Poll: Anti-BioWare backlash?

[Kevlar Eater]

The only games I've played were both Mass Effect games, Dragon Age Origins and the Dragon Age 2 demo. After playing the demo, I saw where Bioware was heading and jumped ship. Now I'm hopping back on the ship in time for Mass Effect 3, then I'm avoiding them like an STI-ridden party slut.

Also, their behavior when it comes to The Old Republic is atrocious. Temporarily making the unsubscribe button unavailable just so they can extract a monthly payment, banning people for stupid reasons, poor customer support, and worst of all, their overly inflated heads.. Meh, nuts to them.

 

[blind_dead_mcjones]

where's the 'indifferent because i'm not dumb enough to get emotionally attached to a business' option? because its stuff like that which leads to stupid asinine occurences like the 'console wars' and the 'ford vs holden' debate

seriously, i honestly don't care either way whether bioware has 'changed' or 'sold out', demographics shift, so long as the end product is good thats all that matters. same with buying a car, it doesn't matter what the badge or label is, just that it's reliable, fun, and has a manual gearbox

Your car analogy is horribly flawed. The situation is more aken to going to a car dealership after seeing an ad for a pickup truck for a company that makes good pickup trucks, buying a pickup truck, and then getting handed the keys to a SUV. That may or not have flat tires. The point of this whole Bioware thing is that Bioware is not delivering on the product that folks have come to associate with Bioware (rpgs/pickup trucks) instead, we are getting a completely different genre (action rpgs/SUV)and then there are the complaints that on top of this, their quality is slipping.

easy answer, if you don't like their product, vote with your wallet. but don't make a song and dance about it on the internet.

your point about bioware changing the product its now selling is irrelevant, because its what successful businesses do, they evolve to shifting trends, technology and demographics, as with the car analogy each successful brand has shifted its core focus several times (from sedans to station wagons to people movers to SUV's to hatchbacks before going full circle)

the real point is that a true connoisseur tries to sample as much variation as possible in their given field of interest (eg: if its food, they try everything from filet mignon and sushi to KFC) rather than stubbornly sticking to one narrow aspect of said field

businesses are in the business of making money, to expect anything else is just naive.


ps: in regards to your analogy of the SUV, the beauty of living in australia is the statutory warranty law (that if any business sells you an item thats not fit for purpose you can get a full refund) also you can't legally sell a vehicle with flat tires here either.

 

[Smiley Face]

Concerned but hopeful. EA being in charge means a loss of creative freedom and a push towards generic, 'accessible' games - and I don't know about EA's history. Dragon Age II, TOR, and multiplayer Mass Effect have me concerned - they're new stylistic directions for Bioware, which means they'll not be refined, but hopefully will take away lessons from them without financial or reputation losses. Mass Effect 3 is going to be the big test for folks, but ultimately what's going to show the real effects will be the next original intellectual property they come out with - if it doesn't stand up to their past debuts, then it almost definitely won't return to being the Bioware we once knew. I for one really, really hope that they hold their act together and EA lets them do what they do best.

 

[lapan]

easy answer, if you don't like their product, vote with your wallet. but don't make a song and dance about it on the internet.

But it's the best way to let them know about your concerns. If you only vote with your wallet it will maybe influence the next game they will make, but too late to influence the current one.

 

[Akimoto]

Here's a thought. Find an article reporting EA buying over Bioware and play "The Silent Comedy - Bartholomew" in the background. I loved the role-playing in Bioshock and ME series but with EA on board I took the life jacket and jumped. EA had sold the survival kits to fund Origin and the crew was held hostage. The captain was last seen drunk.

 

[Element Zero]

My opinion hasn't changed a bit. DA2 was a miss, but only in that it held no replay value for me. TOR is awesome in my opinion. That's all I really have to say about that...

 

[Amaror]

I think the problem is what bioware used to be.
If you liked rpgs then you could by an bioware game blindly und you knew that it would be good.
If a developer like this throws a pile of carbage (DA2) in your face, then there will be a big reaction to this.
There would be the same reaction if Blizzard fucked up Diablo 3 or if Valve made Half - Life 3 and fucked it up.

 

[Dandark]

I think the problem is what bioware used to be.
If you liked rpgs then you could by an bioware game blindly und you knew that it would be good.
If a developer like this throws a pile of carbage (DA2) in your face, then there will be a big reaction to this.
There would be the same reaction if Blizzard fucked up Diablo 3 or if Valve made Half - Life 3 and fucked it up.

Im pretty sure this is why Valve won't release episode 3 =D

OT: I wouldn't consider myself a big fan of Bioware now but I still like them and have an interest in them. EA are really ruining them for me though, ME3 will probably be a big test for them.
Im hoping that it's good and doesn't follow in the direction of Me2, it was a good game and I enjoyed it but I didn't really like that they removed a lot of things, mainly the item customization. I also liked the combat style in the first game better, the actual combat was better in ME2 but I liked overheating better than the damn heat clips.

I think they said that they are mixing elements of ME 1 and 2 so hopefully I will have all the things I want. I'd like weapons that can overheat and then other ones with thermal clips so people can choose what they like.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

There has been a statement from Bioware as far as i know, so it's at least not fake.

There's been a statement!? Well that is conclusive... despite everyone calling them underhanded, money grabbing, mainstream catering sellouts, there's no way they'd lie!

Can't access it from here at the moment sicne the escapist is loading extremely slow, but this should be the one:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.323578-Mass-Effect-3-Story-Leaked-BioWare-Accepting-Feedback

I've seen this article, I was just pointing out the stupidity of saying they're definitely telling the truth when it suits people's arguements, despite all the other underslung and negative comments they've stated.

And yes, they may be taking feedback but, and this is radical thinking, if it was fake or an early draft or whatever... maybe they're examining the criticisms to see if they got some things right and somethings wrong. It's not exactly unheard of for developers to keep some cards extremely close to their chest whilst leaving other info laying about.

An easily accessable "leaked storyline" in the beta, which I'm suspecting may well be an early draft that's been changed since, will cause alot of people to talk about it - as they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Guess what half of these topics are about??

I rest my case.

 

[Sampsa]

No mater how good company / producer is they release a bad product from time to time.

 

[sifffffff]

Dragon Age 2 had several glaring technical flaws but it was still a fun game to play and it had a few of the best characters in a Bioware game to date. I wish people could take off the hate blinders to see that. Granted seeing around the same cave 20 times and pirates jumping off of rooftops is tough but there was a lot to like about Dragon Age 2.

 

[Oroboros]

where's the 'indifferent because i'm not dumb enough to get emotionally attached to a business' option? because its stuff like that which leads to stupid asinine occurences like the 'console wars' and the 'ford vs holden' debate

seriously, i honestly don't care either way whether bioware has 'changed' or 'sold out', demographics shift, so long as the end product is good thats all that matters. same with buying a car, it doesn't matter what the badge or label is, just that it's reliable, fun, and has a manual gearbox

Your car analogy is horribly flawed. The situation is more aken to going to a car dealership after seeing an ad for a pickup truck for a company that makes good pickup trucks, buying a pickup truck, and then getting handed the keys to a SUV. That may or not have flat tires. The point of this whole Bioware thing is that Bioware is not delivering on the product that folks have come to associate with Bioware (rpgs/pickup trucks) instead, we are getting a completely different genre (action rpgs/SUV)and then there are the complaints that on top of this, their quality is slipping.

easy answer, if you don't like their product, vote with your wallet. but don't make a song and dance about it on the internet.

your point about bioware changing the product its now selling is irrelevant, because its what successful businesses do, they evolve to shifting trends, technology and demographics, as with the car analogy each successful brand has shifted its core focus several times (from sedans to station wagons to people movers to SUV's to hatchbacks before going full circle)

the real point is that a true connoisseur tries to sample as much variation as possible in their given field of interest (eg: if its food, they try everything from filet mignon and sushi to KFC) rather than stubbornly sticking to one narrow aspect of said field

businesses are in the business of making money, to expect anything else is just naive.


ps: in regards to your analogy of the SUV, the beauty of living in australia is the statutory warranty law (that if any business sells you an item thats not fit for purpose you can get a full refund) also you can't legally sell a vehicle with flat tires here either.

There are so many things wrong with what you just said, it's hard to decide where to start, but I'll give it a shot:

I certainly did vote with my wallet. I haven't bought a single Bioware game since Jade Empire. I assume you voted with your wallet too. However, to say that any criticism of the developer is 'making a song and dance about it on the internet.' Is a massive double standard. The topic of the discussion clearly asks if our opinion of Bioware has changed, and the original poster asks our reasons for answering yes or no. I have as much invitation to voice my opinion as you do. By your logic, it's just as defensible a position to say that no one should ever say anything positive about Bioware, because the only action one is allowed is to 'vote with your wallet'.

I don't see how being upset with Bioware changing the way they make games is irrelevant to liking or disliking Bioware. If Bioware is not making the games it used to make, there is going to be disappointment. The fact that Bioware was one of only a handful of developers who made this kind of game is going to make this doubly true. It is completely justifiable to be disappointed in this trend. Someone who likes VW bugs would similarly be justifyably upset if VW stopped making them, and would have no reason to keep buying VW if that was the reason they bought VW. It would also be perfectly justifiable for such a person to voice their complaints, even if they didn't continue buying VW vehicles (and why would they, if VW no longer made bugs). Attempting to justify it with 'it's what successful companies do' is completely missing the point-I don't *care* if it makes them successful,We are talking customer feedback, not profit margin. This isn't a stock exchange forum, in case you hadn't noticed. At any rate, as someone earlier mentioned, DA 1 outsold DA 2, which would indicate that their fanbase is more interested in traditional rpgs than action rpgs-which completely throws your point out the window.

The point about sampling different foods is completely pointless, snobby Bull. Not only are you projecting what you consider folks who no longer appreciate biowares games to be: narrow minded and stubborn, but this also flies in the face of common sense. This isn't backed up by squat, and it is simply asinine to dismiss critics as such. Everyone has tastes, to pretend otherwise is blatently false. Some people like Indian food. Many do not. Bioware has stopped making Indian food, and some of us miss that curry. We are justifiably upset. Even if that pizza they make is pretty good, it wasn't what we liked about that restaurant.

I think you missed the point of the car analogy entirely. Bioware rolled out a different car then the one we said we wanted to buy. and it has flat tires. Of course, by your (pointless) extension, Bioware would also be committing a crime. I'm not saying that Bioware committed a crime, but it is something of a breach of trust, they are not delivering what is expected of them, and there are possible quality issues as well. Obviously, I am not going back to this car dealership.

 

[Hides His Eyes]

Exactly. I think it's a real shame, if I'm honest. Also, I don't think it's accurate to say the market for traditional RPGs is "small and shrinking". It's certainly big enough to turn a healthy profit, as DA:O demonstrated, but it's not the biggest market. It's not enough for the biggest profit imaginable. And with the new ultra-profit-driven paradigm that the games industry has taken on over the last ten years, only the biggest profit imaginable is enough. That means every game has to appeal to the largest possible number of people, which means games get less and less unique, more and more homogenized.

Capitalism and art are compatible up to a point. The games industry is getting past that point.

And it pisses me off when people say "that's the real world, deal with it". Yes, I know that's the real world, I don't have to fucking like it.

50 seconds on Google turned this thread up:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/researching-the-death-of-the-crpg-industry.60314/

And there's plenty of information in there I won't bother cutting and pasting. I'm not pulling it out of my ass, the CRPG market was in real trouble for a while there. Gaming was becoming more mainstream, and the CRPG was still a niche market. The games were huge, costly, and time consuming to make, and they gave a terrible ROI compared to shooters and the CRPG's stupid younger brother, the ARPG.

Everyone craps on Bioware and Bethesda for "abandoning their roots" and making a more accessible product, but without them doing that you'd never even SEE a DA:O. And DA:O is hardly a throwback. Some people suggested it was, in some ways, a "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate II, but nowhere near as hardcore, and Baldur's Gate was mocked at the time for being a brain-dead streamlining of the genre.

At the end of the day we're just fans. I'm happy that they're still making RPGS. This isn't an X-Com scenario where they turned it into a FPS and told everyone that strategy games weren't contemporary any more. No, the RPG doesn't look exactly like it used to, and yeah, sometimes that makes me sad, but there's lots to love about where the RPG is going, too, not just where it's been.

I just don't agree. What exactly are we gaining? "Accessibility"? That doesn't really mean much to me. I like the traditional RPG because it's willing to sacrifice accessibility for greater complexity, depth and - most importantly - more player freedom and options. I don't think you can have both. There comes a time when you have to recognise that you can't please everyone and you have to decide which way you're gonna go. And I'm not happy with the way Bioware are going, personally.

 

[Amaror]

Dragon Age 2 had several glaring technical flaws but it was still a fun game to play and it had a few of the best characters in a Bioware game to date. I wish people could take off the hate blinders to see that. Granted seeing around the same cave 20 times and pirates jumping off of rooftops is tough but there was a lot to like about Dragon Age 2.

hmmm.. so you think the game were everybody wents full blown retard in the third act had the best character's?
It had one of the best bioware characters in it, namely varric, but i didn't like anyone of the others.
Anders: Well, one way to ruin two loved character's at once Bioware, that's impressive. He had one character trait "Hates Templars", that's it. THEY EVEN REMOVED HIS CAT!!!
Aveline: Uah, i just really really really don't like her.
Bethany: hmm, the sister. I really can't say any more about her, did she had a character at all?
Merril: Granted she's cute and i liked that about her, but she is just sooo stupid. Nearly every time i spoke with her i wished there were other dialoge options, like putting her in an hospital for mentally unstabel.
Isabela:Well, everything about her just screams, look at them boys, buy the game. And i hate when developers do somethink like that.
Fenris: And again i just didn't liked him that much, again he was too extremistic i think.

At all i really don't had the feeling of getting to know the characters. You had so little chance to interact with them, and they don't seem as thought out as the other bioware characters, exception varric.

 

[XUnsafeNormalX]

The real shame is that EA calls all the shots at Bioware, meaning that making games is now a business there instead of an art. Now, getting cheap, DLC-filled games out is more important than actually making a great game that stands the test of time. The signs of this become more and more clear with each new release. Preorder incentives and day 1 DLC have become commonplace not just in Bioware but throughout the industry. From a business standpoint it makes no sense to ship a game with free content that could be cut and sold back to the costumers who all too willingly buy it up.

Of course the goal of making a Video Game is to make money, but would it hurt if the people making it were allowed to do what they wanted? Would it be better to restrict the developers to maximize profit simply for the sake of capitalism? I think not, in fact some of the greatest games ever made come from people who don't just want to make millions, but want to make the game that they would enjoy playing.

But sadly it seems those days are behind us, a majority of game developers are owned by publishers like EA and Activision, who have eagerly converted the art of making a game into an assembly line of mediocrity.

Rant over, I'm headed to class.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

I liked them when they made games instead of DLC
Platforms.

This made me laugh so very much. but then it made me sad

 

[Gamergeek25]

After Playing TOR "Warning Some Spoilers" I feel that the story element is heavily back, and Bioware has shown themeselves that they can make good rpgs

On my trooper at around level 16 I made a Light sided choice that later haunted me at lvl 32 at the end of my first story act.

 

[Savber]

Bioware was one of my most beloved developers but I can't stay silent as I see the creative spark that was once in Bioware's eye slowly diminish.

Get your act together for ME3, Bioware, or it's over.

 

[IamGamer41]

The only BioWare games I have played are Mass Effect 1 & 2, and Dragon Age: Origins (played the demo for DA2, and I didn't think it was bad). But with Mass Effect 3s upcoming release (which I am so eagerly awaiting), my opinion of BioWare is going down. 'Mass Effect 3 is better with Kinect!' 'Mass Effect 3 has three modes of play!' 'Mass Effect 3 is a great place for new players to jump into the series!' 'Multiplayer!', all of that just pisses me off so much.

Those things would annoying me but now I just don't care about them because of Origin. I refuse to install it onto my PC and am therefore also not going to be able to play ME3. Other than that I still hold Bioware in high regard but after EA took them over I have just been waiting to see them get run into the ground and it brings a tear to my eye knowing EA will do it someday.

Why not just uninstall Origin after your finished with ME3? Or is it uninstallable?

That would make sense but Origin collects information from your PC and sends it back to EA, it is basically spyware. Would you willing install something that could note down all the information about your PC system and I believe it even monitors what websites you visit? That could just be me not paying enough attention though.

Well one thing EA will learn from Origins spyware is everyone's favorite porn sites.