Wow, now this is really something to read...
Jason Schreier of Kotaku on "The Past & Present of Dragon Age 4":
https://kotaku.com/the-past-and-present-of-dragon-age-4-1833913351- DA4 (original version) was once code-named
Joplin.
- It was built off of DA: Inq's tools and that game's version of Frostbite.
- It was about playing as spies and you could go on heists.
- Joplin was A LOT smaller than DA: Inq and had way less "fetch" quests/MMO style quests/UbiSoft open-world questing.
- Joplin also had A LOT more decision-making, choices, and branching paths...and was definitely built for replay-ability (i.e. purposely built as the OPPOSITE of DA: Inq's Hinterlands area).
- A lot of the team was very happy and proud with how Joplin was going.
- Joplin got put on hold b/c of ME: Andromeda and Anthem, as those were in trouble and needed to be worked on.
- A lot of the Joplin team, they got moved over to ME: Andromeda and/or Anthem.
- EA's wanted more "Live Service" stuff, so DA4: Joplin version got canned.
- DA4 got rebooted and they are using the framework and version of Frostbite from Anthem.
- The new DA4 rebooted version that is now currently in development is known as
Morrison.
- Shortly after Morrison (the DA4 reboot), this is when Mike Laidlaw left.
- This is also when Mark Darrah became the executive producer for both DA4 (Morrison version) and Anthem.
- Some at BioWare that Jason talked to, they called Morrison basically "Anthem with Dragons".
- Some disagree with the above statement of Morrison being "Anthem with Dragons."
- We don't know yet how far the Multiplayer portion for Morrison will go.
- Main quest of Morrison should be able to be done all alone, even if the game becomes online-only.
- We don't know if the entire Morrison game will be online-only.
- We don't know if Morrison will have an offline mode.
- The next stuff mentioned isn't etched in stone yet.
- Some ideas tossed around for MP include a drop-in/drop-out co-op like the old BG games had.
- Another idea tossed around: some quests in MP could change not only based on what players locally decide, but also based on what players around the entire globe have decided.
