Bioware Sucks at Story telling

[yaydod]

So the title is a bit baiting and allot of you will want my skin after this, but any way here i go.

I did not play the Baldure's Gate series, but i did play every (or almost) Bioware game after those, so my point of view is based on the games after this series.

First things first, Bioware are NOT really good story writers. By that i mean that they do make really good lore and surrounding story (like Mass Effect) BUT the main story is bland, not very inspired and unfortunately not that well executed.
The "choices" they put in front of you a very often binary choices a)Good guy b) don't care c) Evil bastard
Yay for compelling choices -_-"

Last game i tried to replay recently was Jade Empire and Kotor, I was not able to play more than a few hours before stopping and wondering, "why the f*** am I doing this?", which is never a good sign i a story driven game.



In my eyes a good RPG, during important choices makes you think for a few minutes "What should i choose?", they make you ponder the good and the bad of your decision, the only Bioware game that made me do that at some point was Dragon Age: Origin, all the others I wonder 90% of the time (quoting some one well known to these forums) "What option gives me the most Dick head points?"

Lets take example on other game with a good choice system, first to come to mind is Alpha Protocol, yes it is bugged, yes the story is a mess, but at least the choice you make throughout the game really affect who will join you, who the missions will go and how the story plays out.
Then there is Kotor2, yes bugged out as hell yada yada, it still has "stupid" moral system, but you will not have the same team mates depending if you are male or female, and if you are jedi(good) or sith(bad)(didn't try out neutral yet), and throughout the game you do have some difficult choices but there are barely present sadly.
Next there is Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, great game, amazing story and choices do change the way you play the game :shock:
Last but not least, yes I am bringing this one in, Planescape Torment which is the best example of a story driven RPG done right, keeping it here for this one and if you don't know what I'm talking about go buy now from GOG


The ME series are extremely "light" RPGs, they are more like Gears of Space with dialog option which will change almost nothing to the plot. We should of have had an option to make out with a chest high wall because Shepard sure loved those. The squad mates were mostly stupid and/or damn arrogant (the only one who was bearable is Garus), and the AI is just completely retarded, huh, actually this is the case in almost every RPG on PC.
Now lets tackle the story elements, ugh. Every Bioware is unknown hero A has to defy all odds to destroy bad guy/thing B, generic yes but if well executed can be very good, sadly the only one i know off with the Bioware stamp on it is Dragon Age: Origin(barely above the others), and maybe Jade Empire.

What surprises me is that people still find Bioware games with "the best story evar", I am going to be a bit rude now... Bioware has extremely Lazy writers, and half off them must be doing more "important" while they are writing the story. Especially with ME2 and 3 endings.
ME2: Getting on collector ship (logical), boss fight, a GIANT TERMINATOR, yay?
ME3: if you read down to here you know what I am talking about.


So there said what i wanted to say, now I'm going to pick this up

 

[Fappy]

Bioware does a good job with characters, dialogue and emotional moments. Their plots could use some work.

 

[Pink Gregory]

It's been a loooong time since I played Jade Empire (my only counterpoint to Mass Effect, really); but Bioware could stand to be a little less tokenistic (fairly sure that's not a word) in terms of choices/morality etc.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

I have to agree that the plots aren't really great, especially in the Dragon Age games.
Didn't really find them unique or special, elements of them were pretty good, but overall a bit of a let down.

 

[hazabaza1]

Pretty much. Good characterisation though, some nice set pieces or whatever too.
Edit: Wait, why did you remove "at storytelling" from your title?
Edit2: And now you put it back in after Susan Arendt comments on your bullshit.
Jesus, man, if you're gonna edit the title after a bunch of people comment at least stick to it.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

If you are only basing our opinion on their recent games, then you are operating without all the information on which to base a fair opinion.

The Baldur's Gate series, 2 in particular is often held up as the ultimate RPG, and rightly so. The world, characters and story have never been matched since (though I'll grant that individual worlds, characters and stories have). KoTOR was so successful that BioWare changed the entire direction of their company to make only these "cinematic" games, and is the reason they were chosen to create a new SW MMO when Galaxy was flagging.

The storytelling and characters in KoTOR was very, very good. Granted it began the light/dark, renegade/paragon, open palm/closed fist approach that BW can't seem to veer from now, but in that context it worked specifically because it was a story about jedi and sith. And we have george lucas to blame for the very simplistic light/dark, blue/red garbage.

JE was an incredible story. Henpecked Hou, Black Whirlwind, the Princess, Sky and the others are great characters with unique and memorable personalities. Master Li in particular is a master-piece of a character (pun intended). And the story and our role in it is told and revealed very well.

Mass Effect, the first one was also great. How it introduced the varied species and their cultures, worked in prejudice, a personal journey that happens alongside a galactic crisis, loss of someone we (may have) cared about, an arguably mixed bag of characters and varied places to explore in a very tight and interesting way.

I'll grant you Planescape: Torment, VTM: Bloodlines, KotOR2 and AP as better examples of story telling, particularly AP whose story actually adapts and changes dynamically, but you can't knock BW. Well DA2 and ME2/3 you can knock all you like and I'd agree with you, but before that is off-limits ;-)

 

[yaydod]

SNIP

I do agree that they do make good companions, there were some really nice revelations in Jade Empire on one especially. Kotor 1 has very good companions (except Bastilla, very annoying, sadly i didn't find any option to kill her), and it is true the moral choice system does fit the setting but the main story is sooo predicable, it is sad

Unfortunately i didn't play the Baldures Gate series (like i said in the first post), i did play neverwinter nights1 (but i really preferred the second one, MASK OF THE BETRAYER all the way) but some one destroyed my disc and i wasn't able to finish it at the time. So i can only base my opinion on there games after KotoR, which i actually finished.

George Lucas ruined so many good games it is depressing

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

The choices in Mass Effect games are challenging to Shepard as a character but not to me as a player. This makes them a pretty boring and toothless exercise. I thought they were learning when in Dragon Age: Origins they got rid of the Paragon/Renegade scale, but nope. Most of the choices do not challenge your faculties or present difficult decisions. They merely require you to choose between virtuous, pointless and dickwad. I need options whose rightness is not obvious, or have stakes for something the player cares about like a likable character, or all seem similarly good or bad in outcome to create tension in the choosing. There were a few choices in Dragon Age: Origins that did just that but they don't seem to understand how fundamental it is.

 

[lRookiel]

So, you didn't play their best game? :3

I agree they have lost their touch nowadays but still, we have Baldurs gate and DA:Origins

 

[Saviordd1]

Meh good for you, we all have our own opinions.

In the meantime I'm going to go play Mass Effect again because that game is fucking fun.

 

[SonicWaffle]

In my eyes a good RPG, during important choices makes you think for a few minutes "What should i choose?", they make you ponder the good and the bad of your decision, the only Bioware game that made me do that at some point was Dragon Age: Origin, all the others I wonder 90% of the time (quoting some one well known to these forums) "What option gives me the most Dick head points?"

This isn't limited to BioWare, it applies to just about any game with a choice system. The player, not feeling the emotional weight of the decisions being made (because unless you're extremely empathetic towards fictional characters, it's still just a game you can switch off and come back to whenever you like) must choose on the basis of what will have the best effect on their game. We have very little emotional stake in whether Kaiden or Ashley dies, so instead we concern ourselves with which character is most useful to our playstyle or annoys us least, which for me - using both criteria - meant that poor Kaiden had to go boom.

The inherent issue of a moral choice system is that it is just that, a system. A mechanic in a game to be exploited by the player for the ideal results, because that's how games work. It removes the ability to care too much about such things because instead of caring for the characters you're caring about your own progression through the game and you're not going to do something that deliberately fucks up the game you've spent hours playing through. Yes, sometimes there are occasions when we'll become emotionally involved but they're few and far between. Choice systems are just like a game with a limited inventory; we decide what to carry based on what gives us the best results, not because we have an emotional attachment to our favourite shotgun.

 

[SonicWaffle]

In the meantime I'm going to go play Mass Effect again because that game is fucking fun.

I loved it, but I could never play it again. Having done all the sidequests etc on my original playthrough, I get about six hours into a game and go "Christ this is boring, I've done this before!"

Sad times :-(

 

[MBurdock]

Fair enough. The moral meter thing drives me crazy in most games because it is too simplistic. Give me DnD's Lawful-Chaotic, Good-Evil matrix any day if you're going to give me choices. The games whose stories I enjoy the most either use that system (Infinity engine games) or don't bother with player choices for storytelling. Bioshock has a great story and no silly dialogue choices. Infamous, which makes use of the moral meter, had a really good turn in the story with a character that you didn't control and who wasn't really affected by the moral choices (Zeke).

My point - choose your own adventure books generally sucked as stories.

 

[TheCommanders]

I like Bioware games mostly for the characters. I hear some people that the player character is pretty bland, but I usually don't even see them as a character, but more like the vehicle through which we are allowed to experience the other characters. The thing is, main plots in big RPGs usually involve, in some form or another, saving the world/galaxy/nation, whatever. But when it comes down to it, I don't really care about the real world, let alone all these invented ones. What allows you to become invested in a story or world is when you care about the characters, and Bioware is usually able to make me do that, which is why I play their games.

 

[Saviordd1]

In the meantime I'm going to go play Mass Effect again because that game is fucking fun.

I loved it, but I could never play it again. Having done all the sidequests etc on my original playthrough, I get about six hours into a game and go "Christ this is boring, I've done this before!"

Sad times :-(

Sadly ME1 doesn't (In my opinion) Hold together as well as ME2 and ME3, simply because comparatively the combat is utter garbage. Still fun to occasionally push through though.

 

[SonicWaffle]

In the meantime I'm going to go play Mass Effect again because that game is fucking fun.

I loved it, but I could never play it again. Having done all the sidequests etc on my original playthrough, I get about six hours into a game and go "Christ this is boring, I've done this before!"

Sad times :-(

Sadly ME1 doesn't (In my opinion) Hold together as well as ME2 and ME3, simply because comparatively the combat is utter garbage. Still fun to occasionally push through though.

Whenever I do this sort of thing, I try to make an opposite character to my main alt, which in ME means a female Shep who is a total ***** and uses pure biotic. Thing is, I end up hating her for being such a cockbag - maybe I'm just too nice to be a Renegade?

 

[Saviordd1]

In the meantime I'm going to go play Mass Effect again because that game is fucking fun.

I loved it, but I could never play it again. Having done all the sidequests etc on my original playthrough, I get about six hours into a game and go "Christ this is boring, I've done this before!"

Sad times :-(

Sadly ME1 doesn't (In my opinion) Hold together as well as ME2 and ME3, simply because comparatively the combat is utter garbage. Still fun to occasionally push through though.

Whenever I do this sort of thing, I try to make an opposite character to my main alt, which in ME means a female Shep who is a total ***** and uses pure biotic. Thing is, I end up hating her for being such a cockbag - maybe I'm just too nice to be a Renegade?

Same, I've only done one renegade and even then he was more of a paragade.

 

[pilouuuu]

They definitely don't suck, but I think they have a formula for their games and by now it's like playing the same game over and over again.

I agree that what they do best is character interactions. They gave us Minsc, HK-47 and many other great characters!

And I think that KOTOR had a much more interesting story than Mass Effect. The formula was the same, but the story felt more engaging and that twist!

In my opinion they put a lot of love in their games, but flawed gems they are. And after they started working with EA they seem to have lost some of the gameplay elements in favour of a more cinematic experience.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

They make fun games that are more popcorn adventure than intellectual pieces. Mass Effect is at its heart a Space Opera. The world is more important than the characters. Dragon Age is an Epic Fantasy, but with a character focus.

If Bioware just admitted that this was what they do best, rather than desperately seeking validation that they are "deep" storytellers, I wouldn't hold such a grudge against them. They want to be The Lord of the Rings, when in reality, they're more like The Belgariad (kudos if you've read those books)