Drs. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk

(Gamasutra) – The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences is inducting BioWare co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk into its hall of fame, and the pair will speak at AIAS’ 2011 D.I.C.E. event.

The BioWare Doctors make the 14th and 15th inductees to the AIAS Hall of Fame, marking the first time the honorees have been a pair rather than an individual. According to AIAS, Muzyka and Zeschuk were chosen for “their emotionally engaging and detailed cinematic games,” which include Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age and other respected titles.

Epic Games president Mike Capps will present the award to the pair at February 10, 2011′s Annual Interactive Achievement Awards at the D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas.

Muzyka and Zeschuk attended medical school, where collaborating on education projects like “Acid Base Physiology Simulator” and “Gastroenterology Patient Simulator” led them toward a career in game development; they formed relationships with programmers and game designers and founded BioWare.

Muzyka is described as an “avid poker enthusiast” who won the D.I.C.E. Summit’s traditional poker tournaments in 2006 and 2010, among other distinctions in the game business.

Conversely, Zeschuk is described as being interested in “gourmet food, music and fine beer (in no particular order of importance).” Both are also directors and co-chairmen at interface software company CodeBaby.

“We’re truly honored to represent our teams of passionate, hard-working, creative staff across the BioWare Group within Electronic Arts, and they all share this award with us,” says Muzyka. “Driving BioWare’s success past, present and future are the amazing family of people we have been privileged to work with over the years and our shared core values of quality in our workplace, quality in our products, and entrepreneurship in a context of humility and integrity.”

[Full article at Gamasutra.com]

BioWare’s superior power over the console’s/PC’s rpgs says its next Dragon Age Origins downloadable expansion pack will be out for Xbox 360 and PC on January 5th. Unfortunately all PS3 owners will have to wait a few extra weeks for the DLC pack, in which the company states “should be available later on in January.”

The new DAO downloadable content, entitled “Return to Ostagar”, will allow you to slip back in Ostagar to “exact…revenge and embark on a quest for the mighty arms and armor of the once great King Cailan when [you] revisit Ostagar, the site of the Grey Wardens’ darkest hour.” Get all that? Yep, so did we.

This expansion was planned for release in late 2009, but missed it’s chance for the holiday window. The prior DLC packs ‘The Stone Prisoner’ and ‘Warden’s Keep’ were launched simultaneous with the game in November. How’s that for extra grinding power? [/endlifehere!]

“Return to Ostagar” for Dragon Age Origins will be available for download next week and will set you back 400 Microsoft Points, or $5.

[Source]

Announcement Please!

(VG247 & VG247) After Geoff Keighly posted a tweet saying that there are “around 10 games still unannounced“, people have begun speculation of which companies these games have come from. On Daniel Roy’s Tumblr account, he has a post saying that he is indeed a Senior Producer on an unannounced original IP.

As for speculation on what kind of game that it is, it will most likely a shooter since he has worked on previous games such as Splinter Cell: Double Agent and Ghost Recon 2 from Ubisoft according to his LinkedIn. With the recent release of Dragon Age: Origins, now more workers from Bioware will have time to focus on this new project. But speculation still rises: will this secret game be revealed at the 2010 VGA’s?