Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Makkal]

Fire Above Trailer

Open World Re-Imagining with Aaryn Flynn

Aaryn Flynn is the GM for Bioware Edmonton and Montreal.

For those who care about such things, there's an Easter Egg in the trailer. One of the books on Cassandra's table is 'Hard in Hightown II.'

With DA:I, BioWare is moving away from the its current engine to Frostbyte. Everything in the trailer is 'in game' footage as opposed to pre-rendered. If you don't know what a game engine is H4IC has a FAQ. It was written specifically to address a number of questions people had when Frostbyte was announced for DA:I.

[Gottii]

Bleah.  DA2 wasnt a squeal.  It was an insult. 

Miss the old Bioware

[Ghost Hunter]

The question is will they be repeating the game play formula from DA1 or DA2? Both had closed arena feels to them that were claustrophobic as hell to me.

[Makkal]

I'll state upfront that I love BioWare, its developers, and its games. For example:

Bleah.  DA2 wasnt a squeal.  It was an insult. 

I thought DA 2 was great. I admit that it had too short of a development cycle and that lead to problems with reusing maps, an abbreviated third act, and too much wave combat. But the characters, the shift in visual design, and the move away from an 'ancient evil' story are all big pluses in my mind.

The question is will they be repeating the game play formula from DA1 or DA2? Both had closed arena feels to them that were claustrophobic as hell to me.

The third-person, real-time, party-based combat with three classes that have unlockable powers/abilities on a timer with a fatigue/mana cost will return. Is that what you mean by gameplay formula?

The maps are significantly larger than in DA II, but I'm not sure what you mean by arena feel.

[Corso.Verne]

I agree with Makkal that DA2 was in a lot of ways a strong game, even if it suffered from slight development hell and could have been a lot more polished and well executed than it was.

I think the main source of people's disdain here is that Dragon Age 1 was like a messianic resurrection of the tactical fantasy genre. It was like a contemporary Neverwinter Nights or Baldur's Gate. For years, people had been saying these games just couldn't be made for modern consoles or the PC because it wouldn't work right and the audience probably wouldn't be there, and BioWare not only proved them wrong, but blew their minds while doing so.

Dragon Age 2 on the other hand...well, Dragon Age 2 was Mass Effect with swords. Not a bad thing, necessarily! Just not the good thing we wanted. So yeah, I'm cautious about DA3. If its just like Dragon Age 2 but better executed, I'll probably play it anyway. But what I really want is a legitimate sequel to Dragon Age 1, both in story and mechanics.

[Ghost Hunter]

The question is will they be repeating the game play formula from DA1 or DA2? Both had closed arena feels to them that were claustrophobic as hell to me.

The third-person, real-time, party-based combat with three classes that have unlockable powers/abilities on a timer with a fatigue/mana cost will return. Is that what you mean by gameplay formula?

The maps are significantly larger than in DA II, but I'm not sure what you mean by arena feel.

The arena feel is that every area is re-used excessively. Most scenes in DA2 had a small handful of areas that was re-used with the variance being mob spawn locations and player entrance/exits. Given the supposed size of Kirkwall and the surrounding environment, I was expecting more variation than what I received. Some areas didn't even have visible aging or changes through the time skips, which led to a dissonance to me for presentation.

DA1 hid its arena nature much better, and I didn't feel like I was playing Mortal Kombat story mode like I did with DA2. Edit ; Not to say that is bad, as I like MK story mode, but in continuing the DA1 trend, DA2 went completely differently and my expectations weren't met.

[Samira Kernher]

I'm really hoping this one will actually be worthwhile.

DA2 was not. And not because of the gameplay or maps. It added shitty voiceovers to the main character, eliminated most of the RP potential by going with the dialogue wheel (in comparison to DA1 which probably had the most RP potential of any recent RPG due to the sheer variety of choices), and it had a boring story to boot.

Please, Bioware, go back to the DA1 model. It's my favorite RPG outside of the Mass Effect series and I'd really love to see a worthwhile sequel to it. Not garbage like DA2.

[Steffanie Saissore]

I really like Bioware.  I remember picking up Shattered Steel and liking it a lot (even if there were some strange issues...though I think it was my computer at the time).  At that time, they were a little shop above a Chapters bookstore in Edmonton.  I know a handful of the writers and artists and admire the quality of work that goes into their products (though I'm shooting shifty eye looks at EA for some of the stuff they've pulled).

I was lucky enough to do several quality assurance and game mechanic testing for Dragon Age I.  It was neat and even though a lot of the textures were unfinished or non-existent at the time, I felt the game looked fairly promising.  Unfortunately, due to finances and other things, I never picked it up when it got released.  Having listened to all the people talking about it, I do feel like I missed out on a brilliant game; however, I did have one issue with DA1.  Watched a buddy playing it and the graphics looked too much like the old Aurora engine that Bioware had used for Neverwinter Nights...they still looked good, but having seen the quality of the graphics in Jade Empire and Mass Effect, I was expecting better.

I skipped DA2...again mostly because at the time I couldn't afford it.  Seeing some of the gameplay, it does look prettier, but then there are the complaints about the story, which is normally something one doesn't hear with a Bioware game.

DA3 does look impressive and because I really like Bioware, I am going to try to pick this one up.  I just am a little hesitant because of the way EA has seemed to have mishandled several of their latest big releases.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I'm going to get burnt at the stake for this, but I did not like Dragon Age. I felt it was too linear for me. I guess I went in expecting an open world RPG, and ended up with something more like KOTOR. I just didn't let the storyline really hook me.

[Steffanie Saissore]

I'm going to get burnt at the stake for this, but I did not like Dragon Age. I felt it was too linear for me. I guess I went in expecting an open world RPG, and ended up with something more like KOTOR. I just didn't let the storyline really hook me.

prepares torches and pitchforks
Though to be honest, when Dragon Age was first announced and all the stuff they wanted to do with it, it promised to be a very large, open world RPG.  An open world game (Skyrim, Oblivion are a couple that come to mind) I find have a harder time developing a rich story arc and Bioware is best known for the story told during the course of the game.  Not saying that it can't be done (Skyrim's main story arc is still very rich, but the many of the side quests just feel a little flat).

Precarious balancing act between how much freedom to explore and leave the main story versus focusing on the elements to tell the main story in greater depth.

[Samira Kernher]

I'm going to get burnt at the stake for this, but I did not like Dragon Age. I felt it was too linear for me. I guess I went in expecting an open world RPG, and ended up with something more like KOTOR. I just didn't let the storyline really hook me.

The story was linear. However, it had more variety in dialogue options than most RPGs, which is where the openness comes from IMO.

In comparison to, say, Skyrim, which has an open world but extremely limited dialogue choices, makes Skyrim feel linear to me.

[Lyn Farel]

I hate solo open worlds. If I want to play on open worlds I buy a MMO sandbox and play inside with people, otherwise it feels empty. What I expect from a solo RPG or action adventure is the story/screenplay at first, and the gameplay in second.

Not interested in DA the slightest though. ME was awesome though, one of my best experiences, especially with the late Bioware...

[Makkal]

NO. Dragon Age is awesome.

YOU ARE THE DEMONS, JOHN.

~ahem~

I mean that I respect everyone's opinion on the matter. 

[Katrina Oniseki]

YOU ARE THE DEMONS, JOHN.

[John Revenent]

 

I am looking forward to this.