As a longtime lurker and sometime contributer on the Dragon Age boards since the beginning, I'll try to fill in some gaps.
They did, indeed, announce DA at a very early stage of development. Since it's their own IP, they had to create the game system that runs behind the scenes before they even started on engine design. No D&D or D20-like crutches here, so development will understandably take a while. The "screenshots" seen at E3 in 2004 were done on a modified version of the NWN Aurora engine and intended only as a "proof of concept." At that time there was no Dragon Age engine or even a story yet. (Interesting note: The DA writers used NWN to 'storyboard' the DA story in advance to see how it worked out on the screen and rework stuff they felt didn't work).
Today, they have a staff of something like 60-70 people working on all aspects. The story is finished, the engine is complete enough to create areas, the artists and designers are hard at work getting the game pulled together. Here's what I call the Unofficial Official Bioware Update on Dragon Age as quoted from David Gaider, Head Writer for Dragon Age:
Quote:
I get to be pleased watching places I created coming to life as the artists breathe life into them. Sometimes I complain very loudly and the artists stare at me blankly and think I'm insane, but usually I'm just awed.
And, yes, lots of progress. We're at that point where all those disparate parts of the game that everyone's been working on seperately are starting to come together. Like, until recently there were people working on the chassis and people working on an engine and people working on the tires -- and then recently we put it together and it rolled twenty feet and blew up. But still -- a car! Yaaay!
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On the lack of publicity, I think they got burned and/or felt really bad about some expectations that were attached to NWN based on some early quotes. Since they can afford to do almost all the development in-house before signing a Publisher (who is usually the one behind the dog-and-pony Previews anyway), they're staying quietly guarded about what's in or out. There's some sens recently that, once Mass Effect has been released and its buzz dies down, that we may get more official pronouncements on Dragon Age but then, I thought we'd see something from the "behind closed doors" section of E3 this year so take that thought with a mine of salt.
