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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
| E3: No Dragon Age but Bioshock takes centre stage |
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CNN Money has an E3 <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/04/24/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm" target="_blank">newsbit</a> that looks at some of the most anticipated items. Among the expected PS3 and Revolution talk is news that BioWare won't be displaying Dragon Age - disappointing but not surprising with no publisher yet signed on - but 2K Games' major show item will be Irrational's Bioshock, which they are obviously expecting to be big. |
Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:39 pm |
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doctor_kaz
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 108
Location: West Virginia, USA |
Dragon Age is vaporware. Bioware is getting to be a console developer, and I'm sure that the merger with Pandemic hasn't helped the PC side of the business. Bioware is clearly focusing more on Mass Effect than Dragon Age, and they have already said that they are working on Jade Empire 2. They had screenshots two years ago, but they still don't have anything to show at E3 now? Nothing whatsoever? They don't have a publisher for Dragon Age yet, but they got a publisher for Mass Effect in about five minutes? I wouldn't be surprised to see Dragon Age cancelled. |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:47 pm |
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Guest
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quote:
Originally posted by doctor_kaz
Dragon Age is vaporware.
nonsense, it's a AAA crpg that's going to take 5 years to make.
they announced it maybe 1 year into those 5. that's a very EARLY announcement. they did so in order to make the PC gamers feel they weren't being left out (they aren't), and to get early feedback / suggestions / feelings from their community.
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Bioware is getting to be a console developer,
not really. they've made 2 console games for the previous xbox / ps2 / gamecube generation.
during that generation they also made NWN, 2 NWN expansions.
KOTOR also appeared on pc.
NWN took way more time than a console game...
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and I'm sure that the merger with Pandemic hasn't helped the PC side of the business.
the companies haven't merged in that sense. Each development studio is independantly run, with oversight and stuff from their combined parent body.
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Bioware is clearly focusing more on Mass Effect than Dragon Age, and they have already said that they are working on Jade Empire 2.
Bioware have (I believe) 3 DIFFERENT teams working on games, and a team working on their internal tools.
it's not a choice between PC or Console, between Mass Effect or Dragon Age. They have the Cash (thanks bono!) and human resources to do both.
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They had screenshots two years ago, but they still don't have anything to show at E3 now? Nothing whatsoever?
cause they aren't ready to publicise dragon age yet.
They've never shown ANY screenshots from Dragon Age. What they showed was early concept designs (mocked up using existing engine tech). They've since totally removed those concept screens from the dragon age site, in order to avoid confusion.
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They don't have a publisher for Dragon Age yet, but they got a publisher for Mass Effect in about five minutes?
Cause Mass Effect will have a shorter dev time? Cause they aren't at the stage where they NEED a publisher yet for DA, so why rush it when they can negotiate with lots of different parties and find the best deal?
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I wouldn't be surprised to see Dragon Age cancelled.
You're nothing but a troll, you've most likely already posted this on the bioware forums and been totally shot down. So you post it here, hoping to spread this total nonsense to some less informed audience.
-Torias. |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:58 pm |
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doctor_kaz
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 108
Location: West Virginia, USA |
quote:
nonsense, it's a AAA crpg that's going to take 5 years to make.
Then what are games like Mass Effect and Bioshock? Half-assed games that are only going to take 2 years to make? Did you ever consider the reason that the game is taking 5 years to make because they aren’t devoting resources to it? It’s not like wine, where the product has to ferment. It’s not like they have to order huge pieces of machinery that have 12-month lead times. Supposedly, game development takes a longer time now because technology requires lots more artists to utilize it. But this is a problem for both consoles and PC's. It’s not as if making a brand new PC IP is twice as hard as making a brand new console IP. They are both new IP’s. They both require tons of creative content, balancing, and testing. They both have their unique challenges. Jade Empire, Mass Effect and Bioshock maybe even moreso, since they are truly unique worlds, and not just generic Tolkien/D&D-esque knockoffs like Dragon Age is going to be.
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not really. they've made 2 console games for the previous xbox / ps2 / gamecube generation.
during that generation they also made NWN, 2 NWN expansions.
A four year old game and expansion packs for a four year old game? Thanks for helping to prove my point.
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KOTOR also appeared on pc.
So did Halo and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. What’s your point? Kotor was clearly developed for the X-Box as the primary audience, and not for fans of Bioware’s previous games. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have recycled 50% of the content from Neverwinter Nights and saddled the game with such a shitty consolized interface. Between 1998 and 2002, Bioware made 3 huge PC games. Now, Bioware hasn’t made a unique PC game in four years, and in that time they have made Kotor and Jade Empire, and they are already farther along on Mass Effect, a game that was started long after Dragon Age (supposedly). I wouldn’t be surprised if Jade Empire 2 comes out before Dragon Age ever makes it.
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the companies haven't merged in that sense. Each development studio is independantly run, with oversight and stuff from their combined parent body.
In other words, they’re not independent from one another. The parent gets to decide what gets funded, and that parent, naturally, is a reflection of the formerly independent studios. And do you think that parent will be excited about funding PC games, when half of the company has never focused on it, and the other half used to be but no longer is? I don’t.
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Bioware have (I believe) 3 DIFFERENT teams working on games, and a team working on their internal tools.
it's not a choice between PC or Console, between Mass Effect or Dragon Age. They have the Cash (thanks bono!) and human resources to do both.
Nobody has unlimited resources, whether it’s cash or people. Especially at the management level. I’m sure that Bioware constantly makes decisions about how much to fund each team and how many people to put onto each one. If Bioware can release two or maybe even three console games before finishing one PC game, it’s pretty obvious which teams are getting the resources, and which teams aren’t.
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Cause Mass Effect will have a shorter dev time? Cause they aren't at the stage where they NEED a publisher yet for DA, so why rush it when they can negotiate with lots of different parties and find the best deal?
And why does Mass Effect have a much shorter development time? Because producing a sci-fi RPG/shooter that’s a brand new IP is easy and it takes only a couple of short years, or because Bioware has devoted more resources to it and just wants to get it out sooner? A game should not take five years to develop, no matter how ambitious it is, and I seriously doubt that any developer starts a game purposedly intending to take five years to finish it. It’s really bad business. Correction. It's terrible business. Even Elder Scrolls IV didn’t take anywhere close to that long, and that was the most ambitious game I have ever seen. If a game takes a half-decade or more to make, I'm betting that it's because of problems in the game's development or lack of resources.
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You're nothing but a troll, you've most likely already posted this on the bioware forums and been totally shot down. So you post it here, hoping to spread this total nonsense to some less informed audience.
Yup, that’s what the fanboys of Duke Nukem Forever and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. said too. I guess we’ll see. If Bioware is showing off Jade Empire 2 at next year’s E3 instead of Dragon Age, what will you say then? As for being "less informed" here, nobody is truly informed about the game except for Bioware themselves. They don't release anything meaningful in their forums at all. |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 2:50 pm |
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Maylander
High Emperor
Joined: 22 Mar 2002
Posts: 1712
Location: Norway |
Shame they're not giving out any new info about Dragon Age yet, I've been looking forward to it for a long time. Still, E3 should be good for RPG gamers this year, with games like NWN2, Gothic 3, The Witcher and so on all being present (as far as I know at least).  |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 5:44 pm |
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Guest
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old Bioware - they announce Dragon Age way earlier than usual so that us gamers would know they haven't abandoned the PC, yet what happens? The ignorant wail "vapourware!" and still accuse them of abandoning the PC for the console.
For information, Mass Effect can have a shorter dev time because it's using a third party engine (Unreal 3 engine). Development times in these cases are usually much reduced compared to games where the engine is all new and being designed from scratch. Guess what type Dragon Age uses?
I could understand calling "vapourware!" if DA was claimed to be slated for 2005/6 when they announced it. But they never said anything of the sort - right from the start it was said that it would be further away than that, more like 2007/8. And if you've a game scheduled to come out before then, it makes perfect sense to use events such as E3 to promote that. If E3 2007 comes and goes without a peep about DA then I'll be worried. As it is, it's right on the initial schedule they first announced. |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 6:19 pm |
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Face it, console are more popular .. Console games sell much more than PC games .. Even if they were turning the company into a console game only studio, that would be brilliant from a bussines standpoint.
I would be VERY happy if they ported their games to PC .. Jade Empire .. the new Xbox 360 game .. But that would bring down the wrath of Microsoft i guess .. Didn't they say they had big plans to "revive" pc gaming?
Anyway .. i would like to remind any Bioware employers that might visit this site that dedicated PC gamers made the fortunes of your company in the first place. |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 7:08 pm |
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doctor_kaz
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 108
Location: West Virginia, USA |
quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous
Face it, console are more popular .. Console games sell much more than PC games .. Even if they were turning the company into a console game only studio, that would be brilliant from a bussines standpoint.
Ask Ion Storm or Black Isle about how much money they made when they became console developers. Oh wait, you can't, because they went out of business. There was an article about six months ago or so about how Jade Empire had only sold 250,000 copies, compared to 2 Million each for the Baldurs Gate series and Neverwinter Nights. Half-Life 2 was a flop for the X-Box, and the Sims have never been as successful on consoles as on the PC. The point? Console development has a huge upside, but it isn't always the gold mine it's often made out to be. |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 7:21 pm |
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