Greedfall - Filling the Bioware Void
 

The Escapist has interviewed Jehanne Rousseau, the CEO of Spiders:

More information.

Attempting to emulate BioWare's great previous games (and not Anthem, of course) seems very good to me.

This company's previous game Technomancer seemed to have decent ideas but just based upon reviews didn't seem good and I didn't end up getting it, so we'll see how it goes with Greedfall.

I never understood why there weren't more companies trying to emulate Bioware. I mean, I really liked the "Bioware" parts of DA Inquisition, for example, just hated the mechanics. Anyone can sprinkle some cool companions, quests, create a pretty 3D story-focused game and try to fill the void, right? It worked for them while they were not destroyed by EA.

Ugh…no. I'd much rather they tried to emulate a developer like Piranha Bytes which is what I thought they were trying to do with Mars: War Logs and Technomancer. I have no desire to see more Bioware-like games.

Technomancer was actually good. A hidden gem to me.
Flaws yes.
"Bioware" experience triple AAA? No.
Totally enjoyed it for what it was.

But cmon. It was the first witcher game that tried to emulate Bioware, right?
And then they upped their stakes by improving and not degrading the player's experience with nonsensical mmoization, cutouts sold as DLC and pretend (bollox) curreny called Bioware points.

Mars and Technomancer had a charm of their own. I don't see any connection to Bioware there, in fact, those felt more like former Black Isle on a small budget to me.
No those weren't PBlike, PB is the openworld master developer.

All that aside, I believe the point Rousseau is trying to make is that the audience who loved Bioware's classics can't get another proper Bioware game but is seeing mmo rubbish instead (TOR, Anthem and whatever was called some cancelled 4teamup mmo) and their aim was to offer Greedfall to that very audience.
And maybe they'll succeed. I mean, I'm ME series #1 fan and I'm buying Greedfall. ;)

Well if it is like Technomancer, which I have been playing every night for the last two weeks, then I am all for it.

I would be pretty happy if Greedfall is similar to DA:O and ME2. I have to admit, I didn't really enjoy the later installments of both DA and ME as there were just too much focus on dramas, whereas DA:O and ME2 had struck that sweet spot of balancing companion interactions and other things.

They're going to have to do a lot better in the writing department if they want to fill that void. Not that all writing in Bioware games is good, but it's generally been of a higher standard than anything this studio has made in the past.

Mars: War Logs and Technomancer felt like indie Mass Effects to me and Greedfall totally gives me the Risen vibe, which is even better. Let's see. I only ever pre-order PB games, but since Elex 2 is likely not coming this year I just could not resist…

Yeah, I agree. I definitely got indie-BioWare vibes from Technomancer. It's also worth pointing out that they've improved, game by game, which is promising.

I don’t really see the BioWare influence.

I also thought technomancer was a step down from mars ( which I finished) but to be fair I only played it for a couple hours and quit after it didn’t really grab me. My main complaint was the respawns. I don’t usually have a problem with respawns but the high frequency of them and the nibbling, long combat was just too much. Maybe if I played longer and got some better gear that might change.

"…the respawns." (referring to Technomancer)

That is a yellow/red flag word for me. A game with respawns which do not have a very good in-game reason (such as a one-time respawn due to an in-game event or a one-location respawn due to a specific in-game effect) is a game I probably wouldn't play.

That's probably because they got a bigger budget and dev time every game. Mars War Logs was done with 600k Euro (in 9 months!) and GreedFall has the biggest budget Spiders ever had with 5m Euro (with 3 years of dev time). It's mentioned by the CEO in the OP article.

The game needs to sell somewhere between 100-150k copies to start to make a profit with its starting sale price* which might not look like a lot, but I don't think Technomancer even broke the 100k mark (only figure I can find is 40k and it was a few months after release) and that was Spiders best seller (note Technomancer made a profit, but it apparently had half of GreedFall budget).

*based on Pillars of Eternity 1 break even point being 250k copies with a 7m budget at $45-50 price point.

Respawns is my only gripe with the game - and they are happen all the time and so annoying because you have to travel so much. It is one reason I play on easy and want easy combat in some games. If I had to do long hard battles every time I crossed through the same areas .. I would go insane. At least on easy its quick.

I do not like respawns and only deal with it as I like the other parts of the game enough to put up with it. But in general I dislike respawns almost half as much as Joxer.

Although in a way they could have made technomancer fit it in better as you knock people out and only kill them if you drain them for serum. So in theory when you come back they have recovered. Except even the ones you kill come back which kills the idea. It would have added weight - do you avoid repeat fights at the cost of very bad karma?

Luckily my Technomancer can get through them quickly at this point but it is annoying no argument there. It also re-uses areas and started to remind me of DA2 and those re-used areas :P

Still for the budget they had and all I am enjoying. As @Maylander said they also seem to be improving with each game (in general terms I mean).

If they are going to emulate Bioware, it would have to be the version that existed ten plus years ago. By all that's holy, please do not try to copy or become another current Bioware entity!!

I think this statement makes sense. It's obvious that they don't plan on going to AAA when it comes to scope and won't have the marketing like Bioware has under EA.
But for games with the core features of Bioware games (semi-open world, semi-predefined protagonist, third person view, story-driven, deep companions, real-time combat) there indeed is a void and with their games they can try to fill it. Anything else would be stupid. They're making these games since about 2011. Why should they stop now?

However I think that the true successor is not Spiders but CDPR. With CP77 they have all this as well with a much higher budget.

I don't care about respawns if they are not overdone - then again kingmaker 'respawns' (which are hidden as random encounters as you travel) occur every 10 seconds and drive me nuts.

Which you can skip if you have high enough stealth skill. For the whole entire 130-140 hours, I only fought about 30 random encounters.

When I get back to Kingmaker, I'll have to check my stealth level to make sure I can avoid some of those respawns. Good to know that there is at least a way to cut down on the amount.