Dragon Age: Inquisition Pre-Release Thread

[hoverdog]

cloud saves? oh, this is gonna turn out sooooo weeeeell

 

[racofer]

 

[DalekFlay]

Pretty sure I'll just play on default world choices. Not like any of it really matters.

 

[Space Satan]

Blog update

Spoiler

The Xbox One and PS4 are out, and the dust is starting to settle at the start of a new console cycle. As a result, now is a good time for us to start talking to you, our fans, more about where Dragon Age: Inquisition is at.

What have we been working on? Dragon Age: Inquisition has come a long way in the last three months. Today, I’m going to share with you some of what we have been up to since PAX. That way, when we dig in deeper a little later on, you will be up to speed.

You may have heard some talk about a “Holiday Build” for Dragon Age: Inquisition. So, what is this? These types of builds go way back in BioWare’s history. Effectively, they are builds we create around the holiday break that are packaged in a way that allows the team, and other parts of BioWare, to play the game in as complete of a state as we can get it.

In this case, our Holiday build is focused on these areas:

1. The main storyline completely playable from beginning to end: This allows the story to be experienced in an interactive state, and lets us get pacing and spacing right.

2. All of the gameplay systems working together: This means that you can experience the game as it is intended to be experienced, with each feature feeding into another.

3. Starting VO recording for large parts of the game (More on this later).

4. Getting music in (More on this later).

5. Making sure that each class has a distinctive feel: Making sure that the party is a necessary and exciting part of combat (More on this later).

6. Getting our tech locked down: For example, here is a tarnish shader going in.



7. Getting a lot more content a lot further along: Things like Trees:



Dead things:



Outfits:





Faces:



And, of course, areas:







Areas form a huge part of the content in Dragon Age: Inquisition. It is very important to me that the game cover a large variety of locations. Not only does it expand the possibilities of our storytelling, it also gives us an opportunity to show a lot of different things. In a game that places a lot of emphasis on discovery, this is very crucial.

Part of this process is about getting the areas into a state where they can be fully critiqued. Let me show you an area shot going through this process (can you guess the area?):



As you can see, an initial screenshot is critiqued and altered to show the goal for the area. This gives the level artist the specific direction needed to take the area to the next level (so to speak).

I’m skiffing off of a lot of topics here today, and I promise we will be back to talk in more detail about some of these topics. For now, though, I wanted to restart the conversation.

Hopefully you like this format. If you have any specific topics you would like us to cover in greater detail, let us know.

Thanks, and happy holidays!

Mark

Looks like Bioware hired Prosper

 

[DalekFlay]

Those dudes look like something out of a Disney movie.

 

[felipepepe]

"Pre-alpha work in progress", seriously?

 

[Athelas]

Those dudes look like something out of a Disney movie.

They can't really look like the hideous ogres they're supposed to be, since there still have to be fuckable companions of every race.

 

[Kanedias]

The areas look nice, except they have this filter that looks like some sort of user-made "realistic" ENB for Skyrim.

The faces are unbelievably awful.

 

[Rahdulan]

I absolutely love how their chest pieces are still just simple models with flat painted on textures as opposed to something seen in Potatoland's game where you have individually modeled tassels, belts and whatnot standing out. Come on Bioware, 2014 is just around the corner.

Spoiler

 

[twincast]

I absolutely love how their chest pieces are still just simple models with flat painted on textures as opposed to something seen in Potatoland's game where you have individually modeled tassels, belts and whatnot standing out. Come on Bioware, 2014 is just around the corner.

Spoiler

That and how the left elf bodies are still barefoot because. Well, at least the right ones aren't, and the lore-wise supposedly überpretty elves don't look like anorexic aliens anymore. The Qunari faces do look spectacularly derpy, though, on the other hand.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Those dudes look like something out of a Disney movie.

Worse, they hired Prosper.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

areas looks great. character models and faces rather shitty.

"Pre-alpha work in progress", seriously?

game is about a fucking year from its release no shit it doesnt look like a diamond. fucking divinity os is still in alpha state 2 months before its release

 

[Roguey]

"Pre-alpha work in progress", seriously?

As proven by this thread people will complain about anything.

 

[felipepepe]

"Pre-alpha work in progress", seriously?

As proven by this thread people will complain about anything.

Not a proper complain, is just weird considering that originally the game should be out by now, and that they already showed various long gameplay videos... "pre-alpha" sounds too defensive and insecure.

 

[Roguey]

Not a proper complain, is just weird considering that originally the game should be out by now, and that they already showed various long gameplay videos... "pre-alpha" sounds too defensive and insecure.

Yeah turns out making a full-scale next-gen RPG on a new engine within 2 years is unfeasible. Need the good ol' reliable 3+.

They're still in production so pre-alpha is a perfectly acceptable thing to call it.

 

[Delterius]

Pretty sure I'll just play on default world choices. Not like any of it really matters.

As if people wouldn't have to mod the game in order to get the save import to work.

Those dudes look like something out of a Disney movie.

Its their toolset that does it. The default face animation (or whatever) is stretched into the prosperian valley.

 

[Space Satan]

Well, that was expected. We had Dragon Effect before but now it is closer and closer to Dragon's Creed

Spoiler

 

[Xor]

Here I go, defending Bioware again even though they don't deserve it. I'm guessing the models and textures aren't final; this is supposed to be a pre-alpha build after all. As for its development cycle, DA2 was rushed out in less than a year and we all remember how that turned out. Someone at Bioware probably managed to convince EA that RPGs take more development time than your average military shooter, and EA is clearly interested in preserving Bioware as a brand, so they agreed to give DA3 more time. I am somewhat surprised the game isn't out by now, though; EA's patience can't be infinite and they probably could have squeezed two DA sequels out by this point if they had wanted to.

I'm convinced DA3 won't be very good (I mean, this is Bioware we're talking about, and the last decent game they made came out in 2007), but it might be better than DA2. Maybe Bioware will manage to break their streak of each new release being their worst game ever they've been maintaining since ME2 came out.

 

[Jaesun]

Is the same Dragon Age team working on this, or were they also pulled off to work on MYSTARY GAME™ like the Mass Effect team was pulled off and put to work on (this is why Mass Effect 3 will be complete and utter fail, in gigantic truckloads).

 

[IDtenT]

Is the same Dragon Age team working on this, or were they also pulled off to work on MYSTARY GAME™ like the Mass Effect team was pulled off and put to work on (this is why Mass Effect 3 will be complete and utter fail, in gigantic truckloads).

I'm not so sure complete nobodies wouldn't create a greater game than the ME3 team.

 

[set]

A team of complete nobodies did create Goldeneye 64, so, I'd say anything is possible. I'd argue the chance is greater, that a totally fresh team would create a better experience than the ME3 or DA3 teams can. Mostly because newbies aren't afraid to break conventions (or just aren't aware of them); the only problem with new blood is they're not effecient or effective at creating a working product in a reasonable time.

 

[Jaesun]

Joined: Oct 21, 2013

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Well, that was expected. We had Dragon Effect before but now it is closer and closer to Dragon's Creed

Spoiler

i see hats no hoods

 

[Storyfag]

Well, that was expected. We had Dragon Effect before but now it is closer and closer to Dragon's Creed

That would be incline, no?

Spoiler

And I say this completely seriously. The AC games so far were solid action games, something Bioware is trying to create, I think.

 

[Akratus]

The AC games so far were solid action games