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BioWare vs Frostbite


Rion_Starkiller

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Interesting article I found today:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-11-19-former-bioware-gm-opens-up-about-difficulties-of-frostbite-engine

 

"But then chapter two comes along, and we switched to an engine called Frostbite. And Frostbite is an EA internal engine; very powerful, fast, beautiful, purpose built to do some really cool stuff. But it's also extremely delicate and needs a huge crew."

 

Flynn compared the Frostbite Engine to a Formula One car, which can move incredibly fast and represents the pinnacle of a certain kind of tech. However, F1 cars are also very difficult to run at their peak, and prone to issues that need to be tended to by large groups of specialists.

 

"Incredible, impressive feats of technology, really at the bleeding edge of what's possible," Flynn said. "But they require a huge crew of folks to maintain them and get that optimum performance out of them. And that really is the metaphor for at least the earliest days of Frostbite."

Edited by Rion_Starkiller
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To be honest, Frostbite became too much of a go-to excuse for Bioware in the recent years (even if all via unofficial off-record quotes). Yes, the engine SUCKS unless you're making an FPS, but at the same time Bioware's ability to iterate and use already available resources sucks too.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition came out in 2014, was the first RPG build on Frostbite and I can absolutely understand the team struggle to build save/load system, dialogue systems, inventories etc from scratch.

 

But then, 3 years later we hear the EXACT SAME THING about Andromeda developement. But why? Why waste time building the same basic features from scratch when the DAI team already done them? Why not use the already created code, even if only as a basis, to speed-up things and avoid some of the same issues?

 

And then 2 years later the exact same excues with Anthem. I do not buy for a second that anyone, or EA, forbids different Bioware teams/sub-studios from sharing tech and code.

 

Ironically, each game was worse and worse technically and more bug ridden and it was the DAI team, which really had nothing to work on when it came to essential RPG features in Frostbite's code, that delivered the most polished game of the 3.

 

So yeah...

Edited by Pietrastor
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Interesting article I found today:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-11-19-former-bioware-gm-opens-up-about-difficulties-of-frostbite-engine

 

"But then chapter two comes along, and we switched to an engine called Frostbite. And Frostbite is an EA internal engine; very powerful, fast, beautiful, purpose built to do some really cool stuff. But it's also extremely delicate and needs a huge crew."

 

Flynn compared the Frostbite Engine to a Formula One car, which can move incredibly fast and represents the pinnacle of a certain kind of tech. However, F1 cars are also very difficult to run at their peak, and prone to issues that need to be tended to by large groups of specialists.

 

"Incredible, impressive feats of technology, really at the bleeding edge of what's possible," Flynn said. "But they require a huge crew of folks to maintain them and get that optimum performance out of them. And that really is the metaphor for at least the earliest days of Frostbite."

 

Rion, is part of your sig Homer Simpson laying on his back?

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To be honest, Frostbite became too much of a go-to excuse for Bioware in the recent years (even if all via unofficial off-record quotes). Yes, the engine SUCKS unless you're making an FPS, but at the same time Bioware's ability to iterate and use already available resources sucks too.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition came out in 2014, was the first RPG build on Frostbite and I can absolutely understand the team struggle to build save/load system, dialogue systems, inventories etc from scratch.

 

But then, 3 years later we hear the EXACT SAME THING about Andromeda developement. But why? Why waste time building the same basic features from scratch when the DAI team already done them? Why not use the already created code, even if only as a basis, to speed-up things and avoid some of the same issues?

 

And then 2 years later the exact same excues with Anthem. I do not buy for a second that anyone, or EA, forbids different Bioware teams/sub-studios from sharing tech and code.

 

Ironically, each game was worse and worse technically and more bug ridden and it was the DAI team, which really had nothing to work on when it came to essential RPG features in Frostbite's code, that delivered the most polished game of the 3.

 

So yeah...

 

I agree...

 

So far it has been alot of ''None of our fault! the boogeyman did it, the Moon didn't show up that day...etc'' . Meaning, everytime they screw up, its Everyone ELSE fault (Teamwork loss, Management, the power That be, the Playerbase....EA or whatever, lack of money...etc) . But none of them own up to the mistake. Too busy finding something to hide behind :rolleyes:

 

I only have a question though : What engine was used to make the serie of Mass effect ? (1-3) . And if its a different engine, was it sold and handed over when the original owner sold BW to EA ??

 

Why wasn't that (assuming its a different engine) used instead ? (I already know thats probably EA pushing for their own engine to be used..but you never know if you don't ask lol) .

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Aaryn Flynn did a good job of not ******** all over FrostBite, while making it sound like he wanted to **** all over it. You guys really think FrostBite is that great? I mean, they didn't even make the new Jedi Fallen Order with it. Even the FIFA players have complained about this engine.

 

Anyway, the article says that it's very complex, and requires too many employees to staff the different arms of the engine, which is where I'm guessing BW runs into budgeting issues.

 

Rion, is part of your sig Homer Simpson laying on his back?

 

Close! It's Bender. And to his left is Zoidberg. :D It's single-line ascii art.

Edited by Rion_Starkiller
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I only have a question though : What engine was used to make the serie of Mass effect ? (1-3) . And if its a different engine, was it sold and handed over when the original owner sold BW to EA ??

 

The ME trilogy was made in Unreal Engine 3. It wasn't "sold" to EA because devs use UE under license, and using a competitor's tech is understandably a big no-no for EA when they have their own tech.

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