#larian studios calling bioware out | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

felassan · 1 year ago

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Last week Mark Darrah did a Q&A video on his YouTube channel Mark Darrah on Games, called "15K Subs - Q&A". In case it's useful to anyone e.g. for accessibility reasons, here are some notes. The full video can be watched here [<- source link].

(Some of the questions answered were leftover from his previous Q&A video in this series from some time ago, during which time he had left BioWare and had not yet started his consultant work with BioWare.)

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Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, the DA:D development era at BioWare & related topics

"I'm still consulting with BioWare."

Q. Were there any plans to make Dragon Age games in other genres, like an MMO? A. "Not really. What actually happened was during Joplin development, as we were being squeezed and people were being stolen onto other projects like Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, I actually put a Twitter poll up at one point, just sort've gauging the interest. There was never any people against it, it was really nothing more than that, just to see what the appetite was for something like that. But no development was ever done." Q. Are you looking forward to playing Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "I mean, I'm not really completely on the outside anymore. I'm working with BioWare as a consultant. So when this question was originally asked I was on the outside. Yeah, I mean, that was a pretty interesting thing to look forward to, I know a lot more now than I did then. So my answer I guess is not really relevant anymore, but at the time, yeah, I would say so."

Q. At this point would it be better for the Dragon Age IP to be sold off and taken by another studio such as Larian? A. "I don't think, first of all that's never gonna happen. EA doesn't really sell off IPs. I think that it's in a good place, it's got support from EA and it's moving towards its end." [meaning Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is nearing the end of its development cycle and moving towards ship]

Q. What happened internally at BioWare, [someone whose name was redacted by Mark for the video] started becoming more and more bigoted, and why does he have a beef with Mark? A. "So I'm not gonna talk about who this was, but I'll just answer the question. The reason why there's a specific beef with me is because I was the one tasked with responding to some of the drama that was spinning up, once it crossed the line where EA felt something needed to be done. I did a video about why it's sometimes the right answer to be quiet and not to respond to something, in this particular case EA decided that things had gotten sufficiently out of hand and something needed to be done. I was the one who had the very legally-approved language and was the one that was, as a result, responding to that."

Q. [a question regarding Dragon Age extended universe/secondary material, like the comics and novels] A. "At BioWare, there is a business development group who is responsible for looking for this kind of thing. Usually, well I guess always, there is a requirement of feedback, some sort of feedback loop. Depending on the exact property that might be everything from 'you will do exactly what we say and you're just work for hire' up to 'you have a lot of creative control and BioWare maintains some degree of veto power'. Typically, with BioWare, they're looking for deals where the cost is being carried by the people making the product, as opposed to by BioWare. This is not the case with all companies. The advantage of the studio paying for it is that you make more money, but you carry more risk, so BioWare goes with the more conservative way, where they're not spending as much, or anything usually, but they give away more profit on the back end."

Q. How has it been working on Dragon Age again? Did you miss it? A. "I don't know that I missed it when I wasn't working on it. It was interesting to be on the outside. It's very strange being back in the, on the inside again, because my role is very different. I'm not the Executive Producer, I don't have that direct managerial role, I don't have direct, I don't really have any hard power whatsoever on the project anymore, so that's definitely different."

Q. What's the best piece of advice you would give the Dragon Age/Dragon Age: Dreadwolf team if asked? A. "I guess this question, which was from before, isn't as relevant, I've given them all that advice at this point."

"Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be only on next gen consoles and PC, as far as I'm aware." [i.e., PS5 not PS4, Xbox Series X not XBone etc].

Q. Is this [referring to Dragon Age: Dreadwolf] a new beginning for Dragon Age? A. "Dragon Age is a weird franchise. It has had to reinvent itself every single time because of internal corporate pressures. This, like Dragon Age: Inquisition, like Dragon Age II, will be different from the games that came before it. I think that's fine. It's kind of become part of the DNA of the franchise at this point."

Q. What made you want to reach out to BioWare to consult on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "So I feel like that's been somewhat over-reported. So I have been doing consulting work since, in 2022, was when I started doing it. I was reaching out to different people. I knew where BioWare was when I first reached out to them. At the time they said 'no', and then I was like 'alright, fine' and I started working with some other people, and then things changed at BioWare and then they came and reached out to me when their situation was a bit different. So, I guess the short answer is money. The long answer was, I mean I have contacts there, I knew I could help them out, and I'm certainly interested in Dragon Age being the best game that it can be."

Q. How long is alpha to beta to release in general terms? A. "Almost unanswerable. It is incredibly dependent upon - the time from alpha to beta, well first of all there's lots of different definitions of these different phases, but the time from alpha to beta is the time of getting the content finished, and then from beta to release is more about getting your bugs fixed. Some games have thousands of bugs, some games have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of bugs, so these times can be highly dependent upon the game and the genre. If you're making something that's a competitive game that really needs a lot of tuning, then you want a lot of time in that beta period, ideally to get the game in front of people who're gonna play it, to really dial those knobs in as best you can."

Q. Why does Frostbite struggle with animation? A. "I actually feel like it's actually doing fine with animation. I think it's a content problem, not an engine problem, when it comes to animation in Frostbite. I think what you're seeing is what is being built. Now, that being said, Frostbite now uses ANT, which is the animation system built for sports, so it is different."

"I did watch Dragon Age: Absolution. I actually really liked Absolution. I'm not sure how enjoyable it would be for a non-Dragon Age person, because I'm not a non-Dragon Age person, but as a Dragon Age person I really liked it, I thought it was well-made, I thought it did something interesting with the IP."

Q. Have you added any new gameplay mechanics that you can talk about? [unclear if question was regarding DA:D or the DA games in general] A. "Not anything that I really remember, exactly, because, you know, it's a collaborative, for a AAA game it's a collaborative exercise, at least the way that I ran the project, so I wouldn't consider that anything that was in the games that I led was introduced by me, they would have been introduced by the team, or pushed for, or advocated for by people other than me, for the most part."

"In one of my videos, I said that Dragon Age: Origins went through lots of shifts in development. Yeah, Dragon Age: Origins was multiplayer two different times before it actually ended up shipping. Also, it was originally being built on the Neverwinter Engine, it shifted engines in the middle, so it had some big shifts. The difference being that, you know, back in the early 2000s, there wasn't as much scrutiny on development, there wasn't as wide of a pipeline for rumors as there is now."

Q. Is there going to be any new external/secondary media about Dragon Age? A. "I actually don't know the answer to that, that's not a room that I am in anymore, so that would be a question to ask BioWare."

Q. Where was this filmed? [The next DRAGON AGE: Behind the scenes at BioWare] How does it hold up comparing to what was announced at The Game Awards? A. "I think this is the video, the Dragon Age video that was filmed at a park in Edmonton. I think it was Whitemud Park, if it's the video I am thinking of. How does it hold up? I mean, it doesn't show as much, it's showing a little bit of content, it holds up fine."

Q. How difficult or realistic is it to have previous protagonists in a sequel game? Like Hawke in Dragon Age: Inquisition or letters from the Warden? A. "It can, for Dragon Age, or any game that has a, or any game that has character creation, it is extra work, because you have kinda two choices. You either have to move to sort've default marketing protagonist. Well I guess you have three choices. Default marketing protagonist, or you have to put character creation right in the middle of the game flow, to allow people to create their character, or you have to have some way to move your protagonist appearance from game to game to game. Which, it would be the ideal solution, but that requires that your character creation remains relatively constantly from game to game. Which typically isn't actually the case."

Q. Why did EA cut BioWare's budget? A. "I assume that's to do with the layoffs. I do not have an answer to that question, but I put it in here anyway, so, there you go."

Q. Have you acquired new knowledge you can use for yourself consulting at BioWare? A. "It's actually been really useful, for me, so as a story-shaper, someone who develops my storytelling through the interaction with people, it's been useful for a lot of my concepts and philosophy, to bounce it off of people, and to be able to come back to things that I've thought about and even written about, even made videos about, and re-examine some of that. So absolutely, working with people has, for my kind of storytelling, has been helpful for me understanding the things I already believe."

Q. Any idea what the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf Collector's Edition will entail, or how do you decide what goes in them? A. "I have no idea, I guess they'll announce it probably when they put pre-orders up. When you're doing a Collector's Edition, when you're doing a Digital Deluxe, any of those things, it's all about perceived value. So it's all about, how much more do we want to charge for this thing? How do we get that much stuff in the box so that it's worth it? Not worth it for everyone, because otherwise, that would just be the game, but worth it for some degree of people. Typically, for physical Collector's Editions, that comes with a bunch of little things and one big thing. Dragon Age: Inquisition went a different way and it gets its value through a ton of little things like a map, little things you put on the map, and a lockpicking set, and a whole bunch of little things, but it's all about getting over that threshold of this being worth it to some percentage of your audience."

Q. Do you have hope that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be good? A. "Absolutely, that's why I'm working with them."

Q. Do you think it's possible for EA to recover in the eyes of BioWare fans? A. "I'm not sure that it's possible for any multi-billion dollar publicly traded company to ever have a really great public perception. I think it's something that they should care about, but I think they would be better served by focusing on strengthening the perception of the individual studios. Let EA be the evil corporate overlord and then make the perception of the studios that they own as strong as possible. That would be the way that I would go."

Q. If you could go back and change Dragon Age lore, what would you change? A. "There was some stuff in the early Dragon Age: Origins [days] which was very much trying to address some of the tropey, problematic bits of magic from D&D, so teleportation, things that. I think we went a little too hard there, and I think leaving that door a little bit more open would be better. The other thing that I think that Dragon Age has been dealing with, but is sort've a problem is, the source of magic. So in typical vanilla D&D magic kind've comes from a million different places, so it kinda doesn't matter. In some other settings, magic comes from a single place, it comes from the astral plane or it comes from this crystal that people dig up and grind up and use to do magic. In Dragon Age you kind've have it coming from a couple of different places, but too few to be everywhere, and therefore it doesn't matter, but too many for it to be one. So you end up with this weird thing of like, are undead caused by the Blight, is lyrium a source of magic? Like, there's just a few too many. And so Dragon Age has been kind've collapsing that probability space down. If I had a time machine, I'd probably just collapse that probability space down in the first place, not necessarily put it in the games, but at least know where that space collapsed." Q. Aren't the only sources of magic Blight, blood or Fade? A. "It isn't, because you've got Blight, blood, Fade - well, okay, yes - lyrium is [Titan] blood now because that was Dragon Age collapsing the probability space. That's what I mean by Dragon Age is collapsing the probability space. It didn't used to be. I don't know if that was always the plan for lyrium or not. I don't think so, I think that was - yeah, no, I think there are Titans, Titans have always been in the plan, but I don't know that lyrium was always - I could be wrong, I could be misremembering."

Q. Are games taking longer to come out now, or is it just Dragon Age and Mass Effect that this has happened to? Why? A. "No, games are taking longer. The short answer actually has a lot to do with graphical fidelity, it's just the assets take longer to make. There are more things, like you didn't have as many steps in creating a piece of art in 1998 as you do now, you didn't have even the concept of materials or shaders or any of these things, so now you have all of these additional steps along the way. It will be interesting to see if, as, some of these techniques, you know, PBM and photogrammetry and these other things become more commonplace, if some of those costs come down. It hasn't happened yet, it actually just kept going up and up and up, you just changed the work that's being done, but that might be the end-state, where maybe costs actually start to go down again. I haven't seen it yet though."

Q. Can you tell us more about Sandal or do we have to wait until Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "No, Sandal is a character whose future will be decided by BioWare." Q. Can I assume that Sandal will be in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "I wouldn't make that assumption."

Q. What did you miss most about working in AAA and how does it feel being back in a different position? A. "Like I said before, it's weird, because I am, my desk, the desk, if I go into the office the desk I actually sit at is the same desk I had before, but my position is very different. I'm not doing salaries, I'm not doing people management, I'm not doing reviews, but also I don't have final say on anything, I have no hard power in my position, it's just a consulting position, so it's pretty different. I don't know that I miss anything in particular about AAA, I mean there's a power in the giant team that you just don't see in the indie space, but there's an agility that you just don't see in AAA in the indie space, so I think there's pros and cons for both sides."

Q. Any thoughts on the idea that Mass Effect and Dragon Age have become too similar? A. "I would, so I did a very sarcastic presentation back in, probably 2017. They've always been really similar. They are BioWare games with a party, they've always been incredibly similar, so I don't think it's a problem, I think that they have their own distinct characters, they stand apart from each other. In the same way that I wouldn't say that Fallout and Elder Scrolls are too similar, but they sure are both Bethesda games, so I don't think there's a problem there at all."

Q. Do you have an opinion to share on why there's been no marketing yet for Dreadwolf? A. "I assume that means 'why hasn't there been marketing yet for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. I mean, there has, but nothing recently. The policy for much of AAA has become very much shorter, louder marketing campaigns. I think that there is a lot of power in that. I think that can be a very powerful way to go. Dragon Age obviously carries the fact that we did an announcement trailer back in 2018, but I think that's what's happening."

Q. Do you think it's possible for BioWare to split from EA? A. "No. EA doesn't let things go, so no. Could everyone leave and start their own studio? Sure, but BioWare will remain part of EA as far as I can tell. That's not how EA thinks."

Q. Should Dragon Age have more or fewer jump-scares in it? A. "I mean it doesn't have that many jump-scares, so... more!"

Q. Why did you decide to rejoin BioWare? A. "Like I said, I was consulting. I reached out to them, to look at the possibility of helping them out with some things. They said no, then some time went by and then they contacted me and said 'oh, actually yes', so, short answer is because it was what I was doing at the time. Longer answer is, I mean, definitely I am interested in Dragon Age being the best game it's capable of being."

Q. Do you feel BioWare could have done more to nurture the fanbase between releases, other than comics and novels? A. "Yeah, I do actually wish that there was an ecosystem to make little games, so, you know, you make the little, you make Final Fantasy Tactics, you make Dragon Age Tactics. You make mobile title - I mean there was the mobile game, the Dragon Age mobile game [Heroes of Dragon Age], that did really well, but yeah, I think there is an opportunity there. That is not the way that development works really at EA. It would've had to have been done by a different part of EA, and, so, yep. [shrug]"

Q. What do you feel about the comments that BioWare is becoming less writer-oriented? A. "I don't know that that is true. Definitely it went through a period of trying to focus more on different kinds of gameplay, like Anthem is definitely a game driven by its gameplay as opposed to by its story. I guess we'll see with Bowie what the actual truth is going to be, but I don't think that's what's happening."

Q. Is the next Mass Effect still in development? A. "Yep."

Q. Will Dragon Age go open-world again? A. "I don't know, I mean I guess that's always a possibility."

"I'm not going to comment on any things that have changed in BioWare's staffing, because, one, I found out at the same time as everybody else did, so I have no information, and two, I'm working with them, so I'm not going to give my opinion on that, so." "I'm not gonna comment on any layoff stuff."

Q. Would it be possible to give us the option to turn off the 'screen shake' effects after a critical or melee hit in Dragon Age games? A. "Yeah, I mean you do see that as an accessibility option in a lot of games now, so, hopefully."

Q. Mass Effect and Dragon Age have thousands of years in each of their respective lore/worlds, do you think there's a space for smaller and/or externally produced experiences that explore it more? A. "I do think there is an opportunity for that, I mean that's kind've where the comics and Dragon Age: Absolution and things like that have lived. You do have to figure out to control the IP somehow. Now you could go, like with KOTOR, where you just throw something back into the past far enough. Like go wayyy back and talk about 'where the Qunari came from' or something, but, I do think there's an opportunity there with some thinking. Now, will that happen? I don't expect so because that would require dev resources that don't really exist, or going to an external studio, which I don't think EA is gonna be particularly interested in doing."

"Yeah, I know. [the title] 'Dreadwolf' did ruin the whole vowel thing. Like, I'm also mad about that."

Q. Has there ever been discussion about adding more 'drama' to BioWare romances? I loved the conflict with Liara in Mass Effect 2 if you had romanced another character. A. "I'm sure that's a conversation that's happened somewhere. Often the characters are, each character is written by a different writer, so when they interact that can become a little bit more complicated, but yeah, there's certainly interesting things to be potentially done there."

Q. How involved are you as a Creative Lead on marketing titles? Do you have input into the creation of trailers? A. "Yes, usually there's some degree of input in trailers, but at EA they're usually done by a central group, so it's influence more than necessarily even veto. Probably the Executive Producer has veto power if necessary, but not direct creative control, they're done by a different group."

"I won't be working on [his game, High Tea on the High Seas] until my contract with BioWare is over, I expect."

"I love the modding community. We don't really support them very much, but I think there's a lot of power there for sure."

Q. Do you think BioWare should make non-linear games like Baldur's Gate 3 or stick with what they have always done before? A. "I think that there is, BioWare used to do more 'campfires in the dark', so more, like, 'I know you got here, but I don't know how', and I think that we should return to that more, at least for the side content. I think that the follower content is where BioWare's strength remains and will remain, and I think that deserves to be done in whatever way fits the storytelling that we're trying to do."

Q. Do you think the Dragon Age series should have more musical numbers in the game? A. "Yes I do."

Q. Is there any animosity between BioWare teams? A. "There has been, in the past. I don't think there is now, but there has been in the past, for sure."

Q. Do you regret allowing the player to kill certain characters? How much does that complicate future titles? A. "It makes future titles really complicated. In Dragon Age: Inquisition trying to find a Warden was like, basically they all could be dead, that's why you end up with mustache, Stroud, because literally everyone else could be dead. I don't regret it though, I think it's good to do that kind of thing when you can, it adds extra impact. You just have to live with the consequences of it."

Q. Is there room when AAA games are being developed for smaller projects to get made in the same studio? A. "It depends on the studio. Within BioWare, basically no, because the big AAA things just suck all the life out of it, but I've seen it work at some places where they have protection to keep the little things working and alive. So it's possible, but I don't think it could work at BioWare because I think they would just end up getting starved out by the bigger titles."

Q. Do you think BioWare is going to innovate, or are they trying to make something standard? A. "I mean all games contain innovation, so I'm not sure what your question is there, so yes."

Q. Was there any general reaction that BioWare had to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners? A. "Nothing that I'm aware of. I'm sure that people watched it and had thoughts, but nothing that I've heard."

Q. Do you believe marketing campaigns that are started too early, with features that don't make it into the final product are deceptive and counter-productive because they create false expectations? A. "So I do believe in shorter, louder marketing campaigns in general. There are cases where ya gotta go out and ya gotta start building expectations for your title, but when you're out there for a long time, and you're showing gameplay, you're going to show things that end up getting cut. And I don't think, so, are they counterproductive? No, I don't think they are, because most people don't remember, they just remember they were excited, the thing they saw two years ago. They don't remember that it showed something that ended up getting cut. Do they cause a little bit of internet drama? Sure. But I don't think that they're counterproductive. I think in the cases where you have to do them, where you're repairing a relationship or you need to build up a new IP or whatever, they can be useful. Are you gonna get yourself into trouble? For sure, but, still worth doing."

"Shorter marketing campaigns are super effective, but there are cases where you need a longer conversation with your potential fans."

Q. Do you see Dragon Age as a franchises headed towards a linear end, or more of a world for stories that expand in different directions? A. "I don't know that we'll ever see Dragon Age kind've branch into a bunch of different things. So, like, will there be a main title that continues to basically be the line of canon, that's, probably, yes. That's probably what will happen. It is a franchise that is much more about its world than Mass Effect, and much less about its characters, so I get your point, but I don't think we'll ever see, like, several different parallel storylines going at once."

Q. Without a remake or remaster [of previous Dragon Age games] what would you pitch to onboard people in the Dragon Age franchise? A. "I mean hopefully Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is a perfectly reasonable on-boarding point. The games are designed to be able to be consumed starting with any of them, so hopefully that remains the case."

Q. Why did you not teach anyone at BioWare the true art of Twitter teasing and trolling before you left, because your skills was legendary, and it has not been the same since? A. "So I think, I only got to be on Twitter the way I was on Twitter because I was the Executive Producer, because I was basically the one who decided what information was public. Which is why you haven't seen me do that again."

Q. Does BioWare face any recruitment problems due to its primary location in Canada? A. "Primarily in Canada isn't a huge problem, primarily in Edmonton definitely is. We still live in this weird world of hybrid development so people are getting hired from all over the place right now, but yeah, Edmonton was always a problem for recruiting."

Q. When are you planning to talk about Anthem? [in YouTube videos] A. "Yeah, so we're like two years late on this. It is going to be after I finish working with BioWare at this point, to be perfectly honest. It's gonna be a while, but we'll get there, we will definitely talk about it."

Q. There was talk about a "five game plan" for Dragon Age at some point. Was that ever a thing? If so, is it still a thing? A. "There have been lots of plans, so, sure."

Q. Will you continue your career in development after Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, or was it just a one-time return? A. "Yeah, I'm working with another studio right now as well, this is not my only contract, for sure."

Q. Will you be involved with the next Mass Effect as a consultant? A. "That's not my decision to make."

Q. What is the main thing you would change about how management works in AAA studios? A. "I think that question is unanswerable because management at AAA studios is different everywhere. BioWare uses a matrix structure, so they have departments, but they also have individual leaders. I would like to see more project-driven, like, I've talked about [his] 'hourglass' [concept] in a video before, where driven more through the product, but that being said, I'm not sure long-term how that would be for the people, so I guess, short answer is depends on the studio."

"Dragon Age has had the misfortune of always being seen as being inaccessible to the average gamer, so there's been a lot of corporate pressure for it to become more mainstream. And so it's been kinda questing for a fantasy RPG that is very accessible. Hence why, and then, you know, hence that's Dragon Age II, and then you know Dragon Age II's reception pushed Dragon Age: Inquisition to change some more. Dragon Age has never really been allowed to be constant. And I think it would actually be very good for the franchise to be allowed to be constant for a while, get some 'true sequels' [true sequels here refers to a specific thing Mark has previously discussed on his channel] under the belt. So, yes, true sequels are awesome, I wish that there were more of them and I wish that Dragon Age was one of them."

Q. Are Dragon Age and Mass Effect regarded as big IPs by EA? A. "Sometimes. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There was a time when EA had the, I think it was called like, 'The Big 12', Mass Effect was on that list, Dragon Age was not, so, sometimes."

Q. Do you feel EA has historically had unrealistic profit expectations for the Dragon Age series? A. "I can't really get into the way that EA does its financials. I think that there are, sometimes, EA wishes everything was FIFA and obviously that's unrealistic."

Q. Will the critical success of Baldur's Gate 3 influence Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and other future projects? A. "It's a bit late to influence Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Will it affect other future projects? I suspect so. I think it's gonna have a big impact on the RPG space, in some ways, for sure."

Q. Oh, is 'Bowie' the actual codename? Neat! A. "Yeah, Bowie is the actual codename. Did I just leak that? Well it is."

"The hardest part of a project for most people, myself included, is when you can't see the start anymore, and you can't yet see the finish, so with games with really long [development] cycles they can have a lot of trouble in the middle because you don't have the excitement of the beginning anymore and you can't see that it's finishing. So that can be hard. I think that is honestly one of the reasons why I think completion urgency has been on my mind so much, because this has always been kind of the case with BioWare with games, where you do a middle march in the dark, and so hopefully we find some solutions to that."

Q. When are you planning to talk about Anthem? A. "Yeah, so we're like two years late on this. It is going to be after I finish working with BioWare at this point, to be perfectly honest. It's gonna be a while, but we'll get there, we will definitely talk about it."

Q. Is it more accurate to think of the development cycle of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf as one game, or several? A. "Kind've something in-between. Definitely there have been moments where the game has pivoted to a large degree that it effectively has started over, but it hasn't always actually started over, and maybe that would've been better, so it's a little bit of both."

Q. BioWare office tour when? A. "I don't think that I can do that, but maybe BioWare will, you should ask them."

Q. Do you think the 'Frostbite is bad' narrative has been blown out of proportion? A. "Yes I do. I mean, yes it is not a perfect engine, no engine is. It definitely doesn't have the support levels that Unreal has, but it is a capable engine if you treat it with respect. The problem is, is that I think a lot of developers have not treated it with respect."

Q. Has BioWare ever thought about character DLC, for example the story DLC in Dragon Age: Inquisition was wonderful but much of what people enjoyed about the story DLC like Trespasser was reuniting with the companions. A. "Yeah, there actually, a bunch of stuff got discussed in earlier incarnations of Joplin and Morrison about doing, like, date packs, or very, very focused bits of DLC. I don't think that's still in the plan, but that was the plan at one point."

Q. What would you say to fans of Dragon Age that are worried about Dreadwolf right now? A. "I'd say keep paying attention, and hopefully BioWare give you confidence."

Q. Do Dragon Age: Dreadwolf leaks hurt any team morale? A. "It can, depends on the leak, it can, for sure."

[source and full video link]

Other notes from the video are collected under the cut due to length:

Q. What's something from Baldur's Gate 3 that may not be obvious to players that you've seen and said 'wow, Larian really figured something out that I wish we, BioWare, had been able to do'? A. "The big thing that Larian is doing that is missing from most other modern games is they are, Failbetter Games calls it 'campfires in the dark', which is, a lot of their plot scripting is based upon reacting to where you are in the moment as opposed to the path you use to get there. What that means is you can do almost anything, because the game doesn't really care how you did it. If you're Matt Mercer and you pile up a bunch of boxes and then teleport into a keep, and bypass the entire plot of getting in there, once you're in the keep, the keep is like, 'okay, you're here, I don't know how you did it, but whatever, we'll just go from here'. And, two things. One, it makes for incredibly robust scripting. The game is able to not fall apart as you do things that it wasn't expecting, because to some degree it's not really expecting things as much. Two, it's just letting you do much more as a result. Now you are giving up a certain degree of reactivity for that, but it's a very powerful tool that I think has been largely set aside by most other developers."

"I think there's definitely some interesting avenues to be taken with your party members having relationships with each other and interacting with each other. It gives them more life. It makes them more believable, that they're not just there waiting for you to come and talk to them and otherwise they're completely static. I think having them interact with each other definitely helps make them more believable."

"One of the, I would say, biggest mistakes of Dragon Age II is the fact that you always have to fight both final antagonists, regardless of which path you decided to do, and that's a decision coming from 'we don't want to waste our content. We want people to see this stuff we spent all this time on'. So some of it is about just being willing to commit to the concept of, there is content that people won't see. It helps, at least it helps me a little bit to remember that most people aren't gonna even finish your game, so arguably the end is a branch that most people won't see." "Honestly, to a large degree, let the creatives guide the way. If they're excited about writing it, if they're excited about scripting it, let them do it. Maybe you do a much simpler version [of the hypothetical cutscene being discussed, re: branching content and zots/resources], but you can still do it."

"I've never played a game of the Dragon Age TTRPG. How much was the Dragon Age team involved in the creation of the rules? Not at all. That was created entirely by Green Ronin. That was their system entirely and I think they've used it for other things since then. I like that it exists. I like that there is a, something that signals that Dragon Age is an RPG. Now I think I would be pushing to make a 5th edition supplement for Dragon Age, rather than a standalone RPG, but at the time, it was the right call, I'd say."

Q. As a producer, how have you mitigated decision fatigue for you or your team throughout closing a project? A. "So one of the reasons why I actually advocate so strongly for triage is that triage is a forum through which you can answer a lot of questions, especially at the end of a project, the closing parts of a project. You're not going to avoid making decisions. Finaling a project is making thousands of decisions in rapid succession, but you can take a little bit of the burden off individual team members by helping them with that decision-making, or when necessary making decisions yourself. Triage also lets you get a group of people together. Making decisions as a group, if you've worked together for a while, can be faster, can be less draining as well."

"I really believe in some degree of developing out loud. I don't know how practical Larian's style of, 'go into Early Access for three years and develop it with the community' is, for most studios, especially the publicly traded ones, but I do think some form of discourse with the community is incredibly valuable. Are we gonna see it? I hope so, but I do think that a lot of studios have developed a very secretive, private kind of stance. For good reason. It's a lot of work to keep this discourse running, to keep it from turning toxic, to keep the conversation going. I think it's worth it, but there's work there, for sure." [I think BioWare are a publicly traded company]

"I could be wrong, but I feel like we're starting to see DLC in singleplayer games be a thing of the past. It seems like it's fading away. I think we may not see very much [of this] three years from now. Will it then circle back around, come back around? I suspect it will, but that's what I'm noticing."

[on the game industry in general] "We've had a lot of layoffs this year, so definitely there's been volatility this year, but we have, as the industry has grown up, it has become more risk-averse, at least in the AAA space, it's become more expensive, things have taken longer, but you do see less, sort've pulsing - you see less AAA games shipping and then the entire studio being shut down. It does still happen, but I do think you are seeing less of it. I think it's partly just, becoming more and more a business."

"I do not think Mass Effect 3 will ever be open-sourced."

"If I was given a large budget and asked to create a 'Dragon Age Legendary Edition', I think if I was given that task, the big thing would be, I think for Dragon Age: Origins, you have only two choices. Once you start going in there, you gotta go so deep, that I would go remaster, and just pretty it up, and let all its warts be its warts. Maybe take another crack at the console controls, and like getting tactical camera on the consoles, if I could, but largely just prettying it up. Dragon Age II, I'd be really tempted to see if you could make Orsino an optional fight, otherwise, probably it's fine. Dragon Age: Inquisition, Hinterlands, actively pushing you out of the Hinterlands much more quickly, not cutting anything from it, but definitely making it more clear that there is a critical path, because the pacing is kind've off there. Reducing the amount of Influence you need to unlock things so you can get through it a little more quickly."

"Dragon Age: Origins was originally planned as one game with no sequels. That was the original plan, which is why the end of Dragon Age: Origins has weird branching epilogue structure, is because it was never intended to be a game with sequels. You're always going to, that's a lesson for the world, always assume that you're going to potentially have sequels. So, it's not that you should leave a bunch of threads, but don't make sequels incredibly difficult to have."

"Dragon Age: Inquisition basically only had eight spells because of console convenience, yeah, basically, it's designed around its console controls for sure."

Q. Was there ever a significance to the Amell [blood]line? Like the Warden and Champion being related? A. "I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, there are often things that are planned and then executed, but also things where convenient plot hooks are picked up and taken in different ways. So sometimes things are planned years in advance and sometimes they just look that way."

"As far as I can remember, Leliana's lyrium ghost was just a quantum thing. It's just because we wanted Leliana in Dragon Age: Inquisition and Leliana could be dead. I mean it kinda makes sense, because the only place that Leliana could die in Dragon Age: Origins was at the Urn, so, sure, the Urn did it."

Q. If Dragon Age: Origins ever gets a remake, would a lot more of the problematic elements be removed? A. "So that's, ultimately what it comes down to, I think if you did a Dragon Age: Origins remaster, you wouldn't, you would just put a fresh coat of paint on it and that would be what you would do. But if you start to do a remake, I think it becomes necessary to start to open up some of those conversations, and that could be a lot, which is honestly one of the things that probably is causing hesitation on doing a remaster, or a remake in that case."

Q. If a fan writes an incredibly good idea on a forum or social media, is BioWare banned from implementing their idea? A. "It depends. If it's just like, 'I put an idea out on a Twitter post', no, you're basically releasing that idea to the public by that kind of post, but we don't, but BioWare doesn't, so I guess no, I guess, short answer no, because in that case it's like, well you just gave that to everybody. If it's a bit of fan literature, nobody's reading it, it's just going in the garbage, so no, so in that case nobody knows what's in that piece of literature, so, no."

"Will Dragon Age: II and Dragon Age: Origins ever come to PS5? I don't know. I mean that would basically require a remaster of some sort."

Q. If you had free reign what's the coolest, most ridiculous thing you would put into a physical Collector's Edition of the game? A. "So, I did, on Anthem, I did push for this, and I wish we'd done it, I did push for doing, because we had the studio that made the physical versions of the Javelin suits for that one EA Play. I did push for a $55,000 Collector's Edition, where you got one of those suits. Obviously we didn't do that."

Q. Would you say it’s harder to import decisions in a series like Dragon Age or Mass Effect? I bet it’s harder when each game has a different protagonist. A. "Actually, so, Dragon Age is a little bit more self-healing because when you are playing a Mass Effect, so Mass Effect 1, 2, 3, a lot of what you care about is the interpersonal stuff. When you're moving from Dragon Age: Origins to Dragon Age II, you don't really care about any of that interpersonal stuff, because it's a different character. I mean, you care, but it doesn't, the game doesn't need to reflect it. So Mass Effect has to deal with a lot more minutiae than Dragon Age does. Dragon Age just needs to deal with the big stuff."

Q. Would the Eclipse Engine have been better for Dragon Age: Inquisition even if it had meant the scope of the game would have to be smaller? A. "No, the Eclipse Engine was about ready to die of old age."

Q. Do you remember what the major aesthetic influences on Anthem were? A. "So, this is what I remember. Cigarette butts and coffee cups, so like, the abyss. No wheels. I actually think Anthem has a pretty strong identity. It looks like something."

Q. Who's decision was it to start using Frostbite? A. "I mean, the short answer is, it was the only politically-viable answer for Dragon Age: Inquisition, so, so I guess EA."

Q. Did you feel there was a large culture change when Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka left BioWare? A. "Not really, like a lot of it was basically already happening, as part, as EA basically started to impose its culture on, and also just the culture infiltrated over time. I would say that the cultural shift at BioWare happened slowly, not all at once when they left."

Q. I was really hoping for that Dragon Age tactical game. Any chance of seeing something like that in the future? A. "Probably not, I mean, it was a tweet, there wasn't anything behind that."

Q. If only there was a Mass Effect toolset. A. "Yeah, so I don't think you're gonna get, so a toolset with a game that is using Unreal like Mass Effect, that's much less likely, because you're gonna have to get a deal with Epic to do that. They might go for it, but yeah, that would be harder."

Q. I recently found out that The Last Court was made by an outside studio, and BioWare has brought in outside writers to work on Dragon Age before. Is that a common occurrence? A. "Yeah, it happens, for sure."

"Dragon Age II is pushing the Eclipse engine to the limit, it's basically the upper limits."

Q. Was there ever any discussion on showing Hawke and their companions visibly age over Dragon Age II? A. "There was, there was absolutely, that conversation did happen. We didn't really have any way to do it easily, but it was talked about."

Q. Dragon Age seems to have a much larger female fanbase than most gaming franchises, is this something EA has been cognizant of/interested in? A. "Cognizant of, yes, interested in, yes as well, though The Sims is actually even better. Understanding what to do about? No."

Q. What were your lessons learned from Mass Effect: Andromeda and why it went that bad? A. "I don't actually think it went that bad. It had a rough launch, so it kind've escaped a little early. That's probably its biggest problem. If it had released in the state that it was at within a month, it would've been a lot better received. Now it did also launch up against Zelda and Horizon, so, the number one lesson there is - when Dragon Age: Inquisition shipped and the Inquisition team was talking to the other team, one of the biggest things we said was 'don't use Inquisition as your baseline, it should be your worst-case', and a lot of the planning on Mass Effect: Andromeda was done using Dragon Age: Inquisition as the best case, so, what happened, basically its end got squeezed out of existence."

Q. What do you think about a Mass Effect: Andromeda remake? A. "Seems early, but maybe, some day. I mean it's kind've healed its perception to a large degree, kind've like Dragon Age II but for different reasons, it's not seen as as bad as it was seen at launch, so, I think there's a market there."

Q. Have there ever been discussions within BioWare of visual novels as a possible format for their franchises? A. "Yeah, it's come up, it's even been pitched. Hard for EA to do little things."

[source and full video link]

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #anthem #dragon age: absolution #mass effect 5

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fereldanwench · 4 days ago

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just an assortment of unorganized and definitely not fully-developed opinions on the bioware layoffs/presumed 'end' of dragon age

to get the obvious out of the way: fuck ea and bioware for treating their senior staff this way. all of their staff, really, but it's just especially egregious to me to sack people who've dedicated upwards of a quarter of century to this company. i think one veteran said they were there for 26 years? you have to be a really dumb, heartless piece of shit to look at someone with that kind of commitment and think they're expendable in your fancy new more ~*agile*~ team

i wonder how many, if any, vets were offered an opportunity to move into another division of BW/EA, and just decided to jump off the sinking ship instead. everyone's obviously been very careful with their wording on their social media so this is pure speculation, but i guess i just hope some suit out there would at least try to somewhat accommodate their senior staff before just kicking them out the door

i've also been finding myself extra Curious about this part of busche's bsky post (i refuse to call them skeets, figure out something better lmao) back when she announced her departure

and again, all i have is pure speculation on this front--maybe she really didn't know what else was happening, maybe she was "encouraged" by EA/BW to toe the line, who knows--but i will say that i took her at her word on this and assumed that 18 years with bioware + the hellacious dev cycle of veilguard left her wanting something new, which is completely reasonable

now i feel like a straight sucker for taking that at face value lmao

the rest of my thoughts right now are very muddled and conflicted and wavering. none of this should be taken as a hard stance on anything, just various thoughts that have popped into my head as more info comes out

trick was the first layoff post i saw, and while i felt for them on a personal level, on a creative-level, i was honestly never a huge fan of what they brought to DA. I've said it a million times, but I'm not a solas girlie, and i was always a little disappointed at how he overtook the big lore stuff in inquisition; my hype for da4 was probably at its lowest when it was still in the "dreadwolf" phase bc of that

i dont think any of that was worth fucking firing them for, but i did have a blip, if you will, of 'well, maybe the silver lining here is someone else could bring the series away from the solas/big-elvhen-lore-centric stuff and my interest will be piqued again'

but to be very clear, that was immediately overshadowed by seeing the scale of these layoffs

and then there's sheryl chee's post about DA not being dead because it belongs to the fans now

it's a lovely if not bittersweet sentiment, but this also just made me have more questions. do we take that as an official confirmation that there will be no more DA games??? does she have the authority to confirm that??? I'm just still not really clear on DA's future. and not out of some misguided optimism, because it ending seems very plausible, just that i want some proper, official statement from BW/EA if that is the case

plus, i think EA selling the IP also seems like a possibility. it wouldn't be the first time a previously successful series underperforms ("underperforms" if you prefer) and gets picked up by a new studio/pub--i've watched tomb raider change hands like half a dozen times over the decades. larian seems to be the one most people are clamoring for, but there are definitely plenty of studios that also trade in the stuff that made DA Good(tm)

(although if i can have a moment of snark: I've seen a few comments like 'i hope the BW devs get to go to A Good Company now, like larian or cdpr' and like babes. the cdpr one really killed me bc are we just forgetting everything that came out in 2020-2021??? like I'm sure things have improved but company culture doesn't change overnight, and a lot of this shit is systemic to the industry. pls don't put studios on a pedestal just bc they made your favorite game)

and i think the last thing that's been swirling around in my brain is if veilguard is the last DA game, or even if it's the last BW DA game, what that means to me on a personal level

my unfettered passion for DA started waning around 2017 after about 5-6 years, and i think the spell was completely broken when CP77 moved in around mid-2021. to be clear, i still like the series--DA2 especially will always have a grip on me--but i didn't have nearly as much emotional investment in the series when veilguard dropped as i did when inquisition dropped

and i think that kind of protected me from feeling too strongly about veilguard one way or the other, which subsequently allowed me to find stuff to enjoy in it without getting too swept in the stuff i don't like. well, that, and i also had very low expectations between knowing that it was in dev hell and being a solas hater (although i liked him more in veilguard). but i think if i had been in the same headspace that i was in 2014 when inquisition dropped, i would have been incredibly disappointed by veilguard, and felt like the series was ending on a low note

and i think there's a tiny part of my old DA hyperfixation that still kind of feels that way. i don't think veilguard is a bad game, but it definitely isn't the finale i think the series deserves either, and that does make me a little sad

so yeah. idk. the folks who made the games are the most important part of the story, ofc, and i really hope they're able to land on their feet and get some kind of justice for the way they've been treated

#t: wench.txt #s: dragon age

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tomsawyee · 1 year ago

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Every time a Pretty Good RPG comes out, the same brand of post crops up and gets reblogged by Pretty Much Everyone, and it always functionally boils down to:

"See??? People still love single player games!!"

It's pretty easy to see where this take comes from. With the advent of consoles and internet connections that can functionally "always" be online (ymmv, our private internet infrastructure is woefully lacking), AAA has been on a shift away from offline standalone experiences for ~15 years.

What this take ignores, though, is where this shift in what gets greenlit and published comes from.

No amount of "proof" that single player character RPGs still make money is going to change the fact that shitting out Call of Duty every year makes more.

The games audience on Tumblr is heavily skewed toward character games with flexibly approachable RPG mechanics and gamified relationship interactions. This community, large though it may seem from the inside as all fan communities feel, is a microscopic slice of the games market. Every rando who's ever worked in a store that sells consoles can confirm: The vast majority of Xbox One's and PS4's are/were Call of Duty + Fifa and/or Madden Machines. These games are annual releases with minimal change between titles and robust+heavily monetized online features.

Bioware didn't shit out Anthem because the (exhausted, mismanaged) workers there wanted to make Destiny: But Worse. Bethesda didn't shit out Fallout 76 because their devs thought it would be a compelling restructuring of the IP they had already rendered unrecognizable under the survival MMO umbrella. They did it because EA and Zenimax, publicly traded billion dollar parasites, wanted to cash in on the fact that, if you can tap this content well just right, you can convince people to keep paying for your game forever. They did it because we've been modding the shit out of Skyrim for 10 years and they're losing sleep over the fact that we haven't had to keep giving Zenimax (Microsoft, lmao) more money to do so.

The antidote to this problem isn't to cross our fingers and pray that Dragon Age 4 doesn't suck (It's going to) (If it even comes out at all). It's to stop placing our hopes in the hands of enormous publishers, and to do start digging for games that scratch the itches AAA is intentionally missing because they aren't infinite money pits.

The antidote to the frustration of corporatized art-making is the same for every medium: Go looking for the thing that you want. It probably exists, and it is probably being drowned out in the mainstream by multi-million dollar marketing campaigns for Assassin's Creed: We Promise We Don't Abuse Women Anymore Lmao XIII. You don't even have to manually dig through itch.io-- Investing a little more in this hobby we all love can start with something as simple as clicking the "more like this" equivalent tab on whatever online marketplace you use and reading more about a title that doesn't cost $59.99 but still catches your eye. Mainstream indie-adjacent publishers like Devolver and Annapurna Interactive have strong recent track records of enabling small/medium studios to make games that are compelling and fun without the looming specter of infinite monetization and breaking employee's backs to make sure horse balls shrink in the cold.

I really hope you consider this perspective if you feel like BG3 came out of nowhere. It was in Early Access for almost 3 years, but it was largely panned from the mainstream Hype Cycle. Larian self-publishes, and games journalism is by-and-large not journalism but marketing, so this enormous game was incredibly easy to miss if you weren't actively looking for it.

Every tier of this industry has its own foundational rot, its own bad actors, its own entities that we really don't want to give our money to. But I promise, taking a little bit of time to go digging past the AAA buzz of the week will net you a better experience than waiting for megacorps to place something in front of you that is worthy of your time.

#bg3

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digitsland · 2 days ago

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Baldur's gate 3 Publishing Director calls outaurant on byiware layoffs

After the last reports that bioware has some developers re-assigned, and some even laid off, Baldur’s gate 3‘s Publishing Director in Larian Studios has called electronic art on the same. Larian’s Michael Dose talked about the layoffs, particularly as they are carried out. He also calls out the decision as a short-term cost-saving measure at the expense of not solving a long-term problem. “To…

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gplayr · 3 days ago

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Publishing Director Calls Out EA on BioWare Lay Offs After recent reports that BioWare would be having its development team re-assigned, and some even laid off, Baldur’s Gate 3‘s publishing director at Larian Studios has called EA out through a post o... https://blog.gplayr.com/baldurs-gate-3-publishing-director-calls-out-ea-on-bioware-lay-offs/ #Bioware #DragonAgeTheVeilguard #EA #ElectronicArts #LarianStudios

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gikairan · 2 months ago

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If you wanna know my thoughts on the game (There will be some spoilers)

Its good! I had a lot of fun! At no point did i go "wow im not having fun"!!!

The combat didnt overstay its welcome, and stayed a good difficulty all the way through. The major bosses managed to all feel pretty different and were engaging to play

And like.... ive seen hints of what people are Discoursing about and i just dont care...

One is "you cant be evil!" And like, have you been able to be evil since DAO? Have you?? Because you kinda havent.

"Writing is bad" Idk man it seemed fine to me. Look, maybe i just like wallowing in trash or something, idk. But nothing made me cringe, nothing made me wish for it to end. Like, the worst i feel in terms of the games writing is that there was one faction, and associated companion, i could not care less about. So that content was a slog. But ill be honest, the entire concept of that faction was always going to be a hard sell to me.

"Companions arent mean to each other!" Idk man, half the fandom hates the (mostly female) characters that are mean to their male favs so like... having everyone get along was probably for the better. Also did you miss the part where Solas commends you for building a team based on trust and friendship? It is literally a power of friendship story!

Like ill give that theres not a lot of opportunity for roleplaying. Rook DOES feel like a very set personality that you can customise exactly what they say, but it all kinda ends up the same vibe But... have many Bioware games are different? Having a voice acted PC limits how many dialogue options you can have, because otherwise the amount of voice lines needed just grows and grows and grows. Like it doesnt feel wrong to me, because thats sort of what i expected from a modern Bioware game? And maybe others should lower their expectations too? this is clearly the course the studio is on, and if you dont like it... you dont have to play their games? Spend more time playing Larian games, or... Owlcat i think theyre called? The ones who made the Pathfinder games, and Warhammer Rogue Trader. Give them your money, and prove theres a demand for that kind of stuff. Instead of expecting a studio owned by a publisher a little hostile to single player story based games to give you that kind of RPG.

Like, i had a good time. I dont really care what other people didnt like about it. There wasnt any big major things that bothered me..... Seriously my biggest complaint is "I dont like how they handled Taash being an immigrant, and their Choice being a binary decision between Qunari culture and Rivain culture. Especially combining with their sub-plot of exploring their gender identity as... non-binary. It feels contradictory!"

Everything else is fine! Its exactly the kind of game i enjoy!!

I also did feel like Bioware heard some of the most common complaints about Inquisition and basically did the opposite. WAY more focus on companions, reduction of busywork quests, more focused maps, making a big decision that actually has major consequences for the rest of the game.... its all a pretty big improvement. I appreciate it a LOT, because playing inquisition again was a struggle. This is way more FUN to play, and will be easier for me to replay in the future

IDK man, i just wish people would stop complaining every time a new dragon age game comes out and it isnt exactly what they want 🙃 I definitely have a lot less complaints about this game than Inquisition, and boy did i get tired of the discourse around Inquisitions release!!

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thedissonantverses · 8 days ago

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I wanted to expand on your thoughts on how BG3 plays into all this because even though I haven’t played it myself, a lot of people just seemed to want the same old game again? Either they wanted Inquisition again(or more specifically to play the Inquisitor again) or they wanted Dragon Age flavored BG3. And I loved DA:I but yikes what they were planning originally for the sequel…nah.

No idea why people thought they were getting either to be perfectly honest? It’s been confusing for me. An example being I saw people call VG’s romances “chaste” cause they’re not whatever BG3 is doing but they’re exactly like other BioWare games so okay? I haven’t been active in the fandom since DA:I so I missed a lot of the development shenanigans because I was severely disappointed in BioWare anyways and didn’t think we’d even get this far.

All to say is I’ve also seen people upset Solas isn’t to Rook what Johnny Silverhand is to V l(which don’t get me wrong is a great dynamic) and I’m like so glad that’s the case personally I like when games do new their own thing and that VG is very much its own game and it’s so refreshing to have it. I am glad VG is different and that it stood by all of its characters when studios like Larian won’t.

If that means it didn’t sell as well so be it. At least we got a good Dragon Age game out of it. We got a great piece of art that’s true to its previous games but also added new things to its universe that I personally found enjoyable and if EA is gonna drop the game then so be it I won’t haha.

And uh I don’t know if BG3 had a section about fighting hypernationalist stand-ins or a quest about killing fantasy Hernàn Cortez but Veilguard did so it has my vote hahahaha.

I’ve actually got a few thoughts on the Veilguard sales numbers.

First off, the game was never going to turn a profit financially. It was in development for 10 years and had to be restarted multiple times. It had really public development issues.

It’s also a sequel to a game that came out a decade ago. That’s a really long time for a direct sequel. It was also one of those waiting periods when the hype and expectations got really high, but everyone had different expectations. It was bound to disappoint some fans. I never even considered myself a fan, and I was disappointed by the lack of Sera.

My personal opinion is that Inquisition is one of those games which did not stand the test of time, but that’s a different discussion. This is also just a side note, but I feel like there’s a relatively large overlap between Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dragon Age fans, and I have this distinct feeling that the expectations for DA4 were colored by what Larian is doing.

The game also came out at a really weird time, not just right before the holidays, but a few days before the U.S. elections. People wouldn’t necessarily buy the game before Christmas, and it had just enough to be labeled as a “woke” game. The economy is bad, and gaming is still an expensive hobby.

And then EA being EA almost immediately dropped the game, so it doesn’t even have a chance for slow growth.

#da: the veilguard #da:tv #veilguard spoilers #dragon age veilguard #dragon age #veilguard #fandom critical #da fandom critical #BioWare critical #veilguard positive #datv positive #us politics #politics #current events

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artemis-entreri · 5 years ago

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[[ Source | Artist’s Patreon

The Forgotten Realms – the default setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game – form one of the largest, most detailed and most popular fantasy worlds ever created. It is the brainchild of Canadian writer Ed Greenwood who started developing it as a setting for fantasy stories when he was just eight years old. Ten years later he began running D&D campaigns set in the same world, and also began writing articles for Dragon Magazine. The first mention of the Realms in-print came in 1978. Over the next eight years Greenwood became a popular writer of articles for the magazine and he included plenty of hints about his own campaign world in the process.

In 1986 TSR, Inc., the publishers of D&D, were looking for a new setting. The Dragonlance setting had been an enormous success, but the feeling was that the continent of Ansalon was too small to serve as a setting for lots of stories. D&D creator Gary Gygax was also in the middle of his painful departure from TSR, which made the future use of his World of Greyhawk setting questionable. D&D needed a new “base” world.

TSR editor Jeff Grubb contacted Greenwood and asked exactly how much of the Realms had he actually created? Greenwood’s reply was, “lots.” Soon boxes were arriving at TSR HQ in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin by the score. Each box was packed full of notes, handwritten and typed, featuring information on hundreds of characters and cities, dozens of countries and countless new monsters, factions and magical items. Greenwood’s map of the main continent was divided across dozens of A4 sheets of paper which were painstakingly reassembled in the main TSR office, taking up almost every inch of free floor space. Greenwood’s map of the setting’s signature city, Waterdeep, was even larger and detailed and named almost every building. This was the Tolkien school of in-depth worldbuilding taken and expanded and applied to a continent several times the size of Middle-earth.

The slightly awed TSR bought the rights to the setting and began released it to the public in 1987. The first release was a novel, Darkwalker on Moonshae by Douglas Niles, followed by the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, or the “Big Grey Box” as it became infamously known. The Grey Box sold over 100,000 copies in short order, a staggering number for an RPG supplement. Ed Greenwood provided his own novel, Spellfire, and a few months later another book was published by a first-time novelist named R.A. “Bob” Salvatore. The Crystal Shard introduced the character Drizzt Do’Urden, a dark elven ranger seeking to atone for the sins of his entire race, and a fantasy publishing legend was born. To date, more than 30 million Drizzt novels have been sold by themselves.

The Realms grew and expanded. The continent of Kara-Tur, previously developed in 1985 for the Oriental Adventures sourcebook, was bolted to the eastern side of the Realms (with Greenwood’s blessing). The western continent of Maztica and the southern continent of Zakhara were explored in further boxed sets. Dozens of adventures and supplements explored the gods, power groups and races of the Realms in remarkable detail. In 1989 the Realms made the transition to D&D 2nd Edition through an epic campaign known as the Time of Troubles, or Avatar Wars, the first of many “Realms-shaking events” that unified a setting noted for its expanse and scope.

The setting expanded to a successful comics run and also a line of well-received video games, such as Curse of the Azure Bonds. However, it was the epic dungeon-crawler Eye of the Beholder (1991) that became a major crossover hit with general gamers and expanded the audience even further.

D&D and the Realms ran into a major problem with the collapse of TSR in 1997, during which time it was briefly possible that both would disappear altogether. However, Wizards of the Coast stepped in and bought both the game and the setting. This led to a creative renaissance for the setting, spearheaded by the hugely popular video game Baldur’s Gate (1998), the first RPG to be released by BioWare. D&D 3rd Edition arrived in 2000 and was followed by the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book in 2001, one of the most handsome RPG books ever published. Over the next seven years the Realms continued to peak in popularity, with more video games such as Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights contributing to its success.

In 2008 D&D launched its 4th edition, but the surprising decision was made to effectively destroy the Realms, turning it into a kind of post-apocalyptic, high-concept setting. The decision was vehemently rejected by the overwhelming majority of Realms fans; sales of the 4th Edition D&D and Forgotten Realms material were disappointing and the setting spent several years in the doldrums until 2014, when Wizards of the Coast launched D&D 5th Edition. A streamlined, back-to-basics version of the game, it proved an immediate, huge hit. Even more notable was that, for the very first time, the Forgotten Realms was now the default setting for the D&D game. The new setting rolled back most of the disastrous changes from 4th Edition and restored some faith and popularity in the setting.

There are still some worlds left unconquered. A Forgotten Realms movie is in development for release in 2021 or 2022, and Larian Studios are working to relaunch the video game line with the eagerly-awaited Baldur’s Gate III. After a short hiatus, the novel line has been relaunched by R.A. Salvatore with a new run of Drizzt books, although there seem to be no plans for more material at the moment. And, watching over it all, remains Ed Greenwood, who still insists he has far more unpublished notes and setting material than has ever been seen formal print. On that basis, the Realms will be around for a long time to come.

Mapping the Realms

Greenwood’s original map of the Realms focused on the continent of Faerûn, extending west to the island of Evermeet; south to the jungles of Chult and the island of Nimbral beyond; east to Semphar and the Horse Plains; and north to the towering Spine of the World mountain range and the Endless Ice Sea beyond. He had little notion of what lay elsewhere in the world, except for a huge island chain to the north-west called Anchôromé.

Other writers and editors soon expanded the setting. The 1985 Oriental Adventures book by Dave “Zeb” Cook had detailed an Asia-like land called Kara-Tur. This was retconned (and shrunk in the process) into the eastern half of the continent in the Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms boxed set (1988). In 1990 the Horde boxed set explored the Tuigan plains which linked the two subcontinents. In 1991, the Maztica Campaign Set added a new continent far to the west of Faerûn. In 1992 the Al-Qadim sub-setting was launched, detailing the lands of Zakhara to the south of Faerûn.

Through all of these boxed sets, adventures and campaign guides, maps were a constant feature. Not just maps of the continents and landmasses, but maps of individual countries, cities, streets and even individual buildings. The City System (1988) set contains a colossal map of Waterdeep which is too big to fit inside most average-sized homes, and names virtually every building in the city. The Forgotten Realms is almost certainly the most heavily-mapped fantasy world in existence, with literally thousands of maps existing of its various locations.

Despite that, a full, canonical world map of the entire planet of Abeir-toril had to wait until the release of the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas (1999) on CD-ROM. The atlas featured almost every single map from every single Realms product ever released plus lots of new ones, and also a complete world map which added multiple new continents to the planet. Ed Greenwood would later reveal some new information on these continents, but, twenty years later, they have still received scant development compared to the originals.

The first-ever canonical world map of Toril, from the long out-of-print Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas (1999) by ProFantasy.

A New Map of Toril

My new map of Toril depicts the planet as it stood between the 2nd and 3rd Editions of the setting. When 3rd Edition setting was released in 2001, the map-makers chose to shrink the main continent of Faerûn to remove empty space in the south; given that Faerûn was never the biggest fantasy continent in the first place, sometimes straining credulity given how packed it was, this was unnecessary and was eventually reversed in 5th Edition.

4th Edition, much more controversially, blew up the continent in a magical catastrophe known as the Spellplague and completely reshaped it. Fortunately, most of these changes were promptly abandoned in 5th Edition, which restored the continent to its former glory.

To create this map, I used a base model from my twenty-year-old copy of the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas (this also inspired some colour choices, particularly for the mountains) and information from canon sources and from some of the better fan maps out there. A more detailed map of Faerûn will – hopefully! – follow, although it will be considerable work.

The World of Abeir-toril

The world of the Forgotten Realms is an Earth-sized planet called Abeir-toril, “Cradle of Life” in Auld Wyrmish. Toril is the third of eight planets in its star system, and it possesses one large satellite, Selûne, and dozens of smaller satellites, asteroid-sized bodies called the Tears of Selûne.

Toril is divided between one very large continental landmass, almost big enough to qualify as a supercontinent, and three other continent-sized bodies. Five large island-continents and thousands of smaller continents are also known to exist.

The main continental landmass is divided into three lesser continents or subcontinents:

Faerûn is located in the west of this landmass, running from the Endless Ice Sea to the Great Sea and from the Trackless Sea to the Tuigan Plains (or Hordelands) in the east. Faerûn is the original and principle setting for the Forgotten Realms campaign and by far the area of the planet with the most development. Faerûn vaguely resembles Europe and the Near and Middle-East in the medieval period, with the landlocked Sea of Fallen Stars serving as a Mediterranean analogue.

Kara-Tur is located to the east of Faerûn and is the home of the mostly-defunct Oriental Adventures and Living Jungle sub-settings. It is an Asian-inspired land of vast empires, huge cities and adventure. Kara-Tur is the home of the largest nation on Toril, the Shou Lung Empire, and the tallest mountain range, the Yehimal, which is even taller than the Himalayas.

Zakhara, the Land of Fate, lies south of Faerûn and south-west of Kara-Tur. The home of the Al-Qadim sub-setting, it is a land of vast, boiling deserts and cities clustered around oases and bays. Zakhara is inspired by the mythology of Arabia. The largest single city on the planet, Golden Huzuz, can be found in Zakhara.

In addition, several other continents can be found elsewhere in the world:

Maztica, the True World, lies to the west of Faerûn across the Trackless Sea. It is inspired by Aztec and Mayan mythology and consists of jungles, volcanoes and deserts. North of Maztica lies a land of open plains more reminiscent of the American West, although this area has not been explored much in canon materials.

Katashaka lies to the south of Maztica and consists of steaming, hot jungles inhabited by various hostile lizardfolk. Katashaka seems to have been inspired by South America, but it has received relatively little development so far.

Ossë is a large landmass lying to the east of Kara-Tur. It is quite hot, sparsely-populated and has not yet been explored in detail in any canon materials. Based on the limited information available, it appears to be a supersized version of Australia.

There are numerous islands of note in the world, the most famous of which are Evermeet, the home of the elves located far across the Trackless Sea; the Moonshae Isles off the coast of Faerûn; Lantan, the land of engineers and tinkerers; Nimbral, the mysterious Sea-Haven; the islands of Anchôromé off the coast of Maztica; Wa and Kozakura off the coast of Kara-Tur; and the large island-continents of Myrmidune, Tabaxiland, Aurune and Braaklosia, about which relatively little has been revealed.

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rpgchoices · 5 years ago

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Useless rpgs recs. Favourite videogame companies/creators

And by favourite I just mean that I give for granted that I am going to try to play every game they published and they are going to publish in the future. The numbers are just to create a list, not in order of preference!

1. INKLE. Inkle creates text based adventures and I played both 80 Days and Sorcery!, with Sorcey! being one of my favourite games. Their third and recent game is called Heaven’s Vault and is mystery based (and not with text!).

2. WADJETE EYES. Admittedly, I only played Unavowed, but I loved it so much that after reading the plots of the rest of this company’s games I decided that I am going to play them all. They create detective/mystery/point and click games with gorgeous pixel art and very focused on characters. Also, let me just say that the mystery and the puzzles are definitely less frustrating than other click and point adventures I’ve played.

3. RED THREAD. I’m about to start their third game Dreamfall Chapters and I can’t wait. I love their Dreamfall series and the world they created, even if sometimes I get quite frustrated with some of their adventure puzzles. Still, I wish I could replay it all from the beginning without knowing anything. Their new game, Draugen, is more on the horror detective side and the art looks amazing.

4. OWLCAT GAMES. They have ONE game out, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but I adored it. This is the only game I’ve paid full price for, and I would honestly buy anything from owcat games, instantly, full price. Pathfinder is exactly the type of isometric rpg I want.

5. LARIAN STUDIOS. I played all their Divinity games, and they are a mess. AND YET. I would play another one immediately. Divinity original sin 1 is still one of the best turn based combat games I’ve ever played, and the fact that their next game will be Baldur’s Gate, so D&D based, makes me extremely happy.

6. OBSIDIAN. Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity was the big hit for me. No other game dragged me in and hooked me up as quickly as Pillars of Eternity. Isometric rpgs are my favourite type of games and PoE has the amazing art and atmosphere that I think an isometric rpg needs. I haven’t played Outer Worlds yet, but it’s on my next to play list!

7. BIOWARE. Bioware is on probation, but I am not going to pretend I will not immediately and desperately buy Dragon Age 4 as soon as it’s out.

#divinity original sin #bioware #dreamfall chapters #pathfinder kingmaker #pillars of eternity #dragon age #etc #useless recs

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pinkyjulien · 24 days ago

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I was in the middle of writing a long addition when the Tumblr app crashed and of course no draft were saved, so I'll fhfhjg make it shorter UGH

But TL:DR - Good post, I wish more studios would adopt similar policies because it's really getting out of hands

I don't think this is a new phenomenon tho, I think it mostly evolved - the targets are the same (Studios, devs) but the sources keep changing or adding up - there's the antiwoke bigots gamer tourists who complains everytime a female character doesn't looks like Eve from Stellarblade, the gamerbros who mostly complain about gaming stuff like the ones on the GOG forum and now since a couple of years we also have fandom folks, the ones that are supposed to be "hardcore fans" (and that's maybe part of the problem)

Before tumblr fuck my post, I was using Bioware as an example - back in the 2000's they pushed for diversity in their games, they got backlash from the press and thanks to Fox News had to remove the gay romances from Mass Effect

Then, after adding more and more queer characters, it was now the turn of queer fans to complain about those queer characters not matching their vision of what perfect queer characters should be - I was able to find this article from 2011 (which isn't the best ngl) but most of the complain were happening online, on forums or later social medias like Tumblr

Fast forward to DAI and DATV - Devs first claiming that Solas was never intended as bi, only to recently learn that they backtracked a potential Bisexual Solas to avoid backlash from fans

And this revelation probably caused them more backlash

It's easy for devs to ignore the bigotted gamers complaining about gays and pocs in their games - but its harder to ignore the people you're trying to represent in your stories, the self proclaimed "fans" who are now insulting you online because they don't like this one thing about this one character

Fandoms nowadays are really entitled to devs and their games - You mentioned BG3 and I think one of Larian's biggest mistake was to "collab" with their fans during the development, it created this unhealthy "relationship/work partnership" that players now feel entitled to

I once randomly stumbled upon this "mod" on the BG3 Nexus Page - an image that shows the user "support a call for better communication from Larian"

We can find an Open Letter to Larian pinned in the comment

Regardless of what you think about it, both the picture, the letter and the whole movement - I don't think this should be a thing that even happens - of course I'm not comparing it to harassment and name calling, but to me its from the same feeling of entitlement, just presented in a different light

Fans and Users shouldn't demand anything from the Creators, because they don't owe us anything - regardless of if they're devs or modders, writters or fan artists-- hell I've seen more and more artists on social medias talk about the harassment they get from random people asking them to "draw something else" "this is boring why don't you draw X again" etc (and I'm not talking about simply asking questions or chatting with devs, thats obviously fine and I'm sure they like talking with calm and passionate fans)

"But I paid for this game" Yes, and this doesn't give anyone the right to feel entitled to the studio and to harass the devs - and this shouldn't be something controversial to say

Hey gamers/modders, I been thinking about something and wondered what people's opinions are.

As someone who qualifies as 'old' by internet standards (over 30) and recently just read this article about Square Enix having to implement a 'customer harassment policy' - and I mean harassment from players/customers towards Squex staff, it got me thinking.

I have been gaming a while. A long while. And I really feel like about a decade ago, this shit would be considered 'rare' enough that it was uncommon. Now gamedev and even modders are facing harassment from players on a daily basis to the point policies like THIS are having to become a thing, like ....? Like I can point to SEVERAL cases of this in recent years, like how a lot of the BG3 devs and even VA's have been treated and harassed by fans with the expectation of somehow 'continuing' a closed-story-rpg-game indefinitely. The Sims 4 modding community is riddled with drama that I have not seen in any other modding space - at least to that level. Like I know incidents of prominent modders being fucking doxxed because they weren't IMMEDIATELY available to patch for a Sims 4 update (and the Sims 4 is honestly kind of notorious for frequent updating).

Like not to be a 'kids these days' person, but idk, there's only one group entering the wider gaming scene over those 10 years and that's Gen Z. I mean yeah, there's a decent argument towards the growing dominance of web 2.0 (basically your social media sites) that could have fostered an environment for 'anonymous harassment' but I find that hard to believe.

Growing up with games and discovering mods for the first time, I definitely learned to appreciate the hard work modders put in, out of their own time, to make a mod and share it with people for free! We also had to live through a lot of game releases where 'day one patch' was NEVER a thing, and gamedev delays were acceptable because of this - you wanted that game to work on release because you weren't going to GET a patch in most cases. Internet couldn't handle it. Now instead, we have games releasing in early, busted states with a day one patch because you've got some people sending death threats to developers if they mention another delay (Cyberpunk 2077 is a good case for this one).

I dunno. Is it just because I'm old and my priorities are different? I don't have the energy to burn on harassing devs? Because I grew up with games in a different manner than the current gen in gaming?

Thoughts?

#as a final note - I dont think its a gen z or young peems thing #taking my own experience in the cyberpunk fandom - the most vicious people Ive seen were all over 35y #tagging devs on twitter and sending letters to the HQ and having multiple public tantrums #these behaviors all came from 35-45y old women #< thats only to say its not only teenager boys being assholes on the internet anymore #text #long post #fandom wank

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entergamingxp · 5 years ago

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Interview — David Walgrave Shares Game Details and Reflects on Obtaining the IP from Wizards of the Coast

February 27, 2020 4:15 PM EST

After getting a look at Baldur’s Gate 3, we chatted with Larian Studios about what to expect from this long-awaited sequel.

After watching a three-hour presentation on an alpha build of Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 at a preview event in San Francisco, I had the privilege of interviewing Larian senior producer David Walgrave about the Dungeons and Dragons-based RPG which Larian plans on releasing in early access this year.

We chatted about everything; from the game’s tone, inspiration, and relation to previous Baldur’s Gate titles, to the implementation of the Dungeons and Dragon‘s tabletop elements and rulebook. I also asked Walgrave questions about the gameplay I saw, including information on the game’s multiplayer and difficulty settings. Ultimately, the game holds very true to the lore, creativity, and RNG elements that characterize Dungeons and Dragons.

Josh Starr: Both the Baldur’s Gate and Divinity: Original Sin series are regarded as definitive CRPG experiences, but are still quite different games. How much are you looking to reconcile the Larian style with long-time Baldur’s Gate fans? Are you trying to go for a middle ground, opting for something more akin to BioWare’s work, or sticking with what Larian knows and does well?

David Walgrave: Oh, wow. So, obviously we know our own strengths and weaknesses, and we always take our strengths into the next game we develop. So, over the last 10 or so years, there have been certain pieces of technology and philosophy that we identify as core Larian and take into our next project. For example, when it comes to technology, a lot of stuff in our games follow systemics, so it’s really more of a simulation than anything else. We used to do this because we were a very small team, and if you work with systemics, you get a lot of gameplay for free. But we started noticing that a lot of this free gameplay was also creating a lot of fun, and creating a lot of different experiences for different players. So, everyone that was talking to each other about our games had different stories, which is really cool. So, that’s technology.

The way that we organize dialogues from a technical point of view has also been kind of the same for the last couple of years. There is some technology that we have and reuse, and there is also some philosophy that we have and reuse.

One philosophy we call N-plus-one design. This means that if there is a door that’s closed, you need to be able to open it in different ways. You can burn it down, you can start hacking it down, or you can just open it with a key if you find a key. But then a designer will say, “What if the key got lost?” Then you need to be able to unlock the door. “But what if you don’t have lockpicks?” Well, you can maybe jump over it, or maybe you can teleport through it with a spell. We always think of different ways to approach things. Not just doors, also quests. We even stopped calling quests, “quests” because we think of a quest as a simple task like, “Hey, I lost my boots, can you please get my boots?” We don’t do that anymore. We call them situations. That’s from a design philosophy point of view.

“…we started noticing that a lot of this free gameplay was also creating a lot of fun, and creating a lot of different experiences for different players. So, everyone that was talking to each other about our games had different stories, which is really cool.”

So, there is a lot of Larian that’s going to be in Baldur’s Gate 3. On the other hand, we also like Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, and certain things that they did in them. They did things that we have been trying for the last few years to do ourselves. For instance, if you like Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, what you will recognize is not just the Dungeons and Dragons terminology, vocabulary, and ruleset, but also the emphasis on your character, the emphasis on the party, the emphasis on your companions, and the emphasis on how they react to things that you do, how they react to each other, and the relationship between them.

One of the biggest things that we think Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 players still remember is all of the different companions that can join you. They have very outspoken personalities, and they also react to each other in specific ways. That is something from the originals that we really really wanted to have in Baldur’s Gate 3.

JS: I’d like to touch a bit more on the relationships between characters. In the gameplay presentation we saw, I noticed that many of the characters developed gripes with each other or with the player-controlled-character. To what degree can you improve or destroy the relationships you have with your companions?

DW: Completely. They might start attacking you, which is not actually that bad, because if they attack you then they are still part of the party, I think. But they also might just leave your party, and then they are gone. Meanwhile, on the other end, when they really like you, and the choices you make, there are romance options. So, you can go to the extreme in either direction.

JS: While we are talking about characters, fans have, of course, been asking about the whereabouts of Minsc and Boo, and if they’ll return. Are there any other favorite characters you’d particularly like to bring into Baldur’s Gate 3?

DW: Well, I know that our writers are planning to have cameos with characters that you will recognize from either the previous games or from The Forgotten Realms novels. I have my own personal favorites, but I don’t know if they’ll make it into the game or not.

JS: Have you spoken to any of the original BioWare or Black Isle teams about concepts, and how you might best approach development on a new title? Are any of those developers involved? Are there any plans or considerations to involve the Bhaalspawn or Bhaal, or do you plan to tell a story of your own within the setting?

DW: No, we haven’t. With Baldur’s Gate 3, we are creating a story completely of our own in the Baldur’s Gate setting.

JS: With the game being a story of Larian creation, would you say the tone of the game is leaning more towards Divinity or Baldur’s Gate? There’s body horror present in the reveal cinematic, but are you intending to make a darker game than before? What kind of humor, if any?

DW: I think, and it should have become clear from the game’s intro movie, that it’s a pretty dark tone. We also think that it’s full of serious topics; we said this about [Divinity] Original Sin 2, and I think that in Original Sin 2, we introduced pretty serious topics. I think that Baldur’s Gate 3, because of the setting, characters, and themes that we are trying to include, it is going to be very serious and dark.

But as you may have noticed during the presentation, there is also still humor. However, it’s not the typical Larian humor anymore. This is a bit of a different thing. Also, because it’s Forgotten Realms, it has its own lore, it has its own stories and backgrounds, and we’ve got to keep those; we are trying to keep the tone of Baldur’s Gate.

JS: How does the music and art direction complement the dark tone and themes? Are they key things that you try to include early, or something you fit into a developed framework?

DW: I am a producer, so I don’t know too much about art direction. But when it comes to art direction, we do have photogrammetry in the engine now, so the art direction is very realistic when it comes to nature: rocks, trees, and all that. We are also trying to put realism into everyone’s armor and weaponry. So, I think our art direction from the beginning has really been more realistic.

Music is only written after we finish a certain part of the world, and then designers and writers talk to the composer and discuss what is happening in every small region of the world. Then he starts composing stuff that really fits into that section of the world. But music is also very dynamic, so when combat starts the music changes. If you’re losing a battle, music changes. When you’re sneaking, music changes. So, it’s very involved.

“With Baldur’s Gate 3, we are creating a story completely of our own in the Baldur’s Gate setting.”

JS: How connected are you intending to make the plot of Baldur’s Gate 3 with prequel tabletop module Descent into Avernus?

DW: Very, because everything that Wizards of the Coast writes concerning D&D rules or Forgotten Realms lore is something that we need to know. We need to make sure that we don’t do anything within the game that contradicts the lore. It also makes a lot of sense, not just from a writing point of view, but also from a consumer point of view for Wizards, that what we put into the game is very recognizable.

In Descent into Avernus, something that’s currently happening is that the Tieflings are now refugees and they are fleeing to Baldur’s Gate. Within the gameplay presentation, you could see the Tiefling refugee camp that we explored. That’s something that came directly out of Descent into Avernus.

JS: In general, when people see a new game released with a numbered title, that can be very daunting for potential new players. What is Larian doing to make Baldur’s Gate 3 more attractive and accessible to a new audience?

DW: Obviously, you don’t have to play Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2. Though, it is a sequel. The 5th edition ruleset of D&D in Baldur’s Gate 3 is 100 years after what happened in Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, so people in the game know that as history. But as a player yourself, you don’t really need to know any of it.

To make sure young people play it, we’ve made the game look very nice. When I first saw these numbers, they were a bit shocking to me because, for some reason, I kept thinking we were making RPGs only for thirty and forty-plus-year-old people. But most of the people that are playing our games are in their twenties. I think that’s because we are using a tried and true formula, and we are introducing it to a new audience. We are trying to make sure that our game looks attractive, that it looks nice, that it looks 21st-century, that it looks appealing.

With Baldur’s Gate 3, when you see the cinematics or something like that, you’re immediately drawn to it. What 20-year-old people might not want to play is RPGs that still look and feel like it’s 1998. There are things that we love from the ’80s and the ’90s, and we are putting those elements into our game, but it’s 2020, and we want to make the game look like it’s from 2020. There are more than 300 people working on this game, and it needs to be a triple-A experience. So, if we limited our audience to this group of 42-plus-year-old-people, then we would have a very small audience.

JS: That tried and true formula you just mentioned is, of course, the Dungeons and Dragons formula, and it’s been stated Larian has been making an interpretation of D&D rather than a straight port of the tabletop systems. With that said, how are you adjusting that formula for the game? How many of the options for races, classes, abilities, etc. are you trying to include? And what kind of flexibility are you hoping to incorporate?

DW: We are actually trying to implement the D&D ruleset as close to the literal meaning as possible. I think that if you know D&D and you play our game, you will recognize about 95% of everything that’s in it. However, some things just don’t work in a computer game, so we approach them from a different angle so that it is still in the game, but in a slightly altered form that works in the game’s format.

For instance, one of the things that we don’t do from the 5th edition is called reactions. When I say we don’t do it, I mean that they are in the game, but not in the way they are in the handbook. When you’re playing tabletop, you actually interrupt someone else’s turn and say, ” I am going to play a reaction.” We don’t do that because that would take the speed out of the combat. We are always trying to make turn-based actually as fast as possible.

However, reactions are in the game, they’re just automatically executed. For instance, if an attack of opportunity triggers, your character will just automatically attack of opportunity. So, the thing is still in there, but we might have changed it a tiny bit.

There are things that we left out. But usually, that’s just magic spells that are simply too wild because Dungeons and Dragons is so free-form and out there. There is a spell called “Wish” where you can make any wish. You could just tell your dungeon master, “I wish I was a pigeon.” You can come up with crazy ideas. We didn’t put that in. Sometimes, we did put it in, but we just thought of the five most-wanted options.

JS: Touching more on what you were just talking about with spells and game balance, when balancing the power of player abilities and classes, do you try to keep things relatively even, or are you okay with disparities? Lots of options with some better or less situational than others, or a more tightly curated variety?

DW: We are implementing things based on how they are in the book. So, if they are a bit skewed in the book, then that’s how we are going to implement them. What we are trying to do is make sure that every class is a lot of fun, and has many different and unique ways to have fun. For example, implementing the fighter in a computer game is a bit of a challenge because we want them to still have interesting choices to make.

“We are actually trying to implement the D&D ruleset as close to the literal meaning as possible. I think that if you know D&D and you play our game, you will recognize about 95% of everything that’s in it.”

JS: In the gameplay I saw today, I noticed the game seemed very difficult. Swen appeared to be struggling at points, even though he’s played this segment dozens of times, and already knows many of the different environmental combos. Are there different difficulty options available or is it meant to be a learning experience where you adjust after developing more knowledge?

DW: We will have difficulty settings available. We always do that because as difficult as the game sometimes seems, some people think that they can really cheese anything. Because of the way that the systems and simulations work, you can really use the game against itself. So, some people are really good at that and then start saying, “The game is way too easy because there is so much stuff that I can abuse.” But we really like the fact that people can abuse the systems against themselves. It’s part of what makes the game so cool. But there will also be a story mode difficulty so that you can go through the story without having too much trouble during combat.

JS: During the presentation, there were also a few brief mentions of the multiplayer mode. Could you describe that mode a bit more, and specifically how it differs from the single-player experience?

DW: There are two different types of multiplayer when you start a game. Let’s say you’ve been playing for half an hour or 17 hours or whatever. Your friends can just drop in and out, and they’ll take control of one of your party members. This is very nice because the hard thing about multiplayer is if you always need to start on time, and someone can’t make it that night, then you’re kinda stuck. So, that’s one possibility. Then you also have multiplayer where you say, “Okay, let’s take on the game together from the start.” So, you and your friends – up to four people – basically start together in character creation, choose your characters, and play from there.

In multiplayer, you can basically do all of the same things that you’ve seen. You don’t have to stick together, but it’s recommended because combat is going to be pretty hard. You can do all sorts of things behind everyone’s back. If you’re the first person to start talking to someone, you might have a certain impact on the entire world and the others in the group don’t have a say about that.

Multiplayer within our previous games was actually very popular because you are in a party, and if you have a party member that’s not agreeing with you, you can actually help each other in combat because you both think differently. Multiplayer for us is a big deal because even if you just prefer single-player, all of the things that we are doing to make multiplayer work actually have a positive impact on the single-player campaign because of all of the different ramifications that we thought of. So, we have a convenient drop-in option, as well as a more traditional group D&D experience available.

“I didn’t know if we ever thought we would land the IP because we asked Wizards of the Coast five years ago, and they said, ‘No.’”

JS: From everything I’ve seen, you guys have created a video game that is very true to the D&D formula. Earlier you stated that you guys were creating your own entirely new story. So, what influenced you guys to use the Baldur’s Gate name in the game? Did you have a specific story idea in that universe? Are you guys big fans of the games?

DW: I think that Baldur’s Gate 3, for all of the RPG developers in the world, is like the golden grill. A lot of people have been asking for it, like, “We want to do it, can we please do it.” So, it’s not strange that it’s something we wanted to do, but we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t know if we ever thought we would land the IP because we asked Wizards of the Coast five years ago, and they said, “No.”

So, at first, they said no, and then we released Original Sin 2. They played it themselves, and they really liked it. They liked it because they thought that it was a computer game where the freedom of creativity in Dungeon and Dragons really came forward. So, they said, “If anyone can make a D&D game like Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s you guys.” Then they said, “It’s okay, you can do Baldur’s Gate 3.”

We actually work together with them on writing the story. So, Swen came up with the main idea that you have a tadpole in your head and your going to turn into a Mindflayer, but for very big decisions we talk to Wizards of the Coast.

Larian has announced that Baldur’s Gate 3 will enter early access in 2020 before it has its full launch on PC marketplaces and Google Stadia. This isn’t shocking, as they took advantage of early access to help finetune their more recent games like Divinity Original Sin 2.

Editor’s Note: All images were provided by Larian. Some portions of this piece have been edited for clarity’s sake.

February 27, 2020 4:15 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/baldurs-gate-3-interview-david-walgrave-shares-game-details-and-reflects-on-obtaining-the-ip-from-wizards-of-the-coast/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=baldurs-gate-3-interview-david-walgrave-shares-game-details-and-reflects-on-obtaining-the-ip-from-wizards-of-the-coast

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