Dragon Age *possible spoilers*

New Creature info.BW are reavealing the high Dragon for this week. Screenshots and a video to follow later in the week.

They say that dragons once ruled the skies of Thedas. The greatest of these were the Old Gods, beings thought to have tricked mankind into turning away from the Maker, and who were imprisoned beneath the earth for their deceit. Their children were the winged beasts worshipped by the magisters of the Tevinter Imperium; images of dragons adorned every statue across the land. In more recent ages, Nevarran dragon hunters supposedly brought the species to extinction, harvesting them for their bones, which absorb enchantment like no known metal. But at the end of the Blessed Age, a high dragon emerged in the Frostbacks and began a rampage through the highlands. The next Age was named in her honor. Because a high dragon only begins a rampage when she is ready to lay a new clutch of eggs, that sighting will certainly not be the last.
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For now here is the concept art.

concept-preview-1.jpg





http://dragonage.bioware.com/creature_high_dragon.html
 
Specifications announced. May need to upgrade my ram to 8 gig and get a quad but will wait and see how it runs first.

Posted 06/16/09 23:58 (GMT) by Chris Priestly

Many of our fans have been asking if we can provide system specifications for the PC version of Dragon Age: Origins. The Dev team has now been able to lock down both the minimum and recommended system requirements.

Here are the minimum requirements for XP and Vista and the recommended system requirements.

Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
RAM: 1GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista with SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater
RAM: 1.5 GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Recommended Specifications
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

We will be adding this to The Game page asap. :)



:evil:
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http://daforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=682449&forum=135
 
HAHAHA Marilyn Manson IN THE WE ARE THE GREY WARDEN VIDEO!!! :D

Are you mother ******* ready for the new s**t! LOL
 
I though I should post this especially for those who were worried about the quad core being recommended. This is a post from one of the BW programmers clarifying how much of an impact it has. Now I am pretty sure my e8500 will be able to manage the game.

Posted 06/18/09 01:59 (GMT) by Andreas Papathanasis

Especially concerning CPU and system memory, you guys shouldn't be worrying as much about meeting the recommended system requirements for playing this game. I run the game fine on my 2 gig vista/2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo machine at home, and I'd be suprised if someone experienced significant performance gains when running Dragon Age on a quad core CPU, compared to an otherwise identical setup with a dual core CPU.

The video card will probably affect your experience more. Even though you'll get the full game experience on the minimum required graphics cards, having a recommended or better video card will make a difference in the visual quality of the game. That said, it very much depends on what kind of gamer you are and how much attention you pay to graphics. I personally enjoyed the game just as much on my laptop playthrough using the lowest visual quality setting.
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http://daforums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=682449&forum=135&sp=210

Anyway screenshots for the high dragon added.

screens-preview-1.jpg


screens-preview-2.jpg


screens-preview-3.jpg


screens-preview-4.jpg
 
Thanks for the clarification Stefan, I will sleep a little easier tonight knowing my Athlon X2 should cope just fine. :D

Those images are insane, I love fighting dragons in RPG's and this one looks epic!
 
Some more technical feedback about the requirements for the game. All of this is from Ross Gardner( principal lead programmer for DAO). It seems that he is quite confident that a dual core 3 ghz + will handle the game fine so that means I meet the recommended.

Posted 06/23/09 22:34 (GMT) by Ross Gardner

That is some good feedback, and we certainly have a chance to change what min/recommended specs actually make it onto the box. Based on the feedback we are getting for the min and recommended one change that comes to mind is lowering recommended to 3Ghz+ dual core. Another might be to specify single core, but with 2Ghz. We have some time still to do some more in depth tests in-house.

It is always tough as min and recommended mean different things to different people and from developer to developer. Our goal for these specs was to give playable specs (not runnable) if that makes sense. So minimum is actually playable, even though it will run on less. And for recommended you will get 100% of the game at an FPS that never drops below 30 (and frequently sits well above 40).

In any case our goal is to be as up front as we can about what sort of machine you will need to run the game, so keep the questions coming and we'll take the feedback to heart.

PS - Hey Bob. Ya, you're good to go buddy - at least at 1024 by 768. Oddly enough it runs slightly better in windowed mode on the 7000 series due to the way our renderer works with that series of Nvidia cards. ?
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Posted 06/24/09 02:24 (GMT) by Ross Gardner

The GUI's are fully scalable so it will go up to any resolution that your video card and monitor support - and I mean that in the physical sense and in the FPS sense.

As for PhysX I don't think it is a secret that DAO is using PhysX. We don't have any special features for hardware acceleration ONLY, however the version we use supports it if your card does. Hopefully I'm allowed to say that

Easy to say, when you ain't dropping $40-50 on a title that you were involved in making! :P
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hehe, good point. If I had to guess I'd say it would run fine. But without testing it on that box I can't say for sure. If we can find a P4 to test here, I'll re-post our findings.
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Posted 06/24/09 02:54 (GMT) by Ross Gardner

Nvidia now owns PhysX, and have put in full hardware support for it on all their latest cards - and some games have added hardware acceleration specific features to their games (that you'd only see on Nvidia cards). We didn't do any of those on DAO so you're fine with an ATI. Technically there would be some improvement to have a hardware PhysX card - but it might be so minor you'd never notice.

I think it is more likely that some guy/girl has one of those lying around at their house and bring it in for test reasons :P
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Exaaactly ;)
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Posted 06/24/09 01:40 (GMT) by Ross Gardner

If you lived in Edmonton I'd say bring it in and we'd try it out ;)

I can't say for sure without testing, but at 3.2Ghz I'm assuming it is one of the later P4's (64 bit?) which were designed to compete with the AMD 64s. I would assume so and would definately try it out before upgrading.

As for resolution the PC supports 800x600 as the lowest.

DAO has been a long haul and most of us have been pretty heads down to make it as good as it can be (and it totally is :) ), but now that we are focused on the consoles I'll be more active in the forums and see if some of my guys can do that as well. Sometimes a couple of minutes of our time can save hours of speculation - which is sometimes fun but not always :shake:
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Posted 06/25/09 03:05 (GMT) by Ross Gardner

Laptops are always slower but Andreas played through the entire game with his and I think his had a lower spec.

If the programmers are going to test single cores, maybe they can do the AMD 64 4000+ model with an 8800 GT card?
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We developed with an AMD 64 X2 4400 with one core disabled and it runs OK, so you should be fine - and that was on the 6600GT. You'll get cpu bound in larger combats but it should run pretty good on the 8800. If we can find one though, we'll do a test and post on it.

Speaking about the x850 choice, we had some issues at our catlab with a bug in SM2 and didn't get good testing on the x800 - although we developed on an x850 in house so we were sure on that one. I'm sure an x800 will be ok, although you might have to run at a lower res or FPS. We support SM2.X (not 2.0), which was the issue on the lower end ATI cards as they didn't support SM3 until the x1000 series. Conversely the 6000 series Nvidia cards support SM3 ... mostly. ;) In any case our lowest graphics setting runs in SM2.X.
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I hope that helps some of you guys.

All the info is in this thread:http://daforums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=682449&forum=135&sp=0
 
New updates:

Devouring corpse:
Devouring Corpse

As demons pass through the Veil into our world, they seek out that which they desire most: Life. Unable to distinguish between those that are living and those that are not, many demons possess the bodies of the dead. Trapped within the lifeless corpse, the demon is driven mad and will lash out at those around it who are truly alive.

A devouring corpse is a body possessed by a hunger demon. It has a ravenous appetite and will seek to feed on any living thing it finds. Many of these creatures have demonstrated the ability to drain the very life force from their opponents.
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Screenshots at the site:http://dragonage.bioware.com/creature_devouring_corpse.html

Arcane horror:
Arcane Horror

Every child knows that an abomination is a creature created when a demon possesses a mage. Few realize, however, that the dangers of possession extend even beyond the mage's lifetime. Demons often cannot distinguish between a living being and a dead one and will readily take control of either––which may explain the Chantry's introduction of the cremation ritual. When a mage's corpse is possessed by a pride demon, the specific abomination that results is known as an arcane horror, a powerful creature possessing both the twisted insanity that afflicts most undead as well as the magical power that the mage wielded when alive. Although not nearly as capable as a true abomination created from a living mage, the arcane horror often demonstrates mastery over both blood magic and other animated corpses.
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Screenshots:http://dragonage.bioware.com/creature_arcane_horror.html

Korcari Wilds:
Korcari Wilds

The Korcari Wilds are a cold southern expanse of forests whose extent is not truly known. The Chasind "wilders" who live within say that a wasteland of snow and ice waits further to the south, filled only with desolate tundra and nomadic barbarians, but the northerners believe little of what the Chasind tell them. By Fereldan standards, the Chasind are a primitive people, mired in superstition and still clinging to the ways of their shamans. They live in houses built on stilts, travelers tell, and fear the mythic Witches of the Wilds who threaten to pounce on their children. The secrets and dangers hidden in the mists of the Korcari Wilds represent the last true untamed wilderness in Thedas.
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Screenshots:http://dragonage.bioware.com/world_korcari_wilds.html

Human novle video added:http://dragonage.bioware.com/hero_human_noble.html
 
I have cancelled my pre-order for the Collector's Edition of Dragon Age.
I will not part with R600 for one game, no matter how good it is said to be.
 
phoenix said:
I have cancelled my pre-order for the Collector's Edition of Dragon Age.
I will not part with R600 for one game, no matter how good it is said to be.
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Then get the normal edition. Its R315. I will be getting the CE. I am willing to pay for DA but wouldn't if it was another game.
 
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