So David Gaider is in Beamdog now?

[Kulyok]

I love David Gaider's writing both in Bioware games and his novel, the Stolen Throne. Dorian, Cassandra, Morrigan, Shale - all those Dragon Age characters and intrigues were great, wonderful, amazing.

 

And then I found out he left Bioware - and a bit later I found out that he is in Beamdog now. That's, well, quite a shock.

 

I feel sad. And more than a little afraid, somehow - I love Bioware titles, and it seems like it won't be the same at Bioware without him, creatively; I mean, I'm scared that games will become worse and so on. On the other hand, Beamdog's new content in BG2EE wasn't exactly up to par with Irenicus, Viconia Romance and Chapter 5 adventures in the Underdark. And Beamdog doesn't have the resources! I mean, can we expect anything absolutely amazing from them, something lke Trespasser? (Personally, I want games like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age saga and great and interactive stories - and that's Bioware).

 

Anyway, yeah. That happened.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

Even thought what he's good at is one of the things I care about least in CRPGs, I think this bodes really well for Beamdog. I'll always have great admiration for him putting out Ascension. I would not be surprised if he and Oster are co-leads from now on.

[Kulyok]

It bodes well for Beamdog, yeah, but it doesn't bode well for the players, I feel. Or for Bioware.

[K4thos]

regarding Bioware:

 

 

I'm not really a fan of modern Bioware, so information that more veterans responsible for Baldur's Gate series ends up in a place not controlled by big publishers is a good news to me. After Dragon Age Inquisition disaster (opinion may be influenced by The Witcher 3 that I've played before latest DA) I think I'm done with Bioware once and for all.

Edited February 10, 2016 by K4thos

[Cahir]

I have a hunch Beamdog may also grab Chris Avellone in the near future, so they may prepare some new BGNext stuff. At least I hope they do.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

I hope they drop the BG schtick altogether. New ruleset + new world, please.

[InKal]

I'm one of these/those strange people I mean I enjoyed DA:Kirkwall more than DA:Origins. The time was more generous to DAKirkwall, Origins didn't aged well imo the fightan system is especially outdated and boring. I also enjoyed BG1 more than BG2 in the long run...imo TOB is basically.. well, shit...just my opinion no butthurt please. Gaider after ToB was full of energy and new ideas. DA is a SOLID proof of that. New world, new story and really not a BG copy pasta, really new. Some old ideas improved and expanded I mean magic being really bad and dangerous thing - very well done, convincing, belivable, has some real meaning.

After all that Gaider is burned out and he must do really REALLY BIGASS game this time, a pseudo mmorpg full of rams and fenneks totally hehe bipolar game which is both pretty awesome and totally crappy at the same time. ;PPP

Now, is Gaider full of new ideas? umm.... don't think so. Is Beamdog some kind of repository for him more than a real job?? more likely imo.

But he has some experience (and I'm sure pretty good experience) working in that kind of situation on Ascension mod, one good thing about ToB.

 

What I want in Dragonspear? I'm gonna play it nice and say: new npcs with a tasteful ra... ermm..romances.

Edited February 10, 2016 by InKal

[Saber83]

Sorry if I'm necro'ing this thread, but I thought I would add my 2 cents. Reading this and thinking over the recent releases Bioware has had recently (Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem specifically), you can actually see a change story-wise regarding these two games. Granted, to me Andromeda wasn't that bad, but it was thoroughly average story-wise. The travesty that was/is Anthem has been thoroughly covered all over the internet by various people/publications, and though there were many other faults and it was not marketed as such, from what I have read and seen the story is either very shallow or non-existent.

[Isewein]

I hadn't really been following this, but it's a real shame that we will likely never see a continuation of the intricate worldbuilding and narrative build-up which was fostered over so many Dragon Age titles, especially after the wonderful swansong that was Trespasser. It seems that the naysayers were completely right after all, as the pattern pointed out by K4thos should have made apparent to everyone from the start, I suppose. I can't say I enjoyed the mechanics in DA2 or Inquisition at all, but as interactive films they worked so, so well, and I'm confident that was 99% due to the Whedonesque characters of writers like Gaider. I don't really see any developer taking up the character driven, escapist semi-RPG that has worked so well for Bioware any time soon. And even if they did, it gets tedious getting into new worlds again and again. Thedas had to overcome that same suspicion initially, but proved itself by just being a really solid and interesting setting to explore. I pray they don't turn it into another cash cow MMO, but I have some premonition that is precisely what they are going to do.

[theacefes]

My understanding was Trespasser was led by Patrick Weekes, not Gaider, though I'm not sure if the latter had a hand in it or not. Weekes is still with Bioware, is leading DA4, and the folks leading the new Dragon Age have been with the company for a while. 

Having spent over 100 hours in Anthem I can say that the game is par for the course for looter shooters/games as a service, where you're entertained for the first 30 hours with so-so campaign and then you're expected to grind the rest. It's not good but it's not as bad as game journalists like to declare.  There is a very good article, though I'm not sure how true it is, where Anthem's development is picked apart and some light is shed on why it is what it is.

Andromeda was made in 18 months by a C team that was in leadership hell for a good chunk of its development. That they were able to cobble a story together at all is impressive.

I personally would like to see Dragon Age end with 4. Bioware has never finished a series well, starting with Baldur's Gate (Throne of Bhaal was nowhere near the quality SoA and Bg1 were). I wish they would make the Mass Effect remaster cash grab, wrap up Dragon Age, and maybe consider starting something new, even if it's another genre.

Sadly, I think DA4 will end up being a gorgeous game that probably can't wrap up all the storylines in a way that will make the majority of the fandom happy. And if Bioware tries to do their Game as a Service thing with it, it'll probably be yet another buggy as hell game.

The nice thing about all this is that there ARE other studios who write and develop RPGs better than Bioware. 

[Jarno Mikkola]

17 hours ago, theacefes said:

Sadly, I think DA4 will end up being a gorgeous game that probably can't wrap up all the storylines in a way that will make the majority of the fandom happy. And if Bioware tries to do their Game as a Service thing with it, it'll probably be yet another buggy as hell game.

Agreed, but what if the DA4 is not the last of the game, but just a bog standard non sequel, just like all the other DA's have been. See, I liked even the non standard offshoot Dragon Age games that Facebook had, when it was still a thing.

The Anthem, DAI and MEA were bad at points, they were good at others, and what they needed was time, or better vision or what  have you just like the article penned by Jason Scheier about Anthem.

Lets hope something is learned and maybe DA4 gets to be good.

But I disagree about your ME cash grab... it wouldn't have worked... the three games are completely different games... a single item system wouldn't have worked in ME1, ME2 and ME3 at all, and the class system was designed 4 times and the last wasn't anything like the first, meaning that it wouldn't have fitted in the other games either. And I will say that with a few tweaks to the class system the MEA's combat is the best in any of the ME-games. But it alone can't fix the leaderless mess it had become, due to the way the game originally had been visioned(procedurally generated world hopping saga, much like the No Man's Sky, a game that had to be re-lauched with an massive update). Haven't played that either.

[theacefes]

6 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

procedurally generated world hopping saga, much like the No Man's Sky, a game that had to be re-lauched with an massive update

That's right! It makes me sad when I think how cool Andromeda could have been.  Though I've yet to play a game where procedurally generated world made the game better, not a shallow ocean of content. 

NMS - I tried it and got a refund on Steam after the update. Honestly, I found it boring and frustrating. Some people love it I'm sure.

I remember the Facebook DA games too and those were fun. I also liked the tablet ME3 game. There is so much potential out there for these franchises but I just don't think Bioware has the vision to carry it through the way fans would like. 

DA (spoiler alert) has had an overarching plot though, albeit most of it came together at the end of Inquisition and later, Trespasser. The hints were spread throughout the games and I felt the writers and world designers did a good job with it. I'd be surprised if it's a sequel in the way the Mass Effect trilogy had 1, 2, and 3 , since you always play as a different protagonist. 

[Jarno Mikkola]

3 hours ago, theacefes said:

Though I've yet to play a game where procedurally generated world made the game better, not a shallow ocean of content. 

Well, I can say that I have... but it was part of the elements of the game that made it better, than what's with the current generation of games. See, it was a fantasy strategy game ... called Master of Magic. Yes, it was made only 26 years ago. Ouh. I, am, old now.

Stategy games have a strong proceduraly generated tradition in gaming and the recent games have refound this, and now they can generate more/better kinds of/more precicely things, with more powerful computers.

The Dragon Age non sequality, while the former ME's sequality has to do with the world stage, part of the elements that make a game. Refund that, yes I kid kind of, and you'll get new hazzards, as seen in MEA, but there, it couldn't really be avoided.

What also needs to not be forgotten is that the console generations come with their own cost of sequencial games, and I really hate them for that, but I am a PC gaming elitist, so I look at the world in horror, and balance myself accordingly.

[theacefes]

On 1/21/2020 at 12:58 AM, Jarno Mikkola said:

Well, I can say that I have... but it was part of the elements of the game that made it better, than what's with the current generation of games. See, it was a fantasy strategy game ... called Master of Magic. Yes, it was made only 26 years ago. Ouh. I, am, old now.

Ahhh, ok. I'm personally not a big strategy gamer myself so apologies for forgetting an entire genre lol.  

I love my PC and if a game is available on PC I will get it on there before console, though I do own the consoles for their exclusives. 

[Leeux]

I love Master of Magic! I used to play it a lot when I was younger  

It's kind of a more advanced CIV (for the time we're talking about... ~1991) it was certainly more advanced than CIV1, and had the cool feature of having turn based mini-combat scenarios to solve map encounters, before any other games that I know of incorporated that.

It's still available at GOG and it runs well, and it even has a kind of modding community with rebalancing mods, and bugfixes and such! Never played with those mods installed myself... as of yet, at least! But I have it on GOG and still launch it from time to time when I'm in the mood of getting my ass kicked by the AI  

Great memories!