Developers you both love and hate

[natster43]

Valve: Love Left 4 Dead. Hate that most of the work for there games come from modders.

EA: Love their game developers. Hate there retarded ass Online Pass for dicking me over once ever.

Capcom: Love there games. Hate that it cost five+ dollars for costumes.

Nintendo: Love their games, systems, and portables. Hate that they can't make a good Mario Sports game anymore, also that I can't think of an actual thing I hate about them.

Ubisoft: Love Ass Creed. Hate Tomb Raider.

That is all I can think of.

 

[WorldCritic]

Immediately I think Sega. I hate that they haven't made a good Sonic game in year (I didn't have much fun with Sonic Colors) but they've made so many games that I love to death that I can't stay mad at them. Sega gets the honor of being my fifth favorite game company who would be higher on the list if it hadn't been for some truly stupid moves they've made.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I loved Bioware until recently. They have turned into prima donnas who cherry pick the parts of the community that they listen to. And that whole JRPG comment.

Did you see what happened to the social Bioware forum the week that DA2 was released? It was the reason I started posting on the Escapist. All it was were people who hadn't even bought the game complaining about non-existent issues, people talking about how they wouldn't buy the game because they didn't like how the world map design looked, misinformation, etc. Eventually they just made a forum section where only people with registered games could post. Then, someone started a thread based on constructive criticism for DA2, and that's reached 56 pages of people discussing the game, and making comments on what should be improved. That thread is also a sticky.

And even before that, Bioware wouldn't close down threads unless it dissolved into mere name-calling and insults.

OT: It's got to be squeenix for me, for reasons already listed.

I've been lurking recently. Those people want to lynch EA. 10% trolling DA2, 20% white knighting for Bioware, 20% like DA2, 30% don' like it, 10% hate DA2, 10% love DA2, and 100% curse EA for the short development time given to DA2. From what I've gathered. It is a mess and yet Mike Laidlaw is still trying to pass everything off as okay.

"It's always valid. You have to take a read of what the fans are saying, what reviews are saying, and what the non-fans are saying. Are there people out there who are saying, "I could not play Origins, but love Dragon Age II" or "I couldn't play Origins and this is more of the same." You have to keep your ear to the ground. Look at forums. Take a look at what comments are coming up. What are the common concerns? What are the common perceptions? I think the big key is to not adjust 180 degrees again, because we've done this. I think, as a team, we're quite happy with what we've done with Dragon Age II, and this is establishing a solid foundation that keeps a lot, in fact almost everything I want to keep about Origins, but still has tons of room to grow and, frankly, a more viable future for the franchise. It's one that's more sustainable because we brought the world to a place that's inherently more interesting than "Yay, we beat the Blight. Good for us!"

The man is digging his own grave.

 

[Ravnican]

I have to say EA. They publish some of my favorite games: Mass Effect 1 & 2, Dragon Age: Origins & II, The Sims 1 to 3, the Fight Night Series and more. But they're also the closest thing we have to OsCorp, which knocks quite a few points off.

 

[CleverCover]

Obsidian.

I would say why, but it would be repetitious.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

snip

I am to an extent. I think they have become quite arrogant. [http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/8006/bioware-you-can-put-a-j-in-front-of-it-but-final-fantasy-13-isnt-an-rpg] When one head honcho acts like a douchebag, I'll dismiss it. When multiple do it? I call foul.

 

[mireko]

I've been lurking recently. Those people want to lynch EA. 10% trolling DA2, 20% white knighting for Bioware, 20% like DA2, 30% don' like it, 10% hate DA2, 10% love DA2, and 100% curse EA for the short development time given to DA2. From what I've gathered. It is a mess and yet Mike Laidlaw is still trying to pass everything off as okay.

"It's always valid. You have to take a read of what the fans are saying, what reviews are saying, and what the non-fans are saying. Are there people out there who are saying, "I could not play Origins, but love Dragon Age II" or "I couldn't play Origins and this is more of the same." You have to keep your ear to the ground. Look at forums. Take a look at what comments are coming up. What are the common concerns? What are the common perceptions? I think the big key is to not adjust 180 degrees again, because we've done this. I think, as a team, we're quite happy with what we've done with Dragon Age II, and this is establishing a solid foundation that keeps a lot, in fact almost everything I want to keep about Origins, but still has tons of room to grow and, frankly, a more viable future for the franchise. It's one that's more sustainable because we brought the world to a place that's inherently more interesting than "Yay, we beat the Blight. Good for us!"

The man is digging his own grave.

In all of that, it doesn't really look like he actually said anything. You'll notice that he doesn't offer any objective comments, just "we're quite happy with [DA2]", "[DA2] keeps almost everything I want to keep about Origins". He never openly states.. well, anything. Just that they're happy with the game, which is really neither here nor there.

Summarized, it's "We're listening to the community, and we're also not listening to the community. We're not changing more things, and we're also not not changing more things." The only thing he seems to say is that the setting became more interesting. If there are other posts that make his opinion more clear, then sure, but this is just PR waffling.


But what's the JRPG comment? I've never read anything in the BioWare forum, so I must have missed it.

EDIT: I am way too slow.

[sub]I was going to compare him to a Dabus, but that was a Black Isle game..[/sub]

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I've been lurking recently. Those people want to lynch EA. 10% trolling DA2, 20% white knighting for Bioware, 20% like DA2, 30% don' like it, 10% hate DA2, 10% love DA2, and 100% curse EA for the short development time given to DA2. From what I've gathered. It is a mess and yet Mike Laidlaw is still trying to pass everything off as okay.

"It's always valid. You have to take a read of what the fans are saying, what reviews are saying, and what the non-fans are saying. Are there people out there who are saying, "I could not play Origins, but love Dragon Age II" or "I couldn't play Origins and this is more of the same." You have to keep your ear to the ground. Look at forums. Take a look at what comments are coming up. What are the common concerns? What are the common perceptions? I think the big key is to not adjust 180 degrees again, because we've done this. I think, as a team, we're quite happy with what we've done with Dragon Age II, and this is establishing a solid foundation that keeps a lot, in fact almost everything I want to keep about Origins, but still has tons of room to grow and, frankly, a more viable future for the franchise. It's one that's more sustainable because we brought the world to a place that's inherently more interesting than "Yay, we beat the Blight. Good for us!"

The man is digging his own grave.

In all of that, it doesn't really look like he actually said anything. You'll notice that he doesn't offer any objective comments, just "we're quite happy with [DA2]", "[DA2] keeps almost everything I want to keep about Origins". He never openly states.. well, anything. Just that they're happy with the game, which is really neither here nor there.

Summarized, it's "We're listening to the community, and we're also not listening to the community. We're not changing more things, and we're also not not changing more things." The only thing he seems to say is that the setting became more interesting. If there are other posts that make his opinion more clear, then sure, but this is just PR waffling.


But what's the JRPG comment? I've never read anything in the BioWare forum, so I must have missed it.

EDIT: I am way too slow.

[sub]I was going to compare him to a Dabus, but that was a Black Isle game..[/sub]

The whole interview. [http://www.gamespot.com/features/6305575/index.html]
And the reaction on the forum. [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6752788/1]
EDIT: Just want to clear something up. I am not trolling. I don't hate Bioware. I know I've been coming off as super negative recently. I loved DA:O. I've beaten it 5 times. I'm just extremely disappointed in the sequel.

 

[ninjawpenguin]

I'm gonna have to go with the Bioware theme that seems to be emerging. I love their games, and I love the freedom they offer, but all of them just seem to be missing something.

And DA2 just pissed me off with the dungeon swap stuff. Would it have killed you to add in a few different dungeons? I would have waited the few extra months, I promise.

 

[EllEzDee]

Valve.
They make some great games, but their choices over the past 2 years have lead me to believe Gabe has suffered some kind of internal hemorrhaging.
They can either earn back some of the lost trust with a fantastic Portal 2, or, if it sucks, they can find someone else to milk money out of.

 

[mireko]

The whole interview. [http://www.gamespot.com/features/6305575/index.html]
And the reaction on the forum. [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6752788/1]
EDIT: Just want to clear something up. I am not trolling. I don't hate Bioware. I know I've been coming off as super negative recently. I loved DA:O. I've beaten it 5 times. I'm just extremely disappointed in the sequel.

Oh. I didn't realize he'd gone into quite so much detail.

We wanted to make RPGs, especially fantasy RPGs, accessible, cool, and interesting to people who have been playing RPGs for the last seven years and not realizing that every time they ate food or went for a long run in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, they were essentially grinding constitution.

That's... ominous.

I can understand being disappointed in the sequel, although the only thing I really *hated* was going to the same dungeon over and over again. The plot is still better (in my ever-humble opinion), even if it is irritating to go through the same corridors and fight the same shadows to finish more requests for Elizabeth [small]dark hour, kirijo group, tartarus, ryoji is bad, shut up junpei, persona 3 references.[/small]

 

[AnimatedAmbiguity]

The only one that comes to mind is EA. They have rather superb repertoire of titles, but the company itself still leaves a lot to be desired. (I.E. Juvenile marketing techniques and insanely shoddy DLC, to name but a few things.)

 

[mireko]

Anyway, Game Republic.

Hey, it's the company that made Folklore! Let's see what their next project is.. oh, it's a Clash of the Titans tie-in game.. well, that can't be good. What's next? Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom? They're doing the same thing Team ICO is doing? I don't see that ending well.. so what now? Knights Contract? Is it any-JUST MAKE SOMETHING AS GOOD AS FOLKLORE AGAIN, YOU PRICKS.

CyberConnect2

.hack was cool, I'm sure you have loads of other exciting projects lined up, right?

Wait, no, just Naruto games, my own fault for getting interested, I guess.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

Obsidian may just have the greatest writers in the business. Knights of the Old Republic 2 proved that they were more than capable of taking the story conventions of an established franchise and turn them on their head in a smart and thought provoking way. It's just too bad that they couldn't program their way out of a bag. They could probably manage to crash Minecraft without even dipping into the code.

Relic is another one that I can't help but love and hate at the same time. Not because they make bad games, but because they still haven't made Homeworld 3, even though their parent company bought the license back. With limited resources they could make one of the most gorgeous tactical RTS experiences we've ever seen, but no, they won't. Homeworld 2 didn't have a story worthy of the franchise, and I need closure!

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

snip

Different opinions. That is one of the reasons I liked P4 more than P3. It felt like you were running through the same dungeon for 250+ floors. Tartarus runs got boring. At least they tried to make the dungeons have more variation in 4. It will be fun to watch when Laidlaw starts bashing DA2 when DA3 is about to come out. Ah, the circle of life in the PR department.

 

[mireko]

snip

Different opinions. That is one of the reasons I liked P4 more than P3. It felt like you were running through the same dungeon for 250+ floors. Tartarus runs got boring. At least they tried to make the dungeons have more variation in 4. It will be fun to watch when Laidlaw starts bashing DA2 when DA3 is about to come out. Ah, the circle of life in the PR department.

Yeah, I agree. Well, there was that and some of the really silly parts of P3: Strega, the absurdly powerful Kirijo group and its robots (I loved Aigis, but she didn't do wonders for my suspension of disbelief), SEES and so on.

I think the Persona series is a good example of scaling down a plot to a more personal level. In P3 it was always very clear that you were fighting to save all the victims of the Apathy Syndrome, as well as the entire world (that's never a spoiler). In P4, while you do save the world eventually, it's mostly about saving your friends and whoever else gets dragged into the Midnight Channel.

DA2 wasn't as successful as that (kind of a tough act to follow), but I still think scaling the plot down was an effective way to investigate smaller aspects of the setting (parallel to examining each individual character's psychology in P4). Still, different opinions, yes.

It's nearly impossible to tell who is involved in what with BioWare's games now. Dragon Age, Mass Effect and The Old Republic are all being worked on by different departments, and that can't do wonders for the integrity of their games. However selfish it may sound, on some level I hope TOR fails so they can get back to making stuff I care about.

[sub]I wonder if the fans will follow his lead and argue that DA2 was TOTALLY BALDUR'S GATE AND THIS NEW ONE IS HALO EFFECT: EMPIRE.[/sub]

 

[mikev7.0]

Capcom.
They make some really, really good games, but they always manage to make one mistake that screws everything up.

Street Fighter IV- Seth
Marvel Vs. Capcom 3- Sentinel
Bionic Commando- Those Biomech things.

Just to name a few. I know all of these can be overcome by not sucking at the game, but they ruin this unskilled customer's fun, so I hate them for it.

Oh, and the whole DLC thing. If their games weren't so good to start with, I'd stop being suckered into buying overpriced expansions for them.
Seriously, 800 Microsoft points for two MvC3 characters? Jill and Shuma-Gorath aren't even that fun to play as!

Y'know I was just going to jump on the "EA is no longer what it was and now that it's wearing it's Pimp hat WAY too close to the Bioware offices my inner child feels threatened." band wagon but you had to pay 10 bucks for two characters and one of them was Shuma Gorrath??

...

You win. Capcom. I love em' but yeah Seth was....was....(god sometimes I wish I could use the word "cheap")....hard....TOO hard. An' I've never liked Sentinels, and now I fear running into the Biomechs in a game that I just got and HAD anticipated would be a lot of fun *grumble* Actually it IS a lot of fun and I'll probably enjoy the Biomech fights but another thing you reminded me of is how they ripped Survival out of Super Street Fighter IV and that's how I used to have fun practicing! Then there's Resident Evil 5 to consider and I still kinda' blame them for the poor ability to count to three amongst children who were fighting game fans when they were growing up. Inexcusable. On the up side tho' they do have quite an impressive understanding of synonyms... Thank god I dodged the Steel Battalion bullet...this could have gone on for pages.

Yet Shuma Gorrath? Ten Bucks? REALLY?? Wait you didn't actually PAY that did you??

 

[kortin]

Bethesda for fucking up Fallout 3/Oblivion so much, but making Morrowind such a good game.

Valve for making amazing games but taking too long.

Hm. I always thought morrowind was shit and Oblivion was amazing. I can't tell you how many times I threw the xbox controller on the ground because I couldn't fucking hit the damn monster/person/animal. I can't say anything about the storyline because I spent so much time going "oh, people like morrowind, i think i'll play that." then after fighting the first monster i remember how much the game pissed me off then quit.

Valve: PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, ANNOUNCE EPISODE 3! I'M DYING!!

Nintendo: I have always loved your games nintendo...but, you really need to come up with better games. I didn't even bother trying out The Other M. Come up with new characters and new worlds! You've done it before! Oh wait. Thats taking a risk. Can't risk trying out something new. Nope.

Treyarch: Alright, so really, i have little love for this company. Amazing campaign, terrible everything else. Reused zombie mode (although the masses were screaming for it, guess I can't complain when im the minority eh?) and guns that all shoot the exact same. They balanced the shit out of guns. And the fun.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

However selfish it may sound, on some level I hope TOR fails so they can get back to making stuff I care about.

I do too, but there is one problem. The amount of money invested in it is staggering. If TOR fails then Bioware might follow. Which is why I'm torn on the issue. I see where you are coming from on the last comment, but I think revisonism wasn't a problem with Origins. I never had a computer growing up so I couldn't play the earlier, awesome RPGs of the time. (I plan on remedying this over summer break with GoG.com)

I agree with you in terms of Mass Effect. ME2 comes out, suddenly, ME is this amazingly deep RPG. The truth was that ME was barely a RPG in the first place. ME2 just dropped all pretenses and made it a shooter. Which worked then, but Mass Effecting a set-in-stone fantasy RPG just isn't going to sit well with a lot of fans.

 

[mikev7.0]

Like many here it has to be Square Enix for me.

Its like they've lost all their passion and common sense.

In my eyes Lost Odyssey was more of a Final Fantasy XIII then the actual XIII was!!

Its all gone downhill since Final Fantasy 10 was released, (the last good main Final Fantasy game in my opinion!).

Its such a shame, because there have been quite a few diamonds with all the extra rough they have been releasing lately.

The World Ends With You was a fantastic game!

But for every good game they make, there's about 3 or 4 bad ones!

For their own sakes they need to throw out all the stuff they have been doing lately, and go back to those old classics, analyse them, and actually PLAY them.
They have no excuses on that front considering all the ports they have done!

If they can pick apart what mades those games good, and EXPAND on them, (rather than just copy it!), then the quality should improve!

Note to self: Pick up a copy of Lost Odyssey, STAT. Also I've heard a lot of escapists mention Square Enix but why no mention of Infinite Undiscovery or Star Ocean? I think those games are great. Is it that it's not Final Fantasy? (A game I couldn't get into since I never seemed to have the right system.)