Do EA and Bioware want to destroy their own franchise?I'm sure many feel they already did that w/ DA2... :P
BioWare's Dragon Age franchise has largely eschewed an open world in favor of more closed battlegrounds. This design was especially pronounced in this year's Dragon Age II, which took place largely within the confines of a single city. However, according to EA's BioWare Label head Ray Muzyka, the next Dragon Age may take open-world cues from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Yes, but will Dragon Age III feature flying mastodons?
In an interview with Wired, Muzyka said that in addition to listening to Dragon Age II feedback from players, the developers working on the next installment in the franchise have been monitoring the wins and losses of other recent fantasy role-playing games. These include Bethesda Softworks' Skyrim, which has now shipped more than 10 million units.
"[The next Dragon Age] is going to have the best of features from the prior Dragon Age games, but it's also going to have a lot of things I think players are going to find compelling from some of the games that are out now that are doing really well with more of an open-world feel," Muzyka told Wired.
"We're checking [Skyrim] out aggressively," he continued. "We like it. We're big admirers of [Bethesda] and the product. We think we can do some wonderful things."
Yep, people have been working on the next proper Dragon Age for a while now. Although BioWare Edmonton and BioWare Montreal don't have much of substance to share yet -- not even a teaser image or anything -- the studios did announce that Dragon Age III: Inquisition will be ready "late" next year.
"The Dragon Age team has been working on Dragon Age III: Inquisition for almost two years now," said general manager Aaryn Flynn. "We've been poring over player feedback from past games and connecting directly with our fans. They haven't held back, so we’re not either. With [this game], we want to give fans what they’re asking for -- a great story with choices that matter, a massive world to explore, deep customization and combat that is both tactical and visceral."
Like I said, not a whole lot of specifics, but Flynn did mention a bit about the engine. "At the same time, we know we need new technology to truly make this vision become fully realized. And we've been working with DICE to make Frostbite 2 the foundation for the engine that is going to power Dragon Age III."
There's also an open letter from executive producer Mark Darrah, but it is also lacking in specifics. At least the game's name and those prior leaks (http://www.destructoid.com/rumor-dragon-age-3-story-and-co-op-hints-surface-233471.phtml) should start to paint a picture about the game.
This had better be an honourable successor to DAO and a damn good looking game. Although the former is more important, after DA2 players deserve a visually appealing game.
I thought DA2's artistry & technical-side actually looked pretty good w/ all the DX10 high-res textures & extra stuff installed. I preferred the DA2-look over the dark-fantasy generic DA:O look.It looked slightly better than DAO but overall it was an inferior game.
[shrug]
I think in DA2, the gameplay was in some ways a step forwards (better combat speed, Thieves actually had more unique skills this time around compared to DAO)....
...and in MANY other ways a step backwards (less strategic at default difficulty, overhead tactical-cam was removed, overusage of similar environments, limitations on equipping party members with equipment & lack of numerous variables to cause numerous different endings).
BioWare isn't planning to reveal any secrets just yet, but one very interesting detail has slipped out: in terms of pure pre-production time, Dragon Age 3 rivals everything the developer has made in recent years.
The information was revealed at the Comic & Entertainment Expo in Edmonton, where BioWare producer Cameron Lee tweeted the key points of a Dragon Age Look Ahead panel. "[Lead Cinematic Designer] Jon Perry said he's had a longer pre-production on DA3 than any other BioWare project he's worked on," Lee wrote. "JP said just one level in DA3 is as big as all of DA2's levels."
The panel also stated that the game will include more customization options than DA:0, including the ability to dye the color of your armor. BioWare's Mike Laidlaw also presented a picture of a huge castle fortress, joking that the player "may or may not take control of it".
It better be! After Dragon Age 2 I think we've earned a grand return to the franchise ;)
Derick Sanzi @MysterD
@BioMarkDarrah Will a heavily zoomed-out overhead tactical cam (like DAO PC) return in DA3? #DA3
10m Mark Darrah @BioMarkDarrah
@MysterD I hope so, but there are a surprising number of issues with this.
Derick Sanzi @MysterD
@BioMarkDarrah Will PC gamers be getting a DA3 Toolset/SDK?
34s Mark Darrah @BioMarkDarrah
@MysterD definately not at launch. DICE obviously would have to be involved on that.
1:47 PM - 26 Oct 12 · Details
Apparently they found a way to keep the carcass clinically alive :P
Supposedly, Bioware have "learned from [their] mistakes" with Dragon Age 2 and started developing Dragon Age: Inquisition from the ground up with that in mind. There's no telling what Inquisition will be in the end but here's hoping it kicks ass like the first one.
But when I heard Mike Laidlaw, the creative director of the franchise, say that the tactical, top-down view PC players might remember from Origins was returning, I gasped. Not only will PC stalwarts like myself be able to pause and issue commands to your party in a view that makes sense, but console players will have the tactical view available too. The BioWare team realized that giving more options to players was much better than restricting them.
"You can play the game the way you want to play it," said Laidlaw, pointing out the player can switch easily between following a party member in a third person over the shoulder view to the tactical camera. "There's situations in which there's advantages for both styles of play. I don't want every fight to be fought using [the tactical view]. Sometimes you just want to quickly beat up some guys."
No one tactic works for every fight, and they are intended to be difficult. In fact, you have the option to withdraw from some of these encounters in case you bite off more than you can chew. So, how can your Inquisitor defeat these colossal foes? Each one is a little different, but you can find and create gear that gives you an edge against dragons. You should also pay attention to the dragon’s behavior and environment, because your tactics may change as the fight goes on.
“You can individually target their limbs, and they react to the damage to a leg versus another one,” says Laidlaw. “I think that helps ground the encounter a lot more. If you need to get in close to the legs, we open up a whole new realm of counter-moves. He can take a swipe at where you likely are, which feels more like what a real beast would do. It grounds the encounter, and keeps it very physical.”
Ben Cordell of StickTwiddlers:
What can you tell us about the new party members in Dragon Age Inquisition? Varric has come back which I am ecstatic about!
Cameron Lee of BioWare:
“Did you notice his chest hair? It’s so good! It’s so hot, that chest hair! Varric is back which is awesome and Cassandra which you would have seen as well, from Dragon Age II and some of the novels.
Vivienne is the new character and she’s really cool. She’s like an ex-First Enchanter from one of the circles. Vivienne’s personality is really interesting and I think that there’s going to be some interesting conflicts between her and some of the other characters that you’re going to meet along the way. They’re the ones that we’ve announced so far, unfortunately I can’t talk about the other ones. We have mentioned that Morrigan is back, as you know, so she’s not a party member but she plays a major role in the game. I’d be very interested to hear some conversations between Vivienne and Morrigan.”
Dragon Age: Inquisition will contain 40 different possible endings, according to the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine (as reported by BioWare forum user “Jaldaris93”).
According to executive producer Mark Darrah, these endings are influenced by choices and actions taking throughout the narrative, and “will all be meaningfully different from one another. You won’t find 40 endings with only slight degrees of variation between them.”
OXM’s Dragon Age coverage includes a wealth of other information as well. According to the publication, there will be five regions to explore in Inquisition: Fereldan (the area from the first game), The Free Marches (Dragon Age II), Orlais, Nevarra (a land that allows mages more political power than in most others), and the Dales (inhabited by Dalish elves).
The companions that join with the player’s Inquisitor across these lands will all be on-disc—no characters will be added through DLC because according to creative director Mike Laidlaw, “how deeply enmeshed in the system companion characters are, we can’t just add them on the fly.”
Though Inquisition will boast the most customization options for the player-character in the series to date, there will only be 4 voices to choose from—two for each gender used across all races. The reason for this, Laidlaw informed OXM, is “a matter of file size”—more voices means requiring more disc and hard drive space. The studio is, however, experimenting with ways to differentiate the voices, such as altering pitch.
More details are available on Jaldaris93′s report of OXM‘s coverage on the BioWare forum.
Dragon Age: Inquisition launches on Windows PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One sometime this fall.
I'm playing Dragon Age Origins on the 360 (I'm having a really hard time), but I have to ask: was Dragon Age two really THAT bad?I think that depends on what you really wanted out of Dragon Age 2.
"Based on user feedback, beginning with Dragon Age: Inquisition, BioWare Points will no longer be supported as a means to purchase DLC," BioWare announced today. "This applies to PC or Mac only, as consoles will continue to support their respective methods of purchasing downloadable content."
So exactly how will you go about purchasing the inevitable DLC, you ask?
"Instead of using BioWare Points, PC and Mac users can purchase future DLC directly through Origin, using currency," the announcement says.
Games that currently support BioWare Points for DLC purchases—Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2 and 3—will continue to do so.
Recommended:
OS: Windows 7 or 8.1 64-bit
CPU: AMD six core CPU @ 3.2 GHz, Intel quad core CPU @ 3.0 GHz
System RAM: 8 GB
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7870 or R9 270, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
Graphics Memory: 2 GB
Hard Drive: 26 GB
DirectX 11
Or, if you're playing on a slightly older setup, here are the minimum system requirements:
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7 or 8.1 64-bit
CPU: AMD quad core CPU @ 2.5 GHz, Intel quad core CPU @ 2.0 GHz
System RAM: 4 GB
Graphics CARD: AMD Radeon HD 4870, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Graphics Memory: 512 MB
Hard Drive: 26 GB
DirectX 10
We recently got a hands-on look at the PC version of Dragon Age: Inquisition to get a sense of everything it has to offer. And because BioWare is a developer whose roots are in PC gaming, you can bet this version of Inquisition is the real deal.
It's fine-tuned for excellent mouse and keyboard play; it's got dozens of visual and interface options to tweak; and, of course, it's got 4K resolution and AMD Mantle support for the hardcore rig-building crowd.
In fact, we’ve teamed up with BioWare to reveal the very first screenshots of the PC version, along with its HUD and system requirements, all of which you’ll find below. But first, let's talk about how the game plays on PC.
The world, characters, and side quests of the single-player campaign are bigger and better than ever, but Inquisition doesn’t stop there. The multiplayer mode has you teaming up in four-player co-op for dungeon runs against one of three enemy factions. It captures a kind of excitement similar to Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer, but instead of fighting off waves of encroaching enemies, you are coordinating more precise strategies against a smaller number of foes. These 20-30 minute runs provide a fun twist on a familiar style, and the post-match rewards are great for enticing you to play another round. The maps and classes at launch are plenty to get started, and BioWare has promised continuing support in the form of free DLC in the coming months.
After two disparate entries with different philosophies, Dragon Age’s identity crisis is over. With a mixture of open-world exploration, entertaining combat, and top-tier characters, the team at BioWare has found a winning formula that isn’t shackled to either Dragon Age: Origins or Dragon Age II. Inquisition is not defined by the traditions it returns to, but by the new directions it forges for this magnificent fantasy universe.
God, I hope it's not another StarForce.
I got this a few months ago. But it sort of throws you into the deep end right off the bat, and I shied away from it, not knowing if I was going to like it or not. After a couple of months of Borderlands: TPS, I gave it another try, powered my way through the introductory slog, clueless most of the time, and damn. This is awesome. So far, it's everything I wish all games of this type would be, including The Witcher 2 (which failed to keep my interest, twice). Also, it's something to throw at whoever talks trash about the modern consoles. It couldn't be much prettier or better behaved.
I'm not terribly far yet, since I've spent more time learning how the play modes and party members work, and exploring and gathering stuff than advancing the story. I've taken a half hour just to figure out what to do with 3 skill points. I'm surprised there wasn't more talk about the game here. It's definitely a high point.
I played through DA: O on the 360, and liked it quite a bit despite the inferior graphics (for the system, let alone PC). The DA 2 demo left me cold, feeling like constricted corridor runs inside a vast empty landscape you couldn't visit. They completely turned that around in the current game. It's a fully open world that looks terrific. (The generation bump helps there, no doubt.) It's more like Skyrim in that sense, though the 4-member party battles quickly leave comparisons behind. Speaking of which, I love the optional tactical view. It lets you micromanage every action from any character, or play more as a real-time brawler in the shoes of any party member. Action pauses on tactical view, and time can be advanced manually or fully paused while issuing commands. It becomes addictive to try to get the different character disciplines to coordinate the most effective attacks possible while taking the least damage. The skill trees can be developed to help the party synergies. Lots of gear to loot, craft and modify. Huge, unique-looking and -feeling areas. Must be hundreds of hours of stuff to do in here. Great stuff, and a no-brainer for fans of the genre. Way to go, Bioware.
The one thing you may not realize is that playing with a controller gives you better gameplay in tactical-cam (quasi-turn-based) mode. My understanding after lengthy conversations in the BioWare forums is that KB+M does not provide you with a time-advance button, and you have to work around that awkwardly if you want to micromanage your battles (which you very much can do with a controller). I recommend you try this out, if you have a suitable controller.
Why the deficiency is beyond me.
Yes, the game is enormous, and extremely addicting, like Oblivion and Skyrim were years earlier. I'm nearly finished with my 2nd playthrough, and I intend to start a 3rd soon after that. I was a human Tempest Rogue first time, and an elven Knight-Enchanter mage the second. I won't spoil what works out best. Perhaps I'll go for a dwarven or Qunari warrior next time.
The 7th patch seems to have cured all crashing. It works very stably now for however long I leave it on. Kudos to BW for the support perseverance.
I was wondering if you stuck with it. Well done. I'm in my 4th playthrough, Qunari Knight-Enchanter this time (fire mage mostly, which seems most fitting for a Tal-Vashoth named Adaar). The Winter palace was especially challenging as a Qunari, as you might imagine, at least at first. I can't get enough of this. I'm near the end, with only the final mission in the main game and in the JoH DLC to go, and I'm already thinking about how I'm going to RP my way through it next.
I don't know about others, but I really didn't like the first game, which is why I haven't played this one. I know I've mentioned my distaste for the first game's (what I felt was) offensively generic fantasy before, and I only say it here to indicate why I haven't played this one. I've heard lots of great things about it, actually almost universally positive things, but everyone seemed to kind of hate the 2nd, at least as far as people I know that played it, so that pretty much sunk any hope I had of getting into the series. I just never even took another look at it after that first one, really, figured it wasn't for me. Do you need to play the first two to appreciate Inquisition, or is it sort of its own thing? I really liked the combat system and stuff in the first game. Mechanically I felt like it was super fun; the world and the writing were what turned me off. If they managed to improve those things, I could potentially be interested. I mean I understand you guys were fans of the first game, so maybe you can't really tell me whether or not it's changed enough for me to give it a try, but I'm still curious to hear how you think this one compares to the previous 2. Which ... hell, I suppose I could review the thread, you've probably been talking about it, and I'm sure I missed most of the conversation.
EDIT - Well, the gameplay still sounds fun, and I like that the world is more open. I guess all I'm really curious about now is how the world holds up. From the perspective of someone who felt the first game did nothing new or unique with their high-fantasy setup, how does this one compare? I really wanted to like the game, especially since I heard so much good about the writing and story and such, but man, I played like 10 hours or something and just ... ugh. Every time another redundant cliche that took itself way too seriously for what it was popped into the game, I just felt my heart sink. The game seemed to really lacked imagination there, if not conviction. Admittedly it could have improved as it went on, but I did watch videos and stuff later on trying to get more a sense of the whole package, and it never came together for me. I also found the "dark" tone of the game super artificial, like it was trying to be edgy without actually containing anything terribly interesting or controversial or even violent. I get the sense they kind of dumped that superficiality as they went and that Inquisition doesn't suffer from that, but any confirmation from you guys on all this would interest me. I'd watch reviews, but I went into DA:O after checking out reviews and thinking it would be something I'd love (despite the fact that the ad campaign seriously turned me off), so I'm leery here.
That is actually kind of a danger, but one I'm always willing to risk if the game is good enough. But if the world itself is the same level of generic fantasy, I don't know that I'd be able to stomach it. I mean I love fantasy, and tropes don't bother me ... I don't know what it was exactly about DA:O I couldn't take.[ Just this sense of the unimaginative and that there weren't going to be any surprises, I guess?Yep. That's exactly it w/ DAO + DAI - the plot + fantasy is pretty much typical stuff in the Main Quest.
With this one, I'd probably have to really try it out or watch an extended series of videos to get a sense of that. Maybe I'll try to do that at some point. I mean if you've gone through this many playthroughs, there has to be something special here. Though honestly, I should probably just shake it off and try to get back to finishing up some of the Witcher games. Either way, you've put this somewhat on my radar.What makes DAI special is it mixed so many elements are crammed into one big variety of gameplay - and that this game doesn't fall under its own weight, of trying to do so much. What sets DAI apart from most big open-world games (like say Skyrim) is that its story + especially character development is way better than what most other open-world games offer up. You have MMO-style quests (i.e. Kill X enemies, find X areas). You have Collect-a-Thons straight out of Assassin's Creed games. You have the Loyalty Missions - where often story + character development's very important. You have the Main Missions (where these are often the most tactical, other than fighting boss-like characters + Dragons). And a lot of times in Loyalty + Main missions, you do have to make some important decision...that's going to change how the game turns out.
. . .
The interesting stuff story-wise + character-wise mostly happens in the Loyalty Quests, TBH.
. . .
What makes DAI special is it mixed so many elements are crammed into one big variety of gameplay - and that this game doesn't fall under its own weight, of trying to do so much. What sets DAI apart from most big open-world games (like say Skyrim) is that its story + especially character development is way better than what most other open-world games offer up.
. . .