Bioware Employee caught reviewing Dragon Age 2
- Thread starter IamSofaKingRaw
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Hmmm... I just went and checked the user scores for DA2 on Metacritic. On a scale of ten, they were:MetallicaRulez0 said:
PC - 8.3 (1157 ratings)
PS3 - 7.6 (279 ratings)
XBox360 - 7.5 (338 ratings)
Look, all platforms have their fair share of trolls. But can we just not blame it all on 'PC elitists'? Especially in this case where, according to the scores, console gamers are the pissiest lot?
perhaps, and i understand that, but it certianly doesnt deserve a 4.1 user review score. that can turn a whole bunch of people off to a perfectly decent game they might like. dont get me wrong, i would be shocked if the average user review was over a 80 for that game. but i think a average it should hit is about 60 based on the quality of the gameplay and story. i also think it would have if it wasnt for my previous reason (whiny bioware fans)godofallu said:
You obvioulsy don't know how developers and publishers work when the publisher owns the developer and all of their IP... numbnutsgreen_dude said:EA is a publisher, num-nuts.Nurb said:THERE IS NO BIOWARE. ONLY EA.
Bioware is just a name now, they died the moment EA bought them. Supporting them means you support EA and all their bullshit.
How did we regress, from discussing the morality of posting a review without disclosing your MAJOR affiliation to the company that produced it, to blaming PC Elitests for not liking the game again. I was so hoping Escapist was a place where I could read and particpate in intelligent gamer conversation and debates.
awesomeness :3colonialmarine said:If DA2 was started while Origins was still in development then 3 should be on its way.Risingblade said:
IDK a lot of people give games scores based on gameplay. Anything not worth playing gets below a 5. As long as people have a reason to whine then it's constructive. Same goes for boasting. I'd give the game about a 4.5 user score, and a 80 professional. I use different scales for the two though, as do most people.joshthor said:
Nothing about the game, I assure you. I don't hate DA2. I was saddened by the fact that Bioware felt the need to prop up it's reviews. That kind of insecurity isn't attractive.TB_Infidel said:
Sadly though in this modern age where mass opinion rather then quality decides sales figures, I can see why they did it. Look at Black Ops for example. It did nothing new, it did nothing well, yet because of fans flocking to the shops and lots of marketing, it is one of the best selling games of all time. You also have to appreciate companies on the open market and how common sense does not sit well with share holders who just want to see big profits even if it is not viable.Johnnyallstar said:
How does 1 Employee doing anything reflect the corperate policy of bioware or EA? I mean I would kind of understand if it was the CEO doing something but not some no name dev.TB_Infidel said:
People around here can have some strang high horses.
Here is one that seems to come out from time to time, "everything that doesn't please me, is bad."
Doesn't matter if I'm the intended audience or if it simply reflects a different preference, my way or the highway is a definate POV.
For example, some people don't like board games, but rather than saying man that is a board game that isn't my taste I guess I should find something that is my taste, they say wow that is a shitty game 1.0 out of 10.
It use to drive me nuts when professiona reviewers who clearly didn't like adventure games tried to review them because they would critize all the points that no one who like the genre really cared about like graphic quality and controls and ignored qualities like story, story telling, voice acting and other areas that did mater then they would give very good games low score and absolutely horrible games high scores mostly because they didn't understand the genre or the audiance and clearly didn't like the games regardles of the score they gave them.
I can understand people who bought DA2 expecting it to be a Old school RGP being upset because they felt they were mislead because of DA:O but to rate it low only because you wish they made a game of a type you like rather than of a type others like when you didn't even buy it is just sad.
And it isn't like they didn't release demos for PC,XBOX and PS3.
Back to the dude. Should he have done it? Probably not, even though it is extremely unlikely that the was any attempt to do anything question or unethical it is clear that it puts him and his employer in an awkward position. Should we be outraged about it? Absolutely not. when did this witch hunt start?
And why are you saying he is boosting sales? One review on meta critic has about .0006139% on the overall score so in order to move it from 4.1 to 4.2 you would need at least a couple hundred 10/10s. And even then I'm not so certain that 4.2 is realy going to equat to more people buying it based on the user score.
Though honestly, everyone arguing over this probably is getting the game more attention and that will probably boost sales.
Here is one that seems to come out from time to time, "everything that doesn't please me, is bad."
Doesn't matter if I'm the intended audience or if it simply reflects a different preference, my way or the highway is a definate POV.
For example, some people don't like board games, but rather than saying man that is a board game that isn't my taste I guess I should find something that is my taste, they say wow that is a shitty game 1.0 out of 10.
It use to drive me nuts when professiona reviewers who clearly didn't like adventure games tried to review them because they would critize all the points that no one who like the genre really cared about like graphic quality and controls and ignored qualities like story, story telling, voice acting and other areas that did mater then they would give very good games low score and absolutely horrible games high scores mostly because they didn't understand the genre or the audiance and clearly didn't like the games regardles of the score they gave them.
I can understand people who bought DA2 expecting it to be a Old school RGP being upset because they felt they were mislead because of DA:O but to rate it low only because you wish they made a game of a type you like rather than of a type others like when you didn't even buy it is just sad.
And it isn't like they didn't release demos for PC,XBOX and PS3.
Back to the dude. Should he have done it? Probably not, even though it is extremely unlikely that the was any attempt to do anything question or unethical it is clear that it puts him and his employer in an awkward position. Should we be outraged about it? Absolutely not. when did this witch hunt start?
And why are you saying he is boosting sales? One review on meta critic has about .0006139% on the overall score so in order to move it from 4.1 to 4.2 you would need at least a couple hundred 10/10s. And even then I'm not so certain that 4.2 is realy going to equat to more people buying it based on the user score.
Though honestly, everyone arguing over this probably is getting the game more attention and that will probably boost sales.
Also, I've seen many reviews. I'm sure some people review things because they want to help others but a whole lot review things because they want to complain and couldn't figure out how to call customer service, or because they want to show off, or because they want to tell a story, or because they just love love love the product and everyone else should.Macrobstar said:
It is silly to think people read a positive review and go OMG I must buy that. People read 1/2 dozen reviews. If they are like me, I read a random sampling of the reviews from every grouping of stars so I can see both what people liked and didn't like and use my own judgment to skip a review that seems too enthusiastic or too grim.
Then I read the marketing material and the professional reviews and then a number of game reviewers and critics whose opinions I count more because in the paste their tastes have seemed to coincide with mine.
Or and this is the other thing, I download the demo and give it a go and see what it is like.
Or and this is where I get real crazy, I buy it and play it and if I don?t like it I sell to someone else.
You act as if this employee was asked by a game reviewing magazine to pick game of the year and he choose his game without announcing his tie to it. Or if he went out to his local game store and lied to people about the contents of the game to get them to buy it.
He said, he really liked the game. He gave it a high score. 1 of nearly 2000 reviews. And we don't know his motives, but we do know that he isn't the CEO of EA or Bioware and doesn't set their agenda and therefore everyone who is blaming bioware or ea for his actions is assuming a whole lot that not prooven and very likely untrue.
It's pretty sloppy. To be fair it's a below average game in most respects, produced by a game that produces gems. On a fair scale, it's probably a 4 out of 10.Taxman1 said:
The problems are a mixed bag, however they go well beyond the whole conflict between casual gamers, and serious RPG gamers which we all expected. Yes, the game has been dumbed down and simplified, but it's also a victim of some truely sloppy design in a general sense. Simply put the game is now a matter of revisiting the same basic zones/maps again and again where differnat things spawn depending on your quests. Rather than the encounterrs being specifically placed and balanced, in most cases the bad guys just sort of appear, and the challenge from the combat is now a matter of the monsters respawning in constant waves. They either just pop out of thin air over the bodies of the ones you kill, or jump down off buildings (or just kind of fall out of the air).
Basically, it's a situation where the game is getting knocked accross the spectrum. Truthfully it is probably getting reamed worse than a just generally sub-par game would be, because this is Bioware and they set a very high bar for standards of game design, and the first "Dragon Age" game was pretty awesome, and had a lot of RPG fans excited that someone was taking RPGs seriously again.
What improvements you hear about are also a mixed bag. People talk about how "Awesome" the combat is, but it's important to understand that simple, quick, and flashy does not make a good RPG combat system, especially when the combat is ridiculous for the setting. In the first game you felt kind of like you were in the middle of an epic fantasy movie like "Lord Of The Rings". In this one you feel like your in a braindead anime. Not only are thugs in the slums dropping into battles like Ninjas, your characters are doing things like spot-teleporting to bakstab instead of having to more realistically flank or move into position. Your also seeing characters throwing gas bombs around as class abillities like they are batman or something. In some games it would be cool, but it really doesn't fit here, it's just really badly implemented, and kind of jarring when you see it in action. The wrong kind of awesome for the kind of game it's supposed to be. This is sword and sorcery, not Kung-Fu Theater.
The companion system is also horribly borked. The game is aiming for a smaller scope of events than the first one (as they promoted). However what your ultimatly dealing with is a very linear set of main plot missions that you follow, with a somewhat simplistic overall metaplot about either backing the Mages or Templars. That whole conflict is the moral core of the game. The problem here is that your companions are almost entirely un-customizable other than their accessories and some of their skills. In JRPG fashion each companion is tied to a fighting style. They are also almost all seriously tied to one set of faction choices or the other, and will sit there and whine incessantly when you do things they don't like. You wind up with a situations like where there is exactly ONE companion who can be a healer, nobody else has the abillity to learn serious healing magic. If your hawke is not a healer, then you pretty much need him, especially if your not on minimal difficulty level. Of course being not only a mage but plotwise the central figure in the whole pro-mage, anti-templar resistance, if you plan to make Hawke a warrior, go Templar, and play a pro-templar playthrough then expect the guy to rant your bloody ear off constantly and incessantly. Another common issue is that there is exactly ONE tank companion, and she happens to be the captain of the guard, again she's pretty much a character your likely to need especially on a higher difficulty level. She's not tied entirely to one political stance or the other, but instead she freaks out if you do things that aren't entirely based around law and order. If you want to work for criminal factions, ask for payment (as a mercenary), try and cajole extra payment, or whatever else, she of course will sit there and annoy you constantly. So if your playing say a rogue type who would need that tank, your going to have to endure this. There are other similar issues, but these are two of the specific complaints about how they set up the companions and the most common on various forums.
Simply put the game is both very limited in scope, but also seems to be badly planned so as to almost guarantee your going to have at least one whine-machine attached to your hip no matter what style you decide to play. It makes the limited scope not only more limited, but even worse it makes it annoying. The previous game by allowing you to customize characters allowed you to avoid this, and this is a case where dumbing the game down really hurt it. If say you found Alaistair annoying or whatever, especially for the way you played, you could always take another warrior and have them learn "Sword and Shield" or whatever. Nobody forced you to say keep Sten or Oghrim as two handed weapon fighters. You could pretty much pick the companions you wanted and suited who you thought your character would work with (and who you wanted to listen to) and the game didn't hammer you for it. In DA2 you can't take say Fenris (two handed weapon fighter) and instead train him to do sword and shield to use him as a dedicated tank where required, if you want a specialized tank you HAVE to use Aveline as she's the only character with those skills.
The game is rife with a lot of problems, and what is just flat out sloppy design. Even the generally strong storytelling is hurt because they really seemed to rush part of it. Where in the first game they adjusted the dialogue fairly well for what you were playing, in DA 2 it varies. You can go from impressive displays of things being tailored to your character, to your companions firing off non-sequitors due to the developers and script writers getting lazy and wanting "one speil fits all" dialogue in places where it doesn't work. An example of this would be like how with my character, an apostate mage, has been running around buddy-buddy with the uber-mage revolutionary healer for the whole game. I've been taking the pro-mage side, liberating them, and basically being the bloody Scarlet Pimpernel of mages. Then I come to this companion quest for the guy to sneak into the gallows to deal with a paticularly unsubtle hitler analogy of a templar who wants to impose "The Tranquil Solution" and lobotomize all mages (like Hitler's "Final Solution" get it... yeah it's real subtle). It fits with the general storyline, except my companion makes a big deal about how he's reluctant to trust me with the knowlege of this tunnel we're going to use, or about who his contact is because "well, sorry Hawke, I can't trust you given that your now successful and connected to the nobility and everything". A real WTF when you consider my character is a rogue Apostate who has been hiding from the Templars from pretty much the beginning, and is in just as much trouble as Mr.Resistance leader guy here because oh hey, I've been right there providing the muscle for his scrawny healer build that prevents him from casting offensive magic in healer mode during his revolutionary crusades... but hey, since I basically AM the revolution at this point, it makes sense he doesn't trust me and all I suppose. The reluctant dialogue would work perfectly for a warrior or rogue, I suppose, but not for a mage, given that your character is you know... an Apostate on the Templar Hit list. Sometimes Bioware thinks to work on the dialogue to set it up properly, sometimes they seemed to forget.... again, sloppy. Where people were quoting some of the clever dialogue and back and forths from the first game, the situations where the writing is equally clever here are overshadowed by people who get jerked out of it with a "WTF" moment where what is being said really doesn't sync with the game. A problem that is paticularly noticible since it's a Bioware game, and people hoping that spot on writing is going to compensate for any flaws, and really here the writing has it's sloppy bits as much as anything.
I mean it's not a horrible game, it's just not all that great a game. It's fun and playable, but your not going to be considering it one of the best CRPG experiences you've ever had. It's certainly not likely to outdo the first game in your mind. I suspect a lot of the problem is Bioware simply being stretched too thin, normally their quality is due to focusing on a single product, with a crack team of people, and taking whatever time they need to get it done right. The first "Dragon Age" spent a long time in development, and that is why some areas showed their age. Right now Bioware has two franchises (Dragon Age, and Mass Effect), and the most expensive MMORPG project in history (Old Republic Online) all under simultaneous development. Their staff has increased, so it's unlikely everyone is of the same quality that they had, and their experts are divided up, and no matter what names show up in the credits, you know the producers are demanding their best people prioritize that multi-hundred million dollar MMORPG project. There are understandable excuses for why things probably turned out this way, but the bottom line is that the game just isn't that good.
I think the attempts to load the reviews are because they had a lot riding on this game, and expected the Bioware name to carry it. Heck, they even have a tie in Facebook game that unlocks in game content, which says a lot about what they expected this game to be. I also think that a big part of it is the discrepency between user reviews and professional reviews. Professional reviews are rating the game highly, while the user base is tanking the game, to an average or slightly below average rating (when you allow for how top heavy reviews are). That doesn't make EA/Bioware look good since it makes it pretty obvious that they bought the reviews. Corruption aside, it's rare to see that large of a disconnect, and various varieites of troll can only do so much damage to user ratings because they are always present to begin with.
Apologies for the length, but there is what is going on (as I see it, both from playing the game, and reading a lot of the traffic on differant forums).
Truth be told, these aren't the kinds of problems that can be patched out. If you don't have DA2, I'd consider holding off on it until it drops in price to be honest.
I had some misgivings about this game due to the way the whole query about Hawke thing went down, and how EA/Bioware treated the community. That said, where I expected to be annoyed by some of the changes, I figured it would be a decent game overall. I did pre-order it after all despite my misgivings. I was honestly shocked at how sloppy parts of this game actually are. Maybe it seems worse than it actually is because of what I expect from Bioware, but that's still my reaction. When I look at things like the waves of monsters just popping in, I just can't fathom what the developers were thinking.
