What do people think about Bioware right now?

[isometry]

Their games have been continually getting worse since they were bought by EA, and recently their descent has been accelerating. After deciding to skip ME3, I don't think I'll buy any of their games in the future.

 

[RookwoodX]

I still say we need to stop blaming EA on this one, and start seriously considering that Bioware themselves are at fault. EA is nice and big to wail on, and Bioware has goodwill from their previous, non EA titles. However, we should not discount criticism leveled directly at Bioware. Shoddy workmanship within the company itself is not the fault of EA.

Yeah, that might be nice if this wasn't a precedent EA has set over and over again. EA has a history of basically forcing developers into slave labor and it never really works out for them as you can see from the games they put out.

Also, Bioware just released a WoW-clone and apparently ME3 is going to be a CoD-clone(lawls). That is so very EA. Envious, uninspired, and ultimately terrible.

 

[Kevin McFadden]

I play Star Wars: The Old Republic like its a drug right now so I have to say I'm still completely in love with them and they are my favorite company in the gaming world.

 

[The Great JT]

I think Bioware is doing good, but it wouldn't hurt to break a few of their traditions. What do I mean? Well, it wouldn't hurt to not turn all their games into Mass Effect. I'm looking at you, Dragon Age 2.

 

[Ixal]

Also, Bioware just released a WoW-clone and apparently ME3 is going to be a CoD-clone(lawls). That is so very EA. Envious, uninspired, and ultimately terrible.

Not CoD. GoW clone. Remember all the hype about the Omniblade?

And don't forget that Tor is not only a WoW clone with some added single player missions, it is also very buggy when you level higher than about 30 (doable in a few days) and many parts of the game are very unfinished. (PvP? Lets put the level 20 guy in an arena with lvl 50s. Crafting? Let them craft some blue stuff, nothing which is better than what average quests give and what you can buy with markers)

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I still say we need to stop blaming EA on this one, and start seriously considering that Bioware themselves are at fault. EA is nice and big to wail on, and Bioware has goodwill from their previous, non EA titles. However, we should not discount criticism leveled directly at Bioware. Shoddy workmanship within the company itself is not the fault of EA.

Yeah, that might be nice if this wasn't a precedent EA has set over and over again. EA has a history of basically forcing developers into slave labor and it never really works out for them as you can see from the games they put out.

Also, Bioware just released a WoW-clone and apparently ME3 is going to be a CoD-clone(lawls). That is so very EA. Envious, uninspired, and ultimately terrible.

Yes, but suddenly releasing Bioware from EA isn't going to erase bad habits they've had since KOTOR. Bioware themselves are just slack and uninspired right now, removing the EA taint won't fix that.

 

[Teh Jammah]

CBA to read a whole thread, but taking teh topic title at face value:- One of the better W-RPG makers that are slowly slipping into EA's C&MC (Cash and MORE CASH) *****-dungeon.

Which means provided I enjoy their stuff (on consoles so i don;t have to install glorified spyware) I'll probably keep buying it, even though it makes me feel dirty.

When it makes me feel dirtier than the equivilent spent on a Soho Ho is when i give up Bioware and develop some interesting STDs

 

[Teh Jammah]

<sorry for the accidental DP. Feel free to delete>

 

[JimmyC99]

Since ME2 and DA2, i was cautious, they're games seamed to be taking a dumbing down twist. the writing seamed to take a back seat, maby it was because of SW:ToR, SWToR is my fav game of the moment, and i hope ME3 and DA3 can match it. stories of multiplayer and "FPS" and "Story" modes in me3 have not made me any less cautious. i shall remain optimistic, i hope DA3 is great i loved Origins and liked 2 (its not total shit, its just different) when march rolls on we will know, is it Bioware, or is it EA-Ware.

 

[Buddahcjcc]

Greg Zeschuk, co-founder of Bioware, said: "It [World of Warcraft] is a touchstone. It has established standards, it's established how you play an MMO. Every MMO that comes out, I play and look at it. And if they break any of the WoW rules, in my book that's pretty dumb."

All respect lost, need to buy SWTOR, gone.

 

[PurePareidolia]

Up to the point of Mass Effect 1 I quite liked them. Then i played ME2 which was OK, but had abysmal writing. Then I played Dragon Age in which I didn't care about anything involved because it was generic fantasy but everyone was depressed about it, though it still had a few redeeming features like Morrigan who was as fed up with it as I was. THEN I read an LP of Dragon Age 2 because I'd heard it was bad, and I didn't want to play through it after DA:O but dear god was it awful. I mean, I couldn't even believe some of the stuff in that game.

So at this point I think they're a bunch of hacks who are more interested in making Japanese dating sims than RPGs, but I still want to know how Mass Effect will end enough to buy it.

 

[Deathmageddon]

I HATEHATEHATE Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 (despite liking ME1 and Origins), but if they release a mac version of The Old Republic, I might give them a few of my dollars...

 

[Buddahcjcc]

This is really interesting and makes perfect sense. I think perhaps the games industry as a whole should learn that a "one game at a time" policy makes for much better games.

The problem is that the industry now runs on the idea of 'potential profit'. Developers could quite easily work on one title at a time, putting their all into each game, and turn a nice profit at release. But that's not enough for publishers. They think "If one game will make this much profit, imagine how much two games could make." It doesn't matter that the number they've come up with exists only in their head. The industry doesn't simply work for profit anymore. It works for maximum potential profit. And that means developers get overworked and spread out across multiple projects.

It'll lead to a crash sooner or later. You can't have an industry this highly strung without something burning out somewhere and bringing the whole edifice down.

See: Star Trek: Online and Cryptic Studios. Thats pretty much what happened there when Cryptic took on the 3 MMOs over eighteen months contract.

 

[TheMagicLemur]

im going cautious with them, im going to get ME3, but quite frankly it does seem recently that they are making simpler more accessable games (aka dumbing down), but tbh if ME3 sucks (which in all honesty it looks pretty shit atm) i think il take my business else where, whuch kinda sucks because up till recently they were easily my favourate company

Oh thank god... Thank you... I thought I was the only sane one left.....

Though I'm not going to be getting ME3 myself. I'm content with The Old Republic, aka "The Game They Put All Their GOOD Writers On".

 

[Dogstile]

I only like Bioware... montreal, was it? The Canadian developer. EA has since put the Bioware stamp on about six other studios, so yeah, i'm not exactly happy about it.

 

[Joccaren]

But I liked how it was more about politics and civil unrest than Armageddon.

This is one thing that I find REALLY bad about the story. It is about Armageddon, its just the leadup to it. Much like how HP&tDH pt1 was a lead into the massive battle and be all end all of pt2. Now, if they hadn't thrown in the massive 'cliff hanger' ending, I wouldn't have had a problem with what you said, but the game is the leadup to Armageddon. Still somewhat refreshing, even if the subplots needed to be given more attention (Lets be honest here, the main plot of Hawk becoming the rich pimp of the city ain't that interesting. Put more Arishok in it, more Qunari, more Mage v Templar, EXPAND on those subplots next time Bioware. Please).

It was inferior to Dragon Age 1 in visuals, writing, plot, characters, gameplay, pretty much every department.

Visuals? How so?

Yeah...visuals? I thought it was well agreed upon that Origins is an ugly game.

I didn't find it too bad. Moving on to Dragon Age 2, however, and my eyes started bleeding. The visuals in that were just... bad. Worse than Skyrim, taking out the points that Skyrim gets for its massive scale and how that affects its visuals. That's just bad.

OT:
Back when I played KotOR, I loved them.
They moved into Mass Effect, and whilst not the same sort of tactical RPG I was used to from them, I enjoyed it a lot. It had depth, an array of abilities to learn and master, and an interesting story - everything that FPS/TPS games were lacking.
Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins came out, and I played them both.
Mass Effect 2 I got to the end of and was like "Wait... What?", confused with how it had already ended, with basically nothing being accomplished. Then I thought about the game, and how it was basically another shooter to add to my list of 'When I want to shoot things' games, though one with a good story thrown one. Most of what I had enjoyed from ME1 was gone, though there were definite improvements (The three armour type (Armour, Barrier, Shield) system for one).
Dragon Age: Origins, however, I loved. Tactical, a large world with a lot of secrets to uncover, combat that had me thinking, a story that engaged me, choices that changed the end game. It was beautiful. There were some flaws I could pick in it, but the rest of the game made me forget them - I could tell that work and TLC had been put into the game.
Dragon Age 2: Comes out, and I am majorly disappointed. Everything that made Origins great was gone. Admittedly, the game had needed a bit of a faster pace, but DA2 took that, stuffed it with steroids, then flushed it down the toilet and handed the remains to me. The game reaked of a rush job, even more so than KotOR2. The combat design was lazy. Instead of improving on the graphics and style of Origins, they went an entirely different route, and made both worse. The large world became one city and a couple of dungeons. The grand story became a leadup to a bigger one. My decisions from Origins were retconned, and some of my favourite characters destroyed (RIP Anders).
SW:TOR: I didn't get as it was subscription based, and I buy nothing subscription based (I know my luck won't hold out on me twice, and just as my free trial sort of thing for buying the game ends, the game goes F2P [Thankyou Dungeons and Dragons Online]). It sounded like the sort of MMO I'd actually play, though I have heard about a lot of problems - including that some of the environments just don't feel alive. For me, that was one of the things about Bioware environments - they felt alive. If they don't in TOR, then that is yet another aspect of Bioware gone.
ME3: Looks like an improvement on ME2 so far, keeping the best of both, but I'm not certain. The weapons attachments and stats returning is a good sign, as is the better ability system (Better than both ME1 and 2 if it works the way I hope it will). The story will at least have a point - I'll be stopping the Reapers - and so far Mass Effect Dialogue hasn't suffered too badly. Its been somewhat hit or miss at times, but when it its, oh boy does it hit... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXiU6kiq_Ms&feature=related [And that final 'Goodbye' line, after the song, was quite miss]
DA3: Not even announced, so I don't know much about it. Bioware seems to want to take the large open world path though, so they NEED to improve the visuals from DA2, or allow very easy modding so that others can [Texture quality is a real issue here]. They also need to spend a long. LONG. LONG time developing it. Bethesda spent a good many years working on Skyrim, and Bioware a good many on Dragon Age Origins. I'd expect more than both for the game to impress me. I'd prefer it to lean a LOT more back to DA:O - the tactical combat, talking to your party any time, a proper (If cluttered) inventory - but I feel it is unlikely they will do that. Personally, if they just made the landscape in between each of the places in DA:O, turned the random encounter system into one that worked in real time, and gave me DA:O with those features, SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY. As said, however, I feel they will go the 'Skyrim with good dialogue but more cliché story' route, which will likely result in me doing only one playthrough of it too - if I even buy it.
C&C G2: The studio making this isn't even really Bioware, just another studio renamed to that title. That said, the game is technically a Bioware title because of this. I am hesitantly excited about it. It is using the Frostbite 2 Engine, so if done correctly there might finally be a game with proper destruction on all buildings, not just a health bar (For proper destruction, see Stronghold Legends [Haven't played the others] Wall and to an extent tower destruction). It also means that there is a lot of potential for brilliant graphics. The gameplay I am not sure at all about how it will be, having heard nothing of it, but it may shape up to be a good game.

 

[FFHAuthor]

They're getting lazy, very lazy. Whether that's from success or simply from the weight of what's being pressed down upon them, I'm not sure. But the Mass Effect series has been topically good, but if you spend too much time thinking about it and analyzing it, it starts to come apart at the seams. Then you can begin to see the cut and paste writing and the laziness (look up Ilium on the Mass Effect Wiki and the Star Wars Wiki, tell me what you see... you need a sharp eye, but you'll definitively go 'WTF?!?')

TOR...well, I think Bioware was trying their best, but look at what they're working WITH:

LucasArts
and
EA

What do you think will come of THAT fiasco?

I like TOR, I'm playing it now, but come on...when you have LucasArts trying to drain every cent out of the intellectual property you're working with, and EA demanding opportunities to create more money...what do you think you'll get? It's no wonder the game was rushed out, and we're going expect DLC, expansion packs, monthly fees, buyable peripherals, and probably purchasable items/quests/skins/worlds and what have you.



ADDENDUM:
Browsing the Mass Effect Wiki, I just saw an image for a weapon that's ORIGIN exclusive. I don't know how exactly to feel about that, other than to have grave misgivings about the whole thing. If EA is dictating an in game weapon...how long before missions are exclusive to ORIGIN users?

 

[Smeggs]

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.

Same thing I said. The least they could've done is tell the guy to show off a little by stopping to shoot off a few rounds into the Reaper's thrall that were spit out, but instead all we get is some random idiot yelling, "HO-LEE SHEEIT!" And then a bunch of running.

Why in the hell would you just run past the enemies? If you wanted to preview the game and make fans excited for it, you need to give us a taste of how we're going to be playing it.

Still preordering it, though. I've never really thought Bioware's gameplay previews were very good, but it always is in the end.

Personally I couldn't really care less what happens with the Dragon Age series. Played through Origins, "Well, that was amusing." Haven't played DA2 because I've just had no motivation. Origins was an interesting and amusing game, but not enough to really make me want to play it again or the other games.