Aye, credit where credits due to the music!Darth Rosenberg said:Given the vapid nature of DA:I's combat, if its story was low down on a list of priorities, feck knows what was high on that list... Music, I guess? Party [character] dynamics? Those are the only two things I think it did superbly (top notch voice acting's a given with BioWare games).Danbo Jambo said:...you can bet that TW3's number 1 focus will be the story, whereas DA:I's story felt very much like a side-peice and lower down the priority list.
Could not agree more and very well said. It's all about context for me and you've very much nailed it there. CD Projekt just seem to prioritize making a good game first, whereas Bioware have definitely fallen victim to the "prioritize what makes money first, and make the game fit" syndrome.Darth Rosenberg said:I didn't want Witcher to go open-world, because - to cut BioWare some slack - it's very hard to craft a good story with an open-world design. What's encouraging is that CD Projekt seem to be demonstrably good learners, i.e. the transition from the original to TW2 was nothing short of remarkable. If they can continue that kind of self-improving design trajectory, then yeah, TW3 could really be something special.From reports I've read it seems as if TW3's approach is "Let's make a great game, an open world environment could be used to enhance the experience", where as DA:I most definitely was "Open world games sell. Let's make on of those and tailor the game to fit that, and if we fit a decent story in there somehow then that's a bonus"
Perhaps for the next DA, BioWare can look to The Witcher - rather than dumb MMO's and Skyrim - for some inspiration.
The trouble is they can't see how short term this is. People will soon tire of the Skyrim formula if it remains souless - there's only so many times they can knock out a shallow game for folk to dick about in before they get bored of the formula, and that will go for the Dragon Age series too. The tiresome MMO style errands have already been sussed, and another game with that set up won't be welcomed by anyone but the most hardened Bioware fanboy IMO.