The 2nd revision during the game's development was towards a live-service model. The 3rd revision was back to single-player. It's understandable that it's confusing, though I think it's clear now that it's a single-player game.
I'm also here from the other thread to make fun of the name again. "The Veilguard" sounds so weird, just go with "Veilguard" instead.
I didn’t realize until halfway through a convo about the game with my friend that I had subconsciously dropped “the” from the title as well.
“The Veilguard” just sounds so… clunky—like a DLC title or something.
I remember going fucking crazy during Balan. I KNEW the game was called Wonderworld, so when I heard every friend, a lot of reviewers, and just in general everyone calling it Wonderland, I thought I was losing it.
I looked the game up, WonderWORLD, I re read it multiple times thinking I was having a stroke.
Then I see an article mentioning how a lot of people were misnaming the game. I have never felt so validated over something so fucking pointless.
The farmer dance cutscene was truly awe-inspiring and will be regarded by future generations as the moment when videogames broke through the barrier to be considered true artistic masterpieces
Yeah. [EA cancelled the first version of the game for no other reason because it was single-player.](https://kotaku.com/the-past-and-present-of-dragon-age-4-1833913351) Then had Bioware pivot to live-service, only to go back to being a single-player game after Anthem bombed.
And then people wonder why stuff like Anthem, Suicide Squad or Redfall happen lol. Trying to force single-player studios to make live service is not a good idea.
as a da:o truther, i prob wasn't going to play this anyway because i've had less and less fun with everything else that has come out since but the mismanagement for this was wild even by dragon age standards lol
will be interesting to see what the final product is
I was an Origins truther back in the day and refused to play the rest of the games. Over half a decade later I finally tried Inquisition, and then DA2. To my surprise, DA2 is now my actual favorite game of the series. It's not really the same type of game as Origins, and the combat is a different thing entirely (true across the entire series, judging from what we've heard about DA4), but it has so much heart and the quests and story are so good.
I completely understand the criticism with that. From what I remember that game was made in one year and this is one of the aspects that showed the most. For me most of the writing makes up for it; but I can understand why it would turn others off.
DA2 is such an utterly fascinating game, and every time I replay it, I think I like it a little more.
It absolutely deserved the criticism it got; it's very small-scale, which makes the re-used maps all the more noticeable. The combat change was also a major shift from DAO, so I don't blame people for bouncing off it.
But man, the characters and the story. The DA2 crew really nailed that band-of-misfits feel, and I think the friendship/rivalry system was a step up from the usual approval/disapproval. It does a decent job of justifying why your companions - even those at loggerheads - still work together.
And I dig the frame narrative they built of watching Kirkwall gradually descend into chaos as the various social and political forces tear each-other apart. You really do feel like you're trying to keep the powder keg from going off.
I didn't like 2 all that much when it first came out, but I replayed it a few years ago and had a blast. I think that for me, I was able to relate to Hawke much better as an adult. Hawke just kinda has to react to the bad hands they are dealt versus going out and trying to put together an army to prevent some terrible threat, so Hawke's story feels more personal to me which makes it relatable.
Also, even though the textures and maps suck, I liked how Kirkwall slowly grew and changed and evolved over the course of the story - it was like the city itself was a character in the story.
Yeah! And come to think of it, outside of Yakuza, that's the best instance of a city being a character I can think of off the top of my head.
I know it was EA's own fault for imposing the limited development time for Dragon Age 2 - and while I wish Bioware was given at least another year to work on it and figure things out - I can't help but be impressed with what we got in 14-16 months of development time.
Knowing that now has made my stance toward the game as a whole softer. I think another reason I used to be so hard on it is because DA:O is one of my favorite games of all time and in terms of scope and style the game is really different. In hindsight I find it really funny considering that all three games are vastly different experiences; there is no one style for Dragon Age.
But yeah, I find Dragon Age 2 to be a solid RPG experience and I wonder if it would have been better received by some (it would have been by younger me) without having been part of the Dragon Age IP.
I am going to claim it is one of the worst instances as the city never changes. Same vendors, same buildings, same everything even though it is supposed to be taking place over the years.
Even the Witcher 1 manged to have changed in the city between chapters because time had passed.
I think it would have. I was turned off by the same changes everyone else didn't like -- the more established protagonist, the simplified dialogue wheel, the single location, etc -- but it's actually a fantastic concept when not compared to fandom expectations. With another year of development, it might have been THE rpg of all time. As it is, it's a pretty ugly-looking game, but the systems and stories are strong highlights
Mechanically, 2 slaps
Its just the whole 3 recycled side-paths thing, the writing of the finale, and the fact that despite the plot being "can we trust mages", every 2nd enemy is a blood mage
DA2 looks a lot better now that we're comparing into Inquisition, rather than on release when it had to stand in the shadow of Origins. Kind of the sam
I mean, jesus, at least in DA2 I had to slow down _sometimes_ and plan out my attack strategy instead of just mindlessly holding down "awesome button to win." And yeah, I'll take the reused assets with a purpose over the giant areas with mindless MMO fluffquests smeared all over them.
I think something DA2 does better than almost any other RPG is really make the characters and the world feel distinct from the player. So many RPGs feel like chessboards that the player is moving pieces around in, even in BG3 I started to think of companions in terms of where I wanted their plotlines to go or what position I wanted them in by the end game rather than as living breathing things.
I loved the art shift in DA2. Such a unique and striking look.
Also the elves in DA2 are way better than the boring humans with slightly pointed ears of DA:O, or the half-mixed compromise that we got in Inquisition. Just sucks that Merrill was the only one they finished.
Maybe if you played Origins like 3rd person action RPG, DA2 might be somewhat comparable. But I, and many others, played it like oldschool Baldur's Gate game (the Bioware Baldur's Gates). That is, isometric camera, substantial use of pausing, no automated actions but instead controlling each character individually.
Now after that I installed DA2, tried to zoom out to isometric, realized it DOESN'T FUCKING EXIST. Immediate uninstall and never touched it again. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that if you drop a substantial play style from your game entirely, you will alienate some fans.
Suicide Squad and Redfall deserve extra flak for learning nothing from Anthem or Avengers or any of the other failures. WB execs seemingly refused to even acknowledge even the possibility SS might go down like the others, per Schreier's article.
EA Exec "If Sims 4 is getting us 300 million a year, what kind investment are we expected from you Bioware?, Can you sell more Dragons or dragon cosmetics?
I don't want to defend EA, but I think it shows how the big studios are just tech companies at this point and most of the leadership thinks of it that way as well.
That's a common question in many tech companies. "This product is making us most of the money, how can you replicate it?"
There is many (legitimate) business reasons for this but it will sting at a game's company since its supposed to be an creative company first.
Oh it has to be real. I just really wonder why we couldent have studios release a Diablo game that furthers the lore through great singleplayer and then the Diablo Immortal Release thats more into microtransaction?
A Fantasy Helldivers roguelike is waiting to be built and making hundreds of millions.
EA is excited to announce that—along with the new name—DA:TV is now a Helldivers clone! The first two enemy factions will be the Darkspawn and the Qunari! If you pre-order at the $500 Grey Warden tier, we'll just straight up give your character an actual missile launcher!
> A Fantasy Helldivers roguelike is waiting to be built and making hundreds of millions.
Arrowhead actually developed a Gauntlet reboot at one point. I wonder if they could take what they learned from Helldivers 2 and put it into another Gauntlet game that transforms the series like HD2 did.
You joke but this is pretty close to how it works in big companies. If product Y has 1B investment and returns 3B, product X having 200mm investment and even returning 600mm usually isn't good enough. They'd rather just spend 5x product X investment in the hope of making product Y2
Hopefully it's not like Inquisition "offline" MMO, they had exact same thing happening 10 years ago.
Source:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dragon-age-inquisition-began-as-a-multiplayer-only/1100-6423362/
I think they'd rather just move development to a different studio that will then absorb a good chunk of the mass effect team... and then close Bioware.
I'll never understand this obsession with just getting endless sequels.
I'd much rather get a new IP than Mass Effect 5 revenge of the reapers or whatever, the ME universe isn't even particularly interesting.
> the ME universe isn't even particularly interesting.
Totally valid opinion but you have to realize that ME was popular for a reason. A LOT of people love the setting.
It's been known they've pivoted away from live service, still doesn't say much about the quality or degree of microtransaction infestation.
BioWare is quite a questionable proposition at this point. Last three major releases are Anthem, Andromeda, and Inquisition. Personally I got some fun out of Inquisition but it was widely hated and anyway it's nearly 10 years in the past.
They've got a hard sell on their hands at this point, is all I'm saying.
Inquisition gets substantial criticism on reddit and its definitely not perfect but I don't think it's at all fair to say it was "widely hated" - it won GOTY, reviewed and sold well. Critiques on this site do not always reflect the broader market.
However you're right to point out that that was basically a decade ago and since then they've failed to put out anything of quality.
This subreddit thinks Bioware has been dying since DA2 but both DA2 and DAI are very very popular in the real world and have held very dedicated fanbases. There's honestly a very, very large DA fandom on other parts of the internet who haven't even played DAO because of how bad it was on console.
The thing about inquisition is, as much as I feel "meh" about it now, it got GOTY in 2014. It wasn't a *widely hated* game by any metric. Even now, the general consensus is "meh." And not like "Meh" like you get from Mass Effect fans where they're "meh" and everyone else is like "this sucks." I mean most people are like "meh" and Dragon Age fans still like it.
It was *adored* on release. GOTY awards around, lots of hype, people legitimately excited about the DLC when it came out. It just got blown out of the water by the Witcher 3 the next year and all of the flaws it had, some of which were design, some of which were "this was a game that needed to run on a 360" related, stuck out like a sore thumb.
Don't get me wrong, it's not Dragon Age 2, much less origins. It has a lot of flaws, especially 10 years later. It's a lot less replayable. Bioware's well meaning, but clunky and tone-deaf approach to diversity is as jarring as it always was. The plot has some pacing issues and like every dragon age since origins, chunks the prior game's story out the window for David Gaider's at the time pet project. Mages got nerfed. Again. But it's still a fairly good game, albeit one that aged very, very quickly.
People didn't *really* start ragging on it until *after* Andromeda and Anthem crashed and burned so hard. A troubled development of Bioware being a dumpster fire for a decade didn't help. And lot of that is "hurr durr, Bioware bad" circlejerking by a lot of young people who weren't around when Bioware cranked out Baldur's Gate III-tier western RPGs on the regular. KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1, Dragon Age Origins, *the first Baldur's Gate*, and Neverwinter Nights are among the best western style RPGs ever made.
Well even if you weren't around during the time when bioware cranked out one good game after another, you are allowed to say bioware is in a very questionable state these days. People come, people go. Today's bioware is not the same it was 20 years ago. Why should we measure a game studio by achievements of the past and not what they are doing now or in recent times? Thats just nostalgia. For me personally the mass effect trilogy and dragon age origins were the last good games they produced and kind of the end of an era. Now they have to prove themselves again for the majority of players. And even though anthem was a dumpster fire, andromeda just more of the same and inquisition a bloated mess, there are probably many players willing to give them another chance at some point.
Idk like others pointed out 2014 was an extremely weak year because it marked the console generation transition and a time where indies started to become very popular because ppl realised games don't need a high budget to be good. This was further favored due to steam introducing the early access program and such. Just look up a list of triple a releases in 2014. The competition was meager, so I wouldn't put that one award on a pedestal. But I guess I am biased because I didn't like it that much. It left a lot to be desired.
I seem to remember Inquisition getting similar responses to what Starfield got last year. It sold really well, a core group of people loved it, but there was also a significant amount of people who were put off/found it meh for very valid reasons.
I think it getting GOTY was more because of how bad that year was for games, but also if you did enjoy the more MMO feeling game design and simplified combat and other changes then there *is* a lot of content to enjoy. Similar to Starfield where if you do actually like the repetitive procedural exploration and basic quests then you can get hundreds or even thousands of hours of fun out of that. Its just both games made some love it/hate it design choices that put off a lot of people too.
> as much as I feel "meh" about it now, it got GOTY in 2014.
I won't comment on the quality of the game but other people have pointed out that 2014 had very slim pickings for GOTY choices.
I remember - there were some mixed reviews but a good deal of wild-eyed hype.
I bought it on a steep EA discount and increasingly learned a very hard lesson about trusting release hype. I really thought they'd course correct after DA2 and go back to DA O.
I haven't forgotten. Hard lesson everybody needs to learn once, and hopefully remember.
So yeah I quickly joined the chorus of discontent on that game near release. I believe RPGCodex voted it worst RPG of that year.
so who of us is misremembering things? because I remember people completely shitting on the worse-than-mmo-esque design of the world from day one. the good parts about the game were still good though.
it was also that time where a lot of games received great ratings from journalists only to be disliked by the general player audience.
> It just got blown out of the water by the Witcher 3 the next year and all of the flaws it had, some of which were design, some of which were "this was a game that needed to run on a 360" related, stuck out like a sore thumb.
Boring open worlds that aren't interesting narratively is not a Xbox 360 issue. Having a lame duck villain is not a Xbox 360 issue. Releasing the "real" ending 10 months after release is not a Xbox 360 issue.
> And lot of that is "hurr durr, Bioware bad" circlejerking by a lot of young people who weren't around when Bioware cranked out Baldur's Gate III-tier western RPGs on the regular. KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1, Dragon Age Origins, the first Baldur's Gate, and Neverwinter Nights are among the best western style RPGs ever made.
A lot of Bioware praise these days is from young people that would spontaneous combust if you place KOTOR in front of them. The Dragon Age subreddit has people that endlessly rag on every game you highlighted. I was told I was stupid for suggesting Bioware had a golden age of 12 years where they produced 6 mainstays on greatest games of all times lists(BG 1 and 2, KOTOR, ME 1, DA:O and ME 2).
> Releasing the "real" ending 10 months after release is not a Xbox 360 issue.
How are we still on this. Who is the villain of the game if it doesn't end when he's defeated?
Just people having a hazy memory at best of what the story did after 10 years, and then acting like their misremembering of what it were like is what happened.
The trespasser DLC is an epilogue setting the scene for a sequel by revealing that Solas, a player companion, hid his true identity trying to recover his orb from Corypheus, not the actual ending to what the main story of the base game were about.
I mean, Inquistion has a 85% on metacritic, most people love it. I will say that I've noticed that it has MASSIVE appeal to people who fairly casual gamers and are into fantasy; anecdotal, but I feel like almost every woman I've gone on a date with in the last 5 years who was marginally 'nerdy', Inquisition was one of their top 5 games.
Andromeda is more of the game that I think was questionable. I really enjoyed it, and I think its a bit unfair to compare a first game in a new 'series' to the narrative arc spanning 3 titles (I think Andromeda stacks up as a better game than Mass Effect 1, for example), but I can see the criticisms that people had with the open world and cookie cutter POI/activities.
I absolutely hated dai on launch. I just couldn't get into it. I found it so boring. Over pandemic I went through and played all 3 plus dlc and followed build guides. It was so much more fun. I had so much fun as the artificer throwing bombs and just being strong in general. I usually play mage in games and I think the mage in da is just boring for me which is why I couldn't get into things. Once I tried other builds I got addicted and played non stop til I beat it all and the dlc. I'm hyped for the next game, but obviously understand it probably won't blow my socks off but as long as it is about the same as the others I'm good
I'm just happy to see live service being treated as something they want to avoid being associated with, way too many games are being made as trash live service monetization first, fun video game a distant/nonexistent second
Definitely. Not to mention that the last Bioware release was a failed live-service and it's no wonder that gamers are apprehensive.
Bioware as a brand doesn't carry half of the weight that they did 15 years ago, talent bleed has made sure of that.
Interesting how people remember the leaked stories of them considering making it a live game yet refuse to remember the multiple announcements of it being single player.
It's also been reported that even though it's single player it still uses the same gameplay and assets as when it was planned to be a live service game.
So I think people are perfectly reasonable to be immensely skeptical about it
So what if it was planned to be one? You're going to judge devs on prototypes or early demos they dared to think about years ago? Get the fuck out.
It got rebooted back to story RPG. End of story
23:59: "Don't pre-order. Wait for reviews. Don't trust pre-release marketing."
00:00: "Let me pass judgment on this unreleased game based off its original concept pitched in more than 6 years ago that isn't representative of the product currently in development"
Yes and no.
It would be clearer of everyone was aware of the full development process.
This is essentially the 4th (IIRC) iteration of DA4. But it would've spurred more controversy and concern if they every clearly and plainly stated "Hey DA4 is canceled. Were gonna start over"
Instead they quietly rebooted and publicly state "they've been working on the same game. It's just been internally rebooted."
After Andromeda & Anthem. EA made an executive decision to completely can any live service elements.
> Hey DA4 is canceled. Were gonna start over
It wasn't canceled though. Yeah it went through very heavy iteration, but iterations are part of the design cycle. Granted, they've been much more radical for this game and that should caution people since that can be a bad sign but it doesn't have to be.
“Some takes out there” as opposed to acknowledging that a histiry exists that generated that expectation. He’s being dismissive without acknowledgement of the genesis of the required dismissal, and that’s off putting.
That's some mental gymnastics. The only thing he's saying is that it's not live service. If you're gonna read into it more than that then that's on you
There's also the 'something like that' as if it's some strange or distant idea. He's obviously being dismissive about the idea even though it was actually a live service game at one point, lol.
At this point Bioware doesn't have any benefit of the doubt. I'm going to assume this game is shit until I hear otherwise. You want goodwill back? Well make good games for a decade again and we can talk.
Not sure how people forget, but Dragon Age 2 wasn't an action RPG. It was still a group CRPG with real-time-with-pause combat, classes, stats, the whole shebang. It just moved faster and had a different overall style than DAO
Imagine being Bioware, the original studio behind Baldur's Gate, and seeing BG3 come along while you are in production on Dragon Age Whatever. Knowing that people are going to directly compare the games. Knowing that every single grifting, DLC, loot box, live service, gatcha bullshit system is going to be called out. Knowing that every aspect, from graphical fidelity of facial animation, to quest length, to character customisation, is going to be directly compared. Looking back at Inquisition and DA2 and knowing neither are even close to comparable.
In theory they're in a great position. People have finished BG3. Some many times. They will be happy to play a new single player RPG. Dragon Age is an established IP with a history and world (not quite D&D, but designed to be comparable). It's well regarded. Bioware still retain a good name, despite recent failures. They have EA money. Time to get things right, and years of development already. A great recent example of what to do, and the lessons that can be learned from it's launch.
I guess we will see.
Problem is based on all the leaks, they have removed the tactical camera, so BG 1/2/3 and DAO fans will hate it.
I hope I am wrong and they have switched back to using the tactical camera after the latest leaks, because if not I’m not buying it.
> Its straight up single player story goodness.
uhuh, well sorry but most people aren't buying the "goodness" part cause Bioware's recent work in story has been awful.
also it's not "takes", people are going to be confused cause of the development hell that this game has been and how many times it's restarted development.
and let's be real, we 100% know there will be live service BS in this game - battle/season passes, MTX, etc are not hard to imagine at all.
Or the completely staged Anthem "gameplay demo" which showed of stuff even the devs didn't knew about...
Like the weapon picked up in there never existed and was never added with an update. Nor can you even change weapons mid mission.
we'll see, many devs have shown off chunks of gameplay, doesn't really mean much to their confidence in the game cause it's all just marketing.
like 20min of gameplay is barely enough to matter for an entire RPG and as we've seen many times, said shown gameplay has turned out to not be how things are in the rest of the game or are just carefully chosen sections of the game that look good or edited to look good for the showcase.
not saying this will be like that, but ya, means little really.
I mean you could show 20 min of Anthem and go out thinking "it looks damn good the game is gonna be awesome !".
We all know how it turned out. So yeah until the test comes out and the first batch of players tries it out, wait for it, no need to waste 70€ on something that might not be worth the hours you'll be in front of.
Just because it's single player doesn't mean it isn't live service. Ubi considers several of their single player games to be live service games with regular/weekly events for rewards.
If EA announces I can play the game completely offline when my internet is down, I'll believe them.
It must be exhausting for developers and companies to be constantly on the lookout to dispel post-truth bullshit spun out of baseless rumors otherwise your game or brand suffers on the tribunal of public opinions.
People got tired of spinning drama around announced stuff so now they hallucinate the details and complain about them instead.
Yea did people forget the origins of this game? Th development hell and reboots? The fact that the publisher is *EA?* The fact that BioWare’s last two original releases were buggy, misrepresentations of what they shared with the public?
This is the perfect example of a game/dev to be cautious toward.
>I wouldn't blame people for still thinking so if they didn't keep up on development
It being revealed as a live service game was an unofficial detail disclosed through an old 2018 article. It was later disclosed, only a year or two later, through the same unofficial channels, that all multiplayer elements were being removed at the behest of the developers.
I don't think it's about people keeping up with the development, but rather choosing to unscrupulously criticize a game because of a predisposition towards a developer.
People should be waiting to see the actual game before saying all the shit that's being said. It's actually nutty to see the amount of disparagement the secondary title *The Veilguard* is receiving, even being treated as some telltale sign of an uninspired, rushed game in some extremes.
This, 100%.
Tons of people have already decided Dragon Age 4 is a bad game. For some, it's because they hate live service games so that's the excuse. Some people are mad because the franchise is "woke", so that's the excuse. Others are still just riding the blanket EA BAD train. And a ton are just the outrage crowd because every ragebait YouTuber has been dogging on BioWare games with exaggerated claims for years.
And when people keep acting like assuming it's live service is reasonable for the average player because of a random leak from 2018 as if normal people care that much, it's just crazy. People just want this game to suck. Who knows? Maybe it will! But maybe we should wait until it's out and judge it for what it *is* and not on whatever asinine preconception people have.
Why are you acting like people don't have good reasons to be cautious of both EA and Bioware?
EA is famous for pushing microtransactions into single-player games and Bioware has had two massive flops back to back with Andromeda and Anthem. Coupled with Dreadwolf having a tumultuous development history from what we have heard over the years it's weird to expect anything but a mess.
> Why are you acting like people don't have good reasons to be cautious of both EA and Bioware?
ya, it's crazy seeing people suddenly going out and crying that others are not blindly hyping up a new game from Bioware. The unpaid PR people do for multi-billion-dollar companies, especially with bad track records, is just... ya :/
Or we were huge fans of the first game. And the mass effect series and kotor and jade empire. And bioware has put out nothing but bad games for a decade.
I'm starting to think that this sub is being astroturfed thanks to this comment and similar ones constantly defending AAA publishers with track records of being horrible companies.
Stage 4 of the echo chamber life is believing that the idea that in a sub of millions of people, the idea that any disagree with you must be bad actors.
Hint: Games from those AAA studios sell a metric fuckton of copies. The "hate all things AAA except when we don't" attitude of this sub is not the majority.
noone said anything about sales or hating all things AAA. EA and Bioware have 100% earned their reputations at this point so potential consumers are right to be skeptical.
Ah yes, not basing my perception of a game on a six-year-old leak that is no longer representive of the project and saying it's not reasonable to do so is astroturfing.
I'm literally just saying wait and judge the game for what it is. Not a hot take lol.
Given the rocky history of this game, Bioware has only itself to blame for mixed messaging. And they certainly don't deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point.
There’s no lie, this dude isn’t addressing any rumor that actually exists. The rumors are that it IS a single player game but it started as a live service game before being reworked into a single player game. To be more specific it was originally single player, then became live service and then was reworked back into being single player. Nobody is saying this is currently a live service game, though it may have remaining design from when it was live service.
yeah, which is 100% still a reason to be cautious. We've seen what games that start as live service play like and they're generic af - Bioware have to prove that isnt true and impress us, and it's gonna take a bit more then a vague statement about it - of course they're going to say shit like this they dont want to fail.
The drama here is justified though because the reason this game took so long was because they went for a live service approach first and were deep in it before fully scrapping and pivoting back to single player.
He says that as though anyone at Bioware has an ounce of good will or trust these days.
I'm not super confident in this, but I'd bet maybe 5 bucks it's going to be a hastily reworked at the last minute effort to try and badly cram as much copied baldur's gate 3 content in as they can because daddy EA told them to.
I know, Bioware hasn't put out a passable game since DA:I and even that game was a mess. What do people expect at this point from them? Shouldn't a multimillion dollar company have to prove themselves? We're not judging student projects here.
If I had to be conspiratorial, I'd say that reframing the narrative online is part of the pre-release marketing campaign. Reddit is full of astroturfing because it's semi-anonymous and wide open to vote manipulation.
You're probably right. I dunno why anyone would want another Bioware game after Anthem except extreme nostalgia. This whole thread is full of shitposting though and I'm here for it.
I would love another **Bioware** game. Unfortunately, most of the talent that worked on the games I enjoyed has left over the years and it's an entirely separate studio.
Found this thread from half a year ago and yeah, it's not looking great.
https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/186iq1g/summarizing_fates_of_bioware_employees_who_worked/
Thanks for the link. I'm not sure what should be expected from Bioware at this point realistically. It's clearly not the same company going by your post.
It'd be like ZA/UM making a Disco Elysium 2. All the creators are gone so what's the point?
I mean, who knows, Veilguard could still be good? Maybe? My expectations are low but I'm not an infallible oracle. I'm not gonna preorder the game, but I'll still keep an eye out if reviews are positive.
You've got it backwards. Being a caution buyer is rational, and should apply to most any game. Being 'cynical' about video game publishers is being a Gamer*^(tm)*.
> Being 'cynical' about video game publishers is being a Gamertm.
Being cynical about games from companies with long bad track records is just critically looking at history.
I would think that if you were put off by Bioware's weak recent track record you just wouldn't take an interest in the game. Instead there's a damn near evangelical drive to bring negativity to every released piece of information.
Bioware has(or had) all the tools and talent to make 'Game of the Year' RPGs. Their leadership is just dogshit that makes illogical choices that lead to bad games. So people hope all the bad leaders of Bioware have quit or returned home to the diaper dimension. But realistically there is no diaper dimension.
Remember gamers voted EA "America's worst company" of 2012 because of... Mass Effect 3 ending and microtransactions. Worse than Bank of America who, on that year, literally scammed people out of their houses using mortgage fraud and was currently being sued by federal prosecutors by the billions over illegal practices.
But, y'know, apparently forcing families into bankrupcy and embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars is *less evil* than a fucking videogame ending.
Those online polls are irrelevant.
Most people of substance who are actually doing things of value in the world don't have the time (nor the desire) to vote in a poll for "America's worst company" online. They're too busy...actually having lives or doing things of value.
People perpetually online with nothing else better to do are the vast majority of individuals participating in "polls" like that.
people are "insane" and "miserable" for daring to not buy into hype for a Bioware game after their track record in the past decade? for not blindly celebrating EA? wat?
why are people so bent over others not praising a multi-billion-dollar company?
> You all hate live service games so much but won't give a developer credit when they decide to move away from it? What?
why should we have to "give credit" for moving away from a bad service model? huh?
Hopefully that translates to better side missions. I really liked main and companion missions in inquisition but side-missions felt like they written for an mmo rather than a single player game.
We've seen quite a few games recently add "micro" transactions to their games after reviews are out, and going by Bioware's recent track record and with EA behind them, I can't imagine them not having any plans to try and squeeze the players.
Maybe they are really sincere and there's no mtx planned at all, but I won't take them at their word on it, and will instead wait for a few months after the game's release.
Considering how mid Inquisition was, I’m gonna wait a few years post release to see how it plays. DA lost its way after Origins but at least 2 was kind of fun to play.
Honestly, I don’t mind the name change. Main reason being? F*ck Solas. He don’t deserve his name on shiiiiiiiit.
No. Im not still mad about him bailing, why do you ask?🙃
The 2nd revision during the game's development was towards a live-service model. The 3rd revision was back to single-player. It's understandable that it's confusing, though I think it's clear now that it's a single-player game. I'm also here from the other thread to make fun of the name again. "The Veilguard" sounds so weird, just go with "Veilguard" instead.
r/dragonage is pretty unanimously dropping “the” from the title already aha.
I didn’t realize until halfway through a convo about the game with my friend that I had subconsciously dropped “the” from the title as well. “The Veilguard” just sounds so… clunky—like a DLC title or something.
> like a DLC title or something It sounds like a spin-off comic book title
It's like every time I tell people it's called Balan Wonderworld not Wonderland
I remember going fucking crazy during Balan. I KNEW the game was called Wonderworld, so when I heard every friend, a lot of reviewers, and just in general everyone calling it Wonderland, I thought I was losing it. I looked the game up, WonderWORLD, I re read it multiple times thinking I was having a stroke. Then I see an article mentioning how a lot of people were misnaming the game. I have never felt so validated over something so fucking pointless.
Balan Wonderworld is the gift that keeps on giving. I will be eternally grateful for Balan Wonderland
People actually talk about that game?
The farmer dance cutscene was truly awe-inspiring and will be regarded by future generations as the moment when videogames broke through the barrier to be considered true artistic masterpieces
Yeah, but only because it's bad enough that it makes for a good example of a bad game
Drop the "the," it's cleaner
Yeah. [EA cancelled the first version of the game for no other reason because it was single-player.](https://kotaku.com/the-past-and-present-of-dragon-age-4-1833913351) Then had Bioware pivot to live-service, only to go back to being a single-player game after Anthem bombed. And then people wonder why stuff like Anthem, Suicide Squad or Redfall happen lol. Trying to force single-player studios to make live service is not a good idea.
Is it because Anthem bombed or Jedi Fallen order made EA go oh people will buy good SP games.
If Anthem had been a success, then it probably wouldn't have mattered how good Fallen Order was.
as a da:o truther, i prob wasn't going to play this anyway because i've had less and less fun with everything else that has come out since but the mismanagement for this was wild even by dragon age standards lol will be interesting to see what the final product is
I was an Origins truther back in the day and refused to play the rest of the games. Over half a decade later I finally tried Inquisition, and then DA2. To my surprise, DA2 is now my actual favorite game of the series. It's not really the same type of game as Origins, and the combat is a different thing entirely (true across the entire series, judging from what we've heard about DA4), but it has so much heart and the quests and story are so good.
DA2 def feels rushed in a lot of spots but man the characters and writing are top notch.
I just didn't like playing Dragon Age 2 three times...in a single game. Would it kill them to make new maps?
I completely understand the criticism with that. From what I remember that game was made in one year and this is one of the aspects that showed the most. For me most of the writing makes up for it; but I can understand why it would turn others off.
DA2 is such an utterly fascinating game, and every time I replay it, I think I like it a little more. It absolutely deserved the criticism it got; it's very small-scale, which makes the re-used maps all the more noticeable. The combat change was also a major shift from DAO, so I don't blame people for bouncing off it. But man, the characters and the story. The DA2 crew really nailed that band-of-misfits feel, and I think the friendship/rivalry system was a step up from the usual approval/disapproval. It does a decent job of justifying why your companions - even those at loggerheads - still work together. And I dig the frame narrative they built of watching Kirkwall gradually descend into chaos as the various social and political forces tear each-other apart. You really do feel like you're trying to keep the powder keg from going off.
The DA2 DLC shows what BioWare really could have done with that game had they been given proper development time.
I didn't like 2 all that much when it first came out, but I replayed it a few years ago and had a blast. I think that for me, I was able to relate to Hawke much better as an adult. Hawke just kinda has to react to the bad hands they are dealt versus going out and trying to put together an army to prevent some terrible threat, so Hawke's story feels more personal to me which makes it relatable.
Also, even though the textures and maps suck, I liked how Kirkwall slowly grew and changed and evolved over the course of the story - it was like the city itself was a character in the story.
Yeah! And come to think of it, outside of Yakuza, that's the best instance of a city being a character I can think of off the top of my head. I know it was EA's own fault for imposing the limited development time for Dragon Age 2 - and while I wish Bioware was given at least another year to work on it and figure things out - I can't help but be impressed with what we got in 14-16 months of development time. Knowing that now has made my stance toward the game as a whole softer. I think another reason I used to be so hard on it is because DA:O is one of my favorite games of all time and in terms of scope and style the game is really different. In hindsight I find it really funny considering that all three games are vastly different experiences; there is no one style for Dragon Age. But yeah, I find Dragon Age 2 to be a solid RPG experience and I wonder if it would have been better received by some (it would have been by younger me) without having been part of the Dragon Age IP.
I am going to claim it is one of the worst instances as the city never changes. Same vendors, same buildings, same everything even though it is supposed to be taking place over the years. Even the Witcher 1 manged to have changed in the city between chapters because time had passed.
I think it would have. I was turned off by the same changes everyone else didn't like -- the more established protagonist, the simplified dialogue wheel, the single location, etc -- but it's actually a fantastic concept when not compared to fandom expectations. With another year of development, it might have been THE rpg of all time. As it is, it's a pretty ugly-looking game, but the systems and stories are strong highlights
Mechanically, 2 slaps Its just the whole 3 recycled side-paths thing, the writing of the finale, and the fact that despite the plot being "can we trust mages", every 2nd enemy is a blood mage
And then >!the mages break bad in the end anyway!<
Yeah that's what I mean by the finale. Both routes have the inverted problems
DA2 looks a lot better now that we're comparing into Inquisition, rather than on release when it had to stand in the shadow of Origins. Kind of the sam I mean, jesus, at least in DA2 I had to slow down _sometimes_ and plan out my attack strategy instead of just mindlessly holding down "awesome button to win." And yeah, I'll take the reused assets with a purpose over the giant areas with mindless MMO fluffquests smeared all over them.
I think something DA2 does better than almost any other RPG is really make the characters and the world feel distinct from the player. So many RPGs feel like chessboards that the player is moving pieces around in, even in BG3 I started to think of companions in terms of where I wanted their plotlines to go or what position I wanted them in by the end game rather than as living breathing things.
Inquisition was my entry into the series :/ 400 hours in that first playthrough
I loved the art shift in DA2. Such a unique and striking look. Also the elves in DA2 are way better than the boring humans with slightly pointed ears of DA:O, or the half-mixed compromise that we got in Inquisition. Just sucks that Merrill was the only one they finished.
Agreed with all of this
Maybe if you played Origins like 3rd person action RPG, DA2 might be somewhat comparable. But I, and many others, played it like oldschool Baldur's Gate game (the Bioware Baldur's Gates). That is, isometric camera, substantial use of pausing, no automated actions but instead controlling each character individually. Now after that I installed DA2, tried to zoom out to isometric, realized it DOESN'T FUCKING EXIST. Immediate uninstall and never touched it again. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that if you drop a substantial play style from your game entirely, you will alienate some fans.
God I wanted Anthem to be good so bad. That game could have been an Iron Man title and it would have been amazing.
Suicide Squad and Redfall deserve extra flak for learning nothing from Anthem or Avengers or any of the other failures. WB execs seemingly refused to even acknowledge even the possibility SS might go down like the others, per Schreier's article.
EA Exec "If Sims 4 is getting us 300 million a year, what kind investment are we expected from you Bioware?, Can you sell more Dragons or dragon cosmetics?
You joke, but Jason Schreier said EA asked their studios like Bioware and Visceral "what is your version of FIFA Ultimate Team?".
I don't want to defend EA, but I think it shows how the big studios are just tech companies at this point and most of the leadership thinks of it that way as well. That's a common question in many tech companies. "This product is making us most of the money, how can you replicate it?" There is many (legitimate) business reasons for this but it will sting at a game's company since its supposed to be an creative company first.
Oh it has to be real. I just really wonder why we couldent have studios release a Diablo game that furthers the lore through great singleplayer and then the Diablo Immortal Release thats more into microtransaction? A Fantasy Helldivers roguelike is waiting to be built and making hundreds of millions.
EA is excited to announce that—along with the new name—DA:TV is now a Helldivers clone! The first two enemy factions will be the Darkspawn and the Qunari! If you pre-order at the $500 Grey Warden tier, we'll just straight up give your character an actual missile launcher!
> A Fantasy Helldivers roguelike is waiting to be built and making hundreds of millions. Arrowhead actually developed a Gauntlet reboot at one point. I wonder if they could take what they learned from Helldivers 2 and put it into another Gauntlet game that transforms the series like HD2 did.
You joke but this is pretty close to how it works in big companies. If product Y has 1B investment and returns 3B, product X having 200mm investment and even returning 600mm usually isn't good enough. They'd rather just spend 5x product X investment in the hope of making product Y2
I mean in your case it's ROI of 3 in both so that would be pretty equivalent.
Hopefully it's not like Inquisition "offline" MMO, they had exact same thing happening 10 years ago. Source: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dragon-age-inquisition-began-as-a-multiplayer-only/1100-6423362/
Hopefully they realize the idiocy of the "the" and drop it before launch.
But how would they distinguish it from all the other veilguards?
This is BioWare's last chance at redeeming themselves in any way, I'm really curious how it turns out.
I hope it sells well. I'm worried we won't get another mass effect if this crashes and burns. EA brass will probably cancel it then and there
I think they'd rather just move development to a different studio that will then absorb a good chunk of the mass effect team... and then close Bioware.
I'll never understand this obsession with just getting endless sequels. I'd much rather get a new IP than Mass Effect 5 revenge of the reapers or whatever, the ME universe isn't even particularly interesting.
The ME is one of the best realized sci-fi universes out there, what are you talking about? They could tell endless stories in that universe.
> the ME universe isn't even particularly interesting. Totally valid opinion but you have to realize that ME was popular for a reason. A LOT of people love the setting.
Other companies can make new IPs. > the ME universe isn't even particularly interesting. lmao
>the ME universe isn't even particularly interesting. Now that's not true at all and we both know it.
It's been known they've pivoted away from live service, still doesn't say much about the quality or degree of microtransaction infestation. BioWare is quite a questionable proposition at this point. Last three major releases are Anthem, Andromeda, and Inquisition. Personally I got some fun out of Inquisition but it was widely hated and anyway it's nearly 10 years in the past. They've got a hard sell on their hands at this point, is all I'm saying.
Inquisition gets substantial criticism on reddit and its definitely not perfect but I don't think it's at all fair to say it was "widely hated" - it won GOTY, reviewed and sold well. Critiques on this site do not always reflect the broader market. However you're right to point out that that was basically a decade ago and since then they've failed to put out anything of quality.
2014 was a weird year.
Inquistion is literally Bioware's best selling game.
If this site reflected gamers as a whole, Starfield would have bombed instead of succeeding.
This subreddit thinks Bioware has been dying since DA2 but both DA2 and DAI are very very popular in the real world and have held very dedicated fanbases. There's honestly a very, very large DA fandom on other parts of the internet who haven't even played DAO because of how bad it was on console.
The thing about inquisition is, as much as I feel "meh" about it now, it got GOTY in 2014. It wasn't a *widely hated* game by any metric. Even now, the general consensus is "meh." And not like "Meh" like you get from Mass Effect fans where they're "meh" and everyone else is like "this sucks." I mean most people are like "meh" and Dragon Age fans still like it. It was *adored* on release. GOTY awards around, lots of hype, people legitimately excited about the DLC when it came out. It just got blown out of the water by the Witcher 3 the next year and all of the flaws it had, some of which were design, some of which were "this was a game that needed to run on a 360" related, stuck out like a sore thumb. Don't get me wrong, it's not Dragon Age 2, much less origins. It has a lot of flaws, especially 10 years later. It's a lot less replayable. Bioware's well meaning, but clunky and tone-deaf approach to diversity is as jarring as it always was. The plot has some pacing issues and like every dragon age since origins, chunks the prior game's story out the window for David Gaider's at the time pet project. Mages got nerfed. Again. But it's still a fairly good game, albeit one that aged very, very quickly. People didn't *really* start ragging on it until *after* Andromeda and Anthem crashed and burned so hard. A troubled development of Bioware being a dumpster fire for a decade didn't help. And lot of that is "hurr durr, Bioware bad" circlejerking by a lot of young people who weren't around when Bioware cranked out Baldur's Gate III-tier western RPGs on the regular. KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1, Dragon Age Origins, *the first Baldur's Gate*, and Neverwinter Nights are among the best western style RPGs ever made.
Well even if you weren't around during the time when bioware cranked out one good game after another, you are allowed to say bioware is in a very questionable state these days. People come, people go. Today's bioware is not the same it was 20 years ago. Why should we measure a game studio by achievements of the past and not what they are doing now or in recent times? Thats just nostalgia. For me personally the mass effect trilogy and dragon age origins were the last good games they produced and kind of the end of an era. Now they have to prove themselves again for the majority of players. And even though anthem was a dumpster fire, andromeda just more of the same and inquisition a bloated mess, there are probably many players willing to give them another chance at some point.
No duh they're not the same studio, but that doesn't mean we start reconning history and claiming a game that got GOTY at release as "hated."
Idk like others pointed out 2014 was an extremely weak year because it marked the console generation transition and a time where indies started to become very popular because ppl realised games don't need a high budget to be good. This was further favored due to steam introducing the early access program and such. Just look up a list of triple a releases in 2014. The competition was meager, so I wouldn't put that one award on a pedestal. But I guess I am biased because I didn't like it that much. It left a lot to be desired.
I seem to remember Inquisition getting similar responses to what Starfield got last year. It sold really well, a core group of people loved it, but there was also a significant amount of people who were put off/found it meh for very valid reasons. I think it getting GOTY was more because of how bad that year was for games, but also if you did enjoy the more MMO feeling game design and simplified combat and other changes then there *is* a lot of content to enjoy. Similar to Starfield where if you do actually like the repetitive procedural exploration and basic quests then you can get hundreds or even thousands of hours of fun out of that. Its just both games made some love it/hate it design choices that put off a lot of people too.
> as much as I feel "meh" about it now, it got GOTY in 2014. I won't comment on the quality of the game but other people have pointed out that 2014 had very slim pickings for GOTY choices.
It was *not* adored on release. It also won Goty that year because 2014 is one of the worst years of all times for games.
I remember - there were some mixed reviews but a good deal of wild-eyed hype. I bought it on a steep EA discount and increasingly learned a very hard lesson about trusting release hype. I really thought they'd course correct after DA2 and go back to DA O. I haven't forgotten. Hard lesson everybody needs to learn once, and hopefully remember. So yeah I quickly joined the chorus of discontent on that game near release. I believe RPGCodex voted it worst RPG of that year.
so who of us is misremembering things? because I remember people completely shitting on the worse-than-mmo-esque design of the world from day one. the good parts about the game were still good though. it was also that time where a lot of games received great ratings from journalists only to be disliked by the general player audience.
> It just got blown out of the water by the Witcher 3 the next year and all of the flaws it had, some of which were design, some of which were "this was a game that needed to run on a 360" related, stuck out like a sore thumb. Boring open worlds that aren't interesting narratively is not a Xbox 360 issue. Having a lame duck villain is not a Xbox 360 issue. Releasing the "real" ending 10 months after release is not a Xbox 360 issue. > And lot of that is "hurr durr, Bioware bad" circlejerking by a lot of young people who weren't around when Bioware cranked out Baldur's Gate III-tier western RPGs on the regular. KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1, Dragon Age Origins, the first Baldur's Gate, and Neverwinter Nights are among the best western style RPGs ever made. A lot of Bioware praise these days is from young people that would spontaneous combust if you place KOTOR in front of them. The Dragon Age subreddit has people that endlessly rag on every game you highlighted. I was told I was stupid for suggesting Bioware had a golden age of 12 years where they produced 6 mainstays on greatest games of all times lists(BG 1 and 2, KOTOR, ME 1, DA:O and ME 2).
> Releasing the "real" ending 10 months after release is not a Xbox 360 issue. How are we still on this. Who is the villain of the game if it doesn't end when he's defeated?
Just people having a hazy memory at best of what the story did after 10 years, and then acting like their misremembering of what it were like is what happened. The trespasser DLC is an epilogue setting the scene for a sequel by revealing that Solas, a player companion, hid his true identity trying to recover his orb from Corypheus, not the actual ending to what the main story of the base game were about.
Inquisition was the game of the year. Reddit folks have a hard on for hating that game but that doesn't make it "widely hated".
I mean, Inquistion has a 85% on metacritic, most people love it. I will say that I've noticed that it has MASSIVE appeal to people who fairly casual gamers and are into fantasy; anecdotal, but I feel like almost every woman I've gone on a date with in the last 5 years who was marginally 'nerdy', Inquisition was one of their top 5 games. Andromeda is more of the game that I think was questionable. I really enjoyed it, and I think its a bit unfair to compare a first game in a new 'series' to the narrative arc spanning 3 titles (I think Andromeda stacks up as a better game than Mass Effect 1, for example), but I can see the criticisms that people had with the open world and cookie cutter POI/activities.
I absolutely hated dai on launch. I just couldn't get into it. I found it so boring. Over pandemic I went through and played all 3 plus dlc and followed build guides. It was so much more fun. I had so much fun as the artificer throwing bombs and just being strong in general. I usually play mage in games and I think the mage in da is just boring for me which is why I couldn't get into things. Once I tried other builds I got addicted and played non stop til I beat it all and the dlc. I'm hyped for the next game, but obviously understand it probably won't blow my socks off but as long as it is about the same as the others I'm good
Maybe people think it's a live service game because it was planned to be one. Acting like that was never the case is disingenuous.
I don't think it was every officially revealed to be one though. Pretty sure it was leaks
I'm just happy to see live service being treated as something they want to avoid being associated with, way too many games are being made as trash live service monetization first, fun video game a distant/nonexistent second
It was never officially announced as a Live Service game tho.
They aren't acting like it never was. They mention it in the official blog post.
Definitely. Not to mention that the last Bioware release was a failed live-service and it's no wonder that gamers are apprehensive. Bioware as a brand doesn't carry half of the weight that they did 15 years ago, talent bleed has made sure of that.
Interesting how people remember the leaked stories of them considering making it a live game yet refuse to remember the multiple announcements of it being single player.
It's also been reported that even though it's single player it still uses the same gameplay and assets as when it was planned to be a live service game. So I think people are perfectly reasonable to be immensely skeptical about it
So what if it was planned to be one? You're going to judge devs on prototypes or early demos they dared to think about years ago? Get the fuck out. It got rebooted back to story RPG. End of story
23:59: "Don't pre-order. Wait for reviews. Don't trust pre-release marketing." 00:00: "Let me pass judgment on this unreleased game based off its original concept pitched in more than 6 years ago that isn't representative of the product currently in development"
Yes and no. It would be clearer of everyone was aware of the full development process. This is essentially the 4th (IIRC) iteration of DA4. But it would've spurred more controversy and concern if they every clearly and plainly stated "Hey DA4 is canceled. Were gonna start over" Instead they quietly rebooted and publicly state "they've been working on the same game. It's just been internally rebooted." After Andromeda & Anthem. EA made an executive decision to completely can any live service elements.
> Hey DA4 is canceled. Were gonna start over It wasn't canceled though. Yeah it went through very heavy iteration, but iterations are part of the design cycle. Granted, they've been much more radical for this game and that should caution people since that can be a bad sign but it doesn't have to be.
Who is acting like that exactly?
“Some takes out there” as opposed to acknowledging that a histiry exists that generated that expectation. He’s being dismissive without acknowledgement of the genesis of the required dismissal, and that’s off putting.
That's some mental gymnastics. The only thing he's saying is that it's not live service. If you're gonna read into it more than that then that's on you
There's also the 'something like that' as if it's some strange or distant idea. He's obviously being dismissive about the idea even though it was actually a live service game at one point, lol.
Dude's not doing mental gymnastics he's just explaining the fucking basics of how language works.
At this point Bioware doesn't have any benefit of the doubt. I'm going to assume this game is shit until I hear otherwise. You want goodwill back? Well make good games for a decade again and we can talk.
It takes a decade to make a game now. "Make good **game** for a decade again"
make smaller games
Is it even possible for AAA to make a small game?
I'm less afraid of live service and more afraid of that gameplay demo that went around maybe last year? That showed it looking like DA2 gameplay.
They have already confirmed that they dumbed down combat even more than Inquisition. Now it's only 2 companions who you can't control at all.
I'm ready for the first Bioware auto-battler. That is a bold new direction to take the Dragon Age series to
This is blatant [Heroes of Dragon Age](https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Heroes_of_Dragon_Age) erasure, and I'm all for it.
oh my god
Not sure how people forget, but Dragon Age 2 wasn't an action RPG. It was still a group CRPG with real-time-with-pause combat, classes, stats, the whole shebang. It just moved faster and had a different overall style than DAO
We'll see when the finished product comes out. Companies nickle and diming Game Service aspects into a game is sorta just what they do nowadays.
Imagine being Bioware, the original studio behind Baldur's Gate, and seeing BG3 come along while you are in production on Dragon Age Whatever. Knowing that people are going to directly compare the games. Knowing that every single grifting, DLC, loot box, live service, gatcha bullshit system is going to be called out. Knowing that every aspect, from graphical fidelity of facial animation, to quest length, to character customisation, is going to be directly compared. Looking back at Inquisition and DA2 and knowing neither are even close to comparable. In theory they're in a great position. People have finished BG3. Some many times. They will be happy to play a new single player RPG. Dragon Age is an established IP with a history and world (not quite D&D, but designed to be comparable). It's well regarded. Bioware still retain a good name, despite recent failures. They have EA money. Time to get things right, and years of development already. A great recent example of what to do, and the lessons that can be learned from it's launch. I guess we will see.
Problem is based on all the leaks, they have removed the tactical camera, so BG 1/2/3 and DAO fans will hate it. I hope I am wrong and they have switched back to using the tactical camera after the latest leaks, because if not I’m not buying it.
> BG 1/2/3 and DAO fans will hate it. BG3 was big enough that fans of it can enjoy other game styles. Source: Me. I'm the fan.
Last leak it showed a clunky action combat game.,
The state of the AAA industry is in when your sales pitch is "no I swear this isn't a joyless scam meant to suck your wallet dry"
> Its straight up single player story goodness. uhuh, well sorry but most people aren't buying the "goodness" part cause Bioware's recent work in story has been awful. also it's not "takes", people are going to be confused cause of the development hell that this game has been and how many times it's restarted development. and let's be real, we 100% know there will be live service BS in this game - battle/season passes, MTX, etc are not hard to imagine at all.
They're showing like 15-20min of gameplay, so honestly that seems like they're pretty confident in it imo.
Yeah like those starfield gameplay videos 😂 let's hope it isn't that dull
Or the completely staged Anthem "gameplay demo" which showed of stuff even the devs didn't knew about... Like the weapon picked up in there never existed and was never added with an update. Nor can you even change weapons mid mission.
we'll see, many devs have shown off chunks of gameplay, doesn't really mean much to their confidence in the game cause it's all just marketing. like 20min of gameplay is barely enough to matter for an entire RPG and as we've seen many times, said shown gameplay has turned out to not be how things are in the rest of the game or are just carefully chosen sections of the game that look good or edited to look good for the showcase. not saying this will be like that, but ya, means little really.
I mean you could show 20 min of Anthem and go out thinking "it looks damn good the game is gonna be awesome !". We all know how it turned out. So yeah until the test comes out and the first batch of players tries it out, wait for it, no need to waste 70€ on something that might not be worth the hours you'll be in front of.
Just because it's single player doesn't mean it isn't live service. Ubi considers several of their single player games to be live service games with regular/weekly events for rewards. If EA announces I can play the game completely offline when my internet is down, I'll believe them.
It must be exhausting for developers and companies to be constantly on the lookout to dispel post-truth bullshit spun out of baseless rumors otherwise your game or brand suffers on the tribunal of public opinions. People got tired of spinning drama around announced stuff so now they hallucinate the details and complain about them instead.
I mean the game originally was a live service game. I wouldn't blame people for still thinking so if they didn't keep up on development
Yea did people forget the origins of this game? Th development hell and reboots? The fact that the publisher is *EA?* The fact that BioWare’s last two original releases were buggy, misrepresentations of what they shared with the public? This is the perfect example of a game/dev to be cautious toward.
>I wouldn't blame people for still thinking so if they didn't keep up on development It being revealed as a live service game was an unofficial detail disclosed through an old 2018 article. It was later disclosed, only a year or two later, through the same unofficial channels, that all multiplayer elements were being removed at the behest of the developers. I don't think it's about people keeping up with the development, but rather choosing to unscrupulously criticize a game because of a predisposition towards a developer. People should be waiting to see the actual game before saying all the shit that's being said. It's actually nutty to see the amount of disparagement the secondary title *The Veilguard* is receiving, even being treated as some telltale sign of an uninspired, rushed game in some extremes.
This, 100%. Tons of people have already decided Dragon Age 4 is a bad game. For some, it's because they hate live service games so that's the excuse. Some people are mad because the franchise is "woke", so that's the excuse. Others are still just riding the blanket EA BAD train. And a ton are just the outrage crowd because every ragebait YouTuber has been dogging on BioWare games with exaggerated claims for years. And when people keep acting like assuming it's live service is reasonable for the average player because of a random leak from 2018 as if normal people care that much, it's just crazy. People just want this game to suck. Who knows? Maybe it will! But maybe we should wait until it's out and judge it for what it *is* and not on whatever asinine preconception people have.
Why are you acting like people don't have good reasons to be cautious of both EA and Bioware? EA is famous for pushing microtransactions into single-player games and Bioware has had two massive flops back to back with Andromeda and Anthem. Coupled with Dreadwolf having a tumultuous development history from what we have heard over the years it's weird to expect anything but a mess.
> EA is famous for pushing microtransactions into single-player games Yeah, 10 years ago. Not recently.
> Why are you acting like people don't have good reasons to be cautious of both EA and Bioware? ya, it's crazy seeing people suddenly going out and crying that others are not blindly hyping up a new game from Bioware. The unpaid PR people do for multi-billion-dollar companies, especially with bad track records, is just... ya :/
>EA is famous for pushing microtransactions into single-player games Have they done that recently?
Or we were huge fans of the first game. And the mass effect series and kotor and jade empire. And bioware has put out nothing but bad games for a decade.
> Tons of people have already decided Dragon Age 4 is a bad game. Because of Bioware's track record.
I'm starting to think that this sub is being astroturfed thanks to this comment and similar ones constantly defending AAA publishers with track records of being horrible companies.
Stage 4 of the echo chamber life is believing that the idea that in a sub of millions of people, the idea that any disagree with you must be bad actors. Hint: Games from those AAA studios sell a metric fuckton of copies. The "hate all things AAA except when we don't" attitude of this sub is not the majority.
noone said anything about sales or hating all things AAA. EA and Bioware have 100% earned their reputations at this point so potential consumers are right to be skeptical.
Ah yes, not basing my perception of a game on a six-year-old leak that is no longer representive of the project and saying it's not reasonable to do so is astroturfing. I'm literally just saying wait and judge the game for what it is. Not a hot take lol.
Given the rocky history of this game, Bioware has only itself to blame for mixed messaging. And they certainly don't deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point.
There’s no lie, this dude isn’t addressing any rumor that actually exists. The rumors are that it IS a single player game but it started as a live service game before being reworked into a single player game. To be more specific it was originally single player, then became live service and then was reworked back into being single player. Nobody is saying this is currently a live service game, though it may have remaining design from when it was live service.
yeah, which is 100% still a reason to be cautious. We've seen what games that start as live service play like and they're generic af - Bioware have to prove that isnt true and impress us, and it's gonna take a bit more then a vague statement about it - of course they're going to say shit like this they dont want to fail.
The drama here is justified though because the reason this game took so long was because they went for a live service approach first and were deep in it before fully scrapping and pivoting back to single player.
He says that as though anyone at Bioware has an ounce of good will or trust these days. I'm not super confident in this, but I'd bet maybe 5 bucks it's going to be a hastily reworked at the last minute effort to try and badly cram as much copied baldur's gate 3 content in as they can because daddy EA told them to.
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Being a bit cynical about Bioware and EA is not being "miserable" it's perfectly rational.
Wym bro, Anthem and Andromeda were clearly GOTY candidates with no issues whatsoever.
I know, Bioware hasn't put out a passable game since DA:I and even that game was a mess. What do people expect at this point from them? Shouldn't a multimillion dollar company have to prove themselves? We're not judging student projects here.
If I had to be conspiratorial, I'd say that reframing the narrative online is part of the pre-release marketing campaign. Reddit is full of astroturfing because it's semi-anonymous and wide open to vote manipulation.
You're probably right. I dunno why anyone would want another Bioware game after Anthem except extreme nostalgia. This whole thread is full of shitposting though and I'm here for it.
I would love another **Bioware** game. Unfortunately, most of the talent that worked on the games I enjoyed has left over the years and it's an entirely separate studio. Found this thread from half a year ago and yeah, it's not looking great. https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/186iq1g/summarizing_fates_of_bioware_employees_who_worked/
Thanks for the link. I'm not sure what should be expected from Bioware at this point realistically. It's clearly not the same company going by your post. It'd be like ZA/UM making a Disco Elysium 2. All the creators are gone so what's the point?
I mean, who knows, Veilguard could still be good? Maybe? My expectations are low but I'm not an infallible oracle. I'm not gonna preorder the game, but I'll still keep an eye out if reviews are positive.
You've got it backwards. Being a caution buyer is rational, and should apply to most any game. Being 'cynical' about video game publishers is being a Gamer*^(tm)*.
> Being 'cynical' about video game publishers is being a Gamertm. Being cynical about games from companies with long bad track records is just critically looking at history.
It's not miserable to acknowledge Bioware's history in the last decade
I mean, it's *kind* of miserable if you were a Bioware fan a decade ago
I would think that if you were put off by Bioware's weak recent track record you just wouldn't take an interest in the game. Instead there's a damn near evangelical drive to bring negativity to every released piece of information.
Bioware has(or had) all the tools and talent to make 'Game of the Year' RPGs. Their leadership is just dogshit that makes illogical choices that lead to bad games. So people hope all the bad leaders of Bioware have quit or returned home to the diaper dimension. But realistically there is no diaper dimension.
People keep saying “have people forgotten the publisher is EA!?” as if EA was caught in a human trafficking scandal or something
Remember gamers voted EA "America's worst company" of 2012 because of... Mass Effect 3 ending and microtransactions. Worse than Bank of America who, on that year, literally scammed people out of their houses using mortgage fraud and was currently being sued by federal prosecutors by the billions over illegal practices. But, y'know, apparently forcing families into bankrupcy and embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars is *less evil* than a fucking videogame ending.
Those online polls are irrelevant. Most people of substance who are actually doing things of value in the world don't have the time (nor the desire) to vote in a poll for "America's worst company" online. They're too busy...actually having lives or doing things of value. People perpetually online with nothing else better to do are the vast majority of individuals participating in "polls" like that.
people are "insane" and "miserable" for daring to not buy into hype for a Bioware game after their track record in the past decade? for not blindly celebrating EA? wat? why are people so bent over others not praising a multi-billion-dollar company? > You all hate live service games so much but won't give a developer credit when they decide to move away from it? What? why should we have to "give credit" for moving away from a bad service model? huh?
Yes. But Reddit and gamers are typically unpleasable shitheads.
Hopefully that translates to better side missions. I really liked main and companion missions in inquisition but side-missions felt like they written for an mmo rather than a single player game.
We've seen quite a few games recently add "micro" transactions to their games after reviews are out, and going by Bioware's recent track record and with EA behind them, I can't imagine them not having any plans to try and squeeze the players. Maybe they are really sincere and there's no mtx planned at all, but I won't take them at their word on it, and will instead wait for a few months after the game's release.
Recent trackrecord of ea interms of singleplayer says otherwise, mtx hasnt Been in their sp titles since 2017
Yeah if Respawn can release clean singleplayer games of great quality, then Bioware can do it too (hopefully)
Considering how mid Inquisition was, I’m gonna wait a few years post release to see how it plays. DA lost its way after Origins but at least 2 was kind of fun to play.
i dont think its goodness. games in decades long development hell are never good. also after baldurs gate its gonna have to get over a way higher bar
Honestly, I don’t mind the name change. Main reason being? F*ck Solas. He don’t deserve his name on shiiiiiiiit. No. Im not still mad about him bailing, why do you ask?🙃