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Tagavaka · Oct 13, 2017

This is breaking my heart a little bit. So much of the old guard at Bioware leaving.

Mike Laidlaw was always super enthusiastic and really seemed to love the worlds.

Aaryn Flynn and David Gaider all leaving also took a toll on me.

There is something wrong when the core creative teams at a developer is losing this much talent. I wonder what's going on behind the scenes. I always rooted for Bioware and loved a lot of what they did. i hope they recover and get back on track

And don't forget Casey Hudson is back at Bioware and Drew Karpashyn too.

Hopefully if Casey helps make Anthem a success Bioware will be more amenable to him relaunching the Mass Effect series.

I also hope Dragon Age is still on track and doing well because I love that franchise so much.

Did anyone see the massive supposed Dragon Age 4 leak from 4Chan, I don't know if it got posted here because it was highly probably bullshit but some parts were hilarious. A giant Solas reigning down fire, only now he is called Salos

Rellik · Oct 13, 2017

Tagavaka said:
This is breaking my heart a little bit. So much of the old guard at Bioware leaving.

Mike Laidlaw was always super enthusiastic and really seemed to love the worlds.

Aaryn Flynn and David Gaider all leaving also took a toll on me.

There is something wrong when the core creative teams at a developer is losing this much talent. I wonder what's going on behind the scenes. I always rooted for Bioware and loved a lot of what they did. i hope they recover and get back on track

And don't forget Casey Hudson is back at Bioware and Drew Karpashyn too.

Hopefully if Casey helps make Anthem a success Bioware will be more amenable to him relaunching the series.

I also hope Dragon Age is still on track and doing well because I love that franchise so much.

Did anyone see the massive supposed Dragon Age 4 leak from 4Chan, I don't know if it got posted here because it was highly probably bullshit but some parts were hilarious. A giant Solas reigning down fire, only now he is called Salos

Some of those 4chan leaks actually come true after they've been mocked and laughed at.

JeffZero · Oct 13, 2017

Marcel said:
Bioware is the living dead already. Anything else bad that follows would just be putting a directionless zombie out of its misery.

Inquisition, and Trespasser in particular, is brimming with purposeful and intriguing direction.

Marcel · Oct 13, 2017

JeffZero said:
Inquisition, and Trespasser in particular, is brimming with purposeful and intriguing direction.

I became bored with Inquisition after you enter that forest area with the stone houses or whatever it was. I can't even really remember why I gave it up. Then the Witcher 3 came out and forgot that I even owned DA3 until I sold it on eBay. I don't agree with you at all in other words.

There are plenty of games that people go crazy about for 2 months and then step back on. Do we need reminding of the totally overblown hype around Bioshock Infinite?

MartyStu · Oct 13, 2017

JeffZero said:
Inquisition, and Trespasser in particular, is brimming with purposeful and intriguing direction.

Trespasser yes. Inquisition as a whole actually brought the series to a place I would rather it not go.

Going back to the approach in Origins/Awakening or hell, even DA2 is a better way forward I think.

CrichtonKicks · Oct 13, 2017

Marcel said:
There are plenty of games that people go crazy about for 2 months and then step back on. Do we need reminding of the totally overblown hype around Bioshock Infinite?

Just reeks of the in hind site MGS4 sucked and then the game turns around still wins 2008 GOTY re-voting years later.

It's find to like or not like a game but the saying "just wait and you'll see that my opinion was ultimately right" is obnoxious.

Some Nobody · Oct 13, 2017

Marcel said:
I became bored with Inquisition after you enter that forest area with the stone houses or whatever it was. I can't even really remember why I gave it up. Then the Witcher 3 came out and forgot that I even owned DA3 until I sold it on eBay. I don't agree with you at all in other words.

There are plenty of games that people go crazy about for 2 months and then step back on. Do we need reminding of the totally overblown hype around Bioshock Infinite?

lol. Sorry the gaming world is so easily confused. I liked it before and like it now.

RRockman · Oct 13, 2017

Are Mike and Marc Laidlaw brothers?

Some Nobody · Oct 13, 2017

Tagavaka said:
Did anyone see the massive supposed Dragon Age 4 leak from 4Chan, I don't know if it got posted here because it was highly probably bullshit but some parts were hilarious. A giant Solas reigning down fire, only now he is called Salos

Game has the same name as the DA fan-based sequel webpage? How coincidental.

Option- · Oct 13, 2017

EA will outsource animation and quality assurance and then let it die for now and for ever like they did with mass effect.

Bioware will become a star wars franchise factory and model jar jar binks and han solo in its 10000th iteration.

Alpha Phoenix · Oct 13, 2017

RRockman said:
Are Mike and Marc Laidlaw brothers?

They're unrelated but often confused.

Steve.1981 · Oct 13, 2017

JeffZero said:
Inquisition, and Trespasser in particular, is brimming with purposeful and intriguing direction.

Yep.

To be honest, for me, all the Dragon Age games have interesting stories, themes, settings and characters, and the series has a great overarching plot that is definitely heading in an intriguing direction.

2 was rushed, which resulted in a lot of repetition, reused designs in dungeons and stuff like that. Inquisition, on the other hand, was quite bloated. It had far too many time-sink collect-a-thon 'quests' which could drag down the whole experience of playing the game, if you got bogged down in chasing them all.

That's it, in my opinion. That's all that's wrong with the whole series. Not so very much, all told.

I appreciate Dragon Age more and more, as time goes on. I actually started another playthrough of Origins recently, and it's brilliant.

LumpOfCole · Oct 13, 2017

I couldnt even finish Inquisition due to the bloat and cared for none of its characters at all. DA2 had terrible faults but I would say it had some rather memorable characters in retrospect.

I really hope the next Bioware games stop being open world MMO-lites. I want tight focused levels with tight focused storylines.

Keinning · Oct 13, 2017

I don't like blaming a game for your lack of self-control as a player. Yes, Inquisition is filled with collectable shit that are meant to 'bloat' the game, but you're apparently not forced to get them in any sense. I might eat a serving of crows since i havent finished the game yet, but i don't need to get the landmarks, shards, bottles and mosaic pieces to move with the game. Hell i had three whole regions i never had to set foot into so far in the story but just did because i wanted to explore them (because i find this game quite beautiful, hissing wastes and deep roads apart). There is a load of MMO styled sidequests around the game, but just like the tasks in Andromeda, as long as they're not forced in any sense, don't blame the game for it, it's there for other people, not you. Heard somewhere that the game is a 20h-40h experience if you go straight to the point and a 200h experience if you want to get everything. 160h hours of optional content which you may or may not pursue - that's not bloat. The train sequence in FFXV is bloat (entire chapter of you crossing from front to back and waiting for dialogue, and then crossing again from back to front to wait for more dialogue) because you can't go around it. Not sidequests.

If anything the war table limitations pisses me off way, way more than "go collect five elfroots and ten obsidians in hinterlands"

DemWalls · Oct 13, 2017

Honestly, at this stage this does not worry me that much.
If the games ends up being underwhelming, though, I'll know it'll probably be due to this.

Rodney McKay · Oct 13, 2017

Steve.1981 said:
Yep.

To be honest, for me, all the Dragon Age games have interesting stories, themes, settings and characters, and the series has a great overarching plot that is definitely heading in an intriguing direction.

2 was rushed, which resulted in a lot of repetition, reused designs in dungeons and stuff like that. Inquisition, on the other hand, was quite bloated. It had far too many time-sink collect-a-thon 'quests' which could drag down the whole experience of playing the game, if you got bogged down in chasing them all.

That's it, in my opinion. That's all that's wrong with the whole series. Not so very much, all told.

I appreciate Dragon Age more and more, as time goes on. I actually started another playthrough of Origins recently, and it's brilliant.

Yeah, after I beat DA:I for the first time, I honestly didn't think I'd ever replay it because it was so long (I did A LOT of the open world bloat quests like the constellation sketching and shard collectibles).

But I started replaying it again and I'm having a lot better time with it. Playing on PC, I did mod the game to remove the wait times on the War Room missions (which is a big improvement), but other than that I left everything else alone and its been pretty great. Using a different team of characters makes me realize how fleshed out they are (a lot of them I just never talked to my first time around), and for as "generic fantasy" DA comes across at first glance, when you actually dive into the lore and start paying attention it's actually really interesting.

If the next DA manages to improve on the problems of Inquisition (mainly just make it a tighter experience with less meaningless, boring fluff) and puts quality effort into it (as apposed to whatever half-assed worked they did with Mass Effect Andromeda) then I'll really look forward to playing it. But after Andromeda, Bioware did lose their "Day-1" status for me, so even if it's looking great before release, I'm going to wait for reviews and impressions before buying it.

Steve.1981 · Oct 13, 2017

Keinning said:
...sensible post...

Don't worry at all, there will be no crow served for you.

And you're right, I probably shouldn't have described Inquisition as 'bloated'.

Lanf · Oct 13, 2017

Well this is surprising. But it happens everywhere, wish him all the best.

JeffZero said:
Inquisition, and Trespasser in particular, is brimming with purposeful and intriguing direction.

Agreed completely, looking forward to the next installment, should be interesting.

Frozenprince · Oct 13, 2017

I have a distinct feeling they re going to completely alter what his vision was for DA4 and make it some bastardized online focused quasi-MMO

Steve.1981 · Oct 13, 2017

Frozenprince said:
I have a distinct feeling they re going to completely alter what his vision was for DA4 and make it some bastardized online focused quasi-MMO

Hopefully not.

Hopefully there's still room for both Anthem and Dragon Age.

dr_rus · Oct 13, 2017

Frozenprince said:
I have a distinct feeling they re going to completely alter what his vision was for DA4 and make it some bastardized online focused quasi-MMO

Got to have more service in your games these days.

Alpha Phoenix · Oct 13, 2017

Frozenprince said:
I have a distinct feeling they re going to completely alter what his vision was for DA4 and make it some bastardized online focused quasi-MMO

Unlikely. The game is in full production and the overall vision and story must already be set at this point.

JeffZero · Oct 13, 2017

I do find it odd that Mike left not a fortnight after writing that little twitter thread about the logistics of doing class-specific cutscenes across multiple playable races and stuff. He was clearly very into still maintaining the whole "wink, nod, DA4 isn't confirmed yet but" gig they've been doing for over a year. More to the point, he still came across as very invested. Did he know he would be leaving soon?

I don't know. I really don't wish to pry. He's a very cool dude and I wish him the best. I told him as much on twitter. (I'm Quinton O'Connor on there. I'm Quinton O'Connor virtually everywhere else but here. Ugh. I hate having my old name here. C'est la tangent. Anyway.) But as a fan of not only the studio but many of the cool people at that studio, I have to wonder if he just... burned out very rapidly? And if so, I hope he's alright. He's gonna be streaming stuff straightaway, so that's good.

John Harker · Oct 13, 2017

Damn, small cause for concern maybe.

Inquisition is one of the few sequels this generation that genuinely improves the experience of the franchise and set up some really interesting directions for the future.

Corporate meddling I would not be surprised.
In fact... Im gonna ask around

Alpha Phoenix · Oct 13, 2017

JeffZero said:
I do find it odd that Mike left not a fortnight after writing that little twitter thread about the logistics of doing class-specific cutscenes across multiple playable races and stuff. He was clearly very into still maintaining the whole "wink, nod, DA4 isn't confirmed yet but" gig they've been doing for over a year. More to the point, he still came across as very invested. Did he know he would be leaving soon?

That's why none of this adds up. Something feels off.

Frozenprince · Oct 14, 2017

JeffZero said:
I do find it odd that Mike left not a fortnight after writing that little twitter thread about the logistics of doing class-specific cutscenes across multiple playable races and stuff. He was clearly very into still maintaining the whole "wink, nod, DA4 isn't confirmed yet but" gig they've been doing for over a year. More to the point, he still came across as very invested. Did he know he would be leaving soon?

I don't know. I really don't wish to pry. He's a very cool dude and I wish him the best. I told him as much on twitter. (I'm Quinton O'Connor on there. I'm Quinton O'Connor virtually everywhere else but here. Ugh. I hate having my old name here. C'est la tangent. Anyway.) But as a fan of not only the studio but many of the cool people at that studio, I have to wonder if he just... burned out very rapidly? And if so, I hope he's alright. He's gonna be streaming stuff straightaway, so that's good.

Which is why I think they're making big changes to the project. Someone who sees his dream project through to entry #4 doesn't just ditch right when they're going into earnest production unless a mandate from on high is telling him to make wide reaching changes he didn't want his name attached too.

Makes me VERY worried about the franchise.

Renekton · Oct 14, 2017

Frozenprince said:
Which is why I think they're making big changes to the project. Someone who sees his dream project through to entry #4 doesn't just ditch right when they're going into earnest production unless a mandate from on high is telling him to make wide reaching changes he didn't want his name attached too.

Makes me VERY worried about the franchise.

Were they going into DA production? I mean, Anthem is all hands on deck.

Yeul · Oct 14, 2017

Renekton said:
Were they going into DA production? I mean, Anthem is all hands on deck.

They have been working on DA for quite some time.

Renekton · Oct 14, 2017

Yeul said:
They have been working on DA for quite some time.

Yeah but that has to be just pre-production.

Edit: on second thought WTF am I arguing about lol. I also agree DA's future is very uncertain.

Alpha Phoenix · Oct 14, 2017

Renekton said:
Were they going into DA production? I mean, Anthem is all hands on deck.

DA4 (or whatever they're calling it) has just recently entered full production. It's likely a Fall 2019 release.

Shaanyboi · Oct 14, 2017

Okay honest question. Should I bother with Inquisition at this point? I loved Origins/Awakening, didn't outright hate 2 but felt it was clearly made on the cheap in every respect, and never bothered to make the leap for the last game.

I just heard Inquisition is full of a lot of meaningless filler.

Renekton · Oct 14, 2017

Alpha Phoenix said:
DA4 (or whatever they're calling it) has just recently entered full production. It's likely a Fall 2019 release.

I don't think there is any source that says "full production". Closest thing was an "in development" related to Alexis Kennedy.

Stygr said:
A new DA is indeed in development, maybe late 2019.

That's my beef, simply pre-production and writing can count as "in development"

Stygr · Oct 14, 2017

A new DA is indeed in development, maybe late 2019.

CrichtonKicks · Oct 14, 2017

Renekton said:
Were they going into DA production? I mean, Anthem is all hands on deck.

There were two teams at Edmonton for a while, at least- the ME Team (now on Anthem) and the DA team.

I do wonder though if Anthem has siphoned off a huge chunk of the DA4 team and maybe imposed a significant delay.

Basically, if Laidlaw was thinking before "OK, I finish DA4 in 2019 then I'm out" and Bioware says "sorry, need the team for a year to get Anthem out the door. DA4 is 2020" now!" and that was just a bridge too far.

JeffZero said:
Inquisition, and Trespasser in particular, is brimming with purposeful and intriguing direction.

I really like some of the other improvements that Trespasser brought into the base game with the modifiers. The various difficulty modifications made the game much more rewarding to play than vanilla and pushed the player to engage more with systems like exploration, crafting, etc. I liked the reaction modifiers as well- you had to work harder on companion interactions and you didn't reach Messiah-level likability with everyone instantly compared to the base game.

Trespasser was just an all around fantastic piece of DLC.

ThoseDeafMutes · Oct 14, 2017

Shaanyboi said:
Okay honest question. Should I bother with Inquisition at this point? I loved Origins/Awakening, didn't outright hate 2 but felt it was clearly made on the cheap in every respect, and never bothered to make the leap for the last game.

I just heard Inquisition is full of a lot of meaningless filler.

It's a "better game" than 2 but it's also not really similar to the first two in any way. The combat, traversal and presentation are radically different. I would not say there is any correlation between liking DA1/2 and liking or disliking DA3. You might love it or hate it.

The bloated semi-open world caused me to not bother finishing it. I couldn't stand the game's design. But it reviewed well and some people loved it.

Alpha Phoenix · Oct 14, 2017

Renekton said:
I don't think there is any source that says "full production". Closest thing was an "in development" related to Alexis Kennedy.

They posted a number of related jobs over the summer months. That's usually a sign that a project is going into full production.

Rodney McKay · Oct 14, 2017

Shaanyboi said:
Okay honest question. Should I bother with Inquisition at this point? I loved Origins/Awakening, didn't outright hate 2 but felt it was clearly made on the cheap in every respect, and never bothered to make the leap for the last game.

I just heard Inquisition is full of a lot of meaningless filler.

I'd say absolutely.
Just go into it knowing that you don't need to do all the open-world-y side missions and try to move on from the first open-world area (The Hinterlands) as soon as you can (the zone is HUGE and you can waste away a lot of time there if you don't know the structure of the game).

Basically, you unlock new open world areas that are filled with stuff to do in them (stuff to find, little missions to do, big dragons to fight, etc.), but usually just one or two larger objectives (rescue your people from some badguys, help a town overrun with demons, etc.). You need to do enough side stuff like that to gain Inquisition points to unlock the next main story mission (they're the larger glowing things on your quest map). You can earn WAY more Inquisition points than you need to unlock all the story missions, so there are some open world areas you may not even need to ever go to if you don't want to.

The open world areas IMO are really nice looking and varied environments to explore for a while, and if you're the kind of player that likes to do a LOT of small quests, there are plenty there for you (I enjoy some of the more mundane ones like collecting objects around the world it's relaxing for me).
But if you just want to get to the story and meat of the game, you can skip a lot of that stuff.

Slackbladder · Oct 14, 2017

Shaanyboi said:
Okay honest question. Should I bother with Inquisition at this point? I loved Origins/Awakening, didn't outright hate 2 but felt it was clearly made on the cheap in every respect, and never bothered to make the leap for the last game.

I just heard Inquisition is full of a lot of meaningless filler.

The characters and interactions are pretty good. The combat can work well, or not, but for me it held up well enough. As for the filler you can choose to do it or not do it. Collect things or don't collect things. I never had a problem with it because I just ignored what I didn't want to do. That said it is quite different from Origins but also more involved than 2. And I'm sure it's pretty cheap now.

gogosox82 · Oct 14, 2017

Shaanyboi said:
Okay honest question. Should I bother with Inquisition at this point? I loved Origins/Awakening, didn't outright hate 2 but felt it was clearly made on the cheap in every respect, and never bothered to make the leap for the last game.

I just heard Inquisition is full of a lot of meaningless filler.

Depends. You will probably have a good time if you just do the companion quests and main quests only but you'll want to go to some areas to farm for material because the best weapons in Inquisition are crafted instead of bought like in Origins and DA2. Most of the mmo quests that people complain about can be completely ignored but if you like them, there are tons and tons of them for you do to. Just depends on what you like.

CrichtonKicks · Oct 14, 2017

I think the key to really enjoying Inquisition is that you need to play it very goal focused- only get the Influence points you need to unlock the goal you next want to tackle. Only pick herbs, minerals, etc if you are actively trying to craft a specific item. Perform non-party member side quests only until you get to the recommended level for the next story mission and then move on with the main story.

Renekton · Oct 14, 2017

Alpha Phoenix said:
They posted a number of related jobs over the summer months. That's usually a sign that a project is going into full production.

I think the safer conclusion is that they are ramping up for their make-or-break title. If you look at Bioware Careers right now, almost everything is Anthem.

Alpha Phoenix · Oct 14, 2017

CrichtonKicks said:
There were two teams at Edmonton for a while, at least- the ME Team (now on Anthem) and the DA team.

I do wonder though if Anthem has siphoned off a huge chunk of the DA4 team and maybe imposed a significant delay.

Basically, if Laidlaw was thinking before "OK, I finish DA4 in 2019 then I'm out" and Bioware says "sorry, need the team for a year to get Anthem out the door. DA4 is 2020" now!" and that was just a bridge too far.

That's actually quite a plausible scenario.

Staf · Oct 14, 2017

I liked Inquisition. Not as good as Origins but still fun. A game where you can play a female dwarf with a stubble gets an automatic pass for me. But if Bioware's future is Anthem and those types of games; Mass effect: Andromeda will be the last Bioware game i'll play. And that is depressing as hell given the quality of that game.

Anyway, i hope the best for Mike. He always came across as a decent guy in interviews.

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Mike Laidlaw (Dragon Age Creative Director) leaves BioWare [Up: DA still alive]

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