PAX East 2012: Bioware to Learn From Dragon Age 2 Mistakes

At Bioware's first panel today during PAX East, the developer told the audience that they have heard some of the criticism leveled at Dragon Age 2, and are taking those criticisms to heart.

Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw, recognized that gamers had concerns in three main areas, the lack of follower equipment, the lack of player decisions that truly effected the outcome of the game, and the reuse of levels. Laidlaw suggested to the audience that armor sets could not only be available to other members of your party but could also look different depending on the gender of that party member.  According to Gametrailers:

"Suppose, in your party, you have a Gray Warden. And suppose you had a Seeker," he said, showing a male Gray Warden and female Seeker. "And you had this thing: a suit of armor, a chest piece, and it had stats and stuff."

Laidlaw showed that armor set applied to the Warden, then to the Seeker, in concept art form. The armor looked slightly different on each, with "thematic" aesthetic differences applied so "they don't lose their identity in the process." Laidlaw then showed a slew of concept art, with various armor pieces from helmets to shoulder guards to bracers, then full sets, each applied to the two different classes.
It would certainly great to see Dragon Age go back to follower equipment. I always felt that the lack of it in Dragon Age 2 stemmed from both not having enough time to develop the game, and Bioware's tendency to fight the player from going and changing the narrative and vision that Bioware first set out. An interesting reaction from a company who develops games that advertise themselves as being able to do that very thing. To their credit, however, Bioware is even going so far as to suggest that the player might be able to customize their party armor to a very large degree, down to the color and fabric used in it.

As for player decisions -something lacking in Bioware games since Dragon Age 2 that I've personally been lamenting about endlessly- Laidlaw stated that they will be concentrating more on both Character and player agency. An idea that the character has definitive effects on the world surrounding him, and the player can have direct control over the gameplay experience. Again, it surprises me that Bioware is finally coming to this conclusion 3 games into, and 2 games into, their primary franchises which have purported to do that exact thing, but it does also seem that Bioware is beginning to realize that they have strayed off the path in recent years and may be looking to get back on it. And as much as people have cried foul over the fan reaction to both Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3, I would say that it's starting to have a positive effect.

And finally, you can probably say goodbye to those reoccurring levels. Though Laidlaw didn't go into exactly why things were done that way, he's promising that it won't be that way any longer.

"We're looking for variety, space and scope," Laidlaw said, showing concept art of huge open spaces (and at least one dark dungeon). He hinted that players will likely "go somewhere new, somewhere a little more… French" in the future.

Of course this all sounds good, but Laidlaw made it clear that this was not an official announcement.  "We're not making promises here, we're talking about ideas," he made sure to add.

Very well...but we're hoping.