Dragon Age: Inquisition - New Info & Screenshots

[Fluffyhotep]

It's a bit strange tho isn't it? The game isn't out for another six months, so why are they hyping so much already? I don't really get that.

It's perfectly normal though. Some campaigns start up to a year before release, or earlier because of unplanned delays.

 

[jhwisner]

Having mod support won't mean the game is better, of course. The game is what it is at release. Modding certainly can and usually does MAKE it better though. Can't think of any game since I've tried mods that I didn't think couldn't be improved by a few simple tweaks here and there.

DAII could've been "fixed" had it had anything like the mod support your "beloved" Bethesda games had. Sure the base games quality would've been the same but eventually a portion of the gameplaying population would've settled down as modders "fixed" and improved stuff.

Does this mean I approve of devs leaving to modders what they should've done? No. But it does mean I'm happier when fixing can happen. And even if devs could ship a bugfree game, mods can still improve/tweak gameplay stuff according to particular tastes.

I'm fine with mod support being released after the base game itself, but WHEN it's released isn't the same as whether it is better IF it is.

I'm generally in favor of Devs making and releasing user-friendly mod tools if there is enough content in the game to begin with. What I mean is that at a certain point there is a real return to the developers in terms of the improved tools making their own content creation process faster and easier that can be worth the investment even just looking at the release product.

I think it also makes sense to develop mod tools if the people who would create them have run out of things to do on the project (based on where it is in development) or if they budget the cost of the mod tools against expected increased sales it will generate. That is I would prefer that either the majority of the cost of developing mod tools is "built in" from salaried employees with time to spare or budgeted on top of the game based on calculations on what additional revenue they would expect from increased longevity or adoption by modding communities.

Unfortunately I think the only developers out there with a good idea of what the actual return on investment for creating mod tools is would be Bethesda; and they only likely have data that would convince someone doing cost/benefit analysis as of Skyrim. That data would come from Steam analytics coupled with workshop integration. In the past they probably haven't actually budgeted for mod tools in the past having their own expected return on investment which could justify budgeting time and resources specifically and separately for it.

For every other situation though, it ends up depending on what the final products look like and whether the mod community ends up real value. So I'll withhold judgment until the game comes out. Since having better and more usable tools available to your own developers isn't really a bad thing though, the only time I think it's an absolute mistake to create them is when they just aren't very good or when creating them turns into a money pit.

 

[Fluffyhotep]

@Fluffyhotep

Dragon Age lore demon summoning always cause a tear (a tiny one, but one nonetheless) and there is no banishing spells (you have to kill the demon). Players could do a spirit summoning in a quest in DAO. Players also killed plenty of demons and fought plenty of NPCs who summoned some as well in both games. It's nothing new.

That was not my point though, I conceded that creating a 'tear' would probably be 'theoretical' (lorewise). In the DA:I vids the big tears/rifts look pretty big and spectacular; what I was suggesting, based on the fact that it was specifically mentioned, is that this time they might add some noticeable visual effects to make it clear that you're summoning demons etc. That's why I referred to Demonicon, where the 'entry' and 'departure' of demons in the world through some sort of opening is clearly visualized ( 'Sieg über den Heshtot' ). Anyway, I just checked and DA:O also did something similar with least some (not all) demons.

@FluffyhotepAnd Gamestar did not get an exclusive, there were many journalists that attended BioWare presentation last February. The mag was leaked, it release officially tomorrow. I suspect that is when the embargo fall.

I don't know if Gamestar's info was from that presentation or a separate visit, but I concede the exclusivity point. I checked and the Gamestar cover doesn't mention 'Exklusiv', which almost certainly means it isn't.