the new comic is good
What's it about? When does it take place?
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What's it about? When does it take place?
It's hard to explain kind of, this is the final arc of some ongoing comics following an original party who met up with Fenris in the last arc. It takes place after Tresspasser.
MageKiller(this one is a bit darker and follows two tertiary members of the party), Knight Errant ( this has the tone and current art style as well as the main party), and then Blue Wraith (wherein they meet Fenris)
Shit, I linked the single issues. there are collected editions
Amazon.com: Dragon Age: Magekiller eBook: Various: Kindle Store
Amazon.com: Dragon Age: Magekiller eBook: Various: Kindle Store
www.amazon.com
Amazon.com: Dragon Age: Knight Errant eBook : DeFilippis, Nunzio, Weir, Christina, Furukawa, Fernando Heinz, Atiyeh, Michael: Kindle Store
Amazon.com: Dragon Age: Knight Errant eBook : DeFilippis, Nunzio, Weir, Christina, Furukawa, Fernando Heinz, Atiyeh, Michael: Kindle Store
www.amazon.com
Forgot about Deception too:
Amazon.com: Dragon Age: Deception eBook : DeFilippis, Nunzio, Weir, Christina, Furukawa, Fernando Heinz, Atiyeh, Michael: Kindle Store
Amazon.com: Dragon Age: Deception eBook : DeFilippis, Nunzio, Weir, Christina, Furukawa, Fernando Heinz, Atiyeh, Michael: Kindle Store
www.amazon.com
Amazon.com: Dragon Age: Blue Wraith eBook: DeFilippis, Nunzio, Weir, Christina, Furukawa, Fernando Heinz, Atiyeh, Michael: Kindle Store
Amazon.com: Dragon Age: Blue Wraith eBook: DeFilippis, Nunzio, Weir, Christina, Furukawa, Fernando Heinz, Atiyeh, Michael: Kindle Store
www.amazon.com
Watching my S.O. play The Descent expansion and the lore in it is absolutely nuts. The Chronicles of the Forgotten War are super interesting and open up a lot of questions about who the
edit: There's also about the conspiracies you find in the Frostback Basin about the
Scaled Ones (lizard people?) are. Are they a new race entirely? Are they modified humans (the Imperium worships dragons and serpents)? People that drank too much dragon blood? They can clearly do magic and maybe hinted at blood magic.
edit: There's also about the conspiracies you find in the Frostback Basin about the
war between the Snake-Kings from under the earth and the "Moon-men"
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Hello together,
after playing Origins/2 in 2010 & 2011, and Inquisition on release, I finally decided to revisit the games. While playing I want to keep track of my decisions in the Dragon Age Keep. As I came to understand, I can not actually just synch my save files, but have to do it manually for Origins & 2 at least, which is fine by me. Now, the Keep is still confusing to me right now. I managed to create a new World State, but it is already filled out completely, I can't change the hero and yeah, basically. How can I create a new completely empty world state with a character I specifically created (to emulate the one I am actually currently playing with).
Anybody can help here?
PS: The Keep already carries data from my Inquisition playthrough in 2014
after playing Origins/2 in 2010 & 2011, and Inquisition on release, I finally decided to revisit the games. While playing I want to keep track of my decisions in the Dragon Age Keep. As I came to understand, I can not actually just synch my save files, but have to do it manually for Origins & 2 at least, which is fine by me. Now, the Keep is still confusing to me right now. I managed to create a new World State, but it is already filled out completely, I can't change the hero and yeah, basically. How can I create a new completely empty world state with a character I specifically created (to emulate the one I am actually currently playing with).
Anybody can help here?
PS: The Keep already carries data from my Inquisition playthrough in 2014
I'm never sure how much of that to take seriously since some of it is clearly a joke. I think Scaled Ones are legit, Snake Kings and Scaled Ones are the same thing and they don't infiltrate society, the bit about them having shaped the Frostbacks or whatever probably has a grain of truth in it in so far that it was actually titans, and Moon Men are probably bullshit.Watching my S.O. play The Descent expansion and the lore in it is absolutely nuts. The Chronicles of the Forgotten War are super interesting and open up a lot of questions about who theScaled Ones (lizard people?) are. Are they a new race entirely? Are they modified humans (the Imperium worships dragons and serpents)? People that drank too much dragon blood? They can clearly do magic and maybe hinted at blood magic.
edit: There's also about the conspiracies you find in the Frostback Basin about thewar between the Snake-Kings from under the earth and the "Moon-men"
I don't think a World State can be empty, a new one always starts with the default choices. If you can't change anything your World State is probably locked, try clicking the lock in the menu on the right.
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Is there a way in-game in DAI where I can check what kind of judge my inquisitor was? I'm doing the DAI tapestry manually in Dragon age keep because it did not automatically enter my choices. Or if anyone knows the conditions required for "Judgements at skyhold" tile. I know it will not affect my current DAI playthrough, but I want the Dragon Age keep accurate according to my playthrough for future games.
Knight Captain Denam (I sided with the templars) - Given to templars
Grand Duchess Florianne - recruited as agent
Magister Erimond - tranquility
Ser Ruth - refuse to judge a warden
Thom Ranier/Blackwall - given to the wardens
Avvar Chief - arm and exile to Tevinter
Crestwood mayor - imprisonment in Ferelden
Grand Duchess Florianne - recruited as agent
Magister Erimond - tranquility
Ser Ruth - refuse to judge a warden
Thom Ranier/Blackwall - given to the wardens
Avvar Chief - arm and exile to Tevinter
Crestwood mayor - imprisonment in Ferelden
Wasn't sure where else to post this, so trying here:
I want to start playing Origins this week—but I have two questions.
1) are there any must have mods? Not the fadeskip mod please :)
2) what's the best background to start with in terms of plot relevance? I really loved inquisition partially bc playing a gay elf mage romancing Dorian was incredibly drama filled and I would love to pick another high drama route haha
I want to start playing Origins this week—but I have two questions.
1) are there any must have mods? Not the fadeskip mod please :)
2) what's the best background to start with in terms of plot relevance? I really loved inquisition partially bc playing a gay elf mage romancing Dorian was incredibly drama filled and I would love to pick another high drama route haha
Plot Relevance? Hm one could go in a few directions on that:
- Dalish Elf - This origin exposes you to a lore and characters that will be important and/or referenced later on in DA:O and beyond.
- Human Noble - This origin gives you the ability develop a very personal revenge arc towards an antagonist within the main plotline
- Mage/Dwarf Commoner/Dwarf Noble/City Elf - These origins all take place within settings, with characters and plot points, that will gain further prominence when you revisit later in the game's story.
Ultimate Sacrifice
My only problem with the Dwarf Commoner origin is that it feels like it gets less origin/race-specific references later on in the franchise. The Descent seems like a perfect opportunity for that, and I don't recall any such piece of dialogue.
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Ooo thanks! I was leaning human noble or city elf so this gives me a lot to consider!
And yeah—I did the descent DLC in DAI and recall being underwhelmed when I looked up the dwarf inquisitor interactions...such a bummer bc the elf interactions throughout the game added a ton of flavor.
1) Qwinn's Fixpack fixes bugs and restores cut content.
2) Human Noble has the strongest connection to the main plot, followed maybe by City Elf. At least those have more connections to the political side of the story, I suppose the threat of the Blight might feel more personal for dwarves. The Dalish Elf origin has some deep lore stuff and probably has the most relevance to the later games. But the game is structured in a way where for each origin there's a part that calls back to it or changes based on your origin and is more personally relevant to your character.
Alistair and Morrigan are the romance options with the most plot relevance and highest drama potential. Actually the other two can be dramatic too but more in the sense that you can piss them off so much with your choices that it ends the romance, if you continue the romance through the whole game they're both pretty chill and drama free.
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Thank you! I'll try to install those mods
Oh awesome, so both my choices should be good. Is there a particular romance of those two you really recommend going for? I was planning to play a woman as I wasn't particularly interested in romancing Morrigan after her appearance in Inquisition and Alistar and Leianna seemed like really good options otherwise.
I'm partial to Morrigan myself, but if you didn't like her in Inquisition, Origins probably isn't gonna change your mind.^^ Leliana is lovely as well but yeah if you want plot relevance Alistair's your guy. And as a female character you're gonna have access to all options except Morrigan, so if you end up not feeling Alistair you still have options.
I hope you enjoy the game, Dragon Age: Origins is one of my favorite games ever.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. It only gets mentioned a few times but it's neat.
I like both the Alistair and Lelianna romances for a female pc, if you play a human noble there's some plot stuff with an Alistair romance.
Oh sweet! And yeah, I liked her as a character in the world—just I didn't feel especially compelled to romance her if that makes sense!
Oh sweet, okay, hmmm that may push me over to Human Noble for this then. Thanks!
There's already a picture of the Antivan Crows out. It was in that Bioware retrospective book that came out pretty recently.
Yeah, I'm aware, I love that art. I was mostly talking about the apparent hint that these are indeed factions!There's already a picture of the Antivan Crows out. It was in that Bioware retrospective book that came out pretty recently.
Development News
So, a Brazilian digital event called Big Festival took place last month, it had quite a few presentations about games and, much to my surprise, it included one by BioWare's Scylla Costa - lead producer on Dragon Age 4, previously worked on Inquisition, ME2, ME3, Andromeda and Anthem - about developing the title amidst the pandemic. It's a 58-minute long presentation, completely in Portuguese (available here, English dub available here). But, to make things easier, I watched it and made a list of highlights that I thought were interesting.
So, what I gathered from this, judging from the timeline presented here, it's possible that Dragon Age 4 has been in full production for about a year, considering the pandemic hit when BioWare was about to move on to full production. And his comment about the studio adjusting the project's internal deadlines strongly suggests the game is going to miss 2022, which is also to be expected given the pandemic. Now... Whether this means first half of 2023 or further, it's anyone's guess.
- He starts by talking about the development cycle of a AAA title at BioWare. He showed a flowchart comprising of six stages: pre-production, production, alpha, beta, launch and new content (DLC).
- Pre-Production: Starts with a team ranging from five to thirty people, jumping to sixty people towards the end of pre-production. Work during this stage includes concept, prototyping, and systems development (tools such as narrative systems, dialogue, etc). This stage also includes market research.
- BioWare was about to start full production when the pandemic hit.
- Production: The stage of full development, where the tools are ready for content creation and feature development. Team grows 2 to 3 times that of its size during pre-production. It is the longest stage of development.
- Dragon Age 4 is currently at this stage of development.
- Alpha: at this point, all systems and features should already be in the game. Larger scale testing.
- Beta: Game is content-complete. Further testing of game systems and balancing.
- Launch: at this stage, BioWare creates what they call a "war room." During the three to four weeks leading to launch, people of all departments involved in the game - like development, marketing, publishing, etc. - gather at least once a day in a room to report on issues and discuss the team's priorities when dealing with them. Development of patches starts.
- New content: self-explanatory, focus shifts to DLC production.
- Pre-Production: Starts with a team ranging from five to thirty people, jumping to sixty people towards the end of pre-production. Work during this stage includes concept, prototyping, and systems development (tools such as narrative systems, dialogue, etc). This stage also includes market research.
- The pandemic and working from home
- On March 12th, 2020, the team had a meeting to review the story of Dragon Age 4. He says the team was very excited about it. On that night, the team received an e-mail from corporate saying everyone should start working from home immediately.
- At this point, he says BioWare was already expecting this to happen, eventually, but they still had just about 50% of developers ready to work from home and the work-from-home order came about a week earlier than they expected.
- The immediate priority was taking care of developers. They asked each dev individually what the studio could do to help them work from home to ensure they would have a healthy work habit at home. Immediate actions included flexible work hours and deadlines. He says EA was very supportive of its developers.
- Shifting to working from home was challenging because many devs didn't have an office or the equipment to work from home. So a lot of effort was made to ensure each dev had what they needed, from tools required to do their work to ensuring fast access to BioWare's VPN, so they can download, test, code and upload builds. Every 3 months BioWare received from EA a budget to improve/support their employees' offices at home.
- BioWare started using Parsec's streaming service so developers could remotely access Playstation and Xbox dev kits to develop and test the game.
- BioWare had to adapt their meetings and communication to properly set priorities to each communication and how fast one was expected to respond. He also says the amount of meetings ballooned, every conversation became a meeting and it affected productivity because often people would spend their days in meetings, and not actively producing. They had to analyze which meetings needed to actually be meeting and which could just be just made via Slack. They also started documenting meeting summaries so people who were interested in knowing what was discussed in said meaning - but didn't have to actually be there - could just get up to date without attending to the meeting.
- BioWare had to adapt their motion and performance capture sessions as well. To keep recording during the pandemic, actors had to perform distant from each other, wearing a mask, and directors directed the sessions remotely.
- Other comments about Dragon Age 4
- Scylla says he is very excited about Dragon Age 4, that he is confident they can deliver the best story in the franchise and that the new characters are fantastic. Says he is dying to tell more, but, obviously, he can't yet.
- When asked if anything in the story of Dragon Age 4 had to be changed to be more mindful of the pandemic - such as a hypothetical plague storyline -, Scylla says the team always tries to make relatable stories and that sometimes they had to adapt things because of real life events, but that it was not necessary in Dragon Age 4.
- He also says that BioWare has "adjusted their internal deadlines" regarding Dragon Age 4.
So, what I gathered from this, judging from the timeline presented here, it's possible that Dragon Age 4 has been in full production for about a year, considering the pandemic hit when BioWare was about to move on to full production. And his comment about the studio adjusting the project's internal deadlines strongly suggests the game is going to miss 2022, which is also to be expected given the pandemic. Now... Whether this means first half of 2023 or further, it's anyone's guess.
Thank you for the summary. I think this could be thread worthy, especially the bit about them adjusting their internal deadlines about DA4 and the game possibly getting pushed back to 2023. I know once the news about them taking the GaaS stuff out of the game broke out, quite a few people were worried that it might've been too late if the game was to release next year, so this should reassure them that they are taking their time to make sure they give us a quality title.So, a Brazilian digital event called Big Festival took place last month, it had quite a few presentations about games and, much to my surprise, it included one by BioWare's Scylla Costa - lead producer on Dragon Age 4, previously worked on Inquisition, ME2, ME3, Andromeda and Anthem - about developing the title amidst the pandemic. It's a 58-minute long presentation, completely in Portuguese (available here, English dub available here). But, to make things easier, I watched it and made a list of highlights that I thought were interesting.
- He starts by talking about the development cycle of a AAA title at BioWare. He showed a flowchart comprising of six stages: pre-production, production, alpha, beta, launch and new content (DLC).
- Pre-Production: Starts with a team ranging from five to thirty people, jumping to sixty people towards the end of pre-production. Work during this stage includes concept, prototyping, and systems development (tools such as narrative systems, dialogue, etc). This stage also includes market research.
- BioWare was about to start full production when the pandemic hit.
- Production: The stage of full development, where the tools are ready for content creation and feature development. Team grows 2 to 3 times that of its size during pre-production. It is the longest stage of development.
- Dragon Age 4 is currently at this stage of development.
- Alpha: at this point, all systems and features should already be in the game. Larger scale testing.
- Beta: Game is content-complete. Further testing of game systems and balancing.
- Launch: at this stage, BioWare creates what they call a "war room." During the three to four weeks leading to launch, people of all departments involved in the game - like development, marketing, publishing, etc. - gather at least once a day in a room to report on issues and discuss the team's priorities when dealing with them. Development of patches starts.
- New content: self-explanatory, focus shifts to DLC production.
- The pandemic and working from home
- On March 12th, 2020, the team had a meeting to review the story of Dragon Age 4. He says the team was very excited about it. On that night, the team received an e-mail from corporate saying everyone should start working from home immediately.
- At this point, he says BioWare was already expecting this to happen, eventually, but they still had just about 50% of developers ready to work from home and the work-from-home order came about a week earlier than they expected.
- The immediate priority was taking care of developers. They asked each dev individually what the studio could do to help them work from home to ensure they would have a healthy work habit at home. Immediate actions included flexible work hours and deadlines. He says EA was very supportive of its developers.
- Shifting to working from home was challenging because many devs didn't have an office or the equipment to work from home. So a lot of effort was made to ensure each dev had what they needed, from tools required to do their work to ensuring fast access to BioWare's VPN, so they can download, test, code and upload builds. Every 3 months BioWare received from EA a budget to improve/support their employees' offices at home.
- BioWare started using Parsec's streaming service so developers could remotely access Playstation and Xbox dev kits to develop and test the game.
- BioWare had to adapt their meetings and communication to properly set priorities to each communication and how fast one was expected to respond. He also says the amount of meetings ballooned, every conversation became a meeting and it affected productivity because often people would spend their days in meetings, and not actively producing. They had to analyze which meetings needed to actually be meeting and which could just be just made via Slack. They also started documenting meeting summaries so people who were interested in knowing what was discussed in said meaning - but didn't have to actually be there - could just get up to date without attending to the meeting.
- BioWare had to adapt their motion and performance capture sessions as well. To keep recording during the pandemic, actors had to perform distant from each other, wearing a mask, and directors directed the sessions remotely.
- Other comments about Dragon Age 4
- Scylla says he is very excited about Dragon Age 4, that he is confident they can deliver the best story in the franchise and that the new characters are fantastic. Says he is dying to tell more, but, obviously, he can't yet.
- When asked if anything in the story of Dragon Age 4 had to be changed to be more mindful of the pandemic - such as a hypothetical plague storyline -, Scylla says the team always tries to make relatable stories and that sometimes they had to adapt things because of real life events, but that it was not necessary in Dragon Age 4.
- He also says that BioWare has "adjusted their internal deadlines" regarding Dragon Age 4.
So, what I gathered from this, judging from the timeline presented here, it's possible that Dragon Age 4 has been in full production for about a year, considering the pandemic hit when BioWare was about to move on to full production. And his comment about the studio adjusting the project's internal deadlines strongly suggests the game is going to miss 2022, which is also to be expected given the pandemic. Now... Whether this means first half of 2023 or further, it's anyone's guess.
Delphine Hey can we threadmark this?So, a Brazilian digital event called Big Festival took place last month, it had quite a few presentations about games and, much to my surprise, it included one by BioWare's Scylla Costa - lead producer on Dragon Age 4, previously worked on Inquisition, ME2, ME3, Andromeda and Anthem - about developing the title amidst the pandemic. It's a 58-minute long presentation, completely in Portuguese (available here, English dub available here). But, to make things easier, I watched it and made a list of highlights that I thought were interesting.
- He starts by talking about the development cycle of a AAA title at BioWare. He showed a flowchart comprising of six stages: pre-production, production, alpha, beta, launch and new content (DLC).
- Pre-Production: Starts with a team ranging from five to thirty people, jumping to sixty people towards the end of pre-production. Work during this stage includes concept, prototyping, and systems development (tools such as narrative systems, dialogue, etc). This stage also includes market research.
- BioWare was about to start full production when the pandemic hit.
- Production: The stage of full development, where the tools are ready for content creation and feature development. Team grows 2 to 3 times that of its size during pre-production. It is the longest stage of development.
- Dragon Age 4 is currently at this stage of development.
- Alpha: at this point, all systems and features should already be in the game. Larger scale testing.
- Beta: Game is content-complete. Further testing of game systems and balancing.
- Launch: at this stage, BioWare creates what they call a "war room." During the three to four weeks leading to launch, people of all departments involved in the game - like development, marketing, publishing, etc. - gather at least once a day in a room to report on issues and discuss the team's priorities when dealing with them. Development of patches starts.
- New content: self-explanatory, focus shifts to DLC production.
- The pandemic and working from home
- On March 12th, 2020, the team had a meeting to review the story of Dragon Age 4. He says the team was very excited about it. On that night, the team received an e-mail from corporate saying everyone should start working from home immediately.
- At this point, he says BioWare was already expecting this to happen, eventually, but they still had just about 50% of developers ready to work from home and the work-from-home order came about a week earlier than they expected.
- The immediate priority was taking care of developers. They asked each dev individually what the studio could do to help them work from home to ensure they would have a healthy work habit at home. Immediate actions included flexible work hours and deadlines. He says EA was very supportive of its developers.
- Shifting to working from home was challenging because many devs didn't have an office or the equipment to work from home. So a lot of effort was made to ensure each dev had what they needed, from tools required to do their work to ensuring fast access to BioWare's VPN, so they can download, test, code and upload builds. Every 3 months BioWare received from EA a budget to improve/support their employees' offices at home.
- BioWare started using Parsec's streaming service so developers could remotely access Playstation and Xbox dev kits to develop and test the game.
- BioWare had to adapt their meetings and communication to properly set priorities to each communication and how fast one was expected to respond. He also says the amount of meetings ballooned, every conversation became a meeting and it affected productivity because often people would spend their days in meetings, and not actively producing. They had to analyze which meetings needed to actually be meeting and which could just be just made via Slack. They also started documenting meeting summaries so people who were interested in knowing what was discussed in said meaning - but didn't have to actually be there - could just get up to date without attending to the meeting.
- BioWare had to adapt their motion and performance capture sessions as well. To keep recording during the pandemic, actors had to perform distant from each other, wearing a mask, and directors directed the sessions remotely.
- Other comments about Dragon Age 4
- Scylla says he is very excited about Dragon Age 4, that he is confident they can deliver the best story in the franchise and that the new characters are fantastic. Says he is dying to tell more, but, obviously, he can't yet.
- When asked if anything in the story of Dragon Age 4 had to be changed to be more mindful of the pandemic - such as a hypothetical plague storyline -, Scylla says the team always tries to make relatable stories and that sometimes they had to adapt things because of real life events, but that it was not necessary in Dragon Age 4.
- He also says that BioWare has "adjusted their internal deadlines" regarding Dragon Age 4.
So, what I gathered from this, judging from the timeline presented here, it's possible that Dragon Age 4 has been in full production for about a year, considering the pandemic hit when BioWare was about to move on to full production. And his comment about the studio adjusting the project's internal deadlines strongly suggests the game is going to miss 2022, which is also to be expected given the pandemic. Now... Whether this means first half of 2023 or further, it's anyone's guess.
We knew that the majority of BioWare staff were on Anthem before 2019 so we knew they weren't in "full production". Just wondering what the majority of BioWare staff between 2019 and 2020 were working on then, as MELE doesn't seem to have had that big a team, it seems to have been a project that from the start was designed to be done for a smaller amount of staff and time (and turned out very well might I add) and Anthem Next team was very small before desolved, Next ME is a small team as well, so that's quite a large amount of staff unaccounted for for a year? Intriguing...
I considered making a thread for this, but I figured it wasn't substantial enough, since we don't really have an official launch window and it's mostly speculation on my part. I feel they may announce something during EA Play, at least.
Yeah, there's an interesting gap here. At best I can assume that for most of 2019, the staff was split between late pre-production of Dragon Age 4, which would require more members of the team, maybe early pre-production of Mass Effect Will Continue (lol), transferring Anthem to BioWare Austin and starting full development of MELE.
Fair point.
At any rate, thank you for the amazing summary you did.
Oh, sweet! That ain't too far away. Hope we finally get a decent look at it.
Yeah I'd expect gameplay MAYBE at the game awards in December.
Are we thinking late 2022 or 2023 for an actual release window?
I can't imagine it would be later than 2023 at most. But I think 2022 is a reasonable guess.
Best case scenario is late 2022, but I'm leaning towards first half of 2023. The game has been in full production for just over a year, and that was entirely in the middle of the pandemic.
Even if we start the clock when "Trespasser" came out in September 2015, that's still... whew. Quite the wait.
But yeah, understandable.
she looks like this in game
Ah Amelyssan. Coming off Sarevok and Irenicus would be tough for any villain, but she looks neat at least.
Indeed, it's going to be 8 to 9 years by the time it launches. It's been a few troubled years for BioWare. This next Dragon Age was rebooted in 2017 and, apparently, again some time after that. It seems they have truly started working on it in 2018~2019 and it seems a lot if it is being made from the ground up (the combat prototype they've shown, for instance, looks a lot different from Inquisition). Hopefully this time they land on a framework that allows them to shorten dev time.
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It's funny. Despite all the setbacks, the staff departures, the reboot(s?)... I feel... really good about the odds of DA4 being another great installment.
Maybe it's the Weekes effect. :P But more than that, I just get the feeling everyone involved considers this a labor of love.
