Arthur Gies (he/him) @aegies if EA had released dragon age 4 as a destiny-style service game there would have probably been an actual riot and i completely believe this was the plan until fairly recently.
like, andrew wilson is not prepared for the bisexual riot outside his house if EA fucks up dragon age 4.
Raphael van Lierop @raphlife Curious -- is "service game" automatically analogous to Destiny-style? Just wondering, as there are clearly games updated "as a service" that are SP, and I don't see why that approach couldn't be a positive for a game like Dragon Age.
Arthur Gies (he/him) @aegies anthem was the view into what they believed their future had to be for basically every traditional IP, and the clear influence of destiny on anthem was everywhere.
Raphael van Lierop @raphlife Yeah, I get that. I'm more talking about the interpretation of "service game" as Destiny (a massive online game). Dragon Age could be an oft-updated, constantly evolving SP experience "as a service", as well.
Arthur Gies (he/him) @aegies EA wants recurring spend in every direction - MTX, expansion revenue, memberships. they're looking for a game that both has ultimate team hooks and an excuse for comparatively low prod cost expansions.
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Christ, what kind of hellspawn were they going to release?
If developers have privately referred to it as Anthem with Dragons, I'm guessing the very worst kind.
For me; this is great news. I was very displeased back on BSN Prime when it was announced that DAI would have multiplayer and while I loved DAI, the combat was easily the worst part of it, for me (and combat is a substantial part of the game, of course). And the reason combat was so bad was the unhappy alliance between SP "strategic" gameplay and MP "action" gameplay.
This doesn't mean 'for certain' that the game will be great, or even good (and I am genuinely apprehensive about how this might delay it further) but it can only help.
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Arthur Gies (he/him) @aegies if EA had released dragon age 4 as a destiny-style service game there would have probably been an actual riot and i completely believe this was the plan until fairly recently.
like, andrew wilson is not prepared for the bisexual riot outside his house if EA fucks up dragon age 4.
Raphael van Lierop @raphlife Curious -- is "service game" automatically analogous to Destiny-style? Just wondering, as there are clearly games updated "as a service" that are SP, and I don't see why that approach couldn't be a positive for a game like Dragon Age.
Arthur Gies (he/him) @aegies anthem was the view into what they believed their future had to be for basically every traditional IP, and the clear influence of destiny on anthem was everywhere.
Raphael van Lierop @raphlife Yeah, I get that. I'm more talking about the interpretation of "service game" as Destiny (a massive online game). Dragon Age could be an oft-updated, constantly evolving SP experience "as a service", as well.
Arthur Gies (he/him) @aegies EA wants recurring spend in every direction - MTX, expansion revenue, memberships. they're looking for a game that both has ultimate team hooks and an excuse for comparatively low prod cost expansions.
It's not that I dont understand this argument, but based on Arthurs own presumption, ME3 MP would have fell in line with this model.
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I'm a bit worried about what sales expectation EA will have for DA4 now. Yet again, DA is the critical point for Bioware (as was DAI) but it was never given the support that responsibility would have asked for, it was always the red-haired step child. The article mentions how Fallen Order sold 10 million units in 4 months. Dragon Age will never sell that much, it's not gotten the marketing support to ever reach that kind of goal, it's high fantasy (a genre that is still stigmatized in the wider mainstream) and, chief among my worries, Fallen Order had the Star Wars brand attached to it, it was going to make bank whatever the situation. Add to it the fact they lauded it was going to be singleplayer only, the odds of making even more money went even higher.
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If developers have privately referred to it as Anthem with Dragons, I'm guessing the very worst kind.
Remind me if I'm wrong, but didn't Schreier name "Anthem with Dragons" as what BioWare employees told him they were trying to avoid with DA4's LS elements, back in 2019?
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.
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EA has allowed? So EA has mandated it must have MP/other live service? Curious.
This isn't news? They have mandated some sort of live service for all of their games for years.
Besides MP that DAI has, that also includes War Table.
And after failure of Anthem and Covid-19 throwing everything into chaos, it is clearly for the best to drop live service so BioWare can focus solely on SP.
EA has allowed? So EA has mandated it must have MP/other live service? Curious.
This isn't news? They have mandated some sort of live service for all of their games for years.
Besides MP that DAI has, that also includes War Table.
And after failure of Anthem and Covid-19 throwing everything into chaos, it is clearly for the best to drop live service so BioWare can focus solely on SP.
While not wrong, Covid had nothing to do with Anthem.
They're just getting rid of something. It may not be a simple as like closing browser, but I'd be surprised if this announcement delayed things further.
It depends on how integrated the LS elements were going to be in the overall game/narrative. How much of the game was structured to accommodate them?
I doubt by that much. As we seen with Galaxy at War, War Table and APEX, BioWare has always made sure to keep Live Service and SP at minimum.
This isn't news? They have mandated some sort of live service for all of their games for years.
Besides MP that DAI has, that also includes War Table.
And after failure of Anthem and Covid-19 throwing everything into chaos, it is clearly for the best to drop live service so BioWare can focus solely on SP.
While not wrong, Covid had nothing to do with Anthem.
I wasn't clear, my last sentence was about DA4 development.
Post by The Elder King on Feb 25, 2021 20:28:08 GMT
One thing to consider, the article makes it clear that the decision to shift towards a full SP game was taken a few months/months ago, so the trailer at the VGA might still be under the umbrella of the ‘new’ direction.
It takes resources away from the single player game. I believe I am right in saying that being forced to incorporate multi-player in DAI delayed its release. Also in the case of Mass Effect 3, initially it impacted on the outcome of the single player whether you had played multi-player elements or not. Then they altered this with the Extended Cut so you didn't have to do multi-player to get every outcome in the single player game.
Essentially, I would say that most people played Dragon Age because it is a single player game. I for one am not interested in multi-player and would much rather see resources directed towards improving the single player and hopefully allowing for an earlier release than might otherwise have been the case.
The counterpoint would be that multiplayer would be a separate budget, I suppose, and those resources would not necessarily be directed to the single player. That’s what I hope fore though.
That's not how budgets work, though. You have one singular budget for your entire project and you allocate it to every feature in it. That's it. The 40 or so million that MEA had? That was all the money they got for everything in that game, MP included.
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Mass Effect: Andromeda required a team of over 200 developers and, as reported by the Edmonton Journal, was given a total budget of C$100 million, which included marketing and research costs.[64][65]
When I die, I want Bioware to carry my casket, so they can let me down, one last time.
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If developers have privately referred to it as Anthem with Dragons, I'm guessing the very worst kind.
Remind me if I'm wrong, but didn't Schreier name "Anthem with Dragons" as what BioWare employees told him they were trying to avoid with DA4's LS elements, back in 2019?
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.
I was just going off the 5th paragraph in Hanako's post that shows the text of the Schreier article (from today).
The next Dragon Age first entered development in 2015. But in the fall of 2017, EA and BioWare rebooted the game to push for long-term monetization. The change led to the departure of creative director Mike Laidlaw and caused some employees to dismiss the game as “Anthem with dragons.” EA announced the new Dragon Age in 2018 but has not shared many details since then. Behind the scenes, the game has been in flux, game website Kotaku has reported.
I mean, both can be true, right? Some could have dismissed it as Anthem with Dragons, while others said, no no, DA is its own thing. We had that pre-DA2 on BSN Prime. The introduction of the set (voiced) protagonist and dialogue wheel and all the "Dragon Effect" complaints.
"Kneel before the Lord Dragon, or you will be knelt." 21 Feb 2019 at 6:59am - It has not been forgotten. It will not be forgiven. We've now met seven times... Revenge is ice cream - Serza, April 2020 Also known as Mike, David, Scott or Bruce
Mass Effect: Andromeda required a team of over 200 developers and, as reported by the Edmonton Journal, was given a total budget of C$100 million, which included marketing and research costs.[64][65]
~40m was likely the cost of development. Marketing costs are at least as much as development costs.
Mass Effect: Andromeda required a team of over 200 developers and, as reported by the Edmonton Journal, was given a total budget of C$100 million, which included marketing and research costs.[64][65]
What was the budget in USD at the time, though? Making the conversion now it's around 79 million USD but I distinctly remember a lot of people comparing it to the budget that The Witcher 3 had and it was waaaaay less than that.
The counterpoint would be that multiplayer would be a separate budget, I suppose, and those resources would not necessarily be directed to the single player. That’s what I hope fore though.
That's not how budgets work, though. You have one singular budget for your entire project and you allocate it to every feature in it. That's it. The 40 or so million that MEA had? That was all the money they got for everything in that game, MP included.
Actually we have instances where it has been separate allocation for it in the past. Maybe not with Dragon Age or EA, but other games and companies have done that.
We will give you 50 million for this game, and another 20 million for multiplayer and such like that. No multiplayer? Ok only 50 million.
What was the budget in USD at the time, though? Making the conversion now it's around 79 million USD but I distinctly remember a lot of people comparing it to the budget that The Witcher 3 had and it was waaaaay less than that.
Around $77m US in 2017.
When I die, I want Bioware to carry my casket, so they can let me down, one last time.
This is good news and very unexpected of EA. Anthem's failure did have a pleasant side effect.
So something good came of that "experiment" after all...
I never played DAI's multiplayer. I would have been fine with similar live service to what Assassin's Creed: Odyssey has. But this "heavy multiplayer feature" sounds like real bad news. Good thing they got rid of it. Now I just hope we don't have to wait much longer for DA4. It's been too long already and seems like the reason why it's been too long is the same indecisiveness that plagued the development of Anthem and MEA!
That's not how budgets work, though. You have one singular budget for your entire project and you allocate it to every feature in it. That's it. The 40 or so million that MEA had? That was all the money they got for everything in that game, MP included.
Actually we have instances where it has been separate allocation for it in the past. Maybe not with Dragon Age or EA, but other games and companies have done that.
We will give you 50 million for this game, and another 20 million for multiplayer and such like that. No multiplayer? Ok only 50 million.
That would still technically be considered a singular budget. The total budget is 70 million but you have the specific request from the investor to automatically allocate 20 million only to the MP feature, the rest you can allocate based on the project's needs. If you remove the MP feature, you remove the budget allocated to it, of course. If you don't work on a feature obviously you're not going to need the money allocated to it, you've already budgeted every penny as you need well before work starts on the project.
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