Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard - coming Fall 2024

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It basically just sounds like the kind of stuff they did in Divinity: Original Sin 2, (which was made by an indie studio, and not a big one)

Yea a 130 people small indie team

That’s a smaller team than BioWare when they were independent. More people worked on Dragon Age: Origins, and 130 is how many made Mass Effect.

 

[Roguey]

That’s a smaller team than BioWare when they were independent. More people worked on Dragon Age: Origins, and 130 is how many made Mass Effect.

100 people isn't small. Sawyer's said that it no longer feels like a small studio when there are that many.

When OEI was at its largest (I think maybe in the realm of 140 people), I started not knowing who people were, which was not a great feeling. On our larger teams, I also stopped being able to talk to people about their work every day. I was able to do that on F:NV usually, but often not with great depth.

New Vegas's core team was about 70.

 

[cvv]

130 people in 2017 isn't huge in general, that's when polygon counts and asset costs started skyrocketing but I'm surprised it took that many for an isometric RPG.

Kingdom Come was released in the same ballpark time with the same number of people but that was a full-fat open-world RPG.

Roguey any idea how many people worked on Deadfire?

 

[Space Satan]

Sawyer's said that it no longer feels like a small studio when there are that many.

Never trust a crook

 

[Roguey]

@Roguey any idea how many people worked on Deadfire?

Doubled in size to about 60-70.

 

[GrainWetski]

I bet this game is less degenerate than BG3. Wont be by much, but it will be less. It's hard to top BG3 without including shit eating fetishes or pedophilia.

It'll still be a few years before they start pushing pedophilia for real in big games. Larian, BioWare and CD Projekt will certainly be in a race to be the first once it's acceptable enough to the internet freaks.

Kinda sad how quickly we've gone from "you can just kill Zevran" to unironically having pronouns, beastiality and trannies in D&D games now. Wonderful progress and the slippery slope doesn't exist.

 

[Elthosian]

I saw this stuff a few weeks ago and it’s just all so fucking bizarre. I haven’t been following Baldur’s Gate 3 because I don’t give a shit about Baldur’s Gate in general, but the scope of it doesn’t seem like some out of reach monumental thing. It basically just sounds like the kind of stuff they did in Divinity: Original Sin 2, (which was made by an indie studio, and not a big one) but bigger. The scope basically just kind of seems to be what you’d expect a BioWare game to once be, but with the dice roll stuff of Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium also a game made by a indie developer. Like I can get it as far as tiny little indies go, and if you’re an indie I don’t think anybody is really expecting such things out of you unless that’s the arena you’re throwing your hat into; but this shit where people from Microsoft, BioWare, GrimloreGames, and Obsidian start jumping in is pretty studio.

I would just remind people that neither Larian or ZA/UM are based in SoCal. To me entire Twitter ranting seems like RPG titans of clinging to fame and unrelated people making excuses for them. Sometimes you just get left behind and new devs take charge. I am interested in seeing how Bioware plans to upstage BG3 with Dreadwolf, though.

Wasn’t Dreadwolf more or less confirmed to be like FFXVI? Single playable character and spectacular explosive QTEs for retards, inspired by the latest God of War interactive movie.

If they want to upstage BG3 they’d have to start development from scratch a second time and that would be too risky.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I saw this stuff a few weeks ago and it’s just all so fucking bizarre. I haven’t been following Baldur’s Gate 3 because I don’t give a shit about Baldur’s Gate in general, but the scope of it doesn’t seem like some out of reach monumental thing. It basically just sounds like the kind of stuff they did in Divinity: Original Sin 2, (which was made by an indie studio, and not a big one) but bigger. The scope basically just kind of seems to be what you’d expect a BioWare game to once be, but with the dice roll stuff of Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium also a game made by a indie developer. Like I can get it as far as tiny little indies go, and if you’re an indie I don’t think anybody is really expecting such things out of you unless that’s the arena you’re throwing your hat into; but this shit where people from Microsoft, BioWare, GrimloreGames, and Obsidian start jumping in is pretty studio.

I would just remind people that neither Larian or ZA/UM are based in SoCal. To me entire Twitter ranting seems like RPG titans of clinging to fame and unrelated people making excuses for them. Sometimes you just get left behind and new devs take charge. I am interested in seeing how Bioware plans to upstage BG3 with Dreadwolf, though.

Wasn’t Dreadwolf more or less confirmed to be like FFXVI? Single playable character and spectacular explosive QTEs for retards, inspired by the latest God of War interactive movie.

If they want to upstage BG3 they’d have to start development from scratch a second time and that would be too risky.

I don’t know about QTEs, and it isn’t like Final Fantasy 16, but it does have action combat.

 

[Elthosian]

I saw this stuff a few weeks ago and it’s just all so fucking bizarre. I haven’t been following Baldur’s Gate 3 because I don’t give a shit about Baldur’s Gate in general, but the scope of it doesn’t seem like some out of reach monumental thing. It basically just sounds like the kind of stuff they did in Divinity: Original Sin 2, (which was made by an indie studio, and not a big one) but bigger. The scope basically just kind of seems to be what you’d expect a BioWare game to once be, but with the dice roll stuff of Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium also a game made by a indie developer. Like I can get it as far as tiny little indies go, and if you’re an indie I don’t think anybody is really expecting such things out of you unless that’s the arena you’re throwing your hat into; but this shit where people from Microsoft, BioWare, GrimloreGames, and Obsidian start jumping in is pretty studio.

I would just remind people that neither Larian or ZA/UM are based in SoCal. To me entire Twitter ranting seems like RPG titans of clinging to fame and unrelated people making excuses for them. Sometimes you just get left behind and new devs take charge. I am interested in seeing how Bioware plans to upstage BG3 with Dreadwolf, though.

Wasn’t Dreadwolf more or less confirmed to be like FFXVI? Single playable character and spectacular explosive QTEs for retards, inspired by the latest God of War interactive movie.

If they want to upstage BG3 they’d have to start development from scratch a second time and that would be too risky.

I don’t know about QTEs, and it isn’t like Final Fantasy 16, but it does have action combat.

Man that looks awful. They’re going to get punished very hard.

 

[J1M]

BG3 is especially embarrassing for EA and BioWare because it shows that if they had continued with the original plan for Dragon Age, they could be the ones with a game that has 800,000 concurrent players.

Instead, they rushed out DA2 and undid most of that original vision.

Given the sales and legacy of games like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate, it was always a mistake to abandon that genre. With a decent level editor, they could be releasing a Dragon Age every two years and hitting similar numbers.

Finally, Dreadwolf has been in production for as long as BG3, so no convenient deflection is available to them.

 

[Kedar]

BG3 is especially embarrassing for EA and BioWare because it shows that if they had continued with the original plan for Dragon Age, they could be the ones with a game that has 800,000 concurrent players.

Instead, they rushed out DA2 and undid most of that original vision.

Given the sales and legacy of games like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate, it was always a mistake to abandon that genre. With a decent level editor, they could be releasing a Dragon Age every two years and hitting similar numbers.

Finally, Dreadwolf has been in production for as long as BG3, so no convenient deflection is available to them.

Okay, what was the original vision? I tried to google it but didn’t find anything.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

BG3 is especially embarrassing for EA and BioWare because it shows that if they had continued with the original plan for Dragon Age, they could be the ones with a game that has 800,000 concurrent players.

Instead, they rushed out DA2 and undid most of that original vision.

Given the sales and legacy of games like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate, it was always a mistake to abandon that genre. With a decent level editor, they could be releasing a Dragon Age every two years and hitting similar numbers.

Finally, Dreadwolf has been in production for as long as BG3, so no convenient deflection is available to them.

Okay, what was the original vision? I tried to google it but didn’t find anything.

DA2 was supposed to be a DLC for DAO, but then it was made into its own thing. I'd say the responsability behind this is 50/50 between Bioware and EA, since unlike other studios, Bioware seems to have a healthy degree of independence from EA, relatively speaking. Kinda like Blizzard and Activision. Bioware is a brand that has more weight than others I'd say.

 

[Shuruga]

DA2 was supposed to be a DLC for DAO, but then it was made into its own thing. I'd say the responsability behind this is 50/50 between Bioware and EA, since unlike other studios, Bioware seems to have a healthy degree of independence from EA, relatively speaking. Kinda like Blizzard and Activision. Bioware is a brand that has more weight than others I'd say.

I've always thought DA2 should have been in the same engine as DAO, just with some improvements to combat balance. Somehow I am more disappointed now to learn that that was the original plan and they abandoned it!

 

[Space Satan]

I saw this stuff a few weeks ago and it’s just all so fucking bizarre. I haven’t been following Baldur’s Gate 3 because I don’t give a shit about Baldur’s Gate in general, but the scope of it doesn’t seem like some out of reach monumental thing. It basically just sounds like the kind of stuff they did in Divinity: Original Sin 2, (which was made by an indie studio, and not a big one) but bigger. The scope basically just kind of seems to be what you’d expect a BioWare game to once be, but with the dice roll stuff of Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium also a game made by a indie developer. Like I can get it as far as tiny little indies go, and if you’re an indie I don’t think anybody is really expecting such things out of you unless that’s the arena you’re throwing your hat into; but this shit where people from Microsoft, BioWare, GrimloreGames, and Obsidian start jumping in is pretty studio.

I would just remind people that neither Larian or ZA/UM are based in SoCal. To me entire Twitter ranting seems like RPG titans of clinging to fame and unrelated people making excuses for them. Sometimes you just get left behind and new devs take charge. I am interested in seeing how Bioware plans to upstage BG3 with Dreadwolf, though.

Wasn’t Dreadwolf more or less confirmed to be like FFXVI? Single playable character and spectacular explosive QTEs for retards, inspired by the latest God of War interactive movie.

If they want to upstage BG3 they’d have to start development from scratch a second time and that would be too risky.

I don’t know about QTEs, and it isn’t like Final Fantasy 16, but it does have action combat.

Are they makind a...dark souls? I mean yeah, biowhores tried to compensate their lack of talent with "new popular Thing". like making a MMORPG out of Inquisition at the time when MMO hype was years dead, and now this?

 

[Elthosian]

It honestly looks like it will be even worse than the latest Final Fantasy. I mean, that one was designed for retards but at least the underlying combat system had some redeeming qualities if you were willing to LARP the difficulty in… this looks like the worst of all worlds :/

The worst part is that they insist on having this overarching narrative where you don’t ever play with the same protagonist twice but they still insist on neutering C&C for the sake of limiting the amount of work they’d have to do in future games to account for it… why is that even a thing? At this rate even the Telltale games are going to end up having more tangible consequences to your actions.

Btw, in regard to development time I guess half of it went into the Anthem with sword thing EA had them work on before Respawn’s Star Wars was a success. Can’t see anything good coming out of it after such a rocky development process.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

I saw this stuff a few weeks ago and it’s just all so fucking bizarre. I haven’t been following Baldur’s Gate 3 because I don’t give a shit about Baldur’s Gate in general, but the scope of it doesn’t seem like some out of reach monumental thing. It basically just sounds like the kind of stuff they did in Divinity: Original Sin 2, (which was made by an indie studio, and not a big one) but bigger. The scope basically just kind of seems to be what you’d expect a BioWare game to once be, but with the dice roll stuff of Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium also a game made by a indie developer. Like I can get it as far as tiny little indies go, and if you’re an indie I don’t think anybody is really expecting such things out of you unless that’s the arena you’re throwing your hat into; but this shit where people from Microsoft, BioWare, GrimloreGames, and Obsidian start jumping in is pretty studio.

I would just remind people that neither Larian or ZA/UM are based in SoCal. To me entire Twitter ranting seems like RPG titans of clinging to fame and unrelated people making excuses for them. Sometimes you just get left behind and new devs take charge. I am interested in seeing how Bioware plans to upstage BG3 with Dreadwolf, though.

Wasn’t Dreadwolf more or less confirmed to be like FFXVI? Single playable character and spectacular explosive QTEs for retards, inspired by the latest God of War interactive movie.

If they want to upstage BG3 they’d have to start development from scratch a second time and that would be too risky.

I don’t know about QTEs, and it isn’t like Final Fantasy 16, but it does have action combat.

If that footage is real, we're in for a rough treat.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I saw this stuff a few weeks ago and it’s just all so fucking bizarre. I haven’t been following Baldur’s Gate 3 because I don’t give a shit about Baldur’s Gate in general, but the scope of it doesn’t seem like some out of reach monumental thing. It basically just sounds like the kind of stuff they did in Divinity: Original Sin 2, (which was made by an indie studio, and not a big one) but bigger. The scope basically just kind of seems to be what you’d expect a BioWare game to once be, but with the dice roll stuff of Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium also a game made by a indie developer. Like I can get it as far as tiny little indies go, and if you’re an indie I don’t think anybody is really expecting such things out of you unless that’s the arena you’re throwing your hat into; but this shit where people from Microsoft, BioWare, GrimloreGames, and Obsidian start jumping in is pretty studio.

I would just remind people that neither Larian or ZA/UM are based in SoCal. To me entire Twitter ranting seems like RPG titans of clinging to fame and unrelated people making excuses for them. Sometimes you just get left behind and new devs take charge. I am interested in seeing how Bioware plans to upstage BG3 with Dreadwolf, though.

Wasn’t Dreadwolf more or less confirmed to be like FFXVI? Single playable character and spectacular explosive QTEs for retards, inspired by the latest God of War interactive movie.

If they want to upstage BG3 they’d have to start development from scratch a second time and that would be too risky.

I don’t know about QTEs, and it isn’t like Final Fantasy 16, but it does have action combat.

Are they makind a...dark souls? I mean yeah, biowhores tried to compensate their lack of talent with "new popular Thing". like making a MMORPG out of Inquisition at the time when MMO hype was years dead, and now this?

We are getting closer and closer to Demons Souls 20th anniversary, so it's hardly a "new" thing. In the case of Bioware, it's the same deal as with Inquisition: too little too late.

DA2 was supposed to be a DLC for DAO, but then it was made into its own thing. I'd say the responsability behind this is 50/50 between Bioware and EA, since unlike other studios, Bioware seems to have a healthy degree of independence from EA, relatively speaking. Kinda like Blizzard and Activision. Bioware is a brand that has more weight than others I'd say.

I've always thought DA2 should have been in the same engine as DAO, just with some improvements to combat balance. Somehow I am more disappointed now to learn that that was the original plan and they abandoned it!

Those were 100% Bioware's decisions, as per Gaider's interviews. In fact, they wanted to go harder at everything they did in DA2, not the opposite.

 

[J1M]

BG3 is especially embarrassing for EA and BioWare because it shows that if they had continued with the original plan for Dragon Age, they could be the ones with a game that has 800,000 concurrent players.

Instead, they rushed out DA2 and undid most of that original vision.

Given the sales and legacy of games like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate, it was always a mistake to abandon that genre. With a decent level editor, they could be releasing a Dragon Age every two years and hitting similar numbers.

Finally, Dreadwolf has been in production for as long as BG3, so no convenient deflection is available to them.

Okay, what was the original vision? I tried to google it but didn’t find anything.

"Neverwinter Nights set in Middle Earth, but we own the IP."

 

[Space Satan]

The old leaks are glorious in their decline and how fucked up things are

 

[Fearlessjay]

How is Bioware still around? When you look at all the legendary developers Ea killed off, these talentless hacks should have been finished off after Anthem. And I say this as someone who loved Baldur's Gate 2 and Mass Effect. They are basically Dylan Mulvaney pretending to be something they are not and then been surprised when someone says the emperor has no clothes. It would be hilarious if Baldur's Gate 3 is the thing to finally put them out of their misery.

 

[Roguey]

DA2 was supposed to be a DLC for DAO, but then it was made into its own thing. I'd say the responsability behind this is 50/50 between Bioware and EA, since unlike other studios, Bioware seems to have a healthy degree of independence from EA, relatively speaking. Kinda like Blizzard and Activision. Bioware is a brand that has more weight than others I'd say.

I've always thought DA2 should have been in the same engine as DAO, just with some improvements to combat balance. Somehow I am more disappointed now to learn that that was the original plan and they abandoned it!

It does use the same engine as Origins. They just upgraded it.

DA2 was rushed because TOR slipped and they had to ship something fast to meet their quarterly expectations, but making it more like Mass Effect was purely on Bioware.

https://www.thegamer.com/dragon-age-origins-oral-history/

But I do wish we’d stuck a bit closer to the traditional RPG aspects as the series went on, instead of looking on those as a lodestone limiting our audience. There was always this undercurrent that the ‘RPG crowd’ was small and thus could never translate into the kind of sales EA wanted without changing and modernizing it all. Personally, I always thought that estimate of the audience was mistaken, and that people will flock to quality above all else… because, yes, I’m a big fan of what we did in DAO. Whether my thoughts about the audience are correct, I guess we’ll never know.

They released a crpg and felt ashamed of it.

 

[Space Satan]

Personally, I always thought that estimate of the audience was mistaken, and that people will flock to quality above all else…

Hearing this about quality from gaider, oh, the irony.
- In recent news, Giacomo Casanova expressed his dissatisfaction with decline in public morals and lamented how wives are becoming unfaithful and husbands take mistresses.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

DA2 wasn't an rpg, but it was certainly more entertaining and more coherent than anything I've seen in Inquisition.

 

[Shuruga]

It does use the same engine as Origins. They just upgraded it.

Fair enough! I suppose my issue was with how they modified things; the combat took on a much more "arcade" feel, for instance. I would have preferred the exact same engine, classes, and abilities as DAO over what they actually did with DA2.

 

[Ismaul]

How is Bioware still around?

The larping fanbase keeps their memory alive, I'd say. No other dev allowed players such extensive character customization + mass romances. Egostroking is their game.

But I guess with DOS2 and now BG3 Larian has offered an alternative and gone after that audience. Bioware might not even be relevant after they release their game; the fanbase will have moved on, fetishizing about new characters. Probably still not enough yet for EA to ditch the brand name though.