BioWare hopes that Anthem's 'live service' model will be used in Dragon Age

"without paywalls"... I mean, isn't that because it's a subscription service, so you paid $10/month for 6 months without new content, and THEN the "free" stuff is released?

Nor necessarily. There are other ways they can get the income, for example microtransactions for MP stuff or cosmetics.

No thanks.

Think we will also pass on this game if this becomes true.

Nah...just give me expansion packs thanks!

The part about following the story of individual Agents sounds intriguing, but the whole “isolate story elements in one main hub” structure holds very little appeal.

The only way I see that working is if the world outside of “the hub” is essentially just a giant, empty sandbox. Quests will consist of “Kill five X” or “Find 10 of Plant X” or “A dragon has appeared in Zone A, go kill it.” NPC interaction will be kept to a minimum outside of “the hub.”

In other words, it will be the mindless gathering quests from DAI that nearly everyone hated, but now turned up to 11. And every now and then, they’ll dump more of this generic shit into the sandbox to fill it up.

Honestly, I have very little hope for Dragon Age 4.

Hopefully not. If they make Dragon Age 4 like Anthem, then I won't get it just like I am not getting Anthem.

For now, I'm not worried about it until more information is released.

Additional story episodes will always require a patch / DLC installation since there will be new voice lines, new animations and cutscenes and maybe new enemy types.

The only game I play that has, as far as my understanding goes, a live service component, is Warframe. Live service in Warframe includes the following things:

- Alert Missions: randomly generated missions with a fixed reward, available for a short limited time only (usually around one hour)
- Nightmare Alert Missions: same as above, with a better reward pool but with a random negative modifier like "no shields"
- Invasions: an NPC faction attacks a planet held by another faction. Join the attackers or defenders to qualify for a reward. The enemy faction may send an assassin after you as a consequence.
- Sorties: a series of 3 high-level randomly generated missions with tough negative modifiers which must be completed in sequence. Available once per day.
- Special recurring events like a Tenno relay coming under siege from an NPC faction's super weapon, an infested asteroid hitting the plains of Earth or similar things.

None of these require patches and may be activated in game at any time.

However, new quests and storylines require patches just as they always did, so that can't be the new thing BioWare is referring to when they mention live service.

The multiplayer aspects of Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Mass Effect: Andromeda were classified as Live Service by someone from BioWare when live service was first starting to be mentioned.  The way I understand the basic principles is that the game looks for setting on a server and uses assets that are already in the game to create content.

So with Dragon Age I could see the possibilities.  If they keep the order board like what they had with Inquisition is they have a rotation of missions that are available or modifiers for those missions, maybe something like random combat missions on the map that you have to go fight, things of that nature.  I don't think it would be possible to have major downloads associated with it unless they are going to try and stream content to a person's game which might be something they will experiment with since EA thinks in the next 10 years you can stream entire games.

In an interview they were talking about installing an app like Origin to your computer or smart television while comparing it to Netflix, so that is giving me the impression most of the work would be done remotely.

Interview Link

These ancient times?

...this actually give me Final Fantasy XV wibes. Two years? And still the game is not complete.