Dragon Age Packs Twice the Dialog of Mass Effect 2
by Garnett Lee, Dec 19, 2009 3:30am 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
Am I just trippin' , or does this news sound not as good as I had hoped?
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 11 replies.
Several classes
Two genders
Three backgrounds
In the first game, most of these options were not mentioned at all in dialog, only the background selections had any significant effect on the dialog.
In Dragon Age, you have:
Several classes
Two genders
Several races, with two backgrounds each for most of them.
It's the race/background permutations that produce the most dialog variation. Mass Effect's 3 vs Dragon Age's 10+.
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