https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q5_RsII_Ho[[ "Some more snippets of insight from Mark Darrah. On Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and related topics -
Q. “What is your most cherished memory of your time on Dragon Age?”
A. “For me, it’s always about the game starting to come together after Alpha, because that’s the point at which you feel like the knobs and levers that you’ve been pulling on frantically for the last who knows how long start to actually appear to be connected to something and you’re actually starting the process of the game coming together. So that’s where Dragon Age is right now, so hopefully they are similarly enjoying themselves. It’s also the time where things can get really tough so it’s kind of both the worst and best time.”
Q. “Do you have any regrets about your time in BioWare and Dragon Age in terms of how the franchise has turned out?”
A. “So a lot of times with Dragon Age, I feel like, as I’ve been thinking my way through Anthem, to try to get ready to do the Memories and Lessons [video] there, it makes me re-evaluate Dragon Age as well. To a large degree with Dragon Age I actually feel like Dragon Age is on its best possible path. The things that happened are the things that needed to happen and there wasn’t necessarily a better path. I don’t have that same feeling with Anthem, but that is where my mind is with Dragon Age, so as a result I don’t really have regrets. I have regrets potentially more about the consequences on the team on certain times, but largely no.”
Q. “Do you know of any changes to the control scheme for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf compared to Dragon Age: Inquisition?”
A. “I’m not aware of anything, I’m sure there will be changes for sure.”
Q. “How do you feel about the cRPG revival and its potential impact on the future of AAA RPGs like Dragon Age?”
A. “I think that what we’re actually seeing is the AAs moving into the space that’s been vacated by the AAAs. I suspect it’s not going to have a ton of impact on AAA RPGs to be honest.”
Q. “What influence do you think D&D has on Dragon Age?”
A. “Bioware is a D&D studio back in its past, that’s what Baldur’s Gate is. Dragon Age: Origins was definitely trying to feel like Baldur’s Gate, so I definitely think it has had an influence in it from its conception. Now I think it isn’t actually as influential as it once was. BioWare used to be made entirely of people who play D&D, now it’s made entirely of people who play RPGs, so it’s not as influential as it once was but it’s definitely in there.”
Q. “Is it true that some game studio companies that are due to release games only to the new platforms are delaying their games on purpose, basically because of lack of hardware and stuff?”
A. “I have not heard this. That’s not what’s happening with Dragon Age, I guarantee that, so. Could it be happening? Maybe. But big public companies like money now, ‘even less money now better than more money later’, so I doubt this is true.”
Mark: “I know that EA, I don’t know if they’ve changed this but, EA six months ago was saying 'we’re all gonna go back to the office and you’re gonna have to go back to the office and that’s gonna be the goal, and we’re going to support semi-remote work, but most people have got to go back to the office.’”
Mark: “BioWare has had people working remotely with great success for a long time, but, so here’s what I’ve seen. 'Person’ can work remotely, because that person is largely responsible for them remaining integrated in the team. The expectation is that they are largely a self-starter, you can largely leave them to their own devices, they will get the information on their own that they need to work. Groups work very successfully remotely because then it’s a big group, the communication channel is relatively small, there’s a producer on both sides that talk to each other, and this group is self-contained. You can give them a self-contained thing. The hangar in Anthem was built in Montreal, and they basically built it almost completely on their own with only a few touch points between Edmonton and Montreal. The place where I’ve seen it fail really bad is people working remotely, which is a bunch of individuals all over the place, the expectation is that it’s unclear where the communication responsibility lies. It’s not to say that this is unsolvable, it’s just that one person works great, a complete cohesive team that’s all together can work great. A bunch of people scattered to the winds maybe can work great but the strategies aren’t always mature to handle that.”
Q. "What is your opinion on canon endings? For example, how do you think BioWare would have to solve the problem with multiple endings in Mass Effect 3 if they decided to bring back Shepard in Mass Effect 4?“
A. "I feel like, yes. That being said, Dragon Age is kind of been a little, loosey-goosey, especially in the linear stuff, you know, Alistair, who could be dead, is in some of the linear stuff, I don’t love that. But I guess you kind of have to decide how close to the center you want everything to set, and the farther away you get I think the looser you can be, but I think you have to kind of at least care.”
Mark: “So BioWare has teased games [early] for a couple of reasons. One, EA feels like their press conference is too light and they need something to throw in there that makes it look like they’re not just making sports games. So therefore you get an early, early tease of Anthem, I think there was Anthem in 2014 E3 for example. Or the team feels like they’re gonna get cancelled, so by making an announcement they make the game more real and make it much harder for the publisher to cancel them. That’s the primary reason why Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was at The Game Awards in 2017. Or because they feel like there is some damage that needs to be fixed or some sort of conversation that’s going to take a lot longer with the core [fans], that they need to talk to the core and have it out there floating around for a while to kind of let the bad stuff settle. That happened to some degree with Dragon Age: Inquisition, where it was out, announced for a while, just to kind’ve let all the bad gas around Dragon Age II dissipate.”
Q. “Is it true that EA didn’t know BioWare was going to drop the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf trailer then?”
A: “Not exactly, because we were working with internal groups within EA to get that thing done, so, no, it’s not really true, but the push was coming from BioWare more than it was coming from EA.”
Mark: “[on video game journalism & Jason Schreier] "I would argue that, other than Jason Schreier, most of the industry doesn’t contain very many journalists. Most of them are more like people who are reporting what the companies want them to report, which is great, it’s actually what exists mostly in movies as well, there’s not a lot of investigative journalism happening in video games. So for the most part, if what they’re doing is reporting what the company is doing, they’re not influencing the industry positively or negatively really. Jason Schreier, as annoying as some of it can be, is probably influencing the industry positively, he’s forcing some of these conversations into the light, which is probably what we need."
Mark: "I think Dragon Age, I think Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be at The Game Awards. I don’t know what you [the questioner] mean by 'announcement’. I’m kind of feeling like they might date at The Game Awards, because they’re gonna wanna open up the pre-orders. But maybe it’s still too early.”
Q. “Do you think the backlash to Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem has negatively or positively affected BioWare?”
A. “A bit of both. I think that someone once told me that everyone loves a fall from grace story, but the only story they love better than a fall from grace story is a redemption story. BioWare has fallen from grace, so hopefully the next story is a redemption story.”
Q. “Do you think if EA managed more RPGs instead of sports competitive games it would’ve been easier for BioWare to make more RPG quality of life features?”
A. “Yeah for sure. Inherently, EA doesn’t understand RPGs, same as they don’t understand The Sims, and so it’s always been a struggle to get them to understand why things take the amount of time they are, why certain features matter, why other features don’t really matter, there’s been a disconnect all along for sure.”
Q. “Do the developers of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf request your opinions on some aspects of the game?”
A. “No, they haven’t been. I think that’s smart on their part because they need to be careful, it needs to be their game, not my game. I hope they’ll let me play it at some point but I have not played it as of yet.”
Q. “Will we get Dragon Age: Dreadwolf streams [from Mark’s YouTube channel] when it comes out?”
A. “Yeah, probably, I’ll probably stream it, we’ll see how weird that is [for Mark to stream].”
Mark: “Dragon Age: Origins wasn’t intended to have sequels, but now it’s a franchise built to have sequels. The Mass Effect Trilogy definitely was an end, but we’ve already made one more Mass Effect so at the moment I don’t think they should be ending it. There are places where that could’ve been a 'yes’ but those places have already passed. I think there is a time at which you probably should let an IP rest at least for a while, but I don’t think either of those franchises are there.”
Q. “Have you ever been reached out to by the folks at BioWare to be more shush about their process? I can’t imagine your crunch/BioWare Magic video went over too well with management.”
A. “Some people told me that there were people mad about the BioWare Magic video, but I think for the most part that it was received okay. I think there are people within EA that wish I would shut up but, you know, they had ways they could’ve made that happen, they did not do that. I have not been reached out to to be quiet. EA’s general thinking makes it very unlikely that they would do so, and I think the average BioWare dev is at worst ambivalent, at best supportive of it over all.”
Q. “How do you think the events at the Winter Palace will influence the next game?
A. ”So I suspect that the Orlesian throne will be reflected in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, but I don’t know how much it will actually impact because it has to be manageable.“
Q. "Do you think the Well of Sorrows choice will return?”
A. “I do not know.”
Q. “Do you feel like BioWare/EA left Anthem behind too soon?”
A. “Yeah so, I’ve been thinking about this, and like why did Battlefield 4 and The Sims 4 get so much time to kind’ve fix everything, and Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda didn’t. I think the answer to that question is actually because of BioWare’s structure, because there are people, there are teams that needed those resources, and so there was pressure. If you’re at DICE, and Battlefield 4 is floundering, there’s pressure coming from EA central to stop working on it and just leave it alone, but the studio is like, 'but if we do that, we have to fire a whole bunch of people’, so the pressure balances them working on it. In the case of BioWare, same pressure comes in, but then the studio is like, 'ohh yeah, maybe you’re right, we can put those people on Dragon Age, or we can put those people on Anthem’, and so I think that’s probably part of why it’s happened. So EA wants people to move off, but then the studio isn’t resisting as hard.”
Q. “Do you think that the final decision with Solas, Redeem or not, will have consequences on in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf?”
A. “I would be amazed if it didn’t, given that it’s called Dreadwolf."
Mark: ”[on the idea of removing classes in Dragon Age] I go back and forth on this because classes help onboard players and they make, they give some ability to do more strong things. I don’t really like usage-based levelling up like Elder Scrolls has because I feel like it kind of heads me down a narrower and narrower path as I play the game, but flattening it out and letting me level up in a more traditional way, maybe, but I wouldn’t do it in Dragon Age because I think it’s too integral to the game itself.“
Q. "Do you think we’ll see the Warden from Dragon Age: Origins in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf?”
A. “I don’t know. There’s a huge question that would need to be answered to bring them back which is, do you give them a voice, do you keep them silent, do you explain why they don’t have a voice? I don’t know if we’ll see them or not because of that.”
Q. “If BioWare does another open world, what should they do different? I always thought a big hub area would work well or just a large level?”
A. “I don’t think BioWare is equipped to do a really large level and I kind’ve don’t think, for what BioWare is trying to do, it’s the right approach because I think you want to have that big epic story. But a hub area is interesting becaise then you could have smaller things, smaller open world areas more like the bog or the Storm Coast and then have a central hub, so maybe.”
Q. “Do you know to what extent 'project Joplin’ factored into the development of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf?”
A. “Definitely stuff from Joplin is still in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf for sure.”
Q. “Where do you see BioWare heading at present, do you think BioWare is best when creating new worlds?”
A. “I actually don’t think thats been my experience, I actually think that on average BioWare’s second entry has typically been its best, not the case in Dragon Age II but for externality reasons, so I think that usually it needs one to kind’ve shake the things loose. But some people just like world-building and the first one is definitely where you do all the world-building.”
Q. “Is Dragon Age: Dreadwolf’s combat going to be a big departure from Dragon Age: Inquisition?”
A. “Don’t know, guess we’ll see.”
Mark: “[on Dragon Age: Absolution] I haven’t seen any of it yet, but it was in development when I was still at BioWare. I think most of the Dragon Age media has been pretty good, with a few exceptions, but I think usually the team uses it as bridges between new concepts or new things that they’re gonna talk about in future games, which I think is exactly how you should use this kind of stuff.”
Q. “What were you most excited about on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf when you were there? Gameplay and story?”
A. “For me it’s always characters, characters are what drive BioWare games and I think that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is the one that’s finally admitting that, so hopefully they can lean into that hard.”
Q. “Will you go to the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf launch party?”
A. “Guess we’ll see if I’m invited.”
Q. “Do you think that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will have more accessibility options?”
A. “Yeah I think so, they are becoming more and more common and there are now good AAA games that are providing a pretty good template of something that at least brings the conversation forward quite a bit, so I think that we should see more, I would think.”
Mark: “[on modding] There’s been no attempt to ever prevent modding [in BioWare games]. We did, on Joplin, talk about actually making the toolset accessible to the public, but there wasn’t really an appetite within the Frostbite development community to do that at the time, though interestingly enough I don’t think that’s actually the case any longer, but it wasn’t at the time, so it got abandoned along the way.”
Mark: “[on Sandal] That’s true, I did basically say to cut, specifically Sandal, from Dragon Age: Inquisition because my feeling was that if you put Sandal into Dragon Age: Inquisition you had to put Sandal in every single game for the rest of time, he then became a concrete part of the lore and he became something more and that’s fine, basically what I said to the writers was, you can put Sandal into Dragon Age: Inquisition but know that if you put Sandal into Dragon Age: Inquisition you’re going to be putting Sandal into every single Dragon Age game for the rest of time. […] Sandal isn’t done, so Sandal’s [story’s] not necessarily done, but I think by taking a break in Dragon Age: Inquisition now you’re able to kind’ve pop him in and out, but if you had him in all three games in a row he became too central, so that’s what I mean by, so it’s not that Sandal can never be back, he needed to not be in Dragon Age: Inquisition if you wanted to have control of that situation.”
Mark: “[on new IPs and different genres] I know that there’s this feeling like, stick to your lane [BioWare]. I don’t feel this. If you just keep making the same thing, eventually, like, BioWare has changed genres several times over its history. Baldur’s Gate 1 and Dragon Age are not the same genre so I think you have to keep evolving. there’s always a risk but I think you have to keep going.”
Mark: “[on tactical camera] I feel like it’s not actually really part of the Dragon Age DNA. It’s part of the Dragon Age: Origins DNA, and we decided it was important to put back in Dragon Age: Inquisition. It was kind’ve a partial implementation, and as a result, I actually kind’ve feel like it’s not part of the franchise any longer.”
Mark: “[on recasting problematic voice actors] We have recast people before, there’s nothing stopping BioWare from doing it again, though maybe it’s a bit more of a hot button issue these days than it was before.”
Q. “Has fan criticism negatively affected BioWare, like with Dragon Age II to Dragon Age: Inquisition?”
A. “I mean, Dragon Age: Inquisition is in part in response to the negative feedback on Dragon Age II. It hurts peoples’ feelings for sure, like it can be hard to work on something that people didn’t like, absolutely.”
Q. “Do you think Broodmothers will ever make a return, given some of the social commentary around them?”
A. “I don’t think so. I think they will be in the background and largely ignored. If they ever had to return for some reason I think they would get a massive visual redesign. I don’t think so.”
Q. “How often is the expectation [within BioWare] of which NPC would be liked best met with reality?”
A. “The first three characters you meet in a Dragon Age, the first three that fill out your party, are the ones that are going to be most engaged with.”
Mark: “The project that I’m most proud of is probably Dragon Age II because it was essentially an impossible game done in an impossible timeline. It was such a sprint. The game I’m most happy with is Dragon Age: Inquisition. I’m most proud of Dragon Age: Inquisition because it’s the one that’s closest to what we were trying to do.”
Q. “With the revival of Paragon after its cancellation, does this open the door for games like Anthem to return?”
A. “EA is a risk-averse company. They would never, well okay, maybe never say never, but I would be very surprised if they were to ever allow something that they made to be controlled outside of their walls, because the worry that the executive who agreed to that would be is that they give it to someone else, it turns into a massive success, and then people are asked, they’re gonna ask him why he let that go. So rather than let that happen even though EA would make money in such an occurrence, often what happens is things just don’t get approved, because no one will question why the thing died as opposed to question why the thing succeeded outside of their watch, so, probably not.”
Q. “Should games be bolder in addressing controversial topics?”
A. “I think if you include gaming as an entirety, I don’t think it’s shying away, I think in much the same way that movies in the, indie movies tackle topics that mainstream aren’t willing to do. I think it’s actually the same with gaming as well. But I do think that, for example, Mass Effect: Andromeda tells the least interesting of the possible versions of that story of a bunch of people fleeing the Milky Way Galaxy from an invasion of people, so.”
Mark: “[on whether he’d go back to BioWare] I would consult with them same as I consult with other people, but that doesn’t seem to be likely to happen any time soon.”
Q. “What do you think of the likelihood that you could revive the Anthem project if you worked your way up the BioWare career ladder?”
A. “I don’t think it’s very likely. Once EA distances itself from something it’s very unlikely to want to spend money on it again. Anthem is in its current state right now because there’s just not money for it, so unless you could figure out a way to make Anthem be in a studio by itself I think it would be very difficult to figure out how to actually bring it back to life.”
Mark: “When BioWare first got bought by EA, I can’t remember the exact number, but I feel like it is releasing 46 games a year, and now that number is like, 12. So similarly like the consolidation, I think it results in less risk-taking, probably not a good thing but you also are seeing more people chewing at the edges of AAA I feel, surprisingly right now I feel like AA is quite vibrant.”
Mark: “Dragon Age: Origins had about under 200 [devs working on it]. Dragon Age: Inquisition crested 600 when you put everyone in there including the outsourcers. I feel like Baldur’s Gate 1 was 65, back in the late 90s.”
Q. “Can’t you just say all three endings are canon but the next game will continue with this ending?”
A. “But then by saying that, I mean you could say that, but then if you say 'it will continue with this ending’, aren’t you also then saying that’s the one that’s canon? I mean, you can say whatever you want, but it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
Mark: “Some of the higher-ups at EA have played BioWare games in their spare time. On average, if I take the C-suite as a whole, no.”
Q. “Throughout all the Dragon Age series have there been any missed secrets or Easter eggs?”
A. “Yes, I couldn’t think of any, but the answer is yes.”
Q. “Do you think EA is really as evil as gamers depict?”
A. “I think EA is a public company and public companies have a very specific goal and they’ve gotten very short-sighted.”
Q. “Do you think BioWare has been bad at setting expectations?”
A. “Yes. Yes. Quite bad, quite bad at that.”
Q. “Do you think evolving story-type, game as service Anthem would have had will ever happen or be successful?”
A. “I mean arguably, Destiny is kind’ve doing that so, kind’ve, but long-term storytelling in a live service hasn’t really been done that successfully. I mean I guess arguably the MMOs do it, like the Final Fantasy MMO does tons of storytelling so, maybe.”
Q. “Do you think Mass Effect: Andromeda could have been saved, a No Man’s Sky comeback, if given more time?”
A. “I don’t know, because it’s not how EA thinks, well it kind of is how EA thinks, [but] it’s not how EA has thought about BioWare. Battlefield 2 had a really rough launch, The Sims 4 had a very rough launch, both of those went on to be very successful, so I mean, I guess my short answer is yes.”
Mark: “I don’t think Alec Ryder being the protagonist of Mass Effect: Andromeda would be better [than Ryder Junior]. I did provide feedback on Mass Effect: Andromeda that I felt like, that I said 'this feels like a CW show’, and was told that’s on purpose. I’ve actually thought about this more since then and actually I think it’s this: Shepard is the protagonist of an action movie from the 80s and 90s. Ryder is the protagonist from an action movie from the 2000s, so there’s essentially an intentional moving with the audience to some degree. I don’t think this is the biggest problem with the story in Mass Effect: Andromeda. My concern, my feeling on Mass Effect: Andromeda’s biggest problem is that it could’ve told a refugee story, it could’ve told a story about colonialism, but instead it tells the story in the middle of that that isn’t the interesting version of the story. But yeah, I gave this exact feedback, that it felt like the protagonist of Mass Effect: Andromeda was very young and was very like 'I don’t wanna do this’, but that was on purpose. I don’t think Alec would have been a better choice.”
Q. “Is it true that EA can send devs from one studio to help those from another?”
A. “Sort’ve. So not exactly, the studios are largely, they largely have control of their people, but a lot of influence can be put on the studio leadership to provide those people to the other studio. So kind’ve, but maybe not exactly what you’re thinking. They can’t just come in with the burlap sack and like scoop them up, there’s some sort of negotiation happening. The bigger the project - so FIFA - the more ability you have to suck people in.”
Mark: “[on remakes and their likelihood] You’re not selling the same number of copies of Mass Effect Legendary Edition as you will of the next Mass Effect, so it’s made way cheaper, but it makes way less money. EA has actually been very resistant to remakes as a general rule. Which is why you can literally think of two for EA, Mass Effect Legendary Edition and Dead Space. And I think in the case of Dead Space they’re really looking to revive that IP potentially, as part of it. But yes, it’s probably a market safety thing to some degree.”
Q. “Is there a specific time or game development period you miss from when you were working at BioWare?”
A. “The day you go gold is, you don’t get to, that’s a pretty powerful thing, but of course it was preceded by some pretty awful things, so.”
Q. “Did you see a lot of pain from Frostbite having to be used on Dragon Age: Inquisition directly?”
A. “My feeling is that Dragon Age: Inquisition approached Frostbite exactly right, which was meeting the engine where it was, putting lots of time into tooling and respecting the engine, trying to do things the Frostbite way as much as possible. I could not say that about either Mass Effect: Andromeda or Anthem however.”
Q. “How much input, control does EA as a publisher have on the direction of the games they publish? Do we as gamers know when the issues a game has are due to the studio itself or the publisher?”
A. “No you don’t know, absolutely not, but the answer is as much or as little as they want. Sometimes they are suggesting direct features, usually not though.”
Mark: “Games got really big because they could be really big, and then, yeah, the other content got spread really thin across all of that. I do think we’re moving away from this, I think we’re moving back to more focused experiences. I think they need to be balanced based upon the different game. I think Bethesda is very good at a lot of content with stuff all around, their narrative is usually a very thin thing that kind of knits it all together. BioWare is gonna be going the other direction, moving back towards a stronger center to allow that narrative to be stronger. I think it really depends on the game itself.”
Mark: “[on the possibility of BioWare revisiting Anthem in any way] I think the franchise is probably not going to be revisited, because I think, just the way that EA thinks of itself, the way that it thinks about things that didn’t succeed, I don’t think it’s going to be revisited. I think that’s a shame because I think that there’s a lot of good world-building in there, in fact I think there might even be an argument to be made to take Anthem largely as it is, change the architecture so it was entirely singleplayer, add in a couple of followers to be your party and release it as a singleplayer game. I think you could probably do that for under 50 million dollars, and it probably would change the perception of the franchise quite a bit, but I don’t think that that’s going to happen.”
Mark: “I don’t think BioWare is going to be allowed to make a new IP for quite a long time because I think EA will take, interpret Anthem problems as a problem, so I think it’s gonna be a while, for sure.”
Q. “Is Ferelden based off of England?”
A. “Originally it is, certainly visually it is, you can see that in Dragon Age: Origins, it’s like Tudor-land.”
Mark: “So BioWare got bought by EA because BioWare at that point in time was owned by VG Partners, which was VC Investment Capital Group that had bought BioWare and Pandemic a few years before, so they bought it because they flipped us, they flipped us for money. Why did BioWare get bought in the first place? The short answer is BioWare didn’t have any money left."
Q. "Do you think Mass Effect: Andromeda or Anthem will be looked at fondly over time, similar to how Dragon Age II has become many peoples’ favorite?”
A. “It looks like this happening with Mass Effect: Andromeda already. I think people are actually a lot more positive towards that than they were at launch. I don’t know in the case of Anthem. I’ll be curious, I think what might happen is if EA’s Iron Man uses a lot of the same mechanics and then makes them into a more cohesive game that works better, then that might be Redemption for Anthem to some degree.”
Mark: “I do believe that if Dragon Age II had been Dragon Age: Exodus and it had been made more clear that it wasn’t Dragon Age: Origins again it would’ve been better received, so yes, expectations can make or break the game, absolutely true.”
Q. “Were there any new IPs made after Mass Effect 3, after Anthem?”
A. “So there was Javelin, which was Trent Oster’s game, but that was actually, there was Javelin and there was Revolver, but those were back in the sort’ve Mass Effect 1 time period, so no. There aren’t that many teams at BioWare. In Austin there was the 4v1 game that was being developed, so there was that as well that was being developed out of Austin.”
Q. “Was Dragon Age originally meant to always have blank slate protagonists like the Warden? Did the success of Mass Effect influence making Hawke voiced and more filled in?”
A. “Yeah, it was always meant to be blank slate. The effect that, so this is sort’ve a thing that Casey Hudson caused, Hawke is probably voiced because Mass Effect 1 has a voiced protagonist and Dragon Age: Origins is probably not voiced except for the protagonist because KOTOR had voiced everyone but the protagonist. So within a studio, essentially those features became tablestakes because of that. I wouldn’t say that Hawke being as strong of a character was influenced by Mass Effect, that was more just, we need something fast and quick, so the branching needed to be dropped down, but yeah, the fact that Hawke is voiced, definitely Mass Effect having a voiced protagonist is part of that.”
Mark: “The KOTOR remake was offered to BioWare and the reality is, is that BioWare had what it considered better things to do with its time, so I know that Disney wants it, it’s the one game that is most requested when it comes to Star Wars stuff, so Disney wants it to exist. EA said 'we don’t wanna do it’, so they found someone.”
Mark: “[on Dragon Age character redesigns and why they happen] Depends. Sometimes it’s just artists, because the artists just wanna make them look like something more. Sometimes it’s for story or plot reasons.”
Mark: “This is my feeling on the art direction for Dragon Age. Dragon Age: Origins looks like basically all the fantasy games at the time looked like, which is they looked like kind’ve Tudor Europe, little bit of art direction by video card there. Dragon Age II is definitely trying to look like something, so it’s very pointy, it’s very monochromatic, and then Dragon Age: Inquisition is putting new better technology on top of that to try to find a balance. So that’s, that’s the evolution there, there’s an intentionality that’s starting with Dragon Age II and continuing through Dragon Age: Inquisition.”
Mark: “Cynical of me here, CEOs have less power than people might think. There’s a board. Sometimes it feels like EA is run by its CFO and its board more than by its CEO. Not to insult Andrew Wilson, but I do feel that, on occasion, that he sets direction but then there are a lot of parts of the organization that are capable of undermining his direction if they so choose, and they tend to undermine in the direction of the status quo. So a BioWare executive in charge of the company, [they] could say a lot of things, I just don’t know how much difference it would make.”
Mark: “[on Easter eggs] Usually it works this way - Easter eggs aren’t approved, they are allowed. So sometimes Easter eggs go in and they are not reported which can be a big problem, because if they get caught by the ratings board, that can be a big problem to your rating. So what’s supposed to happen is, Easter eggs go in, and they’re supposed to be reported, and then sometimes you go through and strip some out because they’re just not acceptable, but if you force them to be approved before they went in probably none would go in, so you kind’ve let them happen and then you hope these people report them and then you’re like 'no no no, you can’t do that, take that out’.”
Mark: “Yeah, I think the Architect was probably supposed to be in Dragon Age: Inquisition at some point, I don’t know how far along that conversation got but it would make sense right, like, the Architect and Corypheus are kind’ve the same thing, so it made sense as something to be in there. I don’t really remember how far that conversation went though.”
“[…] presenting vision and ‘X’ statements, all of the things you do to start to align a team around a direction. This was pretty rocky on Dragon Age: Inquisition for basically three reasons I would say. First of all, we were presenting a top-level vision, things like 'Dragon Age with a Skyrim vibe’ or 'the exploration of Dragon Age: Origins in Frostbite’ or things like that, things that sort’ve were very surface level. And those kind of statements can be incredibly useful, it is incredibly valuable to be willing to have vision statements or or 'X’ statements that are somewhat derivative, where you say, 'it’s like X with Y, because people can grab onto those things really effectively. But when you’re presenting a surface-level vision, ideally what you would want to then do is have your sub-disciplines and sub-teams present more detailed visions within their own respective areas, that feed back and build upon that over-arching vision statement. This is what we were doing on Joplin, this is what we were doing on Morrison as well, because by doing that, people are able to find something that they understand a little bit better, grab onto that and then build up towards the over-arching vision.”
“So one last thing on vision. I actually don’t remember the specific language we were using in the early days of Dragon Age: Inquisition for its vision, which isn’t a great sign. I can remember the vision statement for Mass Effect 2, which was 'the Dirty Dozen in space’. I can remember the vision statement for Joplin, which it was 'we would be heroes but the records are sealed’.”
“The telemetry on the tactical camera for Dragon Age: Inquisition basically shows that very few people used it and those people who did use it used it largely to pause, look around at the battlefield, decide what they’re going to do and then return to the over the shoulder camera and play the game in real-time for the most part. […] The fact that it’s very expensive plus the fact that it wasn’t wildly used, though you could argue that part of the reason why it’s not wildly used is because it’s not the best possible implementation of it, those two things together to my mind mean probably we aren’t going to see tac cam going forward from the Dragon Age franchise. I mean, they could surprise me. My bet is that Dragon Age will continue cementing itself as an action RPG franchise and continue to move away from the old-school cRPG things that mark its origin, so to speak, haha, and that we probably won’t see tac cam in Dragon Age 4. But, I guess we’ll see.”
“You defeat Corypheus, you save the world, the credits roll and then there’s a post-credits sequence where something is revealed about Solas. And for some people this undermines the entire game. They feel like the game as a result of the post-credit sequence is incomplete and that we then tricked you into buying Trespasser in order to get the ending of the game. […] There was a negative enough reaction from enough people within the community for Dragon Age to the post-credits sequence that my guess is that BioWare will never do a post-credits sequence ever again because they are going to be very gun-shy based upon that reaction. And that’s kinda too bad from my perspective.”
“For Dragon Age: Inquisition, Early Access did not help, it hurts, because what it essentially means is that your launch day is seven days early but for a much smaller group of people, and you are having to deal with a launch and then deal with another launch seven days later. It allows the sentiment on your title to begin to solidify while you’re not even really selling that many copies of the game. You saw this dramatically with Mass Effect: Andromeda, where a version of the game came out with some fidelity bugs and it was out in the world for a week without a lot of control over the narrative. Sentiment on the game solidified very quickly and very negatively. I believe that EA is backing away from this for story-driven titles. I do not like Early Access in general, and certainly, Inquisition solidified my opinion on that topic.”
“In some ways the box for Dragon Age: Inquisition is very like the box for Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II. It has strong use of negative space, it has a fairly strong graphical look, but in some other more obvious ways it is a big departure. It moves from the red and white aesthetic of the first two games and goes to green and darker blacks and grays. And there’s some good reasons and some bad reasons for this. The good reason is to make the box look more like the game. And I think there’s something to be said for that. I think there’s something to be said for having your color palette of your marketing campaign be consistent with the game itself. You can see this with Dreadwolf. They are trying to do the same thing again, is bring some consistency to the game and the UI and the marketing assets. I think there’s something to be said for that, a consistency of look.”
“Dragon Age: Inquisition is probably one of the last Collector’s Editions that BioWare’s ever going to do”
“We decided that we were going to try to make a standalone free-to-play version of Dragon Age multiplayer. This had the codename of Hendrix, following the naming convention that we were using for codenames at the time, and it was basically trying to be something that would introduce you to Dragon Age as a property and be an on-ramp for the game. EA wasn’t very supportive of this product at all, because they just saw it as a potential cost center, and so it was only available for download for a very short period of time, it got no marketing and it essentially kind’ve faded into the ether. But briefly, in 2015 there was a free-to-play version of Dragon Age: Inquisition available for download.” ]]
