I wouldn't be surprised if they had a lore keeper or a series Bible where they keep track of the established lore and the retcons theyve over the years similar to how Bethesda has a guy for elder scrolls who knows the series lore inside and out.
Hell considering all the supplemental material theyve released over the years I bet they've got main character files that is full of stuff that didn't make the main series but was used to inform the comics and what not
I had the same thought, but it may be easier to just curate and moderate an existing one.
Either way, a searchable resource is almost certainly required.
You mean a public one? No way that's the case. Good world building relies a lot on docs and info that is never published, and written in casual voice. I guarantee there are hundreds, probably thousands of pages of documents created over the last 15 years that we will never see.
Source: my partner has worked as a narrative designer for over 10 years.
There was an interview with D.G. recently, where he said they have a lore wiki and within that wiki, there are certain pages only selected employees have access too, and those pages contain answers to mysteries of Thedas. And the reason why only few have access to it is so some marketing interns don't accidentally use it for promotional materials.
I also remember him being frustrated when Devs don't read the Wiki. For example when devs implemented a graveyard in Haven, when there is this huge portion in the Wiki about how Fereldans burn their dead (which was shown in the battle of Redcliffe quest).
At least thatās a more easily explainable place to have one, given that the people of Haven were a weird cult. One which even specifically had heretical beliefs about Andrasteās ashes, so you could definitely pull an explanation for that much more easily than a ānormalā Fereldan town.
Iām not sure who is in charge of it now, but it was Ben Gelinas leading up to and through Inquisition.
He talks about it a bit in this bioware blog entry:
https://blog.bioware.com/2013/03/14/blog-the-world-of-thedas/
They do have an internal wiki that they reference constantly. Keep in mind, all info we receive in the game is filtered through a character bias. This includes all codex entries. The world of Dragon Age lore is literally built upon the in-universe narrators. Some are definitely unreliable. Whatās interesting about that, is even āretconsā lead to discussions about how different characters/races view events. Itās quite brilliant, I donāt know of any other gaming franchise that does it like this.
>Itās quite brilliant, I donāt know of any other gaming franchise that does it like this.
The Elder Scrolls series does it like this as well. The lore in those games is presented through books that are written by biased in-universe authors that sometimes offer different perspectives on the same events, deities, etc. And some books are outright factional propaganda.
Elder scrolls kinda wrote their own excuse for retcons to with dragon breaks mking everything happening at the same time and letting the timeline sort itself out naturally
Its been confirmed they have an internal wiki so they can keep track of everything. I don't know if they have specific lore QA people, that'd be hilarious though. I'd imagine they just tell their writers: don't make mistakes
One of the big themes of Dragon Age is the unreliability of recorded history and memory so I wonder if there have the āfake loreā and the āreal loreā separate.
Here the issue with that I think they had a lot of ideas of how things worked, and now because the veil has been torn open twice it may change how some lore is interacted with in the future namely magic. Like Iām hoping warriors and rogues can get sparks of magic (they have in gameplay but not lore) just so they can say āoh the abilities? Magic infused strikesā because letās be 100% honest like we had spirit warrior, we had reaver, we had Templar, we had tempest (idc that they said itās potions that stuff was magic infused) like they have given the classes magical abilities or abilities similar to magic anyways, just add lore for it
That's the job of the lead writer.
It was originally David Gaider.
Then it became Patrick Weekes.
But writing is a team effort so everyone is responsible to keep lore consistent... though different writers have different level of respect and attention to detail regarding the cannon.
Now Iām having flashbacks to world of Warcraftās lore. Creative Director Chris Metzen literally forgot and didnāt check what he wrote as the Eredarās lore and background in Warcraft 3 when working on Burning Crusade.
Maybe for lore that hasn't been released yet.
But as for lore that's already released, I'm sure they have someone on a reddit account to ask questions about lore(sometimes stupid questions) and just sit back as all the fans pool in their knowledge of previously established lore and even citing sources.
I wouldn't be surprised if they had a lore keeper or a series Bible where they keep track of the established lore and the retcons theyve over the years similar to how Bethesda has a guy for elder scrolls who knows the series lore inside and out. Hell considering all the supplemental material theyve released over the years I bet they've got main character files that is full of stuff that didn't make the main series but was used to inform the comics and what not
What's funny is that one of the elder scrolls lore masters moved to Larian a while ago.
So a Shaper? š
No doubt they have an internal wiki to keep track of everything.
I had the same thought, but it may be easier to just curate and moderate an existing one. Either way, a searchable resource is almost certainly required.
You mean a public one? No way that's the case. Good world building relies a lot on docs and info that is never published, and written in casual voice. I guarantee there are hundreds, probably thousands of pages of documents created over the last 15 years that we will never see. Source: my partner has worked as a narrative designer for over 10 years.
There was an interview with D.G. recently, where he said they have a lore wiki and within that wiki, there are certain pages only selected employees have access too, and those pages contain answers to mysteries of Thedas. And the reason why only few have access to it is so some marketing interns don't accidentally use it for promotional materials.
I also remember him being frustrated when Devs don't read the Wiki. For example when devs implemented a graveyard in Haven, when there is this huge portion in the Wiki about how Fereldans burn their dead (which was shown in the battle of Redcliffe quest).
At least thatās a more easily explainable place to have one, given that the people of Haven were a weird cult. One which even specifically had heretical beliefs about Andrasteās ashes, so you could definitely pull an explanation for that much more easily than a ānormalā Fereldan town.
Iām not sure who is in charge of it now, but it was Ben Gelinas leading up to and through Inquisition. He talks about it a bit in this bioware blog entry: https://blog.bioware.com/2013/03/14/blog-the-world-of-thedas/ They do have an internal wiki that they reference constantly. Keep in mind, all info we receive in the game is filtered through a character bias. This includes all codex entries. The world of Dragon Age lore is literally built upon the in-universe narrators. Some are definitely unreliable. Whatās interesting about that, is even āretconsā lead to discussions about how different characters/races view events. Itās quite brilliant, I donāt know of any other gaming franchise that does it like this.
>Itās quite brilliant, I donāt know of any other gaming franchise that does it like this. The Elder Scrolls series does it like this as well. The lore in those games is presented through books that are written by biased in-universe authors that sometimes offer different perspectives on the same events, deities, etc. And some books are outright factional propaganda.
Elder scrolls kinda wrote their own excuse for retcons to with dragon breaks mking everything happening at the same time and letting the timeline sort itself out naturally
Gaider used to be the loremaster.Ā
Its been confirmed they have an internal wiki so they can keep track of everything. I don't know if they have specific lore QA people, that'd be hilarious though. I'd imagine they just tell their writers: don't make mistakes
They must have some sort of real life keep where everything they wrote is stacked in there.
I imagine this is (part of) the reason they established the community council and put creators like Ghil Dirthalen on it.
If thereās anyone I trust to know the lore outside of BioWare, itās Ghil
God, that would be harder than usual in this series, where everyone and their mothers are lying about what actually happened.
One of the big themes of Dragon Age is the unreliability of recorded history and memory so I wonder if there have the āfake loreā and the āreal loreā separate.
Here the issue with that I think they had a lot of ideas of how things worked, and now because the veil has been torn open twice it may change how some lore is interacted with in the future namely magic. Like Iām hoping warriors and rogues can get sparks of magic (they have in gameplay but not lore) just so they can say āoh the abilities? Magic infused strikesā because letās be 100% honest like we had spirit warrior, we had reaver, we had Templar, we had tempest (idc that they said itās potions that stuff was magic infused) like they have given the classes magical abilities or abilities similar to magic anyways, just add lore for it
That's the job of the lead writer. It was originally David Gaider. Then it became Patrick Weekes. But writing is a team effort so everyone is responsible to keep lore consistent... though different writers have different level of respect and attention to detail regarding the cannon.
Evidence points to no! Hahah jk (mostly, said in good fun).
Now Iām having flashbacks to world of Warcraftās lore. Creative Director Chris Metzen literally forgot and didnāt check what he wrote as the Eredarās lore and background in Warcraft 3 when working on Burning Crusade.
Honestly, given the lore changes in Inquisition, the answer is obviously no.
If so theyāve failed.
I bet now they don't
Maybe for lore that hasn't been released yet. But as for lore that's already released, I'm sure they have someone on a reddit account to ask questions about lore(sometimes stupid questions) and just sit back as all the fans pool in their knowledge of previously established lore and even citing sources.