Or maybe just EA.

just work together and make a stunning game, DA 1 combined with skyrim, and u got a game everyone wants to play, well if they can make a story line longer then 5 quests xD


edit:
actually:

blizzard for the quests (they now how to make millions of them)
bethesda for the world and dungeons (they know how to do this)
bioware for te characters (omg the are the top scripters for it)

dont u think u will get a game, thats better then any game u ever played?

Maybe they should bring in Stephanie Meyers to punch up the dialogue? Even Twilight was better than the garbage in Dragon Age II.


...fine, no, not really. But it was still pretty bad.

I lost ALL of my confidence with BioWare with the release of Dragon Age 2.

It's unfortunate because I really enjoyed the first two Mass Effect games and I was looking forward to the 3rd, but after DA2 I told myself I'd never buy another BioWare product (Kind of like how I told myself I'd never buy another Bethesda game after Skyrim).

BioWare can try as much as they want, but the damage has been done, at least for this consumer.

There's a LOT that Bioware can learn from Bethesda.... Then again there's a LOT Bethesda can learn from Bioware too!

Bioware's greatest strength is making its characters feel like real people that you actually care about. They really make the game feel more immersive, and even can evoke an emotional response from the player. Do things get a little soap-opera from time to time? Sure, but it does the trick. Learning why Miranda fled from her father, or how Zaeed's face was destroyed really builds them as characters. And doing things like helping to restore Tali to honor amongst her people, or talking Garrus out of murderous revenge makes you feel like the things you do actually matter to these characters.

Bethesda's greatest strength is making you feel as if you are part of a living breathing world, and that you are free to follow your own path. Bethesda games feel as if nothing is scripted (because much of it isn'!) and that your character is experiencing something that no other character is. Bethesda's game environment - and I'm not necessarily talking about visuals - really envelops the player and creates a suspension of disbelief that few others can match.

Bioware made me skeptical at Dragon Age 2, then totally lost me when they turned a potential slam dunk in SWTOR into a lousy, fully voiced WoW clone. I think that they lost all sense of creativity when the 500-lb gorilla entered the picture. Now they just look at what everyone else is doing to be successful, and copying them.

On another note, as far as the open world RPG, the Grand Theft Auto series is close, at least as far as the open world exploration, to being considered the "competition" for gamesas...

This is the smartest man on this thread.

I'm a huge Bioware fan. I'm also an enormous Bethesda fan. Both companies learning from each other = awesome rpg goodness.

They fact that they're looking into Skyrim only shows that they are trying to provide consumers with what they want.

With Dragon Age II, they looked at Mass Effect 2 and thought that a more action oriented approach was what their customers wanted - why wouldn't they? It sold boat loads and received tons of critical acclaim. Of course it didn't work out as planned... but that's why they're playing Skyrim right now.

Some of you make out DA2 to be epic amounts of fail, when you're kind of creating your own fantasy world in itself. It was average or above average at worst, still sold tons, still had a lot of people on the net genuinely concerned with some of the questions it's story posed (social control on mages), etc..

And they're not playing Skyrim as "consumer researchers". Give them some credit. They are gamers, like you or me. And big fantasy fans. And ones who actually program their own games. People's whose lives are devoted to this subject. Don't take that away from them at least, and make them to be EA conspiracists... or something.

Fixed.

I liked the story and grey-morality in DA2, the story carried it for me, but after the first playthrough there was no point playing it again, I just read the alternatives of what would of happened elsewhere.

So what I'm hoping they keep is the same sence of grey morality where either choise you make you will end up regretting, but hoping the gameplay is a little more intreasting.

People just keep repeating the same mantra that BioWare is so great on story, when their plots are average (Mass Effect and DA Origins) to horrible (DA2). But stereotypes endure.

I hope a few companies rip Skyrim off so hard. Maybe they'll do a better job, because the idea of a good Skyrim amuses me.

They sold tons due to DA:O, not cause it was a great game. Dont get me wrong it wasnt bad either.

As far as games, go I truly think their plots are good and executed well. It's not very hard to pull off anyways. If we're to compare to Hamlet, then OK.. it svcks. Or even a modern fantasy novel. I'd be thrilled if there was a game story equivalent of Mistborn, for example. But, I'm not picky to outright crap all over Bioware for what it isn't.

Most interest in Bioware games' "story" now days is about which characters you can bone, mostly.

And now they tend to pull off retcons as much as Lucas likes to butcher Star Wars that any interest in story elements are quickly evaporated.

That's good and bad. EA Bioware is about the quick buck. DA2 was a cash cow sell out from Origins. And those Dungeon maps... Ugh.

Never again. If DA3 manages strong reviews a month after release and they didn't try to sell out to everyone I may consider it.

But rumors of going to multiplayer, open world, that the developers actually liked DA2, etc etc.. It leads me to think that this game will be hype and fail across the board. Part of what makes TES great is that they are single player RPGs. Cater to your base and it'll grow. This is TES:V. Oblivion and past games didn't have this success and you didn't see Beth copy Dark Souls trying to expand their base. They stuck with what they do best. Tweaked a few things but no massive changes.

Hopefully they do well. Competition can be great if

I just thought of something, I believe that Bioware shouldn't just take cues from Skyrim but also Kingdoms Of Amalur Reckoning. I believe that game will be something that BIoware would benefit more from looking at then say Skyrim as Reckoning is a lot closer to something that Bioware would pump out minus the combat system. Skyrim is a true open world RPG, Reckoning is also an RPG and as open world as Borderlands is. Dragon Age 3 would benefit from a more open world but it would also benefit from going back to a silent character, better character development, better story that doesn't get bad at the ending, real choices not just happy, funny and angry that all lead to the same place, guilds maybe could be added in, longer develoment time. Now I would need to see this with my own eyes before I get anywhere near a DA3 if it's in dev which it probably is but I'll give Bioware one last chance, although if the dev time isn't 3 years I'll be severely skeptical of it being any good or better then DA2.

I love my open worlds, but the places Dragon Age 3 should be taking cues from are Dragon Age 1, Neverwinter Nights, and Baldur's Gate.

Bingo. Origins was one of the best games I can remember playing in recent memory. Anyone who complains about it being too, "Talky" is a fool. Origins offered a great deal of cause-and-effect. Choices mattered. That game had re-playability dripping from its pores.

DA2 was bad for lots of reasons, they need to go back to what worked, not try to tack on more crap that no one wants (multiplayer? who gives a [censored]? I'll play a game that has a long pedigree in good multiplayer if I want it).

I don't see the problem with a multiplayer element so long as it doesn't take away from the single player experience. Baldurs Gate was multiplayer and it was a great SP game.

Dragon Age played basically like an MMO. Click abilities and wait for a cooldown. Adding another player wouldn't affect it at all.

Lets hope Bioware redeem themselves though it sounds very ambitous.

I started a similar thread yesterday but it got moved

Very well put, but the side quests are great. It's just alot of the bigger main stuff. They nail everything else though in my opinion. Could you imagine Skyrim with the depth alot of Bioware games have when it comes to dialogue, NPC relations and writing?

Got to say, the difference between the styles is the difference between geography and history.

Tes games are geography - you get to explore and be a part of the world.

Bioware games are history (no bad pun intended) - you get to feel you have profound effects on the world.

After all, completing the main quest in TES games has about as much urgency as a tortoise in a lettuce field. IE none at all. IT just does not feel that what you do matters a whole lot. The best they came up with is winning a war, which does not seem to affect anyone much, and occasional dragon attacks. Where are the dispossessed people. Where are the battles at set times, even if your character has not made a choice to affect those events.

And for bioware, you do get caught up in feeling you are changing events, but the world is not there. You feel epic and heroic, but don't feel that you are a part of the world, more its slave. You do not explore, you are driven and directed. TES games make you feel you are the master of the world, but your character can feel aimless in an static world.

The fact is, merging the two concepts would need a massive amount of resources, and generally annoy a lot of people anyways. Imagine, you join a guild and do a quest, then find out that in the mean time, some key part of the another adventure just became much harder. Imagine if you fail to complete a quest in a certain time, you lose the whole quest line or even the game...People would say, I do not have the freedom to play as I want.

Anyway, my opinion, people will moan and holler no matter what.









And for those complaining about romances, play witcher 2 instead. If you can stand the idiotic overuse of bad language which completely ruined the game for me. No I am not moaning about using bad language, it just felt artificially added into the world, more like a child who has just learned to swear and uses it excessively, voiding it of all impact, and making them sound immature. That game pissed me odd more than DA2.

lol just found an article on google saying that bioware is gonna get "notes" from skyrim and games like skyrim. don't get me wrong, i love bioware and played their older games like baldur's gate 2 and neverwinter nights etc. (they have this morrowind atmosphere and they're very detailed), but dragon age 2 was one of the biggest gaming dissapointments any gaming company has done in years.