Imo, since they moved to EA, their quality of games has dropped significantly. I have no doubt that EA will manage to destroy another reputable company, like they did with Westwood Studios before.
seriously though with regards to the OP... "dragon age was essentially baldurs gate 3" i threw up a little in my mouth when i read this..
Dragon age was a dog of a game compared to the Baldurs gate saga, a DOG!
The problem is that its honestly very hard to judge a game by its own merits nowadays, if Bio ware would just release games under secret pseudo-names... we probably wouldn't constantly compare new titles to older established favourites.
Redundant dialogue trees are hardly new, games have been doing that for years.
Bioware has explained quite well that the ethos of Mass Effect is that you are playing Commander Shepherd and that while you make choices about Shepherd's reactions at the end of the day the reactions fall within a range of what their character, Commander Shepherd as they imagined him, would do.
This is completely understandable because they had signed up from the very beginning to do this epic trilogy of games they had to stop the storyboard from turning into the Mandlebrot set.
80Maxwell08 said:
Biotics are beyond overpowered in small rooms when they basically lift every enemy onto the ceiling and Soldiers have nearly no need for their skills at all (I managed to beat the whole game without even knowing the skills on normal).
That's personal experience.. I can assure you that I, if anything, over-relied on my soldier skills in Mass Effect. There comes a point where you can have 80% damage negation on all the time.. I found it pretty much essential in the harder game modes.
80Maxwell08 said:
Also there are some serious holes in logic like the entire universe all speaking English.
Someone has probably already said this, but they're using translation software, I can't remember which game it's referenced in but there's a point where Shepherd asks if it's glitched.
80Maxwell08 said:
The darkspawn just feel like fancy undead to me, the Fade is obviously the Warp from Warhammer/Warhammer 40000 and many of the other fantasy elements were never trying to be original in the first place (ex: elves, dwarves, etc).
The darkspawn are orcs from lord of the rings. I know Warhammer has altered the image of orcs, but the physically twisted and ugly horde are always orcs. The story is not terribly original. Dragon Age 2's story is considerably more original, so surely this defies your hypothesis of everything getting worse..
I got the Fade/Warp similarity, but there are enormous differences. Also, both are borrowed from a fairly generic idea which ultimately comes from observation of shamanic cultures in which people take drugs to travel to the spirit world and back.
Dwarves in DA:O are.. one of the most original takes on Dwarves I've ever seen, although if you didn't play that much you might have missed the brutal caste system and the vicious opportunistic ultra-capitalism.
80Maxwell08 said:
Once again I managed to beat the entire game as a soldier on normal with no skills, also when I did Tali's recruitment mission on Hardcore for the geth assult rifle I honestly didn't feel challenged at all again and didn't use a single skill the entire time.
I suppose if you're some kind of God of modern shooters it's perfectly possible, although I'm not sure how you didn't run out of ammunition constantly if you weren't tailoring your ammo powers. The Solder has been refined into a much more shooting oriented class in ME2 rather than the tanks of ME1. If you play any other class, you'll need to use abilities constantly.
80Maxwell08 said:
Biotics feel way more powerful with moves like warp and shockwave, though are still a bit overpowered when I can knock an entire line of enemies off the railing with a single skill.
Which takes 15+ seconds to recharge and doesn't work any enemy with shields or barriers (all of them, in harder game modes).
It's pretty balanced.
80Maxwell08 said:
Now writing. Ok this does not start well. Literally the starting sequence doesn't start well. As soon as the normal game starts (after Varric's little lie at the beginning) your very first dialog options are all basically the same. Also from what I've heard when talking to the very first npc in Kirkwall one of the sets of dialog options are all literally the same but I don't own the game anymore to confirm this.
Hang on.. why are you commenting on a game you don't own?
And the dialogues aren't the same at all, they just reflect a different manner of speaking rather than necessarily a different game-altering choice every time. This has happened since the dawn of RPG history.
80Maxwell08 said:
Also forcing you to romance Anders or shut him down is just bad. If you disagree just imagine that scenario in real life and tell me if that makes any sense for someone to just get pissed and not talk to you again because you aren't gay.
At this point I can tell you've neither played the game or been in this situation.
1) Noone likes being shot down, even if it's their fault for getting the signals wrong.
2) A tiny rivalry penalty which you can make back in 2 seconds by saying "I like mages" at some point in the future is not "getting pissed". Anders response is actually along the lines of "fair enough, I got the wrong idea", but he takes a small friendship hit because.. well.. see above.
I didn't see anyone particularly complaining that Bethany had a really high friendship score at the beginning of the game which you had to work to remove if you wanted to be her rival.
80Maxwell08 said:
Then we get to things like Leliana not being dead if you killed her. If you didn't know why that was there then the lead writer basically it didn't fit into the story HE was telling.
When you dig into the code, it's actually that the Origins save files weren't set up to export whether you killed Leliana. While this is an oversight, I don't think anyone expected Origins to be a huge hit, I don't think they'd planned Dragon Age 2 at that point and from what they'd said they never wanted subsequent Dragon Age games to be a direct continuation of the prequels. They also clearly never expected the characters to acquire such enormous status so when it came down to a choice between reusing characters irrespective of the lack of data as to their status at the end of the game, they made the choice to put them in.
From my experience, if the quality of Bioware games has been falling, it's been from "Awesome" to "Still pretty good". Even in a "lower quality" state, it still makes better games than many other developers.
If I'm honest, alarm bells were ringing after my experiences with ME2. It's not a bad game by any means and I love many things about it, but it simply didn't grab me in the same way the original did.
When I first heard about ME1 and about it coming out on 360 I just was so ravenous in finding info about it and seriously considered getting a 360 just to play it. I even watched a 'Lets play' session on Youtube of Mass Effect on the 360 long before I ever played the game myself, and I still thoroughly enjoyed my experience with it when I finally got hold of it and played through it multiple times over.
I can't put my finger on why I like it more than ME2, but I do know I could play the original for far longer in a gaming session that I could ME2. After a while I just got fed up with it and end up playing something else.
I also wasn't keen on the expansion to DA:O, Awakening, although there were moments of it that stick in my head that make me smile fondly, so I suppose it's not particularly negative point and possibly simply a matter of personal taste.
Dragon Age 2 I didn't like all that much. Be it the things that dramatically changed the gameplay from the original, streamlining them or lesser things that again come in to my own personal taste such as the change in visual styles.
In short, I suppose I'm simply saying that in recent times Biowares' offerings have seemed to be less enjoyable and gradually turned into lacklustre experiences that took too much effort in getting immersed and interested in.
I do, genuinely, hope that ME3 will send off the story of Shepard and his merry men/women in something that everyone can enjoy. I would be truly grateful for such a thing, but I have to wonder as to whether or not it will come to pass. I'm more than positive Bioware are capable of it, but whether that will be the case or not is another matter entirely
For anyone wanting to use DA2 as an example, what other developer would have been able to crank that out in 15 months? DA2 may be a mediocre/bad RPG in the grande scope of things but in the time frame it was created in, it is really quite impressive.
Bioware is just readjusting to the switchover to mandatory 3D graphics. 3D environments bring in a new layer of game development so to try and hold their new games to some 2D game made back when 2D had been perfected so much that it began faking 3D is ludicrous.
Mass Effect inspired an entire genre wide dialogue model revolution. You may have something with retcons, but that is because they are trying to involve their community with the future of the series. So it is really give and take. They get brownie points for involving the community but get negativity point for retconning shit.
Oh, hey, one of these threads. Hello doom and gloom thread! How are you today? Me? Oh, I'm just fine, slightly tired of people declaring how things are always getting worse constantly.
It's pretty annoying. Especially when they only really use personal experience to back it up. Because they obviously don't understand how the world works. In fact I'm pretty sure it's been shown numerous times that both the DA2 and ME2 hate is just the vocal minority being at it again, and is in no way indicative of how good either game actually is.
Ok its incredibly obvious you didn't read a damn thing since I said I wanted to discuss this in the first freaking sentence. Please read one sentence before you post.
Well, DA2 is the only really terrible Bioware game. Certain elements of their games keep getting worse over time (they try too hard on the humor, they devote way too much attention to badly written romance subplots, etc) but ME2 was a solid game. Haven't played SWTOR, but people seem to be enjoying it. So my verdict is wait for ME3 to come out.
You know saying something is terrible, and then backing up your statement by saying its crap is not a valid way to prove a point. You have to back up why you thought it was bad.
Also, Origins' Fade is not a ripoff from Warhammer 40k. The idea of a dream realm has existed since some of the earliest writing. Of course Origins' elements were not nessecarily new. Its almost impossible to come up with new story elements, especially for a fantasy game. People expect elves and dragons, and that's what they got.
Hey Maxwell- I'd like to say thanks for a well written post and fairly well structured. I don't AGREE with you, but still. It's nice to have somebody who'll actually use their bloody brain before posting!
What most of your issues seem to stem from is an anger at balance. Except for Baldur's Gate, I've never found BioWare games to be challenging- but that's not what I look for in them. I don't want a cakewalk, but I don't want the kind of challenge which comes with playing Civilisation 4 on Immortal, or something. There are some games I play for challenge and some I don't; BioWare just don't DO challenge. They test you and sometimes throw a curveball, but they never make it ridiculously hard, but then again I don't want them to. That's just my opinion, though, and I can see why you as a gamer want further challenge from BioWare.
There's one of your criticisms with DA2 which annoyed me: "being forced to romance Anders or shut him down". Sometimes people make the first move and you have to reject them, even if you're their friend. Why should it be different? I thought it made a nice change of pace, to be honest, considering it's always the player character who initiates the move to jump into people's pants half the time (Zevran being an obvious exception).
Also, the Fade REALLY isn't the Warp. I'm sorry, but it isn't. I'd actually go as far to say as the Fade being one of the more unique things in the BioWare universe. Obviously they share similarities (alternate dimension where mysterious power stems from and demons eat people) but also stark differences (note, the 'good' spirits and the lack of any real order within the fade, unlike the Demon Lords).
But I'm just nitpicking here. Short answer: I don't think they're going downhill- just in a direction you don't like. I think CD Projekt are probably right up your alley.
Thank you for using your brain here as well. My complaint wasn't a lack of challenge but that I could beat the entire game and only start to notice skills even existed on a second or third playthrough because I never needed them. Though the fade is only not the warp because it has good spirits that's it. Just list all the comparisons between them and that will be obvious. Also I own both Witcher games but I want to beat the first one before starting The Witcher 2.
Oh yeah, ME2 had great characterization and solid gameplay. Its one downfall was the mediocre story. And after DA2, mediocre main stories may become a trend for them.
Can you please elaborate? I'm honestly not trolling, I don't understand what was so wrong about DA2's story. The combat and level design I can understand, what with the former clearly being geared more towards console play and the latter being the most egregious symptom of its rushed release date, but the story? I don't really follow.
Ok thank you for having an incredibly well thought out post. Ok I don't disagree with what you said about the ME points so I'll go to the DA:O points. I said they feel like undead since I know there's a lot of fantasy universes I don't know anything about like lord of the rings or a game of thrones. Though I didn't play as a dwarf after that point I might go do the origin story for the dwarves after this.
For ME2 I wasn't trying to brag but it seriously didn't ever affect me. Though I don't remember any skill taking that long to recharge when I last played through fair enough that's a good way to balance it.
I did own DA2 for a while and it stuck with me in a bad way. Your point on the dialog options all being different spins on the same thing makes sense. Also I did get up to this point in the game but I assume you mean being rejected in real life and I have but I meant being forced to flirt with him or crush his feelings was bad. Why couldn't I just leave him to be gay and not say anything about it when he wasn't even directly asking you out or anything. Also I didn't dig into the code I saw a exact quote from the lead writer saying that about Leliana. Knowing that it appears we are in the same scenario with the auto attack not being on consoles with the developers calling it a feature.
Oh yeah, ME2 had great characterization and solid gameplay. Its one downfall was the mediocre story. And after DA2, mediocre main stories may become a trend for them.
Can you please elaborate? I'm honestly not trolling, I don't understand what was so wrong about DA2's story. The combat and level design I can understand, what with the former clearly being geared more towards console play and the latter being the most egregious symptom of its rushed release date, but the story? I don't really follow.
First off, I thought that the Three Act separation made the acts feel disjointed and it didn't flow well, especially when transitioning between acts. The opening was very weak.
Why couldn't we have had an origin story? Or a prologue? Spend some time in Lothering (an hour or two), introduce us to Hawke's family and get us attached to them. That way, I feel something when one of the siblings die. Instead, someone that I've known for all of five minutes dies. I feel nothing. It felt rushed and incomplete.
The first act was just grinding 50 gold. That isn't a great way to hook players. I had to motivate myself to complete the first act. That isn't a good thing. I don't have any big complaints about the second act (that I remember. I beat it months ago).
I hated the third act.
My choices felt meaningless. That mage I saved earlier? She went crazy and I have to kill her. I tried being nice to the mages all game and what to they do? Kidnap my sister to try to get me to side with them. After I had already voiced my support for them multiple times. Anders blows up the Chantry and the only reasonable person in this whole mess no matter what. And you fight both faction leaders no matter what. The ending is the same regardless, and it ends on a big cliffhanger.
BG2 was Bio's best game
KOTOR is a bad game that usually gets a pass because it's SW + lightsabers.
ME1 is better a better shooter (very mediocre) than KOTOR is a tactical RPG.
DA:O was Bio's most ambitious game because of the origins and for daring to not make it an action-RPG in this decade. Flawed but with some redeeming qualites.
ME2 is a little better as a shooter than ME1.
DA2 is a crappy compromise; the game sucks both as an action game and as a tactical game. Copy-pasted dungeons and the worst encounter design ever, make this a dirty cash-in.
I ignored some some titles there like JE, but this list is enough to show that while Bioware are inconsistent in quality, there's no single long decline. ME3 will prolly be better than DA2, because ME Bioware's flagship series and ME3 may turn out better than ME2 also. Too early or far too late to call a decline now.
Yes Bioware's quality has been falling of late. Dragon Age Origins was the last "Bioware as you knew them" game. After that many of the writers left the company. Also because Bioware is essentially controlled by EA they have timetables that must be met for game releases. This often leads to a higher quantity of games with lower quality. With Bioware working on the ME series, the DA series, a new RTS game and DLC for all of these games it's easy to see how the writers can run out of ideas and the overall quality of the games can be diminished.
Oh and let's not forget they will need to be providing constant updates for their new MMO.
EA has destroyed many good gaming companies in the past and it appears Bioware is next on the chopping block.
Eh, I think they have actually gotten better (at least from where they were 5 years ago). After KOTOR they seemed to kind of hit a slump, turning out good, but not great, games until DA:O came out. Since then, I have greatly enjoyed every single one of their games I have played (NOTE: Still have not played DA2 and SW:TOR, so I can't comment on that one). Suffice to say: Opinions. Like brains (or certain other body parts), everybody has them. Not everyone has to agree.
I have to say that although I really loved DAO, DA2 was a bit of a let down.
I did like the story, but there was so little of it spread so thinly that I felt like I was just playing the first third of the game and the whole 2nd and 3rd parts had been cut out. The real thing that got on my nerves was how little content there was. One big city then a handful of random camps and whatnot. No sprawling dungeons (such as the Deepmines and the Elven ruins of the first game), and EVERY single dungeon was a bloody copy-paste. That really got on my nerves; why bother to have side quests at all if it's just going to be the same tiny little cave over and over again?
Then there was Anders. I liked Anders, in DAO's expansion he was my favourite, and when I heard that he would be a relationship character in DA2 I got excited. But I certainly didn't get Anders. I got a half-attempt at a dark-and-broody character who was done so badly that he became just and unlikable medieval emo. And Fenris? I didn't particularly want to date a mageist (being a mage myself) so I ended up having all of my characters become lesbians for the much better portrayed Merril and Isabella. Although I do thank Bioware for giving us female/male homosexual players valid male romance choices, it would have been nice to have been given good choices. And I hated the random cameos by all the first game characters. They have their models from the first game, why not fully include eg. Zevran, Nathaniel etc? Don't just have them as tiny parts of random sidequests!
OT: I haven't played any other Bioware games so I can't entirely comment on their possible downward spiral of quality, but as far as DA2 goes when compared to DAO there was a huge loss of quality along the way.
Now Bioware it's time to stop faffing about and make Jade Empire 2.
Oh yeah, ME2 had great characterization and solid gameplay. Its one downfall was the mediocre story. And after DA2, mediocre main stories may become a trend for them.
First off, I thought that the Three Act separation made the acts feel disjointed and it didn't flow well, especially when transitioning between acts. The opening was very weak.
Why couldn't we have had an origin story? Or a prologue? Spend some time in Lothering (an hour or two), introduce us to Hawke's family and get us attached to them. That way, I feel something when one of the siblings die. Instead, someone that I've known for all of five minutes dies. I feel nothing. It felt rushed and incomplete.
The first act was just grinding 50 gold. That isn't a great way to hook players. I had to motivate myself to complete the first act. That isn't a good thing. I don't have any big complaints about the second act (that I remember. I beat it months ago).
I hated the third act.
My choices felt meaningless. That mage I saved earlier? She went crazy and I have to kill her. I tried being nice to the mages all game and what to they do? Kidnap my sister to try to get me to side with them. After I had already voiced my support for them multiple times. Anders blows up the Chantry and the only reasonable person in this whole mess no matter what. And you fight both faction leaders no matter what. The ending is the same regardless, and it ends on a big cliffhanger.
Before I begin, allow me to rage against the new message features. I wouldn't you have responded if I hadn't been paranoid enough to take it into my own hands.
First off, let me compliment you on your comments on the first act.You're right, there really aren't much stakes at that point, and I'm beginning to suspect that something got cut out.
I'm not 100% upset regarding the whole "mages still go crazy thing". The one big problem with the Paragon/Renegade system is that if I know there are two ways to handle a problem, and both have the exact same outcome and in some cases its even better to go Paragon, why would I ever go Renegade other than to roleplay a dick?
That whole mages kidnap your sister thing is stupid, and it never happened to me(templar Carver first playthrough, dead Bethany in the Deep Roads second one), but I'm just going to put that down to Bioware biting off more than they can chew time and technology wise, and I'm hoping future ventures don't have this kind of problem(though politics making people act like unreasonable dicks may be the most realistic part of DA2).
One thing that actually really bothered me about DA2's storyline is that it just doesn't have moments with as much punch as DA:O. The dilemma with the Jarl's kid blew my mind when I first encountered, and in respect to moments like that, DA2 does feel a bit lacking.
Reasons why I actually liked DA2 enough to pseudodefend it:
While it definitely doesn't have moments like DA:O, it has clear themes that are present throughout the game. This was a game about something. In its moments, DA:O did come across some really interesting themes, but it never seemed to stick to one for too long. In art, theme reigns supreme, and this makes me very optimistic regarding future Bioware games(assuming the new ones have a bit more polish).
The characters weren't all as interesting as their predecessors, but their problems actually felt a bit more like proper character arcs. ME2 also had a lot of this with Mordin, Miranda and Garrus's loyalty missions, but here, I get more of a feeling of resolution with the characters than I did with DA:O's.
And, lest we forget, this does break Bioware's previous habit of using same formulaic plot over and over. Probably not in the best way, but again, if done better in the future...
And, lastly, I was still interested. Repetitive as it may be, Kirkwall was still place I wanted to understand. When things actually started going in the 2nd and 3rd act, I wanted to know what was going to happen. Also, regarding your comments to the flow of the narrative, while not everything meshes well, it also skirts its predecessors problem of having several disconnected story arcs which drag on way too long, such as the Dwarf and Mage Tower missions. Say what you will, but I never got the sense that any portion of the plot was dragging(disregarding the occasional non-existent stakes of the first act)
Jesus, that was the longest post I've ever done. Hope the wall of text doesn't dissuade you and I'd love to hear your thoughts on what I've said.
TOR is good because they pulled a lot of their best staff onto it. That's why ME2 and DA2 were both really similar and vaguely shitty; they brought in new people who are trying too hard, plus I firmly believe despite all BioWare's nervous, abused-spouse-like protestations, EA is demanding that they increase their "mainstream appeal", or "broaden their demographic", or whatever it is that talentless executives say when they think quality is irrelevant to sales.
I was tempted to be all snarky and just say "Yes." and leave it at that, but god forbid I don't write an entire paragraph if I feel the need to say anything, Escapist.
Oh yeah, ME2 had great characterization and solid gameplay. Its one downfall was the mediocre story. And after DA2, mediocre main stories may become a trend for them.
First off, I thought that the Three Act separation made the acts feel disjointed and it didn't flow well, especially when transitioning between acts. The opening was very weak.
Why couldn't we have had an origin story? Or a prologue? Spend some time in Lothering (an hour or two), introduce us to Hawke's family and get us attached to them. That way, I feel something when one of the siblings die. Instead, someone that I've known for all of five minutes dies. I feel nothing. It felt rushed and incomplete.
The first act was just grinding 50 gold. That isn't a great way to hook players. I had to motivate myself to complete the first act. That isn't a good thing. I don't have any big complaints about the second act (that I remember. I beat it months ago).
I hated the third act.
My choices felt meaningless. That mage I saved earlier? She went crazy and I have to kill her. I tried being nice to the mages all game and what to they do? Kidnap my sister to try to get me to side with them. After I had already voiced my support for them multiple times. Anders blows up the Chantry and the only reasonable person in this whole mess no matter what. And you fight both faction leaders no matter what. The ending is the same regardless, and it ends on a big cliffhanger.
Before I begin, allow me to rage against the new message features. I wouldn't you have responded if I hadn't been paranoid enough to take it into my own hands.
First off, let me compliment you on your comments on the first act.You're right, there really aren't much stakes at that point, and I'm beginning to suspect that something got cut out.
I'm not 100% upset regarding the whole "mages still go crazy thing". The one big problem with the Paragon/Renegade system is that if I know there are two ways to handle a problem, and both have the exact same outcome and in some cases its even better to go Paragon, why would I ever go Renegade other than to roleplay a dick?
That whole mages kidnap your sister thing is stupid, and it never happened to me(templar Carver first playthrough, dead Bethany in the Deep Roads second one), but I'm just going to put that down to Bioware biting off more than they can chew time and technology wise, and I'm hoping future ventures don't have this kind of problem(though politics making people act like unreasonable dicks may be the most realistic part of DA2).
One thing that actually really bothered me about DA2's storyline is that it just doesn't have moments with as much punch as DA:O. The dilemma with the Jarl's kid blew my mind when I first encountered, and in respect to moments like that, DA2 does feel a bit lacking.
Reasons why I actually liked DA2 enough to pseudodefend it:
While it definitely doesn't have moments like DA:O, it has clear themes that are present throughout the game. This was a game about something. In its moments, DA:O did come across some really interesting themes, but it never seemed to stick to one for too long. In art, theme reigns supreme, and this makes me very optimistic regarding future Bioware games(assuming the new ones have a bit more polish).
The characters weren't all as interesting as their predecessors, but their problems actually felt a bit more like proper character arcs. ME2 also had a lot of this with Mordin, Miranda and Garrus's loyalty missions, but here, I get more of a feeling of resolution with the characters than I did with DA:O's.
And, lest we forget, this does break Bioware's previous habit of using same formulaic plot over and over. Probably not in the best way, but again, if done better in the future...
And, lastly, I was still interested. Repetitive as it may be, Kirkwall was still place I wanted to understand. When things actually started going in the 2nd and 3rd act, I wanted to know what was going to happen. Also, regarding your comments to the flow of the narrative, while not everything meshes well, it also skirts its predecessors problem of having several disconnected story arcs which drag on way too long, such as the Dwarf and Mage Tower missions. Say what you will, but I never got the sense that any portion of the plot was dragging(disregarding the occasional non-existent stakes of the first act)
Jesus, that was the longest post I've ever done. Hope the wall of text doesn't dissuade you and I'd love to hear your thoughts on what I've said.
Oh, the character missions and the way that you interacted with the characters was a big improvement over Origins. It wasn't just "tell me your life story at the camp" and "give gift to get into their pants". I was just addressing the main story. The characters (as usual) are the best part of the game.
I applaud Bioware for trying something new, but it wasn't done very well.
And yeah, it had the underlying Mage/Templar conflict that was hinted at and alluded to throughout the game. That was okay, but again, I hated the payoff/execution.
Yes, thank god there wasn't another long Fade quest or unbearably long slog through the Deep Roads (my least favorite parts of Origins).
DA2 was a game with a lot of interesting ideas that were just poorly executed to me. It did some things right (the way character quests/interaction were handled, class balancing), but the bad outweighed the good for me.
And we all hate the new message feature. I do it too. I'll be surfing the board then notice that I have two messages. It isn't all that noticeable anymore.
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