Dragon Age 3 May Be BioWare's Biggest Game Yet

[Sniper Team 4]

You can dye your armor? Oh snap, I'm sold!

I will be getting this game no matter what, simply because I want to finish the story. I like to think BioWare's Dragon Age team learned their lessons from Dragon Age II. I say this because of the two DLC expansions they released, one of which even poked fun at the game itself. That's a good sign to me. And I rather enjoyed Dragon Age II, though I admit it had its fair share of problems.
Still, when I clicked on this, I was hoping for details about the game and story, not specs about the game. Guess we have to wait a bit longer before we start getting those.

 

[Amaror]

hmm...
Sounds not bad at least.
However i will still only buy after reviews and, most importantly, the fan reaction.

I wouldn't trust the fan reaction a large or at least very loud part of Bioware's fanbase hate everything they do for some reason.

I am not stupid. I am able to sort the hatespeeches out and recognize the good arguments.
I know it would have been a really good decision to wait with my purchase of DA 2 and listen to the fan reviews, instead of some stupid reviewer.
And that's what i will do. Btw. I can't really remember an fan outcry over Dragon Age Origins. I wonder why? Could be because that was one of the last good games of Bioware.

 

[getoffmycloud]

hmm...
Sounds not bad at least.
However i will still only buy after reviews and, most importantly, the fan reaction.

I wouldn't trust the fan reaction a large or at least very loud part of Bioware's fanbase hate everything they do for some reason.

I am not stupid. I am able to sort the hatespeeches out and recognize the good arguments.
I know it would have been a really good decision to wait with my purchase of DA 2 and listen to the fan reviews, instead of some stupid reviewer.
And that's what i will do. Btw. I can't really remember an fan outcry over Dragon Age Origins. I wonder why? Could be because that was one of the last good games of Bioware.

I didn't call you stupid I was offering some friendly advice there was no need to jump down my throat about it.

 

[babinro]

DA3 is almost a guaranteed pre-order for me because of the quality of the first two games.

Here's hoping the combat is as awesome as DA2 but with characters/plot as interesting in DA1.

 

[antipunt]

I can dye my armor now?

By jove, this changes everything!

 

[Sonic Doctor]

"[Lead Cinematic Designer] Jon Perry said he's had a longer pre-production on DA3 than any other BioWare project he's worked on," Lee wrote. "JP said just one level in DA3 is as big as all of DA2's levels."

...I have the sinking feeling that DA3 will be composed of a single level... ;p

Yeah, they confused me with those words. I never considered games like Dragon Age to have levels, well except for character levels.

I'm wondering if he meant that one play area/environment in DA3 is bigger then all the areas/environments in DA2 combined.

I'm a bit skeptical on that statement. DA2 didn't have a whole lot of areas, but the surface area combined would be huge.

So if that is the case, does that mean that the game will have a sandbox style outdoor area that won't have loading screens while traversing the whole thing?

Does that mean we will be playing Grand Theft Orlais? =P

 

[Sonic Doctor]

DA3 is almost a guaranteed pre-order for me because of the quality of the first two games.

Here's hoping the combat is as awesome as DA2 but with characters/plot as interesting in DA1.

I agree on the DA2 combat, it was so much more fluid and enjoyable than DA:O, but I don't agree with the character sentiment.

The characters was one of the reasons I stopped playing DA:O 25 hours in. All of my companions/team except maybe Leliana, were broody closed off jerks, that I had to always fight with to find out anything useful, and from watching my friend suffer through playing the whole thing, they were all of the type of character that the players have to do their best to get them to totally open up and change their lives for the better.

My character is suppose to be becoming a legendary hero, not a legendary shrink.

At least the characters in DA2 all had different personalities, and I didn't have to help every single one change completely in some way. Varric is still a joker, Merrill is sill naive, Aveline is still as stalwart as ever though maybe a little more open and soft when she has to be...etc, etc, you get what I'm saying.

 

[Antonio Torrente]

Biggest game yet doesn't mean it will be their best, just look at Resident Evil 6.

 

[Mourne]

The way I see it, BioWare did indeed flop a bit. But! I still enjoyed DA:O and DA2 thoroughly. DA:O was certainly better, but I don't feel that DA2 was bad. I mean sure, the levels were copy-pasted (more noticeably than in DA:O) many times, but that didn't really deteriorate my experience with the game.

And according to, well, lots of things, they've said that they're looking into games like Skyrim. And if one of the levels is bigger than all of DA2 combined (you have to admit, that's huge. Upper Kirkwall, lower Kirkwall, underground Kirkwall, the Deep Roads [larger than average map], the seperate buildings in Kirkwall, Mount Vesuvius to the left, the Bone Pit, etc), then I believe it would be safe to assume that they could very well be rolling out a sandbox-type game. They're creating a new engine (based off of Frostbite 2), and they're studying Skyrim. I can't help but think this.

So yeah, overall, I'm excited. It's going to take quite a bit to deter me on this.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Its not hard to have one area bigger than all of DA2, it only had about 4 maps!

Hell I think FTL had more game area than DA2...

A bit of the understate meant on the four maps.

Spoiler

You've got Lowtown, Hightown, Darktown, The Gallows, The Docks, plus on the other map section next to Kirkwall(couldn't find a pic), you have the Mountain area, the Bone Pit, The Coastal area, plus two areas added in the DLCs.

So the number is ten on the the large map areas. What I think the BioWare guy was getting at, though I may be wrong, he is talking about walkable areas when he says "level".

So what he trying to say is, one walkable area in DA3 will be as big as all the walkable areas in DA2 combined. DA2 was a small game compared to DA:O, but it still had a large chunk of walkable area, and if DA3 will have all that walkable area in one walkable segment, it is going to be an insanely large game.

Edit: Almost forgot the Deeproads, so that is eleven areas.

 

[INeedAName]

"... one level in DA3 is as big as all of DA2's levels."

All three of them!? 0_0

 

[Amaror]

I didn't call you stupid I was offering some friendly advice there was no need to jump down my throat about it.

Sorry, it wasn't mend to be offending.
^^ I really should re - read my posts before i post them

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

Bioware has proven they can make good games. What I really want to know is what sort of Day 1 DLC they intend to whore us on this time.

/spit Will not buy this thing. Maybe wait a year or two for the actual finished product to come out.

Yeah, expect some kind of shoe-horned in multi-player too, remember that EA has said it won't make anymore single player experiences.

To me, and to a lot of people, this is Bioware's last chance, they screwed up DA2 and ME3, last chance. I hope EA recognizes this as well and doesn't force a release date, or anything else, on them, but that hope is completely in vain most likely.

If by 'Level-size' they mean all the main map areas (All the areas in kirkwall and the surrounding areas like the bone pit and sundermount) and just one area in DA3 is larger than all those, I hope there's more than one area.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I can say from the start that I am a Bioware fan.Now with that said there are a few things that I would like to say about DA3.

DA2,for me,was a mild disappointment compared to how fantastic Origins was.I still have faith in them that the third installment will be everything that they promise.The thing that irks me is the "human only" protagonist,but I guess I can go along with that.

I really hope that they will come back to the whole Morrigan(demonspawn child) thing sooner or later and that whole storyline wasn't trashed as well as the Grey Warden that you have played in the first game.I have no idea how they will do that if you won't be able to import saves(we don't know that just yet).

It seems the majority of the game will happen in Orlais,the big city we haven't visited yet.

So to conclude,these are some things I want to see in DA3 are:

-Ditch the Mass Effect wheel,bring back DA Origins dialogue system.
-Voice acting is a plus to me,immersion sky rockets because of it so keep that from DA2.
-Bring camp back from Origins along with more companions with their respective backstories.
-Bigger places to explore not every quest in one damned city or zone nearby.

 

[Beautiful End]

Yep, I, too, choose to be cautiously optimistic. What I gather from that is that they're just gonna combine both DA:O and DA2 and try to come up with something badass. Alright, as long as it does end up being a badass game. But I don't know, Bioware. I've been disappointed before. I guess DA3 with either make it or break it for them.

If well executed, DA3 will restore the fans' faith on them. If not, well, see Mass Effect 3, please. Personally, I will keep an eye on the game but...probably not a day 1 purchase for me. And it sucks because DA:O is probably one of my favorite games ever.

 

[jibjab963]

I won't be the first to admit that the ending of ME3 and almost all of DA2 design was just plain bad but everyone is bashing on Bioware because of these TWO THINGS! Think of all the other amazing things they have done. I for one, as a huge fan of the universe, can't wait for DA3 and more details on it.

 

[BrotherRool]

Wait, what? Didn't Bioware say when Origins came out that they'd been working on it for around 6 years? Because as far as I'm aware, 3-4 years of pre-production on a 6 year development cycle is a lot longer than 1.5 years of a likely 3 year development cycle, if that.

Correct me if I am wrong but... Dragon Age: Origins was revealed at E3 2004, which means it was in pre-production prior to that. Dragon Age: Origins was released in late 2009... that means a minimum of more than 5 years of production, give or take.

Here is your answer. The quote says that it's the longest prepoduction that Jon Perry has had at Bioware.

He's been working at Bioware for 6 years, starting in 2006, 2 years minimum after preproduction was started on Origins. So out of those six years he's been working at Bioware, he's done 2-3 years pre-production of Dragon Age 3 and so that the longest pre-production he's done at Bioware. Entirely accurate quote.

Escapist Journalism sucks.

snip

I'm quoting you here, because Escapist journalism is so bad that it reports articles that other websites bottom fed copied out of some press release. It's not your fault, it's what you've been instructed to do, but I like this site and I want it to improve and you have a chance.

I actually created a LinkedIn profile to find out how long he'd been working at Bioware. It tooks me 5 minutes tops. And suddenly we learn that this story is about a PR team noting that a 3 year preproduction cycle must naturally be the longest ever at that company for a man who has been working at a company for 6 years

 

[The_Waspman]

It's been almost a year and a half since BioWare accidentally revealed that it was working on a new game in the Dragon Age series.

But... thats when Dragon Age 2 came out.

And wasn't Origins in production for six years? So unless they've been working on this in the Tardis, I doubt these claims.

Still, like a mook I will probably buy it. I'm one of the seven people who didn't hate DA2, and one of the three people who didn't have an issue with the way ME3 ended (but thats because I don't listen to all this hype bullshit.)

But really, all I want from this game is to lez up with Leliana again. Is that too much to ask?