It's late (almost 1am Australian time), everyones' minds have been blown by Disney buying Marvel and I'm heading to bed, but first I thought I'd post a quick blog on my thoughts about an interview Ray Muzyka did with Chris Remo over a Gamasutra. Dragon Age: Origins is one of my "must buy" games of the year, mainly due to Bioware's pedigree (plus my wife will probably play it more than I will), and I've been eagerly soaking up any news I can on the game. Ray's interview touched on something I've read a little bit about, how Dragon Age will have a social aspect to it:

"These are all different types of narrative, the way I see it. There's the narrative of combat -- which creatures you defeated and how, what tactics you used to defeat them. The narrative of progression and customization -- how you look at different points in time, what equipment you have. The narrative of the story -- which quests you've done, which stories you've unlocked, which choices you've made. The narrative of the social -- which characters you have with you.

If you can surface those to other players, you've effectively created a social environment, an online-enabled offline experience. That's what we're trying to do with Dragon Age. We're trying to surface some of those."

It's an interesting thought, implementing community and social tools into a single player (as I understand it, there's no co-op mode) RPG, especially one that's as traditional or as "hardcore" as Dragon Age: Origins looks. But I like what I read here. I imagine such a focus would entail post-release DLC, mods, community tools and feedback.... it's usually the type of thing that fans and community members do themselves, but it will be interesting to see Bioware put a lot of this into practice, actually continuing to support the game long after release:

"Imagine that getting broader when you have post release downloadable content that expands the game as a platform concept, or community-driven content that people can play through and maybe the fans embrace this and make content that can even be expanded further with even more choices in it."

Is is me or is Valve's example of post-game support with Team Fortress 2, finally spreading to other developers? I would definitely welcome that; if Dragon Age: Origins has a compelling world with great gameplay, it'll be the type of game I'd like to play over and over again enhanced by post game DLC and mods, not wait years for a sequel.

Plus it has Tim Curry in it. Win!