Dragon Age 4 - Before and after GaaS

Games
#337

I’m never sure how important these sorts of changes are to game development at different stages, but here’s some news at ars:

BioWare’s Mac Walters used a LinkedIn post this weekend to announce the end of a 19-year career at the company. The move is yet another in a long line of shakeups for the leadership team behind the sprawling, long-anticipated Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, on which he served as production director.

#338
#339

Wow, that looks. . . .terrible.

#340

I don’t hate it, and it’s hard to tell from 10 seconds of combat footage (that looks sort of Souls-y?) and a menu screen too much of what they’ve got going here.

#341

Not to be all high and mighty about it, but I don’t think I’m even going to click that link. I didn’t used to get the perspective of you folks who avoided early access games but I’m starting to come around - I just don’t think I need to see the sausage factory and I’m confident the end result will at least be pretty darn good.

#342

Well, its certainly very far removed from this… :(

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#343

I am currently replaying DA:Inquisition and while the armor looks like Dark Souls the combat looks like DA:I. Especially when the camera is on one character like that.

#344

After so many years Bioware still hasn’t hired any good animators it seems lol.

#345

Fully expecting EA business “designer” fucking with this game.

#346

Getting DA2 vibes, but I’ll withhold judgement.

#347

Agreed. They can’t seem to get this and it’s a shame. First game is still by far the best. Sigh.

#348

Every good studio EA buys gets it’s soul sucked out of it eventually. BioWare is no exception.

#349

How do you get DA2 vibes from that? I don’t think I saw enemies dropping from the sky.

I think there are way to many negative vibes from this.

#350

Hard to tell a lot from a few seconds of an internal build. Animation doesn’t look great, but it could be a cherry-picked moment of clunkiness. I’ll need to see a lot more to get a better idea of what’s going on.

#351

Animation looked poor but the source said animation (and combat) were great. Nothing to do but wait and see.

#352

It’s already terrible because it looks like you’re controlling a single character. Yeah, I’m with the Dragon Age originalists, if that is even a thing.

At least if it means Dragon Age 2 is the worst piece of shit BioWare ever produced!

I mean I can imagine if there is one thing I want Qt3 to know me for, it would be my eternal hatred of Dragon Age 2.

#353

This is me, down to how much I hate DA2.

I just recently replayed DA:O (I think it was last summer) and was shocked at how well it still holds up both mechanically as an RPG and also as a story telling and world building vehicle. DA2 will never not be my greatest gaming disapointment. And this new game looking like a single character Dark Souls game will probably not be what I want from the franchise (though if it’s a good game in its own right, which I’ll cross fingers for, I’ll give it a shot).

#354

Everything I have heard says it is more like DA2 than the others. Way to double down on stupid.

Gameplay notes I found:

  • Combat is completely in real-time and similar to a hack and slash. I’m told the guiding reference point was the God of War (2018), and that shows.
  • Player has their regular combo attack and then their abilities as well as a special bar which generates allowing you to pull off a special move. I don’t really understand the comparison to FF15’s wheel. It’s standard Dragon Age ability wheel.
  • There was no party control demonstrated. I think it’s a safe bet to say you will not be able to directly control your party members in the game. That said, you likely will be able to tell them to execute certain abilities. But apparently that was locked off in the Alpha.

Sounds…dreadful, hard pass for me.

#355

The DA Orginalist welcome you with open arms and have appointed you a position on the board.

#356

A God of War (2018)-inspired combat system sounds good to me. I hope that part is true and that they nail it, and it’s a huge hit for them.

(Background: I’ve only played through the original Dragon Age, and wasn’t a fan of the combat system. They got rid of the order queue from KOTOR and Neverwinter Nights 2, which made the combat much worse for me.)