We should forgive Bioware.

[hazabaza1]

Their games don't reuse the same engine for 15 years, unlike Valve.

BioWare is the only game company that has a shot of making that hypothetical "Perfect Game" everyone likes to talk about.

Yeah because the source engine is terribly buggy, looks horrible, doesn't do what it's supposed to do, has no amazing fan made games/mods coming from it. Oh and because ME:3 looks so freaking amazing for a console port.

Console port? I don't follow.

Just because you didn't play it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

OT: I never really had any beef with Bioware. Sure, DA2 wasn't all that good, and the ME3 ending still kinda sucks, but generally they're pretty good at what they do.

 

[GAunderrated]

There is nothing to forgive, Bioware has been making mediocre games for several years now so I just rent them and let them be. It's a win win for me, I invest little to no money in mediocre games, and bioware sees none of my money for producing said mediocre games.

 

[Phaerim]

Really. I still think BioWare is doing a good job. Mass Effect 3 is probably the most epic gaming experience I've had for ages. The Extended Cut DLC saved it for me, and it is easily one of my favourite games of all time.

Dragon Age 2 dwarfs in comparison to its predecessor which were an epic game. God I have played DA:O many times, and I still play it this day today. Dragon Age 2 was rushed, and the story was pretty unintresting, unengaging and not very exciting.

ToR is just WoW in space. Sorry. I am not an undying fan of the Star Wars universe, and it doesn't draw me the same was as fantasy settings or Mass Effect did.

BioWare have always been praised ot the heavens. Now they stepped a bit off. Let them learn, and lets hope Dragon Age 3 will blow our minds. I for one, want that franchise to be saved.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Can you tell me what Mass Effect 3 did right? Like anything it did that was good, Because I've played it through 6 times now and have found maybe 3 minutes of "acceptable" or "good" things in this 50 hour game.

You played a 50 hour game six times over despite only liking 3 minutes of it.

Or, to put it another way, you knowingly spent roughly 249 hours and 45 minutes (not counting the first playthrough) playing a game that you do not consider to be of acceptable quality.

...

Seriously?

I was looking for good.
Does that count?

I was trying to see if there was any combination or permutation of ways to play the first 2 games that made the third one not suck.

So what did you like about ME3?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I never played DA2, found the first to be too boring.

As for ME3; It's is an incredibly fun game let down by a rather poor narrative. I never read the novels based off the series so I can't really speak to those, but the game's story started to fall apart pretty early on in ME2. I got the sense they tried to fix some of it in 3, but a half assed effort is worse than no effort at all. Maybe Drew just isn't that good a story writer.

Will I stop buying Bioware games? The Dragon Age games, most likely yes. But no in general.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I will never forgive Bioware. They made me relive my post-traumatic stress disorder from the Rollercoaster Syndrome.

What's that, you ask? That's when someone makes a trilogy (movie or game) - first one introduces the idea and makes cash, the sequel uses that cash to improve everything, then the third one comes and shits on everything before running off.

Fuck Bioware for Mass Effect 3. I can't speak for those who suffered for Dragon Age, but double-fuck them for that one too. And whatever the business is with KOTOR too (again not played that).

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I never played DA2, found the first to be too boring.

As for ME3; It's is an incredibly fun game let down by a rather poor narrative. I never read the novels based off the series so I can't really speak to those, but the game's story started to fall apart pretty early on in ME2. I got the sense they tried to fix some of it in 3, but a half assed effort is worse than no effort at all. Maybe Drew just isn't that good a story writer.

Will I stop buying Bioware games? The Dragon Age games, most likely yes. But no in general.

Drew Karpyshyn had very little input in regards to ME3, his name isn't even included in the writers credits.

Bioware will earn my 'forgivness' (aka me buying one of their products again) when it produces a superb RPG that outweighs the use of Origin, or better yet ditch EA and the brand Bioware entirely and start anew.

 

[Mikeyfell]

snip.

Well, thanks, that helped.
A lot of the stuff you liked was stuff I was indifferent about (Except the controls, but if you got 'em to work more power to you)

All the things I complain about are usually met with "That didn't matter" but that gets harder and harder to take when I complain about everything

I played the first two game so much because I loved them, I have 8 Shepard profiles for fuck's sake, and for the thrilling conclusion I wanted to see how my choices mattered. To my mind a playthrough where I killed the council, picked Udina for the council seat, and gave Cerberus the Collector base should have absolutely nothing in common with a playthrough where I saved the Council, gave Anderson the seat and blue up the Collector base, but they were exactly the same (Except for what happened on Tuchanka but that's the only part of the game that calls back to a decision you made for more than 1 or 2 lines of dialog)
I feel like Bioware robbed me of a satisfying conclusion to a series that I spent near on 1000 hours shaping, and that's why I hate them so much. (The ending had nothing to do with it, I thought it was fitting because it had nothing to do with the rest of the game in the same way ME 3 had nothing to do with the series as a whole. It was poetic in a way, a bad way)

So I don't think Bioware deserves to be forgiven, If that's how they treat their branching story lines, by pulling a last minute Ret-con on every choice they gave the player say in (Ahem Leliana being alive at the end of Dragon age 2. Ahem) Then the stuff we enjoyed so much had no meaning. And it's sort of pointless to get invested in something that doesn't mean anything

 

[shrekfan246]

snip.

Well, thanks, that helped.
A lot of the stuff you liked was stuff I was indifferent about (Except the controls, but if you got 'em to work more power to you)

All the things I complain about are usually met with "That didn't matter" but that gets harder and harder to take when I complain about everything

I played the first two game so much because I loved them, I have 8 Shepard profiles for fuck's sake, and for the thrilling conclusion I wanted to see how my choices mattered. To my mind a playthrough where I killed the council, picked Udina for the council seat, and gave Cerberus the Collector base should have absolutely nothing in common with a playthrough where I saved the Council, gave Anderson the seat and blue up the Collector base, but they were exactly the same (Except for what happened on Tuchanka but that's the only part of the game that calls back to a decision you made for more than 1 or 2 lines of dialog)
I feel like Bioware robbed me of a satisfying conclusion to a series that I spent near on 1000 hours shaping, and that's why I hate them so much. (The ending had nothing to do with it, I thought it was fitting because it had nothing to do with the rest of the game in the same way ME 3 had nothing to do with the series as a whole. It was poetic in a way, a bad way)

I can understand where you're coming from, but for them to take account for everything that happened in the previous two games, Mass Effect 3 would've essentially needed to have five completely different storylines entirely. Or maybe three that occasionally intersected depending on actions taken... regardless, it's not entirely feasible to believe Bioware would be able to do something like that, especially given the strict deadlines EA implements on them and how utterly ridiculous Casey Hudson got during the development process.

I don't understand it as an argument for why you hate Bioware, though. Is it because it was the end of the trilogy? Because the story of Mass Effect 2 didn't really change much dependent on your actions in the first game, either. In fact, the Rachni Queen being saved or killed wasn't brought up even once, that I remember, and Kaidan/Ashley had the exact same lines.

So I don't think Bioware deserves to be forgiven, If that's how they treat their branching story lines, by pulling a last minute Ret-con on every choice they gave the player say in (Ahem Leliana being alive at the end of Dragon age 2. Ahem) Then the stuff we enjoyed so much had no meaning. And it's sort of pointless to get invested in something that doesn't mean anything

Now see, I don't really think it had much meaning to begin with. To me, it was just a way to be entertained. Sure, I got invested in the stories and characters, but when I finished Mass Effect 3, I was just done with it. I moved on.

And I don't think it's really supposed to be a branching story. To me, at least, a branching story is something like Shadow The Hedgehog or Final Fantasy XIII-2, where the actual story, levels you visit, people you encounter, ending you get, will change completely based on things you do. Mass Effect always felt more like... imagine a straight line that occasionally has other lines turning off of it, but all of those lines end up in a dead stop eventually, so you have to go back to the original line you turned off of. I never felt Mass Effect was intended to have a branching storyline, because the overarching plot for the first two games always ended up the same no matter what choices you made.

Mass Effect: Go to Noveria, Feros, Virmire, and Ilos, kill Saren.

Mass Effect 2: Recruit your team, chase the Collectors around, attack their base.

All of the extra stuff along the way was just... extra stuff. So I guess we just feel differently about the impact of the events that happened in the first two Mass Effect games.

I feel like a robot now...

 

[Vegosiux]

It's not the matter of "I won't forgive them." It's the matter of "They lost my trust as a customer, and I'm not giving them another second chance, I already gave them enough second chances."

If they put together something great, worth playing again, good on them, but brand loyalty is just not my thing, so I don't see why I should been rooting for someone I don't trust right now.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Drew Karpyshyn had very little input in regards to ME3, his name isn't even included in the writers credits.

Didn't he set down the central story and the framework for it (the three games) tho?

As for Origin, I use Sandboxie to castrate it's abilities to spy on my system.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Drew Karpyshyn had very little input in regards to ME3, his name isn't even included in the writers credits.

Didn't he set down the central story and the framework for it (the three games) tho?

As for Origin, I use Sandboxie to castrate it's abilities to spy on my system.

His idea for the ending got dummied out, the Starchild was the brainchild of Casey Hudson.

Yeah sandbox is the inevitable home of Origin if I ever use it, that or cracking it entirely.
(Which is of course illegal and something I will never do)

 

[JWAN]

I don't really believe in boycotting companies based on a shitty game. I have more important shit to worry about. If they turn out like EA however... Let me put it this way, they stopped caring about the games they released and they need to fix that.

 

[legendp]

I buy games I enjoy regardless of the developer. although up until Mass effect 1 I would not have given bioware a second glance. I have bought knight of the old rebublic and jade empire (steam sale). and maybe I need to give them more of a chance but I just don't like them, there boring, the gameplay is slow, and the lack of a voiced character in KOTOR really bugs me. On another note other than the story I thought mass effect 1 was a meh game, All the side misions were the same, the inventory was annoying (I would prefer to be playing the game than in the inventory menu), and the shooting felt uninspired.

In my opinion (and I know it will be unpopular), I didn't think bioware made a truly incredible game until mass effect 2 (and mass effect 3 had it's flaws, not just the ending. but it was still a great game, I can not see how other than some gameplay elements it is like gear of war, the story, setting, atmosphere, way you interact are just so different.)

 

[ThriKreen]

Plus there's the fact that Bioware isn't actually Bioware any more. The majority of the original devs have been reassigned to other EA projects or have quit.

Completely false statement, a lot of the 'old-timers' (if you will) from the KOTOR days are still there.

 

[ScaryAlmond]

Lolno

Just to say this may not deserve a warning but anyway
Bioware over the last 20 years has been such a huge powerhouse and has again and again produced exceptionally good games.

If anyone else produced games at the quality of DA2 or Mass effect 3 ending No one else would bat an eye.
However it's due to this history that people are incredibly shocked and worried about bioware's future.
Imagine if Apple released a tablet at the quality of a kindle and price of the ipad but the same price just think of the outrage a kindle is good but it is nothing compared to the quality and uses of the app store Its good but not great.
Another reason people are worried is due to EA's history with this sort of thing they have shown they don't know how to run developers well and to balance profit with quality.

The only way people will forgive Bioware is if they make a good game but getting the trust back will take a while if Bioware lives through this which I personally think is fairly unlikely.

 

[shrekfan246]

Lolno

Just to say this may not deserve a warning but anyway

It was a low content post, those tend to get mod-wrath'd.

Another reason people are worried is due to EA's history with this sort of thing they have shown they don't know how to run developers well and to balance profit with quality.

The only way people will forgive Bioware is if they make a good game but getting the trust back will take a while if Bioware lives through this which I personally think is fairly unlikely.

I agree with both of those sentiments.

I tried to avoid mentioning EA in my OP, really, because I wanted to focus mostly just on Bioware, but I suppose a big part of it is EA, so that's unavoidable.

But I'm not really talking about "trusting" Bioware again, because they're just a company. Why would you trust them for anything? They don't care about you when it comes down to it. I'm just saying that "hating" them seems equally pointless to me. I suppose that most people probably just don't care anymore, but there still seems to be a pretty prevalent group of people who are holding grudges against the developer, and it doesn't really make sense to me.

 

[Joccaren]

So after Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, and The Old Republic, many people have claimed that Bioware is ruined forever or that they've betrayed their fans, and so they'll never purchase a game with the Bioware name on it ever again. And I have to ask why? What's the purpose?

Because we're pissed off with Bioware, find the games pretty bad at best and want Bioware to actually make good games again? [No, I'm not talking about RPG games. I'm talking about any game that doesn't feel extremely rushed and lacking in effort put in].

Bioware has a long history of releasing pretty good games. Those previously mentioned three included, whatever missteps they may have taken along the way, they were still decent titles overall.

And I had a long history of good grades and paying attention to the teacher in Primary School. In high school I completely ignored them and didn't do any work, leading to my marks dropping from A+ to B. Now, this helped in year 12 as I wasn't burned out like the rest of the class, and could actually focus when I needed to, but something tells me that's a slightly different situation to what Bioware's in. Point is, their history from 8+ years back doesn't mean crap compared to what they've put out in the last 3 years. The last three years have been utter crap, and unless they do a complete turn around and start putting effort into their games again - something which I sadly don't see happening thanks to EA - then nothing is going to change, and I have no reason to buy from them.

So why is it that DA2 and ME3 have had such a controversial impact on the community that people just automatically refuse to give the time of day to something branded with "Bioware" on it anymore? In the big picture, was the ending really that important? Was it really that terrible, even after the "Extended Edition", that you'd never be able to purchase a Bioware game ever again?

DA2 and ME3 individually didn't have that effect. Its the combined picture they paint of Bioware putting less and less effort into their games that makes me automatically refuse Bioware titles now. Its not because I am that pissed off at Bioware for ruining two of my favourite franchises in recent years, but because I know they're not going to change, and I'm not going to like any of the half baked sequels they try to push out from here on in. If some miracle occurs and EA realises that they might need to give the group some more time and money, and tell them to make a well made and polished game that absolutely reaks of effort - I'll go out and buy that the second its confirmed. Sadly, its not going to happen.
And were the games that terrible?
Yes. Easily. Even after the extended cut. There was nothing entertaining about DA2 or ME3, and I had to push myself to actually finish each of them. I have never replayed either, despite having 10+ replays of even DA:O, fully completed.

Because I think it's a waste of emotion to feel so strongly about something so insignificant. Are people swearing off Pixar forever because of Cars and its sequel? What would've happened to Batman Begins if people had sworn they would never watch another Batman film ever again after Batman Forever and Batman & Robin? What would've happened to Pink Floyd if people had sworn them off forever after Syd Barrett left the band?

"I find these games insignificant, so you shouldn't care".
I'm sure there are a lot of things you care about that I'd find insignificant to me, but I'm not telling you what to care about and what not to. Believe it or not, Bioware has had a great history of releasing great games that people got really attached to. Then they managed to screw up the most recent iterations that badly that its like watching a loved one die in a drink driving car accident.
The thing is those other examples have the opportunity to change - or at least seem to.
Batman has and will be done over and over by different actors, directors, writers and crew. You didn't like one iteration? Why not wait for the next, it will be different and you might like it.
Pixar made Cars wrong for some people, yet they loved their other works. Wait for the next Pixar movie. Is it good? Yes? Keep watching. Pixar has likely changed back for the better. If not, then you likely do decide not to see any Pixar movies again because their new style isn't to your tastes.
Whilst you might have Loyalty to one specific member of a crew - like many did to Drew Karpyshyn - them leaving in no way guarantees that the next songs will be crap. People decided to stay with Bioware after Karpyshyn left, that's not their problem. They're problem is the quality of games that have been pumped out. If the first 3 or 4 songs with the new member were absolute crap, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would have stopped listening to Pink Floyd too.

I'm rambling a bit now, so to summarize here:
Maybe Bioware is just moving in a direction that you don't care for anymore. Maybe something amplified how angry you got at those two games, like their reception on the internet or something. Maybe you just think Bioware is stupid for not catering to your wants and sticking rigidly to their formulaic RPG structure. Whatever it is, can't you let it go, though? Can't you take a deep breath, relax, and either say "Yeah, okay Bioware, you do what you want, but I think I've moved on from the style you're trying to reach" without spewing hatred and anger their way, or hell, be excited to see what they do when they aren't trying to confine themselves to the RPG structure? They were the people who made MDK2 and Jade Empire, after all.

I have no problem with different styles. I play RPG, FPS, TPS, RTS, TBS 4X, AA, Racing and basically every other style of game out there. If its done well, I'll like it. If it feels rushed and half assed, I won't. That is why I haven't liked the more recent Bioware games. They are rushed and half assed, it shows, and there is nothing to really enjoy in them - likely a side effect of them being rushed and half assed.
Can I take a deep breath and let their fall into mediocrity and likely eventually death [Judging by other companies EA has bought and done this to] just go on without saying anything?
No. I loved Bioware. They made great games. They don't any more. They think they can get away with making half assed, rushed products and have people love and buy them anyway? No. I'm going to tell them till I'm out of Internet how much I preferred the way they used to put effort into their games, how they used to take time to create them, and not try to pump them out every 2 years or so. With some luck, maybe they'll listen. Odds are they won't.
I don't scream and shout because I want Bioware to die. I do it because I am loyal to them and want them to live. I want them to achieve what they have proven they can achieve, and not just take the easy path out all the time. That is why I will not stop my complaining until they change or are finally closed down. Because I still have hope that they might put effort into their games again, and I'm not going to let the idea that they can fade from their minds.

 

[The_Lost_King]

I do not "hate" Bioware, nor will I claim that I will never purchase another of their games again, despite being disappointed with Mass Effect 3, and irritated by the clearly rushed Dragon Age 2 (although it's still fairly good).

What I will not do, which I did before is take Bioware's word ever again. I will not believe their marketing, I will not believe them when they say X, Y or Z will feature prominently in the game, and I will almost certainly never pre-order a game from them again.

Why? Because they lie, they falsely advertise and they build up too much hype over things that end up insignificant. They rush out their products, they do not respect their customers enough to answer their questions or concerns maturely, instead resorting to PR, double-speak.

That said, if they create a game, it happens to look pretty good, I am hearing from various people that it's worth a shot, or from my own research I like what I see, then I will buy it.

I do not hold onto any resentment against Bioware, but I will no longer buy games "Because it's a Bioware game, they always make great games" which was actually the reason that I bought Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins in the first place.

Pretty much this. This guy captured all of my thoughts and put it into this post. I was ready to swear off Bioware but I think that they can still come back. the other parts of me3 were phenomenal and DA2 would have been acceptable from another game company.