That's ridiculous for any game. Technology changes dramatically over that time span, they're just shooting themselves in the foot. There's got to be a better way of doing things.
I've gathered that a chunk of that time for DAO was the world building, with no actual game development (I'm assuming aside from concept art, story boarding and the like) that has to do with the technology side of things. Heh, similar to what is likely going on now with DA4 as the bulk of the team is working on Anthem. David Gaider also wrote two pre-DAO books in that time span, the events of which are canon and incorporated into the story.
Last Edit: Dec 20, 2017 22:29:38 GMT by Nightscrawl
Mountains. Cold. "Let's bring Dorian!" It's good to be Champion!
That's ridiculous for any game. Technology changes dramatically over that time span, they're just shooting themselves in the foot. There's got to be a better way of doing things.
I'm not sure I agree. Yes, technology is moving forward... but so does the ways and technology with which people develop games. AFAIK, game engines alone are different compared to what they were before and a lot more flexible. So it's more a matter of asking whether they just stick to stuff they've been planning all those 6 years ago, or are they upgrading everything - or trying something new. I suppose we can only wait and see.
Either way, whether they were stuck with old tech or not, both DA and ME are now popular, well-liked franchises... so it did pay off in the end.
I'm not sure why folks are arguing with me, it's obvious that producing games more quickly would be a better thing. It would cost the devs less money and the consumers would get their fix more quickly. I'm not picking on Bioware when I say this, I'm commenting on the industry. No wonder they're looking for long-term multiplayer revenue streams... a trend a lot of us do not like.
That's ridiculous for any game. Technology changes dramatically over that time span, they're just shooting themselves in the foot. There's got to be a better way of doing things.
I've gathered that a chunk of that time for DAO was the world building, with no actual game development (I'm assuming aside from concept art, story boarding and the like) that has to do with the technology side of things. Heh, similar to what is likely going on now with DA4 as the bulk of the team is working on Anthem. David Gaider also wrote two pre-DAO books in that time span, the events of which are canon and incorporated into the story.
It's also important to point out for atleast two years of the development, the main team was mostly working on Dragon Age Inquisition, so it was probably mostly the pre-development part like with DAO. They couldn't really have been in full development until after 2014 when DAI came out as they did apparently have quite a bit of trouble with DAI ao it was likely all hands on deck at that point.
I'm not sure I agree. Yes, technology is moving forward... but so does the ways and technology with which people develop games. AFAIK, game engines alone are different compared to what they were before and a lot more flexible. So it's more a matter of asking whether they just stick to stuff they've been planning all those 6 years ago, or are they upgrading everything - or trying something new. I suppose we can only wait and see.
Either way, whether they were stuck with old tech or not, both DA and ME are now popular, well-liked franchises... so it did pay off in the end.
I'm not sure why folks are arguing with me, it's obvious that producing games more quickly would be a better thing. It would cost the devs less money and the consumers would get their fix more quickly. I'm not picking on Bioware when I say this, I'm commenting on the industry. No wonder they're looking for long-term multiplayer revenue streams... a trend a lot of us do not like.
Again, I don't think I agree. Some games simply can't be produced quickly, which seems to be especially true of large RPGs. Dragon Age 2 was produced fast and for less money and it wasn't really a successful strategy - and that was a game that was produced in a world and franchise already established by DAO.
βThe cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.β
I'm not sure why folks are arguing with me, it's obvious that producing games more quickly would be a better thing. It would cost the devs less money and the consumers would get their fix more quickly. I'm not picking on Bioware when I say this, I'm commenting on the industry. No wonder they're looking for long-term multiplayer revenue streams... a trend a lot of us do not like.
Again, I don't think I agree. Some games simply can't be produced quickly, which seems to be especially true of large RPGs. Dragon Age 2 was produced fast and for less money and it wasn't really a successful strategy - and that was a game that was produced in a world and franchise already established by DAO.
Uh, I consider the statement "some games simply can't be produced quickly" akin to "we'll never get a man on the moon". We should always be striving to do better. That's my whole point.
DAI: GoTY Edition: 70% off DAI DLC Bundle: 50% off MEA (All Editions): 50% off
Man, I wish Origin would let a person buy games as gifts for someone else (like Steam does) because I would be ALL OVER buying DAI for my sister and a friend.
Man, I wish Origin would let a person buy games as gifts for someone else (like Steam does) because I would be ALL OVER buying DAI for my sister and a friend.
Hmmmmm... there is? I'm looking at "Purchase as a gift" under DA2 right at this very moment.
Last Edit: Dec 21, 2017 4:47:49 GMT by midnight tea
βThe cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.β
Man, I wish Origin would let a person buy games as gifts for someone else (like Steam does) because I would be ALL OVER buying DAI for my sister and a friend.
Hmmmmm... there is? I'm looking at "Purchase as a gift" under DA2 right at this very moment.
Not for me! The only option I seem to have is to buy it for myself. Origin even politely tells me that I already have it in my library. Well, duh.
Last Edit: Dec 21, 2017 4:52:00 GMT by ladyiolanthe
so what they've been doing is laying groundwork and waiting for Anthem to take off and get stable before EA shifts some more people back. The game can only benefit from that to my mind but that's only if that's what's actually happening.
I was reading Blood, Sweat, and Pixels and having the time to write stuff out 12 times apparently really really helped TW3
Vegan, polyamorous, pre-med. Zevran, Fenris, Cullen, and Thane.
So, am I the only one that's interested in Anthem?
No. But there likely is not a lot of crossover in the DA fandom. There might be more people in the ME fandom that are interested since it's a futuristic shooter. But for DA? Many of us want a strong singleplayer experience, with a good story, a character we create and customize, and roleplay elements. As far as we know, that is not Anthem, nor anywhere near what Anthem is promising to be.
For many DA fans, it's just a thing that's standing in the way of DA4 development; even worse, if it fails, it could mean bad things for Bioware, the future of the company, and DA as a franchise. ME is on indefinite hiatus and many regard it as dead. We'd rather not see the same fate for DA as a result of a totally unrelated game developed by the same studio. And whether accurate or not, some ME fans also place blame on Anthem for taking resources away from MEA development. There is a lot of bitterness from the ME and DA fandoms toward Anthem.
(I obviously don't speak for all DA fans, only myself and those I know who have made similar comments.)
I agree with this except that I like both MET and Dragon Age.
Not really. DAO as a new IP was in development for six years. Seems like it will be similar for Anthem if it's released next year.
That's ridiculous for any game software product. Technology changes dramatically over that time span, they're just shooting themselves in the foot. There's got to be a better way of doing things.
Fixed it for you.
While I agree, it's important to remember they weren't writing code for all those years, or at least, not just writing code. A lot of that time included conceptual work, storyboarding, prototyping and demos, story outlines, character studies, etc., etc.
On the other hand, it's unclear to me how much of the Concept phase depends on engine technology and vice versa. If most of the Concept is independent of tech, it wouldn't matter. But if, for example, jetpacks ala MEA were an early Concept pillar and the tech couldn't yet support it, that could mean a lot of schedule risk if the tech changes underneath everything.
Once coding starts in earnest, it's a pretty big risk that a disruptive tech change could happen early in that coding phase. Like new consoles becoming available to developers about 3 months into development, and they are not backwards compatible. Do you chuck the 3 months you've already sunk and start over, or continue to support the old platform and compromise the new one (like DAI ended up having to do, for pretty much the same bad timing reason) while simultaneously doubling your development cost, or do you ignore the new platform and stick with the old and have the risk of coming out with a game that doesn't run on the newest, shiny object?
Inquisitor: Is that innuendo? Sera: No, it's at the front!
Adding on to my previous comment, it would be interesting to get a "average number of people per pixel per screenshot" cost metric for games. People often forget that software is hand-crafted with skilled manual labor. Anyone who has done handcrafts, like woodwork or knitting, knows how long it takes to finish even a simple project. Every pixel you see on screen, whether on a leaf of a tree swaying in the virtual wind, or a spark chaotically floating up from a virtual fire, or a splatter of blood from an orc you just beheaded, many people had a hand in making that pixel.
I wouldn't be surprised if the number was more than 5 for a combat screenshot and more than 10 for a cutscene screenshot. And since this metric only includes visual data, it doesn't even account for writers, voice actors, composers, musicians, management, etc. So the metric would understate total labor hours, manual or otherwise.
This is the main reason games, and all big software projects, take so long. Manual labor takes time.
Last Edit: Dec 21, 2017 18:47:30 GMT by PapaCharlie9
Inquisitor: Is that innuendo? Sera: No, it's at the front!
This is the main reason games, and all big software projects, take so long. Manual labor takes time.
Hear hear! This man gets it.
" The armchair developers on the Internet are always wrong "
[ LegendCNCD / AsariLoverFI ] Waiting for DA4 & ME5 - Look's like sometime in 2186, everything went to hell. We got out just ahead of it! MEA & ME1 (>>>> 3 > 2) -- DAI > DAO > DA2 -- 3500h+ & maxed out all 02/2020 in MEAMP, APEX 137001+, DAIMP (576/761/201), ANTHEM, SW BF II - Drinking tears of MP lamers since DooM & Quake in 90's softknees.bandcamp.com/
That's ridiculous for any game software product. Technology changes dramatically over that time span, they're just shooting themselves in the foot. There's got to be a better way of doing things.
Fixed it for you.
lol, aww c'mon I think it was understood from the context of the conversation that I wasn't talking about board games. It's understood that when I say "gaming" in this conversation, it's about pc/console gaming.
While I agree, it's important to remember they weren't writing code for all those years, or at least, not just writing code. A lot of that time included conceptual work, storyboarding, prototyping and demos, story outlines, character studies, etc., etc.
On the other hand, it's unclear to me how much of the Concept phase depends on engine technology and vice versa. If most of the Concept is independent of tech, it wouldn't matter. But if, for example, jetpacks ala MEA were an early Concept pillar and the tech couldn't yet support it, that could mean a lot of schedule risk if the tech changes underneath everything.
Once coding starts in earnest, it's a pretty big risk that a disruptive tech change could happen early in that coding phase. Like new consoles becoming available to developers about 3 months into development, and they are not backwards compatible. Do you chuck the 3 months you've already sunk and start over, or continue to support the old platform and compromise the new one (like DAI ended up having to do, for pretty much the same bad timing reason) while simultaneously doubling your development cost, or do you ignore the new platform and stick with the old and have the risk of coming out with a game that doesn't run on the newest, shiny object?
I do understand that the whole time isn't spent just coding, previously I've delved into into a couple of websites that explain how games are made, like this one: www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Video-Game-from-Scratch
There should have been/needs to be more progress in the advancement of simplifying the user interface of programming and advancing the flexibility of gaming engines. There was already work towards this back in my Apple 2c days, I was using software to make games, without knowing how to program in Apple Basic. There needs to be a sort of "html" revolution in the gaming software/hardware business. HTML 5 is a highly flexible software structure for using the internet.
If more progress were made in this area, it could probably shave years off of making games like Dragon Age Inquisition. For example, writers already talk about their frustration when they find out that what they write can't be produced in current game engines and production methods... if game engines were more advanced, simplified and unified then a lot of that frustration would go away.
Six years is too long. Recently game developers were yelling at Sony because they wanted to produce amped-up Playstation 4's every year (or two years) and developers production cycle couldn't keep up with something like that.
All I'm doing is pointing at an obvious problem and saying it needs to be fixed.
lol, aww c'mon I think it was understood from the context of the conversation that I wasn't talking about board games. It's understood that when I say "gaming" in this conversation, it's about pc/console gaming.
I think you misunderstood my correction. I was saying it's not just video games, it's all large software projects that take too long and that risk shooting themselves in the feet when disruptive tech changes happen. I generalized your point.
All I'm doing is pointing at an obvious problem and saying it needs to be fixed.
Except that it's not obvious. People don't appreciate just how much software is created from scratch, over and over again, even software that serves more or less the same purpose as a previous project. But the same thing can be said of other handcrafts. Just because you knitted one scarf doesn't somehow make a second scarf of the same size and design take less time.
Take level design in a game. That shit probably takes forever to make, and what's worse, close to zero percent of it is reusable in the next game, because too many things the level depends on -- scripting, graphics, AI, loading, etc. -- change from game to game.
Yes, it's crazy the way these things are made and there has to be a faster way. But two things stand in the way: 1) this shit is HARD, it's not like you can make an industrial robot that can take over for a level designer, and 2) even if you could, you'd be threatening the careers of a lot of people who invested a lot of time learning their crafts -- there would be resistance to change.
Inquisitor: Is that innuendo? Sera: No, it's at the front!
Post by thats1evildude on Dec 21, 2017 20:19:20 GMT
Weird. The Bioware Twitter account just did a "12 Days of Christmas" thing with Dragon Age characters, then immediately deleted it.
There were 12 tweets accompanied by a picture. Let's see what I remember:
One Wooden Griffon (Blackwall) Two Smutty Books (Swords and Shields) Three Horns Up (Iron Bull - THE THIRD HORN IS HIS DICK) Four Crows A-Cawing or Ravens Raving? (Leliana) Five Romantic Roses (Alistair) Six Sultry Smiles (Dorian) Seven ?? Suitors (Josephine) Eight ?? (Cullen) Nine Nocturnal Visits (Solas) Ten-year-old Son (Morrigan) Eleven Jars of Bees (Sera) Twelve Failed Flirtations (Varric)
I don't remember what the pun was with Cullen, but it had to do with dogs.
I think you misunderstood my correction. I was saying it's not just video games, it's all large software projects that take too long and that risk shooting themselves in the feet when disruptive tech changes happen. I generalized your point.
Except that it's not obvious. People don't appreciate just how much software is created from scratch, over and over again, even software that serves more or less the same purpose as a previous project. But the same thing can be said of other handcrafts. Just because you knitted one scarf doesn't somehow make a second scarf of the same size and design take less time.
Take level design in a game. That shit probably takes forever to make, and what's worse, close to zero percent of it is reusable in the next game, because too many things the level depends on -- scripting, graphics, AI, loading, etc. -- change from game to game.
Yes, it's crazy the way these things are made and there has to be a faster way. But two things stand in the way: 1) this shit is HARD, it's not like you can make an industrial robot that can take over for a level designer, and 2) even if you could, you'd be threatening the careers of a lot of people who invested a lot of time learning their crafts -- there would be resistance to change.
I know what you're talking about regarding creating the same thing from scratch over and over again. I worked in older software and integrating it with newer software in redesigning our production pipeline. We took an old phone interview program like CATI and switched it from one older database to a newer more powerful one to integrate with our clients and produce deliverables more quickly. In essence the same thing was being done, just faster and more efficiently.
But level design could be faster if an architecture is designed to make it faster. I'm not talking about robots, I'm talking about more powerful and flexible gaming engines. Ready and pre-made designs and tools already existing in an environment, ready and raring to be tailored and assembled, is possible. I've seen it done on movie design teams, where the director actually walks around in virtual environments a year before everything is polished CGI.
Of course it's hard, but it's a problem that needs to be addressed. Hardware (barring some nuclear war or other extreme event) is just going to advance more and more quickly as our manufacturing methods advance. Software needs to be able to keep up.
Weird. The Bioware Twitter account just did a "12 Days of Christmas" thing with Dragon Age characters, then immediately deleted it.
There were 12 tweets accompanied by a picture. Let's see what I remember:
One Wooden Griffon (Blackwall) Two Smutty Books (Swords and Shields) Three Horns Up (Iron Bull - THE THIRD HORN IS HIS DICK) Four Crows A-Cawing or Ravens Raving? (Leliana) Five Romantic Roses (Alistair) Six Sultry Smiles (Dorian) Seven ???? Suitors (Josephine) Eight ????? (Cullen) Nine Nocturnal Visits (Solas) Ten-year-old Son (Morrigan) Eleven Jars of Bees (Sera) Twelve Failed Flirtations (Varric)
I don't remember what the pun was with Cullen, but it had to do with dogs.
They made new ones
BioWareβ @bioware On my first day in Thedas my true love gave to me A carved griffon for a baby
BioWareβ @bioware On my tenth day in Thedas my true love gave to me A ten-year old son π¦π»π¦π»π¦π»π¦π»π¦π»π¦π»π¦π»π¦π»π¦π»π¦π»
Conal Pierse @conalpierse The last step in any project is giving the file an acceptable name for consumption.
Hmmm
Well, it's obvious, isn't it? The new Dragon Age is all finished, and tomorrow they'll have it all wrapped up and ready to be shipped on the 24th. It's a Christmas miracle! And it's the perfect gift for us fans who are in no way losing our minds without any new clues about the game.
It's the only explanation I can think of for that tweet, and the only one I'll accept xD
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition PSN: InquisitorBunny Prime Posts: 430 Prime Likes: 1114 Posts: 2,654 Likes: 10,098
Conal Pierse @conalpierse The last step in any project is giving the file an acceptable name for consumption.
Hmmm
Well, it's obvious, isn't it? The new Dragon Age is all finished, and tomorrow they'll have it all wrapped up and ready to be shipped on the 24th. It's a Christmas miracle! And it's the perfect gift for us fans who are in no way losing our minds without any new clues about the game.
It's the only explanation I can think of for that tweet, and the only one I'll accept xD
Great, even though I realize the probability of this happening is 0,00000000000000001% I will now still be disappointed when I won't find DA4 under my Christmas tree.
Sad bunny is sad.
"He is the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on... He has got huge, sharp -- eh -- he can leap about -- look at the bones!"