#EA devs

[unohdukseen]

BioWare uses AI in Dragon Age: The Veilguard codex cards

And I think it's not only there - most of the armor looks like the use AI for references.

But about the codex: this applies to the Grey Warden cards. First, a general view:

All cards in different styles made by different artists. But my eyes caught on this:

It's the same art that was run through AI-editor. And these cards are nearby, in the same game! Maximum disrespect for the work of the artist who made the original art (for DAI btw). The codex contains a few cards with this style, let's see the details:

They all was AI generated. I thought I couldn't be more disappointed in BioWare, but it turns out there is.

[itseghost]

the rude blacksmith has enchanted me. also feeling so normal about this game that i did pixel art for the first time ever to try and draw my farmer in the game style

[sha-brytols]

no offense but i genuinely can't help but wonder if most of this community is aware that bioware is a triple a gaming corporation and is perfectly capable of creating a toxic and unstable work environment without ea's help

[moonhze]

anadius has made it so so easy and safe for people to obtain ts4 and all of its packs without paying for them and i really wish more people knew about this bc the only way to get EA to pay attention to the terrible state of the game is to literally stop giving them money, 🏴‍☠️ the packs to keep playing the game u enjoy but know they only care about appeasing their shareholders/investors/whatever they are and they're all driven by money and have very little interest in the playable state of the game in terms of bugs and features unless the game is so broken that people are actively demanding refunds in mass or just not buying the packs at all.

[asha-mage]

Every gaming news site out here huffing the copium and desperately crowing about how 'this means Mass Effect 5 is the studio's last chance' and 'they'll be full locked in on the Mass Effect!' and I'm just sitting here like. Do you really think. Do you really think that the team who barely managed to make Veilguard is going to be able to turn out a new Mass Effect with a fraction of the personnel and budget? Do you really think that this is anything but EA soft shuttering the studio? Bioware had it's last chance and it was Veilguard, which missed sales targets by more the 50%!

EA will insist that Mass Effect 5 is in development whenever their asked for a few years then quietly lay off or shift the skeleton crew at Bioware when no one is looking and claim it's just been shifted around internally, until everyone stops asking.

The party is over. The chairs are going up onto the table. It's time to pay the caterer and move on.

[flowersforthemachines]

so, Your $70 Doesn't Buy You Cruelty by Mark Darrah (Executive Producer of DAO, DA2, and DAI who also worked as a consultant on DAVG) had a bunch of great points, but this bit about hypothetical reasons writing on a game may not be good in certain places particularly caught my attention:

what the fuck was going on at EA/Bioware

[inquisitor-julia]

like.....how do i even begin to process the fall of DA when the series, the characters, the ocs, the lore, this blog, everything has meant so much to me for so long and through so much

genuinely sitting here staring at my screen mentally buffering rn

[lizzybeeee]

I will never emotionally recover from this

[angelknives]

"It's unfair to compare Veilguard to BG3!"

Err, no it isn't? A game supposedly in the same genre, made by a studio with experience in that genre, produced around the same time. How is that unfair? I love BG3 but Larian isn't reinventing the wheel. It's building on what works in this genre and (gasps) improving on criticism it got on its previous games.

But sure, let's not compare DAV to BG3, how about we compare it to:

Disco Elysium

Divinity Original Sin 2

The Witcher 3

Pillars of Eternity 2

Elden Ring

While all different, they all contain elements Bioware gutted out of Dragon Age: The Veilguard (like a good snappy title), to reach a younger broader new audience. These titles didn't gut themselves and were highly successful on every metric. And they all came out between DAI and DAV, so Bioware could have learned from that.

Especially as they already tried to dumped down, simplified approach with Andromeda and most people weren't happy with that either.

Oh and I forget one important game DAV could have learned from:

Dragon Age: Inquisition

[sanshofox]

Well this hella sounds like their other statement, from months ago, just before their huge layoff. They even used some of the same words and phrasings. Really this doesn’t sound too good for bioware in general 🥲

[beastieballgame]

haha I distracted you with a pretty picture by @irischroma ….

anyway SORRY IT’S BEEN FOREVER but the great news is that beastieball’s early access launch trailer is releasing LITERALLY TOMORROW (NOVEMBER 1st!!) you can watch the premiere on Klei’s youtube, or watch it with us in the discord server :)

Be there or Beware…. oooooOooooOooOoo

[shadovvheart]

"Slowly and painfully BioWare is figuring out that it simply can't do more than one project at a time anymore."

"BW has existed in different ways/structures through its history. We're currently entering into an "unprecedented time" for BW"

"DA:TV being a 'direct sequel' would have been an unlikely path"

"It'll be a [long] while to DA5 [hypothetically speaking, if it gets made]"

"Mark Darrah expects that the next Dragon Age will once again be pretty different to the last iteration"

"DA has been looking for larger audiences in every iteration. EA has never understood the franchise"

[stormsbourne]

the fact that the ea CEO basically said "I told you we should have made datv a live service game and then it would have sold good," like a week after doing horrendous layoffs of everyone in the team, that's going to be my supervillain origin story

[rookamell]

Every now and then I get bummed out because I do actually like Veilguard. I really enjoy playing the game and expanding upon it but so many people are so negative about it it makes me feel almost guilty for liking it

[miyku]

[lizzybeeee]

"'BioWare Magic' exists to serve man, and never to rule over him." Faded words found within the pages of a dust-covered 'BioWare Employee's Handbook'

I think one of the most messed up parts about BioWare is that they renamed crunch to 'BioWare Magic'. Because they did make magic. They made such magical worlds, stories, and characters that managed to captivate so many hearts and minds - that potentially left such a profound mark on the lives of those who experienced those stories. These games were one of the reasons I got into drawing as a hobby! They inspired me so much!

We're they perfect? No. But in some of the darkest times of my life I found an escape - a distraction that gave me some comfort and allowed me to escape the stresses of my life for a little while. Something that gave me a genuine feeling of joy when depression hit me particularly hard. I still hear tunes like the theme for Castle Cousland or the Inquisition menu theme and just get this rush of emotion within me because I have so many happy memories associated with the first three games.

I got to go on adventures -> I made my own character who got to influence change in this lovingly crafted world, and who could be as daring and strong as I wished I was in real life. I got invested in these characters -> they became friends, companions, and fell in love and I was there every step of the way. I got lost in the story and lore of this world in a way that no other fantasy game has managed to grip me.

That is magic.

It's vile that they called crunch - the most toxic and disgustingly prevalent aspect of gaming development 'magic' - it is the complete opposite. Reading about the burn out, the stress leave or a 'stress casualty' when a developer left for good. Getting a job in the industry you love, to create things that you love, only to have that love twisted into this corporate psychological dumpster-fire of a work culture...

A healthy, well-run studio would not have had four iterations of the same game, their core developers hemorrhaging with every new iteration, before being dumped at the finish line with this frankenstein mess of a game.

There is no alternative to Dragon Age - it's the only thing like it. It's just so sad that it ended the way that it did.