Dragon Age News Thread

Matthew Goldman @sergoldman
An example of why it's important to read the fine print.



Matthew Goldman @sergoldman
My little one would LOVE those.

Electronic Arts @ea
EA Play Live is only a month away! Watch our pre-show July 22nd starting at 10AM PT/1PM ET, followed by the main showcase. See you then


EA Play Live time announcement

Don't know what they means by "test", but when you search DA4 on the ps store nothing pops up. Maybe what it means, is that it'll pre-orderable soon?

No discussion of tweets or news articles in the Twitter thread, please and thank you. Take that to the Schmooples thread.

Bioware Gear Store @biowaregear
An upturned sword. A purifying flame. A holy purpose. Carry the Blade of Mercy anywhere you go with your @dragonage Knight Vigilant Tee.

gear.bioware.com/products/dragon-age-knight-vigilant-tee

Got it.

Blair Thorburn @oiblair
One of the best parts of the Friday workday is when the Artists drop all the new concepts, lighting passes, and character progress.

vid interview with mark darrah about a bunch of different stuff

To summarize the video:

- He said he had been crunch working, 50hrs non-stop, for twelve years; with even more time during Anthem/ME:A's production woes.

- He mentioned that crunch can lead to a studio-wide philosophy of wanting to just ship a game.

- He mentioned that he doesn't believe BioWare is the type of studio that generates blockbuster sales numbers (akin to CoD or Battlefield); though he wishes it were the case. He also laments the fact that EA did away with Dead Space, simply because it couldn't move more sales numbers.

- He talked about design iteration, and how having a chain process for approving certain features can be problematic (ex. Dev makes system A. Team lead makes X change to system A. Said lead then sends this modified system up to their leader, who injects their own changes, and the process repeats). He feels it may be best to simply go with a designed feature, then review its efficacy once most of the base game has been completed.

- He left BioWare for a number of reasons, including Crunch, his extended time in the industry, and wanting to get back to small development teams; to list his own reasons. In addition, it was purely coincidental that him and Casey Hudson left at the same time, and both of them had NO plans to start a studio together.

- He's in the process of conceptualizing a new game, but he doesn't expect it to be something akin to Baldurs Gate or Path of Exile. He said he played the latter, and while he recognized it's a great title, he doesn't feel it suits what he wants to develop. Currently, he's working out the logistics of his own project, as well as getting familiarized with the indie-market.

- Mark was surprised at how successful ME:LE turned out to be, and initially thought the games revamp (specifically ME1) had missed it's opportunity window (he said last gen).

- Didn't like how the ME3 ending wound up, but felt the studio shouldn't have compromised on fixing the ending. He also thinks that internet culture may have led to such a high degree of outrage.

- In discussing the cancelled Jade Empire 2 game, he mentioned that it had a lot of internal development strife. The game was going to be built in Unreal, but there was no one in the studio who had been trained to use it, and the leads didn't want to provide it. Other iterations of the game were being considered, such as a version that was set in a more modern San Francisco-style city. The city would have been built under a mindset of suppressing the Age of Magic. Mark said it was meant to have echoes of Jade Empire. Ultimately, they gave up on the project in favor of ME1. Mark thinks if the studio hired more people, Jade Empire 2 might have survived.

- ME1 was being built before Unreal 3. It was also the first game that was being built in a game engine BioWare was unfamiliar with (i.e. One they didnt' build).

- Mass Effect: Corsair was a Nintendo DS game that was going to be you piloting a ship in a portion of the galaxy that was more lawless (possibly Batarian space). You would act as your own privateer, picking up cargo, exploring, collecting information, engaging in combat, and earning money for your exploits. They only had the flight controls put together before it was ultimately scrapped. The main issue with the games development was the economics of launching the game on the Nintendo DS, and the lack of revenue that would of been made (ex. Mark specifically cites the cartridge cost leading to less ROI). On a side note, EA thought the game would only sell 50k units, but Mark thought it was a bullshit estimate; my words - not his. There were also potential lore issues with regards to FTL in such a region of space.

- Mark said him working on Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood was one of his proudest works. Two lessons he learned from the project was (1) he said he enjoyed working with the small team of 20, and (2) it's important to learn how market a game; ie it's not a BioWare game.

- Continuing from the discussion of marketing a BioWare game, Mark also said he thinks he overstated how different Anthem would be from BioWares previous works. He thinks if he had softened his rhetoric a bit, then maybe more die-hard, BioWare Storytelling type of players might have tried it. (He still recognizes that Anthem wasn't their best product though).

- Mark believes that what makes a "BioWare Game" has evolved through time (citing games like Baldurs Gate to MDK, from KOTOR to Mass Effect), so trying to convey what IS and ISNT a "BioWare Game" is tricky.

- Anthem was a stressful project for him, and he felt his final years at BioWare was him mostly helping to land troubled products. He did enjoy working with some of the staff he had not met, as well as seeing their expertise. He wishes he could have had Anthem launch as a beta, then have the game see its true release a year later. That being said, he also recognizes that the logistics and sales potential might have been hard for EA to stomach; if such an approach were taken.

- Mark doesn't think a games release date is immovable (barring sports games -maybe). However, it can be incredibly expensive to do so. With respect to Anthem, he doesn't regret NOT shifting the release date, as he believed the dev team was already at their limit with the game.

- Anthem only had one balance pass that was conducted during Christmas time - just before it released. This QA balance pass session was 20hrs.

- When asked about how he felt when he saw what happened to Cyberpunk 2077, he said he sympathizes with the dev team. He also cited that the game not being delayed was likely due to the same reason why he didn't want to delay Anthem (i.e. Team was too exhausted to go further).

- He thinks post-production becoming less common in the industry is problematic, and should see a return; believing it helps with quality control.

- He hopes his channel saves other producers from having to deal with crunch. He's considering doing a video about E3, and based on his comments, it's not going to be very flattering.

No prob. I also updated my original post (having watched the whole thing now), so if you're still interested in the other tidbits you can see what else he mentioned.

Nothing will be shown at EA Play, folks

Ellana, could you put spoilers over your images? It’s not that they’re spoiling anything, but it takes longer for the page to load.

Here’s the related IGN article:

www.ign.com/articles/no-mass-effect-dragon-age-4-ea-play-2021