The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[Atlantico]

Watched the video more or less.
Is it normal in game development to get deep into it before it's even decided what and how everything should be? For example it's said that horses were added later. Wouldn't the area designers need to know that before?
Also I find it funny they went to beg for an extra year to make the game bigger, and then it turns out it would've been better with a lot of the fat cut out...

This video was very interesting because it was a concession, both that the game was not a success in the mind of the creator and EA and that it was a badly organized albatross that didn't fly.

Listen to him talking about the plot, how they hammered it together and how he couldn't remember a mission statement for the game, or if it even had one.

I listened to this video because he was delivering some hard truths about DAI

 

[AwesomeButton]

Something pretty interesting I spotted is Darrah's regret at the need to adapt the game to last-gen consoles, and his envy at CDPR's decision to have Witcher 3 be a next-gen game only. 6 years later CDPR had the same issues with Cyberpunk on last-gen when they in turn decided to ship their new game to last and next gen simultaneosly (plus Google Stadia, lol). For the sake of PC players, I hope in both cases they drew the lesson to at least take last gen consoles out of the equation.

 

[gurugeorge]

This video proves so many worst assumptions to be true that it's hilarious. "How to make a shit AAA game: designing by comittee, phoning in features (the mounts, the useless fortress), hacking together some kind of story, lying to financial backers, and lying to players". Although he manages to explain their reasoning, that's what their development process amounts to.

It sounds to me there wasn't a single aspect of this game that anyone had a unique and defined vision about. "Marrying Skyrim to Dragon Age Origins" is not a vision, as he himself states.

We are left with the question how much of our money, time or energy is a product with this quality (and an entertainment product at that) really worth.

Yeah, exactly. I'm not hearing any sort of inspiration or fire anywhere in what he says, nothing like, "We had this vision of a great game with a,b,c and an epic story about x,y,z."

It's all just soulless suit-talk about putting together some Frankenstein thing out of marketing criteria.

It sounds like the company still had an art-first attitude with DA:O, started getting lost in the marketing weeds by DA2 and completely lost their bearings by the time of DA:I.

 

[Quillon]

"How to make a shit AAA game: designing by comittee, phoning in features (the mounts, the useless fortress), hacking together some kind of story, lying to financial backers, and lying to players"

hey it became GOTY, jokes on everyone lmao

 

[AwesomeButton]

DAI holds a "personal spot" for me - I actually joined the Codex in order to warn people against buying it

I'm not hearing any sort of inspiration or fire anywhere in what he says, nothing like, "We had this vision of a great game with a,b,c and an epic story about x,y,z."

It's all just soulless suit-talk about putting together some Frankenstein thing out of marketing criteria.

The story he tells is that a triple-A game development is a negotiation between opposing camps:
* the developers who have some kind of vision (misguided and mired in childish ideologies as it may be, still counts, and depends on the team)
* the people with the money - whether KS backers or corpos whose ideas of what works amount to "let the player ride a dragon and we've hit the jackpot in sales"
* the competition - other developers trying to get financing for their projects under the same corporate umbrella
* the players - the party who each of the above parties is doing its best to swindle into buying their product

In this four-way battle, the project lead's task is to successfully outmaneuver and cheat the others so that his project can be "worked on" by as many people as possible, for as long as possible.

Notice how what's most important for him is to have the project funded and going, and relatively matching expectations, otherwise his team will be out of a job.

 

[Ryzer]

I think you shouldn't take as face value someone who is proud of creating a steaming turd like Dragon age Inquisition.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think you shouldn't take as face value someone who is proud of creating a steaming turd like Dragon age Inquisition.

In his language he makes a very good differentiation as he talks about "the game" and "the project". I think if he is proud, he is proud of the project's success, not of the game's qualities.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I think you shouldn't take as face value someone who is proud of creating a steaming turd like Dragon age Inquisition.

In his language he makes a very good differentiation as he talks about "the game" and "the project". I think if he is proud, he is proud of the project's success, not of the game's qualities.

Huh. Guess I might as well give this a gander and see what it's about.

 

[Nano]

Something pretty interesting I spotted is Darrah's regret at the need to adapt the game to last-gen consoles, and his envy at CDPR's decision to have Witcher 3 be a next-gen game only. 6 years later CDPR had the same issues with Cyberpunk on last-gen when they in turn decided to ship their new game to last and next gen simultaneosly (plus Google Stadia, lol). For the sake of PC players, I hope in both cases they drew the lesson to at least take last gen consoles out of the equation.

It was retarded when DAI did it and it was still retarded when Cyberpunk did it. But the shareholders don't give a fuck of course, all they care about is the short-term profits.

 

[Fedora Master]

Stop unironically posting about playing this abominable game.

This is a threat.

 

[Atlantico]

One of the takeaways from this video is that Mark Darrah and everyone on that project were in over their heads. They recognized that DA2 was a failure and wanted to embrace a "Skyrim" inspired model of a game, but apart from that they had nothing real. Nothing tangible.

As I wrote before, they didn't even have a mission statement. They considered the plot of the game largely irrelevant. They hadn't implanted a save-game feature until after Alpha.

Nobody had a vision of what they wanted to make, according to Mark. Not even himself.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

the #1 mod for inquisition on nexusmods(by a significant margin) is one that removes the timer btw
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonageinquisition/mods/top/
they're pointless mechanics that do nothing but draw out the game with non-content

Dunno if that mod even existed back when I played the game, but what I did do in order to get past those retarded timers was to tediously change the Windows time back and forth for a million times. Fuck BioWare's retarded MMO design in a single player game.

 

[Frozen]

One of the takeaways from this video is that Mark Darrah and everyone on that project were in over their heads. They recognized that DA2 was a failure and wanted to embrace a "Skyrim" inspired model of a game, but apart from that they had nothing real. Nothing tangible.

As I wrote before, they didn't even have a mission statement. They considered the plot of the game largely irrelevant. They hadn't implanted a save-game feature until after Alpha.

Nobody had a vision of what they wanted to make, according to Mark. Not even himself.

If you have scrapped MMO around, you don't have to try. Just use assets of that trash and call it a new Dragon Age game.

This crap of a game was exactly that, a single player MMO with even more dumbed down Dragon Age combat then in DA2

And most shills in media gave it a positive review.

 

[soulburner]

I sometimes like to torture myself and play Bioware games. I probably already asked about it somewhere, but can't remember the answer, if there was any.

Can the framerate be unlocked in this game? I recall the cutscenes dropped to 30 fps originally. There was some command line parameter that forced higher framerates but it caused other issues, like loss of synchronization and stuttering. Can this crap be properly played on a high refresh rate display today?

 

[Atlantico]

Can the framerate be unlocked in this game? I recall the cutscenes dropped to 30 fps originally. There was some command line parameter that forced higher framerates but it caused other issues, like loss of synchronization and stuttering. Can this crap be properly played on a high refresh rate display today?

The cutscenes were afaik recorded at 30fps so there's no way to increase their framerate. The rest of the game can be set to a higher framerate, but the cutscenes simply don't have the information needed to play at a higher framerate.

 

[DY050503]

Just going to try a second time, I feel the lore has been changed in Inquisition: in previous game I never read that a rift of fade world would be some kind of green light hole in the sky with monsters falling down. How is the story compared to DA2 or Origin?

 

[Nano]

Just going to try a second time, I feel the lore has been changed in Inquisition: in previous game I never read that a rift of fade world would be some kind of green light hole in the sky with monsters falling down. How is the story compared to DA2 or Origin?

Only thing that isn't shittier than before are the graphics. Have fun with your playthrough!

 

[DY050503]

Only thing that isn't shittier than before are the graphics. Have fun with your playthrough!

I'll try, can't believe the story were written by the same person.

 

[Nano]

Only thing that isn't shittier than before are the graphics. Have fun with your playthrough!

I'll try, can't believe the story were written by the same person.

Biggest writing staff difference is Hamburger Hepler not being around for this one. Makes you think, doesn't it?

 

[laclongquan]

DAI holds a "personal spot" for me - I actually joined the Codex in order to warn people against buying it

I'm not hearing any sort of inspiration or fire anywhere in what he says, nothing like, "We had this vision of a great game with a,b,c and an epic story about x,y,z."

It's all just soulless suit-talk about putting together some Frankenstein thing out of marketing criteria.

The story he tells is that a triple-A game development is a negotiation between opposing camps:
* the developers who have some kind of vision (misguided and mired in childish ideologies as it may be, still counts, and depends on the team)
* the people with the money - whether KS backers or corpos whose ideas of what works amount to "let the player ride a dragon and we've hit the jackpot in sales"
* the competition - other developers trying to get financing for their projects under the same corporate umbrella
* the players - the party who each of the above parties is doing its best to swindle into buying their product

In this four-way battle, the project lead's task is to successfully outmaneuver and cheat the others so that his project can be "worked on" by as many people as possible, for as long as possible.

Notice how what's most important for him is to have the project funded and going, and relatively matching expectations, otherwise his team will be out of a job.

That call office politic, company politic, ... and?

I mean, when you work you have to deal with different desire and demand from within as well as without. 4 sided fights? And so? A lead has to keep the funding going for his team's workload. Good, professional, and so?

the project lead's task is to successfully outmaneuver and cheat the others so that his project can be "worked on" by as many people as possible, for as long as possible.

And so? As a gamer we only care about the game. We barely care about game devs ( I actually dont). Why the hell should we care about game dev's teams?

This is like, instead of caring about the meal in front, you turn around and ask about chefs, the sous chef, the servers, the managers... What's wrong with you?

 

[DY050503]

Biggest writing staff difference is Hamburger Hepler not being around for this one. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Not sure how much impact she has on this game, but I did expect David Gaider to write a good finale.

 

[BruceVC]

Biggest writing staff difference is Hamburger Hepler not being around for this one. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Not sure how much impact she has on this game, but I did expect David Gaider to write a good finale.

I havent played DA:I yet but I really enjoyed the previous games and I will play DA:I

Keep us updated of your experiences and hopefully they positive

 

[Deadyawn]

I watched the entire thing, it's interesting for those of us who have played DAI.

It doesn't go into design or story at all, clearly not his department.

Considering how the game turned out I'm not sure it was anyone's department.

 

[Shuruga]

I found DA:I more bearable when I ignored everything except the main storyline and a handful of companion side quests. That run took only about 20 hours, which underscores the comments above about how the game was really developed as a single player MMO.

 

[Tyrr]

I found DA:I more bearable when I ignored everything except the main storyline and a handful of companion side quests. That run took only about 20 hours, which underscores the comments above about how the game was really developed as a single player MMO.

The less you play the game, the better it gets.
And people who skipped the game had the best DA:I experience.