Not very tempting.Orc Town Grot said:
Now I'm really not a naysayer, but I'm veeery skeptical about the last part, innovative storytelling.
Dragon Age: Inquistion - Can Bioware Survive Another Misstep?
- Thread starter Paragon Fury
- Start date
This again. It was one game. One game that wasn't entirely up to *their own* standards. People need to lighten up a little.
I for one, am very much looking forward to DA:I. Yes, I wasn't exactly thrilled about DA2, and I too had envisioned a different ending to ME3.
Fact of the matter is, Bioware is the studio that pretty much sets the standard in this genre. There are only two big names out there that publish titles that compete with theirs, one of which started doing exactly what they were doing because they loved their Bioware games so much, that they wanted to do the same thing.
They have released nothing but really good products, with something to like and dislike for everyone. In franchises, usually what you expect from a sequal is the same game with added stuff. With DA2, that's not what you got. They tried a lot of new things, some for the better. The attitude changing protagonist? Brilliant. Let's not go prologue > four worlds > endgame but stay in a single region? Smart and daring.
The waves of enemies and repeated scenery didn't strike my fancy, but it suits the narrative, by way of Varric's delivery. I imagine, that if I were to tell the story about Commander Shepard, there's going to be a lot of 'and then they were in another metal room fighting hordes of Krogan'.
I didn't want to go o/t defending a game, and I apologize for doing so. The point I wanted to make is - take stuff as they come. If you can't live with a game because it has feature X instead of Y, by all means don't play it. But here's a studio that really knows what it's doing, and cannot be blamed for trying something new within a franchise. It cannot be blamed for *having to* do a product in far less time than needed.
I'm fairly confident that allocated time/budget thing was not the BW's dev team's choice, and that a lot of the creatives there were not entirely satisfied with the end result. This is probably a result of them having to work on two more titles at the same time. In my nightmares too, some EA manager calls up Laidlaw and says 'What do you mean, you need three years? We can get a Fifa something title out in two months with half the staff. You get six. Don't forget to tell 'em to buy DLC.'
But that has already happened. Players, creatives at BW, and EA themselves have felt the resulting outcome on DA2. And they, as much as you - expect a better result. I'm positive they would not have started a project like this again without learning anything from the previous installment. Just, have a little faith.
I for one, am very much looking forward to DA:I. Yes, I wasn't exactly thrilled about DA2, and I too had envisioned a different ending to ME3.
Fact of the matter is, Bioware is the studio that pretty much sets the standard in this genre. There are only two big names out there that publish titles that compete with theirs, one of which started doing exactly what they were doing because they loved their Bioware games so much, that they wanted to do the same thing.
They have released nothing but really good products, with something to like and dislike for everyone. In franchises, usually what you expect from a sequal is the same game with added stuff. With DA2, that's not what you got. They tried a lot of new things, some for the better. The attitude changing protagonist? Brilliant. Let's not go prologue > four worlds > endgame but stay in a single region? Smart and daring.
The waves of enemies and repeated scenery didn't strike my fancy, but it suits the narrative, by way of Varric's delivery. I imagine, that if I were to tell the story about Commander Shepard, there's going to be a lot of 'and then they were in another metal room fighting hordes of Krogan'.
I didn't want to go o/t defending a game, and I apologize for doing so. The point I wanted to make is - take stuff as they come. If you can't live with a game because it has feature X instead of Y, by all means don't play it. But here's a studio that really knows what it's doing, and cannot be blamed for trying something new within a franchise. It cannot be blamed for *having to* do a product in far less time than needed.
I'm fairly confident that allocated time/budget thing was not the BW's dev team's choice, and that a lot of the creatives there were not entirely satisfied with the end result. This is probably a result of them having to work on two more titles at the same time. In my nightmares too, some EA manager calls up Laidlaw and says 'What do you mean, you need three years? We can get a Fifa something title out in two months with half the staff. You get six. Don't forget to tell 'em to buy DLC.'
But that has already happened. Players, creatives at BW, and EA themselves have felt the resulting outcome on DA2. And they, as much as you - expect a better result. I'm positive they would not have started a project like this again without learning anything from the previous installment. Just, have a little faith.
I have no doubt DA:I will be financially successful, but personally I have lost all interest in Bioware games.
Why all the Bioware hate? All three of the games mentioned in the op were good games. Mass Effect 3 was great until the very end (literally). Mechanically it was probably the best of the three mass effect games which is an accomplishment in and of itself. Dragon Age two had some problems but again the game was mechanically sound (some might be upset by the changes they made to the game so that it would be more console friendly, but from what I understand, pc gamers could just plug in a controller and enjoy the experience the same way console players could), and honestly the game had Varric so you can't hate it too much. SW:TOR may have gone free to play but it still has a size able player base and is making EA money, the wouldn't continue running the servers if they weren't. Honestly Bioware must be doing something right because we are all still buying and playing their games. I have yet to play a bad Bioware game, and to be honest I don't think we will be seeing one from the anytime soon.
Short answer: NO.
Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Bioware isn't the company it used to be. They also seemed to have caught that unfortunate foot-in-mouth bug that EA's had for so long. The hate for Bioware isn't just because of their games its because of their PR and worsening relationship with their consumers and fans. The info in the recent DA:I articles have shown Bioware is taking steps in the right direction, but this is pretty much their last chance for a lot of fans.
I love Dragon Age, still play it. Heck, even my forum name is from Dragon Age. But DAII was a disaster, and the two games following it were each worse. That is three strikes as far as I'm concerned. I'm no longer a Bioware fan and I won't buy this game. I'll rent it or buy it a year later when more is known about it.
The thing that will be most telling is how Bioware reacts to criticism of the game, both good and bad.
Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Bioware isn't the company it used to be. They also seemed to have caught that unfortunate foot-in-mouth bug that EA's had for so long. The hate for Bioware isn't just because of their games its because of their PR and worsening relationship with their consumers and fans. The info in the recent DA:I articles have shown Bioware is taking steps in the right direction, but this is pretty much their last chance for a lot of fans.
I love Dragon Age, still play it. Heck, even my forum name is from Dragon Age. But DAII was a disaster, and the two games following it were each worse. That is three strikes as far as I'm concerned. I'm no longer a Bioware fan and I won't buy this game. I'll rent it or buy it a year later when more is known about it.
The thing that will be most telling is how Bioware reacts to criticism of the game, both good and bad.
You may hate it, but in the case of DA:O, apparently less than 5% of players played the Dwarf origins and only just over 10% used the Elf ones. Obviously the vast majority of players selected human even when given the choice (there's a nice graphic they put out that shows the numbers which I can't find, but David Gaider talks about them in this BSN thread [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/5821847/]).the hidden eagle said:
Personally, I like having more choices as well, but if the majority of people don't use them I don't think you can make blanket statements about that choice making the genre, or that humans are bland/boring in any absolute way.
I get the impression that they are still very successful despite the backlash from fans.
DA 3 wouldn't have come out at all if DA 2 was half as bad as threads would have you believe.
How was ME 3 a failure?
That game shipped huge numbers and was well received.
People got angry about the ending, sure, but that's just 20 minutes of a 40 hour game that people otherwise praised.
DA 3 will have to severely fail for the franchise to come to an end.
By fail, I mean critically and financially speaking.
DA 3 wouldn't have come out at all if DA 2 was half as bad as threads would have you believe.
How was ME 3 a failure?
That game shipped huge numbers and was well received.
People got angry about the ending, sure, but that's just 20 minutes of a 40 hour game that people otherwise praised.
DA 3 will have to severely fail for the franchise to come to an end.
By fail, I mean critically and financially speaking.
Mostly just on name recognition alone, no less.The Madman said:
I doubt even most of the people who have "given up have stopped buying from them, because talk and action are very different things. But they'll continue to be popular even if this game is a massive failure, yes.
That's hardly surprising, being something of an endemic problem within fantasy RPG's all around. Players either want familiarity, a player-character with which they can empathize more strongly, or are simply lazy or unimaginative. That means human.Raikas said:
Look at World of Warcraft [http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php], for example. The only race that approaches human in popularity is blood elf, attributable to that humans cannot play Horde, blood elves are the most human-like race in the Horde, and they were the first Horde race (and currently, one of two) able to be paladins (the second-most popular class). That's despite humans' lackluster racial traits, starting zones, and plot lines.
I can see the interest in cutting overwhelmingly unpopular content in the name of focusing resources on polishing the most-popular content, but on the other hand Dragon Age is still dark fantasy and the expectation of playing non-human races was still well-established (and was a major selling point) in the first game.
I don't disagree that it's a well-established feature, but I'd still argue that a feature that very few people use can hardly be a strong selling point.Eacaraxe said:
That may be, but that also only validates the idea that it can't be part of the genre appeal of the genre if the vast majority of people don't care about it (although I don't know if the actually stats show that those human-players were genuinely playing the default male/human noble/warrior as opposed to a female or mage or alternate appearance one).the hidden eagle said:
The game was titled after the first hour of each playthrough (the origin story). The origin stories were a huge chunk of the pre-release publicity and advertising, that your perspectives of the game's conflicts and questions will be directly shaped by your character's origin story, and that origin stories continue influencing game content (in admittedly oft-small ways) well beyond the prelude. BioWare did come through with that, too.Raikas said:
DA2, on the other hand, reduced that to "you're either an apostate, or your sister is one. Which do you like better, Swording Things for She-Jesus, or Spelling Things for FREEDUMBS?". Don't even get me started on the damn ending, which asked you "if you had to side with mass-murdering lunatics, would you prefer them to have swords or magic?" without even the potential for a third solution in the form of concluding both sides are fuckin' morons who no longer deserved the privilege of continued breathing, or simply doing the smart thing and getting the hell out of dodge. Overselling a "both sides are bad" narrative I can at least understand, but doing it without alternatives to doing the stupid thing and choosing a side I can't.
No one is disagreeing with that. What I'm challenging is the idea that that's a major selling feature for a large portion of the potential audience. Yeah, they used for Origins, but if the vast majority of gamers were interested in playing it for other reasons (and given that most people didn't make use of the different origins, certainly suggests that other features were a major draw for most of the people buying the game.Eacaraxe said:
Again, that feature was a draw for me (and clearly for you, and many others here), but we're clearly not in the majority on that.
Eh, you could just as easily mock DA:O's story with "Do you kill the dragon and die with it, or do you hook up with Morrigan and kill the dragon and survive?" Neither game had a terribly complex plot (although I might argue that at least DA2 tried a little harder along those lines, even if that meant that when it failed, it failed more strikingly).
I mean, I actually liked both games (although for different reasons), but the main plot wasn't one of those reasons for either one.
No, it won't be the end of Bioware until EA decides they are no longer worth it. Besides, DA2 and ME3 weren't even that bad when you look at it objectively. Sure, they weren't great but they weren't disastrous either.
Maybe it's just my own tastes but I liked DA2 better than DA:O. Yes, it had some issues due to rushed development time and other causes but overall I found it a more enjoyable experience.
Maybe it's just my own tastes but I liked DA2 better than DA:O. Yes, it had some issues due to rushed development time and other causes but overall I found it a more enjoyable experience.
Where does all the Bioware goodwill come from, anyway? I've never been impressed with their writing/storytelling.