to have just two choices, human and elf, since those are the primary races in Tevinter. It still offers limited choice to the player, but also can enable the devs to have more tailored racial content within those limited choices than might be possible with a wider selection. They could have an entire branching path relating to Solas if you choose to play an elf, but I don't see that as an option if they have to divide resources for all four races. (I don't even play elves, so I'm suggesting content that I won't even see; it doesn't benefit me.)

I'd be kind of bummed out to be in Tevinter without being able to play as a (lowercase Q) qunari. And for dwarf players, dwarves have a unique relationship with the magisterium that's not present with other non-dwarf cultures.

I think a lot of fuss gets made about the amount of unique content for non-humans. A fuss that isn't necessarily shared by people who actually play them. I can generate unique content in my head to pad out the scenes that are shown on screen.

And even something very gamey and numeric, like the court approval penalties, adds flavor. I know that if I play a qunari or elf inquisitor, I'll have to spend more time sucking up to the Orlesians and make less mistakes. That's remarkably true to the experience of real-world marginalized groups. It's rarely about someone being overtly prejudiced, and more about having a subtly harder time in hundreds of small interactions. In places where humans are favored, they simply can get away with a wider range of behavior without being perceived as rude or uncultured.

Cost is time and effort. That's what I meant by cost.


That's what I meant by trade-offs. So far, we're in perfect agreement.

Of course. But does that mean fans should have no influence on trade-offs? Other than buy/don't buy the game?

What it seems like you are saying is that, because their is a risk that something you like might get removed in a trade-off, best not to let fans influence trade offs at all. But I don't see how putting your trust in the devs, and playtesters -- who probably have more influence than you'd be comfortable with -- is any better a situation. Stuff you like may still get axed.

So since you run that risk either way, why not have the channel open to the devs?

Probably not, but the larger point is that just because the cost of adding some new feature is high shouldn't automatically mean it shouldn't even be considered. Do the devs even know what the fandom's interest level is?

I mean better hair isn't cheap either, but they heard us loud and clear about that needing improvement.

Yea, but hair ain't affecting animation as much as body differences (same with textures you've mentioned earlier) and hairstyle in general is more visible than differences in body builds hidden under clothes and armors most of the time.

Also - I think it maybe too much of an assumption to say that body sliders haven't even been considered. But it's likely one of the first things that is being cut.

Personally, I'd like body sliders, but I'm not demanding them. I'd be happier with, say, more armor variety. And for it to be tintable from the start.

Could just hire more people to do the work, though. That's also an option. Then the time/effort cost doesn't matter so much. As someone pointed out, it takes time and effort, and ultimately money, to make the 4k textures or volumetric stuff that players without the applicable equipment won't even see. Being able to animate to an acceptable degree is only a matter of priority and what they're willing to spend the money on. and creativity can slash the costs like with all the shortcuts/body-type neutral moments the IB romance was developed with to be able to do it. Most of the time the camera angles and body positioning was such that it rendered the actual relative heights of the characters moot. (Or the dwarf got a barrel/box to sit on. lol)

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