BioWare - Dragon Age 3

DoctorNarrative said:

Word.

Social networking seems to be directed at people who are physically not social at all.

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Why limit yourself to one or the other? I go to the pub with people who live in the same town as myself. I 'socialise' online with people in different countries, including relatives.

A recent news release says that EA wants to "overthrow" Zynga.

Maybe they'll use the Dragon Age franchise for going into that direction ?

Alrik Fassbauer said:

A recent news release says that EA wants to "overthrow" Zynga.

Maybe they'll use the Dragon Age franchise for going into that direction ?

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I shudder in horror just imagining that happening.

It's here : http://www.mediabiz.de/games/news/moore-formuliert-kampfansage-an-zynga/303721
The black bar says that the rest of it is only available to subscribers of this news service ...

I can see this happening as Zynga makes billions on the casual game market. They shown others how to make easy money with minimal effort and resources. I hope it doesn't happen.

This link shows there vaule- http://blogs.forbes.com/afontevecchia/2011/03/02/zynga-reveals-profit-and-revenues-as-it-looks-to-raise-500-million/

Zynga isn't the only one. Bigpoint does similar things.

The Microtransactions market is currently the newest fashion in gaming business.

I assume a HUGE movement into this direction within the next few years. HUGE, I say.
It's like … hordes of cats moving towards a market booth containing LOTS of fish …

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Zynga isn't the only one. Bigpoint does similar things.

The Microtransactions market is currently the newest fashion in gaming business.

I assume a HUGE movement into this direction within the next few years. HUGE, I say.
It's like … hordes of cats moving towards a market booth containing LOTS of fish …

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The future of my hobby and the industry is looking bleak. The only thing we can do is vote with are wallets and still be left in the dust as new gamers embrace the new market.

kalniel said:

Why limit yourself to one or the other? I go to the pub with people who live in the same town as myself. I 'socialise' online with people in different countries, including relatives.

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I use email for relatives and really don't care about having friends from other places. That's just a personality difference I guess, I'm not really knocking it. Most people I know choose one or the other, so that's what I based my comment on.

In any event I was meaning more in games anyway. Gaming to me is a solitary thing, I go in my office and play some games to get away from life. If I want to hang out with some people I would rather do it in the living room or at the bar than in WoW.

Multiplayer with other people is like watching best moments of lords of the rings and then suddenly some random IRL person jumps to the screen, slays the main characters and says:"Dude!! Check out this awesome ring I just looted from this dead hobbit!!!!!!1!1111111111111one "

DoctorNarrative said:

I use email for relatives and really don't care about having friends from other places. That's just a personality difference I guess, I'm not really knocking it. Most people I know choose one or the other, so that's what I based my comment on.

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It could be a cultural thing - in my country it's rare to be able to stay in the same town that you grew up in - you go to uni in a different place, and then go find jobs in yet another, so you end up having social and familial groups spread all over the place. Social networking isn't much different from phoning/writing letters, only now you get to continue playing games with your uni mates even in different countries.

In any event I was meaning more in games anyway. Gaming to me is a solitary thing, I go in my office and play some games to get away from life. If I want to hang out with some people I would rather do it in the living room or at the bar than in WoW.

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I agree - face to face is still best, and meeting up for weekends is lovely, but sometimes it's nice to game together at a weekend we can't travel for whatever reason, or even on a weekday evening. I still game on my own most of the time, but also have time for gaming with people I used to play table top games with.

Finally, a worthy competitor for Modern Warfare 3.

If this is true, and I doubt it is, it could be what me and my ex-NWN buddies have been looking for.
I do call bogus on the constant argument that lack of MP means a better SP game. The Pirate mod and, the Baldur's Gates were so bad because of MP weren't they? How about IWD and Diablo?

Where Arcanum and Nox failed in MP is lack of a decent MP mod. Eventually Nox retooled their SP OC to work in MP.

One could argue that the NWN OC suffered because of the MP focus but the fact is they slapped that together in the last 6 months (did the companions in a week's time). Why? Not because they just wanted to sell a toolset like they claimed but their original development on the game including the a ton of assets and the OC got sabotaged by Interplay. They were late getting NWN to the market by at least a year - that's what hurt the SP OC.

MP never hurts a game's sales but adds another element which becomes a no-brainer for expanded sales. The first buyer is often a gateway to get their buddies to play who would not have heard of the game in the first place.

But again since DA3 will likely not have a toolset, color me not interested.

Hopefully it'll be like nwn multi-player where players and modders create their own PWs, hosting small communities. As opposed to massively multi-player or some kind of linear multi-player game mode ala Two Worlds 2.

In this post at the Bioware forums, Luke Barret says this:

On the topic, this is simply a rumor and not indicative in any way of anything we may be working on now or in the future.

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While they may be toying around with multiplayer a la BG or NWN, nothing seems set in stone...