Dragon Age News Thread

Eh, in the end these are the devs' private, personal accounts. If fans want to look at the stuff they post and take it seriously, then that's on them.

On the other hand, when they specifically used mediums like Twitter and Facebook as being the substitute avenues of communication as reasoning for closing the BSN, then yes, I think they are also responsible for what they say on those private accounts about work matters.

I do not believe they can have it both ways. Either they have official channels from which to communicate to fans, in addition to their personal ones, or they continue to post on their personal accounts about work while being aware that everything said there will be taken by fans in a certain way whether they wish it or not.

They cannot have their cake and eat it too.

That's bad news. I was hoping secret ip, which from what I read I won't have any interest in buying was being developed in parallel with da.

I romanced Fenris in DA2 and he stayed with my Hawke, eventually The pic was fun though

Miriam‏ @sagedufraine
Merrill should be in apostate, Morrigan in commitment issues/apostate and Isabela in commitment issues/filthy liar

Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes
But do Merrill as Isabela really break your heart, though?

Elliot Valente‏@elliotvalente
A female dwarf romance would be nice. Harding doesn't count

Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes
...I am curious as to your reasoning for why Harding would not count.

Or did you mean what was in DAI didn't count?

Elliot Valente‏@elliotvalente
I meant that in my opinion it didn't quite feel like a romance option compared to the others. You could flirt be not much.

Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes
Okay, yeah, gotcha. No. That wasn't a romance. That was flirting.
I thought you meant that even if we made Harding a full romance option someday it wouldn't count, and I was like dude, picky.

I think you can give Patrick Weekes a little more credit than that. If anything, I bet there are things about Solas even more powerful and stunning that have yet to be revealed. And, true to form, PW will arrange things so that whatever new depths are revealed to Solas, they will be polarizing: half of us hating it, half of us loving it. Be careful what you wish for ...

Hear, hear! I groused to Hrungr about this a while back. When they announced the closure of the forums in favor of "other channels", what was I seeing in the other channels at the time? A bunch of trolling of the fandom, that's what. Salt and vinegar in the wound.

In time, Hrungr was proved right, that it was just a coincidence of timing. They've done some nice things since then and the communication has been pretty good, comparatively. Not the deep arguments of yore, but better than nothing.

But fundamentally, shifting communication to social media has raised the bar in terms of messaging to the fandom, so you're dead right about that.

Like you, I'm hoping Solas will be given some inspired treatment in the next game. With Patrick's handling of Trespasser, I think he will be given sufficient gravitas. As Mike said in an interview a while back, Patrick really likes bittersweet, so prepare your feels.  Whether his plan will come across as intelligent or not, only time will tell. I sometimes catch myself wondering if he might play out his schemes in a similar way to his chess match with Iron Bull (as a possible insight into his thought process). Letting you think you're winning early on, only to (potentially) surprise you later on where least expect it.

With Devs on Twitter, some of them you have to follow closely for quite a while to get a sense of their personality, when to take them seriously, and when they say things with tongue firmly planted in cheek. And just seeing the occasional tweet popping up here, it can be easy to misconstrue their actual intent. No easy answers here, just something we all need to be aware of.

However, like you say, communication in general has been getting better, even with Twitter's limitations. And it's great that we have St. Luke, Ian, Barrett and Jos popping in here every now and again. Hopefully, it'll continue to be a welcoming place for the Devs who want to swing by. It would be awesome if, one day, Devs might contribute an article/insights into Game Dev similar to what Extra Credits does, but from a BioWare perspective. Specific mechanics, narrative, level design... I'd love to see that.

^ Ooh really? Another indication that she likes fem dwarves, for the Sera/Dagna naysayers.

Dani [LadyFiction]‏@theladyfiction
@mike_Laidlaw random question but this bothers me: where are all the children in the DA series? Are they in school? Invisible? #conspiracy

Mike Laidlaw @mike_Laidlaw
They were all taken in the night. No one speaks of it for fear their weakness will mark them as next.

Kimberley‏@cygnuscasting
Hey Mike! How would one go about getting Dalish wedding vows? Asking for a friend, who is planning a DA themed wedding.

Mike Laidlaw @mike_Laidlaw
I don't think we've written any, so you might have to freestyle.

I'm not sure why multiplayer game means that it'd have no flexible story or no story at all. Also - I did listen to interview with Aaryn Flynn not so long ago, and from what he said it seems that the game will definitely have a story, and in fact is specifically built on experience and strengths of Bioware team... which basically means characters and storyline. 

To be fair, SWTOR is a multiplayer game, and it did story pretty all right.
Granted, it would have been better as a single-player game probably anyway, but it just goes to show multiplayer and story don't have to be inherently opposed.

I'm not optimistic about the seekrit IP, but I think on this from I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt for now.