General Gaming EA allows BioWare to remove all "live service" components from next Dragon Age title due to Anthem's failure/Jedi Fallen Order's success

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[johnny]

a service game? lmfao 

[legend]

That's great and all, but Jesus Christ that's a big change in direction.

[Zaku3]

Hope they remove SP from battlefield.

[skillzdadirecta]

Good. 

[Brick]

Never played a Dragon Age game, but that's a good thing to remove. It's also what ruined Shadow of War before they removed the micro transactions. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I hope they also have let Bioware NOT use Frostbite and instead license something like UE4

[skillzdadirecta]

1 minute ago, Brick said:

Never played a Dragon Age game, but that's a good thing to remove. It's also what ruined Shadow of War before they removed the micro transactions. 

Shadow of War wasn't ruined at all and it wasn't a live service game. It had an assymetrical multplayer component that was actually fun if you played it similar to Metal Gear 5's online. The micro transactions "controversy" in that game was INCREDIBLY overblown.

 

[ARZ]

4 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Shadow of War wasn't ruined at all and it wasn't a live service game. It had an assymetrical multplayer component that was actually fun if you played it similar to Metal Gear 5's online. The micro transactions "controversy" in that game was INCREDIBLY overblown.

 

 

That reminds me I still need to play that as well. This backlog is killing me!

[skillzdadirecta]

6 minutes ago, ARZ said:

 

That reminds me I still need to play that as well. This backlog is killing me!

One of my favorite games that year.

[crispy4000]

I'm disappointed in EA that they wanted it to be a live service game to begin with.

[stepee]

Making DA a live service game is pretty lol but I guess maybe they are on the right track if they are able to change it without it being a weird disaster.

[Bacon]

DA4 smells strongly of DA:I. 

[jaethos]

Bioware has to earn my excitement for its new games, but this is at least hopeful news.

[Xbob42]

So that added another 4 years to its development, right? I seem to recall them talking about live service in this shit from the start of development, so it has to be core to what the game currently is. Considering how hard it seems to be for devs to update just about anything that goes deeper than surface level, I can't imagine digging deep into the core of the game and ripping out some dumb bullshit they shouldn't have put in to begin with is going to be an easy fix.

[gamer.tv]

Seeing MGS5 written down makes me want to go back and complete Act 2...4 years later.

[Mr.Vic20]

We'll see how the reviews go DA4. It's sad to ever have to say that about a Bioware game, but this is where we are. 

[johnny]

16 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

So that added another 4 years to its development, right? I seem to recall them talking about live service in this shit from the start of development, so it has to be core to what the game currently is. Considering how hard it seems to be for devs to update just about anything that goes deeper than surface level, I can't imagine digging deep into the core of the game and ripping out some dumb bullshit they shouldn't have put in to begin with is going to be an easy fix.

i thought they were like super early into development. if the game sucks it won’t be because of this. 

[Xbob42]

Quote

In 2018, BioWare execs like Mark Darrah talked about organically infusing live services into future Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. This is a bit nebulous and wasn't really defined, but the general gist is BioWare could use live services/online frameworks as a means of evolving their games.

 

As for how far along in development is, I recall reading that development started as early as 2015, though how much of that was actual development vs. planning/concept I don't know, but things like this make it sound like they were doing some real work:

 

Quote

Following 2015’s critically acclaimed Trespasser expansion, the Dragon Age team split up. Many of the people who’d worked on Inquisition moved to the troubled Mass Effect: Andromeda, while a few dozen developers including Darrah and Laidlaw started spinning up the next Dragon Age, which was code-named Joplin.

The plan for Joplin was exciting, say people who worked on it. First and foremost, they already had many tools and production pipelines in place after Inquisition, ones that they hoped to improve and continue using for this new project. They committed to prototyping ideas early and often, testing as quickly as possible rather than waiting until everything was on fire, as they had done the last time thanks to the glut of people and Frostbite’s difficulties.

I can't imagine they were in pre-production for too terribly long based on that. Although they did say it was "very early in development" in 2019, so who fucking knows. All I know is they haven't exactly been knocking it out of the park lately and live services get buried deep into a game's DNA to ruin them as thoroughly as possible.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

2 hours ago, legend said:

That's great and all, but Jesus Christ that's a big change in direction.

 

Boy is it ever!

 

I have so very many questions at this point:

- Did the game originally begin life as live service title or a single-player one?

- Just how far along in development are they anyway?!? Because this is such a fundamental pivot in design that I simply can't see how as @Xbob42 stated they can avoid essentially scrapping whatever work has been done and starting over.

- Was this decision made at the same time as the one to put Anthem out of its misery?

- What the hell is EA's deadline for the game to be released?

 

In other words, everything is lining up for this to be an unmitigated disaster.

[Bacon]

1 minute ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

In other words, everything is lining up for this to be an unmitigated disaster.

And it will sell better than every DA that came before it 

[XxEvil AshxX]

So Bioware's last game was a disaster because they didn't have a clear direction...  so they take their next game that had a clear direction and did a complete 180 on it. Good ol' EA.

[Xbob42]

Just now, XxEvil AshxX said:

So Bioware's last game was a disaster because they didn't have a clear direction...  so they take their next game that had a clear direction and did a complete 180 on it. Good ol' EA.

I don't really see this problem going away so long as executives have more power over the direction of a game than anyone else. The "direction" will always be heavily influenced by market research and ROI, yada yada we all know how game development works. As long as everyone keeps only trying to land mega hits studios are going to continue to be absolutely shredded like this over and over.

 

And that's not even taking into account developers part of what are considered legendary studios hoping the "[studio name] magic" kicks in at some point and they literally magically make a great game somehow, so it's obvious even without executives a lot of these studios just lose their way, often when big names leave.

[SaysWho?]

3 hours ago, Brick said:

Never played a Dragon Age game, but that's a good thing to remove. It's also what ruined Shadow of War before they removed the micro transactions. 

 

Shadow of War was good, though.

[skillzdadirecta]

20 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

Shadow of War was good, though.

Sure was. I still need to play that last DLC.

[johnny]

im just glad EA is letting them switch it up. game would likely be worse if EA didn’t let them change. now that they are getting a bit more freedom and can go in the direction they want, it actually gives me more hope as long as they take their time. 

[Dre801]

And just like that, they've pushed out the release date. 

[Brick]

1 hour ago, SaysWho? said:

 

Shadow of War was good, though.

 

I'm sure it was, maybe "ruined" was too harsh, but I know a lot of people were pretty down on the microtransactions because they really hampered the experience. 

[SaysWho?]

2 minutes ago, Brick said:

 

I'm sure it was, maybe "ruined" was too harsh, but I know a lot of people were pretty down on the microtransactions because they really hampered the experience. 

 

Oh, that controversy.

 

The game was beatable without buying a single thing.

[Brick]

11 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

Oh, that controversy.

 

The game was beatable without buying a single thing.

 

Sure but didn't it turn it into a terrible grind fest? Even if you had no problems with it, enough people did that they had to put out a major patch retooling the whole game. That's not nothing. 

[SaysWho?]

4 minutes ago, Brick said:

 

Sure but didn't it turn it into a terrible grind fest? Even if you had no problems with it, enough people did that they had to put out a major patch retooling the whole game. That's not nothing. 

 

I guess they mean Siege Mode. I mean, there could have been maybe one or two fewer levels, but it's not, "Grind for 10 hours so you can beat Emerald Weapon." And Siege Mode is a damned fun mode.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Not saying there is t cause for concern, but even if this game game still releases in less than 2 years, I would be far from the the only game to release after a change in direction that basically gave the game 18 months of development. 
 

I guess we will just have to see. Hopefully whatever happens to the next dragon age won’t result in the next Mass Effect being completely canceled. 
 

Really thought, Bioware should when NEVER sold themselves to EA. Becoming a MS studio would have been preferable. Their leadership at that time we’re greedy, short, sighted fuckers. 

[Xbob42]

51 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

Not saying there is t cause for concern, but even if this game game still releases in less than 2 years, I would be far from the the only game to release after a change in direction that basically gave the game 18 months of development. 

Yeaaaah but these days usually if that happens a game is gonna suck ass or be a big bucket of nothing. It's not the 90s anymore where you could pump out an incredible and feature-rich RPG in a year.

[Keyser_Soze]

An odd lesson to learn. DA should never have been a service game but Fallen Order would have been cool if there was some co-op involved.

[Mercury33]

5 hours ago, Brick said:

 

Sure but didn't it turn it into a terrible grind fest? Even if you had no problems with it, enough people did that they had to put out a major patch retooling the whole game. That's not nothing. 

Nah not really. What seemed to happen was early reviewers rushed through the game and then when they got to Siege mode at the end they were way under leveled. If you played that game like a normal person would, you never had to grind a single thing.