Poll: Bioware needs to grow up

[SageRuffin]

I'd like to see Bioware handle a relationship the way a fine film or novel might, instead of Shepard painfully sexually harassing her shipmates as though the dialogue has erupted straight out of the pleasure center of a 13 year old boy.

Thank you for hitting that, I forgot to mention it. I find the "romance" aspects of BioWare games to be absolutely preposterous. For instance, my most glaring complaint: why in bloody hell does the protagonist (speaking primarily of DA and ME here) never get turned down? In ME2 I ended up "romancing" Tali BY ACCIDENT. That should not be able to happen. Real relationships take work (often a shit-ton of work), and BioWare has done an excellent job of making them seem easy. That completely defeats the purpose.

You think that's bad? You can have two words with Jacob on the Normandy without FemShep sounding like she wants to jump his bones. Hell, the only way she could be more obvious is by screaming something akin to "COME OVER HERE AND FUCK ME!!!" at the top of her lungs.

I like how Jade Empire did it - Dawn Star (as a childhood friend) was far too obvious, so I won't touch on her. But as the game goes along Skye slowly develops feelings for you on his own (if your Spirit Monk is female at least; I don't know what happens if you're male), and Silk Fox/Sun Lian doesn't really care unless you show that you care for her (again, if your character is female; much like Skye, I don't know how the scenes play out if your character is male). Hell, in terms of overall atmosphere I'd say Jade Empire was their best game (then again... that might be the martial arts enthusiast in me talking).

 

[Custard_Angel]

Poll is biased but I don't like Bioware regardless.

 

[Custard_Angel]

Disregard this. Misclicks are fun.

 

[Rapamaha]

if you read the main storys / main story missions on paper they really dont seem that special (stop threat that threatens the whole world/galaxy & collect star maps/armies/squad members) yet when Bioware makes it, they are usually awesome, you say Bioware needs to "grow up and chance their style" but maybe this type of games is just their thing that they want to do, most of the developers have somekind of style/mark they leave on their games, Bioware makes their world saving character rich games, Bethesda makes open world RPG's, Obsidian Entertaiment struggels with bugs and IW/Treyarch are forced to pump call of duty games out every year.

 

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

So you say I'm the problem by pointing out the obvious? Sorry mate, sometimes the majority rules because the majority is right.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html

They want Garrus to kill Sidonus or spare him, not have a multi-day group counseling session where they talk about each other feelings and motivations and how their actions impacted the other.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Also, you're points are taken to the general, while mine are taken to the specific.

I wouldn't be giving any formal debating lessons if I were you. =\

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html Just saying... ;-)

Anyways... 1) if the majority is either correct or justified then it is not a fallacy. It is a fallacy if you say "Most people say the earth is made of cheese, so it is" I feel (OPINION HERE) that Bioware makes solidly written works and games. A lot of people seem to feel the same as shown by the number of games they've built.

2) Erm... how was that a straw man? the topic was shades of gray vs black and white in a heroic/villainous setting. Killing Sidonus is black, sparing is white and having some kinda intervention to talk about feeling would be a gray option. Neither outright forgive or murder. My point was sometimes shades of gray isn't better than straight out black or white especially when you're building up to be a hero or a villain. You can argue for or against but saying it was a straw man argument was a bit confusing...

 

[gring]

snip

The "funniest part" of my defense, as you put it, is actually the best part of my defense. Your response has definitely made your methods of reading threads obvious: you really don't pay a lot of attention to each post.

Are you talking about every single post in either this 8 page thread or any other thread? No I dont read every single one, I went to your spoilery post and accidentally found a spoiler not being hidden with tags. What does this have to do with you posting spoilers untagged?

If you'd read the OP, you'd have found out exactly what he meant by "BioWare needs to grow up"- namely the elements of their stories. It was right there at the start. That should have been a clue for you as to what argumentative points you'd find on this thread.

Yes, I actually read the OP, saw that he had spoiler tags, saw that he didn't post any spoilers outside of that tag, and agreed with everything he said even without him having to talk about specific spoilers. All things you didn't do. So, thanks for proving my point!

And I'm assuming you didn't read my response because I stated that its entirely possible to talk about stories in games without posting the single most important spoiler in the entire story. And if you absolutely have to, thats what the spoiler tags are for.

The employment of the plot twists was to counteract his arguments as to the blandness of BioWare's stories, so it was a relevant post. Plus, before I got into the plot twists, I said that they were coming.

I'm not arguing the relevance though, you are. And no, saying mid sentence hidden in a half paragraph doesn't exactly count as spoiler tags, or even as a spoiler warning.

News flash: You don't have to read the whole post! To use your analogy, I would indeed blame you if I pulled the punch back slowly, you saw me do it, and you made absolutely no attempt to get out of the way.

I didn't read your whole post, I magically skimmed right to the Jade Empire spoiler, due to bad luck on my part but also due to the fact there was no visible spoiler tags, which could have easily been there in the first place, and is something you just continue to ignore.

And your analogy is wrong because there WAS NO PART where I could see the punch being pulled back. THAT'S THE SPOILER TAGS JOB.

As for unspoken rules, mine is you're behind on the times, yours is that I'm a dick for not coddling people who havn't played AAA-level games which have been out for so long that their plots are common knowledge among BioWare fans by this point. Fair enough.

Read that again, how is that a "fair enough" perspective on my side? It isn't and so you're just trolling here. You're obviously taking my position and turning it around without even listening to what I have to say.

All I'm asking for is for proper SPOILER TAGS next time you post really big spoilers like that, okay? Or is this too difficult of a concept for you to grasp?

I've already been praised on this thread for my original post, and since you're the only person in the 250+ responses who's criticized me for the "no spoilers",

What about the guy posting with the exact same problem right below this one? Oh I guess it doesn't serve your "argument" so therefore it's not relevant? Or is he also just another person who is "behind the times" so therefore spoilers don't apply?

your self-righteous indignation that I'm essentially ruining the entire BioWare experience for everyone who reads this thread rings a bit hollow to me.

Right, because I say that where? All I'm pointing out is the obvious, that you posted about 12 years worth of spoilers and could have used spoiler tags but chose not to.

This isn't self-righteousness you moron, this is about basic consideration for other people. If you just spent two extra seconds managing your post, you could have prevented this while still keeping the entire context of your post available for all to see.

Not surprised about the hollow ringing part though, seems you have a talent for ignoring what other people are saying.

I'll just take it as batting .500 and leave it at that.

Is that why your OP is now changed?

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

I'd like to see Bioware handle a relationship the way a fine film or novel might, instead of Shepard painfully sexually harassing her shipmates as though the dialogue has erupted straight out of the pleasure center of a 13 year old boy.

Thank you for hitting that, I forgot to mention it. I find the "romance" aspects of BioWare games to be absolutely preposterous. For instance, my most glaring complaint: why in bloody hell does the protagonist (speaking primarily of DA and ME here) never get turned down? In ME2 I ended up "romancing" Tali BY ACCIDENT. That should not be able to happen. Real relationships take work (often a shit-ton of work), and BioWare has done an excellent job of making them seem easy. That completely defeats the purpose.

One thing that annoys me about game stories in general (going outside RPGs here) is that love-interests seem to get shoehorned into a lot of them. My favorite recent example of this was in GTA4, when Niko is absolutely distraught over the murder of a woman to whom he had spoken perhaps three times, simply because the writers decided she was his object of affection. I dislike when games don't justify things to me, and when a game says, "Here is an NPC. Your character cares about them, because they are the love interest," it really ruins the immersion of the game.

No, I disagree. That NPC is a stranger. I don't know them.

Admittedly, BioWare is a little better than that; they say "Here are these four or five NPCs; pick one that will become your love interest."

I think the whole Anders romance thing in DA2 was a step in the right direction though. I remember when Anders first hit on my male Hawke, I was genuinely surprised (and not just by the unexpected flirtation). "Holy shit," I said to myself, "an NPC that thinks for itself!" This was sadly short-lived. It definitely made Anders seem more like a real person with real feelings and desires, as opposed to the Mass Effect "love interests," which bear closer resemblances to multiple-choice examinations if you ask me.

Well, once again, The Old Republic might be a step in the right direction, since the story will allegedly take over 200 hours to complete (and with a quarter of a million of lines of dialogue in the game I can very well believe that) it's quite likely that you'll have to spend a good long time trying to win the favour of your companion. And Bioware has even stated that you'll need to work hard to maintain the relationship after it starts and that it could even take a turn for the worse or even end if you handle it wrong (or attempt two-timing) or make a decision he or she can't agree with at all.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

Didn't notice this at all.

So you say I'm the problem by pointing out the obvious? Sorry mate, sometimes the majority rules because the majority is right.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html

He never said that being the majority made it right, what you're doing is a special case of the fallacy where you assume that popularity automatically makes something wrong.

Yea, I definitely stand by my labeling of you as pretentious.

They want Garrus to kill Sidonus or spare him, not have a multi-day group counseling session where they talk about each other feelings and motivations and how their actions impacted the other.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Reading in context, that was an example, not a straw man. Sometimes, simplicity works, and that's ok.

Also, you're points are taken to the general, while mine are taken to the specific.

I wouldn't be giving any formal debating lessons if I were you. =\

Why? He's certainly better then you with your attempts to strawman his points into logical fallacies.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Thank you English from the 1800s. In the vernacular of modern English it generally is ambivalent, equivalent to "ok".

There are some exceptions,dependent on the individual noun, but games are not one of them. Cases where it's attached to the noun in question (or pronoun) by any tense of the verb "to be" are never examples of this.


Are you a native English speaker? Or British possibly (not sure if "fine" underwent this transformation in britan)?


That said, I strongly suspect you're over-stating your appreciation of them.

Or English in the 21st century. That came from dictionary.com. The very first definition at the very first source I checked. If I wanted to say "okay", I could have said "average" or "mediocre". Instead I used "fine", as in "fine art" or "fine wine". It's called having a vocabulary.

Let's try Merriam-Webster, shall we?

3 fine adj

1 a : free from impurity b of a metal : having a stated proportion of pure metal in the composition expressed in parts per thousand <a gold coin .9166 fine>
2 a (1) : very thin in gauge or texture (2) : not coarse (3) : very small (4) : keen (5) : very precise or accurate b : physically trained or hardened close to the limit of efficiency ?used of an athlete or animal
3: delicate, subtle, or sensitive in quality, perception, or discrimination
4: superior in kind, quality, or appearance : excellent

Whoops, took us to #4 that time. Look at all the examples of "mediocre" or "average" above it though. So many! In fact the first one is "free from impurity".

I know, let's try a THESAURUS.

Main Entry:
fine &#8194;[fahyn] Show IPA
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: excellent, masterly
Synonyms: accomplished, aces, admirable, attractive, beautiful, capital, choice, cool*, crack*, dandy*, elegant, enjoyable, exceptional, expensive, exquisite, fashionable, first-class, first-rate, first-string, five-star, gilt-edged, gnarly, good-looking, great, handsome, lovely, magnificent, mean, neat*, not too shabby, ornate, outstanding, pleasant, rare, refined, select, showy, skillful, smart, solid, splendid, striking, subtle, superior, supreme, top, top-notch, unreal*, well-made, wicked*
Antonyms: bad, poor

Are you sure you're a native English speaker?

Reading in context, that was an example, not a straw man. Sometimes, simplicity works, and that's ok.

2) Erm... how was that a straw man? the topic was shades of gray vs black and white in a heroic/villainous setting. Killing Sidonus is black, sparing is white and having some kinda intervention to talk about feeling would be a gray option. Neither outright forgive or murder. My point was sometimes shades of gray isn't better than straight out black or white especially when you're building up to be a hero or a villain. You can argue for or against but saying it was a straw man argument was a bit confusing...

Let's try this again for you two.

not have a multi-day group counseling session where they talk about each other feelings and motivations and how their actions impacted the other.

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.

Please do enlighten me as to why a reasonable approximation of "shades of grey" is "a multi-day counseling session when they talk about each other's feelings and motivations", and I'll grant you that this WASN'T a straw man.

Oh, and...

...what you're doing is a special case of the fallacy where you assume that popularity automatically makes something wrong.

I'm not doing anything of the sort. Please, if you can, quote where I said "this is popular, therefore it is wrong". I quoted him saying "the majority rules because the majority is right".

The Appeal to Popularity has the following form:

Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
Therefore X is true.

The basic idea is that a claim is accepted as being true simply because most people are favorably inclined towards the claim. More formally, the fact that most people have favorable emotions associated with the claim is substituted in place of actual evidence for the claim. A person falls prey to this fallacy if he accepts a claim as being true simply because most other people approve of the claim.

And really, this is getting ridiculous. If you can't be fussed to read a dictionary before attacking a word, or actually understand what a logical fallacy IS before you start complaining that someone didn't do it, I can't be bothered holding your head in my hands and pointing your nose at it.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html Just saying... ;-)

As for you, I'm sorry if you felt I was attacking you by pointing out some logical fallacies. It wasn't intentional.

 

[TheLoneBeet]

In my opinion they're doing pretty well sticking to what they know. Even if it's a little juvenile or repetitive they still manage to make a really good game out of it. They changed up the formula for DA2 and it bombed so they probably won't be making any other attempts to switch things up for a while.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I must admit to be more concerned over what a "thundering prick" is.

But yeah, the general view of the public is a bunch of morons - which the more vocal members will demand if you publish something intelligent.

Because you're elitist if you don't.

I think Sesame Street is one of the few programmes that can get away with teaching people something without being classed as elitist for daring to have an agenda higher than LCD.

 

[The3rdEye]

More has come from less. (NSFW)


I'll agree that "OMSOEVIL" is about as deep as dumping a bottle of water on the ground and calling it an ocean. And yes, not every character conflict is the most original, such as the thief having a change of heart and doing the "right thing" at a large personal loss to save the day. What I will bring against the entire "Bioware needs to grow up" and "Why is a twelve year old game running circles around current gen games" is what Bioware adds to them, not to mention that Bioware's current released headliner projects are both series. Yes it would be nice to have a game that breaks with all convention and is "new" from the ground up.

But

I would rather see a game that is competently done in all areas while bringing a dozen new facets to the gameplay experience than to have that "100% new" game fall all over itself when the studio tries to produce something where there is no frame of reference or comparison. I also don't see the merit in comparing anything current gen to what has come (way) before because nostalgia just can't be cut away so easily. Bioware games get a lot right without sacrificing familiarity while adding in plot twists and interesting character development. If you don't have the morality and character of the protagonist reflected in their interactions with their compatriots, do you then spend more time creating non-related NPCs for them to interact with, and if so where do you get the time and money to do so? Do you take it from set design, or the soundtrack?

Besides, at the end of the day why is all of this being dumped on Bioware's lap? Bioshock had an interesting story twist, but buggered things up with Bioshock 2. Deus Ex HR delivered a competent stealthy action RPG but left a substantial amount of content on the cutting room floor. Progress is made in incremental baby steps, and thus far all of Bioware's steps have been in the right direction. If you want them to go faster, emphasize their storytelling and character development, then go find someone who will give them the money to do it or start making a list of the good things they do that you want cut.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Besides, at the end of the day why is all of this being dumped on Bioware's lap? Bioshock had an interesting story twist, but buggered things up with Bioshock 2. Deus Ex HR delivered a competent stealthy action RPG but left a substantial amount of content on the cutting room floor. Progress is made in incremental baby steps, and thus far all of Bioware's steps have been in the right direction. If you want them to go faster, emphasize their storytelling and character development, then go find someone who will give them the money to do it or start making a list of the good things they do that you want cut.

Because of all the major developers making RPGs today, they seem to have the existing talent and the existing funding to get it done. Bethesda has pretty much proven that a reasonable narrative is miles beyond their grasp, and they're more about open worlds anyway, and linear storytelling is the enemy of open worlds. Obsidian already (occasionally) makes lovely stories, but their technical ineptitude is the stuff of legends, and making a thread entitled "Obsidian needs to stop making buggy games already" is the equivalent of a thread entitled "These murderers need to stop their murdering!". There's not really a discussion to have there. Bioware shows us, with some of their side missions, such as Mordin's loyalty quest, or the Bhelen/Harrowmont dilemma, that they are capable of writing with nuance and complexity. I'd like to see more of that infiltrate the game proper. It's like reading a really tepid, silly novel with several excellent chapters. It's frustrating.

I *think* their writers are already good enough that they wouldn't need to cull from other areas of development to do a better job story boarding and developing their characters. I may be wrong. If it means sabotaging the game in other areas, this would be a sad compromise, naturally.

 

[BrionJames]

I would have to agree, if you look at what Black Isle did back in the day, with Baldur's Gate and Fallout, you wonder where all the originality and edginess (for lack of a better term) went. Perhaps the economic market for video games is too bloated and taking risks and making games that have thought-provoking narrative is out of the question. Personally, I think Irrational Games' input of Bioshock and Bioshock: Infinite are testaments to how well a game with a serious heartfelt storyline can be and I've always loved there version of an action/RPG (if you haven't played System Shock 2, you should). I haven't finished Planescape:Torment yet, but I just recently got a copy and started a game so I'm working on that. I fear for the future of good, original RPG's. If you look at the trend of how they've been scaling them back over the last few installations I find it quite disturbing how hard they are trying to appeal to a wider market by making the games easier and less involving. Look at Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 if you need an example.

 

[The3rdEye]

Besides, at the end of the day why is all of this being dumped on Bioware's lap? Bioshock had an interesting story twist, but buggered things up with Bioshock 2. Deus Ex HR delivered a competent stealthy action RPG but left a substantial amount of content on the cutting room floor. Progress is made in incremental baby steps, and thus far all of Bioware's steps have been in the right direction. If you want them to go faster, emphasize their storytelling and character development, then go find someone who will give them the money to do it or start making a list of the good things they do that you want cut.

Because of all the major developers making RPGs today, they seem to have the existing talent and the existing funding to get it done. Bethesda has pretty much proven that a reasonable narrative is miles beyond their grasp, and they're more about open worlds anyway, and linear storytelling is the enemy of open worlds. Obsidian already (occasionally) makes lovely stories, but their technical ineptitude is the stuff of legends, and making a thread entitled "Obsidian needs to stop making buggy games already" is the equivalent of a thread entitled "These murderers need to stop their murdering!". There's not really a discussion to have there. Bioware shows us, with some of their side missions, such as Mordin's loyalty quest, or the Bhelen/Harrowmont dilemma, that they are capable of writing with nuance and complexity. I'd like to see more of that infiltrate the game proper. It's like reading a really tepid, silly novel with several excellent chapters. It's frustrating.

I *think* their writers are already good enough that they wouldn't need to cull from other areas of development to do a better job story boarding and developing their characters. I may be wrong. If it means sabotaging the game in other areas, this would be a sad compromise, naturally.

Very nicely stated. I truthfully don't have any idea as to how Bioware or any studio cuts up their budget and timelines either, so better to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that what you get was what they had.

My concern at this point is that people are taking Bioware's skills in story and character for granted[footnote]This isn't so much a reply as an addendum to what I had already posted: Games way back when were great... way back then. Since they couldn't present a realistic character, or environs, or full musical score, they could (or were forced to) write long elaborate stories because all you needed to tell a story was text. DA:O for example was a fairly large game, and personal tastes aside the characters were interesting. However, the one thing that it was repeatedly slammed on was the lackluster (for the time) graphics. Why would a studio let that happen to themselves a second time? And all that story writing and development is for naught if it doesn't turn a profit, and if people are boo'ing the game because it's a couple years behind on the graphics department...[/footnote]. As you said they seem to be the only studio capable of delivering on the nuances of character and story while also presenting a complete and playable product, but the OP seems to hold all of that against them. It's our entertainment, but it's their paycheck. It takes us 20-40 hours to play through the game once, it takes them years to produce everything that makes that one playthrough possible. Working in those types of confines and to today's standards, I don't see why people are berating them for a product that they actually enjoy, even if it's only in parts.

I'd compare it you paying for and someone giving you a delicious ice cream sundae. It tastes good, you're not altogether pleased with the crushed peanuts, but you're happy to have had the sundae. To show your appreciation you turn around and tell them that they should have made it better. Not how, just better.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'd compare it you paying for and someone giving you a delicious ice cream sundae. It tastes good, you're not altogether pleased with the crushed peanuts, but you're happy to have had the sundae. To show your appreciation you turn around and tell them that they should have made it better. Not how, just better.

If I can play with your analogy, it's like me paying for an ice cream sundae with mixed nuts. It's a delicious sundae, but there are only a few nuts, and the nuts are in little clusters off to the sides. So I turn around and say "Guys, I appreciate the delicious sundae, but what it could really use is a lot more nuts".

(Before you come back with "in this analogy, more nuts = more money", I must insist neither of us is certain whether or not writing a TONALLY DIFFERENT story would necessarily cost them more money)

I hear what you're saying about older games not having the technological resources to present a compelling narrative without reams of text, and there's an argument to be made that games like Half Life and Bioshock give us such an astonishing Mise-en-scène that their lack of a strong central narrative is almost a superfluous consideration. As I said earlier in the thread, I don't expect every game to be Proust. But when I have a studio like Bioware telling me they want to make a fantasy series inspired by George R.R. Martin, I'd like to see more of that level of complexity and moral ambiguity come through, and less blood spatter and tits.

As for giving Bioware the benefit of the doubt, this is a confirmation bias on my part, but I find that harder to do since they were snapped up by EA. I don't know that I'll ever forgive EA for the fate of Origin Systems and Ultima.

 

[The3rdEye]

I'd compare it you paying for and someone giving you a delicious ice cream sundae. It tastes good, you're not altogether pleased with the crushed peanuts, but you're happy to have had the sundae. To show your appreciation you turn around and tell them that they should have made it better. Not how, just better.

If I can play with your analogy, it's like me paying for an ice cream sundae with mixed nuts. It's a delicious sundae, but there are only a few nuts, and the nuts are in little clusters off to the sides. So I turn around and say "Guys, I appreciate the delicious sundae, but what it could really use is a lot more nuts".

(Before you come back with "in this analogy, more nuts = more money", I must insist neither of us is certain whether or not writing a TONALLY DIFFERENT story would necessarily cost them more money)

I hear what you're saying about older games not having the technological resources to present a compelling narrative without reams of text, and there's an argument to be made that games like Half Life and Bioshock give us such an astonishing Mise-en-scène that their lack of a strong central narrative is almost a superfluous consideration. As I said earlier in the thread, I don't expect every game to be Proust. But when I have a studio like Bioware telling me they want to make a fantasy series inspired by George R.R. Martin, I'd like to see more of that level of complexity and moral ambiguity come through, and less blood spatter and tits.

As for giving Bioware the benefit of the doubt, this is a confirmation bias on my part, but I find that harder to do since they were snapped up by EA. I don't know that I'll ever forgive EA for the fate of Origin Systems and Ultima.

Actually I was just saying that "you" didn't like peanuts.

I like seeing ambitious companies as much as the next gamer, and if I have to choose between incremental changes and improvements to a model that results in an enjoyable product versus someone throwing budget and caution to the wind then there's no mystery as to which way I'll sway. Yes, Bioware is capable of more, and I think we'll see more from them (ToR) in the future. For the time being though, I don't see anything wrong with concentrating on giving DA and ME the satisfying and dramatic conclusions they deserve so they can gear for their next project on a high note.

I guess in the end though it's just two sides of the same coin.
Some people will rave and praise a game despite it's faults,
while some people will bemoan and see nothing else.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I like seeing ambitious companies as much as the next gamer, and if I have to choose between incremental changes and improvements to a model that results in an enjoyable product versus someone throwing budget and caution to the wind then there's no mystery as to which way I'll sway. Yes, Bioware is capable of more, and I think we'll see more from them (ToR) in the future. For the time being though, I don't see anything wrong with concentrating on giving DA and ME the satisfying and dramatic conclusions they deserve so they can gear for their next project on a high note.

Well, there's certainly nothing to be done with ME at this point since it's basically all one long game, and I'm not sure I'd want them to. It is what it is, and it's great, and messing with it at this point would be folly. DA has been all over the place, and I think there's room to do something really special with the 3rd chapter that doesn't involve something as eye rolling as another battle against the "Darkspawn". Especially since this was meant to be their "dark, adult" series from the get-go, and they kind of backed off to give us a middle school fantasy epic with gore. TOR is Star Wars, and likely shackled by the IP.

I'd like to see them reboot Ultima. That's a series with a long and venerated history of complex and mature thematic content back when other games were primarily concerned with elegantly wire framed dungeons and knocking orcs over the head with mallets. That's a brand that would resonate with older RPG fans, as well. I'm afraid they won't, though. I'm afraid they're going to streamline these motherfuckers into oblivion, give us some hasty, sloppy, rushed titles, and go the way of Origin Systems and Bullfrog and Maxis and just become one more arm of the world devouring leviathan that is Electronic Arts. But I might be paranoid.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

I notice that you didn't respond to the core of my argument at all and instead seized on tangents, do you even have an argument anymore? Or are you merely easily distracted by linguistic pretension?

snip

Mkay, so another area where you're trying to be pretentious, I was legitimately asking because people who learned English as a second language (in an English class) learn it the formal way in which case "fine" actually means what you say it does. I would assume that native speakers of other dialects of English (eg. British) probably didn't have this change.

However, in American English, it's just no longer used that way except in rare cases. The reason is because it's an easy one-word response to "how was x", it ends conversations, and it's a net positive sounding ambivalent even now so the person who posed the question will think that nothing is wrong (even if something is wrong). Thus it became the go-to word for answering people that you really didn't feel inclined to talk to, and it's meaning in the vernacular (in other words, how people actually speak) changed.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt, figuring it was quite possible simply learned formal English or are from an area where this change in the vernacular didn't occur, but no, you're just using it as an excuse to feel superior, like those people that send firmly worded letters to supermarkets because they used "fruits" instead of "fruit" in an advertisement, even though the meaning was perfectly clear.

snip

Appeal to Popularity is only a fallacy if he states or implies that it has something to do with the statement's truth value, Straw man is only a fallacy if he states or implies that it's supposed to be representative of your argument.

Cite where he did either.

As for why your response was fallicous, what's the obvious implication of trotting out appeal to popularity over the point of a disagreement when somebody stated that the majority thinks this way without implying a truth value?


That fallacy needs an actual name though, I like appeal to snobbery.

 

[josephmatthew10]

I like seeing ambitious companies as much as the next gamer, and if I have to choose between incremental changes and improvements to a model that results in an enjoyable product versus someone throwing budget and caution to the wind then there's no mystery as to which way I'll sway. Yes, Bioware is capable of more, and I think we'll see more from them (ToR) in the future. For the time being though, I don't see anything wrong with concentrating on giving DA and ME the satisfying and dramatic conclusions they deserve so they can gear for their next project on a high note.

Well, there's certainly nothing to be done with ME at this point since it's basically all one long game, and I'm not sure I'd want them to. It is what it is, and it's great, and messing with it at this point would be folly. DA has been all over the place, and I think there's room to do something really special with the 3rd chapter that doesn't involve something as eye rolling as another battle against the "Darkspawn". Especially since this was meant to be their "dark, adult" series from the get-go, and they kind of backed off to give us a middle school fantasy epic with gore. TOR is Star Wars, and likely shackled by the IP.

I'd like to see them reboot Ultima. That's a series with a long and venerated history of complex and mature thematic content back when other games were primarily concerned with elegantly wire framed dungeons and knocking orcs over the head with mallets. That's a brand that would resonate with older RPG fans, as well. I'm afraid they won't, though. I'm afraid they're going to streamline these motherfuckers into oblivion, give us some hasty, sloppy, rushed titles, and go the way of Origin Systems and Bullfrog and Maxis and just become one more arm of the world devouring leviathan that is Electronic Arts. But I might be paranoid.

You don't really need to put quotation marks around Darkspawn, it's what they're called. And it's hardly "eye-rolling" at all when presented and told as well as DA:O. Seriously, what is your problem with a fictional threat that isn't explained UNTO THE MOST MINUTE DETAIL. Part of the DA universe is the mystery surrounding the origins (hehehe) of the Darkspawn. While they are unarguably a fantasyworld zombie plague, I find it a bit annoying and even slightly pretentious that you refer to anything that doesn't meet your standards of sophistication as "middle school."