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[Tame1]

Just read this over at Gamespot, analysts and investors pushing EA to really push out their franchises, and Dragon Age was mentioned as one of the franchises that needs to do better.

What does that mean? Well, it means the game will be mainstreamed and casualized most likely. Here's the quote:

"FBR Capital Markets released a note to investors today, noting that EA
"continues to struggle to build the kind of margin expanding franchises
necessary to really build the bottom line…In order to meet its targets
for the year, the company is going to have to see stronger results in
efforts to launch/relaunch franchises like Medal of Honor, Dragon Age,
and Dead Space against an extremely competitive environment.""

Modifié par Tame1, 14 mai 2010 - 05:45 .

[SDNcN]

Tame1 wrote...

What does that mean? Well, it means the game will be mainstreamed and casualized most likely. Here's the quote:

Dragon Age is already mainstream and casual mode already exists.

[TheMadCat]

Wow, what moron came up with that notion? Stronger efforts to launch/relauch Dragon Age? It was launched very recently with some great success given the genre, hell if anything EA put too much effort into the launch. Though they are right in general, EA has been grade-A crap from a financial perspective the past few years and I don't see them breaking out of that funk anytime soon. But their failures come from poor management, idiotic business choices, and far to many failed pursuits and not that they aren't pushing some of their franchises hard enough. Want to fix EA, start by kicking out Ricitello and Schappert and replace them with folks who actually have a proven and successful track record in the consumer goods industry.

But as SDNcN said, Dragon Age is already a mainstream game aimed towards the "casual" player. Sadly though I do expect a couple of design choices to come about we might not have seen pre-EA. The Dragon Age series may shift much closer to the Mass Effect games; so less dialogue and exploration, much more combat oriented, much easier difficulty, shorter game length, ect. compared to what we saw with the original title.

Modifié par TheMadCat, 13 mai 2010 - 08:24 .

[Elanareon]

The problem with EA is, they always target the casual players. They casualize everything. So even with games like Dragon Age, though is still good, are suited with RPG fanatics. Casualize that and you have a game that will have no consumer targets...

[Indoctrination]

This is my greatest fear in regard to Dragon Age 2. I'm afraid they'll go the Mass Effect 2 route and just dumb down the RPG aspects. If DA2 ends up being a hack 'n' slash action game with a dialogue system tacked on to it, I'm not buying it.

[ObserverStatus]

Given how Dragon Age sold nearly twice as many copies as Mass Effect 2, I don't think dumbing down the rpg elements would help.

[Bfler]

" If DA2 ends up being a hack 'n' slash action game with a dialogue system tacked on to it, I'm not buying it."



Isn't that what Awakening already is?

[Massadonious1]

Oh noes.

[Tonkarz]

In business it's not good enough to say "it did well, given the genre" because the response is "well, don't make games in that genre". Like, imagine if you were selling hats, and you said to your shareholders "well, our new line of hats are selling very well considering they are glitter encrusted stove pipe hats".

[CybAnt1]

Bfler wrote...

" If DA2 ends up being a hack 'n' slash action game with a dialogue system tacked on to it, I'm not buying it."

Isn't that what Awakening already is?

And then there's Darkspawn Chronicles, where they finally got rid of that pesky dialogue system thing altogether, so that you can focus on killing & maiming. 

If I knew for sure that wasn't a harbinger of the future, I might have a less negative reaction to it. 

[Schwinni]

Let's hope that DA2 won't be "Dragon Age: Diablo".

[SDNcN]

Bfler wrote...

" If DA2 ends up being a hack 'n' slash action game with a dialogue system tacked on to it, I'm not buying it."

Isn't that what Awakening already is?

You could argue the same is true for Origins as well actually.
The difference being it isn't quite as noticable due to the game being much longer

[hexaligned]

SDNcN wrote...

Bfler wrote...

" If DA2 ends up being a hack 'n' slash action game with a dialogue system tacked on to it, I'm not buying it."

Isn't that what Awakening already is?

You could argue the same is true for Origins as well actually.
The difference being it isn't quite as noticable due to the game being much longer

Origins has the most superfluous and overly drawn out dialogue system of any game I've personally played, to the point of excess, you're entilted to your opinion, but I don't really see how you could reasonably argue that, no.  Hell Lelianas camp dialogue alone took me longer to get through than the entire Dalish area.  Try a play through where you escape out of all the nessasary dialogue and skip all the unessasary ones, it's easily 1/4 of the game (unless you die and reload a lot I guess),  thats hardly tacked on by modern video game standards.  

Modifié par relhart, 13 mai 2010 - 01:56 .

[Dick Delaware]

SDNcN wrote...
You could argue the same is true for Origins as well actually.
The difference being it isn't quite as noticable due to the game being much longer

That's a very good point. Keep in mind that there were a TON of filler combat encounters in Dragon Age. Much of the game's length was due to the long dungeon-crawl sections of the Deep Roads and The Fade. If anything, that is Origins' biggest weakness, so I think we would do well not to forget that. 

Going off on a tangent here, but I would be very happy if a DA2 game were set in some place more interesting, because Ferelden was a pretty bland, Orzammar and the lore surrounding mages notwithstanding. Really, I'd love it if we explored parts of The Fade more (Black City), The Qunari Lands (one of the most unique and interesting aspects of the Dragon Age lore) and the Tevinter Imperium. Orlais is good too, so long as it's a decadent, corrupt place with hypocrisy everywhere.

Modifié par Dick Delaware, 13 mai 2010 - 01:00 .

[ev0k3r]

That was my fear since I played ME2, that DA2 will end up some action-rpg - emphasising more on Action and Bioware would manage to destroy 2 awesome series in 1 blow.

To be honest though, ME2 was advertised as a 3rd person shooter and DAO as the RPG of the year. If we start hearing that DA2 is the best action-RTS-oriented-RPG, then I think it's the time to worry



Let's just wait and see what they will announce in E3 which is nearing its ugly head.

[Wyndham711]

I'd say it's quite probable to happen. "Accessibility" is what seemingly every studio keeps chanting these days and I'd be very surprised if that mentality didn't seriously affect DA2.

[The Hardest Thing In The World]

So in E3 we will get some light on that Feb 11, 2011 date mystery?

Modifié par The Hardest Thing In The World, 13 mai 2010 - 01:52 .

[Kail Ashton]

It's more about EA's money making than anything about dragon age, i recall a certin Mr. Pachter mentioning recently ivestors lose'n faith in EA's promises it can't back up, i imagine that snipet is in regards to that

[Mscheveous]

Bfler wrote...

" If DA2 ends up being a hack 'n' slash action game with a dialogue system tacked on to it, I'm not buying it."

Isn't that what Awakening already is?

Heh, agreed here...

I came to DAO late, bought the game a few days before Awakenings was released. I loved Origins, it had such character. WOW, you could build Romances and Friendships..you could be a Jerk and make everyone mad at you. The party Banter was great to listen to, it broke up the blah of having to run around everywhere. You could customize your team. And lets not forget the ability to 'Romance'. That was new, at least to any of the single player games I've played. I LOVED Origins, infact it became my favorite single player game. So, without waiting I purchased Awakenings the day it was released, and wow...what a buzz kill for me. Story lines just cut off when importing characters, your all alone without your favorite group, love interest or friend, only to find new people who lack the ability to talk outside of the clickable tree that you can only trigger once. It became boring, lifeless. Though, the story itself was cool I felt that the game lost that UMPH that I loved in Origins. I only played it once, almost 40 bucks wasted in my opinion.
So, they polish a shiny new DLC, is it worth it? Maybe to some. Im sure they will get tons of joy out of it..for me I think I was ruined by the glam that was Origins and add to that the lack of wanting to play Darkspawn.

*Le-Sigh*

I for one learned my lesson. I'll be waiting a bit before purchasing DAO2. If they dumb it down like they did in Awakenings...they've unfortunatly lost a customer, wether they care of not.

(Yes, this is all just my personal opinion. I know they dont need 1 losey customer, I know Im the one choosing not to play Awakenings. I am not knocking their DLC or their game, ECT. Im simply stating what it means to me .So you dont have to bother trolling my post)


Ends Rant...Thanks...felt good to get that out!

[Zy-El]

SDNcN wrote...

Bfler wrote...
" If DA2 ends up being a hack 'n' slash action game with a dialogue system tacked on to it, I'm not buying it."
Isn't that what Awakening already is?

You could argue the same is true for Origins as well actually.
The difference being it isn't quite as noticable due to the game being much longer

I agree with you and the other posters here wholeheartedly.  I used to be a Diablo fanatic but after playing Dragon Age, there is no going back to that mindless hack-and-slash.  We want MORE dialogue and MORE interaction with our party members and NPC's.

I think the execs will get the message.  All they have to do is look at the sales numbers for Origins and compare them to the Awakening numbers (less PC interaction) and the Darkspawn Chronicle numbers (even less PC interaction).  Nothing speaks louder to them than lower profit margins - ergo, lower pay bonuses.  We can already predict that the sales numbers for these products will be lower than what they expected just by reading the posts on these forums and the ambivilence voiced by the player community.

[maxernst]

I actually think ALL Bioware games have always been hack & slash games with dialogue tacked on...even though the dialogue part is the more satisfying piece for me. Bioware's always been a company with its eye on mass-sales, not a niche company, like say Paradox Interactive or Troika. If you look at their games historically, I don't think they've ever made a game where you can accomplish many major quest objectives without any combat. In contrast, games like the Fallout games, Planescape: Torment & Arcanum or even the "action-oriented" Ultima Underworld games often allowed you to use stealth or persuasion to avoid many combats. That's never been Bioware's style.



I'm not getting excited about a press release. As far as the Darkspawn Chronicles DLC, I suspect that making a combat-oriented DLC using environments that were (at least partially) already done was fast and cheap to do...I don't see it as an indication of longterm strategic direction. Bioware has a very successful formula and I doubt they're going to change it drastically.

[Big_Stupid_Jelly]

I've played both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age, and I have to say I much prefer DragonAge. DA has more interactivity, and just feels like a much richer/deeper environment than ME2 does.



Yes DA does have lots of dungeons, but I found these to be lots of fun, the antitheis of ME2's Collector missions, which were, for me, a pain in the rear and obviously not fun.



DA2 needs to retain everything it now has, and really could do with more interactivity and dialogue between party members.



On the 'casual' aspect, I normally play DA on Normal, well I do now i've got the hang of it, but sometimes I drop down to casual, usually near the end of the game. I also got the game recently on PC to see if the graphics were any better, and something I found was I found the game much harder on the PC, to check I played the same section on the Xbox and I breezed through it, on the PC I got slaughtered.



Anyway just because a game can attract a casual audience, doesn't necessarily mean it has to be dumbed down for said audience...anyway isn't that was difficulty settings are for?

[Dr Bawbag]

Main streaming games usually involves adding co-op and whatnot nowadays. BioWare can **** right off if they decide to go down that route.

[Tame1]

Dr Bawbag wrote...

Main streaming games usually involves adding co-op and whatnot nowadays. BioWare can **** right off if they decide to go down that route.

Despite me making this post, Co-op would be really good for Dragon Age, actually. Ever played NWN or NWN2? Because let's face it, Dragon Age is NWN3 in a different part of Faerun with some words changed.

I think Co-op handled the way the NWN games added it would be really cool, as long as it didn't destroy the game's length like it did in NWN2: Storm of Zehir (OC was 60 hrs, Mask was 40 hrs, SoZ was 12 hrs)

[Nozybidaj]

Odd, I was just thinking of coming here and making a post about "learn lessons from ME2 about what NOT to do in DA2". Dumbing down gameplay, discarding emotional attachments, etc.



I hold out hope that if they do have plans to make a DA2 that they don't make all those same mistakes over again.