Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect Andromeda, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
"So I know we have this whole "dread" wolf thing, but hear me out..."
Can You Pet the Dog? @canyoupetthedog A recent update for Ghost of Tsushima added unique fox animations. Now the foxes happily tap their feet in anticipation of pets, and players can also enjoy brand-new belly rubs.
THEY WHAT?
I must return to Tsushima IMMEDIATELY!
I loved petting the foxes! ...oh, and the new Ikki Island update....sure, that's nice too....
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
elena 'elle' tchi @elenatchii actually working on dragon age is great because i get to have the fandom be just @thesigularity and i for a while
the downsides: the writing team can actively judge my bad headcanons
Blair Thorburn @oiblair Probably called it *head*canon for a reason
elena 'elle' tchi @elenatchii bold of you to think i would ever be able not to share said headcanons a lifetime in fandom has broken me
Blair Thorburn @oiblair I had to curtail my posts in the writing channel, I was quickly running out of "official" reasons to get all the lore nuggets
John Epler @eplerjc Me, whenever someone asks a question that I don’t know.
elena 'elle' tchi @elenatchii I love that most of the writing channel questions are Blair, Anat and I... we're just working here for the lore
John Epler @eplerjc It’s an entirely valid reason to work here tbh.
Blair Thorburn @oiblair I think you'll find it is vitally important to know the entire romantic history of everyone in Thedas in order to balance the XP.
John Epler @eplerjc Personally I’ve never shipped a character so I don’t really get it (deletes all browser history and an entire folder of word documents)
elena 'elle' tchi @elenatchii .... boy am i glad i nuked my old fandom tumblr from orbit
Blair Thorburn @oiblair
John Epler @eplerjc I have another screen name that no one will ever learn, for a lot of fandom and RP reasons.
elena 'elle' tchi @elenatchii
John Epler @eplerjc I have described my job as ‘arbiter of canonical fanfic’ for a reason.
BioWare Gear Store @biowaregear Do you adore Dorian from @dragonage? So do we. That's why we're giving away this Dorian Collectors Plus and Pin . We want you to show and tell us why you love Dorian so much. The entry with the highest votes from the community wins. Enter here
BioWare Gear Store @biowaregear Kirkwall’s story, albeit troubled and dark, is one of resilience. And the symbol that emboldens its people is now yours to raise.
Jennifer Scheurle @gaohmee Pssst... re-purposing assets, animations and other existing systems is a perfectly normal practice in game development and the only reason you are getting big AAA games in a timely manner in the first place. It’s not as simple as copy&paste and doesn’t make us lazy.
Even for new IPs, we don’t re-write everything from scratch. That’s what studio tools, engine tools and existing libraries are for. This isn’t cutting corners - it’s the very reason we can make large scope games in the first place. None of it is new or uncommon.
If you’re expecting a game to be down truly from scratch you have to play only new IPs made in proprietary engines. Which... means you’ll miss out on like... 95% of games.
Comparing game animations doesn’t make you look as clever as you think. (In reference to the new God of War game trailer - Hrungr)
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah Game players need to hear this. But also a distressing number of gamesdevs
Dustin the Quarantine @the_Captain_Dm Legitimate query. If a studio reuses an asset that someone specifically made ground up for an entirely different title or new title in that series. Should the studio credit that persons contributions in the new title? I've always wondered the ethics on this.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah My answer would be that it depends but likely not...
If you are using an entire model, the textures, animation, maybe But the line of creation isn't kept that clear so you likely don't even KNOW who made that specific asset
ladyiolanthe ladyiolanthe It only makes sense to me to re-use assets... Why reinvent the wheel each time? Re-use saves time and time is money.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah Because this time you can invent a BETTER wheel (spoiler, you won't)
Rob McD @your_FunnyUncle In BioWare terms, it's only when it gets to DA2 levels that I begin to be irked. Don't mind reused furniture, the odd repeated building or random encounter map, but when all the side quest maps are the same but with different blocked doors then something has gone wrong.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah Hot take: The biggest issue with reuse in DA2 is Cave and Warehouse The REASON that those are worst is that they're quite specific areas (cave has a godray filled clearing...) that PRETEND to be different areas Either NOT pretending, or being more generic would make it better.
Pedro Flag of Brazil @blightedboy The walls of kirkwall are not reused? I have some problems playing DA2 because they all look the same to me, mostly. I'm certain you've heard that phrase "kirkwall is just walls".
Wait
Kirk-wall
Omg
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah Yes the walls are Kirkwall are reused. As you would expect in a city built in a cliff... I wouldn't consider that problematic reuse in the least
Autumn Witch @dragon_Age_Fans It always made 100% sense to me, over the YEARS that DA2 takes place over, new factions would refill/resuse those areas because they were already established and Kirkwall is not infinite. There is only so much real estate that one could use.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah It would have been better if we had just SAID that.
Man With A Stick @bludgeonparagon probably would have been a great running gag as well, having Hawke constantly showing up to the same dilapidated warehouse having to deal with yet *another* flavour of bullshit because none of the criminals in Kirkwall have the creativity to think of another meeting place
Audrina Rodgers @audrodgers1987 Hey! Silly question (aren’t those the best?) did anyone ever decide what the term is for a collective of nugs? A squeak of nugs? A nuggle of nugs? This has been a discussion point in our house for the past week. Thank you!
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah I feel like there is but I don’t recall… @patrickweekes ?
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes I believe it is currently under discussion, as it is every few months.
Gabe Heiland @norseartemis I said before and stand by: A Snuggle of Nugs
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah That would be a Snuggle of Nuggles. Wait...
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah Hot take: The biggest issue with reuse in DA2 is Cave and Warehouse The REASON that those are worst is that they're quite specific areas (cave has a godray filled clearing...) that PRETEND to be different areas Either NOT pretending, or being more generic would make it better.
Andre Santos @andresandtoast I dont think many people realized that all the Mansion interiors(blooming rose, nice mansion, abandoned mansion) where all the exact same layout. We changed just enough in those spaces to avoid the cave issue but they also got used way less.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah Indeed. The cave had a sign that screamed “I am being reused!!!”
Matthew Goldman @sergoldman An early brief on the importance of shape language. Things designed for utility, protection, threat display -like what you'd need in a monster stalked world - tend to be angled, faceted with interesting silhouettes. Some wag on-line dubbed this "gray and pointy". How delightful!
Pedro @blightedboy I know what are grey and pointy... spiders with hands
Matthew Goldman @sergoldman technically true! but what are they pointing at?
elena 'elle' tchi 💙 @elenatchii i think i deserve a medal for not commenting "hand in marriage???" every time a new female character head's get posted to slack
about to terrorize the writers by asking them to marry every woman they write
I don't know how much of a dialogue you can have about this but are you thinking of implementing more mechanics in "boss" fights? I love Dark souls but that might be too punishing for DA but Corypheous in Legacy DA2 had some pretty cool mechanics.
I just enjoy a challenge...Dark souls when you beat some of those bosses you felt so good & it was intense.
I haven't had that feeling much in DA...Gurd Harofsen was pretty challenging but that was more the damn cold dmg effect. Would love to see more variation in fights.
Matthew Goldman @sergoldman I enjoy Souls games and the like but I am not good at them. I beat a grand total of 2 bosses after 30 hours of Demon Souls for instance
Todrazok @todrazok Not gonna lie, Corypheus in DAI kinda took me out of the game because of how straightforward and easy it was. By comparison Corypheus in DA2: Legacy took me many hours into the night to get down, one of the more memorable encounters in DA to me for sure!
Matthew Goldman @sergoldman In my last playthrough of DAI I showed up way OP from hunting all the dragons. I hammered Cory completely flat before he even finished twirling his moustache.
Elaine Greenberg @ejgreenberg What's an early career trauma that has stayed with you?
I'll go first: my first boss never gave me deadlines, and when I asked for them she just said "everything is ASAP".
David Gaider @davidgaider Not long before I joined BW in 1999, I began gaining massive amounts of weight. I was exhausted all the time. I'd no idea my thyroid was dying, and wouldn't discover that for years... and, by then, my TCH level was near coma levels.
But how does this relate to work?
Well, my exhaustion was due to sleep apnea... to the point where I became narcoleptic. I'd fall asleep while writing (waking up to three pages of the letter "L"), I'd fall asleep during meetings, heck I'd fall asleep in the middle of having a conversation with a co-worker.
Everyone at work kind of... accommodated me. If I fell asleep during a convo, they would wait patiently because they knew I'd wake up in a moment and continue talking as if nothing had happened. There was a joke that "you know your meeting is over when Mr. Gaider falls asleep."
I would fall asleep at my desk for brief periods all the time. I actually didn't know how often until one of my fellow writers awkwardly complained one day that the sound of my constant snoring was actually pretty bothersome. I was mortified.
Thing is, it affected me. Team members would pass by the office and see me asleep, and they'd quietly complain to my bosses -- why was this allowed? Was I really that lazy? I gained a reputation. It was meant as jokey teasing, I'm sure, but it stuck.
See, I didn't know what was wrong. It wasn't until I was diagnosed in 2008 and was started on synthroid that I suddenly felt *awake* again and realized just how bad it'd gotten. I lost weight, the apnea went away (mostly), the diabetes went away... but the reputation remained.
Perhaps there were other things holding me back at BioWare, I don't know, but I was forever super-conscious about the impression people had that I was "that fat guy who snores at his desk".
So, yeah. That was a whole thing. For years.
Trent Oster @trentoster It was a known thing. That's Dave, he'll sometimes fall asleep in the middle of a meeting and then wake up and jump right back into the conversation. No big deal. He writes interesting characters and delivers consistently. I don't know of anyone who thought less of you for it.
David Gaider @davidgaider My own mortification was probably more the issue, as I didn't want to be "that guy". I was warned numerous times about the complaints, however, and "how it looked", so I guess it was enough of an issue that I needed to be told about it... even if most people were fine about it.
Trent Oster @trentoster It looked like you had a medical issue and despite it you were still highly productive and engaged in your job. In my circle it was all good.
David Gaider @davidgaider Heh. Yeah, the joke was that I could do nothing for days and then get more done on that last day than anyone else in a week combined. That saved me, I expect.
Still, it's nice to hear it wasn't as bad as I thought. Thanks.
Chris Sayers @notsolittlec There's a tweet going around about remembering early career trauma, and whilst I love a good bit of work horror...
Alternatively, what's something that happened or someone did for you in your career that reminded you of the good in your industry and the people in it?
John Epler @eplerjc It’s hard to pick out a single incident. So many amazing people have supported me and mentored me.
But the one that sticks with me? @patrickweekes having my back when I was in QA. I wrote a bunch of journal entries, was super proud of them - and they all got rewritten.
They took time out of their day to help me figure out what had happened and track it down.
When it turned out another writer had rewritten them without telling us, Patrick had my back. They didn’t need to - they didn’t know me.
But they did. And that meant a lot.
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes They were good! You did a ton of work on them, and as I recall, you got all the information in there well. All I had to do was style guide nerdity that, in retrospect, very few people other than me would ever notice.
Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah One time @patrickweekes told me something. I think he thinks he may have insulted me. It is one of the most important things ever said to me… I won’t repeat it in public because it might be embarrassing to others… #sovague
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes Well THAT bodes well.
Chride Lassheikki Sparkles @classheikki Stayed up until 4:30 AM last night for a really inspiring @unofficialdaday chat with wonderful DA fans and writers. I am in awe of this fandom's generosity and passion, you're simply wonderful
Thank you kindly @patrickweekes and @karinweekes , and @drunkdalish for hosting
... I love how the fandom and games and writers are simultaneously heartfelt and unapologetically horny. Eyebrow-wigglingly good stuff in the chat as well.
Karin Weekes @karinweekes Thank you so much for staying up so late after a long day to hang out with us! And thank you for providing excellent official Storvacker pronunciations!
Chride Lassheikki Sparkles @classheikki My favorite variant was the chest-voice growly 'STOORRVACKERRR' from Patrick, it sounded like the name of a metal band in the best way possible
a lifetime in fandom has broken me
That's why we're giving away this Dorian Collectors Plus and Pin . We want you to show and tell us why you love Dorian so much. The entry with the highest votes from the community wins. Enter here 
#DragonAge
