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BioWare: DAI will not be a "template" for Mass Effect/non-DA games, ME next-gen only

Seen this line of sentiment commonly here on GAF and other places on the internet, felt like it was significant enough to share. Great to see Mass Effect will continue to retain its own identity.

Aaryn Flynn chimed in on the Mass Effect thread.

Of Giant Bomb. Bioware was obviously showing DA:I during Judges' Week at E3 this year, and that's what the Bioware reps were telling the judges.

Jeff's mentioned it a few times during Bombcasts, and has seemed to indicate that it was a point of emphasis and not an off-the-cuff statement.

I've seen a few thoughts like this recently, and thought I'd weigh in as much as I can right now. I have a good idea where it's coming from. All of our games are using Frostbite now. We've said the next Mass Effect (and our new IP, but I won't expand on that yet) uses some of the technology from DAI. We've been enjoying building larger areas that you can explore with less friction, so that'll be there as well.

But after that, the next Mass Effect will be (and should be) drawing on its own rich and successful past more than what DAI would say it should do. Take the Mako, something we've already shown in prototype form. We had that in ME1, and bringing it back is more related to a feeling that we can do it much better than we did before and fulfill the original promise of that gameplay. That has nothing to do with DAI. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that dropping the older consoles has had more impact on the overall gameplay goals of the next Mass Effect game than what DAI successfully accomplished.

We're very proud of what DAI has achieved, but that does not set a "template" for what every other game we make needs to be. Each game franchise needs to innovate and improve their experience based on what's best for it, not just what another game had success with because "well that was successful".

Hope that helps!
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that dropping the older consoles has had more impact on the overall gameplay goals of the next Mass Effect game than what DAI successfully accomplished.
Since this is the first time we've had this expressed in a 100% straight forward way, I updated the title a bit.
 
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Well they already tried to make Dragon Age into Mass Effect.

This is a good thing. I always felt both series had distinct styles and it's one of the reasons I thought DA2 was a misstep. Keep 'em unique!
 
Good to hear. One of my favourite things about ME1 was replaying it to get different achievements, which would give you bonus abilities for new characters (and even a few gamerpics). It's not the longest game, but it is a tight experience. I really like DAI, but it is a really bloated game.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
They've already expressed interest in larger, open world designs with the new mako.

I wouldn't take the statement so literally as to mean "BioWare series have absolutely no influence on each other.", but rather to mean they're going to put the design goals of each franchise first and foremost when making the next game in that franchise, and then look to other games they and other studios make for additional influences and lessons to learn on what to and what not to do.

The WRPG genre in general consists of nigh 100% open worlds now, especially on the AAA scale. I don't think it's likely you will see another game without one any time soon.

Or, to make this more explicit, they're using the same technology as Dragon Age so it's safe to assume they have things like a similar character creator. They also are going to look at what people did and didn't like with Dragon Age's approach to open worlds to help inform what they do with their own open worlds instead of sticking their head in the sand and going "I CAN LEARN NOTHING FROM OTHER THINGS." like crazy people, especially given they share a lot of lower and mid level staff.

The people who make multiplayer for their games also share a lot of the same staff and very clearly take lessons from product to product.

However, similarly, they're not going to be Ubisoft and say "Every game must have capturable garrisons and parkour and stealth kills and 3000 collectibles because it got us to 10+ million sales in one game." They mentioned that Mass Effect won't have selectable races for example because they seem to feel that the series is about playing a human.
 

spekkeh

Banned
Well ME also wasn't going to be a choose A, B, C ending. Besides, shinobi said ME and DA couldn't be further apart as franchises and have hardly influenced each other, so let's say there are some differences in perception regarding what is a template and what isn't.
 

bede-x

Member
I hope they mean it. Don't think I could take another Bioware series turned into a Ubisoft crap quest collectathon with MMO and F2P elements, though I still fully expect that to happen..
 

theWB27

Member
Where'd this concern come from? These two series have released alongside each other for awhile now and they've remained pretty different. Why are there some who think this has changed???
 

Nokterian

Member
I am intrested give me my mako and let me explore space and planets seeing how much a rise it is making with a lot of games on the horizon. Even if isn't that huge but let me do what i also did in ME1 but bigger and better.

1tD2qmL.gif
 
Where'd this concern come from? These two series have released alongside each other for awhile now and they've remained pretty different. Why are there some who think this has changed???

dragon age 2 copied over a lot of bad stuff from mass effect.
 

ElFly

Member
I got a lot of ME2 vibes from DA:I so I don't know why anybody wouldn't expect the series to influence each other.
 

JayEH

Junior Member
Not a fan of ME going for larger open areas for the Mako.

1. I don't want fetch quests scattered everywhere
2. ME has always done well with highly focused, detailed areas.
3. I'm just getting tired of open world RPGs.
 

Hasney

Member
I am intrested give me my mako and let me explore space and planets seeing how much a rise it is making with a lot of games on the horizon. Even if isn't that huge but let me do what i also did in ME1 but bigger and better.

1tD2qmL.gif

Goddamn yes. One of the reasons I always considered each ME to be worse than the last one was driving around with the mako, so much fun.
 
I got a lot of ME2 vibes from DA:I so I don't know why anybody wouldn't expect the series to influence each other.
That wasn't the concern people had (myself not included). People were get the feeling the "fetch quests" and overall design of DAI would carry over exactly into the new ME which just won't be the case.
 
Not a fan of ME going for larger open areas for the Mako.

1. I don't want fetch quests scattered everywhere
2. ME has always done well with highly focused, detailed areas.
3. I'm just getting tired of open world RPGs.

This a thousand times this.
 
I understand what you guys mean when you talk about MMO quest, lord they need to get rid of that..feels really weird so did the mobile vibe.
 

Moaradin

Member
Not a fan of ME going for larger open areas for the Mako.

1. I don't want fetch quests scattered everywhere
2. ME has always done well with highly focused, detailed areas.
3. I'm just getting tired of open world RPGs.

ME1 was filled with fetch quest. The Mako open sections was pretty much entirely that. Hopefully they make the Mako interesting this time around.
 

Wulfram

Member
DA2 took the voiced protagonist/dialogue wheel and (more or less) loyalty quests over from ME2. Though I wouldn't say that was inherently a bad thing.
 

Wulfram

Member
Is the Mako that piece of shit vehicle you have to drive during ME2? Count me out if so. That's why i stopped playing that game.

No, it's the vehicle you drive in ME1.

Which unlike the hammerhead wasn't made out of tissue paper, though it's handling was a bit awkward.
 

spekkeh

Banned
That wasn't the concern people had (myself not included). People were get the feeling the "fetch quests" and overall design of DAI would carry over exactly into the new ME which just won't be the case.
The war table and influence/power gathering carried over from ME3 to DAI, the fetch quests for requisitions and accumulating war assets you get from overhearing stuff on the citadel too. Seems like a really minor step to have these appear out in the open area instead of just the citadel, and copy pasted a large number of times in order to fill these bigger areas up with "meaningful exploration".
 

JayEH

Junior Member
ME1 was filled with fetch quest. The Mako open sections was pretty much entirely that. Hopefully they make the Mako interesting this time around.

Well let's just say I've probably spent little to no time in the mako that wasn't necessary.
 
No, it's the vehicle you drive in ME1.

Which unlike the hammerhead wasn't made out of tissue paper, though it's handling was a bit awkward.
The hammerhead was me2 then? Mako automatically sounds better.

You won't be missed.
Lol

That was part of the DLC and was not necessary to play through the game.
Yeah, but on PS3 it wasn't super clear to me what was and wasn't DLC and the effort it took in the DLC mission to even get to the vehicle part on the highest difficulty made me feel like quitting was not that much worse than losing progress. For better or worse.
 

Yeul

Member
Well I mean sure, a company will always take influences from one game to another but that doesn't mean they will be the same. Besides, Mass Effect has evolved since 2007 and it's not an RPG like DA. I'm sure since the beginning they've wanted an expansive universe but the tech just couldn't allow it - considering the number of repeated assets from one planet to another like that concrete slab of a base that you infiltrate dozens of times if you "explore". I'll be interested to see what kind of missions will be available to you when you do end up exploring but some areas might also be like a No Man's Sky type deal where you land on a planet just for the sake of checking it out, which I would have no problem with considering their shift to a new engine this gen and how it is bound to be gorgeous.
 

Madness

Member
Not a fan of ME going for larger open areas for the Mako.

1. I don't want fetch quests scattered everywhere
2. ME has always done well with highly focused, detailed areas.
3. I'm just getting tired of open world RPGs.

I hope they harken back a bit to how the original Mass Effect was, in terms of actual exploration and venturing. One of my biggest issues with how ME2 and ME3 changed game play was they basically turned it into a linear shooter where you just basically sprint from A to B.

One of my biggest hopes with a next gen Mass Effect is if they capture the wonder the first game had. What's the Attican Traverse? What's the Terminus systems, can I fly there and land on a planet only to see its hostile to Citadel aliens. So I actually hope there is a lot more open world and exploration.

I loved the hub world's the most. Can't wait to see how they'll do it for ME4.
 
good because dragon age I was a mediocre game. only thing good about it was the graphics. Main story was awful and the quests couldn't be any more repetitive.
 
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