Dragon Age News Thread

Well, the final issue of the Knight Errant comic gets released on the 13th. Unless there is some big revelation, it doesn't appear as if this is going to be some lead-in to the game. I suppose we'll have to wait until a hypothetical novel for that.

Of course, if Vaea, Marius and Tessa (from Magekiller) are all in the next game as optional followers, I'll be pretty peeved at their continuing to use ancillary materials to introduce characters. They can say all they want that these things are optional, but while technically true, there is no debating that reading these types of introductions adds dimension to a character (or events) we see later on in a game, just as it did with Cole and the events in Masked Empire.

Vints don't have Templars like the South. Magekillers are killed specifically to deal with mages. It's kinda in the name.

It actually has. Magekillers are NOT "regular assholes with swords".

Gamasutra: 5 key lessons from the candid game dev book, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
www.gamasutra.com/view/news/304602/5_key_lessons_from_the_candid_game_dev_book_Blood_Sweat_and_Pixels.php


2) BioWare designer Daniel Kading on taking responsibility for fixing bad gameplay systems


www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/news/304602/DragonAge.jpg


Playtesting on an early build of Dragon Age: Inquisition revealed that the combat system was in shambles. But rather than make sudden overhauls or throw it out and start again, Schreier reports that lead encounter designer Daniel Kading got approval to grab the whole development team once a week for an hour of combat playtesting sessions. For these sessions, he and a group of other designers devised a set of encounters and post-playtest surveys that would help them pinpoint the problems.

When surveys came back during the first week of Kading’s experiment, the average rating was a dismal 1.2 (out of 10). Somehow, that was comforting to the Inquisition gameplay team.

“Morale took an astonishing turn for the better that very week,” Kading said. “It’s not that we could recognize the problems. It was that we weren’t shirking from them.”

The experiment worked. Every week they tweaked the combat systems based on playtest feedback, and every week the rating improved. After four weeks, when the experiment ended, the average rating from the surveys was 8.8.

TAKEAWAY: When part of a game isn't coming together, it can do wonders for both team morale (and the game itself) to not only recognize that you have a problem, but also turn your full attention to fixing it.

Oh, the book is by Jason Schreirer? Isn't that the guy some of the MEA fans want to murder for being a dick about being right about MEA?