Vapourware Seven Dragon Saga - Gold Box spiritual successor from SSI veterans

[Jaesun]

It's good to remember that in the marketing campaign before BG1 was released, Bioware docs made a few comments about fixing the problems of the RPG genre - ditching turn-based, for example, and using "gorgeous" graphics and so on.

Indeed. And they laughed all the way to the Bank....

Spoiler

 

[Roguey]

Cartoony graphics ftw.

It'll be great if they can make the character models look as good as Shadowrun Returns.

 

[Morality Games]

I've been thinking lately one of the reasons Bioware fails hard is they their concept of C&C derives increasingly from visual novels. Plod along in the story and then make a moral choice. Very dry and uninteresting and ironically lacking in moral challenge because I already decided I would help the Mages back in DA:O -- all of this is just rehashing the same moral choice over and over again (do you value personal freedoms over security lolz?). C&C in a role-playing game is supposed to be dynamic than that. Its more about environments supporting a role (multiple solutions) than changing them. I should be able to make the Bandit King come out of his fortress and fight me man to man using Charisma, but also by ambushing his patrols or using explosives up the nearby mine whose laborers he is exploiting. If the villagers I liberated then complain I broke their mine, I should be able to use my Engineering skill to see if it can be fixed. Then if it can, they give me good deals on crafting materials. And, if I only killed the Bandit King, I should be able to convince the bandit lieutenant that he should transform the organization into a town militia, NPCs of which assist me in random encounters when I'm passing through the region. If I have a high Knowledge score, I can say there is an ancient and obscure law from the disorderly times of the fall of such and such empire that allows armed men acting as a militia to tax travelers to finance their militia operations (aka, legalized banditry). C&C should work like that.

 

[Infinitron]

Paul’s Review of Dragon Age: Inquisition Part 2

As our first update for 2015, Paul continues where he left off in his analysis of Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Paul Murray, is our Systems Designer, focused on the algorithms to make the world balanced and tactical combat challenging. He was the first engineer at SSI in the early 80s and stayed with that company well into the 90s finishing up with the extremely successfulPanzer General series. We asked Paul to comment on some recent games, to help give our fans some insight in what he seeks out in play and, by extension, what items he will emphasize in Seven Dragon Saga. Seven Dragon Saga is a single player game, so we’ve focused on those aspects in this commentary.

His first review is a two-parter on Dragon Age: Inquisition. Paul has already spent numerous hours on the first two games of the series. In Part 1, he shared what he liked and felt was most effective in DA:I.

This is the second part of Paul Murray’s discussion of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and where he sees opportunities for Seven Dragon Saga to match or excel. Today, Paul shares his thoughts on where DA:I might improve, and how and why he’d do it a bit differently.

Things I don’t like
The following comments may come across as a bit harsh, as I do really enjoy this game overall. Still, the best way to improve is to study the blemishes and learn from them.

Which brings me to things I don’t like. Really, really limited healing. At lower difficulty it is not too bad. But it means there are times you have to stop adventuring to go back, rest and resupply. This is something of a pain, and definitely takes you out of immersion.

With Seven Dragon Saga, Hit Points restore after each battle, but characters accumulate Trauma and Fatigue until they choose to camp. There are techniques to mitigate the weaknesses from these long term resources, but, in the end, the player must rest. We are currently working on the paradigm for camping, but it will be more common than I see in DAI, but somewhat more restrictive than the Gold Box games.

DAI follows the usual RPG build a character, grind the character. Okay you are now at the point where you should have started… let’s play. It also requires the traditional roles for a party… tank, aoe character, support, and striker. You can mix the roles a little but not much. In fact, they put in places that need a particular character type to advance the game. If there is no warrior in your party, sorry go back to base and get one.

Since Seven Dragon Saga, at its heart, is a points based system, players will be able to create a wider variety of characters, and different mixes will prove viable with the appropriate tactics.

The biggest challenge for me is DAI’s PC interface.

First: It is obvious they designed the interface for consoles, and then semi-ported it to the PC. You have two camera modes: action (over the shoulder and 3 feet back) and tactical (overhead view). In either case, if you are in the forest, you cannot see your own character through the branches, let alone the enemy!

This is one of the reasons we chose to put SDS out on PC first. For any other potential platform, we want to revisit and optimize the UI for it. Added work, but each platform has its own strengths. Players will have camera control: rotation and zoom.

Second: In action mode, any orders you give are supplanted by what the AI wants to do.

You can give each character an action order and a movement order… it will always do the action order first (so you can’t tell a character go over there and shoot). As always cross class combos are the way to do big damage, and that requires proper timing. Which means you must be in tactical mode, controlling each character and advancing the game a few tics at at time. Such pausable real-time gives an excellent feel to the hustle and bustle of combat, and gives more dextrous players a lot of good opportunities, but I admit to favoring the absolute control granted by turn-based games.

Third: They improved the AI for your companions, enough so they removed the ability to set conditional uses of companion abilities. AI did improve, but not enough. The AI will use abilities at the right time… if it hasn’t already put the ability in cool down by using it at the wrong time. The AI will still have your ranged companions charge the enemy (even melee mobs) to get LOS instead of moving 5 steps to the side.

CONCLUSIONS
In the end, DAI’s solid quality outweighs its challenges, and I freely admit to my biases in combat, control and character creation. I always love deep, challenging battles, and they are here, but diminished by the issues I noted above. And, you will note, I can find nothing to complain about when it comes to the role-playing; excellent character development. engaging world and story.

The game has good story, great characters, and decent combat. I will get my money’s worth of enjoyment out of it, and more.

The goal for these type of updates is to provide some insight into our thinking and share some of our influences. There are pros and cons to any approach, but we hope to take the lessons we have learned and craft the best game we can.

On behalf of the entire team at TSI, we’re very happy to share a bit of our thinking and looking forward to revealing more in 2015!

 

[Roguey]

I'm actually pretty ecstatic that the system designer isn't as groggy as I thought he would be. Dual health? Sounds familiar.

Also because his opinions are going to piss a lot of youse off. Though I guess it might be a bit concerning that he thought DAI has "deep, challenging battles," I wouldn't know for certain.

In fact, they put in places that need a particular character type to advance the game. If there is no warrior in your party, sorry go back to base and get one.

Seriously?

 

[TigerKnee]

Guess the game is doomed if DA:I is considered good for inspiration.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

Did anyone else notice the, perhaps/perhaps not, subtle implication that TSI can do better than DA:I?

 

[Morality Games]

The new face on the block can't really afford to be sectarian about sensitive issues.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what you're implying. Could you elaborate?

 

[Morality Games]

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what you're implying. Could you elaborate?

More applicable to the posts above yours. Seven Dragon Saga has uncertain KickStarter prospects and small financiers without traditional roots in game publishing have developed an interest in the investing potential of middleweight indie games.

Brian Fargo has patterned an expectation that all indie RPG developers should exhibit defiance toward the big game publishing industrial complex.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

More applicable to the posts above yours.

I thought that might be so. I suffer from occipital neuralgia and I'm having one of those days.

Seven Dragon Saga has uncertain KickStarter prospects and small financiers without traditional roots in game publishing have developed an interest in the investing potential of middleweight indie games.

Brian Fargo has patterned an expectation that all indie RPG developers should exhibit defiance toward the big game publishing industrial complex.

Yeah, agreed.

Do you think intelligent and complex game design will become more prominent?

 

[tuluse]

I'm actually pretty ecstatic that the system designer isn't as groggy as I thought he would be. Dual health? Sounds familiar.

Also because his opinions are going to piss a lot of youse off. Though I guess it might be a bit concerning that he thought DAI has "deep, challenging battles," I wouldn't know for certain.

It doesn't have anything of the sort, but can't really read anything into one developer giving some other game praise. He needs some Dragon Age fans to buy his game.

Seriously?

In RK's LP there were a few times he needed a mage to advance (only a mage can light a magic torch). I didn't notice any warrior or rogue specific things, but they were probably there.

 

[Morality Games]

I thought that might be so. I suffer from occipital neuralgia and I'm having one of those days.



Yeah, agreed.

Do you think intelligent and complex game design will become more prominent?

It already has. The bar was pretty low.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

Lol, yeah. I hope the bar gets a lot higher.

 

[Dorateen]

I'd be more interested in hearing Dave Shelley's take.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

• Started following thread in the excitement over a possible gold box successor
  
• Now reading reviews of DA:I

This is why we can't have nice things

 

[Jaesun]

What is the problem with the review? I agree with most of his thoughts on it.

They aren't making a shitty ACTION!!!1111 cRPG.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

What is the problem with the review? I agree with most of his thoughts on it.

They aren't making a shitty ACTION!!!1111 cRPG.

You're right, it's fine. Just had to bitch because back in August I was eagerly awaiting news of their probable kickstarter and now in January I'm reading their thoughts on DA:I instead. Find it tough to be patient with this one as really want to see what they come up with.

 

[Jaesun]

heh we ALL want this (well, as longs as it is going to be Gold Box Like INCLINE). We just have to wait. Good things come to those that wait... as they say.

 

[ProphetSword]

I don't think it necessarily means that because they posted a review on their site that there isn't any work going on. I look at it more like: "We don't have anything to share yet, but just so you guys know we're still around, we'll post something you might be interested in reading that relates to what we're doing." I'm still willing to give them a chance. It's their option to screw that up, and they might...but this close to the holidays, I didn't expect any news yet anyway.

 

[mindx2]

You're right, it's fine. Just had to bitch because back in August I was eagerly awaiting news of their probable kickstarter and now in January I'm reading their thoughts on DA:I instead. Find it tough to be patient with this one as really want to see what they come up with.

Eh, I've still got plenty of 2014 cRPG Kickstarter goodness to occupy my gaming needs. I can wait for this one and give them all the time they need to make a TRUE Gold Box inspired game...

 

[buzz]

"We don't have anything to share yet, but just so you guys know we're still around, we'll post something you might be interested in reading that relates to what we're doing."

That's the problem in the first place. Shit, it's not like they lacked games worth talking about from 2014 or in general. Why post reviews about games that are the total opposite to the thing you're famous for?

 

[ProphetSword]

That's the problem in the first place. Shit, it's not like they lacked games worth talking about from 2014 or in general. Why post reviews about games that are the total opposite to the thing you're famous for?

Because it's popular right now.

 

[Drowed]

The thing is, we have 32 pages in this thread and we know almost nothing about the game besides vague concepts about what it "will probably to be" and sources of inspiration.

 

[GarfunkeL]

So? Business as usual at Codex.