Dragon Age named, trailer dated News

I'm going on the principal that every company is capable of producing a turkey and this may just be biowares fine feathered friend.

This could serve as a study object in marketing lessons.

Blizzard: make teaser site, get everyone excited and talking about it, then deliver more than anyone expected.

Bioware: make teaser site, get everyone excited (if not quite to the same degree), then reveal at the "big date" that your game has a generic subtitle, and announce a trailer. Um. A forum full of disgruntled fans, and a footnote on news sites.

If you make a teaser, do it properly, or don't do it at all.

I thought they were going to announce that EA's purchase of Bioware had meant that Dragon Age was now being developed simultaneously for PC and consoles, and as a result the tentative release date had been moved from somewhere between 2011 and 2013 to Spring or possibly Fall 2017 :).

I do not know how Blizzard can "deliver more than anyone expected", except it will be of course a high quality but more-of-the-same product.

I trust Bioware more on delivering something more than people expect.

We'll see.

Crap name (bit too similar to Dragon Empires - that MMO that got canned) but I'd put a lot of money on it being an amazing rpg.

I simply can't see this being bad when it finally comes out - this certainly SEEMS to be the game Bioware wanted to make, getting away from the Forgotten Realms settings and any restrictions they might bring, and able to create a setting all of their own (which they've already proven they can do with Mass Effect, which is certainly no worse a setting than I've seen in any sci-fi work to date).

If Bioware has had a 'turkey' to date, IMO its Mass Effect (which in itself was a game that approached greatness in places, but plumbed the depths of wrongness in others), and even that would have looked like a stellar title amongst any other companies line up - just a problem of the bar being set too high by their previous works.

Again, IMO etc.

"spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate"


That's a dangerous statement to make...

"If Bioware has had a 'turkey' to date, IMO its Mass Effect"

??? Mass effect is quite simply awesome. The very second the finishing credits had rolled I started my second playthrough. Only Halo has ever had that effect on me before.

@farticusmaximus - hence the 'IMO'.

For a while I was going to say NWN was its 'turkey', but the single player campaign in that was always an afterthought compared to its main objective - delivering a content creation system for the D&D rules.

Now I don't argue that the main storyline of Mass Effect was very, very good. However, a huge amount of game play niggles irked the hell out of me (each one of which has been discussed 101 times before, so I won't delve back into them again here), the planetside side quests were so poor as to appear to be a totally different game and I had trouble with achievements (not that I'm a achievement whore, but if something is advertised as being a 'reward' I'd better sure as hell get it when I do what is required).

Now with the Baldurs Gate series, and Planescape: Torment, I was all up in them for a second playthrough almost as soon as the game finished...

I do not know how Blizzard can "deliver more than anyone expected", except it will be of course a high quality but more-of-the-same product.


Uh, what? I obviously wasn't talking about the game which noone of us has played, but what came after the teaser. A website, screenshots, and several videos, including a commented gameplay video, 20 minutes long.

Not a logo.

So after all the hype that they where finally going to show us there new RPG all we get is a name???

I think any interest in this game has just vanished. I guest they really are EA Edmonton :(

Was there any other game series that really charted your rise from useless peon to glorious sub-deity as well as the Baldurs Gate series? Like the way you were treated by NPC's and bad guys in BG1 to BG2:TOB where NPC's feared you and you could walk around unafflicted while the same gibberlings that almost wiped your party in the early part of BG1, were now committing suicide against your very presence without you even flinching.

God I loved the BG series.

@Wickerman
"Now with the Baldurs Gate series, and Planescape: Torment, I was all up in them for a second playthrough almost as soon as the game finished..."

Bioware didn't have anything to do with Planescape: Torment. That game - the best RPG I've ever played (with Fallout 2 being a close second) - was developed by Black Isle. Although I can't actually recall if the Infinity Engine was created by Black Isle or Bioware?

Bioware created the Infinity engine and Black Isle used it to make Planescape and the Icewind Dales.

@Miths - you are indeed correct, I always end up getting Planescape: Torment mixed up between the two... Still, my comment holds still on it being one of the few RPGs I've ever wanted to play more than once - so I'm not technically wrong, it just might have seemed I implied that it was a Bioware game...

*tries to squirm out of his mistake*

The Infinity Engine, if I remember correctly, was Bioware's baby and was licensed out to Black Isle Studios.

Wow! This was there big announcement? A web page about announcements?

Ever since the drm fiasco I'm a lot less rabid about this.

I'll just be waiting and watching.

I already think they've shot themselves in the foot by claiming it is what we've been waiting for. Can I finally expect epic battles with more than 5 npcs on screen*? Can I finally expect a world that isn't static? No, I can't.

*Because almost every rpg tries to convey some big large scale conflict but never manages to actually produce it. The only rpg that manages to is Space Rangers 2. Of course, SR2 is a rare gem that isn't shining bright enough to get noticed. Boo.

totally agree with UncleLou : annoucements about announcements.... and a lousy logo

Well, still have very very high hopes for this one. IMO no rpg has come close to the Baldur's Gate serie, so I guess the "spiritual successor" should surpass it ;)

ok,

now show me that 'hopefully' hardcore RPG goodness!

People keep mentioning Baldur's gate 2, it was realeased 8 years ago! Since then Bioware have only released action RPGs for the consoles, and a toolset for AD&D.

Its pretty ironic that the RPG that i'm looking forward to now is the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion Storm Of Zehir.

Shouldn't they save a generic sub-title like this for one of the sequels?

Also - this game is probably the best example ever with regard to not showing your game about 4 years too early...