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POLL: How gamer "friendly" do you see Bioware as company?
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
You know, while there certainly is a lot to say about TOR the game, I am sometimes worried more about the company, actually. I mean, ok usually gamer have a very low self-awareness when it comes to how they are treated by companies. For instance I know some game companies are very open and friendly towards their customers. They talk open about what they do, they openly admit when something went wrong and give respect and some benefit to longterm loyal people.
Then there are companies like Blizzard. I do not really have to elaborate.
Bioware, alas, I must say, more and more seems to be to me just another Blizzard. Not only is their MMO, TOR, a heavily mainstream-lined sort of game, entirely emphasizing on a few mainstream presumed highlights with total neglect of the rest, focussed on quantity rather than quality, but also every way Bioware dealt with followers and potential customers since TOR was announced were a rough ride for us gamers.
- there was this relatively closed mouthed philosophy about whats in the game, as in contras to, say ANets open minded conversation about whats in their game
- then there is Daniel Erickson (god alone know how HE became main PR speaker!), who had multiple opportunities to tell us gamers what we like and what we don't. Like non humanoids are "freaks" and we players can't identify with them. In every single opportunity he justified Biowares decision with claiming to know what we want and how we function. Sorry, but this arrogant stance angered me to no end.
- in every single debate where players asked for a feature, they were brushed off. In the case of the "Same Gender Romance Arcs" it took them eight long weeks just to give an answer, and the playerbase was left in the dark with 10,000s flame posts before the question was finally resolved!
- In beta Bioware has been equally heavy handed. Expensive preorders or years of forum activity count for nothing. Instead the same people get "randomly" three times in a row beta, people who didn't preorder at all and just came to the forum 4 weeks ago. How about, saying a thank you to 2 years of support and 205 DOLLAR Collectors Edition payment? (Yes, 150 Euro, thats 205 Dollar at the time of order.)
- I have seen so many developer posts who talked down on us gamers, in a "we know ALL better" attitude, which I am so woefully knowing from Blizzard. It's an arrogant style of "conversation", or rather "we our royal majesties let you mere subjects know". IF we get answer at all, that is. 90% of the decisions I still haven't heard ANY sort of explanation or justification why things are as they are. It's just "eat or die" mentality.
That even Bioware CAN err was shown by DA2. Many DA1 fans heavily critizised it (rightfully so). But what happened? This mediocre game got top ratings, for no other reasons than being a Bioware game, and millions bought the game. So apparently you can do shit and still get millions of dollars. Same with WOW. Companies can treat their customers like crap, and we gamers shrug and accept the whip in the same mentality a Roman slave accepts it as "the normal order of things". In many other areas customers these days are treated positive, but in gaming there is still an arrogance and rudeness from the developers side, and the sheep masses of gamers just bow to it and open their pockets to any crap company. Thats just so depressing.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
...Damn, lay off the hate speech for the gay crowd... Reported.
Anyway, I could probably agree that Bioware is evil... but I've been waiting long enough to see a "decent" MMO. Let's just hope TOR pans out in some small way until... say, GW2 comes along.
I'd say they are somewhere in between.
They are tight lipped about features because they know what happens if you start talking about stuff then need to remove/change it. So they only want to release info when they are sure they are ready to talk about it. Plus Bioware has always been tight lipped about their games, in fact if anything TOR is the least tight lipped they've ever been.
As for quanity over quality, well they have done a lot in the quality department as far as i can tell, from reports it basically says for polish that about 3 months ago it was polish enough to be released and much better then other games.
As for whats in game, i'd say this game offers a lot more then what other games give.
You can sight all the negatives (some of those i don't even see as negatives)
but lets not leave out the positives to
Changing dungeons based on choices.
Crafting viable for alternative routes in dungeons
Puzzles in dungeons
Crafting viable in end-game (they can make one tier below max)
immense care given to VO, and actions from characters (something that gets skipped in nearly every MMO)
Mod gear that allows you to equip cosemetic gear to the end-game standard (yes i know you sighted the dumb down part but your forgetting the post later that stated they are still testing that feature to see which works better so in one version you see one type and in another a different type, this is why again they are so tight lipped about features that aren't ready yet. It causes confusion about the people because they have a hard time understanding whats going on in the testing process.)
The large replayability of classes with the branching story arc
The large open worlds
The holocron searching is suppose to be interesting.
One can sit here and sight negatives all they want but lets be fair and sight the positives to.
As for DE, yeah i agree hes not the best PR person in the world, but i take the humor with a grain of salt, so it doesn't bother me. I do think Bioware needs a better PR team so i'll give you that one.
Still i think Bioware has been pretty open about whats in the game, most everyone here can figure out through various info from either playing the game at conventions, watching videos or looking at dev comments to understand what the game will be about. Provided you want to understand it that is, some like to i think on purpose get confused about what it is for some reason.
So i'm going to go with the open option.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
The question of 'loved' by consumers doesn't really fit in today's market.
Sorry, it is just how it is.
Apple was 'loved' by a LOT of people but it never sold the units it does now until it produced something the consumer wanted to buy.
Activision / Infinity Ward debacle of COD4: MW2 was all over the news and Activision is still considered 'evil' but look at how many COD is being sold.
Not seeing the point in being 'liked' when people will still BUY your product.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
This, pretty much.
Actually the only thing in their pr and general approach to the community which annoyed me so far are Dalas Dickinson's walkthrough voice-overs because it sounded like he was addressing a bunch of kids with his overly enthousiast voice.
It's the same with the GW2 presentations: it's so easy to spot that they just followed a public speaking course with all the fake "hand gestures to reinforce what you are saying", "excited voice to transfer emotion" and other obvious tricks.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Biowares reasons for not having that kind of content has nothing to do with prejudice, but just because they couldnt include it and not have the content of the game rated 'adult' other titles they have released have had it and were rated 'adult' or 18+ because of it, to do so with an MMO would be to exclude a significant number of their potential subscribers, if WoW had that rating, there would be a loss of probably over 50 percent of their playerbase, possibly even 75 percent, and while you could claim that quite a number of players of WoW are over the age of 18, many of them were not when they first started playing it. Its also a poor argument against someone elses grammatical errors, while being guilty of the same
. so while i sympathise with those who feel that their being unfairly treated, i do not think Bioware had any choice, if they wanted the game to retain a 12 rating..
all the same, i won't be buying SW;TOR, as the game does not contain anything of any real interest for me as an MMO player, much as i like Starwars, this game for me, does not represent the Starwars genre in a convincing manner, so what remains, is of too little interest to me as a player.
From what I can recall, average age of WoW gamers was stated to be 28 years. If you're looking at the launch time, that had a lot of people who were already MMO gamers, with an age that was 18+ for the majority of them as well.
As for the OP, I just disagree as I have done with a lot of his posts and perception of actions or statements of BW. I've seen how other companies and representatives handled pre-release communication, with the envisioning that for example AoC's Gaute talked about, and frankly I like the more no-nonsense approach of ANet's and BW's people, of only talking about stuff that they know will make it ingame. TSW's Tornquist does the same, and such a way of doing things I can appreciate.
As for Blizzard, everybody seems to have jumped on the hate train - at least on these forums - ironically Blizzard was considered and still is to many as one of the best, most gamer friendly companies around. Even if I liked them best in the period of time when they came up with Starcraft, Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 which were absolute highlights in my gaming history, I still respect them for that and for the contribution they made to the gaming scene with their games.
The same for Bioware: they made some gutsy moves in the past 10 years, from abandoning former successful franchises to try different things and IP's like introducing great world building tools in Neverwinter Nights that I simply haven't seen equaled yet till now, to opting to work on their own unproven franchises like Jade Empire, RPG shooter Mass Effect and Dragon Age instead of continuing with sequels to the successful franchise games they made.
So no, I'm more laid back or indifferent towards any 'evilness' of Bioware, I'll just see how things turn out
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I'm not going to comment on the OP other than to say that the poster very obviously has some kind of grudge against BioWare, and has for some time. SWTOR has released just as much info and just as many demos about their game as ArenaNet has about theirs, if not more. It just appears as though they haven't because people are put off by the NDA. But there is more info that has been put out about this game than any other game out there. If you can't find dozens of release demos from BioWare with pages of info on exactly what the game is about, then you aren't looking hard enough. The fact that BioWare has controlled the flow of this info in order to not give any info about things that could change before launch is off-putting to some people. Oh well.
As for the poll question, the poster didn't include the most obvious option which Whilan already touched on above: They'll be somewhere in the middle. They'll listen to their community and do everything they can to retain their subscriptions by providing content to please their playerbase, but they won't give in to every single demand in an attempt to appease everyone. A developer still has to have a vision for their game, and they cannot allow that vision to be put on the back burner just to add in stuff to attempt to please everyone. Games fail in one of two ways: Not listening to their playerbase at all and putting out content that no one cares about, or listening too much to their playerbase, and losing sight of their original objectives and vision for the game. Bioware will be between these two extremes, as they should be.
So if you don't get chat bubbles: Too freaking bad.
If you don't get non-humanoid species: Too freaking bad.
If you don't get cross-server LFG tool: Too freaking bad.
If you don't get to respec your talents at will and on the fly: Too freaking bad.
Fact is, there will be more content, and more features in this game that will override all the silly little non-important features that gamers will undoubtedly bitch about. If BioWare decides at some point to add some of those unimportant features, then great. But I'd rather they stick to their vision and concentrate on the big features first. Add the fluff in later, even if it ticks off a few temperamental fans with an axe to grind.
Gamers have repeatedly shown their 'love' is not worth asking for.
We buy games regardless of our personal opinion of the said company in the majority of cases.
I don't 'like 'EA/Activ/Ubisoft' but I'll buy their products and enjoy them.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I really don't like polls, when the 'presenter' if you will 'essays' his or her opinion into a massive hate speech. Especially when it's misinformed. At first I was like, 'Okay, he/she has some concerns over this.' By the end of it I summarised they've gone the opposite way on many things you would've liked in the game, and that you were disappointed by Dragon Age two.
To quote the guy above me, 'Too Freaking Bad'. (That's my line of the day at work now, I kid you not sir.)
I liked Dragon Age two, but wait that must mean I'm a sheep and don't have a perfectly valid opinion like all the others who stated they like the game. It's not some kind of conspiracy, they are games with good story and good story quality. That is why they do well by me. So they change some mechanics. For me it made it more accessable on console. I'm sure it would've been weird for me adjusting on PC after Origins, but that's why I bought it on console. Don't have a console and a PC? Too Freaking Bad. (Yes I'm getting as much use out of this as possible.)
As for them 'ignoring' the flame posts on the forums. They don't ignore them. If they take a long time to reply to something it is because they are getting permission to say what they want to say, or are researching the topic and making sure what they say is correct, so later on, another thread with 10,000 flame posts doesn't appear entitled, 'BioWare, why did you lie to us?'.
I'm sorry but you seem to think a company that is manufacturing a product is some kind of hotel? What entitles you to feedback on every aspect of development. Nothing, they do that for you. What entitles you to demand things to change that they've perhaps worked long hours to create? Nothing. You pre-ordered, good for you, so did I, doesn't make me entitled to join the beta. Otherwise people would buy their way into the beta. I preordered to get the early access, the items, the unique items to the collectors, and the merch that comes with it. I don't start demanding more for my money when I bought collectors edition, I know I get the collectors edition, nothing more, nothing less. Also, their games do well, because they are good. You may not like it, may even think they are terrible, but as you are going to learn at some point in life, you do not speak for the majority.
As for the Alien thing, and Daniel Erickson 'telling you what you want'. No, I'm pretty sure he only explained what he knows from a writing aspect. You can't, realistically write a romance from the perspective of say, a wookie. Why? Because it would be too much of a stretch from the norm. If the game was Chewbacca and the adventures of Kashyyyk, then yeah they'd have a crack at something resembling a romance, but no, afraid not. Daniel Erickson, will always tell you from the point of view of the writer, and a fan, with the knowledge of how you make a game behind his opinion. Thus making it far more well informed than say, mine or yours.
So far, every BioWare game has hit the mark. Even if one hasn't been a favourite of mine, I can see the quality involved and why people may infact call it a favourite. Until they start delivering sub-standard games, you're going to be feeling awfully alone with your very narrowminded view on the company.
Longing for Skyrim, The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3
I think they'll be somewhere in the middle - no company can be all things to all people.
Is this really about BioWare being unfriendly though Eli, or is it that you didn't get an invite for the weekend test? Pretty big post from you on the Oboards about that... made me wonder.
I'm not saying that you're being dishonest in the OP, because I've seen you post those arguments before, I'm just wondering what prompted the central thrust of the post, that BioWare do not really care about their players.
They've already admitted their mistakes with DA2, which is something rare from any company. They've said SGRAs will be added post-launch, sure there's still now swimming etc. - but that's because they are not making a game for you or for me, but rather for the masses, and not everyone will have the same concerns.
We can all sit in our armchairs and debate what SHOULD be in a game (in our opinions) but we don't really have any concept of how easy/hard it is to actually implement all out wonderful ideas. I'd say we'll see swimming, when there's a call for it (if Manaan is a planet offered in the future, for example).
As to the rest, I know *you* want to be an Uncle Owen, and that's your right, but nowhere at any point in the development of the game have they said that would be an option. At some point you have to accept (as with any game) that this one is what it is. And then decide for yourself if you want to play it. I seem to recall you being very VERY excited about the game a few months back, when you had a few hours with it. I'm not about to go digging in your post history, but it looks to me like you're trying to convince yourself (and everyone else) now that BioWare are the big bad and that SWTOR is fail because it's not SWG2 - I can't help but wonder if you do get into testing if we'll see another 180 from you on the subject?
first of all:
http://torwars.com/2011/11/08/fan-summit-2-video-bioware-docs-give-a-qa/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Torwars+(TORWars)&utm_content=FaceBook
here we see axactly how "above U all" BioWare thinks they are...
second, comparing Erickson to... well i think Ghostcrawler ( "I have seen so many developer posts who talked down on us gamers, in a "we know ALL better" attitude, which I am so woefully knowing from Blizzard.") as they are the most known "spokesman" for the companies in subject, says all about You, and "wast knowledge" about BW we see in the opening post.
interesting thing about this forum is, that when someone bashes a game without any links to support claims, and gets "set straight" by someone else defending, with links and quotes supporting the defence, than that defender is called "agresive fanboy", but calling the acuser "hater" ends with posts about "agression on TOR forums" and warnings from mods
so i won't call You a hater
have a nice day all
Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because Those Who Mind Don't Matter and Those Who Matter Don't Mind. Dr.Seuss
I'm a hetrosexual male. I want to make a homosexual female character, because i think it would be awesome. Keep your hate out of our mmo threads.
Please don't use "us" as if we all want what you want.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
I am going to wait a while after launch and see how Bioware handle their mainstream player base before making an educated opinion, i.e. be nice and genuinely listen or go the ActiBlizzard way and not notice them because of dollars flowing up to their eardrums and climbing. We will see.
That is a consistent theme of his, and no amount of counterpoint is really going to change his mind.
The Bioware crew seems like a great bunch of avid gamers, eager to create top quality entertainment to please their fans. Their history is filled with titles that prove that.
Elikal, don't fall into the 'they're big therefore they must be doing a greedy cash grab' trap. The EvilCorpCo thing works well in sci-fi movies and hippy flicks but it gets old fast in real life, especially when applied to gaming. Rather than slam an entire company of people because your post on a forum somewhere wasn't read and immediately acted upon, go talk to someone from the Bioware team - ANYONE from the Bioware team. You will find they are as passionate about gaming as you are.
O-o-o-o-o-r you can continue to post random rants collectively insulting hundreds of people, comforted in the fact that as long as you keep viewing that team as 'Bioware' you can remain detacted and not have to acknowledge that you are tactlessly throwing sweeping insults and baseless accusations at hundreds of people for no valid reason at all.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
BioWare... friendly to Players Yes.
They are not the potential probelm in the "friendly to players" department.
EA becoming a platform marketer proves to me that EA doesn't care about Players in the way that I would prefr them to. Restricting your product to only those Consumers to those lucky enough to have high quality Broadband is not what I would call "player friendly". "Stockholdr friendly" or "profit friendly" yes, but not Player friendly.
With the way the US manages it's internet certain areas of the US will never have high quality Broadband internet and EA deciding to "write off" Players that live in these areas just encourages me to never buy their products, even if I move to an area with good Internet.
That includes not purchasing any EA/Origin products, even if it is not a MMO.
And before anyone says "Free Market Capitalism" and all that... I do NOT support free market capitalism deciding how and where high quality Broadband Internet Service is available in the US, nor do I support Capitalism making decisions in most services usable by everyone.
Based upon this logic, VALVE is also 'not player friendly'. Apple with their ITUNES is not player friendly.
I think Bioware assuming that people have access to the 'internet' when releasing their MMO is a logical assumption though.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Gamers in general seem to be really prone to anti-corporate rhetoric.
Don't know why that is exactly; too many of them buy right into the "the big Evil Corporation Just Out to Ruin Our Fun" rather eagerly.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
That is correct, I won't do business with VAVLE or ITUNES either.
Like I said, BioWare is not the problem. I already miss using their product.
Platform Marketers like STEAM, VAVLE, ITUNES, and now Origin are not "evil", but their preferred method of doing business will only re-inforce the US's short sighted policy of Internet Expansion and Maintence by Profit" policies. The Platform Marketers will only service those with high quality Broadband by default and soon only those customers and their opinions will matter to the Platform Marketers, and to the US government as well. Where does that leave the rest of us that may never have good Internet? Looking for a Real Estate Agent to list our house and move, that's where. I cannot in good conscience support these services until the US itself get's our political heads out of you-now-where. Both are tied together as long as capitalism makes the decisions about Internet Policy in the US.
Well there isnt really much room for personal opinion in this "poll". But heres my vote..
Vote: I'm a gamer. I don't chat with devs, there are far too many games, achievments, unlockables to get and beat and then brag to your guildies about. My next game is ToR, if it sucks I wont play. Won't be sad, there are other games I have in line to play. Having origin installed is less then meaningless to me, your personal information is up to you to protect. Almost every thing you do in your real life is recorded, and stored and used for demographic purposes and much more. If you are really that worried about Origin, you probably need to make your tinfoil hat extra thick :-)
No it won't work. Not everyone has broadband. That there is the problem.
I could probably connect to SW:TOR, but my ISP will never allow me to download it as it is too bandwidth intensive. STEAM or ITUNES and other peer to peer services are also banned because of high bandwidth requirements and for security reasons. (and no other Internet ISP available for many miles in any direction and dialup is stable at only 28.8 maximum.)
I am not an Isolated case.... thousands of people where I live are in the exact same situation when it comes to Internet, and some have only dial-up. We used to be able to purchase MMOs retail hard copy and play just fine, but as more MMOs require higher Gb and higher connections Players like me are beginning to be left out of the genre.
Oh yes, the US Government *has* arranged for a huge upgrade to the Internet in my area.... but it is scheduled to take 4 years before most of us see an increase in bandwidth and even then the service will barely be considered "broadband" (1Mb).
I myself would really, really, really love to see MMO Publishers continue to utilize the "old fashioned" retail distribution system until the all of the US gets Internet that is good enough to use services like STEAM.
"I have seen so many developer posts who talked down on us gamers, in a "we know ALL better" attitude, which I am so woefully knowing from Blizzard. It's an arrogant style of "conversation", or rather "we our royal majesties let you mere subjects know". IF we get answer at all, that is. 90% of the decisions I still haven't heard ANY sort of explanation or justification why things are as they are. It's just "eat or die" mentality."
When some "big guild" from a "popular game" rolls up on another new game and demands to exclusively test their product or face a future mass exodus because "They said so". I'd probably be a bit arrogant myself when it comes to protecting my product vs. being lead around by the nose by age old features and an out dated philosophy that caters only for the select few and not the majority.
In such a cut throat unforgiving industry, id rather choose arrogance over submissiveness, because no matter what you do to talk to the fans, speak to the community, reason with them, give them le-way, it always turns around and bite them in the rear, worse if said company is already seen at a negative light.
Bioware are not a Superman company, but they arent stupid either, they work on that they know they can handle instead of plunge in, regret about it months later, and then pull out of it as their marketing team makes a B.S. Statement about it was for the best etc. etc. etc.
forgive me for such a distasteful response, but after seeing Funcom, Cryptic, SOE and castlethorn studios handle communities and vice versa. its sadly just all about the numbers -- with balanced reasoning on both sides of the fence taking a back seat for years on end.
I am sorry man, that sucks. I see you are in what I assume to be rural MI? I am in rural MN, fortunately we have a really good telephone cooperative that has put in amazing broadband--cable actually. I live 20 miles from the nearest small town, and have a 20meg per sec connection and digital cable tv.
I think the genre is simply unplayable on dialup anymore... :-(
I've been following these forums for some time, and I've found that the community as a whole seems rather arrogant themselves. If a company doesn't cater to their every whim, they are prone to cry abuse. If a company doesn't respond to every inquiry of demand, they cry abuse. For this reason, I find it diffficult to determine whether Bioware is arrogant or not. I don't follow these companies and their every move so I don't see any trends in their behavior. Because of this, I rely on a lot of my information on feedback that the community supplies and since it is almost universally bad for just about every company in existance, it makes it hard to differentiate Bioware's problems. Based on the community feedback, there are no good companies and we should just stop the whole MMO genre because of this.
Obviously there is some generalization in analysis, because there are members who don't follow this trend, but it my overall impression of the community as a whole.
I self identify as a monkey.