Goddamnit Bioware

[Stephanos132]

So, they stop making games the way you like them and now you're upset?

Was DA2 really so bad, or did the disappointed whip themselves into too much of a hype frenzy again?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Bioware seem to be going a bit nuts with streamlining things. I mean compare the temple of the urn of sacred ashes or the werewolf temple in DA:O to the mines and sewers in DA2. Yeah okay Bioware we didn't need all that extra space and suchlike but it's the equivalent of ripping all the descriptive prose out of a novel because hey saves time and paper!.

I played Mass Effect after I played ME2 and I enjoyed the first alot more. Why? because it was totally more immersive it wasn't saturated with characters and there wasn't a big orange loading screen screaming at you that 'your playing a game!'. I was dreading the infamous Mako sections as I had heard about them on the forums but I actually really enjoyed exploring the planets and suchlike. The planet missions in ME2 felt like an afterthough at best. The side missions, albeit with the same copypasta of DA:2, felt appropriately different and not like they were being lazy.

Don't get me wrong, I loved both games but Mass Effect 1 feels much more superior to me in alot of ways.

 

[nightwolf667]

Bioware has basically been comfort food for a lot of fans. It's like McDonald's, it's mostly crap but you know exactly what you're going to get. Dragon Age II deviated from the standard, the usual, and presented something that was genuinely different from the standard cliches. Better yet, Hawke had a sense of humor and could be a sarcastic bastard, which made the game that much more bearable. I liked it and surprisingly, I liked it's characters. I haven't really enjoyed anything from Bioware in a long time (including Mass Effect 2).

In fact, I really wish they'd done the Mass Effect trilogy the way they did Dragon Age II. Sure, your exploration was limited to one city, but as you progressed through time, you got to see the world grow, shape, and change with your actions. You fail to stop the serial killer. You lose people you care about. The Qunari are actually rather interesting and you can provoke them. The city is boiling over with tension between four different factions, (The Mages versus the Templars, the Chantry versus the Qunari). People don't behave the way you expect them to. The influence system is better, instead of being random and petty. This surprised me, because in Mass Effect 2 your choices are superficial, your playing the Bioware Shepard story instead of your story. Hawke felt more like he/she was following my directions. In ME 2, Shepard never really did. I cared about Hawke and Hawke's family (even Carver, which surprised me actually).

ME 2? Didn't care to be honest. Mostly because Bioware really has no clue how to write a trilogy, ME 2 felt more like a stand alone game, it felt like my choices in the previous title didn't matter, in some cases it ignored what I had done entirely. Worse it relied on me to read/look at/buy the DLCs, the books, and all the tie ins to even start getting what was going on. (Which I didn't) I don't like that the Liara DLC and the new whatever it's called DLC are going to be canon whether I played them or not. It's going to say "Shepard made these choices" when I didn't make those choices. I rolled up a new character in ME 2 without importing from ME 1 just to see how it was different and I was surprised. The game sticks it to the player. It's missing a lot of sidequest content. If you don't import your Shepard made all the renegade choices in the previous game, which could potentially seriously cripple them if they decided to play ME 3. It bothered me because it means that canon Shepard is a dick and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

 

[Choppaduel]

Bioware seem to be going a bit nuts with streamlining things. I mean compare the temple of the urn of sacred ashes or the werewolf temple in DA:O to the mines and sewers in DA2. Yeah okay Bioware we didn't need all that extra space and suchlike but it's the equivalent of ripping all the descriptive prose out of a novel because hey saves time and paper!.

I played Mass Effect after I played ME2 and I enjoyed the first alot more. Why? because it was totally more immersive it wasn't saturated with characters and there wasn't a big orange loading screen screaming at you that 'your playing a game!'. I was dreading the infamous Mako sections as I had heard about them on the forums but I actually really enjoyed exploring the planets and suchlike. The planet missions in ME2 felt like an afterthough at best. The side missions, albeit with the same copypasta of DA:2, felt appropriately different and not like they were being lazy.

Don't get me wrong, I loved both games but Mass Effect 1 feels much more superior to me in alot of ways.

good analogy!
[hr]
Replacing the open world & linear vehicle sections with planet scanning took too much out of the game despite the driving being frustrating at times.

What they should have done was: fix the vehicle sections, rather than cut & replace them with tedious button pushing.
[hr]
http://gza.gameriot.com/content/images/orig_320200_1_1257581825.png

the macro story is pretty much the same with each game, but the micro story is very different, so they get away with it.

 

[Brandon237]

I damn-well loved Mass Effect 1 and 2. When I finished my fifty-hour game of mass-effect 1 I sat back and thought "Wow, that was amazing". This is considering that it crashed 3 times in the final scene (I killed the sovereign-controlled Turian 3 times to see the outro), and still I see my experience with that game as amazing.

And the story of ME2 was truly awesome, as was the game-play. It was stream-lined with enough content, all of which was detailed and brilliant.

Sorry, OP, I could not agree with you less.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Please go whine somewhere else

~Everyone

 

[mavkiel]

I actually like what they did to the quarni and elves. Made them actually look like something other then an oddly skinned human.

That being said, the story (such as it is) in da2 really kind of sucked. It might have been redeemed if the campaign was longer, as they could have fleshed out the story and relationships with other characters.

What is more concerning to me is the dlc's they are hell bent on releasing. Item packs? I hope to god whomever is in charge of me3 has more sense then that.

 

[thelonewolf266]

Protip: He's called Trolldor what did you expect, a thread that wasn't meant to stir up arguments and hate?

 

[RYjet911]

http://gza.gameriot.com/content/images/orig_320200_1_1257581825.png
You're welcome.

In my eyes, Bioware has done nothing on the story-side and character-side but copy and paste (and occasionally build on) the first KOTOR. Sorry.

I enjoyed Mass Effect, but it's "Wow, the most awesome cRPG ever" factor was completely lost on me. Enjoyable? Yes. Good? Yes. Groundbreaking? No.

You know what game was groundbreaking in the genre, in terms of story and mechanics both? The Witcher. You know what? The game hasn't sold very well.

I can just shrug at this point, because I know from several such conversations that Bioware has some of the most fanatical supporters ever. Seriously, take a 100 hardcore football fans and a 100 Bioware fans and I'm not sure which group is more zealous.

The Witcher would have been better if I didn't have to switch constantly between three different styles of fighting in order to take on unarmoured, armoured, and grouped units. There's combat depth, and then there's punishing me for not pressing the 1, 2 or 3 key every once in a while.

It's also one of the few times I've been unable to argue against a point Yahtzee has made compared to my own personal opinion, so go watch the mad old review and you'll see where I stand with The Witcher. There's a reason the game didn't sell so well, for a start being PC only is an awkward thing for a new IP, and secondly being so needlessly complex that universities have started four year courses including one year work placements in order to teach you how to play.

It's called opinion and I'm getting sick of how many people just don't realise what this word means... Posts are always made with such forcefulness, such a tone that implies "I'm right you're wrong". Such as your affermation that The Witcher is groundbreaking in story and gameplay... To me it was over the top and unnecessarily complex and I was unable to get into the story with what little I played. Mass Effect to me is an epic sci-fi adventure with awesome firefights, great characters, fantastic gameplay and superb story, while to others its an incoherent mess of plot holes (Although generally these are people who haven't read the Codex in full unlike certain nerdy peeps), focusing too hard on shooting rather than the RPG elements and bitching about characters being uninspired and boring... To each their own I s'pose. But making assertions on a forum, especially one where Bioware seems to be generally held in high regard, is just asking to be flamed.

 

[Agayek]

Wow, you can almost smell the hyperbole inducing nostalgia...

As epic story and environments go you can't get much better than the fate of the entire freaking Galaxy, with nigh on a hundred different planets per game to explore out there.

'The characters have been dull' I'm sorry? Was Tali dull? Was Legion, Thane, Wrex? Did you bother having conversations with any of these characters?

'The designs have been stagnant' ... WHAT?

I'm not completely unreasonable, I acknowledge that whether Bioware stories have deteriorated slightly over the years is a matter of opinion. But to dismiss them as complete rubbish, especially when compared to what most other game companies consider satisfactory, is ludicrous exaggeration. Also, a game (specifically an RPG) without decent gameplay is a movie, and not a particularly good movie either.

To be completely fair, while I agree with you on the characters and whatnot (for the most part), there is absolutely no possible way to argue that the story in ME2 was better than the original. It's full of plotholes, characters acting either out of character or directly against their best interests, and all sorts of shenanigans that was likely pushed through to appeal to the COD fratboy demographic.

Barring Dragon Age 2, I would say that Bioware has not yet released a "bad" game, but the quality of the stories their games tell has plummeted. Ever since the release of ME1, their stories have been getting progressively worse, and that's from a purely mechanical/technical writing perspective. Regardless of whether or not it's enjoyable, the actual measurable quality of the stories they tell (and yes, there are metrics for such things) is getting progressively worse.

As for Dragon Age 2, it's the only game Bioware has ever released to be flat out, unarguably bad. It's a lot better than many games out there, and I did play all the way through it, but everything in that game, from the mechanics to the story was, at best, bland and forgettable.

 

[Thespian]

I really enjoyed DA2, but it was very forgettable and hardly a triumph for Bioware.

Mass Effect 2 though gave more developed characters than pretty much ever before in a Bioware game. Though I do prefer the ones you spend time with being more developed, because you could shove all but two squaddies off in the corner and just grin their conversation wheels to get the same effect.

 

[Kahunaburger]

snip

I think the idea of anything anyone posts here being our opinions should really go without saying.

Back on the topic of the Witcher, I'd personally argue that the combat gameplay is insanely clunky but effective in terms of establishing the world they want to establish. (At least on hard) the game essentially boils down to monsters wiping the floor with you if you don't prepare, but you having a fighting chance if you can find an equalizer or two.

The story is, IMHO, considerably better than anything I've seen from Bioware in terms of plot, theme, and storytelling. The characters are also arguably better, and certainly are established with more attention to the "less is more" rule. The choices and the twist at the end are particularly good as well.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Wow, you can almost smell the hyperbole inducing nostalgia...

As epic story and environments go you can't get much better than the fate of the entire freaking Galaxy, with nigh on a hundred different planets per game to explore out there.

'The characters have been dull' I'm sorry? Was Tali dull? Was Legion, Thane, Wrex? Did you bother having conversations with any of these characters?

'The designs have been stagnant' ... WHAT?

I'm not completely unreasonable, I acknowledge that whether Bioware stories have deteriorated slightly over the years is a matter of opinion. But to dismiss them as complete rubbish, especially when compared to what most other game companies consider satisfactory, is ludicrous exaggeration. Also, a game (specifically an RPG) without decent gameplay is a movie, and not a particularly good movie either.

To be completely fair, while I agree with you on the characters and whatnot (for the most part), there is absolutely no possible way to argue that the story in ME2 was better than the original. It's full of plotholes, characters acting either out of character or directly against their best interests, and all sorts of shenanigans that was likely pushed through to appeal to the COD fratboy demographic.

Barring Dragon Age 2, I would say that Bioware has not yet released a "bad" game, but the quality of the stories their games tell has plummeted. Ever since the release of ME1, their stories have been getting progressively worse, and that's from a purely mechanical/technical writing perspective. Regardless of whether or not it's enjoyable, the actual measurable quality of the stories they tell (and yes, there are metrics for such things) is getting progressively worse.

As for Dragon Age 2, it's the only game Bioware has ever released to be flat out, unarguably bad. It's a lot better than many games out there, and I did play all the way through it, but everything in that game, from the mechanics to the story was, at best, bland and forgettable.

Well, the story in Mass Effect 2 was never going to be as good as Mass Effect 1, it is the 'middle child' after all, but I'm confident Mass Effect 3 will deliver.

I was never saying that Bioware's more recent titles have better stories than their older ones (for one thing I wouldn't know since I never played any of the older ones). What I was saying is that whether or not you think they are AS GOOD as they used to be, that fact is, they are still GOOD, and most certainly miles better than the average standard of most games. I really don't get the argument that they've been dumbed down for the 'CoD fratboy' demographic. For one thing, I'm a fan of CoD, and an even bigger fan of Halo, but why does that mean I can't enjoy and respect more complicated games? My top 3 gaming franchises are Halo, Mass Effect, and Assassins Creed. Three completely different styles of games, so it does annoy me when people get pigeonholed into 'CoD fans' or 'RPG fans', because in my experience that's rarely how it works. Most of my more 'dumb FPS' orientated friends hate Mass Effect 2, whereas it's biggest fans tend to be the hardcore nerds that I know.

I'm not aiming this at you personally, but it seems to me whenever I hear the 'dumbed down for the FPS tards' argument the people making it rarely offer any real life proof for their statement.

 

[GodEmperor47]

Here's a ground-breaking, insane idea: if you hate the company so much, go tell them on THEIR forums in a constructice, well-written post, and stop buying their games. Complaining here is like saying, "Man I really hate this one politician, let me ***** to ALL MY FRIENDS about him but NEVER SEND HIM A LETTER." Your ineffectual whining just serves to make you look less intelligent and slightly annoy the community (oh, and rouse the ever-present "OMG I HATE X AND Y" bandwagon kids).

For the record, I enjoyed both Mass Effect games, and I liked 2 better (it was all the good from ME1 with none of the bad in my opinion, no loot sorting, no running endlessly around open levels that felt too big and full of empty space and enemies to get in my way). I loved Dragon Age Origins, and even shelled out for the Ultimate Edition to get all the DLC when it dropped in price so I could have one last playthrough from the start through Awakening. I enjoyed Dragon Age 2, though I felt it was lazily done in terms of environments and that eventually started grating on me in Act 3.

I don't understand why people hate Bioware. They make good games that many, many people enjoy. If they didn't make the game "perfectly" or you happened to dislike it, that doesn't make them Satan or horrible or anything else, it just means you should spend your money elsewhere.

 

[AnAngryMoose]

I agree with the OP.

*FlameShield: ON*

I see your FlameShield and raise you one Hadouken(!).

OT: I disagree with the OP. While I am disappointed to hear how ME3 seems to be going and how ME2 went I still loved ME2 and will probably love ME3. I think that the characters are very well fleshed out and all feel quite diverse. Like I've always maintained, BioWare know how to create settings and characters and the settings of Mass Effect and Dragon Age (to a lesser extent) are interesting.

Sure, DA may be very Tolkien-esque, but it has a few nice twists to it such as blood magic or the Circle of Magi and the intricacies of the Darkspawn.

And don't get me started on ME. Outstanding world-building. They all feel very vibrant, particularly walking through the market on Ilos. Also, it has some moments that feel damn, epic. Just think of the build-up to the final boss on the Collector's ship or even Arrival. That was pretty action-packed. Sure, there may be less RPG elements, but the action is damn good.

 

[Frotality]

i realize now how bioware has made its fortune on retelling the same story and characters with different hats. the original stories and characters are the ones that hold up, but their recent attempts to change that story and characters show just how bad they are at it; theyre not bad writers, but look at ME2; it has great individual stories within it, but they have little connectivity and the overall plot is more befitting of a spin off. i enjoyed DAO mostly because unoriginal or not it was bioware writing what they do best; a group of bioware archetypes out to save the world. DA2 tried to pull away from everything bioware was good at, and the result was a bunch of bland, mostly unlikeable characters in a story without the slightest semblance of focus.

the quality has slowly declined throughout the years, but now that bioware is caught up with this plague of "everything more than a week old is nostalgic crap and your an idiot for liking it" infecting modern society and gamers especially, i dont see their stories doing anything but getting worse.

 

[Agayek]

Well, the story in Mass Effect 2 was never going to be as good as Mass Effect 1, it is the 'middle child' after all, but I'm confident Mass Effect 3 will deliver.

I was never saying that Bioware's more recent titles have better stories than their older ones (for one thing I wouldn't know since I never played any of the older ones). What I was saying is that whether or not you think they are AS GOOD as they used to be, that fact is, they are still GOOD, and most certainly miles better than the average standard of most games. I really don't get the argument that they've been dumbed down for the 'CoD fratboy' demographic. For one thing, I'm a fan of CoD, and an even bigger fan of Halo, but why does that mean I can't enjoy and respect more complicated games? My top 3 gaming franchises are Halo, Mass Effect, and Assassins Creed. Three completely different styles of games, so it does annoy me when people get pigeonholed into 'CoD fans' or 'RPG fans', because in my experience that's rarely how it works. Most of my more 'dumb FPS' orientated friends hate Mass Effect 2, whereas it's biggest fans tend to be the hardcore nerds that I know.

I'm not aiming this at you personally, but it seems to me whenever I hear the 'dumbed down for the FPS tards' argument the people making it rarely offer any real life proof for their statement.

I'd agree with you, for the most part, about Bioware's stories still being "good", insofar as "good" being "above average". A lot of the rage about it though is that Bioware made a name for themselves by having "beyond exceptional" stories. Ever since KOTOR though, they've been getting progressively worse, and it's disappointing for people who've played through their games, more or less in order.

Also, the whole CoD thing isn't a knock on people who play/enjoy CoD. It's a knock on the stereotypical image that most people (and publishers especially) have of the primary audience. Specifically, this:

Basically, the general consensus is that the most popular games are that way because they appeal to the lowest common denominator (aka, that 80% of humanity with the IQ of cheese), hence the general stereotype that fans of aforementioned most popular games being stupid.

And finally, it's rare that the games that inspire rage actually are "dumbed down" to the point where they would actually appeal to the mass market. I, personally, take issue with it because it's a dumb idea from the get go. Instead of picking a target audience and going for that, they try to appeal to everyone, and that generally ends with an inferior product.

 

[Agayek]

Sure, there may be less RPG elements, but the action is damn good.

Now if only there was a competent story to go with that action .

ME2 was awesome on each of the individual loyalty missions and whatnot, but the main storyline just didn't make any sense, and it really threw off the "epic climax" vibe for the Collector base and all that. I kept being nagged at by all the plot-stupidity that popped up in that last 10 minutes.

 

[Tsaba]

HAHAHAHA, I continue to laugh at how people went from

"OMG Bioware iz best RPG maker in world!! Have my babies Bioware!" up until the minute before Dragon Age 2 launched,

to "OMG, Bioware is disgusting filthy, worthless shit that hasn't released a good game in 7 years!!! Must make Hate thread!" 2 hours after it launched.

Oh internet, you crowd of fickle-minded hypocritical fuck-tards, you....X3

It's always been there.... always.

Seriously though, obviously I missed something because I thought:

Are some of the best characters that bioware have come up with to date... and I will disagree with the elves from DA2. I think they look better as "James Cameron" Elves... much better.

Spoiler: Seriously

This

looks way better than this

 

[Thamian]

Ok...

I will stick my hand up and admit I never played Baldur's gate, or indeed anything pre-KOTOR.

I will also stick my hand up and admit, I love me some Mass Effect. Here's why:

The game world is rich, detailed and plausible, the characters are for the most part well fleshed out and believable, and the story it's telling makes sense in context. Furthermore, it's one of the few games/game series I've played that has been so effortlessly immersive that I found myself seriously emotionally invested in both the mission and the characters.

For example, in my first playthrough of ME2, I not only found myself actively rebelling against the fact that the game didn't allow for you to take Jacob's advice and throw legion out an airlock because I did not want a geth on my ship, but also knew from the get go that I could not trust cerberus and that I was sooner or later going to have to put a bolt through Miranda's skull.

On top of this, the gameplay is uniformly solid at very least, even the damn ship has an emotional investment in it (yes I was grinning like an idiot and didn't even care during the Normandy reborn sequence) and it's very nice to have a space opera which actually has plausible inter-species politics going on.

I'll admit, it's not with out it's flaws, some of them diabolical (Yes, Mark Meer, I am looking at your VO work), but they are still damned good games.

Also, why not improve the gameplay side of things? Yes, EA maybe pushing BioWare too far, but well... It's a game. A game is meant to be played.

P.S. Having written all that I finally noticed OP's handle. Damn you troll. But well played.