Game News Dragon Age III: Inquisition Announced - Open Letter From Executive Producer

[hakuroshi]

It was a good laugh.

 

[Mastermind]

Fuck those losers. Thankfully Obsidian's making the kind of game we wanted in the first place, instead of yet another shitty action game. Good riddance Bioware.

None of the Dragon Ages were action games. The flashy animations of DA2 =/= action game. The core gameplay was nearly identical to DA1.

 

[Grimlorn]

I hope the new engine will let them implement advanced jiggle physics. Amazingly Bioware is still way behind Troika when it comes to lulzy fake boobs.

That is the first thing modders will fix.

Nah the first thing they'll do is create incest mods. So you can romance your sister or mother.

 

[octavius]

I hope the new engine will let them implement advanced jiggle physics. Amazingly Bioware is still way behind Troika when it comes to lulzy fake boobs.

That is the first thing modders will fix.

Nah the first thing they'll do is create incest mods. So you can romance your sister or mother.

If it's rape is it still incest?

 

[MicoSelva]

They're going with Frostbite 2, which is an XBOX 360 level engine. Does this mean the game will be released for the current console generation or the next one? Historically games released on the eve of given consoles had the tendency to flop badly.

I guess the next generation will still support Frostbite 2, though, so this could be as well released on XBOX 720 and PS4.

Only the PC is timeless.

Anyway, I have pretty much given up on Bioware after DA and ME, so I'll probably follow this one for lulz mostly, if not only.

 

[Haba]

Next big twist: Obsidian bought out Bioware... but is later revealed to have been owned by Interplay all along. Herve Caen registeres on Codex. Posts picture of his dick inside the mouth of every Codexer's mom.

Butts. Hurt.

Why do you fantasize of Herve Caen's penis inside your mother's mouth Mikayel? Is it because you are an atheist?

 

[SuicideBunny]

Well duh. If you hate the old IE games, then you would most certainly hate Obsidian's new project.

wanting obsidian to make a retro sci-fi british space empire interplanetary martian intrigues steampunk game with tb is the same as hating ps:t (shitty rtwp combat) or bg2 (again, shitty rtwp combat)?

 

[Angthoron]

Why announce a game with an open letter to the fans instead of, you know, an announcement? My impressions is that open letters to the fans usually used to add that personal touch to corporate damage control efforts after a colossal fuck-up?

Perhaps the size of their marketing budget now could only cover an open-source text editor.

 

[piydek]

It is so nice not having to give a slightest fuck about Dragon age 3: Gaydar and Laidlaw unleashed, as the age of incline slowly sweeps in.

:goes back to staring at Obsidian kickstarter counter and fapping to Chaos Chronicles screens:

 

[Clockwork Knight]

We won't be talking about the story of the game today. Though you can make some guesses from the title.

Mage bruthas are being kept down by the man? I thought that was the story of the last two DAs.

We are working on a new engine which we believe will allow us to deliver a more expansive world, better visuals, more reactivity to player choices, and more customization. At PAX East, we talked about armor and followers… Yeah, that kind of customization. We've started with Frostbite 2 from DICE as a foundation to accomplish this.

Yeah, this is exactly what you should be expending resources on.

Being a consolefag at heart I don't mind their games that much, but Bio's business decisions are always entertaining

 

[kris]

Another bait & switch like DA2, or a labor of love like DA:O? Only time will tell.

You are way to generous to still have doubt on this one.

DA2013 is more likely going to take things further than DA2011.

 

[mondblut]

Quite unexpected.

Because nobody expects the Bioware Inquisition!

I'd pledge 500$ for a Monty Python RPG. I would even tolerate if it would only have 5 fleshed out companions to choose 5 from.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Quite unexpected.

Because nobody expects the Bioware Inquisition!

I'd pledge 500$ for a Monty Python RPG. I would even tolerate if it would only have 5 fleshed out companions to choose 5 from.

Seconded, if only for the amount of butthurt when the last boss fight starts, and then suddenly you get a giant boot coming down and stomping everything instead of being able to finish the game

 

[Roguey]

That new engine part confuses me, why bother when you have a working engine... unless they too got sick of every character model looking like it was slathered in vaseline.

Seriously. THIS! All the time everywhere across all sorts of PC games they come up with new engines for sequels, when instead they need to be extending the already-existing engine. I guess it looks better on paper?

I already explained this. No amount of lipstick and rebranding will ever make Eclipse a non-shit engine. They needed to get rid of it, Bioware has never been able to make good engines. Maybe now Dragon Age will finally use the z-axis.

None of the Dragon Ages were action games. The flashy animations of DA2 =/= action game. The core gameplay was nearly identical to DA1.

I think I remember telling you before that the ability to manually dodge melee and most special attacks adds an action element that didn't exist in DA:O. Since most of the enemies use the old player character DA:O animations their tells are very easy to spot and avoid.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think all of Bioware's engines were shit, but Eclipse is definitely insufficient to make the kind of fantasy RPG that can compete with the likes of Skyrim.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

We won't be talking about the story of the game today. Though you can make some guesses from the title.

Mage bruthas are being kept down by the man? I thought that was the story of the last two DAs.

Or maybe they've decided to seemlessly integrate fetch quests and gossiping into the main plot by making the main plot the story of an aimless, unemployed wanderer with a mysterious disrespect for personal boundaries "inquiring" about grocery lists, medical problems and mislaid heirlooms with perfect strangers in an epic quest to find something to do. Innovation!

Probably named it "DA: Inquisition" because "DA: Itinerant Handyman" and "DA: Busybody" weren't mature enough.

 

[Mastermind]

None of the Dragon Ages were action games. The flashy animations of DA2 =/= action game. The core gameplay was nearly identical to DA1.

I think I remember telling you before that the ability to manually dodge melee and most special attacks adds an action element that didn't exist in DA:O. Since most of the enemies use the old player character DA:O animations their tells are very easy to spot and avoid.

You could manually dodge attacks in the later M&Ms too (and in 7 it's vital to beating the dragon on the starting island), it doesn't make them action games.

 

[Jashiin]

Won't be long now...

 

[SuicideBunny]

diablo was called an action rpg because of its twitch controls, and they were less twitchy than da's which in turn were less twitchy than da2's.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Won't be long now...

Looks like the doctors fled the scene on time.

 

[Murk]

Why do you fantasize of Herve Caen's penis inside your mother's mouth Mikayel? Is it because you are an atheist?

Yes, yes it is. I am an atheist and thus, with no supernatural being to guide my moral compass, I have fallen to the lowest form of sin humanly imaginable: Herve Caen violating my mother.

I already explained this. No amount of lipstick and rebranding will ever make Eclipse a non-shit engine. They needed to get rid of it, Bioware has never been able to make good engines. Maybe now Dragon Age will finally use the z-axis.

I am not too keen on what exactly makes this Eclipse engine garbage, can you elaborate? Also, is this a Bioware original engine or is it a licensed engine? If the latter then I can understand changing not being a big deal, but if they made it themselves then what the fuck were they thinking?

**picture of Bioware getting 'treated'**

The corpse of Westwood haunts me still, when I close my eyes I see her beautiful face.. she promises me something, with a single tear in her eye... but her voice is drowned out by the cacophonous roar of cash registered opening and slamming and a voice, like lead slabs slamming against each other, echoing "EEEEEEEEEE AAAAAYYYYYY IIIIITTTTTSSSSSS IIIINNNNNNNNN TTTHHHHHEEEEE GGGAAAAAAMMEEEE".

I awake in cold sweat every night, and moments before my eyes open... for a split second, just a fraction of time... I can still feel her touch on my shoulder. A beautiful thought like a single ray of light in a blackened sky... snuffed out by the asphyxiating grip of reality.

 

[Roguey]

You could manually dodge attacks in the later M&Ms too (and in 7 it's vital to beating the dragon on the starting island), it doesn't make them action games.

I would call those action-RPGs because of that element (like Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder where you can avoid attacks with step-mastery). Jaesun is kinda weird with the whole "games I don't like are action games" thing.

I already explained this. No amount of lipstick and rebranding will ever make Eclipse a non-shit engine. They needed to get rid of it, Bioware has never been able to make good engines. Maybe now Dragon Age will finally use the z-axis.

I am not too keen on what exactly makes this Eclipse engine garbage, can you elaborate? Also, is this a Bioware original engine or is it a licensed engine? If the latter then I can understand changing not being a big deal, but if they made it themselves then what the fuck were they thinking?

I've heard that there's still quite a bit of Odyssey engine code in there, like how Source still has Quake stuff. It was created for PCs, so of course it's terribly optimized. DA:O looked awful on consoles. So for DA2 they reduced graphics quality overall so that it'd look consistently better for the 360/PS3 but of course it still looks bad. NPCs are a memory hog; the reasons for Kirkwall being a pathetic ghost town with blurry people who walk in circles is because those people are always there taking up memory with what they're doing whether they're in your view or not.

Also no z-axis support in any Bioware engine game. Something like this:

doesn't appear in any of their Aurora/Odyssey/Eclipse engine titles, and that includes The Witcher and Neverwinter Nights 2. It's like they might as well have made 2D games since there's no reason for them to be 3D.

Frostbite 2 is from DICE, they're licensing it. No more in-house engines from Bioware most likely.

 

[Murk]

No z-axis? holy shit, you're right. I always thought it ridiculous that Geralt, who is often described as doing amazingly gymnastic bouts of swordsmanship (and hopes around like a tick in combat) couldn't even "climb" over minor ledges and had to walk around (abeit, it had great path finding).

Thanks for the input good sir.

 

[sea]

Am I the only one who thinks building RPGs on Frostbite is a bad idea? A lot of the engine-level stuff is probably quite solid and of course it's capable of great visuals, but basically everything related to gameplay will need to be redone. Might as well make a brand-new engine at this rate that's specialized at what they want to do. The renderer itself is the last thing they need to fix.

Considering they were taking inspiration from Skyrim... first-person open-world action-RPG with a focus on pretty visuals doesn't sound so far-fetched.

 

[tuluse]

Frostbite 2 is from DICE, they're licensing it. No more in-house engines from Bioware most likely.

Well DICE is EA, so I don't know how that works in the licensing department.

Frostbite 2 is actually a really great engine, has some of the best visuals right now, scales down well, has the best audio engine right now. However, none of this will help Bioware make a game that isn't shit.