What do people think about Bioware right now?

[Hides His Eyes]

Oh also, in response to "especially when we dont know a thing about that game", yes we do. That game was DA2, that's what Bioware said about it when it came out.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

To me, there are two branches of Bioware.

One makes Mass Effect, a third person shooter with great dialog and RPG elements. I like this branch of Bioware.

The other makes Dragon Age, a series that has ranged from painfully mediocre at best to absolutely shit at worst, and employs this monstrosity.

Spoiler: Uh-oh.

The Dragon Age branch sucks. The Mass Effect branch is good. I buy the Mass Effect games. I do my best to stay away from the Dragon Age games.

So there you have it, thats my thoughts on Bioware.

(Ignoring the KOTOR MMO completely since its just another WoW clone with absolutely no compelling features apart from a better story than other MMOs.)

Correction, the Dragon Age Branch WAS good, when Brent Knowles was still working for them. But after he saw the direction DA2 was going in, as well as the company on the whole, he quit.

And I'm not feeling very optimistic about ME3 either. That whole preview they had with the Reaper fighting a Thresher Maw was visually stunning. What was the objective for the actual gameplay? Run through a corridor and press a button.

 

[Gizmo1990]

In general, I think they've grown too big and stretched the original team that made Bioware great too thin. Add to this the oversight by EA which has pushed them into several questionable directions and it's not looking too great...

Mass Effect 2 was a good game. But even here, the damage was starting to show. The main plot was kinda crap (and by "kinda" I mean "real fucking") and the RPG elements were a bit too streamlined. However, the gameplay was better, the subpolots were good, the characters were interesting and the excellent background of the ME universe held it together.

Then came Dragon Age 2. This is where it became evident that there was a problem. The game simply didn't have the production values or the quality that other Bioware games had. It was inferior to Dragon Age 1 in visuals, writing, plot, characters, gameplay, pretty much every department. The cut corners were pleantiful and obvious, with content being reused over and over and over again. Add to this a very small number of locations (which were also reused constantly), lazy combat design (nonsensical wave combat and health-bloated bosses) and a slew of other problems, you get a game that was obviously rushed by Bioware's B- or C-list team.

The likely reason for that was that resources were being shifted to The Old Republic. Yes, at this point someone will tell me that those were separate teams. Maybe, but that doesn't mean that they can't put all the good designers and developers on the TOR team. Also, it doesn't say anything about the funding or deadlines. I'm sure the DA2 people did what they could with what they were given, which probably wasn't much.

Now TOR's come out, and while the general reception is positive, the complaints make it fairly obvious that it too was dumped out too soon, likely to meet the Christmas deadline. From what I understand, crafting was only implemented a month before release, and as a result it's utterly crap, with most crafting skills being pointless and one of the wto good ones (Slicing) had to be nerfed in the first patch for being too profitable. There are plenty of other pieces of evidence that the game was shoved out the door before it was ready, like a raid where someone forgot to change the placeholder names for enemies, so they're named Boss Beast 1, Boss Beast 2, etc.

All in all, it has me worried. Worried for ME3 and DA3. Worried that they've taken on yet another project (C&C:Generals 2). Worried that the Bioware that I am a fan of no longer exists, its members spread across a bunch of substudios under the direction of EA.

At this point it could go either way. In the near future it all hinges on Mass Effect 3 and how well they'll fix TOR. If Mass Effect 3 manages to at least match ME2 in overall quality, that would be a good start. If the fixes to the broken parts of TOR are swift (crafting, ability delay, bugged class quests) and they also manage to follow up with some much needed features (dual specs, UI customization, mod support) and more endgame content to satisfy the hardcore crowd, that would be another good sign.

In the long term, the question is what will happen with Dragon Age 3. The ME franchise didn't suffer such a terrible drop in quality, so I'm less worried about ME3. But DA3 has to make quite a few big changes in almost every aspect to save itself from the wreck of DA2...

I agree with everything you said. Mass Effect had it problems but I enjoyed the story, the same gos for DA:O but DA 2 was such a kick in the balls. Honestly I have never been more disappointed with a game (and I have played The Force Unleashed 2).

BTW I love your Avatar. Has to be one if not my most favorite Book series.

 

[x-machina]

I used to love em, then they ruined Dragon Age and Mass Effect. I have no intentions of picking Mass Effect 3, but on the other hand I am enjoying SWTOR quite a bit.

They have fallen from grace, and are now pretty much on the same level as most other developers. Don't really hate them, or love them.

 

[endtherapture]

Correction, the Dragon Age Branch WAS good, when Brent Knowles was still working for them. But after he saw the direction DA2 was going in, as well as the company on the whole, he quit.

Does anyone know what Brent Knowles is doing right now?

It would be a terrible loss for gaming if he quit completely, I hope he's working for a good company and publisher which values his input.

 

[endtherapture]

Correction, the Dragon Age Branch WAS good, when Brent Knowles was still working for them. But after he saw the direction DA2 was going in, as well as the company on the whole, he quit.

Does anyone know what Brent Knowles is doing right now?

It would be a terrible loss for gaming if he quit completely, I hope he's working for a good company and publisher which values his input.

 

[Vindictus]

Yay, another thread where everybody bashes Dragon Age 2 again.

And I'm not feeling very optimistic about ME3 either. That whole preview they had with the Reaper fighting a Thresher Maw was visually stunning. What was the objective for the actual gameplay? Run through a corridor and press a button.

Seriously? You're judging gameplay through a single video that was released purely to make you think "woah, that's cool". Are you suggesting that every section in ME3 is going to be corridor running and button pressing? Very illogical.

(Ignoring the KOTOR MMO completely since its just another WoW clone with absolutely no compelling features apart from a better story than other MMOs.)

You're ignorant or you haven't played SWTOR. Having features from the most popular MMO of all time does not make SWTOR a WoW clone. You want an example of a WoW clone? Go play Rift. SWTOR is different enough to break out of that idiotic label.

Silly people aside, I'm looking forward to what they're doing with Dragon Age and Mass Effect (after Shephard). I hope they don't drop a dues ex machina in ME3 as people have been speculating, that's the only thing that could ruin it for me. Apart from that, I'll always enjoy Bioware games so long as they stick with their ethos of 'designing games with a story'.

 

[Ixal]

Bioware went down the drain.

First Dragon Age 2 was a horrible piece of garbage and single handedly destroyed the franchise in an attempt to capture the CoD players with its "awesome button" design. And now ME3 will also be dumbed down to a corridor shooter with cutscenes. The only people not "knowing" this are the fanboys who defend it with "Bioware just doesn't want to post spoilers so they just don't show all the RPG stuff" (The same fanboys who said "Its Dragon Age 2, not Dragon Age: Origins 2")

And in addition to CoDifining ME3, they also force the coop multiplayer down the players throat with the "Galactic Readiness" tie into the single player. And you can bet that all the talk about "you can achieve the best ending without playing coop" will come down to "grind this boring resource scanning/repeatable mission".

Tor also shows that Bioware is in over their heads. "Oh no, we have low level players opening chests on Illum. Ban them!"

Bioware now is a 100% daughter from EA and we all know what that means. SO far EA managed to destroy every studio they got their hands on.
"Luckily" I am not even tempted to buy a single Bioware game any more thanks to Origin.

 

[Windcaler]

Oh also, in response to "especially when we dont know a thing about that game", yes we do. That game was DA2, that's what Bioware said about it when it came out.

In that case I misunderstood you. I had never heard bioware say anything like that but to be fair I dont follow development of their games all that much. I just play the hell out of them after release. I thought we were talking about an upcoming game, not one that had been released yet. Although I have to wonder how exactly DA2 is supposed to appeal to MMS fans...the logic of that comparison just escapes me but just because I dont understand the logic doesnt mean I can jump to "money grubbing" as the answer

Still it goes back to creative expression and trying new things which companies should be able to do. Going way back in time Super mario bros 2 was vastly different from the original. Then they went back to the original style with Super mario bros 3 because fans enjoyed that more. Come to think of it the original 3 Castlevania's were like that too. Its not like we havnt seen this kind of thing in video game history before.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Yay, another thread where everybody bashes Dragon Age 2 again.

And I'm not feeling very optimistic about ME3 either. That whole preview they had with the Reaper fighting a Thresher Maw was visually stunning. What was the objective for the actual gameplay? Run through a corridor and press a button.

Seriously? You're judging gameplay through a single video that was released purely to make you think "woah, that's cool". Are you suggesting that every section in ME3 is going to be corridor running and button pressing? Very illogical.

What is the point of releasing a video if we suddenly aren't allowed to make assumptions based off it? It's the same thing with a demo. They are used to give you an idea of what the game is going to be like.

What I see there is a game so caught up with its fancy visuals that the gameplay seems trite in comparison.

What I saw in the Dragon Age 2 Demo was a steaming hunk of shit. Sorry the world doesn't conform to your opinion.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it's a lot like Metallica for me, was a huge fan of their old ways and now they are rapidly changing that.

They still do some good story but even that is coming in smaller packages with every release, it could very well be I will only watch walktroughs of their next titles.
It's a shame, but all good things come to an end.

 

[Ixal]

Yay, another thread where everybody bashes Dragon Age 2 again.

And I'm not feeling very optimistic about ME3 either. That whole preview they had with the Reaper fighting a Thresher Maw was visually stunning. What was the objective for the actual gameplay? Run through a corridor and press a button.

Seriously? You're judging gameplay through a single video that was released purely to make you think "woah, that's cool". Are you suggesting that every section in ME3 is going to be corridor running and button pressing? Very illogical.

How about all the other videos which also only shows corridors, shooting and some Gears of War melee finishers? How about that video showing a rail shooter sequence? How about the demo you could play at Gamescom (I did) featuring corridors and shooting?

Heck they even added a "action mode" to the game which does all dialogue choices for you.

 

[Yureina]

Bioware is rapidly losing the once high opinion I held for it. After the glory days of Baldur's Gate and KOTOR, it really has seemed to slip. Mass Effect 1/2 were good, but Dragon Age to me is a shit quasi-remake of Baldur's Gate that is far inferior to the original. And now with Bioware being used as a tool for EA to push their own selfish "fuck the players" agenda (Origin, lots of shit DLC's, "broadening appeal", etc), I have become seriously disenchanted with them. For a game that I had been so seriously looking forward to until EA started pulling its bullshit, ME3 may very well be the last Bioware - and EA - game I ever play.

I blame EA for Bioware's downfall. Fuck those guys.

 

[DSK-]

In general, I think they've grown too big and stretched the original team that made Bioware great too thin. Add to this the oversight by EA which has pushed them into several questionable directions and it's not looking too great...

Mass Effect 2 was a good game. But even here, the damage was starting to show. The main plot was kinda crap (and by "kinda" I mean "real fucking") and the RPG elements were a bit too streamlined. However, the gameplay was better, the subpolots were good, the characters were interesting and the excellent background of the ME universe held it together.

Then came Dragon Age 2. This is where it became evident that there was a problem. The game simply didn't have the production values or the quality that other Bioware games had. It was inferior to Dragon Age 1 in visuals, writing, plot, characters, gameplay, pretty much every department. The cut corners were pleantiful and obvious, with content being reused over and over and over again. Add to this a very small number of locations (which were also reused constantly), lazy combat design (nonsensical wave combat and health-bloated bosses) and a slew of other problems, you get a game that was obviously rushed by Bioware's B- or C-list team.

The likely reason for that was that resources were being shifted to The Old Republic. Yes, at this point someone will tell me that those were separate teams. Maybe, but that doesn't mean that they can't put all the good designers and developers on the TOR team. Also, it doesn't say anything about the funding or deadlines. I'm sure the DA2 people did what they could with what they were given, which probably wasn't much.

Now TOR's come out, and while the general reception is positive, the complaints make it fairly obvious that it too was dumped out too soon, likely to meet the Christmas deadline. From what I understand, crafting was only implemented a month before release, and as a result it's utterly crap, with most crafting skills being pointless and one of the wto good ones (Slicing) had to be nerfed in the first patch for being too profitable. There are plenty of other pieces of evidence that the game was shoved out the door before it was ready, like a raid where someone forgot to change the placeholder names for enemies, so they're named Boss Beast 1, Boss Beast 2, etc.

All in all, it has me worried. Worried for ME3 and DA3. Worried that they've taken on yet another project (C&C:Generals 2). Worried that the Bioware that I am a fan of no longer exists, its members spread across a bunch of substudios under the direction of EA.

At this point it could go either way. In the near future it all hinges on Mass Effect 3 and how well they'll fix TOR. If Mass Effect 3 manages to at least match ME2 in overall quality, that would be a good start. If the fixes to the broken parts of TOR are swift (crafting, ability delay, bugged class quests) and they also manage to follow up with some much needed features (dual specs, UI customization, mod support) and more endgame content to satisfy the hardcore crowd, that would be another good sign.

In the long term, the question is what will happen with Dragon Age 3. The ME franchise didn't suffer such a terrible drop in quality, so I'm less worried about ME3. But DA3 has to make quite a few big changes in almost every aspect to save itself from the wreck of DA2...

You've summed up my thoughts better than I possibly could have. Have some milk and cookies on me! o/

Having said that, I'm just hoping that they don't end up being too mediocre and seriously ruin ME3. Apart from that I'm not really interested in anything Bioware may produce unless it's KOTOR 3; But even then I'd need to be sure it wouldn't be a bad game.

 

[LetalisK]

I like Bioware(note: I haven't played Dragon Age 2 yet). They are in a personal slump with their games right now, but even their "mediocre" games beat the "good" games from other studios.

It seems to me the hate for Bioware comes from two places, sometimes both at the same time: People who did not enjoy Dragon Age 2 and people who did not enjoy SWTOR. The latter irks me the most because 75% of their complaints are with MMOs in general, not a problem with the game specifically and sometimes it's even worse in other games, but it gets stated as if it's a problem exclusive to SWTOR.

 

[Ziame]

What I think of Bioware right now? Well, duh, I love them. Wait, no. I don't.

I love Mass Effect. All the things you point out as flaws - they are the best things that happened to me, because I can play the game with my dad. (I play, he makes the RP decisions) And he wouldn't do that if it wasn't so visually stunning.

But it all boils down to my standpoint - I hate fantasy. In my opinion, Tolkien created a beautiful thing, all those elves and dwarves - then people came and ruined it.

Baldur's Gate was pretty meh for me. Planescape, Icewind - same. KOTOR was cool, but the fights were so utterly boring I thought I wouldn't make it to the end. Jade Empire was nice, yeah. But Mass Effect? Fuck yeah. (No interest in Dragon Age)

Also, they want to cash in on CoDers? Good! Too bad they destroyed one of their top brands along the way, but the idea was perfect.
Also, cookies.

 

[Paladin2905]

Bioware was the first studio I really fell in love with back when they worked with Black Isle on the Baldur's Gate games. The problem is that their core competency was always polished gameplay, meaning that the game always worked and the game was always complete at release. Of course they'd have their patches and add-ons, but there was never any "It's crashed ten times this hour and I can't finish the mage's guild because I installed the Orrery DLC" crap that other developers had.

That seemed to disappear post-acquisition. The games aren't released with much completion anymore and the general theme seems to be more towards creating breath rather than depth in their games. Now instead of a world to explore in (comparatively) free-form like Mass Effect, we have the Mass Effect 2 style of "Here is a list of missions, choose one and we'll take you to a shooting gallery for a few minutes". For me, that is a disappointing development.

 

[Snotnarok]

How do I feel? They're a developer who make good RPGs with over priced hoodies and stuff. I don't get why people hold favoritism with companies.

 

[kickyourass]

I love Bioware, in my opinion they have done very little wrong, like 99% of my problems are nit-picky at best. Really the only truly major problem I've had with one of their games is that they had a silent protagonist in Dragon Age Origins after they did the fully voiced Mass Effect, and I still think Dragon age is one of the best games of the past 5 years.

Most "fans" however piss me off, I don't know if I'm just a magnet for these types of people or what but Bioware fans are easily the whiniest, most irrational pack of lunatics I've ever met. When they're not screaming that an entire game is ruined based on the contents of a 40 second trailer, they're holding contests over who can find the smallest thing to go berserk over. Oh no someone mentioned God, quick, everyone panic like she just swallowed an infant!

So yeah that's my deal, don't hate the games, but I do hate the players.

 

[CleverCover]

I'm worried about them.

I love Mass Effect to death and they practically own my wallet, but I have limits. DA2 and ME2 weren't great compared to their predecessors. There seemed to be a lot taken out, a lot of which I saw unnecessary, in favor of less clutter.

They make great games, but I feel like they're taking out all the little parts that I loved about ME and DA:O. That extra stuff helped add to the game for me. And apparently my brother.

We're, okay I'm hesistant about ME3. My brother has already given up, but I'm holding out hope that they can bring back what I loved from ME1 and what brought me to love DA:O.

I'd like to blame EA for it, but I know it's not just the producers making the changes. If it was just the producers, then Bioware would do their best to find a new one when the contract ends. I don't know. When March comes, then I'll have a better answer. One I hope is positive.