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

[rusty_shackleford]

I keep saying this but in the end, 'you don't have to engage with this portion of the game' isn't much of a positive.

The problem with the MMO quest design is that it adds up and infiltrates the main quest. I pointed out in the review how the orlesian court segment is bogged down by how you can get free 'court approval' by collecting generic 'secrets' by standing close to people and pressing f. To say nothing of all the misguided effort that went into the shard collection quest design. Say what you will about Kingmaker, at least kingdom building there plays into the actual game rather than being a side busywork you do.

It's something that normies are willing to overlook though.
It wasn't a game marketed to the codex population.

 

[DalekFlay]

The death of singleplayer games has been greatly exaggerated.

FO76 and Anthem absolutely bombed. We have been pelted with failure after failure of multiplayer fad games over and over for years. The top earning games being these types of games(GaaS would be a nice term, but it encompasses too much) does not mean that it's the best way to make a game profitable — this is the same fallacy that the WoW-clones fell into, just like the dota-clones, and the battle royale clones, and the survival games, and the …
One of the biggest hurdles you need to overcome is convincing people to leave a game they're already established at. Unlike traditional games, people typically only play one of these types of game at a time — they are never truly 'done' playing that game to move onto yours. If you don't build a massive fanbase immediately, your game is probably dead for good unless you're willing to put in the years of effort to revive it(which has only happened a few times e.g., ESO.)

If anything, the safe smart choice is a singleplayer game.

I respect you, but this is all bullshit. Yes some games like Breakpoint bomb, because they're bad games that get bad press and there are plenty of alternatives. Pretty much every singleplayer game Bethesda has put out since Fallout 4 bombed as well, it's a tough market. That doesn't change the fact if you make a good online service game that attracts a fanbase like Rainbow Six Siege you will make infinitely more money than with a singleplayer title. It's similar to how Disney has very little interest in mid-tier movies, they either want to make small budget arty stuff that doesn't lose much (indie games) or big blockbusters that make a billion dollars (online games). I'm not saying singleplayer games from corporations will vanish overnight, but they will get more and more rare as it becomes harder and harder to justify the expense to the suits. Hell man, this is already the case.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The death of singleplayer games has been greatly exaggerated.

FO76 and Anthem absolutely bombed. We have been pelted with failure after failure of multiplayer fad games over and over for years. The top earning games being these types of games(GaaS would be a nice term, but it encompasses too much) does not mean that it's the best way to make a game profitable — this is the same fallacy that the WoW-clones fell into, just like the dota-clones, and the battle royale clones, and the survival games, and the …
One of the biggest hurdles you need to overcome is convincing people to leave a game they're already established at. Unlike traditional games, people typically only play one of these types of game at a time — they are never truly 'done' playing that game to move onto yours. If you don't build a massive fanbase immediately, your game is probably dead for good unless you're willing to put in the years of effort to revive it(which has only happened a few times e.g., ESO.)

If anything, the safe smart choice is a singleplayer game.

I respect you, but this is all bullshit. Yes some games like Breakpoint bomb, because they're bad games that get bad press and there are plenty of alternatives. Pretty much every singleplayer game Bethesda has put out since Fallout 4 bombed as well, it's a tough market. That doesn't change the fact if you make a good online service game that attracts a fanbase like Rainbow Six Siege you will make infinitely more money than with a singleplayer title. It's similar to how Disney has very little interest in mid-tier movies, they wither want to make small budget arty stuff that doesn't lose much (indie games) or big blockbusters that make a billion dollars (online games). I'm not saying singleplayer games from corporations will vanish overnight, but they will get more and more rare as it becomes harder and harder to justify the expense to the suits. Hell man, this is ALREADY the case. Look at EA, Bethesda and Ubisoft's recent release history and tell me they don't prefer online services.

Bethesda hasn't released a real singleplayer game since FO4.

 

[DalekFlay]

Bethesda hasn't released a real singleplayer game since FO4.

You're doing that silly thing where you confuse Bethesda Game Studios with Bethesda the game publisher, which along with dodging the rest of my post proves you're not serious.

 

[Nano]

Late capitalism negatively affects all aspects of life. Mid-tier video games are just one of its victims.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Bethesda hasn't released a real singleplayer game since FO4.

You're doing that silly thing where you confuse Bethesda Game Studios with Bethesda the game publisher, which along with dodging the rest of my post proves you're not serious.

You think Prey, Dishonored 2, and DOOM weren't successful?

 

[DalekFlay]

You think Prey, Dishonored 2, and DOOM weren't successful?

Oh hey you discovered the singleplayer games they've released. Doom 2016 was successful, the other two (and Rage 2 and Wolfenstein The New Colossus) all had reports about them selling poorly, yes. Are you under the impression every "AAA" release sells well? Even Control recently, for all the hype it got, had very poor numbers according to reports. The point is that every genre has bombs like Ghost Recon Breakpoint, it's not a larger indicator of industry behavior and trends. I think if you look at industry output, professional comments and what makes the most money and gets the most hype, the trend to online services more and more over the years is super duper obvious.

Which again, is not saying they're vanishing completely. They'll just be harder and harder to get "green lit" in the corporate space, to use a movie term.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Oh hey you discovered the singleplayer games they've released. Doom 2016 was successful, the other two (and Rage 2 and Wolfenstein The New Colossus) all had reports about them selling poorly, yes.

you skipped over the other two
convenient

 

[cvv]

You think Prey, Dishonored 2, and DOOM weren't successful?

Afaik Prey and Dishonored 2 totally bombed, same for both Rages and all nuWolfensteins. Doom was probably the only real success but that's not the point.

DalekFlay is mostly correct with his take on AAA single-player games. An example - a big SP game costs 200 million and, if it's successful, makes 400 million. Once. A multiplayer garbage like Hearthstone or Overwatch costs a nickel and makes half a billion. Every-fucking-year.

If you were a CEO of a publicly traded company and you decided to focus on SP games with those calculations you'd be fired before you could eat your first lunch. Of course corpos like EA or Activision will focus on cheap MP garbage that's selling like hot cakes. The big drug cartels aren't interested in pot either, they peddle heroin and cocaine - easier to make AND much more profitable.

The only hope is if shit like Anthem or F76 proves to be a trend. If players simply reject live service gaming outside casual shit like sports, driving or social games. Then EA and others will have two choices - either stop making anything more ambitious than the next FIFA game or go back to hard, honest work. You make your bets gents....although EA did surprise me with the new Jedi game.

 

[DalekFlay]

I think one thing that trips people up is they see profit as the goal of a corporation. Dragon Age Inquisition made a profit, so why wouldn't Dragon Age 4 be the same kind of thing? The problem is profit is not the real goal of a corporation. The goal is a large return on investment. As cvv rightly says, why make 100 million once, assuming it's even a hit, when you could make five times that every year for who knows how long? To use Disney again, it's the same reason they'd rather spend 300 million on an Avengers movie and then make 2 billion, rather than spend 100 million on a mid-tier action movie to make 400 million.

There's a solid argument to be made for a Dragon Age 4 singleplayer title. Inquisition made money, a return to tradition for Bioware would get good press. The problem is the first thing out of a shareholder's mouth will be "yeah, but what is the return on investment 2 years later?" I'm not saying it's impossible DA4 is a purely singleplayer game, I'm saying that's harder and harder to get past the suits as the years go by.

 

[cvv]

The goal is a large return on investment.

Yep, or yet in other words - they want to squeeze as much money as possible from the resources they own. EA can use Bioware much more profitably if they order them to make cheap MP games instead of giant expensive SP ones.

But again, I'm not sure how does Jedi Fallen Order fit in this picture. Theoretically a game like this should not be possible in the current climate. Wilson would not be able to justify the investment in front of his board.

My hunch is this is not EA somehow seeing light. This is probably a one-off. My guess is EA bought the SW licence, started a bunch of single player games, then later on decided to focus purely on MP games but didn't want to cancel ALL ongoing SW projects (waste of assets) so they only cancelled one, the Amy Henning project, and merged the assets with the other projects being developed by Respawn. After FO is out that's it, no more SP games.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

An example - a big SP game costs 200 million

Only 3 games(4, when adjusted for inflation) ever made have had a budget over $200m — with the majority of that budget typically going towards marketing.

makes 400 million.

Of these four:
Within 2 months, the #1 game had made over $1 billion in sales.
Within 24 hours the #2 game made over $800 million in sales, going on to gross $6 billion in 5 years.
#3 was a flop. FYI, it's the only online-only game out of the four.
#4 recouped its development cost in the first 24 hours, going on to sell over 6 million copies.
These games are the massive outliers.
Something you didn't mention is that it costs far more to produce an online game than a singleplayer game does. It requires additional server development, additional infrastructure, and is also typically expected to have far more content while being continuously supported after release.

A multiplayer garbage like Hearthstone or Overwatch costs a nickel and makes half a billion. Every-fucking-year.

If it was so profitable then companies would be doing it. Guess what? They did, and it wasn't. Basically every major gamedev tried to get some of that money and they all had one thing in common: They failed. Even the ones already with a wildly successful online-only game failed.
Do you remember Heroes of the Storm by chance? The shoe was on the other foot when Valve tripped with their hearthstone-like game Artifact. Epic may be known for Fortnite now, but Paragon tanked. Digital Extremes(known for their wildly successful online-only looter shooter Warfame) made The Amazing Eternals which never made it out of beta because it never had a big enough community, and there was Realm Royale from the devs of Paladins.

Hell, basically every big company tried to get some of that. And again, most of them failed. Gearsoft's Battleborn, CDProjekt's multiplayer Gwent game, CDProjekt's Witcher moba(yes, this existed), Turtle Rock/2K's Evolve, Square Enix's Lord of Vermilion Arena moba, Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes — because apparently Mythic didn't learn their lesson from Warhammer Online already. Cliffy B failed twice and left the gaming industry: LawBreakers and Radical Heights. Oh Cliffy B.
Oh hey, and since we're discussing Bethesda maybe you guys have heard of Quake Champions?

To be successful as an online-only game you have to be capable of beating the entrenched competition, typically through being the first or leveraging an already massive fanbase(which has often failed as I've noted.) If you think there's easy cash to grab then you simply aren't paying attention.
You know what big businesses really hate?
Taking risks.
If anything, you should be more worried that "safe" games like Outerworlds become the norm. Shallow games designed to sell as many copies as possible made on medium budgets and offer nothing of note. Games that are hollow shells of much better titles with just the barebones necessary to make people really feel like they're sort of playing a game they like. Games that produce steady, guaranteed returns for investors.

 

[cvv]

First, it was just an example to illustrate a point. That apparently went over your head.
Second - yes. Those were massive outliers. Exactly.
And no, a new CoD or Battlefield doesn't cost "significantly more" than something like DAI or Andromeda. Not even close. Not even in our same universe. They're way, way, way, WAAAAAAAY cheaper and simpler. Big, epic open-world RPGs are the king genre - most complex, most demanding, most expensive, by far. Something like CoD can't even compare, let alone trinkets like Hearthstone or Overwatch.

Btw Dan Vavra from Warhorse famously said something to the tune of "I'm a fucking fool to work on a goddamn open world RPG of all genres for 5 years. I could've made 4 shooters in that same time and make 10x times more money on each of them."

 

[rusty_shackleford]

First, it was just an example to illustrate a point. That apparently went over your head.
Second - yes. Those were massive outliers. Exactly.
And no, a new CoD or Battlefield doesn't cost "significantly more" than something like DAI or Andromeda. Not even close. Not even in our same universe. They're way, way, way, WAAAAAAAY cheaper and simpler. Big, epic open-world RPGs are the king genre - most complex, most demanding, most expensive, by far. Something like CoD can't even compare, let alone trinkets like Hearthstone or Overwatch.

…#1 in my list is a CoD game.

 

[Morgoth]

I think one thing that trips people up is they see profit as the goal of a corporation. Dragon Age Inquisition made a profit, so why wouldn't Dragon Age 4 be the same kind of thing? The problem is profit is not the real goal of a corporation. The goal is a large return on investment. As cvv rightly says, why make 100 million once, assuming it's even a hit, when you could make five times that every year for who knows how long? To use Disney again, it's the same reason they'd rather spend 300 million on an Avengers movie and then make 2 billion, rather than spend 100 million on a mid-tier action movie to make 400 million.

There's a solid argument to be made for a Dragon Age 4 singleplayer title. Inquisition made money, a return to tradition for Bioware would get good press. The problem is the first thing out of a shareholder's mouth will be "yeah, but what is the return on investment 2 years later?" I'm not saying it's impossible DA4 is a purely singleplayer game, I'm saying that's harder and harder to get past the suits as the years go by.

If EA wants that, they should stop making games and become a bank.

 

[cvv]

…#1 in my list is a CoD game.

CoD costs cents to make and a gazillion to promote, this has nothing to do with what we're talking about here (cost and difficulty of production).

 

[DalekFlay]

But again, I'm not sure how does Jedi Fallen Order fit in this picture. Theoretically a game like this should not be possible in the current climate. Wilson would not be able to justify the investment in front of his board.

I'd guess their license fees, cross-promotion with the new movie and the massive popularity of the franchise were all big factors there. It will be interesting to see what sales are though, and how it influences them.

 

[Morgoth]

Wouldn't it be a bit too early for a DA4 reveal?

 

[Prime Junta]

Wouldn't it be a bit too early for a DA4 reveal?

Maybe they're ready to reveal the new direction.

 

[Morgoth]

The game is still roughly three years from release so I can't really see them doing more than showing some art slides, fanfic bullshit and self-congratulation.

 

[cvv]

EA's CFO recently:

We are doubling-down on live services combined with our core franchises,” said Jorgensen. “We’re investing in games that people play for longer and engage with much more deeply. This focus will continue to drive growth and profitability for the company through the remainder of this year and beyond.”

Not sure what are ya'll expecting but whatever DA4 will be it's NOT gonna be a traditional RPG.

 

[Prime Junta]

EA's CFO recently:

We are doubling-down on live services combined with our core franchises,” said Jorgensen. “We’re investing in games that people play for longer and engage with much more deeply. This focus will continue to drive growth and profitability for the company through the remainder of this year and beyond.”

Not sure what are ya'll expecting but whatever DA4 will be it's NOT gonna be a traditional RPG.

Yeah I liked the old direction better.

 

[whydoibother]

Wishlist for Dragon Age 4:

• Combat for mouse&keyboard, without auto attacks, probably a slow real time with pause or some real time round system
• diverse classes that need each other for support, rather than warriors having magic-like abilities or mages being able to just tank&spank
• dialogues with more than 4 options, and more than 2-3 words to represent each of them
• quests you can choose to pick up, or abandon, and are able to fail, and continue playing through their fail state
  
• more integration of all companions and their quests into the plot, like Divinity Original Sin 2 did
• more player impact on how the plot plays, like DOS2 and The Witcher 3
  Spoiler

  and unlike Mass Effect 3
• less collect 600 of a certain kind of weed to gain a buff to your base and other MMORPG grind shit
• no mobile app tie in

 

[Falksi]

Fuck me, the poor fuckers getting their hopes up. This game has already got off to the worst start possible, by having itself based around a fucking DLC & associated with the steaming piles of wank that was DA:I.

The only way this can be any good is if it takes a fresh start. And with the trailer release, it can't.

Miracle needed.

 

[Nines_Anarch]

Close this thread. This game doesn't deserve our time. The franchise is already dead. Let it rest in peace.