Dragon Age: Origins Forum Activity

Questions about your party's camp, Windows 7 compatibility, dragon slaying, level caps, and whether or not the console versions will negatively impact the PC version have all been answered in the latest developer responses on the official Dragon Age: Origins forums.

Chris Priestly on the party camp mechanics:
It is a little like the Ebon Hawke in that it is a place for your party members (and some others that I'm not going to discuss yet) to wait after they have joined your party, but when they are not actively with you on quests/exploring.

You will be able to do more at the camp than just talk to Morrigan or whoever. You can, of course, talk with party peple while you explore with them, but there are some discussions that they will only join in if you talk at camp.

You can switch party members at camp and a few other places that make sense in the game world. Whenever you leave camp, you select who you want to accompany you. However, it is not as easy as just "popping" from place to place. Some times there may be quite the trek between your camp and your next mission and vice versa.

Also, I don't remember the Ebon Hawke ever being attacked while it was "parked". Lots of scary things out in the wilderness.

Stanley Woo on Windows 7 compatibility:
Seeing as Windows 7 has not yet been released, it would be difficult to say anything for certain right now. Once we have more information on system requirements, we'll make the appropriate announcements in the forum. Thanks.

Stay tuned.

Georg Zoeller on hitting the level cap:
The cap was always high enough that most people wouldn't reach it. However, after playing Fallout 3 as a completionist and ending up with no progression systems after half of the game, I made some changes to ensure that no reasonable playthrough of the single player campaign will hit the cap. Without finding some loophole to allow infinite XP, it is unlikely that anyone playing DA singleplayer will be able to hit the cap.

And no, I don't think 'hitting the cap' is fun. Reaching the cap should not be seen as an ultimate goal, because frankly, there is no benefit to it. You just stop gaining any benefits from getting XP. Your deprived one of the driving aspects of the game for many players - advancement.

Also, as said before, we do have plans for extensive post release content, so we want to make sure that the game supports that.

As for BG. The most popular mod was the level cap remover. Go figure.

Unlike D&D, our system was built without an endgame level in mind. D&D, not counting epic, is built to scale from 0 to 20, and at 20, you're career is over. You've reached the ultimate goal.

Our rules system does not have that notion of an ultimate goal at all. Only the amount of rules content available (read: # of total abilites, etc.) is limiting max level. As we release more content after the game ships, we might also increase the max level.

Mary Kirby on slaying dragons:
You will have to kill dragons in Dragon Age.

If you want to debate the comparative values of the lives of different phylums, genus, or species, fictional or otherwise, take it to the off-topic forum.

David Gaider on the console versions negatively affecting the PC version:
Some things do need to be taken into account, certainly, but we are not talking about consoles as red-headed stepchildren in comparison to their PC brethren anymore. Keep in mind that the PC and console versions of the game do not need to be exactly alike -- they will have differences. The assumption that we would go into the PC version of the game (which was created first) and start mucking about with it in order to make it exactly like the console version is... a curious viewpoint. A developer can make the console and PC versions of a game the exact same, and perhaps that's not a bad idea if they're being developed simultaneously, but they need not do.

Saying that acomodating the consoles makes DA a console port, however, is a bit of a leap. I suppose for some who see the presence of anything console as a taint on the PC that's going to simply be something that will need to be proven once they see the game for themselves. If so, then fair enough.