In the wake of news out of Electronic Arts that the company would be laying off 1500 employees by April 2010, including rumors that Mythic in particular was hit hard by this, an executive with the studio has come forward to assure customers of their MMOGs that the company would continue to support their titles as before.

EA Mythic currently supports three titles: Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online. In the case of Warhammer particularly, layoff rumors have suggested that the game would essentially be relegated to "maintenance mode" with no further content being produced.

Nevertheless, Jeff Hickman has released a public response to the concern, promising that all three titles would continue as usual and both future content and patches would be developed as originally planned.

Warhammer has certainly had a rocky launch, failing to be the World of Warcraft killer it set out to be initially. While the development team has made attempts to fix up a lot of the issues that affected the game at its start, it remains to be seen if their latest attempts towards recapturing players with things like their new unlimited free trial will improve their subscriber numbers.

BioWare is a developer with an extensive history in roleplaying games. One of their earliest titles, Baldur's Gate, is often lauded as revitalizing the computer RPG genre entirely as well as introducing the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ruleset to an audience that had never been exposed to it. When their 2007 sci-fi RPG Mass Effect was released on the Xbox 360, it had amassed a million in worldwide sales in its first three weeks. Their engines (Infinity, Aurora, Odyssey, Eclipse etc) have been the backbones of their own games as well as titles developed by other companies. From titles like these to Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights, BioWare has consistently shown that they have a steady grasp on immersive storytelling and character development.

Dragon Age: Origins is BioWare's latest release, returning to their roots as fantasy aficionados after their forays into science fiction. In this expansive RPG you play as a Grey Warden, a guardian of Thedas who dedicates his or her life to protecting the populous from the return of the Darkspawn and their horrible Blights.

Unless you're playing the PC version, the game's perspective is typical third-person over-the-shoulder. On top of this viewpoint, PC players can zoom back to a tactical isometric viewpoint similar to Baldur's Gate or Diablo. This is extremely beneficial in combat because it gives you an overview of the entire field and, when combined with the ability to pause combat to issue orders to your teammates, gives you greater control over fights.

In the course of the game you'll be given the option of recruiting at least eight additional companions (nine including the character in The Stone Prisoner DLC), with a total of three other secondary characters active in your party at any one time. At any point you can jump in and out of anyone else in your party, never strictly bound to your main character except for dialog and some plot sequences. The depth to which control can be maintained over your companions is incredible; all characters, including your own, can unlock tactics slots. These are used to create situational conditionals that determine how your characters behave in battle. For example, a tactic can be set up on a healer character that if a party member drops below a certain percentage of health, the character will cast a healing spell on them. If you can think of a situation, it is possible to set it up in the tactics screen, making this mechanic both extremely powerful as well as extremely daunting. One of my complaints about Dragon Age was this tool-- it's probably as in-depth as you're going to get short of messing around with console commands, but the tool itself is pretty intimidating for anyone who isn't interested in taking the hardcore route. It's a shame as the combat AI by default isn't very impressive; I've consistently had difficulty forcing my companions to focus their attacks on the same target-- even if you pause the game and order them to attack something, moments later something else will override that command and they'll go off doing their own things again. My companions also don't seem to possess the greatest sense of spatial awareness, consistently standing in area of effect abilities without any sense that they might want to step out of the flames. However, in the thirty hours I've spent so far playing the game, this is probably my only real gripe.

Combat can be pretty unforgiving, even on the easy or normal difficulties, but personally I feel that this is a good thing. Battles aren't "easy," you can't simply cruise through blasting away at everything. All of your abilities, from mage spells to warrior skills, are on a cool-down, so the game plays more like a hybrid real-time turn-based game. I haven't died very often, but I've still found myself consistently challenged in nearly every fight.

For Dragon Age, BioWare has dropped the morality wheel they implemented in Mass Effect. Instead of worrying about arbitrary points awarded through dialog, the things you do and say affect your standing with your companions. Each of them have their own personalities and dispositions and doing things that they agree with elevate their opinion of you, while doing things they're diametrically opposed to makes them think less of you and your leadership. While this sort of system isn't new by any stretch, the way it's handled in Dragon Age is surprising and extremely compelling. Aside from the expected "good characters respond positively to good actions," one of your companions, for example, has a single-minded focus towards the main storyline's objective and becomes very frustrated with you if you do anything deviating from it. If you accept side quests that don't have anything to do with the main story, this companion usually has an acerbic quip about the necessity of charity when you're trying to save the world. But it's not just side quests, if you elect to solve a problem the "hard" way instead of the easier route, even if that easier route is morally questionable, this character will often complain, rationalizing that the greater danger the world faces is worth the loss of individuals here and there. It's these nuances that have consistently amazed me during my playthrough. Companions also have opinions of one another and don't hesitate to share them if they feel particularly strongly towards someone else. If your standing with a companion becomes too low they will desert you, while high standings inspire your friends to fight harder at your side and unlock secondary quests and even possible romance options.

I've already written extensively about the quests in Dragon Age, and now that I've played further enough in the story I have to reiterate the same point I've made in the past. While the game absolutely excels in creating difficult, morally grey choices that have me deliberating for a long time over the best route to pick, I still do come away from these quests feeling that as far as the story goes, to a certain extent, things are pre-determined. I suppose this is really only a negative depending on your perspective; if you're only playing the game once you're not likely to notice it, but I do think this hurts things from a re-playability perspective. There are usually multiple ways to approach a problem, ranging from "good" to "bad" to many shades of grey, but often I've seen that the approach you take depends more on playing style and any roleplaying attachment than necessity in the game itself-- aside from some different dialog lines, there isn't a very tangible effect a lot of the time. I don't think this should really detract anyone though, because as I've said it's only something I've noticed by an obsessive tendency to save and reload over and over to see every possible outcome. For the vast, vast majority of people you're not going to notice it, but it is there. It's the downside of finite resources and development time-- it's simply not possible to create such a vast world that accounts for so many player variables. Most players would miss out on half of the content you spent so much time working on. However, for this juggling act I believe BioWare has done an amazing job. Dragon Age is one of the few games I've played that has given me a visceral connection to both the characters and the story, and I've been pacing myself because I don't want to finish it too quickly. (It should be qualified that with the thirty hour figure above, I'm still probably not even halfway through the game. As David Gaider, the lead writer for the game, put it here earlier, "Dragon Age is a big-ass game -- as in 'dayum girl you should NOT be wearing sweatpants' kind of big-ass.")

This is not a game without flaws, however. One of my biggest annoyances is the severe lack of gear available for characters of the mage persuasion. There's a wide variety of leather and plate available but hardly any cloth, staffs or mage-specific equipment as far as I've found. While any class can wear any type of armor provided they have sufficient strength, heavier armor sets introduce "fatigue," which makes spells and skills cost more points to use-- loading up a mage in full plate gives you a severe handicap that makes it totally not worth it. There are ways to mitigate this further on in the game but all of your choices mean playing something that looks less like a mage and more like a warrior, so for someone who prefers to be a magic-user, this isn't much of an option for me. Some more variety in cloth armor and mage weapons would have been great. Aside from the aforementioned issues with companion AI, there's also been some glitchy behavior and bugs. But overall, and certainly compared to some recent releases, Dragon Age is very polished. What issues that are present don't diminish the game to me, but they could be more frustrating for someone else.

Tapping in to the variety in story choices, BioWare has set up a dedicated social network for the game, letting you see character profiles, screenshots from compelling moments in the game and even a line-by-line update of plot choices you've made. When you contrast this to the experiences of other players you see what amazing divergence is possible and it's quite something to behold. Another advantage of the PC version is that the game automatically captures screenshots as you play, uploading them to this site in a gallery in the background so you have pictorial evidence of your accomplishments. Although the site doesn't seem to get updated as often as I like (my last level update on the site was nine and I'm already well into twelve by now) it will be something cool to show off when I complete my first playthrough.

Visually, the game is just stunning. Landscapes are beautiful and I've personally felt other characters' facial expressions are very lifelike and real. The game performs very well on all the machines I've used it on, looking respectable even at low settings while totally gorgeous at max. The voice acting is amazing as well, soliciting talent from notable actors like Steve Valentine, Tim Curry and Claudia Black to name just a few. Dragon Age is unmistakably a mature title that handles its subject matter with a respectable level of violence and a healthy measure of wit and good humor (and a dash of sex thrown in) to keep the game engaging and enjoyable. The sum of everything comes together to create a story that is as much fun to play as it is engrossing. BioWare has taken their abilities demonstrated in their previous titles and really raised the bar for compelling storytelling in a video game, whether RPG or otherwise. My ultimate opinion is that this is a fantastic title that should be played by anyone who's a fan of the RPG genre.

Sad news out of Electronic Arts, with Gamasutra reporting that from now until April 2010, EA will be laying off 1500 employees. Unconfirmed rumors say that this will hit Mythic the hardest with "80 people [at Mythic] today, which is about 40% of the company and responsible for 90% of the content". The same source has also indicated that Mythic's under-performing MMOG Warhammer Online will be going into "maintenance mode," so only time will tell if that's the case.

Other rumors about this are running rampant, including one that the majority of the staff on Command and Conquer 4 will be laid off after the title is released.

Electronic Arts hasn't said anything specific about what will be affected other than their press release confirming the 1500 number, but other rumors are suggesting that several in-development titles have been canceled as part of "a plan to narrow its product portfolio to provide greater focus on titles with higher margin opportunities." Sadly, this will affect consumer choice as well, as going forward EA only intends to publish games that they expect to push a lot of sales, and, further, 2010 will only have a total of 30 releases, which is a 50% reduction from the number of titles they were responsible for in 2008.

The announcement comes just as Electronic Arts announced that they spent $300 million to buy social gaming startup Playfish.

While big layoffs are always tragic at any company, 2009 has been particularly difficult due to the economic hardships affecting the rest of the world. We at GayGamer send best wishes to everyone hit by this latest restructuring.

Like many others, yesterday I cracked open my copy of Dragon Age: Origins, excited to finally get a chance to play a game that I'd looked forward to for a while. I've thought very highly of Bioware and Mass Effect was one of my favorite recent titles, so I've got very high expectations for this game.

In a previous entry I talked about the way many games implement "moral choices" these days and how lackluster I generally find that implementation to be. While most games tend to make the player choose between whether or not they give a hug to an orphan or eat a baby, with little to no relevance to the game whichever route you decide, the typical manifestation of morality in video games generally manages to come across as a very stark black/white system that doesn't resemble the way human beings actually are. One of the things Bioware has advertised about regarding Dragon Age is that their story will be much more nuanced and realistic, not pigeonholing players into these sock-puppets of emotions.

While I'm no where near far along enough in the campaign to make a qualified statement on things, I wanted to break for a moment and explore my previous point a bit further using this game as an example. Taking the origin story for the Human Mage, this is going to be extremely spoilerific for anyone who hasn't played it yet. I'm going to put that in bold, just so there's no confusion. Do not read further if you're unprepared for spoilers.

The Rite of Tranquility is a ritual that severs a mage's connection to the Fade. Used for apprentices too frightened to undertake the Harrowing or for mages the Circle feels are too dangerous, the ritual disconnects a person from their emotions, leaving them a robotic shell of their former selves. They're no longer tied to the Fade and cannot use magic or be possessed in turn, but they're barely considered people any longer.

In the mage Origin story, you are tasked with completing your Harrowing and becoming a full member of the Circle. Upon doing so successfully you learn that your friend Jowan has been involved in a forbidden love affair with a Chantry initiate named Lily. Because of their sneaking around, a rumor has spread that Jowan has dabbled in blood magic and is to be made Tranquil as punishment. It's at this point that you're given a choice between helping your friend destroy his phylactery (a vial of blood that the Templars can use to track down and kill rogue mages) or turning him in to the Circle as would be the expected thing for a proper mage to do. There's also the option of refusing to help him entirely, but if you pick that route you're still required to turn the pair in or the game simply won't let you progress any further.

I played the Origin sequence six times, which is a record for me. Part of this was for experimentation for this article, part of it was because there are just so many nuanced routes you can take from action to dialog choice.

On my first run through I decided to tell Jowan and Lily that I needed to think things over before I could agree to help them. A nearby senior enchanter had a problem with a spider infestation in the storage tunnels and in exchange for helping her I got her promise of a "big favor" in the future. After this detour I went back to Irving, the leader of the Circle, and confessed that something was up. The distinguished mage already knew about their affair and had an inkling that they were intending to escape-- instead of hauling them off to be punished, he tasked me with gaining their trust and helping them break into the repository to destroy Jowan's phylactery. The reason for this was because Gregoir, in charge of the Templars, wouldn't take the word of my character or Irving if we turned Lily in. He would claim that Jowan had coerced her into helping him, letting her get away without punishment. Irving wanted her to be caught in the act, red-handed, and he wanted me to help make it happen.

You have no choice at this point; no chance to tell Jowan and Lily that Irving already knew, no opportunity to confess that you'd ratted them out. Your only option is to continue the masquerade and help execute their plan.

I did so, breaking into the repository and reaching Jowan's phylactery. It wasn't until this point that the game finally let me confess to what had happened, receiving the expected outrage from my friend for betraying him and setting them both up to be captured. The pair escape the repository ahead of me where Gregoir, Irving and a contingent of Templars are waiting for them. A fearful Jowan casts a spell towards them, incapacitating the advancing guards, revealing that the rumors (and that his promises to the contrary were lies) of him being a blood mage were real. Lily rebukes him for this deception and casts him away, where he escapes the scene and leaves my character and his love behind. When Gregoir and Irving recover they arrest Lily and Gregoir gives me verbal lectures that he doesn't trust me, even though I was only following Irving's orders. At a certain point Duncan, the representative from the Grey Wardens tasked with convincing the Circle to cough up some more mages to aid in a conflict against an upcoming threat, informs the two squabbling men that he wants to recruit me and leave the tower. After further debate all agree to let it happen and I leave with him to continue the rest of the story. Origin complete.

I went through to attempt it a second way, this time not turning Jowan in and not letting anyone know what was going on-- the way a good friend should. In order to break into the repository we needed a rod of fire from the Circle's stores, but the Tranquil in charge of turning it over refused without a requisition form signed by a senior enchanter. After cashing in the favor from the woman with the spider problem, we were in business progressing towards the repository just like last time. You help him destroy his phylactery and the three of you run away just in time to discover Irving and Gregoir waiting for you-- total deja vu. The scene progresses about the same as before with Jowan revealing his blood magic in the same way and Lily telling him to get out of her sight. Irving chastises you for not coming to him with what you knew and Gregoir wants you arrested, but his desires for punishment are interrupted by Duncan arriving to tell him that he wants to recruit your character. There's a bunch of variation in dialog here: you can either be a jerk about it, unrepentant for what you did in aiding a fugitive, and Duncan tells a pissed Gregoir that the Grey Wardens have ultimate authority on conscription and no one, be they Templars nor kings, can prevent that if they want to add someone to their ranks. You can be more apologetic for what you've done and the tone of everyone else is a bit softer, but the ultimate result is the same no matter how you go: you end up leaving the tower as the latest recruit for the Grey Wardens.

My opinion of this is split in two minds. On the one hand the level of writing was so immaculate that I was really impressed, which is what drove me to repeat the same content so many times to try out every variation in action and dialog. On the other hand, it didn't make a difference what I did, because the end amounted to the same thing: Jowan escapes, I leave the tower as a new Grey Warden.

Even though the choices presented to me were easy to attach emotional resonance to-- do I stick to my loyalty to my friend and help him out, or do I help out the higher authority in my life and turn him in to the Circle-- I was disappointed to realize that it made no difference for what happened whichever route I took. I was surprised when Jowan revealed himself as a blood mage, saddened when Lily rejected him for it (after all, he did promise to her previously that he was going to give up all magic entirely just to be with her and he didn't want to become Tranquil because it would sever his love for her), but at the end of the sequence it didn't make a difference. I could leave with Duncan voluntarily, I could leave with him thumbing my nose at Gregoir for escaping arrest, or I could leave against my will kicking and screaming-- (slightly confusing me as to why the Grey Wardens wanted to take someone who was so dead set against leaving)-- but no matter what, I was leaving.

I know that most people are probably not likely to know this, since most people are going to play the game just once. But for me personally, if I had gone back to replay things helping him and not turning him in, my first choice to rat him out would have given me a much deeper and significant emotional response knowing that I had a choice between helping him or hurting him. Whether or not this ever manifested further on in the campaign or not would have been irrelevant-- Jowan needn't come back as a super villain I have to fight, but the very fact that I would've looked on my "betrayal" of him with a tangible repercussion of knowing "He could have gone free" would have hit me on a visceral level.

Of course, I could just be reading way too into this. It's easy to justify the ultimate linearity of the plot; after all, Irving told you that he'd already known something was going on, even if he didn't have specifics. It's justified in the story that you would be caught no matter what you did, regardless of my pseudo time-traveling attempts at going back and attempting to change things. By no means has this affected my enjoyment of the game, and so far I am loving it to a degree that keeps giving me goosebumps. I am also well and truly in the beginning, so there could be something I come across later in the story that references what happened here-- meeting Jowan who thanks me for letting him escape, or meeting an embittered Jowan who hates me for ratting him out and holds me responsible for losing Lily. I haven't played any of the other Origins so I don't know if they're different, though somehow I doubt that the ultimate finality of their plotlines don't end in a similar way regardless of what player choices you make. For the mage one, it likely would have been harder to come up with an impetus to get you out of the tower if Jowan escaped scott-free with Lily hand-in-hand, or if you simply rejected helping them entirely, so I can concede that towards the game as a necessity.

But still. Reading pre-release interviews talking about how the initial intent was to have the game interface with the social network page and show you where your character split along different plot "road forks" like a winding family tree, it makes me think variations like this would have been perfectly fitting for a game touting "complex moral choices." If I had to "live" with myself playing forward knowing that I could have let my friend escape, or that I'd set loose a dangerous blood mage, I would have cared a lot more than I do feeling like it didn't make a difference either way.

So, a recap. I do feel that, so far, Bioware is making good on their claims that morality in Dragon Age would be less about tropes and more about real people, but I still feel the "what relevance does it have?" test is falling short of expectations. But like I said, this doesn't ruin the game for me, nor is it even really a criticism, since I've so far found the writing so spectacular (and appreciated the fact that my first choice didn't make me choose between acting like an angel or a demon on the do-gooder spectrum), but I do feel like things could have gone further. Whether or not they do as I progress through the main campaign, I don't know, but I am still looking forward to finding out.