As much as I want to watch this, I gotta work tomorrow and I’m on central standard time, so it’s gonna start at 11pm and I gotta be ready by 6:30am. What I wanna know is who’s bright idea it was to host this thing so late at night?

You’re kidding me right? Dragon age origins works great on the Xbox 360, where I played it initially. Yeah you lose the top down birds eye view mechanic but the game is still good. Plus they implemented that with DA:I and it worked fine. It can and has worked on console.

askin’ the real questions.

Yeah, played the shit out of it. Horizon is currently my front runner for game of the year.

Oh boy, another really big open world game with zero complexity. I’m so excited to play another one of those. Now if you’ll excuse me, another settlement needs my help, it was just marked on my map.

It doesn’t do well with things like inventory management, skill trees or stat based combat. It’s an engine designed to make shooters and little else. Bioware has had to rework it substantially just to get it to perform basic RPG like functions.

Dude, I know exactly what you meant. My first Bioware game was Knights of the Old Republic. Been in love with their games ever since. I always get really excited for their new stuff, at least until now. I’m still chomping at the bit for Dragon Age 4 and I don’t even know when that’s gonna come out. Bioware games are…

They’re selling out because they’re doing what literally every other big developer is doing now. Co-op open world loot based bullshit.

That is what I’ve been saying about Bioware since DA:I. I love that game but only because it nailed the characters and story. When Mass Effect Andromeda didn’t manage that (and the animations were bad) it obviously didn’t do so hot. Bioware needs to scale the fuck back and focus on what they’re good at for their RPG’s…

I guess I hadn’t heard that Bioware was making a Destiny competitor. So I was blindsided by this, which is probably why I’m so displeased. Chances are if I knew that was what they were going to make I wouldn’t be so cynical about it.

That’s a fair point, there is no shortage of classic RPG’s out there and entirely too few good co-op games. I’m just super jaded because I’ve seen this all before and it’s EA backing them, so it will probably have the same problems all these games have. Too little content, loot that requires hours upon hours of…

That’s what the AAA game industry is all about.

I guess I’m mostly cynical about it because these kinds of co-op loot drop based games are a dime a dozen these days. It’s played out and the type of game has never been what I’m into.

I dunno, the co-op stuff just completely killed any hype I had for the game. I’ll see how it goes but for now this looks like the first Bioware game I’m probably not gonna buy at launch if ever.

Worse than that is all these co-op shooters are rarely good and have much longevity. But a game like Mass Effect or Dragon Age Origins? You can go back to play those years later and still have fun. In 15 years I doubt Anthem will still be online and playable.

I was actually thinking that while watching the gameplay demo. It looks like they’re ditching the RPG stuff because it’s too much trouble to make an RPG in Frostbite. That and they need a major money maker to please EA after Mass Effect Andromeda kinda didn’t do so hot. Granted this was being worked on before ME:A…

I sincerely hope you’re right, friend.

Man, it’s crazy to think back on Dragon Age Origins now. What are the odds we’ll get another DA:O type RPG from an AAA developer these days? CD Projet Red, sort of, but not really. I dunno, feels like mainstream gaming is leaving me behind.

Except now this trend is super tired. We’ve all seen games like this and none of them are really all that great. Destiny was devoid of content. The Division was a mess. Warframe is super niche and also REALLY not my thing. None of it appeals to me. I just want a fucking story based single player RPG. I refuse to…