Take a deep breath PC gamers, your world is about to be rocked by BioWare and not in a good way. Following the trend by developers lately, cuts are being made to Dragon Age 2 due to "budgetary reasons."
These changes include, but are not limited to the removal of the PC exclusive isometric camera that gave a better overview of the battlefield. In addition, mod tools will not be released for the sequel.
French gaming magazine, Joystiq, provides the details from BioWare's Mike Laidlaw. Here are some of the details provided in the official BioWare forums.
He goes on to confirm there will be no mod tools for Dragon Age 2 released because they were "very complicated."
There you have it PC fans, feel free to voice your outrage. We're here to listen. But wait, there's more. Mike Laidlaw gave a more concise explanation than what was featured in the magazine. Is there still hope for mod tools and an isometric camera in Dragon Age 2? Continue reading to find out!<!--more-->
While it may not be what you wanted to hear exactly, it is still somewhat reassuring, right?
These changes include, but are not limited to the removal of the PC exclusive isometric camera that gave a better overview of the battlefield. In addition, mod tools will not be released for the sequel.
French gaming magazine, Joystiq, provides the details from BioWare's Mike Laidlaw. Here are some of the details provided in the official BioWare forums.
"For budgetary reasons, we focused our work on a 3rd person view, that asks for very detailed and nice textures so that the player can admire the game with a close-up view. With an aerial view [isometric] we should cover much more ground and so create other textures. Now, the game mainly sold on console, so we're going the way of the audience"
He goes on to confirm there will be no mod tools for Dragon Age 2 released because they were "very complicated."
To be short, DAO 2 will not have a toolset. I think that DAO I toolset is very powerful but very complicated."
There you have it PC fans, feel free to voice your outrage. We're here to listen. But wait, there's more. Mike Laidlaw gave a more concise explanation than what was featured in the magazine. Is there still hope for mod tools and an isometric camera in Dragon Age 2? Continue reading to find out!<!--more-->
Hey folks,
Victor managed to hunt me down, and I wanted to clear up a few things with regards to what I'm seeing as the two major concerns on this thread.
First off, let's talk about the toolset issue. Obviously in this community there's going to be some concern that we wouldn't release a toolset, so let me clear the air a little: The tools we're using to make Dragon Age 2 are very, very close to the tools you guys have used to make your mods for DA:O. They're not identical, as we've made a few in-house improvements, but they're almost identical. As such, there isn't a new toolset to release, per se.
While we won't be releasing a toolset update in tandem with Dragon Age 2, we ARE investigating what it would take to update the community toolset to match ours, along with providing DA2 content in the future.
As to the subject of tactical view, I can confirm that we will not be doing a tactical view on consoles, though we are looking into some expanded party control that I think will make console players quite happy.
On the PC, however, we are still working with the camera to keep the key elements of the tactical experience there. I was actually playtesting some new camera code when Victor found me, in fact, so I can give you the latest news on that front.
While we likely won't pull as far up as we did in DA:O, I have always felt that the key to tactical play was actually freeing your camera from the character you're controlling to issue precise orders, which is what we're tuning now. So, this means you can still maneuver the camera around the battlefield and issue orders from a remote location, just as you could in Origins.
As you can probably tell from my phrasing, all of this is a bit in-flux right now, so things may change between now and ship, but I wanted to update you guys on the current direction of things.
Mike..
Victor managed to hunt me down, and I wanted to clear up a few things with regards to what I'm seeing as the two major concerns on this thread.
First off, let's talk about the toolset issue. Obviously in this community there's going to be some concern that we wouldn't release a toolset, so let me clear the air a little: The tools we're using to make Dragon Age 2 are very, very close to the tools you guys have used to make your mods for DA:O. They're not identical, as we've made a few in-house improvements, but they're almost identical. As such, there isn't a new toolset to release, per se.
While we won't be releasing a toolset update in tandem with Dragon Age 2, we ARE investigating what it would take to update the community toolset to match ours, along with providing DA2 content in the future.
As to the subject of tactical view, I can confirm that we will not be doing a tactical view on consoles, though we are looking into some expanded party control that I think will make console players quite happy.
On the PC, however, we are still working with the camera to keep the key elements of the tactical experience there. I was actually playtesting some new camera code when Victor found me, in fact, so I can give you the latest news on that front.
While we likely won't pull as far up as we did in DA:O, I have always felt that the key to tactical play was actually freeing your camera from the character you're controlling to issue precise orders, which is what we're tuning now. So, this means you can still maneuver the camera around the battlefield and issue orders from a remote location, just as you could in Origins.
As you can probably tell from my phrasing, all of this is a bit in-flux right now, so things may change between now and ship, but I wanted to update you guys on the current direction of things.
Mike..
While it may not be what you wanted to hear exactly, it is still somewhat reassuring, right?