Quote: The time doesn't fare well to competitors either. NwN and morrowwind were released in the same year and the sequal to morrowind is already out over a year ago while dragon age is perhaps over 2 years away.
As has already been pointed out, the sequel to NWN has already come out. Dragon Age is not NWN2, as we've said many times, nor did the NWN team just all go over to DA when they were done. Things don't work like that.
Quote: Posted 07/18/07 19:36 (GMT) by The brother
The descision was made because if the game had been anounced at a date closer to it's release, i.e. this year then it would have been 5 years between the release of NWN and the confirmation of a new bioware PC game. This would have had a really bad effect on the company, it's pc fanbase would have deserted it and lost faith in it's new direction. The console ports would have sold a lot less and a lot of bioware fans who bought x-box's solely to play jade empire and Knights of the old republic probably wouldn't have either.
Certainly part of the decision was business-based, yes, but I'm not so sure the rest of it exactly follows unless your assumption is that the majority of our console sales for Jade Empire and KotOR came from our PC fans -- fans who, despite their outrage at us not developing another PC game were apparently okay with playing a console game anyhow?
Doesn't quite fit, but I suppose you can assume what you like. As I said, for the most part it was to assure those PC fans who don't play console games that there was, indeed, something new coming eventually for them as well. And there is.
Quote: Posted 07/18/07 19:13 (GMT) by The brother
So NWN started fullscale development in mid 1997 and was released in mid 2002? During which time Bioware completed Shatered steal, Baldurs gate, Tales of the sword coast, Baldurs gate 2, Throne of Bhaal, MDK 2. How long did these games take to Develop? and who exactly was working on nwn all that time?
You're probably right there. It was more like 4 years than 5, despite how often that gets thrown around. Huh. Weird how a span of time can seem like it's so much longer than it actually is.
Quote: I think the development time for Dragon age is quite long, can't help but notice how a few people from Bioware are quite touchy on this subject over the last couple of years.
Perhaps that's because of the vehemence that's involved when people try to throw this in our face. Why they do that, I'm not sure. You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about how we work, or how we
should work, and then making accusations that we're... what? Lying? Falling to pieces and just afraid to admit it? A bunch of no-good incompetents working on vapourware? What? What are you trying to prove, exactly?
Bioware is a growing company and is handling multiple projects. The size of the DA team has varied a great deal -- when we say we're working on something, that can vary anywhere from one person working on concepting to a small group of programmers performing a demo to a whole team of 80 people.
All we've said is that we're working on the game -- yes, it is taking a while, but what does that mean, exactly? Does a game that takes less time make it better, necessarily? If we did take 7 years (God help me) to make a game, that would mean exactly... what?
It will come out, and we are working on it -- and when we start doing media for the game you will see all of it and then you can judge the end product all you like. I don't really know what more needs to be said than that.
