Poll: When do you think Bioware started going downhill?

[MegaManOfNumbers]

Nah, Capcom is going downhill; Bioware is doing just fine.

The latter has made a few dumb mistakes the past few years; the former, however, has made stupendously incoherent catastrophes the past 4 years and HAVEN'T learned from them.

 

[Vhite]

Neverwinter Nights
That and anything that they made after that with exception of first Mass Effect couldn't keep me playing.

 

[Contradiction]

DA3 will make or break the company in my eyes. If they screw it up, they are dead.

This is more or less my stance. Personally I thought the company went south with DA2 which I never bought despite LOVING DA:O. The Mass Effect series averages out to good for me... Never really dug the first one but I think that's because I played it later on and it just seemed really old 'n' clunky (I'll probably retry it one of these days) Mass Effect 2 AND 3 were great

Spoiler

I didn't even mind the original endings and the game itself was still polished and smooth as all hell but it sit right with me entirely either

I'd be lying if I said I was excited for DA3 but if the stars align and it isn't bad I'd jump back on the wagon with that franchise at least.

 

[Nami nom noms]

Honestly, I don't feel they have gone downhill... I just also think they were never 'that' good in the first place. The problem is that now they do some things better then they used to (thanks to practice, new technology and funding) and so the flaws, bad patches and design choices they always had are far more noticeable in the modern age.

The main problem only comes from viewing BioWare as the god of games in the first place.

 

[Volafortis]

I feel like Dragon Age 2 and Jade Empire were both somewhat weak by their standards (Hell, Dragon Age 2 was just bad), but I wouldn't say they've had a solid "downhill" trend in game quality. TOR and ME3 were both really good, IMO.

 

[daniel the immortal]

they went down when they were brought by EA

 

[RedDeadFred]

I am mildly shocked, and happy, to see that my choice is currently the second most popular pick.

I still like Bioware. They aren't perfect, but they've proven, through the EC and the wealth of free updates to the multiplayer, that they still care about the fans.

My thoughts exactly. The EC fixed a lot of plot holes and just made the whole game that much better. The fact that they realized their fans were unhappy and then fixed the situation for free shows their dedication.

 

[NotALiberal]

Since I played the Witcher series. The gameplay in the first was godawful, yet still charming in its own quaint way. If you have not played it, go play it now. Get some good mods to clean up the visuals a bit, and get the scabbard mod. Then go play a game where your choices actually matter, there are no "right" and "wrong", only choices that have consequences. The sheer amount of character dialogue is immense, and by the end of the game, your mind is blown at having played a game where the world actually feels alive, as opposed to the static "artificial" worlds Bioware creates. The second one improves on the gameplay, but still isn't as good in terms of characters or dialogue.

You will never be able to play another Bioware game again.

 

[endtherapture]

Throne of Bhaal. Around that time.

I'm going to go right ahead and go further back and say Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn

BG II was a brilliant game, as were all their games right up until the games after Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins (Both of which are great in my eyes).

I can sort of see the start of the dumbing down in Baldurs Gate 2, since I just went straight to BG 2 from BG1 recently.
Less dialogue, significantly easier combat, what feels like a lot more rail roading, a really shit beginning (you just randomly woke up in a bald mages sex dungeon, oh, and all your stuff is gone ), and at times it felt lazy (You need 20,000 gold, so go earn it!" Felt a lot like Bioware saying "Go play some side quests").
The dumbing down was incredibly obvious with Mass Effect 2, which was a good game but it still felt downhill in my eyes.

Nah.

BG2 was vastly superior to BG1. BG1 had just the same amount of railroading in the game, you had to complete certain areas before others, first Nashkel, then bandit camp, then more Mines, then Baldur's Gate, then Candlekeep, then Baldur's Gate then endgame. It just had more open areas which were less in depth than the big side quests in BG2. The NPCs were significantly less in-depth, and the combat was frankly rubbish - I know it's D&D but it was so dependent on your rolls and any enemy could kill you in one hit at the beginning. Reloading to get good rolls to get through combat is not very fun. BG2 was more tactical and better, and the increased linearity in the end of the game just gave a more tight narrative, either way all the areas were richly detailed.

 

[veloper]

Whatever came after BG2. BG2 was Bioware's high point.

Kotor has terrible gameplay with very little tactics or action involved.
NWN only works as a toolset. The OC was bad with a poor plot and worse dialogue.
DA:O failed as a BG successor and was only a step into the right direction. Then DA2 throws away what little tactics remained, while the action part is still much too weak to be enjoyable.

I also reckon that Bioware may be climbing out of their hole, but now as a developer of shooters. Don't get me wrong, the shooting in ME1 was poor, but the action in the sequels is gradually getting better. Story driven shooters seems to be the direction they are heading.

 

[Kargathia]

I'll be going with the "stop turning this into a hill analogy" option. They make games. Which used to be extremely dialogue-heavy RPG's, and gradually evolved to more action-oriented TPS/hotkey brawler games.

Either like them, or don't, but complaining about how the apocalypse is near because they're not catering to your specific needs anymore is downright retarded.

 

[Agayek]

-snip-

It's not a specific game that signifies it. Rather, it was the acquisition by EA that started their downward spiral.

There's still some small remnant of what made them great, but it's getting increasingly buried under massive piles of bullshit EA keeps heaping on it in the name of homogenization and broader appeal.

 

[Tippy]

For me Mass Effect 2 was the pinnicale of the Bioware work. Everything after that was pretty much downhill.

 

[Magicman10893]

Around the time EA bought them out. Their games before that were amazing (KoToR, ME, DA:O, and Jade Empire were the only ones I played) and then EA had to muck everything up. I generally liked ME2 and (most of) the decisions they made to alter the gameplay were well received on my end (making a Third-Person-Shooter/RPG hybrid a little smoother in the TPS department makes perfect sense to me), but the story and writing declined on a whole.

Dragon Age 2 was the first time they made a game the genuinely made me upset. At first I was in denial, but the more I think about the game the more I realize how much of a set back it was. To me, the story was fine (the whole Mage/Templar rivalry was pretty apparent from the first game and even the part where the First Enchanter goes crazy was pretty well foreshadowed if you find the hidden Codex Entries). The gameplay and design however was taking 4 steps back for every step forward. Want to make gameplay more fast paced and exciting while still keeping in line with the strategy? Sounds great to me! By that you mean you want to remove auto-attack and flood the screen with enemies when it doesn't make any sense so the end result is a watered-down Dynasty Warriors knockoff? That is where I cross the line.

Not to mention the fact that the entire game apparently takes place in the same building, alleyway, cave, dungeon and mine. That was passable in Mass Effect 1 because they didn't have as much funding and at least there was some kind of lore to hand-wave the problem away (the buildings on planets were dropped from orbit rather than built on location with resources readily available) and they at least varied the content in each room with different box layouts.

I will in all honestly get Dragon Age 3 if it looks like they learned their lesson from DA2, but considering EA's death grip seems to be depriving them off oxygen I highly doubt they'll be able to make the drastic changes necessary to make the game passable given their short development times.

 

[In Search of Username]

Admittedly they've made mistakes recently - DA2's environment recycling, ME3's ending, and generally getting involved with EA at all. But they still make great games, even if they don't match up to KOTOR or Mass Effect or whatever. If DA3 is terrible maybe I'll reconsider, but I don't think they're doing nearly as badly as their so-called fanbase wants to believe.

 

[Danzavare]

I haven't had a chance to play their early games until recently (I bought KOTOR off steam, loving it so far, and am waiting for the new update of original Baldur's Gate) so I can't adequately compare to them. I will say that the reverence I had for the company because of Jade Empire and Dragon Age: Origins was heavily wounded by the existence of DA2. It's a terrible games and easily the most disappointing gaming experience I've had to endure.

 

[shrekfan246]

I don't think they have at all. Yes, they may not be making the games "you" in particular like playing anymore, either because what they are doing has changed and/or because your own tastes have changed, but that doesn't instantly mean they are making worse games.

But... but... developers are never allowed to branch out into other genres! They have to be railroaded into making the same thing year after year, because I say so! If they don't, then they're dumbing down their games and broadening the appeal to wider audiences (which they're doing anyway, because their games are easier and less convoluted, which instantly means broadened appeal)!

Yeah, I'm going to say they've just been going into a steady decline since their acquisition by EA, because I've had tons of fun with every Bioware game I've played, and that includes DA2 and ME3.

 

[Patrick Buck]

I still like them. I haven't played Dragon age 2, nor do i really want to, and I LIKED the mass effect 3 ending. Was it too bleak for you all? Was the message that whatever you do, sometimes it doesn't matter, it doesn't make a difference in the end to bleak? Meh. I liked it. But prehaps I'm just a depressing ol' freak.

 

[Paladin2905]

They were a must buy developer for me back before their takeover, but their methods and feeling seemed to make a sideways shift after Mass Effect was released (which coincided perfectally with their takeover).
Past that point, they were really not in the business of releasing anything new and different anymore, every iteration forthwith of any game they make has just been a generalization towards whatever themes and mechanics are most popular in the current day. For all its faults, Mass Effect contained a bunch of interesting gameplay for the genre it was entering (infinite ammo, the mako / exploration, an actually new and interesting IP not modelled after history or established fantasy). Every generation following the takeover reduced the unique parts and added in more common elements- therefore I believe it is a good breakpoint for where Bioware started to slip.

 

[lacktheknack]

I think they're still doing pretty good, regardless of the EA thumb they're under.

People seem to forget that the first 149/150 of Mass Effect 3 was still pretty dang good.