We prefer for them to take their time making a good game rather than churn out one just for money. DA2 vs. Inquisition was proof enough of that.
EA SUCKS but so does Bioware Thread
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While I'm always one to defend art taking its time to be good instead of being rushed and bad, and will always defend for instance, George R.R. Martin….
There's taking your time, and then there's testing your audience's patience. Especially when you have an ongoing narrative and ended with cliffhanger elements.
Inquisition was four years ago. And the next one is another 3 years away? That's a really long wait. We'll probably be on the next console gen at that point, which will lead to them developed a crippled version for the current systems and a version not taking advantage of its power for the new systems... AGAIN. Followed by not releasing any of the DLC on the PS4 version.
Yeah, DA2 and ME4 are clear examples of don't push it too fast just for the sake of getting it out... but taking most a decade is kind of rough. I'll have forgotten everything about the old games by then!
I think in any ongoing narrative be it book or movie or game, 2 years is rough with cliffhangers, 3 years is okay, 5 years is about as long as can be reasonably asked of an audience. and 7 years is pushing it. ANd beyond that it's just... will any of the old audience even be there at that point if you don't deliver crazy well?
My faith in Bioware is pretty shaken at this point, and I'm the guy that was okay with ME3' and DA2. Between screwing over the PS3 players on DAI, and ME4 being meh... and not giving a single crap about Anthem... (Play Bioware games for the story and the characters. Not the shooter gameplay. Also I have Warframe for that.)
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I figure Anthem is just something EA is forcing them to do rather than their RPGs.
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They already had a mech suit shooter in Mass Effect. If Anthem is what they demanded, they could have delivered that with the last ME game, and gone stronger on its multiplayer mode than they ended up doing.
Its super lootbox heavy random weapon and random character dropping multiplayer.
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Hey everyone,
We have been working on a new Dragon Age game for quite a while now and I am pleased to finally tease the existence of this project!
While we won’t be sharing any details for now, I can tell you we have been building a new team around a core of Dragon Age veterans, people I’ve worked with on Dragon Age, Jade Empire, and some of whom I’ve worked with since the Baldur’s Gate days.
While I have been focused on Anthem, the rest of the team has been hard at work exploring ways to push BioWare’s storytelling to the next level.
I’m so excited to show you more!
Mark Darrah, Executive Producer
Making players into heroes of their own stories has been my real-life quest since Baldur’s Gate.
Over the years I’ve taken on increasing challenges: building vast living worlds, devising fun party-based combat and illustrating fantastic stories. Now, I’m honored and excited to continue BioWare’s rich legacy of colorful companions, romance and epic choices in my favorite fantasy franchise.
We’ve gathered our strongest team yet and are venturing forth on the most epic quest ever!
Matthew Goldman, Creative Director
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The Dragon Age fan in me is excited. Given EA's new path with lives services, I am also worried.
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[hide][cracks knuckles]
Solas!
Boy!
You've got a lot of fucking explaining to do, mother fucker![/hide] -
Pardon me while I squee. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
That said, this was the teaser-est of teasers, so it's hard to make a proper judgement. The only things I can say are: "WTF is that symbol thing in the middle?" and "Please God, don't suck."
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Solas is an asshat. I just hope we get to see the Imperium or the Qunari homelands while trying to track down Solas to kick him in the face lol.
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I literally played up to the escape from the camp portion of Inquisition, and thought to myself, "Solas is a really interesting character. Maybe I should reset the game as a female elf and romance him."
I feel like Sally Brown after wasting my Halloween.
You blockhead! You whispered sweet nothings in my ear and took me to a dream world! And all I got was dream make-out sequence!
[hide]IF YOU HAD TOLD ME THAT YOU WERE THE FUCKING DREAD WOLF IN THE FIRST PLACE, I WOULD HAVE JOINED YOUR CRUSADE OF DARKNESS GLADLY! DON'T YOU THINK I'D LOVE TO BE A WOLF!?! DON'T YOU THINK I'D BE AT YOUR SIDE DESTROYING EVERYTHING!?!
YOU OWE ME RESTITUTION!!!
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LOL. A lot of fangirls are feeling like this right now.
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Solas is an asshat. I just hope we get to see the Imperium or the Qunari homelands while trying to track down Solas to kick him in the face lol.
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[qimg]http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/2015-01-12.jpg[/qimg]
Lmao. Yes….Exactly. 100% punchable.
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https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/dragon-age-4-was-rebooted-to-save-anthem/
So apparently back when Bioware was trying to get Anthem sorted out DA4 ended up getting scrapped. But because Anthem is now a total failure DA4 is back in business, but it's going to take years. And Mike Laidlaw left Bioware so it's . . . . worrisome.Goddammit, Bioware, what did EA do to you?
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As easy as it is to pick on EA, the latest read by Jason Schreier makes it pretty clear that Bioware has a massive ton of issues as a studio itself.
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Goddammit, Bioware, what did EA do to you?
I'd recommend reading the whole Kotaku article about the development of Anthem. It's long but it's a good read and it explains why Anthem is just a meme at this point. It has nothing to do with EA … The whole blame goes to Biowares management and leadership or the lack thereof. For many years they apparently had no idea what kind of game they even wanted to make.
Also Dragon Age was never not planned. They scrapped the game, moved the team and started again with a smaller team ... which is why it will probably take a long time until we see more of the game.
Although at this point i'm not sure how much i'm looking forward to it. -
As a Mass Effect fan, I can only tell DA fans to be careful what they wish for. Some times nothing is better than something…
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That's always the worry.
But I like to cling to hope in that giving them enough time, which means years, will result in a good product. When you consider what a success DAI was, you'd think they'd put more effort into it.
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I just want them to finish the Dread Wolf storyline and not end in a cliffhanger tease for once, and call it done. Its really clear the talent has mostly left the studio at this point and they have no idea what they're doing. As is, by the time we get DA4, it'll have been 7 or 8 years between releases, and that's just ridiculous.
I loved Bioware unconditionally and supported them with buying the deluxe releases day 1… and I'm one of the people that actually liked DA2 and ME3... but I just can't believe in them anymore at this point.
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That's always the worry.
But I like to cling to hope in that giving them enough time, which means years, will result in a good product. When you consider what a success DAI was, you'd think they'd put more effort into it.
The article Neaeran and I are referencing explicitly mention that it's almost a goddamn miracle DAI was even functional when they only got it down in the last year of its development through the arduous overwork of its development team. It was to the point that the devs were hoping it'd fail so that Bioware would change its development cycle instead of relying on "Bioware Magic" to get it completed in cram time. The fact that DAI succeeded only helped to reinforce bad behavior and management.
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Yeha, Bioware… maybe from now on stop putting games on a 6 year development cycle where you only start making the game in the last 12 months. That might help. They blamed ME:A on it being the B team studio that squandered their development cycle on and EA for forcing them to push it out too soon... but that's just clearly not the actual problem at this point.
It does help explain why some of the things they promised in DAI completely fell to the wayside. "Depending on if you have a wizard, rogue or warrior, they'll have different effects on the environment and shortcuts and strategies you can have" turned into "a mage can move a couple rocks in about four spots total that don't really do anyhting." and you had bad filler padding like "collect the 100 shards" quest which suuuucked and had no real payoff.
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Anthem is currently not doing well. On Twitch, it is entering Fallout 76 territory. That does not look too good considering that Anthem is 45 days old while Fallout 76 (arguably the worst game of 2018) being 145 days old. With EA pushing Frostbite and LIIIVEE SERVIIICEE model on everything they come across, and then the recent Kotaku article, I am not really optimistic about DA4 (and conversely, TES:VI).That being said, the story for DA4 won't be writtern by Cathleen Rootsaert. She has been the lead writer for MEA and Anthem, which were both criticized. Without her at the helm, maybe..just maybe this could set the story in a better place. They also have 7 solid writers working on the project besides Patrick Weekes. We have:
Brianne Battye: wrote Cullen for DAI
Sheryl Chee: DA writing veteran.
Sylvia Feketekuty: wrote a fair amount for ME2 (dlc) and ME3 content, Corypheus, Josephine, Samson's and Calpernia's quest.
Courtney woods: worked on Descent DLC and Reyes, Lexi and parts of Kadara in MEA
Luke Kristjanson: long time veteran.
John Dombrow: worked on Mass Effect, new to DA.
Alexis Kennedy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Kennedy
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Oh, you give me shreds of hope.
you had bad filler padding like "collect the 100 shards" quest which suuuucked and had no real payoff.
At least the shards gave you SOMETHING for it other than just an achievement record. 100 shards was way too damn much though.
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Jason Schreier has written another article, this time on Dragon Age series. He talks about how BioWare started working on DA4, after Tresspasser DLC, code named Joplin. Joplin really had some good concepts like player choices, decision driven story design etc. However, the team was then divided to work on Andromeda and Anthem. After the troubles with the development of Anthem, they rebooted DA4, code named Morrison. It will probably have more multiplayer elements in it, given how EA has been pushing the GaaS model in every fucking thing they touch.
Bottom line: It will make you worry about the future of Dragon Age series. I really wish they have more Joplin and less Morrison. Why isn't there a "fuck you EA" thread yet?
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Cause 'Fuck EA' is eternally implied. It's not like Capcom, who has managed to make a decent comeback, even if they might make a decline at some point.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
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It does make you worry. You can only hope that they will follow in Capcom's footsteps.
But mostly my reaction is: "Uuuuuuggggghhhhhh . . . ."
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If EA doesn't close down Bioware within the next decade it'll be a god damn miracle.
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I don't think they will. BioWare is quite well recognized. It will be a PR shitshow.
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This is true. Imagine the fan uproar if Bioware was closed, even after all this fiasco.
Still, EA was/is a bad influence on Bioware, but right now it's Bioware that's screwing up. Even if the poor fucks are being forced by EA to use the Frostbite engine.
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They're NOT being forced to use Frostbite though. That's one of the things we've learned recently. It's horrible for RPGs and they had to make stuff from scratch ad absolutely the wrong system to use… but it was Bioware that ultimately decided to use it. EA didn't force them, though they may have encouraged it.
https://www.vg247.com/2018/04/09/bioware-ea-never-forced-using-frostbite-engine/
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They're NOT being forced to use Frostbite though. That's one of the things we've learned recently. It's horrible for RPGs and they had to make stuff from scratch ad absolutely the wrong system to use… but it was Bioware that ultimately decided to use it. EA didn't force them, though they may have encouraged it.
https://www.vg247.com/2018/04/09/bioware-ea-never-forced-using-frostbite-engine/
The biggest issue is that Bioware's old engines seem like they aren't really up for developing modern games, and using another engine would cut too much into profits for it to be a sound financial decision. This is especially the case when Dragon Age Inquisition was critically acclaimed, won most GOTY awards in its year, and I believe is Bioware's best-selling game.
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It was definitely an initiative by EA to push for studios to all use frostbite (considering it was their proprietary engine and they wouldn't have to pay any licensing fees, makes sense), but yeah doesn't seem like Bioware was necessarily obliged to use it when they already had some stuff already built for Anthem when it was still referred to as Dylan.
Or at the very least reusing shit they made in DA:I instead of re-reinventing the wheel
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As they say: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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For the record, the new Jedi Fallen Order game is evidently being built in, say it with me now
F R O S T B I T-oh actually it's Unreal Engine.
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So, uh, as someone who is like 15 years behind of the gaming trend for some series, what was so bad about Dragon Age 2, compared to 1 and 3?
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Simply put: It was too rushed. DA1 was so popular that Bioware rushed it out way too fast without doing enough planning and testing. Unlike 1 or 3, you could never go anywhere except places in the city of Kirkwall and the beach next to it where the dragon was. Kirkwall was supposed to be "big" but in reality it wasn't. Re-visiting the same places got boring real quick. The companions, while not awful, where not nearly as good as 1 or 3. Varric was the only super-popular character, thus he was made a companion again in 3.
The gameplay wasn't bad except it was very . . . . fast. The writing itself had that Bioware charm, but the story did not go as well as people wanted. Not being able to choose your species was also a thing that pissed people off, because it's always fun to not be human if you don't want to be.
That said, it wasn't a BAD game. It just wasn't as good as DA1 was, and that made people sad. Or pissed off.
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@S.C.:
So, uh, as someone who is like 15 years behind of the gaming trend for some series, what was so bad about Dragon Age 2, compared to 1 and 3?
2 was made in about 14 months total. And it was pretty good given that insane rush job, but the sacrifices needed to make that deadline show in the final product. The plot was super duper railroaded so that nothing you chose or did made any difference at all. The combat was dumbed down and turned into endless mob hordes instead of tactical battles. Most of the companions were eh. One of the guys carried over from the first game, and was pretty heavily character assassinated and taken from being a charming likeable character into an awful unforgivable ass. It only had a handful of areas that you revisited over and over and over and over. (though I kind of liked that intimacy, it was your home and your recognized stuff.)
Had it been Dragon Age: Kirkwall, and treated as a spinoff side game, instead of being Dragon Age 2, the next big epic chapter of the story, it would probably have been better received overall.
All that said, I actually liked it pretty well and played through it twice in short order, but I RPed really heavy in how I treated my main character so that made a big difference.
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The biggest issue is that Bioware's old engines seem like they aren't really up for developing modern games, and using another engine would cut too much into profits for it to be a sound financial decision. This is especially the case when Dragon Age Inquisition was critically acclaimed, won most GOTY awards in its year, and I believe is Bioware's best-selling game.
That definitely was a miscalculation though. Studios like EA can easily negotiate for a larger upfront fee in exchange for way lower royalty percentage.
Someone over there hugely underestimated the gains of using Unreal4.
When stuff is mentioned like having to wait 24 hours to bake in the new light for artist among a lot of the other stuff that was reported it sounds like a colossal cost of efficiency. I can't even imagine what a huge pain in the ass it would be to write custom tools for Frostbyte(especially if you want to have lighting tools) that allow other non programming dev people to do certain things when you don't have the documentation to understand it fully and instead have to rely on a dev that worked on the engine freeing up time who might not even be able to help you and has to find the right person to ask. And that is before you lose people that just go on do other jobs in that case well someone has to go and just straight up look into the engine code. -
So the main developers of Anthem said "fuck it" and are now working on DA4. Woot!
https://www.gamesradar.com/dragon-age-4-becomes-biowares-next-big-focus-as-anthem-loses-its-lead-creators/?fbclid=IwAR1wDmdnoqpnNAk9NXfEQ4Kh5FMPgOvPmEZ_Pclzcb0k_PgeCRX91oCz5oUBut so help me, if you change it from single-player I will WRECK YOU.
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RIP anthem
I mean, it was already dead, but I just wanted to reaffirm that. Shit's gonna need an FFXIV 2.0 update if they want it to be respectable.
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But they're only doing what they were originally supposed to do right? It sounded like they were just helping out for a while before returning to work on DA4 while, i think the Austin team with Ben Irving, continues the work on Anthem.
I really wonder if an Anthem 2.0 would be possible or if it would even make sense at this point.
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See it's kinda fucked up cuz yeah they were brought on board for an all hands situation, but on the other hand Edmonton was supposed to do the bulk of the work until it became an all hands situation.
The lore theoretically has a possible set-up because the centerpiece they wrote the story around was this "Anthem of Creation" that attempts to remodel the world. So the groundwork is definitely there for a hard reset button if the anthem actually succeeds or is used to decimate and recreate the physics of the world lol. Whether or not they use it to do so is the real question, though.
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So the main developers of Anthem said "fuck it" and are now working on DA4. Woot!
https://www.gamesradar.com/dragon-age-4-becomes-biowares-next-big-focus-as-anthem-loses-its-lead-creators/?fbclid=IwAR1wDmdnoqpnNAk9NXfEQ4Kh5FMPgOvPmEZ_Pclzcb0k_PgeCRX91oCz5oUBut so help me, if you change it from single-player I will WRECK YOU.
Potentially adding co-op functionality to it would be the least of Dragon Age 4's problems given what we already know about Bioware's issues.
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So the main developers of Anthem said "fuck it" and are now working on DA4. Woot!
https://www.gamesradar.com/dragon-age-4-becomes-biowares-next-big-focus-as-anthem-loses-its-lead-creators/?fbclid=IwAR1wDmdnoqpnNAk9NXfEQ4Kh5FMPgOvPmEZ_Pclzcb0k_PgeCRX91oCz5oUBut so help me, if you change it from single-player I will WRECK YOU.
They already had a side thing for multiplayer both in DA and ME. They don't need to wreck the main game to get that functionality in there.
Though DA3's multiplayer was complete ass while ME3's was fantastic. MEA's not so much.
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I think it's safe to say that the majority of DA players don't play it for the multiplayer.
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[h=1]EA CEO says Anthem is 'not working very well' but vows to stick with it (and BioWare)[/h]
https://www.pcgamer.com/ea-ceo-says-anthem-is-not-working-very-well-but-vows-to-stick-with-it-and-bioware/In a lengthy interview with GameDaily.biz, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson acknowledged that Anthem was a disappointment, but said that the game is "compelling" enough at its core that BioWare and EA are going to stick with it—and that he believes it can still be made into "something special and something great."
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"We're going to have our core BioWare audience that's been with us for a really long time. There are kids today who are 12 years old who weren't around when BioWare started making games… and they have different expectations of what a BioWare game should be in the context of the world they've grown up in," Wilson said. "As a result of that, BioWare has to evolve and has to expand and has to test the elasticity of that brand. The teams at BioWare will continue to come to work every day and listen to their players old and new and seek to deliver on the promises they've made to those players. That's what you're seeing with Anthem today."
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Wait. So they're actually saying, out loud and as if its something to be proud of… "We really don't give a shit about anyone that knows how good Bioware used to be. New players don't care about all the story and character stuff, for modern kids it just needs to be a dumb shooter because we really don't care about our history and legacy."
Do they not realize that's the message they're conveying there?
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Wait. So they're actually saying, out loud and as if its something to be proud of… "We really don't give a shit about anyone that knows how good Bioware used to be. New players don't care about all the story and character stuff, for modern kids it just needs to be a dumb shooter because we really don't care about our history and legacy."
Do they not realize that's the message they're conveying there?
It feels mostly like trying to come up with reasons about how Anthem could appeal to older fans of Bioware even when Anthem is probably the first game that Bioware has released where older fans just went 'What? Why are you even making this kind of game…..outside of micro-transaction money?' since Bioware's pedigree is in RPGs.
So....there really wasn't any appeal to older fans at all with Anthem.