Dragon Age

[Roderick]

So, can someone tell me why Bioware's marketing push for Dragon Age has spawned some of the most generic, boring, spectacularly crap trailers ever?

'Cause I am utterly stumped. Compare this to the delightful way in which they're pushing Mass Effect 2, and a picture is painted of a company that knows exactly what it's doing with one game, but hasn't got a clue how to market the other.

I mean: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/wynne-trailer-dragon-age/54157. And that's not even the worst one. What's happening here? Am I missing something?

[toblix]

It's pretty bad. If I hadn't heard Chris' tale of the dwarf joining the Hitler-Jugend, I wouldn't care about this at all. Now I care, but despite the trailers.

[Roderick]

O yeah, there's no judgement about the actual game here. Just the trailers that fail in unimaginable ways

[DanJW]

I really don't know. I'm an intermittent but long-time member of the Bioware forums. Even their community was a bit nonplussed.

As a complete guess, it might be that their marketing team were unsure how to handle it. At first glance it Dragonage appears to be a derivative D&D style fantasy (witness the first few mentions on the Thumbcast). But there is some real interest and twists and 'meat' in there. Clearly someone thought the best way to show that was to... have a heavy... metal... montage...

Yeah, I have no idea.

[elmuerte]

this doesn't look interesting at all

[DanJW]

Oh it doesn't look interesting. But it sounds interesting, if you like plot driven fantasy RPGs. If you don't then why would you even bother to comment?

[Scratch]

Trailers are awful. But you shouldn't judge the game by looking at the craptastic trailers. The gameplay vids give a more better look.

I hate to say it, but "Don't judge a book by it's covers".

[elmuerte]

I did see some gameplay videos, and those didn't tickle my interests either. Or at least, the stuff I saw was all action (, and no play). Probably saw the wrong stuff, is there any proper gameplay video out there? One that hasn't been cut up to a Michael Bay grade movie.

[DanJW]

It think the developer interviews will give you a better idea.

The thing is, a game like this goes for the slow build. It attempts to involve you with characters and plot over a period of hours. A gameplay video is completely incapable of conveying this.

[Roderick]

Yes, and no. Yes, you can't fully explore the depth of a massive RPG in a single trailer. But no, you can give an inkling, a hint, that you're making a narrative game that has interesting storylines and meaningful characters. The Dragon Age marketing push fails to bring that across.

I'm sure the game will be great. But I'm just confused why they did such a great job with Mass Effect, and such a poor one with their self-tauted flagship title.

[DanJW]

Is Dragon Age their flagship? I thought that was the Mass Effect series; Dragon Age struck me as "keeping their hand in on the epic fantasy niche, having dropped the D&D licence" (which is in no way a bad thing).

[Roderick]

Not really sure, but I thought that was the general idea. Dragon Age had been in development for quite some time and it has about four sequels already planned. It's their return to the golden age of Baldur's Gate. Makes sense that they'd want to make something big out of it.

Also, Dragon Age will be on all next-gen consoles and PC. Mass Effect started as an Xbox exclusive.

[toblix]

Reading this thread reminds me of the trailer for Zenoclash, or a trailer. It wasn't epic, it didn't have awesome battles with glowing swords and talking about chosen ones, but it was, as I remember it really low-key, a guy explaining some different races to someone else. It was some details about how the way they behaved or something. It made me really interested in the game, and although I didn't much like the game, that's the kind of trailer that got me to buy it.

If the world is interesting and has interesting details (which I guess should be one of the main goals of any RPG), they'd be better off just showing some aspects of that world, in all its non-epicness, rather than what we all know every RPG in the world always has, always (epic chosen ones and glowing magic). It's the same with movie trailers, the best ones are the ones that aren't just clips of the stuff we all know will be there, but some off-the-main-road thing that makes us curious.

[DanJW]

If the world is interesting and has interesting details (which I guess should be one of the main goals of any RPG), they'd be better off just showing some aspects of that world, in all its non-epicness, rather than what we all know every RPG in the world always has, always (epic chosen ones and glowing magic). It's the same with movie trailers, the best ones are the ones that aren't just clips of the stuff we all know will be there, but some off-the-main-road thing that makes us curious.

Agreed. It's the little details that both make something stand out and are most likely to suck in us geeks.

[Chris]

My long-held opinion on this matter is that they don't really know how to sell an intricate, fairly old-school single-player fantasy RPG these days--there haven't been many of those at all recently. Oblivion is one of the only really successful ones recently, and I'd say Dragon Age is much more old school (and from what I've seen probably more ambitious) than that game. I think marketing is just freaking out.

[spindrift]

Surely Bioware would have seen the trailers beforehand though, right? The Doctors are pretty high up at EA these days, so i would have thought they could do something about marketing butchering their game like that.

The whole situation is baffling.

[Chris]

Surely Bioware would have seen the trailers beforehand though, right? The Doctors are pretty high up at EA these days, so i would have thought they could do something about marketing butchering their game like that.

The whole situation is baffling.

Based on my discussions with them, I get the sense they either wouldn't mind, or also think it's cool (at least cool enough not to mind).

[Garple]

My long-held opinion on this matter is that they don't really know how to sell an intricate, fairly old-school single-player fantasy RPG these days--there haven't been many of those at all recently. Oblivion is one of the only really successful ones recently, and I'd say Dragon Age is much more old school (and from what I've seen probably more ambitious) than that game. I think marketing is just freaking out.

I wonder if part of the problem is (at least based on your impressions of the game, Chris) that unlike Oblivion, A straight open world isn't really the core of the gameplay. It sounds more like the myriad possibilities presented by the dynamics between characters is the key to what this game has to offer...which is fantastic, but maybe hard to demonstrate in an advertisement. They can't just say "LOOK AT THESE GRAPHICS!" like Bethesda could with Oblivion.

[Chris]

I wonder if part of the problem is (at least based on your impressions of the game, Chris) that unlike Oblivion, A straight open world isn't really the core of the gameplay. It sounds more like the myriad possibilities presented by the dynamics between characters is the key to what this game has to offer...which is fantastic, but maybe hard to demonstrate in an advertisement. They can't just say "LOOK AT THESE GRAPHICS!" like Bethesda could with Oblivion.

Yeah, I think that's probably true.

[Roderick]

Yeah, but they're not even trying. At least Mass Effect, which is arguably about the exact same thing, had trailers showing intricate dialogue options and a great emphasis on the story.

[brkl]

I heard there's dwarf sex in it.

[spindrift]

I heard there's dwarf sex in it.

I hear that if you bring a dwarf 5 pickaxes he shows you his boobs.

[snappity]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/sacred-ashes-dragon-age/57551

There's no way to watch this without hearing the "baaadduup...baaadduup" frog.

[Hyetal]

God damn, I guess I'm pretty lame for thinking that was really cool, huh?

[Patters]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/sacred-ashes-dragon-age/57551

There's no way to watch this without hearing the "baaadduup...baaadduup" frog.

I can't bring myself to do it.