Dragon Age: Origins Interview

Some comments on about elven racism in Dragon Age: Origins are coming out of the Game Developers Conference from Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk.
In typical BioWare fashion of reinventing the plot wheel, Dragon Age: Origins aims to redefine the fantasy genre; and it'll start by rearranging the racial tension between your standard fantasy stock types. Normally, say BioWare headmen Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, high fantasy like Tolkien's dictates that elves are creatures that "sashay through the countryside" they're very pretty, very aloof and very, very elitist.

"So," said Muzyka, "here's an example of elves being different in Dragon Age: Elves were enslaved by the humans at one point in Dragon Age, so they hate humans, they despise them. Humans in turn have a lot of disrespect towards elves. [...] That's something that hasn't really been done before is introducing a lot of racial tension and back story and intrigue behind the scenes that's sort of totally optional, but it makes the world feel that much richer and real."