History of the Dragon Age series. Part No. 2. EA and the new order
Hi all! In the last part of the History of the Dragon Age series, I said that project director Scott Greig, in his interviews at EA 2004, confidently stated that the final version would be ready in late winter 2007 or early 2008. However, the team faced numerous difficulties due to the engine and internal miscommunication.
Prologue problems
Probably one of the most difficult parts where we couldn’t come to a common opinion was the prologue of the game. Let me remind you that they wanted to make the beginning of the story unique for each race or species. Because of this, both writing the story and programming when transferring text material into code becomes more difficult.
Each backstory showed one of the individual conflicts, an impending global threat, explained the player’s role in upcoming events, taught combat mechanics, research, interactions, and the like. While developing several different backstories, the developers had to decide over and over again how to logically fit all this into the world of the game and come up with a situation based on which training was included.
So it took quite a lot of work for what seemed like a normal 2 hour prologue. And they also abandoned the Nemesis system. Each introductory story had to contain characters appearing at certain plot points. They decided not to invent all this from scratch and simply chose certain heroes who would 100% be caught at least once after a certain prologue.
Looking at the final version, which can be purchased on various sites, you can see that the player is offered a choice of three races: human, elf and dwarf. The first two have a separate story for the magician. Although there are two options here, it counts as one, yet the location and events are identical, only the race is different.
Next, a person has an option with a noble warrior/robber, and for the elves, for this class they made a division into an urban species living in elf-houses, and a wandering forest species (Dollis). In total we already get four entry points in the prologue. They also add a noble gnome and a commoner for the warrior/robber classes. In total, in the mythical ideal, it is necessary to write out the plot and program code six times, but since we are in the real world, everything was much more complicated and, of course, led to the abandonment of additional prologues.
The simplest thing is that the magicians were locked only in the corresponding tower of the Circle, which is why they did not show heroes hiding their unnatural powers, both for the human race and for the elves.
Playing as a human commoner, the player would be the son or daughter of a farmer who is soon saved from the creatures of darkness by the gray guard Duncan. On the one hand, they wanted to write a story for a commoner, where he lived a simple and boring life, and then was inspired by his savior and decided to become a gray guard too. On the other hand, it was planned to make him a murderer or a thief who was brought to justice, but this would have been like a prologue with a gnome.
At some point they wanted to completely switch to barbarian origins. According to the history of Dragon Age, in the early period of the development of the world, one of the most ancient human tribes, called the Alamarri, settled in southeastern Thedas. One part of the tribes settled in the mountains, and the other in the swampy forest expanses and tundra, which over time became known as the Korkari Wild Lands. The mountaineers were called Avvars and were considered freedom-loving, proud and stubborn.
The swamp tribes (Chasinds) fell into magic and shamanism. They were so feared that a reconnaissance and defensive fortress Ostagar was specially built on the border with them. It is also believed that one day Flemente and her daughters joined the Chasindas. They gathered such a powerful army that all the northern armies could not resist them. Only after a long time were they defeated by the united army of the Alamarri and the Dwarves. Therefore, these tribes are not trusted even after many years.
It was because of these features that the team believed that barbarian tribes required a special and specific dialogue system. Also, although the tribes were human, the culture and life of the Fereldans should have been incomprehensible to them, which made it possible to introduce a new system for studying the surrounding world.
Naturally, it all sounded complicated, but during implementation the process slowed down. Plus, the artists had to come up with specific clothing designs for barbarian tribes, but after many attempts they abandoned this. Actually, the prologue with the barbarians was also frozen.
In addition to these stories, a ton of revisions were made to the introductory part for the magician. It is easy to guess that the problem was the creation of an otherworldly space called the Shadow, which, according to the plot, was separated from the real world by a metaphysical barrier – the Veil. This place was supposed to become the abode of various spirits, demons and other otherworldly creatures. In addition to this, the main character would be able to do things that are impossible in the real world of Thedas. For example, transformation into other creatures could be used.
We managed to build it more or less and even make it work, but due to the difficult implementation, this functionality was used only in one mission. The main character could transform into a stone golem, a mouse, an possessed magician (witchcraft horror) and a fiery man. But, unfortunately, most of the episode is focused on overcoming obstacles by transforming into one of the forms. It turned out that the player was greatly limited, which is why he will not be able to fully enjoy the transformation process.
From golem http://casino-yeti.uk/ to mouse
From golem to mouse
The introductory story of the magician itself was rewritten four times. The first three writers either failed to create the right atmosphere, or their ideas were virtually impossible to reproduce. A successful attempt was made by writer Cheryl Chee, who became responsible for this prologue.
Another interesting point about this prologue is that in the magical room with various artifacts there is a statue of the wolf Fen’Harel. The writers already said that this character would play an important role in future stories if the game was successful. This means that it’s worth making the reference at the very beginning, when no one will immediately realize that they have met such an important character.
By the way, in the story this statue blows up a stone wall, but in reality the engine was not capable of this. We got out of the situation in the following way: we took a third-party explosion effect, stretched it so that all the stone blocks disappeared, and before the final action we simply removed the wall. Well, they didn’t forget to put the camera in a horizontal position, so that the whole picture was slightly at an angle and the whole secret of focus was not raked
Even here we got it Hairdryer‘Kharela
Even here we got it Hairdryer‘Kharela
In the prologue of the magician, you can immediately learn about the ritual of Pacification. If a student magician is unable to control his powers or is unable to pass the final exam, where he must resist the demon’s attempts to master him, then his connection with the Shadow is blocked. It is from there that magicians draw strength, and since demons live in the other world, there is always the danger of becoming possessed.
The ritual itself is carried out quite simply: a special lyrium mark is applied to the student’s forehead, thereby creating a protective seal. And the artists completely forgot to demonstrate this important detail. In Dragon Age: Origins, none of the subdued have a seal on their forehead. Outwardly, they are no different from ordinary ones, and if not for the specific emotionless speech, it would not be possible to understand that a special ritual was performed. This defect was corrected in subsequent parts.
Monsters
Along with the above problems, of course, new ones arose. As I said earlier, at first there were going to be different forms of demons in the game. Take the same Archdemon who was converted into a dragon. It’s funny that there were also misunderstandings with the demon of desire.
James Olen was an avid Dungeon and Dragons fan, so he immediately spotted several monsters that could be used as the basis for a new design. He made the appropriate notes and sent them to everyone. And on one of the lines the link “succubus” appeared. The artists immediately understood everything clearly from the name: since this is a demon of lust and debauchery, it means they need to depict a sexy girl with the appropriate identification marks.
As it turned out later, inside the link there was a detailed description that should be taken into account when creating. Naturally, the writers delved into it and made it look like… a genderless genie. And the artists certainly won in the struggle to choose the final design. Still, time was limited, and no one wanted to do a complete redraw.
Several other characters also received a simplified look. For example, the spirit of valor was not initially a transparent templar, but looked many times more epic. And the demon of idleness showed off fully only in one quest in the middle of the game. In the prologue, he was transformed into a small ghoul bear, which significantly reduced labor costs.
Interestingly, along with this, the team did not want to add a large number of animals as enemies to the game. Yes, many locations consist of forests or fields, but a group of the same bears would look too ordinary. It wasn’t possible to add snake-like creatures or creatures with tentacles due to the “wonderful” engine, but they didn’t hesitate to throw good old spiders into the caves and deep paths. Why is that all? Yes, because they are easy to model and copy, which again leads to a significant reduction in labor costs. According to the artists, the creation of ordinary creatures takes about three weeks. The larger the size, the more difficult the situation, so they spent a whole six weeks on the Archdemon.
But the revived Sylvan trees were almost cut out of the game. The animation did not work correctly, and they turned from powerful enemies into something incomprehensible. However, several developers decided to spend their free time fixing these models. So it was only thanks to them that the Sylvans were preserved for the final version.
Year of the game’s revival
Rewriting scripts, redrawing locations, monsters, characters, and the like lasted from the beginning of development until 2007. What was such a turning point that happened in the year when the game’s production should have been almost completed??
Let’s go back a little, namely to April 12, 2005. Jade Empire was released that day and had high hopes as it was BioWare’s first game not based on a franchise. However, everything went wrong.
Yes, the game was mostly praised by critics, but sales were unimpressive and far from planned. Jade Empire was originally exclusive to the first Xbox. Everything would be fine, but the new version of the Xbox 360 came out just a few months after the game’s release, namely on November 22, 2005. Accordingly, it was rather reckless to hope that the game would be sold out en masse after such a high-profile release.
Here, as usual, there is a flip side to the coin. The company simply didn’t have enough money to make the game on improved hardware. I have no doubt that BioWare management knew about the upcoming May announcement of the new console in 2005.
The risky step did not pay off, and doubts arose about the successful release of Dragon Age and Mass Effect. An offer of help came from the private investment company Elevation Partners. Moreover, among its founders was the former president of Electronic Arts John Ricciiello.
And so on November 3, 2005, Elevation invested $300 million to create an alliance between video game developers BioWare and Pandemic Studios, making it one of the largest independent developers in the world.
However, Elevation did not foresee subsequent budgetary complications. Analysts from BioWare have concluded that new games on the Xbox 360 require twice as much money as was previously used. The situation gradually worsened and reached its peak in February 2007, when John Riccitiello left Elevation Partners and returned to Electronic Arts.
He then offered to buy out BioWare and Pandemic Studios for $800 million, with $620 in cash, $145 in stock, and $35 in debt until the deal was completed in January 2008. And on October 11, 2007, it was announced that both companies were coming under the wing of Electronic Arts.
By purchasing BioWare and Pandemic, EA acquired not only 800 employees across four studios, but also an entire collection of brands that helped the company fill the void left by the lack of role-playing games and action-adventure games.
Let’s go back to 2006, when BioWare announced that their newest hire, Dan Tudge, formerly the president and founder of Exile Interactive, would be director of the Nintendo DS handheld games project. Then they even conducted a small survey among players whether they would buy portable versions of BioWare RPG games.
Still, the project did not become a stellar one, and in 2008 the first and last game from BioWare was released for the Nintendo DS called Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. But that’s not what we’re talking about now. It is unclear under what conditions and how Dan Tudge proved himself, but he replaced Scott Greig as director of the Dragon Age: Origins project. And the ice finally broke, the team received new settings, and most importantly, a new goal appeared: to show the first gameplay video and trailer at E3 2008.
The team grew again, and among the new arrivals was Mike Laidlaw, who joined the company of leading designers. It officially started working only with the creation of Jade Empire. Partially helped with the Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark expansion, for which he received special thanks. Before Dragon Age, he worked on Jade Empire 2, but since the game was stagnant and the project was on the verge of closure, Mike was invited to the new team.
Then, to improve development, on December 18, 2007, BioWare teamed up with Pipeline FX to use its Qube program for improved rendering control. Of course, the first project where it began to be used was the game Dragon Age: Origins. According to one of the developers, the program significantly increased labor productivity, which made it possible to create new content in the free time.
By the way, even before the merger with EA on February 13, 2007, BioWare announced that in the development of Dragon Age they used the SpeedTreeRT software package from Interactive Data Visualization, which made it possible to automatically change foliage detail levels, real-time wind effects and several lighting options. So at least the team had no problems with the realism of foliage on the trees.
