Frostbite 2 engine and Dragon Age 3

[SajuukKhar]

That's just the sort of attitude I'd expect a modern jaded gamer to have. In the past developers actually wanted to create good games as opposed to something that prints money. It's only recently when publishers became big and started thinking of themselves as the gaming Hollywood did everything go to shit.

That's the sort of rhetoric I expect someone who falls for obvious PR propaganda to have. Get any developer up in front of a camera, or in an interview, and people become jelly in their hands.

Dragon Age: Origins was. You can see the care and attention the developers gave it, something which was noticeably missing from its sequel.

Care and attention? Both of which came from having time and money.

Time and money they only got because they believed that making it so would produce a game that would allow them to make that money, plus more, back in sales.

Bioware started development on DA:O in 2005.

Bioware was bought by Ea before DAO finished.

EA would have canned it if they didn't think the time and money Bioware, and they themselves, put into it wouldn't make a product that allowed them to make a profit.

 

[faspxina]

Yes, this happening is extremely concerning, we should all concern ourselves with this situation.

 

[Zeraki]

Talk about frustrating... it seems like the senseless outnumber the sensible, and they want to play the persecuted as well. HA. What a crazy world we live in. Keep on fighting the good fight my friend.

Thanks for proving me right friend!

Oh get over yourself. Calling people the "Devil" because they happen to buy video games from a certain publisher is beyond childish.

Not when it's true. Burn.

It's a video game, play something else.

It's just a game, who cares if it degrades an entire medium!

There are indie developers, there's obsidian's kickstarter. Kicking and screaming like a spoiled brat

I wondered how long it would take for you to pull out the entitled card.

And calling people the personification of all evil because you don't like something just makes you look like an ass.

I'd have thought you weren't as shallow so as to suggest that these things don't matter. After all, we're talking about something that has shaped an entire generation here. Something which, lately, has gone to complete shit because of greedy corporations and the people who support them. People like you, incidentally.

Entitlement? What? That's not what I meant at all.

I'm talking about how you're lashing out at people like a child for no other reason than because you don't like something. Not because you feel 'entitled' to something.

As I said I don't like EA, I can't stand them. But I'm not going to get all self righteous and treat people like they're the personification of all evil because they happen to buy something from them every once and a while.

And with that I'm done, because it isn't worth continuing this further. It won't go anywhere but in circles, and I'd rather keep my blood pressure where it should be.

 

[Mark Hardigan]

I personally, don't think it's a good decision. The original Dragon Age: Origins engine was written from the ground-up specifically for the Dragon Age rules. With Frostbite, they are going to have to rewrite a ton of the engine. I think that this is going to result in an even MORE mod-unfriendly game than DA2 was. And given that the whole choice to make DA2 mod-unfriendly was obvious (So that they could sell their crappy weapon and armor packs and other money-milking DLC), I don't think that will turn out well.

Overall, with how less and less Bioware is seeming to be the Bioware I knew growing up, I'm now taking a wait and see approach. perhaps this will be the game the redeems them. Or perhaps this will be the game that proves all of my fears to be founded.

Overall, I don't see any huge deal with them using frostbite other than the issue I highlighted, where they will have to rewrite a lot of it to create a Dragon Age game with it.

 

[Major_Tom]

Frostbite 2 is an unoptimised piece of shit so I'm not too thrilled about it.

 

[el_kabong]

I am actually on board with the Dragon Age franchise. It hasn't disappointed me yet. I know some people are down on DA2, but I had a good time with it. Copy-pasted levels in a AAA game can go to the ninth circle of gaming hell, but it didn't kill the experience for me.

 

[Tigerlily Warrior]

So does this mean DA3 will be a FPS? Anyone??

Did you seriously asked this question or are you just trolling?

Not trolling. Just not sure what to expect with a new engine. Wiki says it has destruction mechanics and has been used for a number of FPS. I'm only familiar with Unreal. I was hoping by learning more about the engine that runs the game to figure out what the game may look like or play. That's all.

 

[BENZOOKA]

DA3 is going to use Frostbite 2?

That's great. I love the feel of the engine in BattleField 3.

 

[Tigerlily Warrior]

Frostbite 2 isn't an FPS engine. It was made for Battlefield 3, yeah, but what Bioware will be using from it has nothing to do with gameplay.

Thanks!

 

[Tigerlily Warrior]

I'm excited for Frostbite 2. Between part 1 having low-poly low-res texture models, and part 2 going for this pseudo-stylized realism look that fell flat on its ass, I'm glad they're going balls to the wall with what will hopefully be full on photorealistic fantasy like they tried going for in the original.

Not brown and grey mind you; I hope it's nice and colorful since Orlais is a city of vivid colors, perfumes, and festooned splendor, but photorealistic in the sense that things just look organic instead of the stylization they tried throwing in with part 2.

Also, l2engines. Just because an FPS uses an engine doesn't mean this game'll be an FPS.

Even if EA's track record begs to differ.

Thanks! Learning more everyday.

 

[Tigerlily Warrior]

So does this mean DA3 will be a FPS? Anyone??

No.
The New C&C game - an RTS - is also being made on Frostbite 2, leading me to believe it is a flexible engine.

What this means is that DA3 SHOULD look great, provided Bioware put effort into the PC version's graphics.
Personally, I'm not sure what the gameplay will be like, but I'm hoping its not DA2 style. If it is... I'll probably skip on purchasing it. That combat was bleh.

Good point. If it can do a RTS and a FPS, hopefully it can do a RPG 3PS. I'm all about the story so I'm cautiously optimisic.

 

[Tigerlily Warrior]

I should propably make it known that although I am a MASSIVE fan of both BioWare and Mass Effect 1 $ 2 (not 3), I have never played the Dragon Age games. That being said I regularly play Battlefield 3 which uses the Frostbite 2 engine so I have a basic understanding of what to expect in terms of graphics with that engine.

As you pointed out EA has been getting it's money's worth out of Frostbite that's for sure;
- Battlefield 3
- Need for Speed: The Run
- Medal of Honor: Warfighter
- Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel
- Command & Conquer: Generals 2
- Battlefield 4
- Dragon Age 3: Inquisition

I myself would be more concerned with the developers of DA3 using the Frostbite 2 engine than the engine itself. BioWare as a whole is on thin ice, after the mediocre response to DA2, the shaky future of SW:ToR and the critical response to ME3. BioWare should tread VERY carefully in the coming future.

As for the Frostbite 2 engine all things being equal (which is a long shot), you can expect a from a graphical perspective a very impressive looking game even on consoles. Like so many video game engines Frostbite has/is/will and most likely always be updated, improved and advanced as the technology behind it does the samething. Also (don't qoute me on this because I'm not sure), I recall reading an article regarding how EA had recently opened an entire studio solely dedicated to explotation of the Frostbite 2 engine. On top of that, now various studios are all using the same engine therefore, each studio probably has multiple engineers, programmers and software developers who will be making their own changes to how the engine works. Lastly in a recent GameInformer article one of the developers working on the new Army of Two game said that the ALL developers themselves have an entire forum solely dedicated to the Frostbite 2 engine where they can discuss, question and comment on every single aspect of that engine.

All that said I think at the very least Dragon Age 3 should look very impressive.

-Hawk

Great detail. Thanks!!!

 

[SajuukKhar]

This has nothing to do with PR propaganda. The differences in quality between old and modern games are astounding. Coincidentally, the modern gaming era also saw a huge shift towards a "production line" style of development. I'm not saying in the past making money wasn't on the "to do" list of developers but as it stands, and taking into account the differences in quality, it's obvious developers were more engaged and publishers less aggressive when it came to things like marketing and tampering.

Ohh please, there were countless old games that were just as crappy, if not even more so, then today.

Older games only seemed to be better on average because people forgot all the countless clones, rehashes, and bad sequels that existed back then, just like how 20 years from now people will forget 95% of all the bad games that exist today.

Its exactly like music, every generation thinks the next generations music sucks, is repetitive, etc. etc. and yet ironically the previous generation was exactly the same way.

Games today are no better or worse then games 10-20 years ago, and the reason why people make those games has not change, i.e. money.

The ammount of effort put into games like Morrowind and P:T shows that was not necessarily the case.

Have you ever played morrowind?
-Constant repetitive caves
-90% of Npcs were blank and just reused the same rumor dialogs
-Most quests were boring repetitive fetch quests that had no real purpose or story behind them
-The landscape was repetitive
-the Journal blew
-The Map was useless

Morrowind was the game that got me to love the Elder Scrolls, and I hold it as one of my favorite games of all time, but Mororwind, was actually pretty shitty, repetitive, and souless for most of it.

Seeing as EA was more interested in copying the formula of whatever game was FOTM back in 2007/2008, which was Call of Duty, Dragon Age sure as hell proves EA kept its tampering to a minimum. I mean it's not like DA:O was free of it but most of the work done before the aquisition seems to have been left intact. I'm basing this on the games Bioware released after DA:O. Pre DA:O and post DA:O Bioware is like night and fucking day.

Not really, the only difference between Bioware Pre and post DAO is that Bioware changed their target audience.

They stopped making games for audience A and went to audience B, their games aren't worse, they just aren't for you, and not for me either, as I don't particularly care for Bioware period.

All I see is a bunch of angry people mad over the fact that Bioware isn't trying to get their money and is instead trying to get someone elses money.

 

[Tigerlily Warrior]

I haven't really had much personal experience with the Frostbite 2 engine but from what I've seen it look amazing with Battlefield 3. It was also used with Need for Speed The Run, which in my opinion didn't look great. The cars looked like they were made out of clay. But that could just be Black Box's ineptitude showing itself yet again. Conversely, since DICE made Frostbtite 2 I'm sure they know how to make the most of it.

I don't think a graphics engine really has much impact on whether a game of a given genre will be any good or not. It's more the physics engine that does that. For example you would be stupid to use the Assassin's Creed engine to make something like a snowboarding game. That didn't stop them trying though. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_white_snowboarding] But the point is that different physics engines have different specialities in terms of what tasks they can perform. Graphics engines only do that in relation to visuals. It doesn't have anything to do with gameplay or style of gameplay; i.e., genre.

Dragon Age 3 will not suddenly be filled with nothing except people with crossbows and QTEs because it's using Frostbite. That's silly. The visual style and fidelity of the games may change somewhat (probably for the better) but the graphics engine means pretty much nothing when it comes to gameplay. The reason the game is using the engine is because EA is trying to put it in every game it can because it wants to advertise what a great engine it is, even though of course it was DICE's expertise that built it, not EA's.

Thanks! You rock! Very smart.

 

[Tigerlily Warrior]

The Witcher 2 was run on the very impressive RED engine. The engine didn't make or break the game, but it was a clear plus. Pretty does ad something. But it was more than that. The engine also calculates the physics of the world is therefore directly tied to the "feel" of the game. It isn't the be all end all, but like so many other things an enthusiast will be able to recognize the engines used (what is made on the unreal engine can be determined with a pretty high accuracy).

Now for those who are fearing that the Frostbite engine means that it will have a shooter feel, let me assure you that there is no correlation. Aion was made on the Cry engine and it in no way feels like a shooter. It is all in the use of the engine.

Now the Frostbite engine does very good job at 2 things. Pretty pictures and physics calculations. A good developer will use those abilities to best relay the overall experience they are going to portray. They have the possibility to do massive physics calculation of explosions and projectiles, but does that mean it is the experience you want to portray? Can you use this tool effectively in a way that does portray the experience?

In the end it is one less excuse they have to fuck it up. Talented people can do very much with very little, and they just a VERY big expensive tool. Let us see them make good use of it.

Thanks Draech!

 

[Mr.Amakir]

Most, not all. Your generalization is invalid.

Can you provide an example of a game that was released for free were the creator didn't have one of those two things in mind originally?

NetHack, Dwarf Fortress, Angband, POWDER. I could go on all day if you want?

 

[SajuukKhar]

NetHack, Dwarf Fortress, Angband, POWDER. I could go on all day if you want?

Can you actually prove tha those games were relased without the intent of the creator to be recognized by a larger company?

OFC not, no game developer would ever state their selfish goals to others, they would hide behind "i did it for the people" propaganda in order to win people over by making themselves seem selfless.

 

[MDSnowman]

Horray! The next Dragon Age will have good graphics!

Any word on whether it will have more than one dungeon?

This!
DA2 was a very good game in many respects (I don't care what anyone says. The personal story of Hawke moving from refugee to champion of Kirkwall was more inspiring than the generic, but epic, salvation of the world plot of DA:O), but they cut a lot of corners to make the game quickly. Dungeon design was just plain lazy.

After my girlfriend played ME3 she said she understood why DA2 was so unpolished, all the real work was going into ME3. I can only hope that they're putting that kind of effort into bringing the Dragon Age franchise back to glory.

What I want is a chance to either play a Quanari main character, or at least a NPC. Their redesign in DA2, and their role in it made me jones to have some proper horn-sporting Quanari violence on my side.

 

[Tigerlily Warrior]

I personally, don't think it's a good decision. The original Dragon Age: Origins engine was written from the ground-up specifically for the Dragon Age rules. With Frostbite, they are going to have to rewrite a ton of the engine. I think that this is going to result in an even MORE mod-unfriendly game than DA2 was. And given that the whole choice to make DA2 mod-unfriendly was obvious (So that they could sell their crappy weapon and armor packs and other money-milking DLC), I don't think that will turn out well.

Overall, with how less and less Bioware is seeming to be the Bioware I knew growing up, I'm now taking a wait and see approach. perhaps this will be the game the redeems them. Or perhaps this will be the game that proves all of my fears to be founded.

Overall, I don't see any huge deal with them using frostbite other than the issue I highlighted, where they will have to rewrite a lot of it to create a Dragon Age game with it.

Thanks Mark!

 

[AlotFirst]

This has nothing to do with PR propaganda. The differences in quality between old and modern games are astounding. Coincidentally, the modern gaming era also saw a huge shift towards a "production line" style of development. I'm not saying in the past making money wasn't on the "to do" list of developers but as it stands, and taking into account the differences in quality, it's obvious developers were more engaged and publishers less aggressive when it came to things like marketing and tampering.

Ohh please, there were countless old games that were just as crappy, if not even more so, then today.

Older games only seemed to be better on average because people forgot all the countless clones, rehashes, and bad sequels that existed back then, just like how 20 years from now people will forget 95% of all the bad games that exist today.

Sajuuk, I must say that it is refreshing to see such level-headedness like this on these forums. Thank you!