Sometimes it never hurts to ask for help – or at least ask for feedback. It shows a level of trust and respect for those who receive the question, and takes the weight and pressure off those who ask it. For RPG behemoth BioWare, this is the path they are taking for Dragon Age 3 - they want the input and opinions of loyal Dragon Age players to help shape the next game.
When it was announced that future Dragon Age 2 DLC would be canned to focus on Dragon Age 3, it was apparent that BioWare needed to shift into overdrive. While the schedule may have taken a slight detour due to a more intense focus on Star Wars: The Old Republic (a game that is losing subscribers), getting an understanding of what players would like to see is imperative. While the original game was critical success, it goes without saying that the series took a slight misstep with Dragon Age 2 - with repetitive dungeons, decisions that didn’t always matter to the player, and a dumbed-down character progression model.
BioWare understands that it is important to hone in on their loyal players, and starting this week, they will be launching a month-to-month feedback campaign which will focus on different questions and elements.
BioWare’s Jessica Merizan posted on the developer’s blog exactly what this would look like:
“We’ll do a series of questions and discussions around Dragon Age. Consider this a conversation between fans, the community team, and the developers. Everyone at BioWare is incredibly excited about the future of the franchise but we’re interested in what you have to say. Every month, we will discuss a topic or question about Dragon Age and game development. You will have one week to post your thoughts, desires, and hopes before we close the thread for review. Moderators and developers will pop into the thread to chat every now and again, so keep an eye out.”
Merizan was cautious in her posting though, saying that the developer was not making promises to players – they were just getting ideas. While gathering all this feedback will be aimed primarily at the Dragon Age 3 game, Merizan did indicate that they would be cognizant about good ideas that could be used in other Dragon Age mediums, such as novels, animated features, and comics.
The initial topic posed by BioWare to the fans is: “What kinds of things would you like to discover and learn about the Dragon Age world?”
BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka wants the series to open itself up in future titles. Giving them feedback on what players want to know about (wedding rituals, burial customs, history of the Tevinter Empire, etc) could potentially open the door for this information to be presented as canon in the upcoming game.
How many ideas from players will actually make it into the game? Realistically, probably not many, but certain elements could be used in various ways, or an idea could help provide a slightly different direction that ends up being a gold mine. Hey, it never hurts to ask for help.
Ranters, what do you want to see from Dragon Age 3?
Dragon Age 3 is presumed to have a launch date sometime in 2014.
–
Follow me on Twitter @mattrowland1
Source: Bioware
GR Giveaway: Win a Superhero-Sized Trip to San Diego This July! [Update: MORE Prizes!] 
Microsoft: Banned Players Lose Access to Purchased Xbox One Games [UPDATED] 
Microsoft Officially Backpedals on Xbox One DRM Policies 
Xbox One Policies ‘Alienated Entire Military’; Entertainment Research Forecasts Trouble 
Loading ...
The first and foremost thing that killed replayability, no not even that far, playing the game the first time through was how terribly overused the environments were. Why was that acceptable? I’m sure people can think of other things, but this will always be on their lists. It’s a terrible shame and fixing that alone would have dramatically increased enjoyment and reception. You had better produce something that’ll blow socks off our little gamer feet if you want us to spend money on another dragon age. Make it right, and redeem yourselves. That’s right, redeem.
Number one on the list: don’t scoop the ending out of a toilet.
Make sure the ending has nothing to do with colors
make it more like the first and less like dragon age two. create or import characters, make choices actually matter more. I’d like to learn more about the other areas and maybe even other continents. playing the first one at the moment, and I love it. way better in style and fun than Skyrim. and the characters look way better.
For starters the thing that annoyed me the most in dragon age 2 is the recycled maps and the jumbled fighting that you would have to pause every second to know what’s going on. The ending felt forced, not built up in the earlier games. And for christ sakes put a jump in there, in all the games I hated the fact that one little crack in the texture forces you to walk around. “I can kill dragons but cracks are to much for me”?!? And please add different emotes with attacking, that got really annoying especially as a Mage. I liked the character in dragon age 2, but they weren’t as dynamic as the first game. Please fix this
In Dragon Age 2, I missed talking with characters to improve my relationships and a choice of giving gifts to improve my standings with them. After finishing a quest, I would like to be able to get some sort of feedback from Hawke’s friends. I do not feel like they are really Hawke’s friends, but kind of tools to use to do certain tasks. Also, If a character moves in with you there should be different and varied dialog available and perhaps they should actually be in your house. I do like the romance angle and having something like that build throuhout the story would be much more interesting. I am a casual player and was drawn to this game by the storytelling, not fighting. I like fighting an occasional dragon, but I would like to know why. In Dragon Age 2, it feels like the foes are just thrown in willy nilly. First, spiders (which make sense in a cave), but then you get a frost demon and skeletons. Why? No backstory or reason that I can figure. I am frustated at the end of Act 2, because even in my casual mode fighting the Arishok is too difficult for me. I would like a way around this without giving up a character. In Dragon Age Origins, I enjoyed the archeology angle (Brother Geneviti) and the possibily of odd characters in the Circle Tower. Stories within those areas would make a fun game. I do not like the Qunari now and enjoyed Sten and his love of cake in Dragon Origins. I guess they were supposed to be the villians of this piece (which was confusing coming from playing Origins) with the occasional bad egg such as Mother Patrice. No real big quest to complete. I think that is a mistake. There has to be a main storyline. Dragon Age Origins had a lot of humor and an occasional laugh. I would like to see more of that. Perhaps a new game could follow some political intrigue in Antiva or a “gold rush” discovery in Orlais. I hope that this world continues because I feel it is a good one and has all the main ingredients (heros, lovers, dwarves, elves, pirates and don’t forget the dragons), it just needs to humanize the characters who are populating it.
I’m a huge fan of bioware, but their star has dropped substantially since they released dragon age 2, swtor and mass effect 3. I think they’re finally recognizing that something has got be done differently. It’s good to see that they’re to the fans for help, because, lets face it: bioware need all the help they can get right now.
It’s not gonna be easy to rectify the bowel movement they called ‘dragon age 2′, but it’ll be interesting to see if they can turn it around and regain the trust of their fans.
When the fans gave good input on the forums David defended why they changed things to the DA2 way instead. The only things that well make BioWare change is low sells or new management.
Just some things that fans hated but ether Mike or David have talked about using again on the forums (I consider anything in the last six months relevant).
Wave combat (Mike said they just didn’t implement it right in 2 they’ll do better in 3 pointing to Legacy as an example).
Can’t talk to companions whenever we want to (David said that DA2 had enough companion interaction).
Auto-dialog (David has said DA2 will have auto-dialog).
The dialogue wheel is making a return but David has outright denied a possibility of seeing the whole line instead of a summery.
Mike has said that they will use the same art style. David even mentioned only having one specialization instead of two. We have also got no word on them fixing the import bugs. No word on race choice coming back, which should be a no-brainer. Fans asking for origin stories are told that we wont see the number of origins that DAO had if any origins at all (David pointed to Mass Effect’s Earther/Spacer.etc as what they were looking at).
Sounds like “Dragon Age 2.5” or “Dragon Age Sellouts” would be better names for Dragon Age 3.
I enjoyed DA2 and afterwards tried DAO. Now that I understand the issues, I think I can properly add my two cents.
Absolutely, hands down, the closed-in corridors and dungeons, reused environments, all have to go.
After recently playing The Witcher 2, and Dark Souls, I think Bioware has something good going for mature gamers and that is the mature content. Perhaps Bioware could benefit by pushing the boundaries even further and continue in that mature line of storytelling and relationship building. I really thought the companion mechanism was neat and think it is useful in making the player feel more connected to the character and story progression, not alike what one would experience when watching a riveting film.
Simply put, we need more development teams to move towards creating more mature games… I think that is the missing element.
Lastly, I think all points made thus far are spot on… I felt that the pop in wave of enemies was really mood breaking…and felt forced. it needs to be more organic. In Skyrim you can deviate from your path and encounter a whole other type of enemy which is always fun and keeps it fresh.
I think the dev team need only rummage around popular RPG forums to get a wealth of ideas for DA3
The reason I never even played DA2 is because it was a complete different game than DAO. Make DA3 more like the first game and add some better mechanics. Learn from games like Diablo,Elder Scrolls and even some other popular MMO’s. The very deep,mature and detailed stories in the first one blew people away and the sexuality made it intriguing. Also having set hero’s is not a very good thing in my eyes for RPG’s these days. Players should be able to create the character in a plethora of details…that will make the player unique and also feel more connected to the character.
What do I want to see from Dragon Age 3?
A game that doesn’t suck ass. That is all.
Only thing i would like to see extra, is more ethnic variety of the main character (i mean in character building, before starting the game).
Thing I liked in DA2, was that the whole family adapted to the choices i made in the beginning of the game, like in hair color, skin tone etc.
Though I’m hoping to see a bit more of this……….
Still.. BIG FAN OF DRAGON AGE!
Aesthetically speaking, I was quite satisfied with the Qunari and Humans.
The Elves on the other hand, looked cheap. I commend the efforts of trying to make the elven race look different, but it was very poorly executed. Please PLEASE do try to make the elves lithe and thin, but just because an elf doesn’t have broad shoulders and bulging pecks doesn’t mean it has to look anorexic.
There was also mention of a map being 5 times larger than Ferelden and that bio-ware has been aggressively analyzing large-world games like Skyrim.
Do remember that there is such a thing as too big. If much of the scenery is going to be missed with fast travel I would rather the effort be put into other aspects of the game, especially in the character design and personalities (Which was wonderfully done in DA, and barely exhibited in Skyrim).