Dragon Age Packs Twice the Dialog of Mass Effect 2
by Garnett Lee, Dec 18, 2009 7:30pm PSTDragon Age: Origins takes a step back toward the traditional dialog system developer BioWare used for all their role playing games prior to Mass Effect. While selecting phrases verbatim might feel old school compared to the emotional responses in Mass Effect don't think for a moment that they didn't put as much into it.
Quite the opposite is true. Despite the cinematic nature of Mass Effect 2, in comparing the dialog systems of the two games BioWare co-founder Dr. Greg Zeschuk told me that Dragon Age: Origins packed over twice as many dialog options. Why so much? In Dragon Age a large proportion of the potential responses are based on the race and class you've chosen for your main character, their skills and demeanor, and the decisions made in developing the relationships. For every group of possible responses you see on any given play through of the game, there's probably an equal number hidden to handle all the other potential combinations as Zeschuk explained it.
For many fans that's sure to pique their interest to make another run through Dragon Age: Origins while waiting for Mass Effect to arrive next month.
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Comments
I don't mind games with lots of text, (I loved Torment, for example), but, because Dragon Age insisted on using the 'cinematic presentation' for every single dialogue, AND voiced it all, dialogue very quickly became tedious. I did not care for ME1's dialogue system either, (the fact that I don't know what exactly my character is going to say), but I'm glad the sequel has less dialogue than DA.
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