BioWare @bioware In 1995 young BioWare began the incredible journey of game development. Thank you for sharing worlds, stories, and companions with us over the last 25 years. Join us for the next 12 months as we celebrate the amazing work done in our studios and by our inspiring fans. #BioWare25
Emily (aka Domino) Taylor pentapod "Looks like some sort of ghost issue. You'll likely need programmer support to identify the culprit." "Yikes. Do you know who may know about ghosts?" "Any of your friendly neighborhood programmers should happily run away screaming when you bring it up." #overheardintheoffice 👻
Emily (aka Domino) Taylor pentapod "Look, you can now see the journal in the HUD!" "Can you smell that? That's PROGRESS!" *sniff* "Or Axe Body Spray?" #overheardintheoffice
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Dragon Age The Veilguard Prime Posts: 3,912 Prime Likes: 9733 Posts: 2,894 Likes: 12,961
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Dragon Age The Veilguard
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes Got an early copy of Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights! I believe hashtag-today’s teens would refer to this as a “chonk,” or possibly a “thicc boi,” but I will just say it is big and contains many fun stories.
Jos Hendriks @sjosz Today was a pretty damn good day at work, got to share progress on Cool Thing with my team and it could really not have played out better.
Destroyer of Fictional Worlds! And so damn tired. @arone_le_bray This is a thing. That exists. Somehow, even in this reality... It is an amazing honour to be in the same collection with these brilliant, creative people. I am so grateful.
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes Got an early copy of Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights! I believe hashtag-today’s teens would refer to this as a “chonk,” or possibly a “thicc boi,” but I will just say it is big and contains many fun stories.
Twitchy Stitches @chaosfay Do I need to real all the comics before reading this, or is it stand-alone?
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes There are a few nods to stuff that happened in the comics, but it isn’t required reading in any story. (It would help to know the events of DAI and Trespasser, though.)
Harpers Faery @harpersfaery New to the party: Solas has a cadence??
David Gaider @davidgaider You can sing all of Solas’s lines to the tune of Hallelujah. 🙂
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes NOT ALL OF THEM GAWD
Charlie Cordes aka. Sylien #FreeChelseaManning @sylien_ It’s an inspired choice and it works incredibly well, but I’ve been wondering: Why hallelujah? 😊
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes It always sounded sad and kind of profound and magical to me. (After speaking with @karinweekes, who knows music, we have learned I am a giant sucker for stuff written in 6/8.)
Chris Morgan @c_Morgs65 As both a fan and professional editor I am immensely proud of how this anthology turned out. I can only hope that I've done my part to make the DA community proud. I hope that everyone knows the BioWare folks in this anthology are just as passionate and awesome as the rest of us.
Brianne Battye 🦇 @bbattye I certainly appreciated your notes! 😁 I can't believe this will be out in the wild soon...
Chris Morgan @c_Morgs65 It's that special cocktail of dread and excitement. I LOVE Publishing.
Brianne Battye 🦇 @bbattye Haha EXACTLY!
Ari Marmell @mouseferatu Okay, but how was there not a promotional campaign using the phrase "Brace yourselves. Tevinter is coming"?
Chris Morgan @c_Morgs65 I fought hard for putting mustaches and Hawaiian Shirts on everyone, didn't want to press my luck
Christopher Keeslar @canissamus Also, isn't it Nevertevinter Nights?
Emily (aka Domino) Taylor pentapod At the latest #BioWare All Hands meeting today and the 5-year service awards were just given out to folks who’ve been here 5 years... and the 5-year names were 75% female! So great to see such a high % of women long-termers
Jay Watamaniuk @jaywatamaniuk And congrats on your award for being awesome!
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes Have been thinking about why Narrative teams have a hard time in games sometimes.
One reason: Writers/narrative designers make asks that feel concrete for reasons that often feel fuzzy.
“Yes, I NEED a cutscene here, even though it’s expensive. Why? Because the story needs it.”
A character artist can say how expensive building and rigging a character is, and the VO director can say how much the actor will cost. The cinematics folks will have time estimates on the scene. The writer has to justify spending that cold hard cash with “quality of narrative.”
Now, this fuzziness isn’t always actually that fuzzy. Every writer on the team may understand that you NEED a scene with that character in moments like that, or the whole plot stinks.
But a lot of game writers are self-taught, so they may lack the vocabulary to explain this.
And, even if the narrative team CAN explain their reasoning for why they need the thing, that explanation only works if other departments are willing to learn narrative’s rules or trust that narrative knows their rules even if other folks don’t.
If I order a level designer to break her rules by putting in more NPCs than our memory budget allows, the game will crash. That rule is easily testable.
If I don’t get a scene I know I need, nothing crashes. A non-writer might look at the mission and say, “Seems fine to me.”
This year, I’m trying to develop a friendly-to-non-writers vocabulary for how some of our rules work, in hopes of making that dialogue more accessible.
We will see how that goes!
Dude this literally sounds like the #1 fix to why I didn't like DAI as much as the other games
I have really great hopes for DA4 now that Patrick is in lead and seeing this.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah I’m randomly updating this thread so I’m going to add this logo treatment of Exodus that @tylerd_lee sent me a while ago. Are twitter moments still a thing?
Another add to this. If you look in the credits, you can see the Dragon Age teams commitment to stupid acronyms.
David Gaider @davidgaider I'm still salty about the fact they wouldn't call it Exodus.
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes I mean, I’m okay with that not having happened, because trying to explain that we’re working on “Dragon Age Numbers” would be confusing.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah Numbers is the fourth one... But if Genesis -> Origins Exodus -> Exodus Leviticus -> Inquisition Numbers -> ...
... This is going to activate some weird bits of Twitter I expect
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes How weird are we talking Is it time to post pictures of my feet? Because I was planning to save that for E3
it's pronounced aksfjh @aksfjh I look forward to Dragon Age 1st and 2nd Chronicles where you spend 90% of the game showing who is whose son/daughter.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah Dragon Age: Begats
David Gaider @davidgaider Inquisition as Leviticus is a really bizarre prompt.
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes Don’t you remember the whole bit where Corypheus mixed wool and linen and ate a bunch of shellfish?
David Gaider @davidgaider It was really weird when you kept asking Cassandra if she was having her period, and telling Dorian he wasn't allowed to trim his beard.
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes WOW did you see how I stuck with shellfish?
David Gaider @davidgaider "I can't attack the same enemy as you, Cassandra. It is now unclean."
seb hanlon @hanlsp FOR I HAVE SEEN THE SHRIMP COCKTAIL OF THE GODS AND IT WAS EMPTY
David Gaider @davidgaider But did it include an offering of salt? That is important.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah There are some flying insects that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper But all other flying insects that have four legs you are to regard as unclean
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes Plus nugs
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes Dear everyone, these tweets were me joking with @biomarkdarrah and were not intended to tease any kind of E3 announcement. My feet are kinda gross, and pictures of them will in no way be tied to Dragon Age promotional content. Unless marketing asks. Which is unlikely.
David Gaider @davidgaider I'm still salty about the fact they wouldn't call it Exodus.
Eligos @devilhellion Did the Gaider Laws of Naming Things fail in this case? What's the story behind it?
David Gaider @davidgaider I think EA believed that if it didn't have a number in the title, people might not believe it was a sequel? I'm not sure. Was a long time ago, now.
Allan Schumacher allanschumacher I think with awakening there was concerns it'd be seen as an expansion. I remember writing to mark examples of sequels with the subtitle lik Terminator 2.
He replied with a breakdown that was sent before it was finished. Was still flattered he did that Haha.
Jéssica 🌈 🎮 🦇 @a_kind_of_magik In Dragon Age 2 all characters are romanceable regardless of our character gender. I find this so wonderful ❤️
Cody Archbold @codytropes While it’s nice that everyone gets to romance whomever they want. I like the realism that comes in when a girl like Traynor turns us down if for being men. It makes them feel more like fully fleshed out characters and less like romance bots.
Jéssica 🌈 🎮 🦇 @a_kind_of_magik I will never understand why people think that the sexuality in other realities has to copy our sexuality. ME takes place in the future. DA takes place in ANOTHER PLANET.
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes This is a choice we have to make that will never make everyone happy. Either we lose people getting to romance everyone, or we lose representation of followers with set orientations, which makes the world feel more real and lets us tell stories like Dorian’s.
There is no way to have it both ways. In DAI, we chose to give followers a range of orientations, because it was worth the drawbacks to have followers who were explicitly gay, regardless of how you felt about it.
We might decide to change that up in future games. We might not. Whatever we decide, we are looking at what lets us give the most positive experience overall, with awareness of the costs. It will be, as it was in DAI, a choice we are willing to stand behind.
