I say, for one thing, that the gameplay graphics will finally be on the level of the cutscene graphics so that the transition between the two would be seamless. I point to The Order: 1886 again, where I've seen gameplay reviewed by Gamespot. Just watching the gameplay I was blown away how the same animation and graphics were being used as the cutscenes that were spread out in the moments of the gameplay, and how seamless this all occured. I would love for Dragon Age series to be played on this level one day such as the trailer of The Sacred Ashes would be gameplay with cutscenes plugged in here and there. Granted, the reviewer of The Order said they felt that they weren't really playing the game because of the cutscenes continuously popping in, but just the fact we are getting to the point where the gameplay does match the cutscenes is a huge step. Now it just has to be paced out properly and not so much on rails.
This is still a graphical consideration though. I think it's easy to acknowledge that with more horsepower, the games on next gen will have improved graphics. I was curious more about how the game actually plays.
If you make scaled models with varying LODs for the hardware, the situation you described would still be possible for a cross platform game. In fact, it's even within our realm of what we consider acceptable between cross platform games, because it's simply a graphical change rather than a fundamental change in how the game plays.
Further, I admit I am a bit confused since DAO and DA2 both utilized the same graphics engine for cutscenes as well as for game engine. Some of them were recorded as Binks, but they were still created with the same engine with the same assets. In fact, the way the conversation system worked in our pipeline was to literally convert the data into the same format as our cutscenes to play them (allowing a lot of cutscenes). In this respect, every conversation in DA2 (and I think DAO) could be considered a "cutscene." Unless you're referring to something else. Are you simply excited that the next gen graphics will be closer to that of a blur trailer?
I think my main issue at the moment is that previous generation wasn't able to handle large groups of enemies. At least, that's what I attributed the wave mechanic to. Stronger console would allow higher memory and processing, thus, it would allow the developers to plan out battles more strategically by carefully planning enemies on screen as opposed to small groups of enemies slowly.
This is definitely an actual difference. Though depending on one's perspective, it may be considered a good thing. Instead of challenging the player by throwing throngs of enemies at the party (i.e. DA2), encounters may need to be more interestingly set up.
But you are right, if we want the games to play the same on all platforms, we either need to get creative with our asset usage, or we need to make sure our asset count doesn't explode during combat.
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I could possibly end up getting a PS4 for DAI, but will likely hold out until there's a game I really want to play that is next-gen only. Plus, it should give Sony more time to iron out their hardware bugs and such.
