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Are 2010 BIOWARE really that great ?
Lobotomist
Member EpicPosts: 5,981
One of the popular answers when considering the direction SWTOR is heading ( being complete instanced , on the rails , amusement park MMO ) is:
Its made by BIOWARE ! You know the great RPG makers...
Well. Are they really that great today. Or is it just past glory ? ... Or even worse did they start bastardising their roots as great RPG developer ?
Let me get this straight. I am comming from view point of hardcore RPG player. In my eyes Morrowind > Oblivion. Fallout 1/2 >>> Fallout 3, Witcher is amazing game , and Troika rules. So if you can not agree to this points than we disagree in tastes from the start...
So lets take it from the top.
Baldurs Gate 1&2 (together with Black Isle ( Obsidian ) - Not much to say about this except that those are probably two best RPGs ever made.
NWN - Some people didnt like it. For me this is single most worthy investment i ever made in video game. I play it still after 8 years ( online - Single player official campaign was more like showcase for what the game can do )
KOTOR - Ok...I know everyone like it. Myself included. But this is where the things start to get shaky. Mark this game cause we will talk about it more. Also note its first console oriented game.
ps KOTOR2 was the good one and it was done by Obsidian not Bioware
Jade Empire - This is probably the first Biowares comerciall failure. Originally console exclusive. Never played it much.
Mass Effect - Bioware is again on the rise. This is the game with highest production values i have ever seen. But you can see KOTOR engine sipping from behind. Combination of shooter and RPG is a novel idea. But using modified KOTOR engine for it is not. And as i said before look KOTOR and think how much this game is similar in every way. Its like reskinned KOTOR in diferent universe and action shooting. But the basic principles are the same.
Ok so here we are. SWTOR is announced. And Bioware is now part of EA...let see what are they releasing in last year.
Dragons Age - Bioware decided to drop D&D rule system to make their own ruleset. Sounds great. But who will even dream Bioware are completelly uncompetent game ruleset makers ? The game is unbalanced to the core , some skills are useless , while other higher versions of the skills are weaker than lower ones. Non combat skills share spot with combat skills althouth there is another progression tree for non combat skills...Enemies power unballanced. Group of random bandits proves to be unpassable encounter while you kill the high dragon without even blinking.
Imagine above things in MMO ? It would even make CO look without problems.
Mass Effect 2 - Now I it got raging reviews. And in every review it had sentence of this sort : " I really hate RPGs , all those skills confuse me , and inventories too. I am glad Bioware got rid of those " Bioware took RPG in ME2 and killed it.
In order to make it appealing to the masses that are intimidated by complexity of RPGs
Let me bold and underline that one for you. Cause that is the sign of whats to come. That is Bioware today.
But did they manage to make ME2 a better shooter ? "Oh look a room full of boxes. That means enemy is comming"
Well if you think ME2 is any good as shooter than you obviously never played a shooter on PC. Or for that mater anywhere. I never played worse shooter than ME2 i can tell you that.
So in its core ME2 is simplified version of ME1. With RPG elements stripped and dumbed down. Its still has high production value. But what does that tells us?
As i see it Bioware are on the road of simplifying and mass appeal. This is not the Bioware of old. Its not about RPG anymore. And even if it was I doubt they have a skill to make it (hence the horrid DAO ruleset) and if its about fun gameplay they fail at it too (ME2)
So what are they good at now ?
Well ..they still have eye candy , high production values - and dialogues ( no wonder they talk about it in every single interview )
So to go back to the point of this post. When someone defends SWTOR by saying " Its made by BIOWARE ! You know the great RPG makers... "
Well are they really ?
Comments
I think you are just making too many baseless assumptions to give this post any serious consideration.
Perhaps you should read this thread. And look into the game a bit more.
TOR is not going to be "completely instanced"
TOR is not going to be "on rails".
Bioware make great games, but they're not miracle workers. There are a certain cadre of people who are never happy, no matter how good a game they're offered.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
While DA:O bored me for some of the reasons you cite, I feel ME2 distills RPGs down to some of the most interesting choices.
The last SRPGs I've completed were ME2, ME1, KOTOR. and NWN. You have to go back to FFX to find a non-bioware SRPG I beat.
Fallout 3 and Fable 2 were close, but I didn't finish either (got 80% through both, and any semblence of challenge disappeared along with my interest.) And Oblivion I got distracted by sidequests long enough for me to lose interest (for the opposite reason: things became too challenging, primarily because my computer at the time wasn't really suitable for it.)
In retrospect this makes me a much bigger Bioware fanboy than I realized I was. I was pretty harsh on BG1/BG2, and skipped out on IWD entirely because the games just weren't fun (AD&D+Videogame=boring*) But nowadays they've got some pretty choice titles, even if DA:O was pretty boring.
(*unless you take heavy liberties with the license, as Eye of the Beholder and DDO did.)
I have no clue if they'll make a DA:O or a ME2 with TOR, but I give them a pretty high chance of success compared to a lot of the MMORPGs of recent years. GW2 is another upcoming MMORPG I give a pretty good chance of success.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Lets address the post specifically. What you are trying to say is that eventhough the latest and greatest of BioWares titles have been "dumbed down" for mass appeal that it makes them worse then when the RPGs were niche and had a smaller audience?
What gets me about it, is that you are comparing NWN and Baldurs Gate to KOTOR and Mass Effect. These are completely different titles and therefore cater to completely different types of gameplay. As the series progress, things grow and change.
What does this mean? Well it means KOTOR isn't Jade Empire. It means NWN isn't ME2. Is BioWare that great? Yes. BioWare is the same company that made all of those titles before, and their new iterations of DIFFERENT titles still brings mass appeal and has high critic reviews. Not to mention the high fan acclaim, and millions of copies sold on different platforms.
So where does that leave us with BioWare? They are a good developer. Had they not been a good developer, or if they weren't currently, you wouldn't feel the need to debase them with your claims that they've gone down in quality because they are more mainstream. This isn't the truth, and you are comparing apples to oranges. When someone says they trust BioWare because they are the great RPG maker, they have good ground to stand on with that assumption. Thats more then I can say for just about every company thats released a game recently.
Psst...hey Num-nutz
BW today announced they intend for TOR to be 50/50 themepark/sandbox.
I would of thought you folks would of been circle-jerking instead of still QQing.
ME1 was awesome. Your complaints about it are flat silly....this coming from the worst FPS gamer around. I agree ME2 was scaled down from the RPG customization standpoint...but the story there was again awesome.
DA:O YOu didnt have as many classes, but you still got a great RPG in the Bioware mold. I felt there should of been some more content in the expansion for my 40 bucks(EA influence anyone?)....but again...it was a good RPG experience.
I really dont get the whining.
Yes indeed there was more complexity in PC gaming before it went mainstream, but there are companies out there putting out great experiences. BW being one of them. I recnetly enjoyed a game called Risen as well.
I would suggest you look to Koster for your PC gaming fix....but he ran off for the Farmville apps.
If ya dont like BW fine, but damn the whining about them not putting out what some of you deem to be "complex enough" is beyond old. I am very unhappy with todays announcement of taking a themepark, and trying to have a sandbox within it/
As I indicated on O-brds....when you try to please all, you end up pleasing none. Although perhaps now we wont see the plethora of posts about BW not making a sandbox.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
RPG
Role Playing Game
ROLE PLAYING GAME
The mechanics are irrelevant provided you can get into the role of the character you are playing. You can have the most linear story ever and it can be a great role playing game, because they make you feel like the character you are playing. Sandboxes, for most people aren't actually good for role playing, because whilst most people can come up with great fantastic stories, very few sandboxes (especially MMOs), actually let you play out those stories.
You´re obviously alot better informed about technique and underlying systems then me but in the end it´s about fun. I play games for fun and as far as i´m concerned Bioware has always brought that to me. Bioware has engaged me with their stories and made consequences and moral questions apart of the gaming experience. I love that and i´m not sure i´ll be getting swtor but that´s based on that im not really that much into the star wars universe.
All statements I make is from my point of view unless stated otherwise.
ps KOTOR2 was the good one and it was done by Obsidian not Bioware
invalidates your whole post. Kotor 2 was completely unfinished and jumped probably 3-4 hours of contents to randomly drop you on the last planet. And was overall less of an epic story than the first one.
I agree with you all the way up to ME2. I haven't even tried DA:O, knowing what it will be.
I for one greatly enjoyed the fact it was so "simplistic". It made combat quite enjoyable, and it allowed me to actually fully concentrate on the story without having to toy around with inventory, side quests and all the "fluff". For me, it was a great RPG, possibly one of the best I have played.
SF
Those are all different (and brilliant) franchises you are talking about, and you want them all the same?
BioWare knows that SWtOR is a MMORPG, not a singleplayer game. We don't know that much about the game yet, so leave it for now. Don't know what you are thinking, but you're comparing WoW with Warcraft 3.
Well, from another point, everybody talks about this game, already. Going to be interesting for their sales department.
"ps KOTOR2 was the good one and it was done by Obsidian not Bioware"
Ok, stoped reading there. When you are about to make such posts make sure that you have your facts straight first. Also, you should pay a visit to the SW TOR site and read some of the dev's posts and answers. In particular you should go through this Fridays update and read it thoroughly.
Mass Effect uses the unreal 3 engine
I dont follow you. KOTOR 2 was done by Obsidian and not Bioware.
I agree, Bioware is overhyped. Many Bioware fanboys tend to say against the KOTOR critique: "KOTOR was not about the intarface, it was not about choices or well written dialogues, KOTOR was not about good and well balanced combat system, nor a good character customization. KOTOR was not about graphics, story, sounds, controls. KOTOR was about something else." About what? I never get the answer to that.
REALITY CHECK
Every game made by Bioware follows the same pattern, the same template.
In KOTOR you became jedi - from which you could turn into a good jedi or dark jedi. In Mass Effect you're a spectre, either a paragon or a renegade - in DA you were a grey warden. In every game this sort of organization was beyond the law, and you were "free" to do whatever you wanted.
This freedom in fact could be summarized with the silly dialogue system, During the very first line in any Bioware-made dialogue, you already know that the dialogue is either gonna end up "Yes I'll do that" - which gives you "good" points or "Yes I'll do that, but f*ck you" which gives you "evil" points.
In Dragon Age, this was pushed into its very extreme. There was basically no optional content in DA, 99% of the zones you had to ran through to finish the game. It gave you an illusion of making a decision, but in reality, the only thing that changed was a 5 seconds cutscene at the end of the overly long progress. (Elven woods -> you either helped the elven lord or the werewolves. No matter what, you still had to fight through the same content -> your decision only gave you a bit different cut-scene and final boss fight. Dwarven Underground -> you either destroyed the anvil or not, no matter what you still had to fought throught the 5 levels of deep roads, to see just a slightly different cut-scene in the end.) This applies to all Bioware games.
Bioware is all about extremly narrow corridors, illusion of decisions, horrible interface where you have to navigate throught the menus with one or two keys like we were all using consoles, imbalanced combat mechanics which makes 80% of all abilities totally useless, and lastly about silly half-empty chests on every step.
REALITY CHECK
Kotor, you mean the evident choices between good and evil? From the very first line you knew the dialogue is gonna end up with you either getting good points or evil points, which didn't really change anything other than the power of few of your abilities and gave you a bit different cut-scene now and then. Want me to give you examples of real choices in RPG video games?
REALITY CHECK
Bioware has never been great in my opinion, I dont know where are the hysteria comes from.
Their only success was NwN.. but it wasnt that great really, it was built on the back of AD&D and the storys were good but nothing that couldnt be stripped from any one of the thousands of official TSR adventures. In anycase there were always tons of bugs and crashes that you juist had to work through.. especially when it came to multi-playing.
And ultimatly, they have never made an MMO..
I would glady eat my hat to be proven wrong of course, but the days of blind ignorance and baseless anticipation are way over!
I agree NWN single player was a horrible shallow game. Mutliplayer NWN was a completely different story I give credit to Bioware for that. That was their first game when Bioware parted with Interplay and their Black Isle division (which alone made one of the best RPG ever - Planescape Torment) and joined Atari.
REALITY CHECK
I miss Black Isle, and i agree... that was a superb RPG, but looking at Black Isles history with games... brings back a wave of western RPG nostalgia which is hard to beat...
good times, many many hours of enjoyment, frustration...
"What can change the nature of a man?"
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
It was Interplay and mainly Black Isle that made the best RPGs of all time and ressurected the almost dead genre at that time.
For all I mention:
Baldur's Gate series, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale series, Fallout 1&2.
My hopes for future MMO release goes definetly towards the new Interplay post-apocalyptic Project V13 with Chris Tayler in lead (leading designer of Fallout 1&2) with many other designers and developers of their old RPG titles.
"Taylor will serve as Lead System Designer for “Project V13,” the working title of Interplay’s next generation Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMO) currently in development. Taylor joins other original Fallout team members on staff at Interplay’s internal game studio,"
http://www.interplay.com/about/article.php?id=24
REALITY CHECK
The question is who was Bioware and their RPG games competing with?Answer is nobody,al lthe old school develoeprs were already out or on their way out.Example is the old Wizardry/Ultima/MightNmagic ect ect,they were all gone.There was THQ had but one title though,so not really a huge market for competition,this was the same success formula Wow had when they came out right at the right time.People were choosing between WOW and EQ2,but people shunned a remake and grew tired of SOE ,so pretty easy for Blizzard to get some success out of a very average game.
However since that huge influx of curious new gamers into the RPG genre,it has been flooded with titles,even the Starcraft/CnConquer type game play is flooded with tons of choices.It is no longer a free ride to produce anything and it is instant success.This is why Ea is cutting back and why so many developers are moving to social aspects for gaming ,Facebook and Iphone apps.They lack the know how ,so they run to jump on the bandwagon.
I enjoyed all the Bioware games as well,just like many others,but in reality there was no choice to go elsewhere.Since those days i advanced to Everquest then onto FFXI and since FFXI,i have found nothing that comes even close to game play and mechanics.Every single mmorpg released now has the exact same two copied ideas,quest>quest and end game raiding/pvp,really it is a sickening formula and we need a breathe of fresh air BADLY.
I have already seen one VERY big mistake by Bioware,telling players to come play our game we are giving free xp for playing in a group,ya i like to be bribed to play a game.What's next?free mounts/bonus xp weekends?I play a game because i want to enjoy the game,i don't need any WOWish free handouts,they do not make a game enjoyable.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
While I agree that Bioware and Bethesda has noone really to compete with in RPG genre in the U.S. there are powerful RPGs being released by European companies. Altho they are not as great as old Interplay classics or even older Wizardry / Might and Magic series, Witcher, Risen or Divinity have far more consistent RPG elements than all Bioware, Bethesda overhyped titles that sells with Martin Sheen voice acting and huge ads on all gaming websites.
REALITY CHECK
-sneaks in-
I confess, I never played a Bioware game in my whole life. That's why I never understand when someone uses the "it's made by Bioware!" line.
-sneaks out-
Its along the same lines of "Its made by Blizzard"
At the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is money, and BioWare, like Blizzard, produce million selling titles.
Who gives a crap if Troll Master Lobo likes BioWare or not.
Obviously, you do if you read these forums and bothered to reply here. It's a forum, people discuss their opinions. It would be quite silly to trivialize any sort of critique or praise into the line, "if it makes money who cares."
REALITY CHECK
Agreed. Kotor 2 was garbage. It took the fans years to finish the game properly (google KOTOR2 Restoration Project).
Considering the last 2 Bioware games (DAO and ME2) were excellent I'd have to question the purpose behind attacking them now.
So I did question the purpose. I checked the OPs post history, it's all F2P garbage and Vanguard (a failure of a game that is on its death bed), and things started to fall into place.
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