Has SWTOR inspired you to try other Bioware products?

[NotValidAnymore]

Yes, it's a bit sad how people don't want to "support" BioWare's money-hungry DLCs, so they just pirate it or buy used copies instead. Sigh.

Also, I'm not as short-sighted as to not see that BioWare makes some great games. SW:TOR was their first plunge into MMOs, which... arguably, didn't start so well. But I still think they make good games.

[Spriggan]

During my two month stint in SWTOR I enjoyed the story element.

I picked up KOTOR on Steam for $10, but didn't really get in to it (maybe I didn't give it enough time or am too much of a graphics snob).

A couple weeks ago Amazon had Mass Effect I and II on sale for $5 a piece. I snatched them up in an instant.

From the moment I picked up Mass Effect I was hooked. I liken it to playing it to playing those great adventure click games from the likes of Sierra and LucasArts. Games such as Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Maniac Mansion, Full Throttle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and The Dig.

I played through Mass Effect and am now in the middle of Mass Effect 2. I can definitely see the Mass Effect and KOTRO DNA imprinted in SWTOR.

I'm thinking of trying out Dragon Age after I get done with Mass Effect 2 should I not succumb to the hype of Mass Effect 3 in a week.

SWTOR definitely turned me off to Bioware. I don't think I'll ever consider their work again anytime soon.

[Deleted]

Watch out, people. We got a badass over here.

[Nexrex]

Ohhh buying used then eh? Good for you. At least when you see the game you'll be back on these threads recanting your position and by extensions total biscuits on day 1 dlc and the accusation that it represents content ripped from the game. No? Well I guess it was rather silly for me to expect accountability from people on the internet.

If the fact remains after seing the game that the dlc has some vital lore to it, which I suspect, then I will recant absolutely nothing, and I'll still find its a disgusting money grubbing waste. however if I am wrong, ill buy the game new. Cause I do have morals. simple as that...you know what...Actually i wont buy it second hand even, i'll borrow it off a mate, and if theres any need to recant anything, then I'll buy it new.
If not, then my position stands, and at least my moral compass will be intact.

[Leonard McCoy]

If the fact remains after seing the game that the dlc has some vital lore to it, which I suspect, then I will recant absolutely nothing, and I'll still find its a disgusting money grubbing waste. however if I am wrong, ill buy the game new. Cause I do have morals. simple as that...you know what...Actually i wont buy it second hand even, i'll borrow it off a mate, and if theres any need to recant anything, then I'll buy it new.
If not, then my position stands, and at least my moral compass will be intact.

Interesting. From where I'm standing you've compromised your opinion far to much already. You wont pay for the game in any fashion because of some misguided view based on no facts but you can't obstain or keep yourself from playing it. Compromising indeed but your compass is intact so long as you keep telling yourself that. My feeling on the "lore" character is that he will more or less be a walking talking codex entry. He will not be important to the NARRATIVE of me3 (which is key) and will be more or less flavor along the same lines as Zaeed. The eden prime mission however may be more interesting. Have to keep an eye on that.

[Nexrex]

Interesting. From where I'm standing you've compromised your opinion far to much already. You wont pay for the game in any fashion because of some misguided view based on no facts but you can't obstain or keep yourself from playing it. Compromising indeed but your compass is intact so long as you keep telling yourself that. My feeling on the "lore" character is that he will more or less be a walking talking codex entry. He will not be important to the NARRATIVE of me3 (which is key) and will be more or less flavor along the same lines as Zaeed. The eden prime mission however may be more interesting. Have to keep an eye on that.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and if EA/Bioware (god how i hate saying that instead of just the one or the other..) prooves to be honest to the gamers, and not money grubbing whores for the sake of greed alone, then ofc i'll buy the game new. But as it stands now I wont.

And you have no way of knowing at this time if you are correct or not, and so you will remain on your moral ground, and ill remain on mine for now.

[Deleted]

No, in fact I am going to stay away from Bioware games due to SWTOR.

Sadly I feel the same way. I had a lot of respect for BioWare, but due to SW:TOR, DA2, but also ME3 I have to admit that I'll probably pirate future titles until I feel they're actually a company I consider respectable again.

[Leonard McCoy]

I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and if EA/Bioware (god how i hate saying that instead of just the one or the other..) prooves to be honest to the gamers, and not money grubbing whores for the sake of greed alone, then ofc i'll buy the game new. But as it stands now I wont.

And you have no way of knowing at this time if you are correct or not, and so you will remain on your moral ground, and ill remain on mine for now.

Oh they're after money I don't disagree with that. They monetize the hell out of these things but I more or less expected that to come. That's a bit different from what TB is saying I feel. He is flat out accusing them of ripping out content from the game to sell as day 1 dlc. That is just not true, given what we know about the dlc already. It was a fucking 600mb download, no way it fits on the disk in addition to everything else already on there.

[Bonkbonk100]

Hmmm no, if anything, SWTOR and DA2 actually did the opposite for me. I love most of BioWares older work tho.

No, not trying to be a badass.

[Daverid]

Please for the Love of God people don't give up on Bioware because of SWTOR ...

I'd say there's only 1 reason for Giving up on Bioware because of SWTOR and that is:

If you hated the story.

And NO you can't say you legitimately got into the story because you level'd your Sith Warrior to level 8 and it wasn't immersive enough ... I'd say if you got to around level 20-30 ... And still hated the story ... Then Yes, Bioware Games aren't for you ...

However DO NOT base every Bioware game, the way they play, the way they feel purely on SWTOR ... I can understand where people are coming from with the hatred towards SWTOR ... But seriously looking PURELY at the singleplayer aspects (Including Story and Gameplay) of Bioware's latest most popular games I'd rate them thusly:
(Worst > Best)

DA2 > SWTOR > HUGE GAP BECAUSE THERE IS A MASSIVE LEAP BETWEEN THESE > DA:O > KOTOR 2 > ME2 > ME1 > KOTOR

Like honestly ... SWTOR stories are great .. But because their focus was so stretched between so many classes and the huge other factors that encompass a MMO they were definitely lacking in comparison to DA:O and those ranked higher...

So please, please, please, PLEASE I implore you ... Unless you quit SWTOR purely because you Skipped cutscenes and found the stories completely and utterly boring. PLEASE give one of their other RPG's a try .. I'd say definitely go Mass Effect 1 (Simply because KOTOR rarely works on new computers these days) ... It really is a very different experience compared to SWTOR and it's a amazing story and the gameplay, whilst not groundbreaking, still is very fun, challenging and interesting.

[A Challenger!]

I really don't understand this "lolSWTOR disappointed me, no more BioWare products" mentality. It is no different than getting disappointed at World of Warcraft, then denying future Activision-Blizzard products. Hating DA2 or ME2 is one thing, but MMO's are usually developed by a separate team, and rarely reflect the development of other titles.

It only shows immaturity when an MMO is enough to stop your like of another product that a company produces.

Now, if we were to talk about day one DLC, or how much of a paradigm shift DA2 was compared to Origins and Awakening... That is where I start to agree, but hating BioWare over SWTOR alone is just looking for reasons to complain and dislike the company, as a means to reimburse the time and money you spent.

[Leonard McCoy]

I really don't understand this "lolSWTOR disappointed me, no more BioWare products" mentality. It is no different than getting disappointed at World of Warcraft, then denying future Activision-Blizzard products. Hating DA2 or ME2 is one thing, but MMO's are usually developed by a separate team, and rarely reflect the development of other titles.

It only shows immaturity when an MMO is enough to stop your like of another product that a company produces.

Now, if we were to talk about day one DLC, or how much of a paradigm shift DA2 was compared to Origins and Awakening... That is where I start to agree, but hating BioWare over SWTOR alone is just looking for reasons to complain and dislike the company, as a means to reimburse the time and money you spent.

Can you imagine the stink that would raise if someone had the audactiy to post "I was so disapointed in cataclysm,it turned me off diablo and starcraft and all other future blizzard products"

[Leonard McCoy]

- Bioshock was great.

That's so funny on so many levels I nearly spit cola at my monitor screen. Bioshock is not a BW game and good is extremely subjective.

[A Challenger!]

- Bioshock was great.
- Never liked the Mass Effect series.
- Sw:ToR should of been better.


Cant really think of any other games they've made.
Dont know of any other games they are making.


See Bioware as an "acquired" taste of gaming.


Which sadly, isnt for me.

Definitely reinforced by how bad SW:ToR turned out to be compared to other MMO's.

SWTOR wasn't bad though. SWTOR's biggest and most impressive failing lies in the fact it does not change a stale genre. It leaves things as they are, and hardly improves upon much. That is why SWTOR is "bad". For all intents and purposes, it is a good game.

When I played SWG, I was in love with the game. Why though? It was a grind game that lacked quests for the most part. The reason why, is it was unique in its class system, and its community. The game simply felt fresh, similar to Everquest. I never even touched SWG end game.

While I realize the title was niche, my point is simply that SWTOR, and many if not all, of this ages MMO's lack both a living, breathing world and a sense of vigor in the worlds that exist. Everything feels so static these days, as the current paradigm demands "end game" be taken literal. It must be PvP, dailies, and PvE. This is, in my opinion, a serious deficit.

Regardless of all that though, I do agree with you that BioWare can be an acquired taste, and if DA2 is anything to be acknowledged, it proves that BioWare knew that as well.

Can you imagine the stink that would raise if someone had the audactiy to post "I was so disapointed in cataclysm,it turned me off diablo and starcraft and all other future blizzard products"

Considering how venomous/fanatical the MMO community can be, it would be something to see to be sure.

If I could edit my post and take a stab at why World of Warcraft achieved its success, then here it is: World of Warcraft brought the MMO genre to home. Before, MMO's were niche titles that brought in, to make a rough estimate, two to five million players if anything and were often tough to budge. World of Warcraft brought to the world a game that was friendlier to the average game player who wanted a time sink, without the feel of a grind.

With WoW, game a streamlined and liberal use of quests, and a vibrant, colorful world that was less textures mashed together, and more artistic in design, along with its dedicated fan base that followed the game. Then, using commercial plans and much later, the use of celebrities, WoW succeeded in bringing the MMO genre into the same ring as shooters, RPGs, and other games.

The problem with this is, through WoW's success, came a paradigm shift that has poisoned the market. The MMO community is no longer very niche with anything involving WoW. WoW has become, unfortunately, a marking point of success that many MMO developers want to emulate. That isn't what made MMO's fun though, at least to myself.

What made MMO's fun, was their worlds, their ability to suck you in and drive you into a place that constantly kept you exploring and trying different things. A world where your potential seemed limitless. World of Warcraft, in its desire to bring MMO's to a wider market, has limited that feeling to me severely, and in turn, every other company wants to cash in on the same success story.

This won't work though. It happened once, it won't happen again. Either there needs to be another paradigm shift, or the genre needs to go back to the old ways. If these things don't happen, I feel the MMO genre will collapse in on itself.

Again, to avoid potential flame wars, the above is my opinion on the matter.

[vizzle]

Can you imagine the stink that would raise if someone had the audactiy to post "I was so disapointed in cataclysm,it turned me off diablo and starcraft and all other future blizzard products"

Which is exactly how I feel. I refuse to support a company that allows RMAH in one game, releases two raid patches in 1.5-2 years of an expansion (Cataclysm), and still charges 25 dollars for realm/faction transfer when other games do it for free.

Though my protest is very, very tiny in the long run, I think TB said it best: (no, this isn't verbatim) "I'm not protesting because I feel it will hurt the company, I'm protesting because I wouldn't respect myself otherwise."

[Spriggan]

Please for the Love of God people don't give up on Bioware because of SWTOR ...

I'd say there's only 1 reason for Giving up on Bioware because of SWTOR and that is:

If you hated the story.

And NO you can't say you legitimately got into the story because you level'd your Sith Warrior to level 8 and it wasn't immersive enough ... I'd say if you got to around level 20-30 ... And still hated the story ... Then Yes, Bioware Games aren't for you ...

I feel for your plight. Let me elaborate some more why it was a turn off though. I fully played through IA, SI, and BH stories, and warrior up to 30, as well as all the quests in the game without skipping through it. After the initial "This is cool! WoW doesn't have quests like this for my character!" mentality died off (about a couple weeks into the game), the whole thing got very dry and left a bitter taste in my mouth, which opened up the doors to the game's broken gameplay and other issues. After playing through all the quests in the game and some of the "best" class stories (arguably IA is the best in the game, and with several endings), it was all way too easily forgettable. A story should be remembered, but BW's storytelling in SWTOR at least was too much like some random comic-book series you picked up cause you liked the artwork or cause it has some hot chick on the covers with her rack popping out. Gameplay and all that aside, the story failed to grasp/immerse me and stay memorable - at times it even felt like some kind of patchwork. I'll admit there were a few "cool" moments sprinkled here and there, but that's in no way enough.

The rest of you, the Bioware White Knight Brigade, need to calm down when others don't feel the same way as you. BW/EA being greedy bastards that pushed an unfinished game onto millions of people doesn't help either. Excuse me for having a conscience.

Cheers.

[A Challenger!]

Which is exactly how I feel. I refuse to support a company that allows RMAH in one game, releases two raid patches in 1.5-2 years of an expansion (Cataclysm), and still charges 25 dollars for realm/faction transfer when other games do it for free.

Though my protest is very, very tiny in the long run, I think TB said it best: (no, this isn't verbatim) "I'm not protesting because I feel it will hurt the company, I'm protesting because I wouldn't respect myself otherwise."

In a way, I understand that. As ridiculous as this will sound, I have never touched Diablo. I only know bits and pieces of the story. I do however enjoy dungeon crawlers, despite my recent disappointment with Activision-Blizzard, so I am willing to give it a shot.

As for Starcraft II however, allow me to state my sheer displeasure. The story was short, and the multiplayer is utterly imbalanced. If Diablo III turns out similar, which I am waiting to see, I might just do the same as you, because while I greatly enjoy the Mass Effect series, Activision-Blizzard has yet to lay that same impression upon me. Maybe Diablo III will change my tune, it waits to be seen however.

[volar]

You should've asked this question on a more neutral forum. At least 30% of the reactions you'll get here are going to be
"no i'm not gonna buy Bioware games thanks to SWTOR"-reactions from butthurt WoW fanboys. They probably never even touched SWTOR.


<Mod Edit: Please post respectfully>

[Deleted]

actually I am quite the opposite,
I tried to play the Mass effect series of games, and the interactive choices really began to annoy me after a while. once I seen SWTOR was using the same system I gave up on it before I had even bought it. Now from reading peoples horror stories about Customer services and a lot of people simply cancaling there subs I am pretty glad I didnt buy it.

[Daverid]

I feel for your plight. Let me elaborate some more why it was a turn off though. I fully played through IA, SI, and BH stories, and warrior up to 30, as well as all the quests in the game without skipping through it. After the initial "This is cool! WoW doesn't have quests like this for my character!" mentality died off (about a couple weeks into the game), the whole thing got very dry and left a bitter taste in my mouth, which opened up the doors to the game's broken gameplay and other issues. After playing through all the quests in the game and some of the "best" class stories (arguably IA is the best in the game, and with several endings), it was all way too easily forgettable. A story should be remembered, but BW's storytelling in SWTOR at least was too much like some random comic-book series you picked up cause you liked the artwork or cause it has some hot chick on the covers with her rack popping out. Gameplay and all that aside, the story failed to grasp/immerse me and stay memorable - at times it even felt like some kind of patchwork. I'll admit there were a few "cool" moments sprinkled here and there, but that's in no way enough.

The rest of you, the Bioware White Knight Brigade, need to calm down when others don't feel the same way as you. BW/EA being greedy bastards that pushed an unfinished game onto millions of people doesn't help either. Excuse me for having a conscience.

Cheers.

Yea that's understandable ... I can completely understand when someone feels this way as that particular way of storytelling just simply doesn't suit everyone ...

I think something else is that you spent a couple/few weeks trying different classes and seeing different stories ... With a game like SWTOR the leveling is slower and since the story has to be doled out over 50 levels, elements of the story can feel like they're happening in Slo-Mo (Not to mention all the side quests you have to do inbetween) ... Whereas when you play a game like Mass Effect, or KOTOR or DA:O where it's purely singleplayer focused and there's just one main character storyline the story can move more quickly, and get to some of the more "Oh Shit" or extremely engaging moments early on or mid-game and it really builds up to it ... SWTOR you didn't feel that "Build Up" moment till the end of chapters which sometimes would feel like it was taking ffffooorrreeeevveerrr because of all the side quests and MMO travelling elements....

Without side quests you can finish Mass Effect's Main Story in around 20hours .. Whereas 20hours in SWTOR can barely have you completed the First Act. And whilst you may think that's to quick (Mass Effect), it really produces an engaging and adrenaline pumped experience. Also provides great replay-ability through Paragon/Renegade decisions and other moments you may have overlooked.

So like I said ... I don't think you can completely devalue Bioware games simply because of one MMO they've made ... They have a wide array of games that each play differently and have Great story experiences, whilst their styles are similar, the stories are still very different. On the hand of EA/Bioware using SWTOR/DLC just as Cash Cows ... That's a whole nother subject and TBH I've played all the ME2 DLC and they were all Awesome, definitely worth the money ... Everyone will feel different about it but as long as YOU BELIEVE the experience is worth what you paid, I have no problems with DLC ect.