What do you think DA4's live service will entail?

For the single-player part it seems likely it will be similar to AC:O with a bunch of cosmetic microtransactions.

Hopefully with Anthem's poor reception they won't try to mix the multiplayer and single-player parts, but who knows.

Ok I'm confused since when does live service equate to greedy micro transaction? to me live service (pls I'm not defending anyone)means they Bioware can add to the game with out having to do an update which makes it easier much like MMO"s before they went free to play

Bows, point taken

That's...interestting. I thoughtt when Bethesda did that kind of thing people went all pitch forky on them (though I guess the Creation Club is also a thing). But I could actually see something like that working and be really feasible. It might be really interesting. Oooh actually now that I think about it Odyssey had a very watered down Story creator mode too where people could create their own quests and things...wonder if something like that could work.

Out of curiosity...what's your concern about XP boosts?

Hm, hard to say. Supposedly, DA4 was rebooted to include live service, and will be built on Anthem's code base. Given BioWare's fondness of recycling, I expect a similar cosmetics shop as Anthem features. It could include anything from weapons and armour skins to additional hair styles and multiplayer "shortcuts". If DA4's live service actually contains additional story content I would be positively surprised, given how hard of a time BioWare seems to be having with Frostbite and how their Anthem roadmaps crashed and burned as a result.

Has it not been mentioned that DA has always been live service? Even as far back as DA:O, if playing online & you had an account on BNS 1.0 your character would be backed up, charter sheets & codex entries are there for all HoF's & Hawkes, so by extension, The Keep can serve as the live service element.

Additionally, people mention Odyssey, it has a good selection for a vast open world game, but we don't know if DA4 would be open-world. That being said, I'd direct my attention to Gearbox & what they've done with Borderlands 3; weekly balance changes, events, takedowns, loot, annointments & a Mayhem overhall, all added to the game, all free of charge, but all fall into the general umbrella that is 'live service'. Oh & 4 paid story dlcs as well.

However, until we know how 'live service' is going to be addressed in this game, all we can do is speculate.

Just my opinion

Whatever it is - the game will only be good in spite of it.

So long as I get a proper singleplayer campaign that isn’t impeded by online access in any way, then I guess it won’t matter.

I know what I'd like to see, but who knows what approach they'll actually take. Kotaku touched on some ideas they were considering, so I'll just post the relevant bits below. Can't say I'm keen on quests changing based on choices made by players who are not me, though reaffirming a SP focus for the main story is encouraging. But again - who knows where the DA "pirate ship" will make port in the end.


Kotaku: The Past And Present Of Dragon Age 4
kotaku.com/the-past-and-present-of-dragon-age-4-1833913351

So what does all this mean, exactly? How much of a multiplayer focus will Dragon Age 4 have? Is it online-only? We’re not sure about all the details, and in fact they’re likely still being decided, as the game is still very early in development and could evolve based on the negative reception to Anthem. Rumor among BioWare circles for the past year has been that Morrison is “Anthem with dragons”—a snarky label conveyed to me by several people—but a couple of current BioWare employees have waved me off that description. “The idea was that Anthem would be the online game and that Dragon Age and Mass Effect, while they may experiment with online portions, that’s not what defines them as franchises,” said one. “I don’t think you’ll see us completely change those franchises.”

When asked, a few BioWare developers agreed that it’d be technically possible for a game built on Anthem’s codebase to also have an offline branch, but it’s not yet clear whether Morrison will take that approach. If it does turn out to be an online game, which seems likely, it would be shocking if you couldn’t play the bulk of it by yourself. (Diablo III, for example, is online-only on PC yet can be played entirely solo.) One person close to the game told me this week that Morrison’s critical path, or main story, would be designed for single-player and that goal of the multiplayer elements would be to keep people engaged so that they would actually stick with post-launch content. Single-player downloadable content like Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Trespasser, while often excellent, typically sells only a fraction of the main game, according to developers from BioWare and elsewhere across the industry.

Yet this wouldn’t be a “live service” game if it was a repeat of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which compartmentalized its single- and multiplayer modes. Fans in the past have grown outraged at the idea of BioWare putting a lot of emphasis on multiplayer gaming, but there are ways in which a service-heavy Dragon Age 4 could be ambitious and impressive. For example, some ideas I’ve heard floated for Morrison’s multiplayer include companions that can be controlled by multiple players via drop-in/drop-out co-op, similar to old-school BioWare RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, and quests that could change based not just on one player’s decisions, but on the choices of players across the globe.

Maybe in two or three years, Morrison will look completely different. It’s not like Dragon Age hasn’t changed drastically in the past. In the office, BioWare developers often refer to Mark Darrah’s Dragon Age team as a pirate ship, one that will eventually wind up at its destination, but not before meandering from port to port, drinking as much rum* as possible along the way.

- *I seem to remember scotch being BW's beverage of choice.

I absolutely detest the idea of other players' decisions effecting my game. Basically fine with most other contemporary manifestations of long term monetization though.

I think Jason may be saying the quests changing based on other players' choices would be for MP, although it isn't completely clear from the wording. I'd be very surprised if BioWare did that for SP - and if they do I won't buy the game.

I just don’t get how it generates them money