@liaragaming / liaragaming.tumblr.com
Last run through of DA Inquisition + DLC = 137 hours and 39 minutes.
I had someone tell me they'd played 6 hours of inquisition (after I said they needed to catch up with the lore), and I purposefully dug this post out of the void.
Gonna need to put Mary Kirby + other long time staff being fired into perspective because this isn't a recent development. Bioware has been plagued with issues for well over a decade, and it's not just because of EA.
When Gaider decided to move on from Dragon Age in 2014, everyone thought it was just because he wanted to move onto a different project. He ended up leaving the company completely in 2016 after working on Anthem for a bit, and it was later reported that staff on the project had issues with his writing. He didn't mention why he left Bioware until very recently in a long twitter thread detailing that, while Bioware is a company known for its storytelling and characters, upper management went from valuing its writers to quietly resenting them, and feeling as though the writing were "holding the company back."
When they started working with Frostbite they encountered so many technical problems with it because it was specifically designed for FPS games. They were literally designing the tools they needed to work on both Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda while they were working on those games. Darrah (or perhaps Laidlaw, I forget which) even acknowledged when he was interviewed by Jason Schreier for Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, that this is a big industry no-no. But Bioware was put in a hard spot to either work with Frostbite or use the Eclipse engine that DAO was designed on (which I'm assuming would've required developing the engine and toolkit further to bring the graphics up to industry standards). So they ended up working with Frostbite which resulted in a fuckton of issues both for Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda, because the teams behind both projects had to design their own tools.
With the added stress of the toolkit also came the toxic work environment, departments that were perpetually understaffed, directors leaving and new writers coming in with different visions for the project, time mismanagement where they spent too much time on "high concept" gameplay, not having a clear vision for the game, resentments between studios, inexperience with coordinating video calls across multiple studios, the resultant mandatory crunch, etc. All of this is mentioned in this article about Mass Effect Andromeda's production cycle and this article about Anthem's.
Casey Hudson and Gérard Lehiany left Bioware in 2014 right in the middle of production on Andromeda (Casey rejoined the company as general manager in 2017, but left again in 2020). David Gaider left in 2016 in the middle of production on Anthem, as did Aaryn Flynn who left before the game was shipped in 2019. Mike Laidlaw left in 2017 and left production of Dragon Age Dreadwolf in Mark Darrah's hands, who left in the middle of its production in 2020. Matt Goldman (creative director for Dreadwolf) left the following year. Mac Walters (production director on Dreadwolf) who's been with the company for over 19 years left in January of this year. Are you seeing the pattern here?
I don't doubt that EA has influence over Bioware considering the recent layoffs appear related to the announcement back in March that EA would lay off 6% of its workforce. But it's clear there's something deeper that's going on at Bioware, and it's really not good.
When veteran senior staff are leaving one by one along with other long time staff, and it's been reported that the studio has a toxic work environment with management issues that make crunch necessary, there is something deeply wrong with the company and how things are being run. This is a sinking ship, and in all likelihood everyone is betting on keeping the company afloat with the success of Dragon Age Dreadwolf and/or the next Mass Effects game.
I want to say something more about how broadly the mainstream AAA video games industry is abusive and how incredibly fucked up their practices of layoffs have been normalized, but this is already pretty long. What I will say is that I'm not claiming this means DA4 or the next ME game is going to tank. It sure as fuck doesn't look good for it, but despite my grievances with Dragon Age, I do want the game to be successful and for Bioware to keep doing what they're doing.
And honestly, whether those games do well or not is really besides the point. Something is wrong at Bioware, whether it's the company itself or the fact it's owned by EA, and it can't be solved with mass layoffs. This is a cultural problem within the company itself, and it's very unlikely to be addressed considering how MEA failing seems to have done little to change how things are being run right now.
Fandom is hecking amazing.
Additionally, for people interested in those effected by the layouts, there's a thread here gathering that information.
As someone who has mispronounced so many words because I never actually heard them. I appreciate this post
It seems inconceivable to me that EA/Bioware would just drop Mass Effect and Dragon Age. But it also would have been inconceivable to me that they would drop 50 senior staff members with hundreds of years of combined experience critical to the success of previous games.
I think a clear move has been made to show what the company's priorities are (money) and where they're aiming in the future (certainly not building upon the past because they just dropped that completely).
I've been avoiding the gloom and doom train, but fuck. THIS is the stunt they pull? In the name of making the company more "agile"? This is what they think is "necessary to ensure the health of the studio"?
Y'all can put a fork in me. I'm done.
Never forget: “Rejected our proposal. Refused to counter.”
Bioware just announced it's canning another 50 employees, including Mary Kirby, and I'm just miserable about what that means for the state of the games and the future of the studio.
Other notable employees laid off are Jon Renish (Technical Director) and Tim Griffith (Narrative Programmer) and Mary Kirby being a Narrative Director. They are laying off senior staff with decades of experience at BioWare.
Who wants to bet after making Mary synonymous with Varric even after laying her off they are going to use Varric as their main promotional material 🖐️
For those who don't know, Mary Kirby was with Bioware since 2006 and wrote these characters:
+ DAO: Loghain and Sten
+ DA2: Varric and Merrill
+ DAI: Varric and Vivienne
and these quests:
+ DAO: The Landsmeet
+ DAI: In Hushed Whispers and Champions of the Just
The DA wiki says she also worked on The World of Thedas vol 2 and wrote much of the Chant of Light.
I don't know how many more exits of senior bioware devs I can take.
Oh holy shit they found Silphium alive and growing in the wild.
Like now that I am awake I need to reiterate how huge this is. It was presumed harvested to extinction by the Romans. It was a favorite flavoring and according to historians one of the best contraceptives ever known. True or not it would be fantastic to study that but it being extinct made that impossible.
This is such a huge deal! I hope they get it figured how to grow it.
A silly fun little project I've been working on for the past few months while I've been replaying Dragon Age Inquisition with my 1st timeline Inquisitor.
It always bothers me when video games get an official soundtrack release and it turns out to be somewhat lackluster. In DAI's case, the official soundtrack was missing some of the best pieces, while other tracks had been re-mastered in a strange way (adding extra instruments, removing instruments, and incurring many more victims of the loudness war).
So, I extracted some audio files from the game using Frosty Tools, and set about trying to rebuild a proper score tracklist. My goal was to aim for something that more closely adheres to the music that is actually heard in the game, using my own gameplay clips as reference for what plays when and in what order. With perhaps a bit of creative freedom for fun and whimsy.
Tracks assembled and edited in Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. Tags edited with MP3Tag.
Now including scores for The Descent and Trespasser DLCs as well. Might do a "misc" album later on for the few tracks that didn't make the cut.
You can find them all available [here]
being a bad liar + unable to let people be incorrect about things = a very unsubtle man
Dreadwolf
A little bit ago after delving deep into my first Lavellan play thru of Dragon Age Inquisition I was scrolling thru Solavellan Hell Tumblr and came across @noobsydraws page and her lovely work. They have such a wonderful art style, her own Lavellan/Solas work was so expressive and immersive that I asked if she was open for commissions. I was delighted that she said yes!
It was a pleasure to commission her. Working with her was 10/10. My only initial concept for this was that I want a sweet moment for Lavellan and Solas since they have such a tragic storyline.
I pitched them sitting together, Lavellan reading tea leaves 🍃 as tho to look towards the future and Solas inspecting the anchor as though reading a palm---focused on past mistakes.
It's perfect and I love it.
My video of Crabbe setting Malfoy Manor on fire and Voldemort calmly eating a sandwhich is up!
there is an IMAGE in my HEAD and i cannot DRAW IT. hatred and rage.
there is a CONVERSATION in my HEAD and I cannot WRITE IT. rage and hatred
there is a VIDEO in my HEAD And i cannot ANIMATE IT. hage and ratred
There is a GAME in my HEAD and I cannot CODE IT. Ratred and hage.
