Dragon Age: Origins Preview and Interview
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After obligating a partially unwilling party to the defense of Redcliffe, it's time to make preparations. As it turns out, an assortment of pots, pans and gardening tools don't make for the best battle gear, so the first step was to visit the town smith to rustle up some equipment for the villagers. Unfortunately, after losing his daughter, the town smith has barricaded himself inside his forge and proceeded to drink all day and yell incoherently at any callers. After kicking in the door, the hero promises to save the smith's daughter in grand hero fashion. Interestingly enough, merely promising to save the smith's daughter gets him smithing away again, which implies that the player merely talk a good game to get the smith back to work and not actually follow through on the promise. Moral ambiguity is something rarely found in RPGs, and Bioware's games have been subtly moving in that direction for a few years now. Hopefully this is an indication of the quests at large in Dragon Age.
Aside from the questing, another surprising bit cropped up during the conversation with the drunken smith. The same two NPCs that chirped up before Sten and Morrigan voiced their disapproval yet again at their shining paragon of a party leader, but the smith even responded to these remarks. I did note it rather odd that nobody else seemed to hear their vehement objections in the first instance, so it was nice that all present characters interacted in a believable way. This could lead to some very interesting character conflict, provided it doesn't get too out of hand and leave the player staring at a non-interactive conversation between NPCs for minutes at a time.
