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

[racofer]

So ?

This one deserves a quote.

 

[Grimlorn]

Looks like the doctors fled the scene on time.

They should update that picture with Ray and Greg walking with EA and Bioware to that grave and walking away with a bunch of money right before EA puts a bullet in the back of Bioware's head.

 

[Roguey]

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.

They made a "brand-new" engine with Eclipse; it took several years of effort and only lasted two games before it became obsolete. Didn't really work out for them too well.

Darrah mentioned they've been working on the engine for the past two years ie before Dragon Age 2 shipped (with production ramping up 18 months ago, which would be right after). Since DA3 is scheduled for late next year that gives them three years total, which is roughly the sweet spot when it comes to RPGs on new engines.

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.

It's not going to be open world.

 

[titus]

Why bother? The Unreal Engine is best for FPS games.

 

[IDtenT]

It's not going to be open world.

What makes you so sure? They are using an engine that allows for massive open maps.

 

[sea]

They made a "brand-new" engine with Eclipse; it took several years of effort and only lasted two games before it became obsolete. Didn't really work out for them too well.

Eclipse is just the Electron Engine, which is just the Aurora Engine, which is... well okay I don't know how much that one has in common with the Infinity Engine. Point is, their tech has been iterative over the years and each new game and engine revision has largely been built on that old tech. Dragon Age still has huge similarities to NWN's engine (uses 2DA tables for defining game properties, scripts are written in C++, same types of resources used by the engine i.e. levels/areas/characters/scripts/conversations). The biggest changes they made were the inclusion of better visuals and a few things like plot resources etc. It's not even fair to say that it was the same engine between Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2 if you are using the same criteria, considering they added DX11 support on PC and a bunch of other stuff.

In other words, Frostbite is a major departure and would see them completely throwing out all their old code and re-writing tons and tons of new code. It will have brand-new advantages and disadvantages all their developers will need to spend time learning how to deal with. Now I don't know, maybe Frostbite is as flexible as, say, Unreal and allows you to build basically anything, but if their goal is solely to take advantage of the graphics and multi-platform support, in my opinion they could have easily upgraded their existing tech in the same time span. The only real advantage to using Frostbite is that they have an open world/first-person shooter engine in a box, which is why I think the game they're making with it will reflect that.

 

[jewboy]

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

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?

Labor of love as in love of money? DA:O was a big steaming turd and marked the Bioware's true death as an RPG developer. After that they just did action games for preteens and that is their core audience now.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

It's not going to be open world.

What makes you so sure? They are using an engine that allows for massive open maps.

I don't know, open world seems awfully far out of Bioware's wheelhouse. They've kept doing the hub/location model even after it became a running joke (although I never played TOR, so maybe that has some open worldishness?). And even then their environments have been fairly uninspiring layout wise, albeit often pretty decent looking. It seems like their informal hierarchy of design priorities is (1) NPCs (1a) NPC Romance (1b) NPC Bromance 2) Art assets, 3) environments. So if they do open world, they are going to have to bring on...some talented new developers!

Oh shit! Open world it is!

 

[Commissar Draco]

Now when Biowhores have atlast decent 3D engine how about making Shatered Steel 2?

 

[Whisky]

Now when Biowhores have atlast decent 3D engine how about making Shatered Steel 2?

Doesn't have romances. Therefore its gameplay is outdated.

 

[titus]

Now when Biowhores have atlast decent 3D engine how about making Shatered Steel 2?

Doesn't have romances. Therefore its gameplay is outdated.

Also, they can't add cinematics of dragons made of blood, extreme blood splatter, gay sex, x-to-win button, etc. Until they can add those, it's not feasible.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Now when Biowhores have atlast decent 3D engine how about making Shatered Steel 2?

Doesn't have romances. Therefore its gameplay is outdated.

Also, they can't add cinematics of dragons made of blood, extreme blood splatter, gay sex, x-to-win button, etc. Until they can add those, it's not feasible.

 

[piydek]

What makes you so sure? They are using an engine that allows for massive open maps.

They aren't going to make an open-world game because that's an entirely different design approach from everything that makes biotards love biowhore. If they want "deep characters", loads of scripted events, butt-secks and "telling a strong story", then it's clear it simply can not be open-world.

I assume Frostbite 2 will be there purely for marketing purposes. It's the cheapest and most retarded way of trying to salvage the unsalvageable. Every retard knows about that engine and is fapping over it thinking it automatically guarantees OMG teh GRAFFIX! Which means Morrigan's cunt in full bloomy HD glory.

 

[IDtenT]

What makes you so sure? They are using an engine that allows for massive open maps.

They aren't going to make an open-world game because that's an entirely different design approach from everything that makes biotards love biowhore. If they want "deep characters", loads of scripted events, butt-secks and "telling a strong story", then it's clear it simply can not be open-world.

But EA sees Skyrim break every record known to man. You honestly think they won't try to copy Skyrim? It is probably my biggest fear as DA:O was an okay combatfag RPG. The last thing I need is for it to become an explorefag RPG.

 

[Jaesun]

There is NO WAY in hell EA would EVER allow the proper time to develop a pure open world Action Game Like Skyrim. They would basically set it a 1 year development and then shove it out the door as finished.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Can I finally become a dragon?

This game is being made by a lot of the same team that has been working on Dragon Age since Dragon Age: Origins. It's composed of both experienced BioWare veterans and talented new developers.

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

Story will be available in preorder day-one DLC!

A new fuel for at least 100 pages in Bioware/Mass Effect thread.

It is being made by experienced veterans who are not talented and talented new developers who have no experience whatsoever.

 

[Sul]

There is NO WAY in hell EA would EVER allow the proper time to develop a pure open world Action Game Like Skyrim. They would basically set it a 1 year development and then shove it out the door as finished.

Since it's the suits and PR department that make the decisions instead of the devs nowadays I wouldn't be surprised if they are doing an open world game like TES or maybe something with a more simple structure like Kingdoms of Amalur and WoW where you have somewhat big areas connected by corridors, but they would need at least 4 years like Bethesda to make something playable (and Beth already had past experience with open world games).
Not that it matters, I mean, what sells is the hype, right?

 

[Rhalle]

They may suck donkey balls as storytellers, but Bethshit knows how to make a big-ass world. Bioware cannot. They are technically inept, and only consider something do-able if they've basically done it before.

There is NO WAY in hell EA would EVER allow the proper time to develop a pure open world Action Game Like Skyrim.

Exactly.

 

[Roguey]

It's not going to be open world.

What makes you so sure? They are using an engine that allows for massive open maps.

Because Laidlaw said they weren't. Plus the portion of the map they're going to be using is even bigger than what was used in DA:O and compressing all that in a seamless world would be ridiculous. The maps will probably be bigger.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

It's not going to be open world.

What makes you so sure? They are using an engine that allows for massive open maps.

Because Laidlaw said they weren't. Plus the portion of the map they're going to be using is even bigger than what was used in DA:O and compressing all that in a seamless world would be ridiculous. The maps will probably be bigger.

I'm no expert on engines, but if they just wanted a more action oriented engine, they already have in-house experience with Unreal right? (different team, but still). Could the switch to Frostbite be so that the modified engine they come up with will be useful on the next-gen consoles? Especially if they plan further sequels (this game is a maybe, but DA:4 would almost certainly be next gen) or other series. Plus if the engine is useful, it would increase EA's ability to license Frostbite

 

[Spectacle]

I would guess that EA are trying to move everything they can over to Frostbite. Not only can they save loads in licensing costs, it's also easier to swap programmers and artists between projects when they're all familiar with the same technology.​

 

[PunkPkunk]

Ugh.

Playing a Bioware game is becoming alot like watching the Power Rangers for me.

They were cool when I was six, but now I'm a big boy and I can see the zippers

 

[IDtenT]

Ugh.

Playing a Bioware game is becoming alot like watching the Power Rangers for me.

They were cool when I was six, but now I'm a big boy and I can see the zippers

Christ. Power Ranger was horrendous shit when I was 4.