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Massive BioWare Interview at Game Informer

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
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magazine said:
Twenty years ago, Dungeons & Dragons was considered by many to be a Satanic game played by mentally imbalanced adolescents, and role-playing games were a fringe genre in video games.
Video game "journalism".
 

Zanzoken

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
Dragon Age:
- Took a long time to develop due to building an engine alongside broad ambition.

Dragon Age II:
- Start to finish development took about 14 months.

Here is something that makes no sense to me.

You spend five years carefully developing an engine, tools, game systems, worldbuilding, etc. You put all of that together to make DA:O which is a decent game that sold quite well. Not long after someone at corporate decides they need a slam dunk sequel, and they need it now.

So what do you do? Take your existing framework and build on it, right? Use your painfully limited development time to recycle as much previous work as you can, generate new content where you must, and polish it into something that feels fresh but also familiar to your existing fanbase?

Nope. You scrap all the work that was done before and start from scratch. And the result is a game that is poorly written, mechanically uninteresting, ugly, uninspired, and feels just as rushed as it actually is.
 

Azarkon

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
2,989
Not bothered with the answers they gave to the questions that were asked.

More bothered with the answers they didn't give to the questions that weren't asked.

Not talking about Bioware's hard turn to identity politics does not make it go away.
 

Fairfax

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2015
Messages
3,518
Dragon Age:
- Took a long time to develop due to building an engine alongside broad ambition.

Dragon Age II:
- Start to finish development took about 14 months.

Here is something that makes no sense to me.

You spend five years carefully developing an engine, tools, game systems, worldbuilding, etc. You put all of that together to make DA:O which is a decent game that sold quite well. Not long after someone at corporate decides they need a slam dunk sequel, and they need it now.

So what do you do? Take your existing framework and build on it, right? Use your painfully limited development time to recycle as much previous work as you can, generate new content where you must, and polish it into something that feels fresh but also familiar to your existing fanbase?

Nope. You scrap all the work that was done before and start from scratch. And the result is a game that is poorly written, mechanically uninteresting, ugly, uninspired, and feels just as rushed as it actually is.
It started off as an expansion in pre-production, but then EA demanded a full sequel to be released in 14 months. I believe the most likely explanation is that EA's management and/or main stockholders were pissed that BioWare projects were taking too long and being delayed multiple times. DA:O with several delays, ME2 missing the holiday season by a month, TOR taking 5 years and costing $200 million, etc.
DA:O was well received and sold very well, and EA already had a stacked 2011, so there was no need for EA to do this. I imagine that's how the docs pushed back and got their leeway back after DA2.

BioWare's approach to DA2 was still stupid, though. All they had to do was make more of the same, but with a different story and region. The worst criticism would've been "glorified expansion" or whatever. While gaming media hacks still praised the game to the point it had 82 or 83 metascore, the employees definitely missed considerable bonus payments. At the time EA was known for giving different bonuses depending on the metascore, not just a target like ZeniMax with FNV: 85, 90 and 95 IIRC.
 

santino27

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Not bothered with the answers they gave to the questions that were asked.

More bothered with the answers they didn't give to the questions that weren't asked.

Not talking about Bioware's hard turn to identity politics does not make it go away.

Media and 'journalism' these days are increasingly fields that are dominated by the extremely liberal... I think expecting them to touch on or question that issue (when they likely think every company should follow bioware's lead) is overly optimistic.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"IWD2: 10 months.
New Vegas: 18 months or so.
Don't think schedule had owt to do wi DA2 bein a fuckin abortion."

DA2 is vastly superior to IWD2.

NV is awesome but I won't diss it but considering it is basically a reskin of FO4 just with better writing, characters, etc., etc. not too surprising.

DA2's biggest weakness are the stypid reused areas. I really think the gamne would be well loved if it wasn't for that nonsense. That seesm to be the #1 complaint BY FAR for it. And, with good reason. It was awful. Otherwise, it is just as good as DA1.
 

DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
5,958
DA2 is vastly superior to IWD2.

Huh? The puzzle elements weren't that great but at least the IWD2 team put a bit of work into changing the look of the levels they reused from IWD, unlike in DA2. The combat is miles better in IWD2 than DA2 and they did a good job realising the 3rd ED rule set in the Infinity Engine. The story is ho hum but the DA2 story was nothing special either.

DA2's biggest weakness are the stypid reused areas. I really think the gamne would be well loved if it wasn't for that nonsense. That seesm to be the #1 complaint BY FAR for it. And, with good reason. It was awful. Otherwise, it is just as good as DA1.

No - the combat was worse than DA (and IWD2), particularly with the teleporting/parachuting enemies dropping in everywhere which basically rendered formations irrelevant.

Magical Princess Volo still smoking on the Bio-crack pipe after all these years (despite any traces of crack being long-gone)...:roll: & :salute:

Oh and the LOTOR movies were much better than the awful books (Hobbit films were worse than the book though). The books had a great story buried in some seriously turgid prose (and dire poetry) which the movies managed to distill down to something watchable. Christopher Tolkien should stop moaning about his father's literary legacy being destroyed given that daddy sold the rights away himself eons ago and seemingly without regret.
 

Max Deltree

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Messages
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I don't know if I'm reading it right, but it seems like a Jade Empire sequel that almost happened was set in the modern world with no ties to the first one. Maybe like in the Final Fantasy series.

That's interesting. Thought I really liked the world in JE.
 

abnaxus

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Fiernes
Augustine Yip, a medical doctor, founded BioWare with Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk in February, 1995. In early 1997, he left to return to medicine.
He's the Lepidus of BioWare's triumvirate.
 

Azarkon

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
2,989
More like the typical Asian immigrant kid who got told by his parents that he's wasting his life in a basement when he could be making a stable income as a doctor. Too bad for him it was the wrong advice.
 

santino27

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Twenty years ago, Dungeons & Dragons was considered by many to be a Satanic game played by mentally imbalanced adolescents

This is 100% accurate

I remember it being late 80s rather than mid-90s (which would put it almost 30 years ago), but maybe I'm misremembering.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
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Messages
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"Huh? The puzzle elements weren't that great but at least the IWD2 team put a bit of work into changing the look of the levels they reused from IWD, unlike in DA2. The combat is miles better in IWD2 than DA2 and they did a good job realising the 3rd ED rule set in the Infinity Engine. The story is ho hum but the DA2 story was nothing special either."

No.
 

oldmanpaco

Master of Siestas
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Winter
Twenty years ago, Dungeons & Dragons was considered by many to be a Satanic game played by mentally imbalanced adolescents

This is 100% accurate

I remember it being late 80s rather than mid-90s (which would put it almost 30 years ago), but maybe I'm misremembering.

Basically after the steam tunnel incident. So 79- throughout the 90's

MazesMonstersVHSCover.jpg


Never forget the fear was real.
 

Neanderthal

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Granbretan
Twenty years ago, Dungeons & Dragons was considered by many to be a Satanic game played by mentally imbalanced adolescents

This is 100% accurate

I remember it being late 80s rather than mid-90s (which would put it almost 30 years ago), but maybe I'm misremembering.

No you're right as I remember, most o fear mongerin an that were an 80s thing, think they moved on to video nasties after they'd got all they could outta D&D, an some hair metal controversies flared up an all I think mid 80s. Makes you wonder what'll be next scare stories they'll pursue after Sarkeesian an game journos ave milked computer games, you reckon it'll be VR?

Its all just a little bit o history repeatin.
 

pippin

Guest
Fear mongering happened around the time Ultima 4 was released, LB took a more spiritual approach considering the happenings of the time.
Which is ironic since in 8 you summon Satan.
 

Freddie

Savant
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Messages
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Mansion
magazine said:
Twenty years ago, Dungeons & Dragons was considered by many to be a Satanic game played by mentally imbalanced adolescents, and role-playing games were a fringe genre in video games.
And look what happened to them... If their SJW fanbase element doesn't present some sort of abomination, then what does?

It all fun and games rolling the dices while having your adventures and then making it to cRPG world, 'till someone gets satan SJW in the eye.
 

Zanzoken

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
BioWare's approach to DA2 was still stupid, though. All they had to do was make more of the same, but with a different story and region. The worst criticism would've been "glorified expansion" or whatever.

Exactly.

I feel like something in Tevinter might have actually felt like a proper sequel. The magister lords trying to conquer and restore the Imperium to its glory days would've been easy enough, and exploring their hyper-Darwinist society could have been interesting.

It would even dovetail nicely into the "templars vs mages" theme if they wanted to keep in that direction.

IWD2: 10 months.
New Vegas: 18 months or so.
Don't think schedule had owt to do wi DA2 bein a fuckin abortion.

Yeah, it stands to reason. FO:NV is probably a good example of what DA2 should've been.
 
Self-Ejected

Ludo Lense

Self-Ejected
Joined
Nov 28, 2014
Messages
936
Mass Effect:
- Was always pitched as a trilogy, a space opera, something that couldn't be covered in one game.

Wasn't it revealed that from Mass Effect 1 to 2 there was only a piece of paper about Dark Matter or something?

Helluva pitch :lol:
 

pippin

Guest
Yes. Only ME1 was fully fleshed out, ME2 was like a page at most and ME3 was just once sentence.
 

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