ElitePinecone wrote...
Hard to tell, really. Based on what some of the devs have been saying about DA:I, I think the first generation of games that they're doing on Frostbite are perhaps taking longer, and won't necessarily follow the same timelines as their last few.
The BioWare talk about the engine shift to Frostbite 3 was mostly applicable to Dragon Age: Inquisition, as the team noted transition to a new engine and building their own RPG systems on technical level would increase dev time beyond a typical sequel (think how building ME's systems into UE3 chewed up a lot of time, where moving from ME2->ME3 less so as they were implimented already). BioWare actually contributed rather extensively to Frostbite 3, if you check the credits in Battlefield 4 and engine details. Their technical team added in a whole bunch of stuff that DICE did not, because it wasn't applicable to the Battlefield franchise, but is for a lot of stuff BioWare produce. Not just basic RPG systems, but also additions to animation rendering/processing, like full support for quadropeds.
When BioWare cited that building Inquisition on Frostbite 3 would increase dev time, they actually said this would be beneficial to Montreal's Mass Effect 4. A lot of the systems that Edmonton spent time building into the engine to better support BioWare's type of universes, play systems, and so on for Inquisition are also massively beneficial to Mass Effect. Essentially the long hard work put in for Inquisition translates to Mass Effect, giving Montreal a leg up instead of them too starting from scratch with the engine. They'll too have to wrestle with the new engine, but unlike Edmonton they won't be starting from scratch, or even close to. Part of Edmonton's Frostbite 3 goal was to get those systems up and running so other BW studios, like Montreal, could use them in parrallel.
I'm sure Mass Effect 4 will take a big longer than usual (it already has), but yeah. The extended time Edmonton cited for Inquisition isn't applicable to Montreal's Mass Effect. In that particular case it's actually the opposite, Edmonton's work help speeding them up.
As for when dialogue writing would begin, it's hard to guage without knowing exactly how BioWare's teams operate, but in most cases this would indeed take place deeper in the development cycle. Real dialogue work written too early is usually a waste of time and resources, as dialogue is highly dependant on characters, scenes, narrative, context, and so on; all the stuff that needs to be conceptualised and locked down (as much as possible) first to give the nuances of dialogue weight. Can't write characters that don't exist. Can't write for scenarios not being built. Cant write interactions that haven't been planned. You can think about these things, but you cant properly draft them without having the guidelines and directive set.
And so, if they're following a traditional development model, drafting actual dialogue now to me would imply that:
- Overarching narrative is mostly locked down.
- Nuances of said narrative are documented; locations, characters (major/minor), species, major events, etc.
- Game systems are somewhat operational, playable quest lines being programmed (good dialogue runs parrallel to quest play and level design)
I mean, there would still be a ton of work to go and this gives no real indication of a release window. But yeah. Many big things should be deep in development, and well documented past the early conceptualising stage, if they're moving on to character dialogue now. The tree is growing, and now come the branches.
EDIT: Weyo, wall of text.
Modifié par EatChildren, 19 janvier 2014 - 02:55 .
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