Dragon Age Writer Calls BioWare Forums "Toxic"

[Lieju]

Well, that's the problem. While the environments might have been average or passable, you traverse through them several times. I am a completionist; I have to do every single side quest to feel like I played the game. There were a lot of side quests in DA2... but they were largely very samey, and take place in the same locations. There were only a couple interesting sidequests (see: qunari mage), but they were rare and made the others feel like even more of a slog than they already were..

I agree, it would have been better if the environments had more variation. But like I've said, it's not a deal-breaker to me. Different things bother different people to different extents.

About mages... The scenario is very interesting in of itself. You have templars who try to protect everyone but cross moral boundaries while doing so, and you have mages who want their freedom but might threaten others. My problem was the way they handled this: In the universe of Dragon Age, blood magic isn't something common everyone can just whip out. But in DA2, every mage seems to resort to it and use it. Behind every corner, there is a blood mage. They game attempts to be morally gray, but when nigh every mage turns into a bloodmage and nigh every templar is unreasonable, it just starts being ridiculous.

Bloodmagic itself isn't a bad thing, though. And that there were so many mages who were willing to resort to forbidden stuff was a symptom that also fed the opression, something that happens in real life.
And there were symphatetic templars, more than bad ones. Thrask, Cullen, that ex-templar who was addicted to lyrium (Samson?), that recruit who you save, possibly Carver...

Regarding mages and templars... playing through the game as a mage is absolutely ridiculous. Casting blood magic in front of a templar doesn't have any repercussions. Nobody even notices it. Not even your companions have any kind of remark on Hawke turning to forbidden blood magic. There's just such a huge disconnect between the gameplay and the story which further ruins the immersion.

True (the same applies to Origins, though). If there would have been less of a disconnect it would have made it better. But again, not a deal-breaker to me. Might be for you, and you are of course entitled to an opinion. If someone hates DA2 just because it's fantasy and they hate fantasy, that would also be a valid opinion.

But I do expect coherence; something that DA2 lacked. it largely just jumps around.
"Oh so you told the qunari to leave? Oh well, time skip time! So yeah, the qunari left, and that part of the story now has absolutely nothing to do with this story."

Except that it made Hawke popular among the people, (also protecting you if you're a mage and your apostate-buddies. By the 3rd act, Meredith knows you're a mage and pals with apostates, but she can't just order you executed because of that.)
Also it changes the political situation. With no viscount, Meredith gains more power.
Again, I liked this disjointedness. Reminds me of a movie I saw a while ago, 'Giant'. It's structure is pretty similar to DA2, it tells the story of a Texan family and how they found oil in Texas and changing attitudes and stuff.

The civil war angle was nothing new. It was in Origins as well. But in Origins, you had Loghain on the one side who had believable motivations, and was truly gray. He believed he was doing the right thing.
Now contrast this to DA2: first of all, the lyrium idol was completely uncalled for. Bioware has shown that they can handle this scenario better; why mix supernatural powers into this?
While Meredith may have believed he was doing the right thing, she was just absolutely stonking nuts over the top about it. *add "KILL ALL THE MAGES" -meme here*
And like I said above, I believe they handled the templar mage situation poorly.

I am a bit torn about the idol-thing. On the other hand, I agree, this story can be told without that, but it was also clear that the idol merely strenghtened the pre-existing obsession. (As happened with Bartrand)
But the stuff with Meredith escalated, and it's pointed out several times in the game that she is going slowly nuts; think of the 'tranquil solution', for example, and how she disagreed with that, but by the end even templars who were all for extreme measures jumped ship.

And about Anders... I hated that he was forced to be in the party as the sole healer suitable due to his unique skills. At hard difficulty i needed to have him with me or I would get my ass beaten.
His attitude becomes nutcase-y. To me it came from nowhere since I thought he had been depicted to be at least reasonable before that point in the game. But suddenly he, what, is taken over by his spirits which cause him to conveniently do something drastic which allows the plot to come to a close.

Unless you were a spirit healer yourself, true. I like him, so I keep him in the party anyway, but I can see why that would be annoying for some. That whole thing was a mixed bag; on the other hand, in Origins all the characters of the same class became interchangeable, but on the other hand, it gave you more freedom to choose your party.
And I don't think it came from nowhere. As with Meredith, with him it escalates, and his act in the end disturbed me gretly, partly because I partly found myself agreeing with him, and for me that's a sign of a great story.

(But, again, subjective)

But I'd say that if you kept him in your party and talked to him, it's pretty clear how his opinion is like. He mentions several times he is willing to die for his cause, and if you romance him, some stuff he says about how there something he must do even though it's horrible etc. makes it pretty clear he is becoming desperate, saying things like "I wish it would be an open war. At least then we could fight back."
Plus he says several times how the Grand Cleric should take a side, how she is useless, how everyone should take a side etc.
(Leading Sebastian to openly try to get Fenris on his side and turn Anders to the templars by Act3. Fenris tells him that if he wants to turn in Hawke's friends, he should talk to Hawke, preshadowing how he can be persuaded to side with you even if you spare Anders in the end, but Sebastian can not.)

While the typical fantasy trope may be dull in of iteself, Origins handled it well. It wasn't solely about slaying the big baddie; it was just the framework. In the game, you have a majority of interesting decisions that impact the world. The anvil, the Urn, etc. etc.

They don't, though. Not more than what happens in the DA2 anyway.
What impact does either defiling the urn or even discovering it have to the world? (To be honest, the whole thing with the urn was a bitof an odd fetch-quest and lacked weight, but I didn't have that big of a problem with it in the end.)
Or the anvil?
In a realistic scenario, you have the argument that the golems are an incredibly useful asset in a fight against the Darkspawn. In the game, destroying it doesn't actually hinder your changes of victory.
A lot of choices in DAO were a bit... false.
Take Connor, for example. When I played it the first time, I had to think about it. After all, leaving him in the castle, possessed, was a risk. What if he came downstairs and killed everyone?
But there is no actual risk of that happening and you can just have the happy resolution with no actual hard decisions. That disappointed me.
Similarly, something like defending Redcliffe, or being distracted by sidequests. You can just fool around when you should be under time-restraint.

No. You never have to do retcons. If you can't write a story without retconning your previous work, don't write it.
Besides, Leliana didn't even need to be in the game. It was just a cameo to appease the majority of the fans.
Leliana is in no way an integral part of the story; her part could have been played by anyone else.

Maybe 'retconning' isn't a right word. Rather, 'ignoring some possible scenarios'. You need to either distance the story from the previous games, so the choices the gamer made had no effect, try to make every possible choice a possibility, or ignore some possible outcomes.

I thought Leliana being there was great, and made me like her more. This hinting that she was a Seeker of Truth the whole time gives her more depth, and we will very likely see her again.

 

[Siege_TF]

Seems to be a sensible guy

Given his vocation I'd prefer an irrational but talented guy.

 

[Polarity27]

I've also heard that their forums are a cesspool, but a) what are their community managers *doing*, then?, and b) I've never seen a fandom turn into a poo-flinging hatedom without the canon fucking itself up pretty substantially.

I'm glad the guy acknowledged that there might maybe possibly be some problems with the games themselves, but it seems like too little too late. I think a lot of people have stopped listening.

(Personally, I have yet to get through the *first* ME game, let alone the third one. The dialogue hurts my ears-- I keep expecting some of the people I'm randomly interrogating about their parents and their home planet's sexual attitudes to slap me for being a rude, nosy fuck. Yeah, I know, in an RPG the player automagically becomes every NPC's therapist, but ME 1 took it to absurd lengths. Couple that with the gludgy shooting and the party members whose shields keep crowding my aim point and I just don't care enough to keep going.)

 

[Cyrus Hanley]

He's probably right, but then I don't blame them.

 

[thanatos388]

How have they been childish? They have listened and made changes to the ending over the controversy...why do people still care?

Well for the ME3 thing, they decided to hold the shield of "artistic integrity" up against any criticism. Deciding that your patrons criticisms don't matter just because it's being aimed at a piece of art seems childish. As for Gaider himself, he doesn't seem very good at handling the fans [http://social.bioware.com/%20http:/social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/304/index/6589945/10] and their concerns [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.274827-David-Gaider-says-Bioware-decides-what-dead-means-in-Dragon-Age-2?page=1].

What was this big middle finger?

The alternate ending to the extended cut could probably be taken as a middle finger to a lot of people. Many didn't like the three choices and wanted an option to say no, which was happily provided for them in the free DLC. Unfortunately, refusing the star child leads to the Reapers winning and everyone dying, because people choosing it weren't being good little fans and accepting what the writers gave them originally.

Yeah Bioware, making the refusal ending end logically as you are clearly loosing throughout the entire boring Earth battle. Why can't we just have happy endings? I think the main problem is that both sides are being childish. But mostly the fans this is just one writer. And he never said he wanted someone to get raped over a shitty game.

 

[bossfight1]

A fanbase can benefit from good treatment from the subject matter of which they are fans; actually listening to them, improving upon what the fans have a problem with, and treating them overall with respect will allow a franchise to last a very long time.

What Bioware did, however, was believe the fans would gobble up their horseshit ending with a goddamn smile on their face; as such, when we realized how badly we were screwed over, we became bitter (rightfully so, IMO).

In a nutshell, Bioware brought the "toxicity" of the forums on themselves.

 

[Starke]

-SWTOR sucks? That's news to me... I always considered it part of the top tier MMOs. In fact, for every MMO you give me that are better, I'll give you two dozen that are worse.

I know you're being rhetorical here, but let's try off the top of my head:

Age of Conan: Better Combat, more content, releases content more frequently, more classes, better character customization, open world PvP.

Champions Online: Better Combat, more content, releases content more frequently (and yes, this is not a strength of CO).

DC Universe Online: Better Combat, more Classes, better voice acting, allows dual specing, open world PvP.

Guild Wars: Better Combat, better party dynamics, better pvp, companions, multispecing, more class choices.

The Secret World: Better Writing, More varied combat, quests that require actual thought and logical deduction, does not charge you for hot bars, allows dual specing (to about 12 different builds simultaneously), does not actively punish non-subscribing players, releases content more frequently.

Star Trek Online: Better Combat, Space combat that isn't on rails, Full Companion Customization, Better Character Customization, Does not call torture rape of companions "romance", does not charge you for hotbars, more racial choices, releases content more frequently (that is to say, almost never, but still faster than TOR).

Oh, and let's be clear on something, STO is a bad MMO, but it's still better than ToR by leaps and bounds.

By your math you owe me 72 MMOs now that are actually worse than TOR... I'm guessing you meant to include a bunch of burn in a year Korean f2ps, but, you know what? Have fun.

-ME3 ending sucks? Where were you during Deus Ex: Human Revolution's complaints? Or Uncharted 3? LA Noir? KotOR 2? All of the others according to our subjective opinions? Where were their cupcakes? Should we revolt every time an ending isn't good enough? Does a denouement you don't want spoil the entire experience? What if I didn't like the ending to Legend of Grimrock? Does that discredit my entire experience? Should I spend countless hours bitching about it to strangers and hold a grudge against the people that made it?

Yeah, the problem is, Deus Ex: Human Revolution never said, "it won't be you press one of three buttons and get the same ending", I mean, it's a Deus Ex game, that's almost to be expected, you kill this guy or that guy, you get a different ending? You push these buttons and run and get a different ending? Yeah, that's EVERY DX game. But Bioware went out and said, "no, we're going to tailor your ending to your game, it won't be this thing where everybody gets the same couple endings, they'll all be unique."

-Dragon Age II sucks? Why? Because it isn't as good as DA: Origins? Not being "as good" does not equal "bad". I don't like Mass Effect II as much as its predecessor, but that doesn't make it a bad game. It just means I have a preference. One's enjoyment is not binary; there are numerous ratings in between 'amazing' and 'shitty'.

No, what made ME2 a shitty game was the giant space terminator baby, and Timmy's magical "you will do what I want you to because PLOT powers." ME1 didn't magically make it a stupid game. It did, however, disrupt expectations. If you're writing the second act of a trilogy, it better be the second act of a trilogy, ME2 was Mass Effect: When Collectors Attack, from a plot standpoint. If you're writing the second part of a series, it better fit within the framework of the original, even if it bends it a bit.

It's like if you were doing a movie series, and those films were send-ups of the old sci fi serial adventures, and then decided to make the fourth and fifth outing about a complex political struggle... oh, wait...

Why am I typing this? They don't care. Never mind.

Because you were waiting for someone to wander in and show you the error of your ways, enjoy.

 

[Starke]

How have they been childish? They have listened and made changes to the ending over the controversy...why do people still care?

Well for the ME3 thing, they decided to hold the shield of "artistic integrity" up against any criticism. Deciding that your patrons criticisms don't matter just because it's being aimed at a piece of art seems childish. As for Gaider himself, he doesn't seem very good at handling the fans [http://social.bioware.com/%20http:/social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/304/index/6589945/10] and their concerns [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.274827-David-Gaider-says-Bioware-decides-what-dead-means-in-Dragon-Age-2?page=1].

What was this big middle finger?

The alternate ending to the extended cut could probably be taken as a middle finger to a lot of people. Many didn't like the three choices and wanted an option to say no, which was happily provided for them in the free DLC. Unfortunately, refusing the star child leads to the Reapers winning and everyone dying, because people choosing it weren't being good little fans and accepting what the writers gave them originally.

Yeah Bioware, making the refusal ending end logically as you are clearly loosing throughout the entire boring Earth battle. Why can't we just have happy endings? I think the main problem is that both sides are being childish. But mostly the fans this is just one writer. And he never said he wanted someone to get raped over a shitty game.

Honestly, the whole "happy ending" bullshit is strawmanning. I've seen people actually make that argument. They wanted a "good" ending, or a "happy" one, but most people, myself included, just wanted an ending that wasn't nonsensical deus ex machina bullshit.

If the game ended after the TIM and Anderson conversation, that would be a better ending, with Shepard keeling over inches from the control.

The problem is, the entirety of the starchild sequence. It flat out contradicts information the player collects, and never bothers to actually write that off. It presents you with a lot of grand claims, without bothering to evidence any of it. And at the end, Shepard accepts this.

Now, regardless how you played, paragon, renegade, unstable psychopath, Shepard (yours, mine, everyone's) is very argumentative. When presented with Saren at the end of the first game, your choices are "mouth off" or "mouth off and be insulting", when presented with the sheer idiocy of TIM in ME2, Shepard either became a cackling supervillian, or mouthed off and became a cackling supervillian. Every single interaction with another antagonist in the series requires Shepard to oppose them verbally first, with varying levels of persuasiveness.

And here, we have a character espousing the very same ideology that Shepard mouthed off at Sovereign, Saren, Harbinger, Timmy, and a shitload of one off characters, and instead of saying "no, we're going to do this our way this time," or "fuck you, we're better than that," or "can I have pizza?", Shepard brainlessly nods and takes it at face value, and wanders off to commit suicide. Even when, as a player, we've actually engineered events to disprove that argument fundamentally.

It's not that (most) players wanted a happy ending, they just wanted one that made any goddamn sense.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

I'm not surprised the BioWare forums have become nothing more than a wretched hive of scum and villiany. To me the problem isn't really BioWare but it's EA. A lot of the problems that Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 had I'm certain were the product of the rushed development needed in order to meet the strict deadlines publishers like EA mandate. There's a reason people hate on EA so much. They buy up all these talented dev studios only to bleed them dry until nothing is left but a named husk that they slap onto the box of their next product.

I don't blame you David, I blame EA. They took what talent and love BioWare had and killed it.

would you like 2K (or other) to rescue bioware from EA? if yes then
its time to assemble the fanboys.

 

[The Lunatic]

Feedback is like that.

Most reviewers are nice about it, but, popular opinion is what sticks, not scores on a review sheet.

So, if people are being sour on your forums, probably time to do something with your games that changes their minds.

 

[Denamic]

Forums for specific games and developers tend to be that way. They attract the most vocal fans and antagonists, and the average person is repulsed by the resulting atmosphere. It's a tale almost as old as the internet. Even ye olde BBS sites could be vitriolic as hell, too.

 

[Starke]

Forums for specific games and developers tend to be that way. They attract the most vocal fans and antagonists, and the average person is repulsed by the resulting atmosphere. It's a tale almost as old as the internet. Even ye olde BBS sites could be vitriolic as hell, too.

What's interesting, and telling, is usually the vocal fans win out. In Bioware's case, they managed to alienate a lot of those vocal fans, turning them into their most vocal antagonists. I mean, I remember when I couldn't show my face on there without being butchered by the fans, but now, I'd probably get jumped on by the antagonists for not being radicalized enough.

Good word though, "antagonists."

 

[votemarvel]

My big issue with Dragon Age II was the time jumps between chapters. They always gave me the feeling that the most interesting parts of Hawke's personal story happened off screen.

If Dragon Age II had been better received I do wonder how much of that time skipping would have been filled in by DLC.

A poster above touched on my big complaint about the Mass Effect 3 ending. This being has just told us that it created and controls the Reapers but Shepard blindly accepts its word on how to stop them? No, sorry I don't see how Shepard as presented throughout the trilogy would respond like that.

Edit to keep on topic: That I think has a big impact on how people are on the Bioware forum. They seem to let the fans get whipped up into a frenzy and then reply in a sarcastic or dismissive manner.

Just picking on ME3. Posters put a lot of effort into explaining what they didn't like about the shipped endings, why they thought they were bad or ill-fitting to the series. Would it really have hurt Casey Hudson and Mac Walters to post, even a locked one on the Bioware Blog, explaining why they thought it was a fitting ending?

You'd still have those who'd shout and complain but such an explanation could have calmed the majority of folk.

 

[Starke]

Honestly, the whole "happy ending" bullshit is strawmanning. I've seen people actually make that argument. They wanted a "good" ending, or a "happy" one, but most people, myself included, just wanted an ending that wasn't nonsensical deus ex machina bullshit.

Careful now, it is only a matter of time before Moviebob comes in here to call you an entitled baby.

Good post though.

It wouldn't be the first time. But, thank you.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Well it dose not help you are writing and designing games for the COD crowd these days.... Quality WHO NEEDZ IT! We can sell more cheap crap!

 

[Starke]

Well it dose not help you are writing and designing games for the COD crowd these days.... Quality WHO NEEDZ IT! We can sell more cheap crap!

You know the funny thing though? Aside from the lack of dedicated servers, my impression was always that Activision took quality control on the CoD games very seriously. Granted, I've never spent a lot of time in multiplayer, but, at least with MW, MW2 and Blops, and I've never picked up a CoD game in the same year it was released, but that perception stands.

They're stupid games, and maybe I'm wrong, but near as I can tell, they're not shoddy. In contrast to, you know, Warfighter, or Battlefield 3...

 

[Emiscary]

"Perhaps there is also something to be said about whether the games BioWare makes still satisfy our core fans."

Yes, there is something to be said. And that something is: no. No they do not satisfy your core fans. I would've described myself as a core fan of Bioware in the not too distant past. Then I finished slogging through Mass Effect 3's various layers of bullshit and retcons to be told to my face that every hour I spent playing the previous 2 installments in the series was wasted. Completely. Fucking. Wasted.

And the justification I was given?

"Well, we needed to desperately grope at expanding our audience during the final installment of a fucking triology by pandering to the lowest common denominator (Diana Allers? "No Dialogue Mode"?), and shoehorning a pathetically transparent money grabbing scheme into the mix in the form of a pay-2-win grind centric multiplayer component that no one asked for or enjoyed playing."

So really, Bioware can fuck off. The question is: how far?

 

[thanatos388]

How have they been childish? They have listened and made changes to the ending over the controversy...why do people still care?

Well for the ME3 thing, they decided to hold the shield of "artistic integrity" up against any criticism. Deciding that your patrons criticisms don't matter just because it's being aimed at a piece of art seems childish. As for Gaider himself, he doesn't seem very good at handling the fans [http://social.bioware.com/%20http:/social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/304/index/6589945/10] and their concerns [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.274827-David-Gaider-says-Bioware-decides-what-dead-means-in-Dragon-Age-2?page=1].

What was this big middle finger?

The alternate ending to the extended cut could probably be taken as a middle finger to a lot of people. Many didn't like the three choices and wanted an option to say no, which was happily provided for them in the free DLC. Unfortunately, refusing the star child leads to the Reapers winning and everyone dying, because people choosing it weren't being good little fans and accepting what the writers gave them originally.

Yeah Bioware, making the refusal ending end logically as you are clearly loosing throughout the entire boring Earth battle. Why can't we just have happy endings? I think the main problem is that both sides are being childish. But mostly the fans this is just one writer. And he never said he wanted someone to get raped over a shitty game.

Honestly, the whole "happy ending" bullshit is strawmanning. I've seen people actually make that argument. They wanted a "good" ending, or a "happy" one, but most people, myself included, just wanted an ending that wasn't nonsensical deus ex machina bullshit.

If the game ended after the TIM and Anderson conversation, that would be a better ending, with Shepard keeling over inches from the control.

The problem is, the entirety of the starchild sequence. It flat out contradicts information the player collects, and never bothers to actually write that off. It presents you with a lot of grand claims, without bothering to evidence any of it. And at the end, Shepard accepts this.

Now, regardless how you played, paragon, renegade, unstable psychopath, Shepard (yours, mine, everyone's) is very argumentative. When presented with Saren at the end of the first game, your choices are "mouth off" or "mouth off and be insulting", when presented with the sheer idiocy of TIM in ME2, Shepard either became a cackling supervillian, or mouthed off and became a cackling supervillian. Every single interaction with another antagonist in the series requires Shepard to oppose them verbally first, with varying levels of persuasiveness.

And here, we have a character espousing the very same ideology that Shepard mouthed off at Sovereign, Saren, Harbinger, Timmy, and a shitload of one off characters, and instead of saying "no, we're going to do this our way this time," or "fuck you, we're better than that," or "can I have pizza?", Shepard brainlessly nods and takes it at face value, and wanders off to commit suicide. Even when, as a player, we've actually engineered events to disprove that argument fundamentally.

It's not that (most) players wanted a happy ending, they just wanted one that made any goddamn sense.

I think you misunderstood. It was that people wanted a refusal ending that somehow ends with you winning against the reapers with your magical EMS. Yes the whole ending is bullshit, the whole game has a horrible plot. Why could't Shepard tell the kid to just leave? Hey your wrong the solution doesn't work so just turn off the reapers and go away. But no Bioware wanted a dark ending and people want to somehow just have a way of winning without starchild.