Is Bioware the biggest tragedy of gaming history?

[Yriel]

Sometimes I think I'm the only person on Earth who finds Bethesda games completely without redeemable qualities. Big, bland, boring worlds with dumb bland characters and boring bland combat. No thank you.

I kinda agree. They are great sandbox games but sandboxes are a bit bland and boring for me, too. They don't have strong stories or characters and rely on you exploring the world and i prefer a strong story lead instead.
It' just a matter of taste.

[Jtbrig7390]

This certainly has nothing to do with rampant piracy.

It don't have anything to do with piracy. People are just getting tired of spending 60$-100$ for a game that is only 5hours long.

Hell look at deadpool the game is no where near AAA and it sold on consoles for 50$ and PC for 40$ because of this and I bet the game sold a shit ton.

With so many indie games coming out that is longer and better then AAA titles people are asking themselves why in the hell am I paying 60$ for this Action game that will last me 5hr's when I can get one for 15$ that looks just as good if not better and last me longer.

Another example is Far Cry Blood Dragon the game looks amazin and is around 8hr's to beat and only cost 15$ but yet other shooters are coming out at 60$ and last only 3-5hours.

If Piracy was as such as of a big deal as people try to make it to be then Indie game developers would not be around because there game also gets pirated and they don't have a huge chuck of $$$$ to fall back on like EA or other company's do.

[Crissi]

I'm more willing to forgive BioWare than others because despite their many faults since joining with EA, their story telling, the thing they've been known for, still kicks ass. Even in DA2, their typically most despised game, Act 2 and Varric were really interesting (I'd also argue Anders was interesting if you ignore the fact his personality did a 180). ME3's only bad point was the ending. SWTOR would be an amazing RPG if you took the MMO part out of it.

For me, as long as their story telling is top notch, I can tolerate not so great gameplay. Im more concerned over Rares fate. Goldeneye was the pinnacle of FPS to me, and Banjo Kazooie was a blast.

[Deleted]

This thread is so full of shit it's unimaginable. Mass effect 3 was nothing short of fantastic, one of the best games released that year, despite the ending. Dragon age 2 was actually liked by many people, I consider it one of the best releases of that year, even though it didn't measure up to dragon age origins and had it's issues. And SWTOR? Good game, they only pushed out content too slow for it to stick.

[Durandro]

and I was irked with Mass Effect 3. But felt it was mostly redeemed by the last DLC, and will let bygones be bygones.

I'm genuinely interested why that is, because I had a very bad reaction to Citadel. Considering the actual issues many people had with Mass Effect 3, and none of them being actually addressed (more sidestepped) I was gobsmacked that people were praising them for it all suddenly.

Unless it was purely down to Garrus. Who is awesome, but can he carry an entire DLC and overshadow all the problems with it? Personally, no. But I am curious.

Edit: Oh, I will add this. They almost won me over with Leviathan. So damn close. They just decided not to follow through with it. It honestly is so damn important it should have been in the main game. Its more important then Cronos Station, the penultimate mission - that should have been the DLC!

[Vankrys]

This thread is so full of shit it's unimaginable. Mass effect 3 was nothing short of fantastic, one of the best games released that year, despite the ending. Dragon age 2 was actually liked by many people, I consider it one of the best releases of that year, even though it didn't measure up to dragon age origins and had it's issues. And SWTOR? Good game, they only pushed out content too slow for it to stick.

i haven't played Mass effect 3 yet, plan to, already bought it. But it has always amazed me how people are ready to bash a game just for the ending, ignoring all that has come before. From comment i read here and there, they gave masse effet 3 a 10/10 up until the last 10 minutes then a 5/10 globaly (i'm paraphrasing, but that's what i read).

How can 10 minute ending erase 50 hours of adventue. If one does not like the ending, just ignore it, or better use your imagination and make your own ending. anyway, i'll know more once i played it.

[Durandro]

This thread is so full of shit it's unimaginable.

Welcome to the internet, where people have differing opinions.

Also, a Dragon Age 2 fan. Interesting.

Like I said before, the main downfall of Bioware is its PR. The arrogance, the overhype, the wild claims that they can't possibly keep, then the denial that they did any of those things at all, followed by rude backhanded comments towards their most dedicated fans while they make nice with their casual audience (which, unlike an MMO, isn't where the money is made - dedicated happy fans buy every single damn thing).

[Crissi]

Welcome to the internet, where people have differing opinions.

Also, a Dragon Age 2 fan. Interesting.

Like I said before, the main downfall of Bioware is its PR. The arrogance, the overhype, the wild claims that they can't possibly keep, then the denial that they did any of those things at all, followed by rude backhanded comments towards their most dedicated fans while they make nice with their casual audience (which, unlike an MMO, isn't where the money is made - dedicated happy fans buy every single damn thing).

Their PR for DA2 was atrocious. Press A for awesome? >.< Nerds that are otherwise great gaming/software/hardware devs tend to be horrible in dealing with the public.

[Durandro]

i haven't played Mass effect 3 yet, plan to, already bought it. But it has always amazed me how people are ready to bash a game just for the ending, ignoring all that has come before. From comment i read here and there, they gave masse effet 3 a 10/10 up until the last 10 minutes then a 5/10 globaly (i'm paraphrasing, but that's what i read).

How can 10 minute ending erase 50 hours of adventue. If one does not like the ending, just ignore it, or better use your imagination and make your own ending. anyway, i'll know more once i played it.

Well... Speaking from personal experience, it can certainly sully the entire story. No spoilers, but its almost as bad as finding out your wife of ten years is called John and you've been drugged for all that time completely unaware - only moreso.

And people who gave it 10/10 prior to the ending? Silly, honestly. The game has other issues. Graphics quality is all over the place (some really good, some really rough and unfinished), mission journal is completely hopeless (despite Mass Effect 2's being basically the same - only fully functional) and many of the pre-release promises being broken. Also doesn't help that there often isn't even the illusion of choice, and we're not fighting the main enemies for much of the game! At best it deserved a 8/10, personally I give it a 7/10.

[Buu]

I guess delaying the game by a full year is "rushing".

Yes, it is. If they delay the START of production, and once it get a go, they have to finish in LESS than a year. Delay is a good thing when the game is in middle of production, and they still work on it during the deadline pushing.

DA3 halted the production, while they decided for Frostbite, then once it was green the deadline was an impossible one, to avoid get even near The Witcher 3.

I don't know if I would call the biggest, but Bioware is certainly the MOST PATHETIC tragedy.

[Durandro]

Their PR for DA2 was atrocious. Press A for awesome? >.< Nerds that are otherwise great gaming/software/hardware devs tend to be horrible in dealing with the public.

Not as bad as non-gamers marketting games though. Surely there's a good middle ground!

But Bioware are currently one step away from the studio that (claimed to) make Aliens: Colonial Marines in terms of overhyping themselves. The production videos are eerily similar to that of the Bioware dev videos... I get very worried when I see those now, it also means they are taking time away from making the game to have an interview!

[Buu]

Well... Speaking from personal experience, it can certainly sully the entire story. No spoilers, but its almost as bad as finding out your wife of ten years is called John and you've been drugged for all that time completely unaware - only moreso.

And people who gave it 10/10 prior to the ending? Silly, honestly. The game has other issues. Graphics quality is all over the place (some really good, some really rough and unfinished), mission journal is completely hopeless (despite Mass Effect 2's being basically the same - only fully functional) and many of the pre-release promises being broken. Also doesn't help that there often isn't even the illusion of choice, and we're not fighting the main enemies for much of the game! At best it deserved a 8/10, personally I give it a 7/10.

Pretty much. The game have good moments in Rannoch; and a compelling history, in the tradicional ME style, in Tuchanka. Other than that is a very poor game. Cheap production, made by the cheap bunch that was left in the company. The valuable developers, long gone...

[Durandro]

Yes, it is. If they delay the START of production, and once it get a go, they have to finish in LESS than a year. Delay is a good thing when the game is in middle of production, and they still work on it during the deadline pushing.

And sometimes games need even longer then usual. Pushing a game out the door when its unfinished, even if its already late and has had extensions, is bad. I'm sure many of my gripes with Mass Effect 3 would have been solved by another 6-12 months of development time (it was why I was hoping they would address issues with the DLC, but nope...). Heck I'd have been okay with them waiting until the next console releases, because the game is clearly designed with Xbox in mind - it must be using that system to the utter limit!

Oh, and the Multiplayer should have been a seperate spinoff. And I like the multiplayer. It also needed a better microtransaction method, the current system is awful and random.

- - - Updated - - -

Pretty much. The game have good moments in Rannoch; and a compelling history, in the tradicional ME style, in Tuchanka. Other than that is a very poor game. Cheap production, made by the cheap bunch that was left in the company. The valuable developers, long gone...

Exactly, its those two parts that really carry it for me. There are other decent parts, but the quality was poured into Tunchunka especially. If the whole game was like that, I'd have few complaints.

I might even overlook Starbinger if you could have Wrex back on the crew perminantly again. The lack of choices really did suck (and one crew member doesn't even join until really far into the game!) - especially if you got a few people killed previously. You could potentially be left with only Liara, EDI and Vega!

They clearly designed the game to only really reward you for playing it 'right' - which isn't the mark of a sound RPG to me. Renegade is clearly insane by ME3, and there are no alternatives presented - you do each of the main missions in order, and you can't go back and do side missions later.

Things ME3 needed:

Exchangable Crew - Don't like someone? Kick them off the ship, replace them with someone else. There should have been a pool of about 20 different squadmates, and only 6-8 spots for them on the Normandy. Thus every playthrough could truely be different. I'd have liked to have seen new squadmates too, a Vorcha mercenary who can fill any spot in your roster (though not as well as a 'pure') or a Krogan of any type (would get it after Tunchunka, given as a bodyguard/liason officer by Wrex or Wreav, if you don't piss them off).

Exploration - Think more Mass Effect and less Mass Effect 2. Being able to pilot the Kodiak shuttle over the surface of a planet would have been inspired.

Vehicle Combat - They added the Mako back in... And then only had it as background graphics? Boo! It would have also been a 'fuck yeah!' moment if we got to play as Joker piloting the Normandy, a stalk contrast to when we control him at his weakest point.

Weapon Customisation - The new system is nice. But they could have gone further. Completely remove the level system with weapons and upgrades, add in different modules and parts for weapons to improve them along lines you prefer. Let the player pile everything on, but have a maximum weight limit you can carry. And let us change the colour of the weapon!

More Skill Choices - Allow you to switch out any power for an alternative. Don't like Charge? Try Stasis. Don't like Frag Grenades? Try Inferno Grenades. Etc. Options are good! The more blurred the 'class' lines are the better.

Allow a player to choose sides - and see the corruption and evil of Cerberus from the inside. Have certain squadmates react badly to this choice.

[Yriel]

i haven't played Mass effect 3 yet, plan to, already bought it. But it has always amazed me how people are ready to bash a game just for the ending, ignoring all that has come before. From comment i read here and there, they gave masse effet 3 a 10/10 up until the last 10 minutes then a 5/10 globaly (i'm paraphrasing, but that's what i read).

How can 10 minute ending erase 50 hours of adventue. If one does not like the ending, just ignore it, or better use your imagination and make your own ending. anyway, i'll know more once i played it.

Because the ending is the most important part of a story. You can't measure it in minutes played except if you don't care about the story at all and fully concentrate on mechanical gameplay.
It's the same with movies. Two films i genuinely enjoyed watching were Shutter Island and Sucker Punch... right up to the ending. The endings destroyed the whole movie experience for me and left me leaving the cinema in a bad mood.
And in video games that can even be more true since you spend so much time with the characters and the game. Playing up to the end through all three parts is dozens of hours and sets up huge expectations (that they themselves hyped up pre-release with all their "everything will be explained" and "there will be no button a, b or c ending" PR).
So yeah even though i really loved ME3 up to the ending in the end it left me with a "meh" feeling about the whole series.

[Orby]

I am still angry and heart broken after what happened to Rare. I had more games from Rare than I did any over developer on the N64. Banjo Kazooie/Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Blast Corps, Jet Force Gemini, Conkers Bad Fur Day, Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing and Perfect Dark

I treasure those games till the day I die.

Bioware still has a chance at redemption, at least. Maybe its just me but I loved Mass Effect 3. Maybe because that ending was something my character would do, but yea I do indeed feeling the three coloured ending was a bit of a cop and the fleet you assembled did nothing in the long run but the rest of the game was still awesome

As for Blizzard though, they are far from falling from grace, I been collecting their games since my dad brought me Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (mainly to play himself) when I was 12 years old. I didnt mean to collect just blizzard titles at the time, but when Warcraft: Tides of Darkness/Beyond the Dark Poeral, Diablo and Starcraft came out I knew then that I got into realizing anything made by Blizzard was going to be this awesome.

These guys still produce some of the best games right now. The only thing they messed up with recently was Diablo 3, probably my biggest blizzard upset. But while I felt Blizzard might be slipping they picked themselves up again with WoW: MoP an expansion to WoW that was alot better than Cataclysm and nearly on par with Wrath of the Lich King, Then Starcraft: Heart of the Swarm came and (while some opinions are divided on this games single player) I absolutely loved this expansion over Wings of Liberty.

Blizzard still have alot of gas int he tank. they are still very much driven by their fans, I think I can let them off with making one mistake with Diablo 3, even if it pretty much destroyed everything I loved about the franchise and dont get me started with their always online stuff and awful launch. I think I can still say Blizzard are one of the few great gaming companies left and until they pretty much destroy all the other franchises I'll pretty much stick with them. Who knows maybe Diablo 3's next expansion might bring it back from the brink.

I just pray that CDProject keeps faithful too.

[Crissi]

I am still angry and heart broken after what happened to Rare. I had more games from Rare than I did any over developer on the N64. Banjo Kazooie/Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Blast Corps, Jet Force Gemini, Conkers Bad Fur Day, Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing and Perfect Dark

I treasure those games till the day I die.

Bioware still has a chance at redemption, at least. Maybe its just me but I loved Mass Effect 3. Maybe because that ending was something my character would do, but yea I do indeed feeling the three coloured ending was a bit of a cop and the fleet you assembled did nothing in the long run but the rest of the game was still awesome

As for Blizzard though, they are far from falling from grace, I been collecting their games since my dad brought me Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (mainly to play himself) when I was 12 years old. I didnt mean to collect just blizzard titles at the time, but when Warcraft: Tides of Darkness/Beyond the Dark Poeral, Diablo and Starcraft came out I knew then that I got into realizing anything made by Blizzard was going to be this awesome.

These guys still produce some of the best games right now. The only thing they messed up with recently was Diablo 3, probably my biggest blizzard upset. But while I felt Blizzard might be slipping they picked themselves up again with WoW: MoP an expansion to WoW that was alot better than Cataclysm and nearly on par with Wrath of the Lich King, Then Starcraft: Heart of the Swarm came and (while some opinions are divided on this games single player) I absolutely loved this expansion over Wings of Liberty.

Blizzard still have alot of gas int he tank. they are still very much driven by their fans, I think I can let them off with making one mistake with Diablo 3, even if it pretty much destroyed everything I loved about the franchise and dont get me started with their always online stuff and awful launch. I think I can still say Blizzard are one of the few great gaming companies left and until they pretty much destroy all the other franchises I'll pretty much stick with them. Who knows maybe Diablo 3's next expansion might bring it back from the brink.

I just pray that CDProject keeps faithful too.

I think that quote from the recent Batman movie is applicable to just about everything, so I'm just gonna say its applicable here to.

[Outofmana]

I agree Rare would be the biggest tragedy for me, while Grabbed by the Ghoulies still had that rare-feel, Perfect Dark Zero was when it all started going wrong.....the games they make these days are just a joke, but how can they be anything other than that, being kinect games. (I played maybe 5mins with the kinect, worst 150E spent ever).

What about Lionhead , made one of the best games ever (Fable1) and improved on that with Fable2 (although a dog (sounds familiar?) kinda made it less awesome) and have now totally ruined their only IP with a kinect game (and fable3, Molyneux went way way way too far not wanting any ingame menus so the whole thing feels terribly slow , plus removing their trademark feature, red/blue/green xp system, oh god why). Will be interesting to see what they can do now with Molyneux gone so they don't have to go way overboard with all the gimmicks he liked lately.

About Bioware, I don't think they did that bad with the Mass Effect series, even after EA. I mean the whole series is still in my top10 alltime easily and I thourhougly enjoyed Mass Effect 3.
Dragon Age 2 is where it all went wrong though, I have never ever seen such an obvious attempt of trying to earn as much money with as little work put in as possible, the re-using of environments and enemies where just downright insulting and yeah from then on I don't blindly buy Bioware games anymore, I have even given up on the Dragon Age series as a whole since I didn't finish 2 and I am now not interested in that universe anymore at all. Dragon Age 2 got the FIFA treatment from EA. Reminds me of Inifinity Ward which got totally destroyed by Activision after CoD4.

[ldev]

without starting a flamefest FF: ARR looks to be an amazing game and if the next waves of MMOs coming out this year and following years are of equal quality or greater then WoW will be hurt severely. The only people that will be left are the hardcore RPers, trolls, and the kids that get their moms to pay for Pokecraft.

What? ARR is supposed to be better than WoW, but I don't even have any idea what arr is. Even google has no clue giving me links like fuelphp.com/docs/classes/arr.html

I seriously doubt your ARR will surpass even 1 mil subscribers...

[Deleted]

I loved NWN1, can every company always make winners no, different people like different games.

[Dezerte]

"How can 10 minutes of the ending sully the whole game, series even?"

If those 10 minutes turn the game's lore & story upside down, and as someone who was an absolute lore geek for Mass Effect I took it very hard.

I wish I could love Mass Effect like I used to, do you honestly think I enjoy seeing a beloved franchise of mine turned into, what I think, is weak? Despite this, I am hoping for Mass Effect 4, I'm hoping it can re-ignite my love for this series.