AbleGamers Interviews Dragon Age II's Mike Laidlaw

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Published on Wednesday, 02 March 2011 13:08

Written by Steve Spohn

{sidebar id=1}With the highly anticipated Dragon Age II only days away, AbleGamers’ Editor-in-Chief, Steve Spohn, sat down with Bioware’s infamous DA II lead designer, Mike Laidlaw, to talk accessibility, why we lost the over head camera and how we can reach more developers.

Steve Spohn, AbleGamers:  Thanks for taking the time to talk to us Mike!

Mike Laidlaw, Lead Designer, Dragon Age II: My pleasure.

SS: Taking a look at the initial options, a lot of time was put into placing options to make the game easier for those who need them.  Why did your team take the time to add so many accessibility options like pausing at the start of combat, multiple levels of subtitles, mouse-only and difficulty settings?

ML: Most of these features were present in Origins, and it simply makes sense to bring them forward into DAII; they help customize not only the game, but the experience of playing the game, which is important. The pause button was something our Executive Producer Mark Darrah was passionate about too, and it was added early on to make DA II “mouse-only playable.”

SS: I know it's been asked a million times but what was the real reason for tossing out the top-down camera off of the PC version?  Do the producers who make these decisions realize how many people they angered, not only disabled gamers but casual and classic gamers as well?

ML: DA II completely changes the way we develop our levels and spaces, and doing so required us to re-evaluate the design of the camera. Every level in origins was, in-effect, two levels, creating massive overhead that affected other parts of the game in invisible ways. Nothing is ever “tossed out by a producer,” though. We deliberate very carefully, and for DA II, this was the right decision.

SS: Along the same lines, in DA: O the community had to make a mod to increase font sizes and change the colors.  What did you guys learn from that, and what is different about the text in DA2 from DA: O?

ML: Our main thrust in terms of the text was ensuring that we added the additional clarity of the dialog wheel’s icons. As an advantage for “selling intent” of the lines, it has a lovely advantage of using color and shape to help anyone with visual disabilities more easily tell where they’re hovering. As well, number support still exists even though we’ve moved to the wheel. Simply count from the top-left clockwise and you have your numerical keyboard mappings.

SS: Will we ever be able to move or resize elements in the UI on the PC?

ML: Moving and resizing, that’s still a possibility, though not for DA II.

SS: For colorblind players, you added symbols to equipment instead of colors, what other changes were made for colorblind patrons?

ML: Those were the key changes. Beyond that, we were simply color-blind aware; hence keeping things like blue circle around allies, rather than green, and so on.

SS:  What would you say to those who feel we are less invested in the characters this time around?  One gamer we spoke to said since there is no danger of the characters leaving if you angered them too much, as it was in the first game, that the dialogue choices almost don’t matter because there are no consequences for the wrong behavior.

ML: I would say that if the only consequence for angry characters possible were “they leave,” we’d have a very limited palette to play with. The rivalry system is very different from a nihilistic “nothing matters” scheme, as you can end up in some pretty serious fights with the people at your side as a result of rivalry. Unlike Origins, however, making someone angry isn’t where the story ends; they don’t just shut off and leave.

SS: The biggest rift I've seen in the community from various forum sites is between those who wanted DAO 2 not DA 2.  Is it fair to say that this game is much like EQ and EQ 2, same intellectual property but taking the game in a different direction with different priorities?

ML: DAII uses the same engine and gameplay that Origins had. While there are some changes, certainly, I don’t think the “rift” is nearly as large as some people have decided it is. Playing the demo certainly gives a taste of the changes to combat, but the full game needs to be experienced to see how the story unfolds.

SS: Will both DA: O and DA II continue to see content and expansions?

ML: We’ll continue to evaluate where Dragon Age is headed next over the months after launch, though we will continue to support DA II with new DLC, so that will be priority one.

SS: Was there anything you were personally overruled on? Something or some feature you wanted to see make it in for launch but didn't make it in time?

ML: In my position, there’s not a ton of things on which I’m “overruled,” and Bioware’s not really a culture of egos or conflict anyway. If anything, there are a number of things I would like to see added into the DA formula, expanding our repertoire of mechanics and interactions with the world, but as those are likely plans for the future, I’m going to keep them to myself for now.

SS: Is there anything you'd like to say to the disabled gaming community, maybe some scrumptious nugget no one knows about the game?

ML: I’m afraid all the truly scrumptious nuggets are still under lock and key. More generally, though, it was good to see that Origins, despite being a very complex game, was still playable for a wide number of gamers, and I hope we can deliver on that again.

SS: Of all the awards Dragon age: origins received, what made the AbleGamers accessibility award stand out to you?

ML: I don’t think it’s a matter of the industry not “getting” it, so much as there being some pretty heavy barriers to certain genres of games moving to accessible. Still, nothing’s insurmountable! There’s certainly an awareness out there, and one that should be cultivated, and the best way to do that is to provide, frankly, whitepapers on issues and overcoming them. The key, I think, will be to educate developers as to the range of potential interface problems and some best-case-so-far solutions; the sooner we can get a common lexicon and common solutions, the better we’ll all do.

About the Author

Author: Steve Spohn

Steve Spohn is the Editor-in-Chief of AbleGamers & Outreach Chair for the Foundation. He is an expert in gaming with disabilities and assistive technologies and can be seen on MSNBC, CNN, G4 and more.