Dragon Age - Mass Effect's Influence @ VideoGaming247

A little Dragon Age information comes to light at VideoGaming247, where they discuss the lessons learned from Bioware's cross-platform rpg, Mass Effect with Dr. Ray Muzyka:

Speaking to videogaming247 at yesterday’s EA Games Studio Showcase in London, BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka said that the lessons learnt from the “digital acting” in Mass Effect are most definitely crafting the much-anticipated swords and sorcery RPG, Dragon Age, set for PC release in 2009.
“Dragon Age is like BioWare’s bread and butter,” he said. “It’s appealing to the sweet spot of all the great games people love from the past, like Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights: this aspirational fantasy fulfillment. People that play Mass Effect are also going to love Dragon Age, but there may be a bit of overlap, and there may be some people that flit from one to the other, and that’s all good: they have different needs and tastes. But we’re certainly taking the things we’ve learnt from digital actors and emotionally compelling narrative, things like that, and we’re trying to apply that back to Dragon Age.”
…“Every game we develop we build on a strong foundation from the past, and we’re also simultaneously trying to do new things,” he said. “We’re also considerate that every game has a slightly different demographic or audience target.
“But the way we tell the story may be different as well, and that’s because it’s a different game, it’s a different IP, we have different writers and a different aesthetic. We have a portfolio map: we’re not trying to make clones of the same game over and over. Instead what we’re trying to do is innovate, every game better than the last, each one aimed at a different audience.”

More information.

They are part of EA now - and still keep it PC exclusive? Wow.

Originally Posted by drum
They are part of EA now - and still keep it PC exclusive? Wow.

Just like Mass Effect was X360 exclusive maybe

Actually, there is this wee hope that Dragon Age is actually a bit of fan service, if you what I mean, rather than an especially commercial project. That could be just what they want us to think though.

I kind of like the idea that Bioware is business like enough to cater to different kind of roleplaying gamers out there. People who want a good & decent are catered to with Dragon Age, while people who want a somewhat fast paced action combat RPG are catered to with Mass Effect. And the Nintendo DS RPG are intended to bring it the younger crowd to Bioware games - sounds like good business strategy to me Bioware is dividing their risks by aiming varius titles as varius game audiences.

Or in short,

Bioware isn't laying all their eggs in one basket.

From what I've seen, DA is shaping up to be the next iteration of NWN2, and not enough of an improvement over that (IMO) awful awful experience.

It started out, three long years ago, sounding revolutionary. Now it just sounds like more of the same.

Originally Posted by screeg
From what I've seen, DA is shaping up to be the next iteration of NWN2, and not enough of an improvement over that (IMO) awful awful experience.

It started out, three long years ago, sounding revolutionary. Now it just sounds like more of the same.

I'd buy a Fallout 3 made with the exact same engine and UI as Fallout 2 but with new cities, new story, new characters, new quests. A game doesn't necessarily have to be revolutionary, sometimes I'm just happy with "more of the same" if the "same" was really fun to begin with.
While I agree innovation is a good thing, nowadays in this industry it seems that innovation only means "new graphical engine, more realistic graphics, more pixel per square inch, more facial muscles and details per face" well guess what there's already something that does it better: cinema and even better: real life. I'm tired of those people (costumers game devs and journalists alike) who forget what a video game is: mechanics and rules that are fun, and you don't need photo realism to do that. The most played games in history are Tetris and Solitaire/spider solitaire. Not Halo 3 or CoD 4. The Playstation I and II are still the most widely played console in the world even with their outdated graphics.

If it's true that DA is going to be "more of the same" of BG2 then I'm glad Bioware tries to do such games in parallel to "graphicaly advanced games" a la Mass Effect to cater for the walmart idiots who buy a game just because the nice screenshots on the box.