Massive BioWare Interview at Game Informer

[imweasel]

ME2 was mostly about Shepard, his companions and Cerberus, which still worked out fine while hardly moving the story forward. In ME3 they just went full retard.

 

[pippin]

Which is weird, because I though ME2 was the most engagin game because of that very fact. The first one was like staring at numbers in the database while you travelled, and the third had too many fedex quest which ended up ruining all your stories.

 

[A horse of course]

Dragon Age II:
- Start to finish development took about 14 months.
- Were working on the concept that would later become Dragon Age: Inquisition at the time, but were asked to turn it around quicker in part due to The Old Republic not doing as well as expected.
- Wanted to tell a more personal story, even if it was a departure from BioWare norm.
- Feel the biggest mistake was reusing environments and pretending that they were different. Poorly handled asset and area reuse, trying to pass off copies as new places. Consider it a very valid criticism.
- Admit they tried to streamline it too far, in part to meet the tight production timeline. Failed to deliver on variety, a strong plot and premise. Over focus on action in the new combat system.
- Weren't entirely sure it should be called Dragon Age II, and actually had the working title Dragon Age: Exodus.

Of course they admit all this years later, but hyped it to hell and back at the time. The latter reference to its "poor reception" is also telling since games journalists gobbled its cock so far down their gullets that jizz was leaking out their assholes.

Dragon Age: Inquisition:
- A lot of "soul searching" based on lessons learned from Dragon Age II.
- "Dragon Age II definitely had lasting psychic scars on the Dragon Age team."
- Wasn't simple moving over to Frostbite and knowing the game had to launch on five platforms.
- Felt enormous pressure due to both the poor reception of Dragon Age II and Inquisition being the first game without Ray and Greg's involvement at the studio.
- Looked at the trajectory of BioWare games from Baldur's Gate and felt they had gotten smaller and tighter. Wanted to go back to exploration emphasis.
- Admit exploration was not perfectly implemented and there are a lot of lessons to be learned from games that came after.
- Feel good that their games now reassert an aspect of world exploration, instead of regressing to "a budget version of Uncharted".
- Never wanted to make a Skyrim-clone, with one big open world. Still wanted to push rich story elements to live up to the franchise name.
- Most successful game launch at BioWare.

Ah, the old "that last game were told you was the BEST EVAH was total shit just like you said guys! But this one is great, we promise!"

 

[donkeymong]

Which is weird, because I though ME2 was the most engagin game because of that very fact.

Its was only engaging if the player liked the majority of the companions. Too bad i only liked Legion, a character i got near the end of the game.