Dragon Age News Thread

Crystal McCord @mrscmccord
Another great part of this year for me has been joining my first ever DA game for development as a Narrative Producer. This team is so experienced, so inclusive, and so collaborative. I have been loving every minute of it! Cheers to everyone on the dev team and our community!

David Gaider @davidgaider
If you start playing Dragon Age Inquisition right now, there's an excellent chance you'll still be in character generation by midnight.

Einar, the scholar (Caution 6.0 Spoilers) @devanialis
I feel so called out by this. Sir...how do you know I have spent five hours making one of my inquisitors.

David Gaider @davidgaider
I do the same thing. The CC is its own game, really. 🤪

John Epler @eplerjc
*changes the number to 0 on the 'Days Since We Had Game Auteur Discourse' sign*

Every game is the product of every person who worked on it, and if you see identifiable aspects and think 'ahh, it's because of person X', it's because of the team that works with them.

That person will influence the direction but they are not solely responsible for it.

What a good director does is unblock their team and give them the support they need to do their best work, while keeping everyone aligned to the same direction.

A direction which they may have kicked off, but which has evolved with the team.

The other thing the director should do? Make decisions. When things are deadlocking between departments, come in and make a call.

And then stick with it. I can't remember who said this (@biomarkdarrah?) but you can recover from a bad decision. You can't recover from no decision.

Imperator Furiåsa @devilkitten
It’s a shame that we rarely get to work with good directors. Or that there’s usually a mix of really good ones and really shitty ones on the same project and the shitty ones usually create more problems than the good ones offset.

(Yes I’m bitter but I feel I’ve earned that )

John Epler @eplerjc
You have.

State of BioWare
blog.bioware.com/2022/01/06/state-of-bioware/
by Author -BioWare - Posted on January 6, 2022

Hello,

It’s been just over a year since I took over as General Manager of BioWare. As we start the new year, I wanted to take the opportunity to look back on 2021, talk about where we are as a studio right now, and share some thoughts and plans for the future.

This has been another challenging year, with both work and home life continuing to be disrupted by the uncertainty of the global pandemic. We’ve had to continue to think on our feet to adapt to changing circumstances. But despite all that, it has been an absolute joy to lead a studio with so many unbelievably talented people, a team that always pushes the envelope through innovation and an unflagging pursuit of quality. Looking back, we had a couple of exciting moments when two people at the studio reached historic milestones: They both celebrated working with BioWare for 25 years! That blows my mind! The entire studio celebrated along with them, and it was amazing hearing what the studio, the people, and the journey have meant to them.

Even with the challenges of the pandemic, we saw some earlier success with the incredible reception to the launch of Mass Effect Legendary Edition in May. From the press to our fans, the feedback has been insanely positive. We’re so proud to have released one of the highest-rated games on console, and the reception really underscores the value of striving for excellence and quality in every element of a game.

This past year certainly hasn’t been without its challenges, though. Continuing to work under the pressure of a world pandemic has not been easy. We’ve had to adopt new tools, processes, and ways to communicate. We’re all balancing personal time and work, and each person is dealing with their own unique situation. The biggest challenge continues to be the uncertainty of it all, which makes everyone’s life more difficult and makes it hard to plan for the future.

But that’s had its upsides, too. We’ve come together as a studio to help each other out, even in our personal lives. We show up for each other and pull together as a team. One example is the February “Snowpocalypse” in Austin when the storm had literally taken down the city. It was encouraging and inspiring to hear how people were going above and beyond to ensure others were safe, including finding shelter or delivering food and water.

The pandemic has also taught us a lot about how we can work together, even while working across North America from hundreds of different locations. And now, we’ll use what we’ve learned and apply it to a new work model that will ensure flexibility for everyone in the studio. Our goal is to lean into the things that everyone likes about working from home, while also giving people the opportunity to return to the office with more flexibility. Going forward, we’ll have new challenges with a hybrid approach to work and are focused on new tech that will help maximize collaboration and communication between onsite and remote people. Another subtle but important change we’ve made is in our hiring practices: Previously, we were only looking for people willing to relocate to Austin and Edmonton; now we’re looking for new talent from anywhere in North America and we’ll meet them where they live.

So as challenging as things have been, we have a lot of really exciting things to look forward to — especially our upcoming releases! First off, I’m excited to launch Legacy of the Sith, the latest expansion for Star Wars®: The Old Republic™, on February 15. We’re on the doorstep of a new expansion that will see the players with more combat style choices, a new storyline that returns you to the underwater depths of Manaan and the ruined Sith fortress on the planet Elom, and so much more! It all starts in February, and we’ll have more updates throughout the year. We are extremely proud of having created a game that has been running successfully for ten years now.

And of course, we remain hard at work on the next iterations of Dragon Age and Mass Effect. I’m seeing some incredible work from both teams. If you’re curious about Mass Effect, I’d encourage you to take a look at the poster we released on N7 Day. If you look closely, there are a handful of hidden treats; by my count, there are at least five surprises, all of which point to an amazing future in the Mass Effect universe. As for Dragon Age, we have a veteran group of talented developers working on the next iteration of the franchise. We are focused on a single-player experience that is built on choices that matter.

When I took on the GM role, I talked about rebuilding our reputation, and that remains a huge priority. We are laser-focused on building back the trust of our fans and community, and we plan to do that by delivering the types of games that we are best known for and ensuring they are of the highest quality. Our mission is to “Create worlds of adventure, conflict, and companionship that inspire you to become the hero of your story.” We want the launch of our games to be seminal moments in the industry. We want each game to earn the kind of reaction we’ve seen with Mass Effect Legendary Edition. We feel that we have the right people, the right creative focus, and the support from EA to deliver on the promise.

One of my favorite quotes from 2021 comes from GameSpot’s Games of the Year roundup, and I think it illustrates that we’re moving in the right direction: “Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is a gargantuan reminder of just how good developer BioWare is when it’s firing on all cylinders.”

We can’t wait for you to see what we’ve been working on and look forward to sharing more in the future. Until then, thank you for being part of our story.

Wishing you all the best in the New Year,

Gary

Alex Calleros @ Alex_Calleros
I am SO excited to announce I will be joining the @dragonage team at @bioware next month (!!!) ... and reading this message from Studio GM Gary McKay made me even more proud to be a part of the studio's next chapter. Let's gooooo!

www.alexcalleros.com/

John Epler @eplerjc
Everything seems possible in gaming when you’re not working on them, and then you try to make one character hug another and quickly come to the conclusion that we should’ve stuck with text adventures.

Osama Dorias @osamadorias
Paired Animations FTW!

John Epler @eplerjc
Unless you have eight different heights and sizes across your four playable races, and then you learn the value of implying and camera cuts.

Osama Dorias @osamadorias
Oh I should have added /s

John Epler @eplerjc
I did animation systems design for a stint on Anthem and it nearly destroyed me.

Mark Darrah @biomarkdarrah
We are live?
If this do well, we may do more.

Let's talk about "BioWare magic"

Its a term I thought had stopped being used but SOMEONE used it on Anthem.
BioWare magic when used within the studio refers to a particularly bad bit of development that causes crunch.
It isn't good or cool. Its naming a crappy thing in order to make it seem better, or ok.
Much of this channel is dedicated to trying to improve process so that "BioWare Magic" or whatever other studios call it can disappear forever.

Chapters:
0:00 "BioWare Magic"
0:40 The Hockey Stick
1:41 Terrible
2:30 DO Something
3:06 Naming it Doesn't Make it Better
4:04 Its not JUST BioWare
5:16 Anthem
6:02 We can do BETTER

seb hanlon @hanlsp
It’s blood magic.

Your blood, and mine, and every comrade in arms who saw the sun going down on the project and lit pieces of themselves on fire so there’d be light enough to finish.

David Gaider @davidgaider
God, it hurts how much that's absolutely true.

seb hanlon @hanlsp
Painful truths and good coffee, that‘s my jam

Chef Andy Lunique @andylunique (Works with YouTube Creators and Streamers for the Epic Game Store.)
Who are the most trusted Dragon Age creators? Links and tags are appreciated.

Curtis @mobilesinper (Worldwide Strategic Partnership Manager for Logitech Gaming)
To all my friends out there who are fans of Dragon Age I'd speak up on this one. #dragonage

BioWare Gear Store @biowaregear
Dragon Age fans! Who would you like to see as a statue in the gear store? o_o