Bioware’s David Gaider gave a talk in Melbourne last week, revealing just how many words have been written in their games over the years. Can you guess?
Gaider, who wrote the recently released Dragon Age novel, has been at Bioware for many years. He’s worked on many of their games and written many, many words of science-fiction dialogue and fantasy quest lines.
In his presentation at the Framework conference in Melbourne on April 23, Gaider revealed exactly how many words have appeared in the Bioware RPGs he’s worked on, including the upcoming Dragon Age: Origins.
Baldur’s Gate II (2000) – 1,200,000 words
Neverwinter Nights (2002) – 200,000 words
NWN: Shadows of Undrentide (2003) – 200,000 words
NWN: Hordes of the Underdark (2003) – 200,000 words
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003) – 600,000 words
Dragon Age: Origins (2009) – 900,000 words
So those fearing that Dragon Age might be “dumbed down for consoles” can rest assured it will contain nearly as many words to read as the 100-plus hour long epic that was BGII. Indeed, Gaider said that dialogue with your party members accounts for approximately one-third of all text to be found in Dragon Age: Origins.
Gaider only counted those games he’d worked on personally, which explains why the likes of Jade Empire and Mass Effect are missing from the above list.
NegativeZero
April 27, 2009 at 1:49 PM
Does that total for BG2 include the Throne of Bhaal expansion? That expansion was practically another game’s worth of content.
Report PermalinkDavid Wildgoose
April 27, 2009 at 1:52 PM
@NegativeZero
Nope, just BGII on its own. I don’t think Gaider worked on Bhaal.
Report Permalinkattila
April 27, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Good to hear – looking forward to this game a lot.
Speaking of KOTOR – anybody being following “Bastard of the Old Republic” over at Eurogamer? It is a three part article written by somebody playing KOTOR again and only making the most evil decisions possible in the game. An amusing read, but also a good reminder of how excellent the writing and characterisations were in that game.
Report PermalinkMr Waffle
April 28, 2009 at 10:47 AM
I’ve been read it too, absolutely hilarious. The excellent writing in KOTOR meant it is one of the few games I’ve actually been able to play an ‘evil’ character, normally I get bored incredibly quickly of just picking the ‘evil’ dialogue option every time…
Report PermalinkJackablade
April 27, 2009 at 3:17 PM
Baldur’s Gate had more writing than Planescape Torment (800,000 words)? That can’t be right, can it?
Report PermalinkDavid Wildgoose
April 27, 2009 at 3:30 PM
@Jackablade
I’ve a vague recollection of Chris Avellone saying somewhere that Torment had 2 million words of text.
Report PermalinkH2oGatesy
April 27, 2009 at 5:54 PM
I am really looking forward to Dragon Age. I think Im going to sink a lot of hours into it.
Man when does it come out again……
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