Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard - coming Fall 2024

[whydoibother]

Dragon Age Origins was passable

Love this revisionist history. Bioware turned bad, therefore retroactively their output was always bad. Peak Codex.

As for the delays, this might be their final attempt to salvage the Bioware brand. If this sucks, I am not sure the studio will continue to exist.
And yes, yes, ship of Theseus and all that, but I mean it might get officially axed. Andromeda and Anthem were both big flops, and very memetic, public flops. If this is the same, the Bioware brand will have more negative connotations than positive, even for casuals.

 

[Modron]

Their output was always decent at best. It was just popular until it wasn't.

 

[Goldschmidt]

Dragon Age Origins was passable

Love this revisionist history. Bioware turned bad, therefore retroactively their output was always bad. Peak Codex.

As for the delays, this might be their final attempt to salvage the Bioware brand. If this sucks, I am not sure the studio will continue to exist.
And yes, yes, ship of Theseus and all that, but I mean it might get officially axed. Andromeda and Anthem were both big flops, and very memetic, public flops. If this is the same, the Bioware brand will have more negative connotations than positive, even for casuals.

Ok I'll be fair when I played it in 2008, I had fun with it. I also didn't take any long breaks, so it was a good quality game. Sad they included gay relationships. But the mechanics itself were good, no question about it.

It is a game you could recommend as a first time rpg for someone new in the genre and looking for some older quality.

 

[whydoibother]

Their output was always decent at best. It was just popular until it wasn't.

Baldur's Gate 1/2, Neverwinter Nights 1, Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins were more than decent. They were good, easy to recommend to anyone, and worth playing through more than once.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Dragon Age Origins was passable

Love this revisionist history. Bioware turned bad, therefore retroactively their output was always bad. Peak Codex.

Yours must be using selective memory, on the other hand, because "Passable, but not as good as it had the potential to be" is pretty much how I always felt about Dragon Age: Origins.
Main culprit, a shallow ruleset that tried to "simplify D&D tropes and make the rules fit better a computer game" but turned into a dull mishmash of half-assed subsystems that interacted poorly and where the same exact combat strategy simply worked with EVERY encounter, no matter if you were facing golems, undead or werewolves.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

 

[La vie sexuelle]

You are doing ARPGs a disservice by calling Dread Wolf an ARPG.

Dragon Age Origins was passable but everything after that is pure decline. Back in 2008 I still had hopes they would expand upon Origins to produce a better game but no they fully went console click lgbt route.

I don't know if am I addressee, but I could call DA4 "ARPG" org "RPG" only formally. All modern Bioware games are cRPG same way, as caffè americano could be named "coffee" in propers sense of this term.

Bioware pays price for that, because for sake of casualisation they excluded all people who were know how to do RPG. Now, when they entered to AAA Games Black Hole, there is no point return. You could create AAA trash for masses or die.

Apparently, Bioware dies.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

All modern Bioware games are cRPG

I'll need a proof for that one, maybe the trauma from exposing yourself to modern Bioware game made your brain shit down to protect you, but games like Mass Effect and Anthem happened and non of them are RPGs.

 

[whydoibother]

All modern Bioware games are cRPG same way, as caffè americano could be named "coffee" in propers sense of this term.

An americano is a coffee with extra water. I don't think that Anthem is a cRPG with extra real time combat. You are just drinking water from a cup that used to have coffee in it. Maybe it wasn't washed, and you are getting a bit of that flavour remains.

 

[mikaelis]

Their output was always decent at best. It was just popular until it wasn't.

Baldur's Gate 1/2, Neverwinter Nights 1, Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins were more than decent. They were good, easy to recommend to anyone, and worth playing through more than once.

If we want to keep the timeline correct NWN 1 was the first major decline. It was shit smeared all over. The only redeeming factor was its editor that got appreciated years after (and maybe expansions).

Mass Effect 1 was considered Team A product back then and by majority of community was evaluated Good-to-Great.

DA:O was Team B product and seen as Average-to-Decent and was only elevated to the higher status by the fact that DA2 and DA:I were horrible shites (DA:I in particular).

Mass Effect 2 and 3 kept the A line (ME3 was dissed due to the ending, but as the game within the franchise it was very decent and did not venture away from the original formula).

Then ME: Andromeda happened - which was shit.

Story of late Bioware - Cry me a River.

 

[whydoibother]

Opinion: People who think Mass Effect 3 was a better game than Dragon Age Origins should be recycled into fertilizer.

The entire ME series is a good study of decline. Every game removing soul from the previous one: weapon heating, character development, decisions mattering, even the fucking car missions. They added multiplayer, which I don't care for.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Their output was always decent at best. It was just popular until it wasn't.

Baldur's Gate 1/2, Neverwinter Nights 1, Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins were more than decent. They were good, easy to recommend to anyone, and worth playing through more than once.

If we want to keep the timeline correct NWN 1 was the first major decline. It was shit smeared all over. The only redeeming factor was its editor that got appreciated years after (and maybe expansions).

Mass Effect 1 was considered Team A product back then and by majority of community was evaluated Good-to-Great.

DA:O was Team B product and seen as Average-to-Decent and was only elevated to the higher status by the fact that DA2 and DA:I were horrible shites (DA:I in particular).

Mass Effect 2 and 3 kept the A line (ME3 was dissed due to the ending, but as the game within the franchise it was very decent and did not venture away from the original formula).

Then ME: Andromeda happened - which was shit.

Story of late Bioware - Cry me a River.

That ain't accurate.
Dragon Age was Project A, Mass Effect was seen as a quick and dirty Project B to gather more resources for Dragon Age. Turns out, ME did better than anyone thought it would, and it certainly did better than Dragon Age.

 

[whydoibother]

Dragon Age was Project A, Mass Effect was seen as a quick and dirty Project B to gather more resources for Dragon Age. Turns out, ME did better than anyone thought it would, and it certainly did better than Dragon Age.

Dragon Age was the game that bankrupted Bioware, and led them to inviting money from outside, and things declined from there. Many such cases!

 

[La vie sexuelle]

All modern Bioware games are cRPG

I'll need a proof for that one, maybe the trauma from exposing yourself to modern Bioware game made your brain shit down to protect you, but games like Mass Effect and Anthem happened and non of them are RPGs.

All Bioware cRPGs had elements of role-play and developing character. Simplified, dumber, but still RPG. If they weren't RPG, what they were? And no, "shit" is not real descriptive term.

All modern Bioware games are cRPG same way, as caffè americano could be named "coffee" in propers sense of this term.

An americano is a coffee with extra water. I don't think that Anthem is a cRPG with extra real time combat. You are just drinking water from a cup that used to have coffee in it. Maybe it wasn't washed, and you are getting a bit of that flavour remains.

I think this analogy goes this way - americano is coffee with a lot of water, Anthem is RPG with dilutedRPG elements. Is still coffee or RPG? For orthodox consumers - no. But only for sake of terminology - yes.

 

[mikaelis]

Their output was always decent at best. It was just popular until it wasn't.

Baldur's Gate 1/2, Neverwinter Nights 1, Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins were more than decent. They were good, easy to recommend to anyone, and worth playing through more than once.

If we want to keep the timeline correct NWN 1 was the first major decline. It was shit smeared all over. The only redeeming factor was its editor that got appreciated years after (and maybe expansions).

Mass Effect 1 was considered Team A product back then and by majority of community was evaluated Good-to-Great.

DA:O was Team B product and seen as Average-to-Decent and was only elevated to the higher status by the fact that DA2 and DA:I were horrible shites (DA:I in particular).

Mass Effect 2 and 3 kept the A line (ME3 was dissed due to the ending, but as the game within the franchise it was very decent and did not venture away from the original formula).

Then ME: Andromeda happened - which was shit.

Story of late Bioware - Cry me a River.

That ain't accurate.
Dragon Age was Project A, Mass Effect was seen as a quick and dirty Project B to gather more resources for Dragon Age. Turns out, ME did better than anyone thought it would, and it certainly did better than Dragon Age.

I ain´t gonna argue.
You may be right and I may be totally wrong from how that was envisioned.
I just tried to say that from the beginning ME1 felt like a well-thought team A product and DA:O like intern Team B product judging already from early cringy trailers, overbloated with blood and Marylin Manson as a promo song.
Mass Effect felt to me as very consistent and high in production value from the very beginning, while Dragon Age like some very crude way of adapting Game of Thrones before it became the thing with the HBO series.

So, if what you say is correct, in my eyes, Team B was way more talented and created something memorable and new, while Team A dissapointed fantasy fans (BG and NWN).

 

[Roguey]

Dragon Age was the game that bankrupted Bioware, and led them to inviting money from outside, and things declined from there. Many such cases!

DA:O taking as long as it did didn't do them any favors, but the reason Bioware sold out was because of The Old Republic which started development in 2006. They really wanted to do that MMO.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

That ain't accurate.
Dragon Age was Project A, Mass Effect was seen as a quick and dirty Project B to gather more resources for Dragon Age. Turns out, ME did better than anyone thought it would, and it certainly did better than Dragon Age.

KOTOR was the side project (partly) subsidized by Microsoft handing out Gatesbux to any RPG developer willing to work on the Xbox and ended up being wildly successful relative to the "safe" fantasy IP (Neverwinter).

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

That ain't accurate.
Dragon Age was Project A, Mass Effect was seen as a quick and dirty Project B to gather more resources for Dragon Age. Turns out, ME did better than anyone thought it would, and it certainly did better than Dragon Age.

That's not even remotely true.
In fact it's pretty much the other way around. Mass Effect was the big cinematic thing they were betting everything on; Dragon Age the revived dead project they expected to serve a niche.
And DA:O ended up surprisingly selling more, in the end.

 

[Nano]

Baldur's Gate 1/2, Neverwinter Nights 1, Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins were more than decent. They were good, easy to recommend to anyone, and worth playing through more than once.

DAO is the only good game in this list.

 

[Varnaan]

Their output was always decent at best. It was just popular until it wasn't.

Baldur's Gate 1/2, Neverwinter Nights 1, Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins were more than decent. They were good, easy to recommend to anyone, and worth playing through more than once.

Calling Neverwinter Nights good is a stretch.
The game itself is horrendous, and the only saving grace of both this game and the aurora engine are user generated content and HotU to some extent.
NWN is a dreadful game with the most half assed dull disgusting excuse for campaigns but people defend it because they jerked off to A Dance With Rogues.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

All Bioware cRPGs had elements of role-play and developing character. Simplified, dumber, but still RPG. If they weren't RPG, what they were? And no, "shit" is not real descriptive term.

You are joking right? Both of them are third-person shooters.

 

[v1c70r14]

Bioware always precedes trends in gaming industry. They made first good Mechwarrior game. They made modern 2002 RPG in 1998 (BG). They made game-editor (NN) before it was a thing. They made movie game from 2015 in 2007 (MA). They made 2020 woke game (DA:I) in 2014. They achieved first woke fail in 2017 with MA:A. Then, they will crumble under a weight of own sins after DA4.

They used to be way ahead but they lost that by Anthem, trying to copy online lootershooters like Destiny. At the time EA was focused on attempting to get in on that and from what I've heard DA4 was supposed to be a part of that effort but since Anthem failed spectacularly and EA changed gears late-development they're trying to salvage what they can now.

In retrospect they also were among the first to attempt to copy No Man's Sky and bring it into their formula with Andromeda, it wasn't just one of the first big woke fails but they also failed at that. Ubisoft and Bethesda are probably going to rake in a lot of money doing it.

 

[Alienman]

Oh no, a dark souls type of thing.

 

[Ryzer]

Why is everything so pink?
The interface is purple.
The items colors are in purple and squared in pink.
The UI is colored in pink
There is a pink aura emanating from the character.
What's this? Were the developers on weed while making this?

 

[Delterius]

Ok I'll be fair when I played it in 2008, I had fun with it. I also didn't take any long breaks, so it was a good quality game. Sad they included gay relationships. But the mechanics itself were good, no question about it.

No, the mechanics sucked ass.

DA:O was 'RPG Codex GOTY' purely due to C&C, and being a rough gem that does most things decently enough. Not to mention the dryspell of the 2000s. But DA:O's combat was on an atrocious, unfinished tier. Not quite as bad as other Codex gems like Arcanum, but still the sort where every other spell kills everything on screen.

So yeah, people who think DA:O was retroactively bad are as dumb as those who are just waiting for DA4 to come out to praise DA3. Like the handful of people in this site who praised DA2 when DA3 came out. To say that DA:O's mechanics were any good is pure reactionary thinking though. What they were, maybe, was something that could have been refined *if* BioWare stuck to its subgenre. That's all.