Dragon Age, Mass Effect Sequels May Be Heavily Influenced by Anthem

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
At this weekend’s PAX West, BioWare elaborated on how Anthem takes a live-service approach to storytelling, in that NPCs may continually be updated and evolve with new dialogue options and interactions, opening up the potential for additional quests and storylines. While the online shooter is still a work in progress, the team has enough faith in this dynamic system that it is already being reserved for other franchises, such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

“So after Anthem we can say, okay, now we’re going to expand the storyline for one of those Agents, or now that certain points in the game world have happened, this changes the relationship, this changes this character, this changes the type of missions for certain characters. Or even we add new characters, we add new Agents. We can do all that and Anthem gives us the tools to do all that.”
 
Dragon Age has been fine as single player. It's usually my first criteria for an RPG. Dynamic content is just an area they should have spent more time in before but no problem if they start doing more of that now.
 
Having played all the previous Dragon Age titles (on PC) I felt the most recent Dragon Age was an absolute dumbed down consolie-ized abomination.It was shallow in ever single regard and i couldnt understand how it got decent reviews. I bought it and was able to get a refund thankfully.
 
Sounds like a mmo hybrid for single player that they can charge a monthly rate for after the initial 60 dollar investment.

Lets be honest about what's going on here though, they are going to CUT the game, and resell the ORIGINAL PRODUCT as installments, simply to increase what they are charging for the original product.

Witcher got it right, with heart of stone and blood and wine. Offer a full, alternate and original experience, and people will fork over money all day long. They literally could have released a 20 dollar expansion every 6 months for the next 5 years and would have millions of people still buying them each time.
 
oldmanbal said:
Sounds like a mmo hybrid for single player that they can charge a monthly rate for after the initial 60 dollar investment.

Lets be honest about what's going on here though, they are going to CUT the game, and resell the ORIGINAL PRODUCT as installments, simply to increase what they are charging for the original product.

Witcher got it right, with heart of stone and blood and wine. Offer a full, alternate and original experience, and people will fork over money all day long. They literally could have released a 20 dollar expansion every 6 months for the next 5 years and would have millions of people still buying them each time.
Click to expand...

It's why I think Cyberpunk is going to outsell Anthem by a megaton. CD Projekt has built their reputation. Bioware has only damaged theirs.
 
I think it is a scheme to add "features" to keep front end price high but decrease back end costs and introduce a service revenue stream.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Madoc
like this
I don't think bioware quite understands how quickly EA pulls that "kill studio" trigger. I have a feeling they will be added to the pile of dead studios shortly after anthem.

When you objectively look at these announcements and go "When did ANYONE ask for that feature?" to almost every single one of them... To be entirely honest its the first negative hype train I've seen.
 
Just read the article and also glanced at it's thread. The 'free' part is pretty cool. Mainly hope the DLC is something substantial. If they take a hint from Witcher3 with DLC really adding content this could be a great thing. It's nice to see them experimenting with something other than loot boxes honestly.
 
I'll be voting with my wallet. I loved ME1/2 and Dragon Age but BioWare is dead... EA can't kill them fast enough...
 
I am going to reserve judgement on this until I actually see it implemented. Because to me it sounds like they just developed a tool set that gives them a live DM mode where they can easily update or add various scripts with out the need for extensive updates or downtime.
 
Call me if bioware exits EA and becomes its own unique Canadian entity again.


McDonalds can buy all the burger Joe's in the world amd what comes out of your box will still just be the same bland, flavorless, corporate "food like" products that wouldnt sell as dog food.
 
don't need 'service' to do what they conceptualize here

would anyone still fall for that line&hook that 'service' is required?
 
bsbllclown said:
Having played all the previous Dragon Age titles (on PC) I felt the most recent Dragon Age was an absolute dumbed down consolie-ized abomination.It was shallow in ever single regard and i couldnt understand how it got decent reviews. I bought it and was able to get a refund thankfully.
Click to expand...

Agreed; DA3 was a glorified single player MMO, ran horribly, and simply wasn't fun. I was glad when I finished it.
 
Nafensoriel said:
I don't think bioware quite understands how quickly EA pulls that "kill studio" trigger. I have a feeling they will be added to the pile of dead studios shortly after anthem.

When you objectively look at these announcements and go "When did ANYONE ask for that feature?" to almost every single one of them... To be entirely honest its the first negative hype train I've seen.
Click to expand...

Good, let "Bioware" die so the remaining few folks left from the golden days can go on and do quality work again (most of the original Bioware crew has jumped ship to greener pastures). Although not horrible, the last DA and ME titles got smacked with the "EA treatment" (MP, grinding, monetized to the hilt, dumbed down interface, dialogue and story...) -- I really have no interest in playing any further entries.
 
Ebernanut said:
As far as I'm concerned the Bioware that I knew and loved is dead until they release something that proves otherwise, comments like this make me even less optimistic about that ever happening.
Click to expand...

Same, the very last decent games are DA:O, ME2, from Bioware, Deadspace 2, Alice madness returns, with EA as a publisher everything after that has been trash, If they spent as much time just dedicated to making a game instead of dreaming of ways to market and profit off it, all while screwing the customers.

Its like they try and emulate that braindead CEO that makes the most dumbass statements about gaming ever. The future of gaming is this...………………….then when no other publisher or studio is using it...………….they turn around and do what the CEO said like they are trying to make it true reality.

He reminds me of the main bad guy in "Ready player one" 78% Ads in the players field of vision, I can see him watching that and saying brilliant the future of VR Free games 78% Ads revenue players only see or play 24% or less so they are forced to see your Ads.
 
zehoo said:
Bioware has been dead to me for a while now. The beginning of the end being ME3.
Click to expand...

Bingo. And it's been all gravy ever since.

"Bioware" is meaningless now. It's all EA. We get what we get until I see something that proves me wrong like others have said.

Vote with your wallets.
 
M76 said:
And the official reason will be: Waning interest in story based RPGs.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, that, or EA will blame the evil members of the gaming right for their failures. The gaming right will blame the devil SJWs for EA's shit games. The truth will be that EA lays some rotten eggs with bad animations, weak stories, countless bugs, and intrusive DRM. Moreover, their games are increasingly a hollow frame designed entirely to support micro-transactions. Bioware was as good as dead the day EA bought them.

I think we're all just waiting to hear the gunshot.
 
Michael Gamble, lead producer on Anthem. “If you remember back to the ancient times we released a game and that would ((sic) 'be?' ) the story for a set of characters, and we released DLC that enabled us to tell unique bits of story afterwards.

“For Anthem, where we’d all like to see us head, is the ability to tell new great stories throughout the years, throughout the months after launch.”

Translation ( from corpor-babble to English):
"Stories , sets of characters and plot are SOOO old fashion, we don't need , and in fact don't have , most or possibly even any of that ( also that shit cost money and requires actual creative talent ) .
In fact we have worked and reworked Anthem over so many times none of us here know what it is actually and we definitely can't describe it to you ( or anyone else ) in any kind of detail.

Originally we , with only the vaguest creative cohesion, created a metric shit-ton of game assets that we were going to lock behind pay-walls and loot ( cough*gambling*cough ) boxes , but the long shadow of Andromeda followed by the horrific cratering of Battlefront2 Caused EA to start to worry about the future of it's balance sheets and suddenly we couldn't count on the golden river of microtransactions to keep the shoddy facade of a game afloat ( long enough to be profitable ) .

So we did what anyone would do; go to the grave yard ( of M.E. ), dig up a bunch of disjointed parts , stitch it all together hastily then juice it with P.R. lightning until we had an ambulatory corpse ( but don't worry we had only the best morticians and cosmetologists to make it look life-like ( until you start to notice the smell ))

The long and short of it : We didn't really have a story ( to tell ), then we needed a story to tell, so what we came up with isn't really a story ( because those are old fashion ) , but in the future we hope to "tell...stories" "

( BTW if one ever need a better vote of 'no-confidence' from the man in charge look no further than ; " ...Anthem...throughout the years, throughout the months after launch." )
 
oldmanbal said:
Sounds like a mmo hybrid for single player that they can charge a monthly rate for after the initial 60 dollar investment.

Lets be honest about what's going on here though, they are going to CUT the game, and resell the ORIGINAL PRODUCT as installments, simply to increase what they are charging for the original product.

Witcher got it right, with heart of stone and blood and wine. Offer a full, alternate and original experience, and people will fork over money all day long. They literally could have released a 20 dollar expansion every 6 months for the next 5 years and would have millions of people still buying them each time.
Click to expand...

the major issue is, after the game is designed, they have to cut it into dlc's, which make every installement content deprived, so they start making boring additions to extend the gameplay, and you end up with a boring game where you have to repeat shiet over and over, when you get tired and want to go multi-player to compete with ppl who burn hundreds of $ in micro transaction to getn couple weaks ahead of you in term of progression.
the whole shabang is BS, these kind of games need to die.
 
NPC_2509 has new dialogue! Listen to him talk for only $2.99!

So what happened to just making a full game? Oh right, they have nfi what they're supposed to be doing is why, they'll make it up later based on trends. Just yet another throw away garbage game. History will be blank in retro gaming of the years 2018-2019 in 2032.
 
So much hate. Article states no paid DLC... if you actually read it. They are just saying instead of static npc they are creating a system for dynamic npc's.

But fuck its EA so let's all go crazy!
 
Nafensoriel said:
To be fair the best F2P models are exclusively cosmetic for pure profit points of view.
Click to expand...
It's not f2p. The base game is AAA priced. Hes just saying that they can dynamically change npc behavior to "advance the story" over time.
 
haste. said:
So much hate. Article states no paid DLC... if you actually read it. They are just saying instead of static npc they are creating a system for dynamic npc's.

But fuck its EA so let's all go crazy!
Click to expand...

Don't be so hasty. Yep. You can bet your arse they'll have an option "New Loot crate from this npc $5". OR "500 EA points to unlock quest. Buy EA points from the main menu". They have paid dlc hiding behind the veil of bullshit.
 
whats funny is.. we get an announcement of they have a new system to add new dynamic content, we should all be very happy. but why are we NOT? Track record of how they have run things

:rolleyes:
 
So yet another "advancement" in game development that will kill games when the servers go offline. No, thanks.
 
MV75 said:
NPC_2509 has new dialogue! Listen to him talk for only $2.99!

So what happened to just making a full game? Oh right, they have nfi what they're supposed to be doing...
Click to expand...

This is what happens when Qualified talent is driven out , and replaced with ( at best ) noticeably unqualified "talent" and ( at worst ) "talent" that is hired specifically to be malleable or expendable ( and of course really cheap ) in the hunt for profit through social engineering a 'mass' of tommorrow's ( imaginary ) customers ( at the cost of alienating existing customers by betraying them )

is why, they'll make it up later based on trends.
Click to expand...
Perhaps we could call this ; ' the reactionary game development cycle ' ( let us set aside for the moment the idea of inserting "story" into hollow MMo's retroactively is exactly like trying to give birth to yourself ) . Reactions by their very nature are not always appropriate IRL ( anyone whom has EVER managed any project knows that ) , in a fictional/fantasy setting being reactionary ideologically ( and thus fundamentally ) instantly places that set of though process' into a parasitic process that is eventually shown to have an imaginary host .

Just yet another throw away garbage game.
Click to expand...
, well, ... that depends ; a, A, broken propaganda ( and warped to unreality ) message that is bound to slip by this disastrous laden editorial process might resonate with some of the broken people out there and either offer some good comedy or the next Hitler... it's a long shot but entertainment value may be achieved by misconception.

History will be blank in retro gaming of the years 2018-2019 in 2032.
Click to expand...

wait, wait, I understand and agree with the sentiment here , and I do have a slightly stale Doughnut to offer as an enticing wager , but does not cyberpunk 2077 come out in that time frame?

BUt , if you said , " in 2032 an analysis of retro gaming trends shows a stark drop-off after 2015 and a cliff drop after 2018" ...I'd probably be long on that
 
katanaD said:
whats funny is.. we get an announcement of they have a new system to add new dynamic content, we should all be very happy. but why are we NOT? Track record of how they have run things

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Trust me, I'd not be happy for that announcement under any circumstances. A game should be a finished product with all the content already present and unlockable by reasonable amounts of gameplay alone.
 
alamox said:
ppl should stop buying these kind of games, they are going full retard on multiplayer, soon we won't have any RPG games.
Click to expand...

stopped after they blew up Mass Effect 3. And DA:O was superb, DA2 was ok an DA3 started out super strong then ended with a whimper. Pretty done with that series too.

also The Old Republic was a disaster, good trailers though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top