Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 24, 2023 11:12:16 GMT
I sometimes wonder if their writers wanted to unionize and the hammer came down to send a message.
But if they really mostly fired writers there's a few options:
1 - they hire new writers, probably for a lower salary and with fewer benefits in their contracts 2 - writing is outsourced to freelancers or temp contractors 3 - writing is less important in future projects 4 - a combination of 2 and 3
But either way, if most of the old writers are gone the old "BioWare style" of writing is gone with them.
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 24, 2023 8:14:08 GMT
Now specifics and context will vary from case to case and the long term effects of this case are probably not going to see the consequences of this particular decision for a long time to come. But the basics of the logic is still rather sound. Teams can still be too large and unwieldy. Too bloated. Too many indians and not enough chiefs as well as the vice versa. So large where effective decision making is made a lot more complicated and thus things get harder to do, harder to communicate these decisions through an entire team and then get feedback. Hell now that I'm thinking about it I think Mark made a video which at least touched on this subject. So a larger team can be just as much of a problem for these companies as having a small team, and corporate speak or no, a smaller team can be more responsive, reactive, and creative, as a larger one. It's true, we may not know the long term consequences for some time to come. Whether they will affect Dreadwolf or not will depend on how far along it is really. Not sure how many chiefs and how many indians were among the 50, but BioWare's biggest problems in the past seem to have been with the chiefs... but oddly enough, when money is tight it's often not management that gets the axe. But that's how it tends to go, sadly. Few things are more antisocial than a publicly traded company.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 24, 2023 7:22:18 GMT
This seems to be going in waves now. It's good for five minutes, then I try to post or even just to like a post, and it goes "argh - splutter - err bear" for a minute or two.
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 24, 2023 7:12:11 GMT
I'm sorry, I never mean to make anyone uncomfortable of course. I'll do my best to not reply with anything you might find unsettling in the future, but maybe it's just easier for you to put me on ignore. Forgive me, I've misinterpreted your post and I apologize. I got overly defensive. No worries at all. In the end we all want to play good games and I sincerely hope BioWare will make something you'll enjoy.
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 24, 2023 7:00:40 GMT
That's a very positive way of looking at it. So if your best friend turned into a zombie, would you say he's dead and gone or does he just treat you in a way you don't like now? You know, it's people like you that made me uncomfortable in being part of the Bioware fandom when I first joined. I like their current games and don't think it's dead is that so hard to comprehend? I'm sorry, I never mean to make anyone uncomfortable of course. I'll do my best to not reply with anything you might find unsettling in the future, but maybe it's just easier for you to put me on ignore.
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 24, 2023 6:48:44 GMT
Nahh, this pulls them even further away from the team who made my favourite games. It's slowly losing what brought me here in the first place. The new writing on Andromeda and Anthem was crap. If that's who's left then I have little hope going forward The "new" writing in Andromeda was good and games like DA2 bought me into Bioware games. Bioware not "gone" it's just that they're producing games you don't like. That's a very positive way of looking at it. So if your best friend turned into a zombie, would you say he's dead and gone or does he just treat you in a way you don't like now?
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 24, 2023 6:41:30 GMT
After the ridiculously corpo-speak-sugar-coated lay off news I'm getting vibes of a famous airship explosion.
Can't help but feel that this was it, last guy turns off the light. Anything other than another Anthem-tier dead on arrival disaster would surprise me at this point.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 24, 2023 5:32:35 GMT
They fired people like Mary Kirby, that's really all I need to know. BioWare's team wasn't that big to begin with, and losing 50 people who do actual work can only result in a loss of overall product quality. Have a look at the magic triangle and take your pick, I guess (cost / scope / time).
So, how's BioWare's management doing then? Everyone still having a cushy job and talking about work?
Argh.
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 24, 2023 5:22:28 GMT
Wow. Bloody hell. I've seen my share of outright ridiculous corpo speak but this one may just take the cake. How a smaller team is more creative and productive is just beyond me. I guess it takes a special kind of person to write that level of garbage with a straight face.
And it's sad that they fired Mary Kirby and who knows who else. So many years of great contributions and this is what she gets. But who knows, maybe their new design direction doesn't need as much writing.
"We are confident that we’ll have the time needed to ensure Dreadwolf reaches its full potential." Dude. Just say "delay". Two syllables. Ain't that hard.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 23, 2023 4:40:38 GMT
There must have been some big delay... or another scrap-and-reboot. I mean, when was the year they were "excited to tell us more"? Since then, BioWare is just playing dead except for that awful looking leak that hopefully wasn't true. No purple clunky action game please.
And the game "is in good hands". That sounds like a sentence you'd get at an ER after delivering your best friend bleeding from more holes than a golf course.
(Note that he didn't say "in a good state".)
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 19, 2023 8:34:25 GMT
Well, okay, something only DA-related... how about that Mark Darrah right? I think that's the last kind of news we had about the game? Nice fellow, cool he's back, not sure if he will have much impact on the content or game mechanics at this stage in development. Yeah, that's all I got. Yeah, about that... Am I the only one who's slightly worried because Darrah's company is named "Triage Games" and we all know what triage is and now he's on DA4? I mean, combined with BioWare's continued silence despite being "excited to tell us more" over a year ago?
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 18, 2023 21:13:28 GMT
I thought that DAI always stood out when it came to poor filler. There was a lot of it and it was painfully obvious that it was very low effort padding with either minimal voiced dialogue or even just letters and diaries to click without any real interaction - if they tried to crank the "quality vs quantity" dial any further towards "quantity" the handle would probably come off.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 18, 2023 9:15:37 GMT
I get the most noticeable slowdowns when hitting the "Post" button, occasionally resulting in double posts and/or Err bears. Using Chrome on Win 10.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 18, 2023 7:44:00 GMT
BioWare @biowareCaption this image! #DragonAge
"Eat a snickers."
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Gileadan
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 15, 2023 7:17:13 GMT
In fact, with most companions, you don't even have to do a quest! Well, not the companion's personal quest, anyway - consistently behave in a way they approve of and advance the main story a bit and they'll be leaping into your bedroll in no time at all. I don't think that BG3's romance system is a disaster by any means - I'm having fun with it so far - but most of the companions are very keen early in the game in a way that BioWare companions just aren't. Even Zevran took longer to hit on my protagonist than most of the BG3 characters.
This is not a worse system, necessarily, but it is funny to me that the devs claimed that you had to work for it. There are a couple of cases where that's true, but for the most part, everyone seems to react to the imminent threat of death by trying to go out with a bang.
DA2 Anders meme level or worse?
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 15, 2023 5:31:53 GMT
Well yes, by making it seem that doing a really good job is the exception and at least partly the result of good circumstance and therefore can't be expected to be the norm. I think most gamers are already very aware that in game development there are vast differences in dev team size and development time and all that and adjust their expectations accordingly. I don't think anyone needed to be told that you can't expect something the size and quality of BG3 from someone with half the team size and half the dev time. I mean, did any dev ever come out saying "You can't expect something as huge as AC Valhalla from us because we are way fewer devs and have way less time and resources and we aren't working on the Nth iteration of a big franchise here" and being worried that this amount of content would be the new standard and anything smaller than this would no longer be acceptable? No, because everyone already knows this. This was not about time or resources... this was about the quality of work that shouldn't be expected. Right. It shouldn't be expected. Celebrated and applauded? Yes. Which the devs who've chosen to comment on BG3 seem to be doing almost unanimously. But not expected. The only part of this post I actually disagree with is the underlined...because as we've heard from developers who actually make and ship games... the quality of the work can't be separated from the time/resources used to produce it. The final product is a result of its environment. I'll give you Valheim as an example. Small team (started with 2 people, 5 at the time of early access release, now certainly grown after its initial success), development began 2017, early access started in 2021. Amazing game, low price, got hundreds of hours out of it. Great user score on Steam. Isn't that quality? But I've taken enough of your time, so I'll thank you for the discussion.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 14, 2023 11:38:10 GMT
Larian did a lot of things right, and then kept doing things right. I'm not saying other devs are looking for an excuse to make bad games, but they are telling us in advance that they probably won't be as good as Larian. Er...yes. That is literally what the guy was doing. 'Don't expect this to be the new standard' - where 'standard' means 'you must reach this level in order to be acceptable'. Well yes, by making it seem that doing a really good job is the exception and at least partly the result of good circumstance and therefore can't be expected to be the norm. I think most gamers are already very aware that in game development there are vast differences in dev team size and development time and all that and adjust their expectations accordingly. I don't think anyone needed to be told that you can't expect something the size and quality of BG3 from someone with half the team size and half the dev time. I mean, did any dev ever come out saying "You can't expect something as huge as AC Valhalla from us because we are way fewer devs and have way less time and resources and we aren't working on the Nth iteration of a big franchise here" and being worried that this amount of content would be the new standard and anything smaller than this would no longer be acceptable? No, because everyone already knows this. This was not about time or resources... this was about the quality of work that shouldn't be expected.
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 14, 2023 8:37:15 GMT
That's exactly what I mean. And how were BG3's development circumstances unusual? Larian is a company that got better at what they do by improving with every iteration, something that many successful companies do, not just game developers. In fact, game developers get away with far more nonsense than others because if they mess up all that happens is a bad game. Imagine cars or bridges being constructed with the same (sometimes wildly) varying quality. Ok, so if you are talking about that guy, then you know he pointed out the number of ways in which BG3s development wasn’t typical. There were quite a few of them. And scared? No. Unless other developers have come forward and said “yeah, we’re terrified over here. How can we live up to that?” (Which is possible. Like I say, I don’t follow gaming news anywhere other than here) …then none of them appear scared. Josh Sawyer, who agreed with the guy, is (or was) streaming his BG3 run. Doesn’t sound like they’re running for the hills at Obsidian. It was YouTubers and their viewers who decided that it was all some nefarious deep state plot to let them make bad games. Which is ridiculous. I don’t have to imagine (with the cars, anyway). Because Tesla is a thing. Okay, I suppose the non-typical aspects of BG3 are those (picked from a "Game World" article quoting the tweets): - Long development cycle that started back in 2017; - Two previous games, Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin II, “worth of tech and institutional knowledge to draw from”; - Successful Early Access period lasting three years that provided Larian with community feedback, bug hunting, and cash flow; - Huge team of over 400 developers across seven offices; - The license for one of the largest entertainment IPs (Dungeons & Dragons). I'll admit that having a popular licence always helps and I hope not all future RPGs will use the D&D rule set or will be set in the Forgotten Realms. Long development means very little. For example, on their recent titles BioWare frequently squandered their long development times and then crunched out their products in about 18 months, on average. Anthem was "in development" for 7 years. And the result was...? Long development is good if the company actually continuously works productively during that time, and that has something to do with their skills and quality of work and is not some fortunate circumstance. Two previous games worth of tech to draw from. Yeah. You get better with experience and by iterating on your previous good work. Which is also not circumstance, it is a job done well building on the results of previous jobs done well. Successful early access period. That is a decision a developer/publisher must make for themselves. If you have something good and are confident in your work you can show it off early. Works for big games like BG3, works for very small games like Valheim. Or you don't, but then don't complain that others did. Huge team of over 400 devs. That is a lot, but given how much game dev work is outsourced these days I struggle to find a meaning for this number. TW3 was supposedly made by a team of 200. But I don't suspect that anyone with a healthy head on their shoulders will expect 50 people deliver a similar product as 400 people did. And why do Larian have 400 devs? Their previous games being good is probably at least part of the reason. Larian did a lot of things right, and then kept doing things right. I'm not saying other devs are looking for an excuse to make bad games, but they are telling us in advance that they probably won't be as good as Larian.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 14, 2023 7:53:33 GMT
I'm pretty sure the problem that other devs seem to have with BG3 is not that it will make RPG fans demand a return to turn based combat or make action based RPGs go out of style. It's the quality and production value received for the price that is being asked that is scaring the living daylights out of the competition. They have seen what Larian is capable of and now they are worried to be held to the same standard - that people will expect the same quality of results (not the same style of results, i.e. everything playing like BG3 in the future) from them too. And they came out with this before publishing anything that would be compared to BG3, and you know that anyone who starts to explain things before you even asked is feeling guilty already. “scaring the living daylights”…? Has there been some significant game dev discussion about BG3 that I’m not aware of? Genuine question, I tend to really only get gaming news from here or if it pops up on my YouTube recommendations. I assume you’re not referring to the one dev who wanted to “gently and preemptively push back on unreasonable expectations”, or the large number of actual game developers who agreed with him (including at least one big name) that the circumstances under which a game is developed can’t be separated from the final product. And that the circumstances of BG3s development were seriously unusual. That's exactly what I mean. And how were BG3's development circumstances unusual? Larian is a company that got better at what they do by improving with every iteration, something that many successful companies do, not just game developers. In fact, game developers get away with far more nonsense than others because if they mess up all that happens is a bad game. Imagine cars or bridges being constructed with the same (sometimes wildly) varying quality.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 14, 2023 5:39:49 GMT
I'm pretty sure the problem that other devs seem to have with BG3 is not that it will make RPG fans demand a return to turn based combat or make action based RPGs go out of style. It's the quality and production value received for the price that is being asked that is scaring the living daylights out of the competition. They have seen what Larian is capable of and now they are worried to be held to the same standard - that people will expect the same quality of results (not the same style of results, i.e. everything playing like BG3 in the future) from them too.
And they came out with this before publishing anything that would be compared to BG3, and you know that anyone who starts to explain things before you even asked is feeling guilty already.
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Gileadan
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Agent 46
Clearance Level Ultra
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: ALoneGretchin
Posts: 2,844 Likes: 7,117
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Agent 46
177
0
7,117
Gileadan
Clearance Level Ultra
2,844
August 2016
gileadan
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
ALoneGretchin
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 14, 2023 5:39:49 GMT
I'm pretty sure the problem that other devs seem to have with BG3 is not that it will make RPG fans demand a return to turn based combat or make action based RPGs go out of style. It's the quality and production value received for the price that is being asked that is scaring the living daylights out of the competition. They have seen what Larian is capable of and now they are worried to be held to the same standard - that people will expect the same quality of results (not the same style of results, i.e. everything playing like BG3 in the future) from them too.
And they came out with this before publishing anything that would be compared to BG3, and you know that anyone who starts to explain things before you even asked is feeling guilty already.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
Clearance Level Ultra
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: ALoneGretchin
Posts: 2,844 Likes: 7,117
inherit
Agent 46
177
0
7,117
Gileadan
Clearance Level Ultra
2,844
August 2016
gileadan
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
ALoneGretchin
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 12, 2023 8:51:16 GMT
Well, that DAI's mounts moved at the same speed as your character on foot but tried to disguise this with a contrail like graphical effect is a fact. Really? I remember crossing the Hissing Wastes at a gallop compared with crossing it at a run with my party and the former definitely seemed quicker to me. It is why I found it so frustrating that on reaching my destination and dismounting I frequently heard the tail end of a conversation. In other words it would seem the team had been chatting with one another in the background but I had missed it through being mounted. However, crossing at a run seemed to have a similar effect, so I was forced to trudge along at walking pace waiting for the conversation to trigger. Then, wouldn't you know it, we were attacked by some random critter and I would have to make the choice of listening to the rest of the conversation or engaging with the threat. Still, since you say it is a fact there was no difference between walking, running and riding, I must assume you are basing this on actual information. I suppose this is borne out by the fact that it took long enough riding for the conversation to trigger. Incidentally, another thing that I hope they fix in DA:D is the tendency for random harmless critters to walk into the line of fire during a battle. Not only was this illogical since harmless creatures should have fled the moment we entered an area, much less started to fling fire balls, but if they were merely slightly injured instead of killed, we were still required to hunt and kill them or the battle wouldn't be considered over. Either have the creatures programmed to avoid conflict areas altogether or have them ignored when it comes to determining whether or not the battle has ended. Actually, my mistake, the trickery that happened was slightly different. Riding a horse was slightly faster than being on foot, however using sprint on horseback was the same speed as horse's normal movement speed, it just added some graphical effects to make it look faster. Frostbite engine couldn't stream textures quickly enough, so according to John Epler they spent three days with "try to make horse sprint feel faster".
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
Clearance Level Ultra
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: ALoneGretchin
Posts: 2,844 Likes: 7,117
inherit
Agent 46
177
0
7,117
Gileadan
Clearance Level Ultra
2,844
August 2016
gileadan
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
ALoneGretchin
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 12, 2023 7:52:03 GMT
And to this point BioWare has resisted that temptation. Inquisition is the ur example of this considering it obviously took world design cues from Skyrim but it was still obviously a Dragon Age game. COnsidering that Skyrim didn't have voiced protagonists, the dialogue wheel, real cinematics, no real companions, paper thin story line, no companion quests...and then you can have additional things that Inquisition did like their crafting system felt very different from Skyrim's. Oddly enough despite all these limitations I felt that Skyrim's Dawnguard questline around the vampire lady Serana was at least as good a companion quest as most of BioWare's offerings (including DAI). She actually shows some genuine interest in the protagonist and asks about his/her previous life, down to how their relationship with their parents was, and it ends with a dramatic confrontation and a few hints of "could have been romance if she wasn't a vampire". It was really well done. I know that tastes and preferences differ, but for me it worked really well.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
Clearance Level Ultra
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: ALoneGretchin
Posts: 2,844 Likes: 7,117
inherit
Agent 46
177
0
7,117
Gileadan
Clearance Level Ultra
2,844
August 2016
gileadan
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
ALoneGretchin
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 12, 2023 7:32:32 GMT
To me it looks like BG3 gave quite a few devs impostor syndrome. Trend chasing is bound to fail if the chaser doesn't understand why that trend is considered good. Just look at DAI - chasing the open world trend is all fine and dandy, but if there's nothing interesting to discover in that world you might as well not bother. You can put horses (and other mounts) into your game, but you can trick players with contrails for only so long until they notice that your travel speed hasn't changed at all. Kinda weird to use Inquisition as a negative given it’s still the greatest game ever made. Well, that DAI's mounts moved at the same speed as your character on foot but tried to disguise this with a contrail like graphical effect is a fact. And mounts were implemented because someone higher up the totem pole said so - remember how they stated before release that they were "checking out Skyrim aggressively"? EDIT: no, I got this wrong. It was the horse's sprint speed that did not differ from its normal speed and was made to look faster with graphical effects. Sorry. And I felt there were very few interesting things to discover in the open world - the occasional tiny three room "dungeon" and such stuff. Not worth it.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
Clearance Level Ultra
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: ALoneGretchin
Posts: 2,844 Likes: 7,117
inherit
Agent 46
177
0
7,117
Gileadan
Clearance Level Ultra
2,844
August 2016
gileadan
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
ALoneGretchin
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Post by Gileadan on Aug 11, 2023 8:04:47 GMT
To me it looks like BG3 gave quite a few devs impostor syndrome.
Trend chasing is bound to fail if the chaser doesn't understand why that trend is considered good. Just look at DAI - chasing the open world trend is all fine and dandy, but if there's nothing interesting to discover in that world you might as well not bother. You can put horses (and other mounts) into your game, but you can trick players with contrails for only so long until they notice that your travel speed hasn't changed at all.
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