Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[anvi]

Wow this thread sure has a lot of talk for a game with no info. I'll join in. I was on a train yesterday and across from me was a guy with grey hair and a fat wife, I think he was about 50 ish. On his tablet he was watching some TV and the first thing he watched was some shitty music concert type thing, but not like the concerts I went to in the good ole days with bands. This was a bunch of baggy pants rapper types doing the gun shape with their hands every 2 seconds while looking smug and angry. The first guy had a diamond earring, a tiny pencil beard, lots of bling, and he was half black which is just the right amount of black to be hip and urban without scaring people away. In other words he looked like everyone in music now. Even without hearing it, I knew it was dogshit. After he finished, some whorish girl came on with big tits and a fat ass and did all the same moves but with more simulated sex moves. It reminded me how shit young people are and how cringe youth culture is. I already knew this though, but I never really cared because I always thought it was mostly small and niche because the only people who take it seriously are kids who were born in two thousand and something, so they have never even seen a band before.

But to see this 50 year old guy watching it, it got me thinking... After that ended, he started watching what I think was American Idol and there was a comedian. This 50 year old guy was laughing so hard his whole body was bouncing up and down in his chair. It dawned on me that a large percentage of people in the world are just really simple and dumb. They don't have refined tastes in anything, and they don't care very much about movies, TV, music, or video games. The percentage of people who miss various mechanics from Dragon Age Origins (let alone older games) is about 0.0000001% of the world. Most people are only concerned with the graphics, how hot the characters are, and if everyone else is playing it.

That's why Inquisition was a bigger success. Big, dumb, shallow, and pretty, is all a game needs to be now. The public are mostly plebs so games are only delivering what people demand. The cocky guy who said about Dragon Age 2, "YOU PRESS A BUTTON AND SOMETHING AWESOME HAPPENS!" was saying that for a reason. The reason is... the average gamer these days is either mentally or physically a 13 year old xbox little shit who plays with one hand in his bag of cheese puffs. The game needs to be easy, have a lot of explosions, pretty, and hyped all over every website so he feels like he is part of a shared experience with other people. That way, when he talks to his only friends, on the internet, he can say DOOD DID U SEE DAT BIT WHEN DA DRAGIN CAME DOWN? and everyone will reply with, "OMG I LIKE LITERLY WAS LIKE OMG BRO SO ASUM DUDE SRSLY!" And they will live happily ever after, and so will EA.

 

[J1M]

Dragon Age thing at PAX South yesterday: http://south.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/rockpapershotgun-presents-dragon-age-more-like-dragon-rave

The people who thought going to a public location with those slides was a good idea are making the game. It will be delayed.

 

[vonAchdorf]

The people who thought going to a public location with those slides was a good idea are making the game. It will be delayed.

Those were 3 journlols, not the developers.

 

[J1M]

The people who thought going to a public location with those slides was a good idea are making the game. It will be delayed.

Those were 3 journlols, not the developers.

My bad.

 

[vonAchdorf]

The people who thought going to a public location with those slides was a good idea are making the game. It will be delayed.

Those were 3 journlols, not the developers.

My bad.

I imagine that the type of person making the game is pretty similar to the three journalists.

 

[J1M]

The people who thought going to a public location with those slides was a good idea are making the game. It will be delayed.

Those were 3 journlols, not the developers.

My bad.

I imagine that the type of person making the game is pretty similar to the three journalists.

I've never been to PAX so I guess I'm not quite acclimated to a world where journalists hold panels to shill for unreleased games.

 

[vonAchdorf]

The panel was so low effort and low info, that other than keeping the brand in discussion, there was indeed no point in it.

 

[AwesomeButton]

PAX South 2019, Everything is Shit:

Spoiler

 

[blessedCoffee]

I don't know if Anthem's performance will change DA4 from happening. To EA it's a sequel to a somewhat successful series they have full control over. Even if Bioware kicks the bucket EA will milk the DA license however they can.

While Electronic Arts is certainly greedy, and are eager to use Dragon Age to drain more money from its fans, they show no hesitation about abandoning, or "freezing" their franchises, even popular ones. So I wouldn't bet on D.A. safety.

If the developers mess up the next game, the franchise will be put in the fridge, just like they did, with Mass Effect.

They're not fond of their games, like Sega is (even with all the crappy Sonic games released, they keep trying. EA would've given up long time ago, if Sonic was their IP).

 

[Infinitron]

From Kotaku article about Anthem - the fate of Dragon Age 4: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...lone-from-bioware.113374/page-56#post-6078428

On June 29, 2017, BioWare’s Mark Darrah published a tweet that may seem odd today. He noted that he was the executive producer of the Dragon Age franchise, then gave a list of games he was not currently working on: ”Anthem; Mass Effect; Jade Empire; A DA Tactics game; Star Wars…” The implication was that Darrah was producing Dragon Age 4. At the time, this was true. This iteration of Dragon Age 4 was code-named Joplin, and those who were working on it have told me they were excited by creative director Mike Laidlaw’s vision for the project.

But Anthem was on fire, and by October, BioWare had decided to make some massive changes. That summer, studio general manager Aaryn Flynn departed, to be replaced by a returning Casey Hudson. As part of this process, the studio canceled Joplin. Laidlaw quit shortly afterward, and BioWare restarted Dragon Age 4 with a tiny team under the code name Morrison. Meanwhile, the studio moved the bulk of Dragon Age 4’s developers to Anthem, which needed all of the company’s resources if it was going to hit the ship date that EA was demanding.

Mark Darrah was then installed over game director Jon Warner to become executive producer on Anthem.

 

[Lacrymas]

DA is the only thing which didn't get mainstream hate out of Bioware's catalogue recently, so I don't know why they aren't doubling down on 4 instead of trying to resuscitate a dead corpse like Anthem.

 

[Frozen]

From Dylan to Joplin to Morrison and we all know it will end as Bieber.

 

[Infinitron]

More from the article:

In the weeks after launch, BioWare’s Austin office began taking over the live service, as had always been planned, while BioWare Edmonton staff gradually started moving to new projects, like Dragon Age 4.

One big change that’s already been enacted at BioWare is a new technology strategy. Developers still at the studio say that under Casey Hudson, rather than start from scratch yet again, the next Dragon Age will be built on Anthem’s codebase. (We’ll share more on that game in the near future.)

So, still alive.

 

[Frozen]

So, same as it ever was.
Anthem codebase is built out of Andromeda, and that was built from Inquisition.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The problem is not that Dragon Age 4: The EAkening will be shit, but that so many of you refuse to acknowledge that Dragon Age 1 was utter shit. I get it, those were rough times, you got really wasted, and she looked good at the time, but come on...

 

[Infinitron]

So, same as it ever was.
Anthem codebase is built out of Andromeda, and that was built from Inquisition.

According to Schreier's article, not really:

From the beginning, Anthem’s senior leadership had made the decision to start from scratch for a large part of the game’s technology rather than using all of the systems the company had built for Inquisition and Andromeda. Part of this may have been a desire to stand out from those other teams, but another explanation was simple: Anthem was online. The other games were not. The inventory system that BioWare had already designed for Dragon Age on Frostbite might not stand up in an online game, so the Anthem team figured they’d need to build a new one. “Towards the end of the project we started complaining,” said one developer. “Maybe we would’ve gone further if we had Dragon Age: Inquisition stuff. But we’re also just complaining about lack of manpower in general.”

 

[Xeon]

I think they said EA only forced them to use Frostbite engine so everything is on them, tho I have seen posts about a Bioware dev saying Bioware were the ones who chose to use Frostbite before.

Bioware magic will save them.

 

[Elex]

well DA 4 is alive today, but tomorrow? Bioware is rip soon, that article is basically a suicide, who want to work for bioware now?

 

[Storyfag]

Bugoware, Bugoware never changes.

 

[anvi]

I still never understood the DA1 was utter shit thing, please explain? I'll write my thesis first:

Combat is what I'm all about. Amazingly, for me this first game was as satisfying as any RPG, maybe even moreso. Yes DoS was a blast to oil stuff up and then incinerate it, or douse and electro it, etc. But there isn't enough depth to it, and it got repetitive. Of the D&D style games, none of them really get high level and interesting enough for me. BG2 later on had some pretty good boss battles, but all the other stuff bored me. Wizardry series is pretty satisfying to tinker with the combat, but that gets repetitive too. TOEE feels so good at first to have nice micromanagement control over all your different hand built characters, all in glorious super VGA. It is good mind candy, but after a while it just becomes repetitive too. My tanks hold stuff back, my healers keep them alive, and my mages summon massive pets, cones of cold / fireball / lightning / whatever, everything goes splat. Now repeat this a million times through one enormous dungeon. The Icewind Dale 1 and 2 games are a real stand out for me because it got to the deep stuff soon and often, and with so many layers of magic resistances to strip, you had to put in some effort. It felt like more boss battles too.

But I really think DA1 is as good as all that and probably better. I loved some and hated some but overall it does a lot. The bad first, it was the BG1 of the series in that you start from scratch at low levels. So there is a low of low level shit for the first half, and sadly just as the character builds started getting stronger and more interesting, the fucking game finished. The talent tree thing was really nice though, I would have liked to be greedy and have a bit more, but with such a short game it probably didn't even justify it. It could be better of course, it was pretty dumbed down and steamlined. The priests and mages weren't really separated, it was more one bunch of magic for magic people, pick what you want. And then a handful of melee things for melee people, pick what you want, tanky stuff or stabby stuff, whatever. It was all a bit jumbled together to look like more than there really is. But still, it had just about enough to build good characters how you wanted them, and the abilities themselves were good. The tank had the ability to taunt stuff but it was limited so you had to play smart. They also had a nice little balancing act with defense vs damage output. The mages were really fun (but op), and there was enough for me to build two or three different mages. I had one that blew shit up with massive lightning storms and whatnot. Also had some decent single target stuff. Then I had a second mage that was more of a control mage, enfeebling stuff, spreading out evil auras to debuff stuff, etc. Pretty good evil shaman / druid / necromancer type stuff. I liked this one the most. And lastly, the healing. I hated the aura that auto-healed the group. It is just dumbing down a step too far. However healing was mostly awesome in this game, far better than Pathfinder or most other D&D games. You get the single target small heal and single target big heal, you also get the group heal, but you also get a heal over time which is so lacking from most other games. Landing stuff like that early in the fight really let you min max in a satisfying way. It also had a couple of key buffs, and the rez, maybe some other stuff. Overall, I really liked it, against tough bosses you had to heal early and often, and casters had to really open fire full on early to get some of the numbers down so you could survive. The control make really had to make themselves useful on fights against a lot of targets or your tank is simply going to die. And against one target, you don't get to use some of your sleep type spells, so you have to focus on damage for a change.

It had a bit of the fun stuff that DoS had too though, you could build up your frost spell so that it had a chance to freeze solid an enemy. Then you could choose a talent tree ability that let you use the stunning first spell completely destroy a frozen target. This was powerful and really satisfying to do, similar to what DoS did (later). Also it might not have the eye candy of splashing oil all over a battlefield or making it rain above you, but the evil aura spells in DA1 did more or less the same thing. It had some fun visceral stuff, but plenty of strategy too. Combine that with plenty of boss fights and a lot of the battles being balanced to be tough, really makes me love the combat in this game.

Lastly, you get the immersive over the head camera view which lets you explore the world like you are there, like a good modern RPG or MMO. You can fight easy stuff like that too, which looks good and is exciting. But when it comes to a tough fight, you just mousewheel backwards and zooms up to a nice isometric type view of the whole battlefield for finer control.

So for me this game is one of my favorites because combat is all I really care about. The other stuff... I really hate game stories and characters. They are always 100% shit and hackneyed. So if anything, this game was better for me than most because it was all so generic, I could just ignore it all. Yet none of it was bad enough to distract me too.

My only real disappointment is that it didn't fulfil me that much, overall, when it finished it felt too short, far too lacking in the character building department, I had hoarded shit for the entire game and amassed a glorious stack of 200 gold, and then the fucking thing ended. I also feel like it needed a bigger and more elaborate last part. Whatever the final battles was (I can't remember, some dragon on a castle), wasn't big or tough enough. And as much as I loved the combat, I felt like it could have been a bit more generous. But overall, I felt happy that they had made a new RPG with a new engine and I can forgive a lot for spending part of their development on that engine. Like most first games in a series with a new engine, they are shallower and smaller because of it. But the good thing is that you can then get a sequel, in the same engine, and they focus on making it great and higher level. That's what I was really excited about with DA1, and then it never came... Instead I got a dumbed down DA2 with even less of everything. Dogshit. And then I got DA:I which is more like a single player MMO and dumbed down even more. Yet now with massive budget wasted on super high end graphics and millions of dollars wasted on some shitty world map gimmick and millions of boring fully voiced conversations... All really rubs my nose in it. Not only did we get you excited with a modern full cRPG with just enough modernisation to make it exciting yet still remain tactical, and then never give you a sequel to it, but we also made a game like a sequel but far bigger and more expensive and made it really dumb for dumb Call of Duty shitbags that killed this genre to begin with.

 

[Infinitron]

Journalism! https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/02/bioware-went-rogue-on-ea-with-its-dragon-age-4-announcement/

BioWare went rogue on EA with its Dragon Age 4 announcement (update)

Two hours into The Game Awards 2018, organizer Geoff Keighley threw to yet another one of his famous “world premieres.” Over the next 60 seconds, fans watched a vague teaser for the next entry in the Dragon Age series. The bulk of the clip focuses on a 3D render of an object called the “red lyrium idol.” And it ends with the idol fading into a mural as the character Solas repeats a line from the Trespasser expansion for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

If you watch the trailer for yourself, you may notice that it seems thin and rushed. And that’s because it was, according to sources familiar with publisher Electronic Arts and developer BioWare that have talked to GamesBeat anonymously.

The video is the result of EA scrambling to fulfill a promise that BioWare made. The studio made that promise even though EA brass was not aware that the Mass Effect and Anthem developer was going to do so.

And yet, in a blog post on November 29, BioWare director Casey Hudson heavily implied that Dragon Age 4 would show up at The Game Awards:

“Dragon Age is an incredibly important franchise in our studio, and we’re excited to continue its legacy. Look for more on this in the coming month (though I won’t tell you where to look…)”​

When BioWare posted that tease, it left EA no choice but to play along. Dragon Age fans were now expecting … something.

Edmonton’t care

Hudson’s move was possible in part because of EA’s current relationship with BioWare and its fans. EA brought Hudson back in 2017 (after he left in 2014) to give fans confidence in future BioWare releases after the disappointing Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Shortly after The Game Awards, EA chief executive Andrew Wilson flew up to Edmonton to do an in-person checkup on BioWare.

And Wilson has a lot of good reasons for skepticism regarding the progress of Dragon Age 4. BioWare is beginning to repeat its mistakes. A lot of that is due to EA, but it seems likely that BioWare’s culture is also a culprit.

EA is a big company, and it’s possible that some people were in the loop. But Dragon Age 4’s tease on the BioWare blog was not typical and caught many with the company off-guard.

Updated 11:50 a.m. Pacific on April 2 with a source that refutes the details of the Dragon Age 4 reveal.

Since publishing the story, I’ve spoken to an alternative source familiar with EA that denies its details. According to this source, key people were aware of Hudson’s plans. And Wilson’s trip to Edmonton was not a response to the Dragon Age trailer.

 

[luj1]

Who gives a FOOK

 

[sullynathan]

origins isn't shit, it just has its problems

 

[Theldaran]

origins isn't shit, it just has its problems

As a 10-year anniversary homage to BG, it isn't that bad.

Thing with Origins is they redid the game for years on end. Seems that by then the creative minds in Bioware were more than stale. Did they stop playing tabletop RPGs?

 

[Roguey]

That article confirmed that Inquisition was a success (and not a flop like so many of you wished it would be).

the next Dragon Age will be built on Anthem’s codebase.

What DA fans remain better hope that Bioware shuts down and this gets canceled before they utterly ruin their final property.