Over and over and over, this charge appears everywhere. From the lead designer of DA2, Mike Laidlaw, to almost every lover of Dragon Age 2. "BW fanboys are bitter, stuck in the mud, and if we follow them, RPG games will never, ever evolve."
That's fine, as far as it goes. It makes sense to not stay in the past, and, as a long-time RPGer, I have to confess that I've taken this view more than once. For me, NWN was an abject failure of a game, leading to me not buying NWN2 until two years after release (which in hindsight is rather gutting, because I loved it). At the time, I wondered if the port to 3d was at the root, and that perhaps 2d would be better. That was short-sighted and incorrect - it was the abysmal, disjointed story that was the problem, not the graphics.
So seeing this charge levelled against long-time RPGers, I could understand the sentiment.
But I think this time, the new fanboys (those of DA2), and Mike Laidlaw, have got it completely the wrong way round.
Dragon Age was a fairly big change-up from the old DnD system Bioware was more familiar with, but was largely approved of. The combat system was new and different, the world a different entity, its mechanics (overly complex perhaps, even compared to DnD), but new.
What those moaning about DA2 are moaning about is NOT change. It is familiarity. The charges levelled against DA2, are that its a console game - and I choose here to allow them some charity, because I don't think this is the clamouring of PC gaming elitists. Truly.
I think its against something different: the type of game that ends up on consoles. Everyone's played them: the button-bashing, no-thought-required games that are all flash and pizzazz, and that are brilliant for what they are - time-consumers, a bit of relaxation, great to play with friends - but not the kind of thing that outlives its generation. The console has more of these than the PC, I suspect because the limited number of buttons, the more relaxed image of the console-player as a gamer, and the more communal nature of the activity. But for whatever reason, they're flash-in-a-pan games. The next big thing that swiftly becomes forgotten.
The RPG crowd are rejecting what they see as a step towards this kind of game. The flashy, quickly-developed money-spinner, that is soon forgotten for the next thing. They are familiar with it, and the very fact that they play RPGs is a sort of rejection of this model of gaming. Fans of NWN are STILL developing modules for it. The same is true of NWN2. Fans have dedicated ten years or more to these games - something that even its biggest fans, will, i suspect, acknowledge is not possible in Dragon Age 2 (and to a lesser extent, Dragon Age). IN this regard, I don't think DLC is a bad way to go - it allows developers to continue to gain money from long-time obsessions, so that they can justify such long development cycles.
What the fans wanted from Bioware, what they had come to expect, were instant classics, brilliant for their story. What they had rejected were those games that were flash, with little substance. Laidlaw's statement effectively states that: flashy games with small development cycles are the way the industry is developing, the way we are moving, get over it.
But this is not what the fans want, is not the type of game the old fans want, that I want: Bioware gains a significant income from its old fans, precisely because they're the last bastion of true RPG gaming in an industry that is increasingly moving in another direction. Is it any surprise the fans don't like that?
Yes, it's change, but it's change to become increasingly like everything else - a trend that Bioware, with Black Isle, initially gained so much money - and so many fans - from bucking. The fans are clamouring for difference. Its Bioware's move towards homogenization that is the problem.
