Dragon Age: Inquisition Pre-Release Thread

[BBMorti]

I'm more interested in whether or not it will be an action-RPG with one click==one attack. Has somebody made that clear yet?

Would that even work in a party centric RPG where you control all the members?

Well I am willing to bet my left nut that their prime concern is to make it as easy to play as possible, on a controller, that should answer how technical it likely will turn out.

 

[tuluse]

Would that even work in a party centric RPG where you control all the members?

Do you find that Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3 "worked"?

Edit: it also depends what you mean by control. You could issue orders for movement, special attacks, and targets in the Mass Effect series. That's a level of control.

 

[imweasel]

VGChartz says 4.5 million physical copies have been sold on all platforms. That of course doesn't include Steam and other digital distribution services of course.

Do with it what you will.

The 3 million number comes from an EA press releaase, and is actually shipped and not sold (which means the sales figures are lower). I seriously doubt that vgchartz figure is accurate. The game probably did OK on steam, though, and that combined with physical sales after 2010 could very well put the final sales figure close to 4 million.

Keep in mind that DA2 sold abysmally and people hated it, and ME3 was so bad that it became notorious throughout the entire gaming community. Bioware has probably eroded their fanbase somewhat.

DA:O sold over 3.2 million copies in the first 3 months according to a press release back in early 2010. I think it's fair to say that more than 800k copies were sold in the 4 years after that.

We'll see how the DA2 and ME3 fiascos will or will not impact sales of DA:I.

"Open world" in Bioware speak means large area-based segments with loading screens, like BG. The Frostbite engine is primarily designed for first-person shooters/action games, so it's not comparable to what Skyrim or Fallout 3 is capable of.

It is a design decision and not a technically limited one.

 

[dryan]

Would that even work in a party centric RPG where you control all the members?

Do you find that Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3 "worked"?

Edit: it also depends what you mean by control. You could issue orders for movement, special attacks, and targets in the Mass Effect series. That's a level of control.

That was quite different from Dragon Age's system.

 

[tuluse]

That was quite different from Dragon Age's system.

Ok? You asked how a game could marry one click = one attack and party control. I gave you an example.

 

[dryan]

That was quite different from Dragon Age's system.

Ok? You asked how a game could marry one click = one attack and party control. I gave you an example.

Context.

 

[Roguey]

DA:O sold over 3.2 million copies in the first 3 months according to a press release back in early 2010. I think it's fair to say that more than 800k copies were sold in the 4 years after that.

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=707298

The Dragon Age franchise has received over 80 awards from critics around the world, and has sold over 8 million copies to date*.
*According to internal EA data.

I'd blindly estimate 2-3 million of those are DA2 sales. For a slam dunk, that probably gives a decent-if-disappointing ROI, but they probably expected that going in.

I'm more interested in whether or not it will be an action-RPG with one click==one attack. Has somebody made that clear yet?

https://twitter.com/Mike_Laidlaw/status/402235410153103361

Consoles should support both auto-attack and manual press. Also, Tactical view is always auto-attack.

Gaider-blog
http://dgaider.tumblr.com/post/79366285331/game-development-myths-the-lazy-developer

Apologies if this veers a bit into soap box territory. But it’s something that I hear quite often, and it’s a personal pet peeve of mine. I hear it all the time - this developer is simply being LAZY because the scope of the game somebody bought isn’t as large or as well-done as the player would…

FYI.

there might be lazy devs out there but I haven’t met any. behind every “why didn’t they just _x_” is ten pages of context, constraints, and limited time.

Yeah, I see this all the time as well.

My perception, in most cases where I’ve seen this brought up, is that the fan doesn’t really think we’re lazy… like, if you cornered him at his desk and pressed the issue, he’d probably go, “well, okay, no, I don’t really think you sit around scratching your asses and going ‘meh’ whenever there’s a problem.”

It’s just lazy thinking combined with lazy communication, posting the first ill-considered thing that pops into your head—and if it makes you sound like you have an informed opinion on the subject, then all the better. That’s kind of what the Internet is built on.

Then again, it also seems like many people still picture games being created by three guys slaving away in their Mom’s basement, and can’t reconcile that with the idea of hundreds of developers working in a business office—except to imagine that such corporate influence is corrupting and impure.

Kind of conflicts with the crunch culture of developers working themselves near to death just to ship a game, but I doubt many fans care about that any more than they care about schedules, budgets, or profit. If a developer went belly-up to provide them the Ultimate Gaming Experience they wanted, they might stop to salute them and shed a single tear in an online post before moving on…but not much more than that.

But such is our cross to bear, I suppose. That’s what we get for having the “cool” jobs.

Planning, management, and ability accounts for a lot too, and the DA team has been consistently lacking e.g. Origins took too long, and DA2 did not make the best use of its time.

That last thing is a pretty accurate description of Troika, though I'd hardly refer to them as the Ultimate Gaming Experience.

 

[Infinitron]

https://twitter.com/Mike_Laidlaw/status/402235410153103361

Consoles should support both auto-attack and manual press. Also, Tactical view is always auto-attack.

Trying to have it both ways, huh? We'll see how that works out for them.

 

[Roguey]

That's how it worked in DA2.

I doubt it'll ever feel good as an action game but there's a lot of people who really want their button bashing anyway.

 

[Delterius]

Indeed, only issue DA2 faced on that front was that they forgot to add auto-attack to consoles for a while. I guess the game becomes a little less interesting on the lowest difficulty level so you've got to have something else to pass the time.

 

[tuluse]

The Dragon Age franchise has received over 80 awards from critics around the world, and has sold over 8 million copies to date*.
*According to internal EA data.

I'd blindly estimate 2-3 million of those are DA2 sales. For a slam dunk, that probably gives a decent-if-disappointing ROI, but they probably expected that going in.

Awakening was sold standalone for consoles, I don't know if that would change your guesstimate or not.

I think if EA was happy with how the slamdunk did, they would have ordered another one instead of the huge delay DA3 is getting.

 

[Roguey]

Awakening was sold standalone for consoles, I don't know if that would change your guesstimate or not.

It wouldn't because expansions sell a small fraction of the base game. DA:O originally had two years of DLC planned and it ended up only getting a year. DA2 was originally envisioned as DLC.

I'm sure the ultimate edition thing that includes everything rivals Origins' though. I saw a few copies of it on shelves last year and retailers don't stock games that old unless they're steady sellers, so it's not unlike all those other classic RPGs with long tails.

I think if EA was happy with how the slamdunk did, they would have ordered another one instead of the huge delay DA3 is getting.

Slam dunk after slam dunk is what happens when a publisher's going down the tubes. DA3 is The Black Hound that Icewind Dale II made possible in a hypothetical world where Interplay didn't lose the BG license because of an oversight.

 

[Rake]

I think if EA was happy with how the slamdunk did, they would have ordered another one instead of the huge delay DA3 is getting.

Slam dunk after slam dunk is what happens when a publisher's going down the tubes. DA3 is The Black Hound that Icewind Dale II made possible in a hypothetical world where Interplay didn't lose the BG license because of an oversight.

Apparently Bioware is really bad at slam dunks. The whole concept of a slam dunk is to use pre-existing engine and assets to make a "more of the same" kind of game. Cheap to make, cashing in the previous game's reputation to sell well ect. That doesn't mean the game can't be equaly good or even better from it's predecessor. After all you can focus on making content and maybe fixxing one or two weaknesses of the old game.
Only Bioware would have thought that: make a game in 18 months + we aren't used to work in such tight timeframes= it's a good idea to experiment withthe game, change engine, art direction,mechanics etc.

They should had asked Feargus how it's done

 

[Athelas]

Yeah, they managed to make graphical improvements that somehow made the game uglier than Origins.

Although making every romance pursuable by every gender was probably an efficient use of resources...

 

[Xor]

I almost think they went into DA2 thinking they'd have more time than they ended up with, which would explain the ambitious ideas that would have come up during pre-production, and then when they hit production they found out they'd only have around a year. It would explain the horribly rushed third act and the obvious corner cutting ("dungeon maps? Fuck that, we'll just make one map and use it for every quest.").

Of course, it's equally possible that Bioware is just incompetent. And actually, considering the Mass Effect sequels, incompetence is the most likely explanation.

 

[Valestein]

I almost think they went into DA2 thinking they'd have more time than they ended up with, which would explain the ambitious ideas that would have come up during pre-production, and then when they hit production they found out they'd only have around a year. It would explain the horribly rushed third act and the obvious corner cutting ("dungeon maps? Fuck that, we'll just make one map and use it for every quest.").

Of course, it's equally possible that Bioware is just incompetent. And actually, considering the Mass Effect sequels, incompetence is the most likely explanation.

Faux-ambition is par for the course with modern Bioware. Just look at how the ME series seemed ambitious on paper but turned out to be a sub-par linear gears knock off with cosmetic non-choices.

 

[Decado]

Dragon Age: Skyrimquisition.

 

[anus_pounder]

After obsidian's tank project, bioware may be our only hope.

Spoiler

Nah, I'm a bethesda guy.

 

[Akratus]

Not really.

 

[Roguey]

PoE's still going to make DAI and everything else look like amateur hour. David Gaider's looking forward to it. He's also looking forward to Dead State, but that's from a writing-only perspective.

 

[Menckenstein]

PoE's still going to make DAI and everything else look like amateur hour. David Gaider's looking forward to it. He's also looking forward to Dead State, but that's from a writing-only perspective.

What will you do when Bioware and Bethesda are the only ones left standing?

 

[Rake]

PoE's still going to make DAI and everything else look like amateur hour. David Gaider's looking forward to it. He's also looking forward to Dead State, but that's from a writing-only perspective.

What will you do when Bioware and Bethesda are the only ones left standing?

Obsidian is in a better position than it ever was. If it didn't close until now, it isn't happening.

 

[Roguey]

PoE's still going to make DAI and everything else look like amateur hour. David Gaider's looking forward to it. He's also looking forward to Dead State, but that's from a writing-only perspective.

What will you do when Bioware and Bethesda are the only ones left standing?

Ignore Bethesda like I always do and continue to play Bioware games that are decent enough. CD Projekt doesn't seem to be leaving any time soon either.

 

[Menckenstein]

PoE's still going to make DAI and everything else look like amateur hour. David Gaider's looking forward to it. He's also looking forward to Dead State, but that's from a writing-only perspective.

What will you do when Bioware and Bethesda are the only ones left standing?

Obsidian is in a better position than it ever was. If it didn't close until now, it isn't happening.

Yeah that WOT clone has "Not desperation move" written all over it.

 

[Menckenstein]

PoE's still going to make DAI and everything else look like amateur hour. David Gaider's looking forward to it. He's also looking forward to Dead State, but that's from a writing-only perspective.

What will you do when Bioware and Bethesda are the only ones left standing?

Ignore Bethesda like I always do and continue to play Bioware games that are decent enough. CD Projekt doesn't seem to be leaving any time soon either.

Have faith.