Shadow Realms - Bioware

[Ingmar]

So, all those spam emails with the video teasers in them turn out to be for a 4 vs. 1 online PVP ARPG.

https://www.shadowrealms.com/

No indications of revenue model but I smell F2P in the air. Here's the blurb:

From the storytelling experts at BioWare comes Shadow Realms™, a new 4v1 story-driven Online Action RPG with dynamic co-op missions in a constantly evolving BioWare world.  Join an ongoing adventure with new episodes released frequently.  Experience the thrill of making your own choices as to the path you take through the story, uncovering new mysteries and revealing hidden twists unexpectedly as you progress.  Fight as a modern-day Hero who suddenly awakens with magical powers and is pulled into a dark realm and centuries old battle. Team up with three other Heroes in adventures facing off against a fantastic array of demonic bosses and supernatural creatures in a raging war against the Shadow Legions to save all of humanity. Summon all your powers as you prepare to battle a player-controlled Shadowlord, who possesses the ultimate weapon – the human mind.

The power is yours. You’ve been chosen.

[Ingmar]

James Ohlen seems to be in charge:

Hi, I’m James Ohlen, a veteran of BioWare and lead designer of games such as Baldur’s Gate, Star Wars™: Knights of the Old Republic™, Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ and Dragon Age: Origins. I want to introduce you to the latest game from BioWare, Shadow Realms.

Shadow Realms has its genesis in old school Dungeons & Dragons. When I first started designing BioWare RPGs back in the 90s, what drove me creatively was the desire to give players the experience I had while playing pen and paper games as a youth. The great storytelling, the feeling that anything could happen - these were experiences that you couldn’t find in any other game. And the great thing was that these adventures never had an end. A good Dungeon Master could keep a story going for months or even years.

BioWare RPGs have successfully replicated many of the things that made classic tabletop games fun: powerful storytelling, being able to create your own character, leveling-up that hero to achieve the heights of fantasy power, and tactical combat against a fantastic array of monsters. But the stories always come to an end and AI systems can’t replace the creativity of a human Dungeon Master.

Shadow Realms aims to change that.

It is a game that finally fulfills that fantasy of a never-ending RPG where the players meet up regularly to keep their epic adventures going for as long as they want. All the enemies, traps and challenges are squarely in the hands of another player, who controls them just like a Dungeon Master. The monsters and villains are smart and unpredictable, making every battle a test of strategy and power. Best of all, everyone gets to enjoy a story that plays out like their favorite TV series, but where they decide the fates of its world and characters.

Shadow Realms isn’t just hearkening back to those early BioWare PC games—it’s finally bringing the magic of tabletop RPGs to the digital realm.

James

[Lucas]

Bioware...AUSTIN 

[schild]

Origin. As far as I'm concerned, this game doesn't exist.

[Lantyssa]

I'm glad those e-mails sparked exactly zero interest in me.

[HaemishM]

So it's co-op Diablo meets PVP Dungeon Keeper in the Secret World.

Got it. Not even remotely interested.

[Stormwaltz]

Multiplayer action PvP through Origin.

It's like someone went out of their way to design the perfect game for me to hate. 

[rattran]

These fuckers have sent me far too many emails about this. It's all going into my spam folder.

[KallDrexx]

I love how every 2-3 years there's another game that's going to bring the "magic of table top playing", only for them to show they have no idea what makes table top playing fun.

[Ingmar]

I'm just glad it isn't a MOBA. I'm not sure this format lends itself well to Bioware Story Stuff (tm) but it's a long time before we'll see what they actually come up with here.

I don't care about Origin at all, as it works fine for me and it hasn't done anything awful to my computer, but that horse is well and truly beaten.

[Nebu]

I'm glad those e-mails sparked exactly zero interest in me.

Yup.  My thoughts exactly.

[koro]

First Evolve, and now this. I wonder if companies are trying to make these 4v1 asymmetric multiplayer deals into the Next Big Thing.

[Ingmar]

First Evolve, and now this. I wonder if companies are trying to make these 4v1 asymmetric multiplayer deals into the Next Big Thing.

Fable Legends too.

[Hoax]

Sounds fun but I will never ever install Origin. Thats a nonstarter for me.

[Cyrrex]

I have no choice but to deal with Origin, because of my boys and the occasional Battlefield, Sims or Fifa game they absolutely must play.  It doesn't bother me a whole lot and I can't see that it has directly murdered either of their machines (they do plenty of other bullshit that is probably riskier anyway), but goddamn if the multiplayer interaction doesn't make me stabby.  Literally have each of their machines on the same LAN network, both with Origin installed, both with Battlefield 3 installed, both on each other's Friends List...but good luck trying to get into the same game.  I know it is possible, but if I have to spend more than 2 minute trying to figure out how to make something so simple work, than to hell with that.

Curious about this game, but I doubt I would play it anyway, Origin or no.

[Sky]

I'm glad those e-mails sparked exactly zero interest in me.

Yep. Quite the opposite, really.

[Rasix]

I'm a giant Bioware fanboy, but I don't give a shit about this. 

Origin is such a non factor (it really does nothing, I don't see why people care so much), but this new sub genre companies are pushing doesn't work for me or interest me at all.

[Hoax]

I care because I've had to or tried to use it 3 times. Every time its been fucking horrible at just letting me play a game I own without dealing with a bunch of cocked up shit. Origin is just like Google+ its a thing I never asked for and don't need or want that they are trying to force on me to compete with a rival. Considering the fact that EA is literally hitler they were on a short leash and after spending at least an hour getting all the Mass Effect 2 dlc I owned working thanks to Origin being a giant fucking piece of shit I vowed never again would I put up with such cockamamie bullshit.

 

To be fair you asked. Sort of.

[Phildo]

Getting Mass Effect 2's DLC working on Steam is also a pain in the ass.  Just saying.

[Rasix]

To be fair you asked. Sort of.

And I got your typical measured, reasonable response.  Yay.  

I don't buy DLC typically, so, I haven't run into that phenomenon. It worked for the whole 2 games I've bought off it.  I bought the games and played them.  

Uplay, on the other hand, was a somewhat terrible experience.  

edit: I only used it for one game, I guess.  I must have actually picked up a physical copy of DA2.  Although, I supposed that used Origin for whatever.    Bleh, moot point anywhere in regards to this game.  As is, not interested.  I guess I'll be wrestling with the demon spawn of EA come DA3, since I'm done with physical copies.

[Sky]

Origin is better than the old half-assed Bioware community portal. Not saying much. Also, complaining about matchmaking in a DICE game is, well, it's DICE.

I'd rather every publisher didn't decide they needed their own community portal/store front, but that's where we are. I barely notice them for the most part - even Ubi backed off on their portal software when I exit Rocksmith now.

Which is neither here nor there because we should really be discussing the $$ spent on promoting what sounds like a very niche game in a weird genre for Bioware AUSTIN. I guess lessons were not learned from TOR.

[Ingmar]

Yeah getting DLC to work through Origin has been fine for me. The old community portal nonsense was awful, Origin is a vast improvement. ME3 multiplayer worked perfectly for me, as well.

[Kageru]

I don't hate Origin any-more... once they moved into their own little ghetto I never visit I had no reason to care. And since EA taints every company it consumes I can't see any reason that would change.

[HaemishM]

Origin is a piece of shit, though. I have no problems with it at home, but twice now since Battlefield 4 came out, it has just stopped working on my work computer's network. It will connect to the Origin service just fine, but if I try to launch anything that has been patched or requires a download (so you know, basically everything on the service), it won't download and often doesn't even give me an error message. I got it to work right once by talking with EA Support, it worked fine for months, then the last BF4 patch, it just stopped working again. Google searches reveal lots of people have the problem, no one has a solution.

[Sjofn]

I'm a giant Bioware fanboy, but I don't give a shit about this. 

Origin is such a non factor (it really does nothing, I don't see why people care so much), but this new sub genre companies are pushing doesn't work for me or interest me at all.

Awww, I was hoping you'd play with me and Ingmar! 

Origin doesn't bug me either, beyond the "bleh I'd rather have everything through Steam" aspect. I've gotten all my Sims 3 shit through it without a hitch, though, and never had an issue doing multiplayer with friends in ME3 (although grant you, I didn't do that very often).

[Rasix]

Awww, I was hoping you'd play with me and Ingmar! 

I'm sure you guys could talk me into it.  My weakness is legendary the closer to release a game gets.

[Sjofn]

You just have to be okay with Ingmar making sure he talks to EVERY NPC HE SEES.

[Lantyssa]

So an evil GM will make a ton of NPCs and a timer...

[Stormwaltz]

Origin has apparently improved quite a bit in both performance and honesty.

That said, I'm not likely to forgive them for their early habit of datamining users' hard drives and selling that information to business partners.

Also, it's completely possible to have a game registered with an Origin account for DRM purposes without requiring the problematic client be installed (see: SWTOR, Sims 3), so making Origin a requirement for new single player games (DA:I, Sims 4) just pisses me off by it's utter purposelessness.

[Cyrrex]

I'm repeating myself, but my Origin complaint - aside from simply having yet another application that has to be installed - is that it is far less reliable and easy to use compared to Steam.

The double whammy is having to have an Origin account for console versions of these games.  When you have to both have a Playstation Plus account (which isn't the same as the user account per se), and an Origin account, and you are trying to make it work smoothly for two boys who understandably want to have their own accounts in play and maybe even one for yourself.....FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!  So stabby.  It cannot be done in any sane way.  I can only guess what it would be like trying to do that through Windows Live on xbox - you couldn't pay me to even try.  Even when you get it working for one user, one service or the other goes down and you can't play have your game and you have no idea why.

So despite essentially being more or less the same thing, Steam feels like a nice service that helps you purchase, download and manage games easily.  Origin feels like an unnecessary layer of nonsense you have to go through to get your game working.  And I really wish it weren't so, because they actually do have some nice prices on games that I want to play sometimes.

[Phildo]

Is this going to be Free To Play?  Maybe I'll try it out if that's the case.  Playing the boss character could be entertaining.

[Shannow]

The double whammy is having to have an Origin account for console versions of these games.  When you have to both have a Playstation Plus account (which isn't the same as the user account per se), and an Origin account, and you are trying to make it work smoothly for two boys who understandably want to have their own accounts in play and maybe even one for yourself.....FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!  So stabby.  It cannot be done in any sane way. 

Let me tell you a little story about the time Origin wiped out my son's FIFA account and it taking 6 weeks to fix....

[Merusk]

But think of the companies. How else are they going to collect your data when they're required to have opt-out choices for second and third party vendors.  If they don't require you to login, they could be denied their constitutional-granted right to your marketing information.

[Nevermore]

So this was canceled.  With hints coming right out and saying that BioWare will be refocusing their efforts into SWTOR.

[Fabricated]

How bad does a game have to be to get shitcanned so the team can add content to an F2P Also-ran to WoW?