34 réponses à ce sujet

[animedreamer]

I'm not sure how programming works, but if BioWare created their own in house Graphics Engine could they create something visually equal or better than DAI and allow for a Creation Kit?

[Grieving Natashina]

At a low estimate, building a new engine from scratch would literally take tens of thousands of dollars, and take away from game development time.  EA has also said back in 2013 that all of their games from here on out would be on FB.  EA/DICE already spent the money, and it's a solid engine.  BioWare would be probably very unwilling to stop making games for the time it would take to do it.  They could use another existing one, like the Unreal engine, but they have before (ME2 and ME3) and they've said they think the FB3 engine has better graphics fidelity.  Plus, these things are generally left up to the publisher and not the game developers.  I'm not sure they could do any better visually to be honest.  

 

The devs have said before that they would like to release a toolkit for DA:I if they can, but it's a matter from getting permission from the various outside companies that helped build the engine like DICE.  It's not a matter of willing, it's a matter of being able to.  That hasn't stopped the modders; I've even got a hair mesh going, as well as clothing and gameplay tweaks.  Remember, DA2 didn't have a creation kit, so the modders built their own.  It's not that the devs are unwilling, it's that there is a lot of logistics that make this difficult.  I guess all I can suggest there is to keep an eye on nexus as well as sites like the DA:I tools forums or the mod author's thread for what's coming out.

[Torgette]

Frostbite 3 is fine, if there's any immediate improvements they could make it would be moving on from the 360/PS3.

[Zinho73]

Bioware would benefit if they invested all their resources and time in the game itself. This engine is fine - and it can be upgraded in terms of performance and visuals anyway.

[Grieving Natashina]

Frostbite 3 is fine, if there's any immediate improvements they could make it would be moving on from the 360/PS3.

Agreed.  I think that, simply put, BioWare spread themselves a little too thin.   We do have to keep in mind that the game was originally slated to come out October of 2013 before the PS4 and Xbone even came out.  Both came out in November of that year. 

 

So they had likely already started work on the older generation consoles, but due to the first extension when EA gave them another year, (which is how we got multiple playable races back, as well as Iron Bull ungated and the extra romances,) they had to put this out for the current gen.  I think the next game is going to be a lot better since they'll only have to focus on three platforms instead of five.

[Eelectrica]

Creating an engine from scratch would add years to development. Especially these days where game engines need to have a lot more features than the days of the infinity engine or Aurora.

Not many companies use their own custom built engine anymore.

[AresKeith]

Agreed.  I think that, simply put, BioWare spread themselves a little too thin.   We do have to keep in mind that the game was originally slated to come out October of 2013 before the PS4 and Xbone even came out.  Both came out in November of that year. 

 

So they had likely already started work on the older generation consoles, but due to the first extension when EA gave them another year, (which is how we got multiple playable races back, as well as Iron Bull ungated and the extra romances,) they had to put this out for the current gen.  I think the next game is going to be a lot better since they'll only have to focus on three platforms instead of five.

 

And they'll be able to add certain elements that they couldn't do in DA:I because of last-gen being weaker 

[Grieving Natashina]

And they'll be able to add certain elements that they couldn't do in DA:I because of last-gen being weaker 

Oh yes.  They'll also have some more time to focus on some more bug testing and other Q&A related matters.  We also shouldn't forget that they had to turn what had been mostly a FPS engine into something more fit for a RPG.  It needs work, but I think they've come a long way.  I also figure with more games coming out on FB3, it'll give the different game companies time to get comfortable with the engine.  They'll probably end up learning from each other.  

[Domiel Angelus]

I'd like to see them go back to the DA engine that they were already working on for so many years, even if its only for a side game or something. It worked rather well, and only had a few bugs arise when they were working through the kinks in DA 2. 

[X Equestris]

They already put a lot of effort into getting things like four legged creatures into Frostbite. It would be best to build off of that. I'm sure this will pay off in the future, as the groundwork is already laid. Any improvements that happen over the course of the next Mass Effect's development might be applicable to DA4.

[katerinafm]

Frostbite 3 already looks fine, I don't see a reason why they would need to switch engines again. It's unnecessary, and would probably take away from the game since a lot of the devs' effort will be put into making a new engine work than on the actual game content itself.

[DarkKnightHolmes]

They've wasted there time in each Dragon Age game with a new engine. They should just stick to one now and work on other stuff already.

[Torgette]

Oh yes. They'll also have some more time to focus on some more bug testing and other Q&A related matters. We also shouldn't forget that they had to turn what had been mostly a FPS engine into something more fit for a RPG. It needs work, but I think they've come a long way. I also figure with more games coming out on FB3, it'll give the different game companies time to get comfortable with the engine. They'll probably end up learning from each other.

Yep, especially with the Bioware Montreal guys making the next Mass Effect with FB3 for next gen consoles - if Omega DLC is any indication those guys are very apt at programming.

[Dutch]

I think they should license CD's Red Engine. Better than unreal, frostbite, gamebryo and cryengine IMO.

[pdusen]

They've wasted there time in each Dragon Age game with a new engine. They should just stick to one now and work on other stuff already.

 

The first two games used the same engine.

 

To answer the OP: No, there would be no benefit for doing that.

[b10d1v]

This effort took long enough and made progress, in this case ignore a few bad apples, the crop is not lost!  Look at the news reports and corporate investor documents, Bioware and EA did not come to this decision over night, there was considerable research.

 

Frostbite (EA) can do things with computational rendering that are difficult or impossible with older approaches.  How frostbite handel's water for instance is just a small aspect of it's capability.  Another aspect is fixed background characters -not much different than a tree with limited redraw to simulate animation -just a painted boundary to simulate population.  The other thing lost on most is that frostbite is a development system based in SQA that allows the creator to work "inside" the game while it monitors for conflicts -process QA.  This automated big brother is a useful tool when its up and running properly.  

 

The character controller was a Bioware development from the start, the focus was how to reduce the data throughput clogging the hardware (lag/faults/etc.), by the way the same thing was happening on PC and console hardware -another reason to upgrade or dump the old units.  One of the lesser known headaches with NPCs as they get more complicated is they can forget where they are and wander off, so making npcs appear realistic involves a lot of data beyond surface texture and much of it look up tables "what do I do if?"  That response may have dozens of nested values depending on repetition or relative importance to a place, thing or person and may be animation, some behavior, dialog, cutscene, etc.  This gets very complicated quickly and have exponential growth with additional unique NPCs.  

[b10d1v]

Creation kits are problemattic for a variety of reasons, the first is the technology is progressing, not static. =unstable mods.  The other is well know to Skyrim -mod conflicts and some of these are so subtle that they are very hard to isolate.  The biggest impact to resolve these issues is DLC modding, but the overhead can be daunting.  The teams that produced DLC for ME3 were stunning examples to say the least.  I encourage you to join a team and form a plan for what you want to achieve.

[Darkly Tranquil]

As much as I think FB3 is rubbish, they've put so much effort into getting it working (sort of), they're not going to scrap it and start again at this point. All we can hope for is that with the benefit of more time they can manage to do a better job of implementing core DA functions like tactics, behaviours, and Tac cam in the next game, as they were all woeful in DAI. Basically, we're stuck with it for at least the foreseeable future.

[Octarin]

They don't need to create an engine from scratch. The new Unreal is out there. A friend of mine, animations professor, shared some clips from it. Stunning and life-like is an understatement. An Unreal version was used for ME1 and it was spectacular. The real question is: will EA spend money to buy the rights to the new Unreal? Absolutely not. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

BioWare used to be a tech company that made its own engines.

It is no longer.

[bEVEsthda]

It takes many years, millions of dollars and an extremely tech-savvy and educated team to develop an engine. And it gets worse all the time, as the expectations of what an engine should be capable of doing, and the demands on rendering quality and complexity of world model continues to rise.

 

In the end, there's only going to be two or three serious engines. EA have the option of trying to make Frostbite one of those. To me, it seems like a business decision that would make sense from EA's perspective and goals. But you never know with a big corporation like that. Kodak was once the world leader in both digital image sensor technology and in making small lenses. Xerox was once the world leader in computer interfaces and software technology.

[otis0310]

Most game users think that a game engine is mostly about graphics.  It is not, that is only one part of the game engine.

 

It also includes:

 

Networking

 

Physics Engine

 

Scripting

 

Animation

 

Artificial Intelligence

 

Collision Detection

 

Now as we  all know the artificial intelligence in this game is bad,  we also know the animation, especially for the elves, is also bad.  Not to mention the combat system, which would be the collision detection.

 

As result of what we now know a game engine entails the answer is obvious.  The game would have been better with a brand new engine, easily.

 

The artificial intelligence, the combat system (collision detection) and the animation are all the responsibility of the game engine.  However, these are the weakest and most widely criticized parts of the game.  As a result we can assume that choosing the Frostbite 3 engine was a bad move.

[Octarin]

I believe, as others have noted before, that Frostbite isn't the proper engine for the genre, since it was initially and at large developed for an entirely different gameplay style. But then again, I've always been an Unreal fan, so, I'm biased against Frostbite by default.

[otis0310]

I believe, as others have noted before, that Frostbite isn't the proper engine for the genre, since it was initially and at large developed for an entirely different gameplay style. But then again, I've always been an Unreal fan, so, I'm biased against Frostbite by default.

 

Given what I said about the game engine being responsible for artificial intelligence and collision detection I think we can agree that Frostbite is the wrong engine.  You see, the engine is responsible for both.  As we know the AI sucks in DAI, for that matter the combat also sucks.  The combat is based on the collision detection, there is no attack or defense roll, if the sword physically connects it is a hit, that simple.  The engine is responsible for that collision detection which led to clunky combat as well as the bad AI.  Because they are both the responsibilities of the game engine.

[Ellana of clan Lavellan]

Regardless of whether or not Bioware/EA is actually willing or able to do such a thing, if, in a hypothetical scenario, Bioware is able to do it, then yes, it'd benefit immensely from a custom engine, as it'd be custom-tailored to fit Bioware's needs for whatever game they'll be using it for.