Bloomberg: Dragon Age 4 Will Now Be A SP (Non-LS) Game

Personally I think this is very good news; I much prefer SP games to GAAS platforms (such as ANTHEM) or MP games like battlefield 2 where it's massively PvP. I greatly prefer single-player story games like Jedi Fallen Order and Mass Effect. And let's face it, even Dragon Age was built to be a largely single-player game.

My critique of this assessment was that EA DID have a hand in the support viability of aforementioned titles. For example, it was very likely that Montreal wanted to make DLC for Andromeda, given the amount of narrative plot lines that hadn't been resolved. EA axed that pretty quick (only 6 months after launch). Even the devs responsible for the multiplayer side of the game had a tone of surprise in their messaging; regarding the discontinue of support.

I would also have to question EA's business sense when it came to the long-term viability of Anthem. How do you look at this title, make comments about how you intend to see if it can be a "Ten-Year Franchise," but not see some of the glaring developmental problems with having a GaaS being made by a studio that already develops multiple titles at a time across various franchises? How come no alarm bells were going off about how one branch of the studio [Austin], a team of only 200, would be able to sustain a large AAA title for several years, including doing so when they also need to manage SW:TOR? I would have been asking pertinent questions around these subjects, and if they were asked, why the hell would you greenlight it?

This isn't absolving BioWare of their clear mistakes; across many titles. I'm also saying that EA did have some impacts on them as well

You're mixing up articles (you're referencing an article that expands on Schreier's I think or an older Schreier article) but that could be true, sure

I suppose it's similar in that Anthem they were trying to figure out how to tack a single player experience onto a multiplayer game, and in DA4 they were thinking how to take a multiplayer live service experience onto a single player game? I still remember when they were saying the single player experience was important to them in Anthem xD

I don't think it would cause Dragon Age 4 to go as badly as Anthem though, mainly because I think the thing Anthem failed at were core things. Like a terrible loot system. Like no content. Like unholy amounts of grind. If they tried to tack a live service multiplayer experience onto a single player experience the fit might be in question, and it might feel a bit unnatural, but they could probably make it work, kinda. As long as they don't emphasise things they're notoriously bad at - like "DA4 is a looter hack and slash similar to Diablo, except with an over the shoulder cam."

Ugh, I had forgotten about the choice by democracy thing. What an absolutely terrible idea for these kinds of games.

Then quote it

Can I just elucidate how much I hate the media first off?

Yes you were right I was wrong the line I thought was in there was not actually in there so probably quoting the first article, mia culpa on that.  

However in doing research on this issue I did run into the actual quote on the first time you asked me to quote something, about the whole Anthem with Dragons lunacy.  




Now when I was trying to find the quote I thought existed I read through two articles, including the Bloomberg article, that continued to advance the lie.  So JS...despite knowing better...continues to talk about "Anthem with Dragons' like it was ever going to be a thing.  

The.  Media. Is. Trash.  

Also I am quite annoyed that I did waste my time going on and clicking the bloomberg article to make sure of something that did not actually exist helping advance that man's career.  Ugh I need a shower.

Call it a personal flaw but, as you can tell, I do not actually like clicking on these articles from certain news groups that I think lack integrity.  Now they may be right but I do object to certain ways that this information has been distributed.  Its essentially creating a click baity attention grabby title...only to dismiss it...everyone is just going to remember "Anthem with Dragons" being the thing and not remember that he disproved it...literally in the next sentence.  Which has indeed what happened.  And since I know clicks is how these people get paid, well, I do not want to contribute to those, imo, really sus tactics.  But I did because I was curious and admittedly the quote I thought of was from the Jackdaw vid on the subject and I thought he was quoting the second article when it looks like he was quoting the first...so yeah had to check on that mia culpa...but now I am just annoyed again.  

Honestly I haven't kept up with dragon age news over the years so I have no idea what you mean when you say they have already defined what live service is for them.

I agree with you, they shouldn't tell us anything about DA until it's set in stone. So then where did people get the idea for live service to begin with? Casey brought it up as early as 2018 as far as I know, so if they were willing to suggest live service was a serious thing they were considering, why keep people hanging on to this issue over the years and allowing people to make wild claims about its development?

Also, if they only pivoted to single player in recent months, that kinda implies all the shots they've shown in the trailers the past year were simply eye-candy and not at all what we should expect. And I guess that's why Patrick tweeted about concept art being just that, concept art.

So...speculating on all these trailers feels like a waste of time and I'm honestly now expecting DA4 to be a 2024 release. I mean don't get me wrong, I was excited to see something new at last this year on DA4 and I will be consuming the other media outside of the games. But again, if what the article says is true the trailers now seems like a big waste of time..