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iamtaran · 16 days

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WIP Title Game! oh good lord

rules: in a new post, post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how nondescriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet and tell us about it!

thanks @allyunabridged for the tag! Lmao I stared down the barrel of not one, but two google drives to gather these and all I can say is

😬

IN AN ORDER ONLY THE GODS UNDERSTAND:

The Twilit Gate (BG3, when in want of more fey bullshit in your BG3, do it yourself!!! TavxAstarionxGalexliterally everyone i'm gay alright???)

Island (The Guest/손 AU, horror and survivalism; Hwa Pyung, Choi Yoon, and Gil Young follow Park Hong Joo's and Park Il Do's machinations out to open sea, to an island with long forgotten history where the real struggle for survival begins.)

But For Grace (SW:Preq's, modern-character in GFFA aka "what to do when you accidentally change things and the Chosen One dies?", started as a silly question but now I'm committed; Qui-Gon Jinn lives; what would happen in a galaxy without Anakin Skywalker?)

The Mage's War (DA2 + DA:I, what if Bethany Hawke was the Herald, Modern/Avvar OC, playing Fade chicken with the Dread Wolf nbd, put on my tinfoil hat for this one re: the Fade, the Abyss/Void, Forgotten Ones, etc.)

In God's Eye (Vampyr, human!Jonathan, ekon!McCullum, Mary lives, I'm a hobby WWI & Spanish Flu researcher so hold your britches I have FEELINGS)

For Want Of Two (Vampyr, wanted more mythological beings & nemrod lore so I'll do it myself gdi, put-that-thing-back-where-you-found-it-or-so-help-me-god.gif ; JxMcCxOC)

Lights All Hung On Nothing (Star Wars Preq's to Clone Wars era, modern-character-in-SW with a big twist, Force + time fuckery, Ani + Obi focus, the butterfly effect changes everything)

The 72nd Cycle (SW: Mandalorian, AU - Grogu is not the only Force sensitive prisoner Gideon had captured. Without room in his ship for multiple students, Luke tags along, not expecting the sad Mando's ride Boba Fett (w h a t) to show up and offer the poor guy use of his bacta tank; well, soon-to-be-his. He just has to kill its current owner, Bib Fortuna, first. You know. On Tatooine(WHAT!!). Meanwhile, on Tattooine: Cobb Vanth gets the nagging feeling his life is about to become much more stressful.)

A Heavy Thing (KOTOR, amnesiac Revan works a shitty food service job on Taris and definitely isn't a Jedi/Sith/Soldier, I mean, clearly. Slice of life becomes tragedy becomes adventure becomes mystery becomes ??? RevanxCanderousxCarth DON'T LOOK AT ME)

Life, Happening (The Shining/Doctor Sleep introspective piece on Danny Torrance, life & death, what it means to be gone, and not gone.)

Led To Water (Mandalorian, Din takes off the armor having broken his Creed and, unsure what to do next, returns to Kuiil's homestead to brood and sweat manfully through his existential crisis; his friends help him through it.)

Mando'ad'ika (Mandalorian/Original SW movies, The Mandalorian is taken into custody and now Leia has to deal with a sweet but stressed frog lady, a green gremlin with too much Force power, and this intimidating tin can who won't budge. Since Han laughed at her, she decides to make it his problem, too.)

Time Travel, & Other Ways To Die (Mandalorian/SW:Bounty Hunter video game, Din & Jango centric, whilst trying to get to Grogu on his magical big rock, Din & Grogu end up chucked through time onto an outlaw space station. Jango Fett's no good very bad day begins. Coincidentally, it coincides with Din Djarin's SUPER no good very bad day. They most assuredly do not bond over this.)

I am, or was. (Dragon Age: Inquisition, a spirit takes an interest in Solas after he helps it in the Fallow Mire and begins following him around like a lost puppy. Which would be cute, if it weren't possessing more and more alarming vessels to do so. The Andrastians are starting to get a bit twitchy.)

Rookie, Shiny, Soldier, Spy (Mandalorian/Clone Wars, Din Djarin accidental time travel into the Clone Wars AU. Caught without his 'gam on a battle field and forced once again to wear trooper armor, he is Not Impressed--and why do all these guys look like Boba?)

This Prodigal Son (Hades/Dragon Age: Inq, Zagreus goes through the wrong Chaos portal. Magister Alexius finds a powerful spirit in the Fade and, as is his way, decides fuck it, we ball. Also his way, it doesn't go very well for him.)

Send me a title via ask and I'll post my favorite bit I've currently written!

Lmao this was wild to throw together given how many WIPs of age past are staring me down; these are just all the recents. Go ahead and chuck some WIPs out there if you're interested @singoallala @narwhalninja @mauverawrites @in-a-trans-like-state @terresdebrume and @jackironsides ! And if you don't/aren't currently writing, everyone loves to see the pet tax paid C:

#taran writes #also hi everyone i'm still alive and hope you're doing well c:

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mooreaux · 1 year

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Out of curiosity, what’s your cannon play through for dragon age?

Oof which one???

But if u mean all three I will try to be v brief.

Origins: either Tyne Surana as Alistair's lover and court mage when he's king. Or Luka Amell as warden commander bossing around everybody in Amaranthine whilst writing smutty letters to Zev from across the Waking sea.

Da2: Mary hawke is my default despite NEVER drawing her lol. She's in luv w Varric and a mage so she got the heck outta Kirkwall as fast as she could w templar carver. Still has excellent relationships w all her friends tho because she's blue/purple hawke combo and a chronic people pleaser w terrible depression in secret.

Inquisition: Sasha Lavellan is my default inquis since I moved Sunny off to dnd. She's a solas mancer unfortunately lol. But defo has a thing with bull once he leaves. Nothin ever comes of it tho because she is absolutely GONE on egg wolf. She's v soft and sad and caring and wishes she coulda seen him for what he was sooner.

All my da charas have animal companions cuz Im Like That. Tyne has a lil kitten that hides in her hood. Luka has his giant Mabari foot warmer. Mary has a raven. And Sasha has a red hart who acts like a guard dog.

Thank u for the ask!!! Luv my kids..

#asks and answers #my ocs #tyne surana #luka amell #mary hawke #sasha lavellan #da #dragon age

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tastyfishistasty · 1 year

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Okay so I just hit 30 tags talking about my DA mages. It might be that I need to talk about them again. (HyperFocus Engage!)

Note: I have a headcannon that all mages have an element they're drawn to but circumstances can influence it as much as personality etc.

Origins

Domynic is naturally fire and seizes being a blood mage as soon as possible. He wants to be powerful and in charge (so no one can hurt him again). He is all about that DPS life.

Domynic Amell and Irys Amell (Twins!)

Irys is water/ice naturally and pushes herself to be a healer. She wants to be a calmer soothing presence like Wynne but gets so angry...! She's more support/DPS.

They both have a natural tendency towards damage and anger, but Irys refutes it and Dom embraces it. They are my "actually opposites" twins.

Zerdali and Jezper Surana (Twins!)

Jezper is Earth naturally and very defence focused, becoming an arcane warrior to protect his friends. Think tank over support.

Zerdali is a natural spirit healer and lightning mage (she's supposed to be super powerful to Jez's average power). She went to the tower long before her brother and goes very strict arcane and creation, but becomes a shape shifter when she's given the freedom to choose and she can do real damage(!). She's more of a "dark" healer?

DA2

Abigael Hawke is my baby. She is my most OC ever. She is a Primal Mage by birth (lightning and earth combined) and very very powerful. (I like powerful electric mages, leave me alone).

She has no real healing talent but essentially forces the fade to let her be a spirit healer in a life or death situation. She heals with a spirit of Duty, not Compassion or Love or anything.

(one day I will write that fic...)

Aislynn Hawke is a spirit healer naturally but her weakness and connection to Creation and spirit school makes her feel so weak. She becomes a blood mage for the power. (I was playing an ill conceived hard run...)

Evelyn Hawke is a "people person" aka a manipulator. She is also a healer because people like that, but she's entropy and ice to the core. You ain't touching her.

(2's way of leveling means I had to choose something and healer is better than blood mage so ta-dah loads of healers...)

Inquisition

Jenavieve Trevelyan is a messed up lady with a lot of baggage. She is another natural healer but because Inquisition threw away spirit healer, she is spirit and ice. She doesn't do damage for a long time as she levels, just mind blast and generic attack.

When choosing her specialism she tries necromancer but (I don't like playing that school and Dorian is usually in my party taking care of that)... But! Her spirit healer spirit is upset so she stops. She embraces being part of the action so she can heal more effectively and becomes a Knight Enchanter.

Hissera Adaar

Hiss was born under the Qun and trained there for the start of her magic, which meant damage, damage, damage and forced her into fire primarily.

She was always a blunt weapon so when given the chance she goes down the subtleties of Rift Mage and study.

Elenansal Lavellan

The narrative foil of Hissera, Elenansal was coddled and raised to be a fine instrument of magic as the only other mage in the clan other than the keeper. She is precise and elegant and tends towards controlled lightning and ice.

When given a chance, she went full damage and sized on taking Arcane Warrior (Knight Enchanter) because that's Elven gosh darn it and she is a keeper by right! Also means she gets to release a lot of rage and frustrations out with a big sword.

So uh yeah

I have lots of thoughts about my mages (and my rogues and my warriors), too many for tumblr tags. And yes I know they're all OP and a bit Mary Sue but Cringe is Dead and they are the main damn characters in a game, they're allowed to be OP, so shush.

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bumble-b1 · 1 year

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I'm playing DA: Origins for the third time so i thought I'd show off a bit of my cannon world state.

Origins:

Character name: Centari Mahariel

Romance: Zevran

Fun fact: after the Awakening, she and Zevran got married and had two children; Falcon and Rosa. When they went to look for the cure for the blight, Falcon and Rosa went to stay with Alistair.

DA2:

Character name: Evadora (Eva) Hawke

Romance: Merrill

Fun fact: She and Merrill traveled a lot after Kirkwall fell. They became mysterious local heros in both Fereldan and the Free Marches. Merrill followed Eva to Weissaup fortress after the wardens we're banished.

inquisition:

Character name: Keg Addar

Romance: Sera

Fun fact: Keg is both an explosives specialist and an incredible musician. She plays lute and sings. She also adopted an abandoned Qunari baby that she found while traveling. She named the child Mari and no one is more dedicated to her than Sera is. Mari also turned out to be a mage which, despite some reservations, did not diminish Sera's love for her.

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gunaerystargarygun · 6 years

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@revengeofthecis u asked about Ophelia, well

HERE SHE BE

#dragon age 2 #DA2 #marie plays DA2

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hollyand-writes · 2 years

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Hi! I was reading one of your answered asks and you mentioned there was supposed to be a third DA2 DLC, that never got made. I tried googling but only got a couple of articles that didn't say much.

I was just wondering if you had any info about it. I'm just curious. DA2 is my fav game of the series and although not an OTP, I do really like the idea of Carver/Merrill getting together.

Hi there! ❤️ I'm so sorry I'm so late replying to you -- life got so busy I’ve been off Tumblr for the past month, until today! 😄

So, to answer your question... I’m not sure what there is in the way of media articles; most of what I’ve gleaned has been from Bioware tweets and David Gaider’s old Tumblr, which I used to follow. (David Gaider worked at Bioware and was Dragon Age lead writer for Dragon Age 2; he deleted his Tumblr in 2015.) But he confirmed a 3rd DLC:

I’ve linked to where I reblogged Bioware tweets and Gaider’s old post onto the Carver/Merrill blog @carvermerrill -- which is where I collate everything about the ship I can find -- but I'll repost some screenshots here.

Bioware also released a hardcover book in 2020 called BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development which, among other things, revealed more about the third DA2 DLC, due to be called the Exalted March DLC, that got scrapped. Here is a photo from that book:

David Gaider also previously confirmed on his blog (5th paragraph of his answer, responding to an ask he received about shipping) that Bethany/Sebastian was one of the other romances they considered including in DA2 (if Sebastian was unromanced) and that Carver/Merrill was the other (if Merrill was unromanced), although he didn’t indicate whether Carver and Merrill would have got married in that third DLC. Relevant screenshot:

And the Twitter replies from Mary Kirby to this person were especially interesting to me, given that she wrote Merrill and is still a writer at Bioware:

So, put together, all this seems to hint that in the cancelled 3rd DLC for DA2 (Exalted March), Hawke had the option to play matchmaker for the surviving twin, getting Bethany together with an unromanced Sebastian, or getting Carver together with an unromanced Merrill -- and that if Hawke chose not to marry their love interest then there would be “alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian”... and perhaps even Carver and Merrill after matchmaking them if Hawke’s LI was one of the others? Who knows. All we know is that Bioware HAD planned for Carver and Merrill to get together in the cancelled expansion, whether that ended in marriage or not.

I hope that thoroughly answers your question, with proof! Let me know if there’s any other Carver/Merrill things you’d like to ask me! ❤️

#carver hawke #merrill #dragon age 2 #dragon age #carver x merrill #bethany hawke #sebastian vael #bethany x sebastian #sophie-skiesthelimit #replies #meta #my meta

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alwayscryingoverdannyb · 4 months

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I'm trying to read every single codex this time and sometimes you find gems like this one. jane austen allusion? in my dragon age??

#mary plays da2 #da2 #it is a truth universally acknowledged #jane austen #I wish jane austen could play dragon age and see this #see how lasting her impact is

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sun-marie · 9 months

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Usually I really love complexion mods, they're probably the first thing I look for when playing a new game, but I am so pleasantly surprised at how little I am missing them for BG3. The face textures already are so rich and detailed that it feels like a disservice to just like erase all that with a smooth brush

#no shade at all to people who like or use custom complexions in bg3 of course #zephyr has one I think that I'm very attached to #there's just been a series of mods on nexus making the companions look slightly younger #and with the exception of lae'zel #I haven't felt the need to download any of them #which is just weird bc if the same thing happened for like dao/da2 #I'd probably be chomping at the bit #funny how playing games not twenty years out of date opens your eyes lmao #marie speaks #but yeah this is less “screw modders” and more “praise bg3”

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felassan · 3 years

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Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

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