BioWare Unveils New Dragon Age DLC

[latenightapplepie]

Sounds interesting. I wonder whether this idea will extend to Mass Effect 2 as well. I would love to play as Garrus.

 

[unoleian]

The big turnoff to me in DA:O was the silent protagonist. After Mass Effect, and with modeling the Dragon Age's dialog structure after it to a large degree, the brief, blank expressions my character gave between dialog choices, followed by fully-voiced, emotive responses from the NPCs, really kept knocking me out of the experience. It's fine in games where you aren't making any real dialog choices beyond "Yes" and "No" a-la Link from Zelda, or something, but in this game, it was a huge detractor to me.

That game needed to be fully voiced. I would have settled for one character voice if it made that a reality.

Would be interesting to try this DLC just for that, to see if a voiced player-character adds to the experience like I believe it would.

I think you've mistaken "mute protagonist" for "player-driven protagonist". A mute protagonist, such as Link or Gordon Freeman, has absolutely no emotion, does not really interact with npcs and is more or less a meatbag the player moves around with a stick.

A "Player-driven protagonist" is one where the player can choose how that character interacts with their world, carve out a persona and give the player an emotional stake in the story rather than have the characters emotions force-fed to them by npcs. Shepard or the Grey Warden are good examples.

To put it more simply, a player-driven protagonist is one that makes real decisions and is crafted in a style that the player chooses. A mute protagonist is shoved along by npcs without ever showing opinions or emotions.

No, I said what I wanted to say. It's not a factor of being ushered along like a puppet, it's the mute, blank stare that the player-character had for every response option that threw me off. You simply misunderstood my mention of Link. I was attempting to bring up exactly that kind of gameplay narrative/interaction style as one where a voiceless, blank character does not bug me. In the case of Dragon Age, however, it was off-putting, the blank return of my character despite the nature of the interaction at hand, no matter how compassionate or hostile it was intended to be. Sure, I had a selection of tailor-made responses to drive the story, but the lack of any emotive response from my character regardless of the conversation option is what was missing. It never bugged me in a game like, say, Baldur's Gate, but being so up close and personal with my character, and in this post-Mass Effect world, the empty, blank stare that encompassed the entirety of my character's responses was hard to get used to. It's all a matter of player distance, in a sense. If that might make sense.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I sense a disturbance in the force...It seems bioware has thought up a new plan to milk dlc as far as they can.

Lets see if oghren, alistar and morrigan DLC follow this.
/rant

I'm 90% certain this DLC will be comprised of one quasi-dungeon where you (as Leliana) and your mentor plow through a few dozen baddies before some imminent betrayal forces you to fight each other in a foreshadowed and hackneyed finale. The entire ordeal will last around 2-3 hours, tops, and cost $10.

Seriously, there's no way I'm buying anymore DA:O DLC, or Bioware DLC in general, without a third party telling me it's not a complete ripoff.

 

[unoleian]

No, I said what I wanted to say. It's not a factor of being ushered along like a puppet, it's the mute, blank stare that the player-character had for every response option that threw me off. You simply misunderstood my mention of Link. I was attempting to bring up exactly that kind of gameplay narrative/interaction style as one where a voiceless, blank character does not bug me. In the case of Dragon Age, however, it was off-putting, the blank return of my character despite the nature of the interaction at hand, no matter how compassionate or hostile it was intended to be. Sure, I had a selection of tailor-made responses to drive the story, but the lack of any emotive response from my character regardless of the conversation option is what was missing. It never bugged me in a game like, say, Baldur's Gate, but being so up close and personal with my character, and in this post-Mass Effect world, the empty, blank stare that encompassed the entirety of my character's responses was hard to get used to. It's all a matter of player distance, in a sense. If that might make sense.

I find your argument nonsensical. It's like 100% backwards of good storytelling. How can you think Zelda has better story telling than DA:O? How can you accept the standard "mute protagonist", which is the flimsiest plot mechanic in gaming, as preferable to a protagonist who speaks and acts in a way of your choosing? And when does Link respond emotively? Aside from constantly yelling "Yah!"? It's impossible for me to have any kind of empathy for a character I'm kept at arms length from. Especially when that arm belongs to a super-mutant giraffe.

Please...tell me where I said Zelda had better storytelling? I never said that. I brought it up as a case where a mute character works, for exactly the reasons you said earlier
Let's try this....one more time.

A mute....protagonist....in Zelda.....works.....because.....there's.....no......emotive.....response.....to.....be.....had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


It's hard to develop empathy for my character in Dragon Age, because, despite the response I select, I'm staring at a mute, blank canvas!!! The only emotive feedback I get is from NPCS!!!!

In, say, Baldur's Gate, the distance from the character made it so that your player's emotion was easily imagined. Also, the lack of accompanying voiced dialog was to be expected. However, it's much, MUCH harder to develop an empathy for a character in Dragon Age when that blank stare, and utter lack of emotion to the response at hand, is RIGHT IN YOUR FACE! Especially after playing Mass Effect, and enjoying the visceral responses to your choices by the player character. It works for mute protagonists like Link, because there's no emotive response or connection to be had!!!!

Mybe there's some signal noise and/or my communication is off tonight. I was making sense to me, but apparently I'm the only one....because...You're essentially agreeing with me!...to an extent. The dialog choices in Dragon Age were great. The lack of emotion from the character was NOT.

*breathes*
Okay. Did that make any more sense? If it doesn't, then I give up.

 

[nezroy]

I wonder if they can be persuaded to buy Bioware....

BioWare was already bought by EA. In case you didn't know...

 

[InvisibleMilk]

That accent is pretty hot. Easily my fave DA:O character.

 

[Weaver]

The only way I'd buy all of bioware's DLC is if they put it all on one disc and sold it for $30.

Does anyone else miss just buying a game and that was the end of it? If anything extra came out it was an expansion pack like a year afterward with a boat load of content.

 

[Sparrow]

Or why not a story about the Orlesian war, play as King Maric...

I'm sorry, but this is just a fantastic idea. We'd have stuff like "For Ferelden!" every five seconds, but it'd still be awesome.

 

[E-Hybrid]

I will probably buy it when it comes out.I just hope Bioware continues to support the game with DLC to add more adventures for the adventures

e.g. Ogrhen's Drunken Tales would be fantastic. A world where everything moves on its own and vomit is deadlier than the darkspawn.

Actually I should suggest that to Bioware, maybe I can get some commission.

 

[Carnagath]

As much as I love Bioware and their games, they make, without a doubt, the worst and most overpriced DLC's in the industry. Every single one I've played was, like, an hour of gameplay for 15$. This is bad beyond words and I cannot believe they are getting no real heat from their customers.

 

[Aanorith]

Approved! This ill be looking forward to.

 

[ace_of_something]

I hitched my cart to the Orlaisian rogue for sure. Probably because she sounds french to me. I seem to dig french accents seeing as I married a chick with one.
I hope it takes place in orlais that would me we get to see more of the very fleshed out DA:O world.

 

[gl1koz3]

Sounds great.

On the other hand... From the amount of work they put into such distractions, starting to think their next game will be not-so-fun.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

Through careful timing you can do both.
1: Do whatever you want with Morrigan.
2: Spoilerish: Kill Morrigans mother.
3: Dump Morrigan.
4: Do Leliana's quest and get her to 80 approval or more.
5: Explore her deep roads.

Indeed you can. Actually, provided you dump Morrigan early enough, you don't even need to kill Flemeth. Although I suppose whilst I didn't kill her, I told Morrigan I had.

You can also have some fun with Zevran whilst in a 'relationship'. It annoyed me that there was a separate achievement for each romance option - they were easy to get, so I went for them, but it seemed unnecessary.

 

[Buizel91]

That's a bit weird to focus an expansion on one party member. And Leliana? I'd think Zevran or Ogrhen or Sten would actually be more entertaining. Or why not a story about the Orlesian war, play as King Maric...

Just seems a bit weird to me, when will they release actual game expansions again rather than AU and side stories.

maybe they will release expansions for more characters? well...i hope they do

 

[Ninjamedic]

I'm gonna wait for The Game Of The Year.

 

[Buizel91]

The only way I'd buy all of bioware's DLC is if they put it all on one disc and sold it for $30.

Does anyone else miss just buying a game and that was the end of it? If anything extra came out it was an expansion pack like a year afterward with a boat load of content.

Yeh but now a days people complain if DLC isn't around after the first 6 months, game developers can't win.

And plus, it keeps the game fresh, something i personally like, means i don't get bored =)

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Where's Onyx?!

I'm here!

*standard Bioware makes shitty DLC rant that I always make*

What? THEY DO. And you know it.

 

[Valksy]

My personal motto these days - wait for the "Game of the Year" version with all the DLC. I'm sorry, but I am not playing the DLC game as people like Bioware intends. I wouldn't do it for Fallout 3 which I loved and am still not fucking doing it. Ended up buying Fallout 3 GOTY for about twenty quid and yeah, it was worth the wait and I don't regret hanging on and waiting until the game content was "finished".

Paying full price plus DLC is a mug's game as far as I am concerned (seriously, the week after Bayonetta came out for 360 my local supermarket ran a special offer on it for 27 quid instead of 39.99. Didn't want the title but would have been pissed to have bought it there the week before).