Poll: Bioware or EA?

[Sp3ratus]

-snippy-

Yea, I played it on the PC and I know there are numerous mods that fixes and tweaks the game in various different ways. It might be the way to go, even though I'd have preferred it to be an option to make the party you want in the vanilla game, instead of having to resort to mods.

Also, I agree with the the statement about nightmare. It's quite a big difference, but once you figure out what to do and how to play on that difficulty, it's a lot of fun.

-snippety-

Yea, that's kind of what I was afraid of. I did read about some people running with him as a tank on nightmare, but honestly, without sword and board, I can imagine it being very difficult. The upside, if you get him as tank to work is that he puts out significantly more damage than Aveline and hopefully finishing the battles earlier, but all in all, it doesn't sound like the greatest idea.

As Jodah put above, it is possible to mod, but I'm not so much for it, even if it's the only way to go. Other than them changing the character of Anders completely, my biggest issue with his character is at the end

Spoiler: In case someone still haven't finished the game.

where you HAVE to side with the mages, else Anders won't join you, even if you romance him. Yes, I suffered through his romance, in hope of being able to convince him to fight with me on the templar side in the final battle and what do I get? Nothing, but being spat in the face and being told that if I REALLY love him, I would understand. WTF? Why can't I turn use that exact same phrase against him? Bah! It really ticked me off. Bethany, despite having access to the healing tree is nowhere near a good enough healer to replace him. It's just a bad design choice on Bioware's part, it really is.

Regarding his survival and the survival of other characters, that doesn't really matter at all in DA2. Even with an imported save from DA:O, in which key characters die, the ending is still the same, despite them dying in DA:O. Again, just a very bad design choice from Bioware.

 

[DustyDrB]

I dont understand this hatred for ME2, I can understand it for DA2, but ME2 generally improve gameplay, had more missions, and overall had a self contained plot that tied into the main one.

I simply dont see why it gets derided so much, aside from a couple of superficial choices.

It's weird. Mass Effect 2 was near universally praised a long time after its release (see the word "near" there? So that means there were some people. That includes you, Mr "I'm gonna quote you and tell you how I hated ME2 before it was cool"). I only really started to hear much criticism for it when Dragon Age 2 came out. Oh well, Mass Effect 2 is still my favorite game ever.

OT: It's BioWare's fault. Though I love ME2 to death and like Dragon Age 2. EA actually seems to be pretty hands-off with its developers (except for marketing stuff, including promotional DLC and online passes).

 

[DeadlyYellow]

No developer in the history of anything ever wants to release their game before it's ready.

That's debatable. Especially when there's money involved.

Can't say I really enjoyed the D&D systems. They worked fine for classic pen and paper, but were terrible in video games.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Fuck this circle jerk. ME2 and DA2 weren't that bad, they were different from their predecessors. I happen to have liked them both, and I still think Bioware are great. I think Tito hit it on the head when he said that DA2 was the direction RPG's are going to end up heading, whether you guys like it or not. The industry is moving towards faster action and less focus on stats, and DA2 and ME2 are reflections of that.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

**snip**

Poll fail.

No one is to blame because nothing is wrong with Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2, or Mass Effect 3 (that is, nothing we yet know about - can't say for sure until game is released).

You poll only works for people who agree with your opinion - which many, many people don't. Please try giving a poll option to those who disagree, or we just end up posting in the thread like this.

 

[Cooperblack]

There is no difference between EA and Bioware.

 

[Xangba]

EA. I despise them from the start, but a big problem comes from, as mentioned several times above, EA split the team and gives some crap deadlines.

 

[Monkeyman O'Brien]

I dont understand this hatred for ME2, I can understand it for DA2, but ME2 generally improve gameplay, had more missions, and overall had a self contained plot that tied into the main one.

I simply dont see why it gets derided so much, aside from a couple of superficial choices.

Probably because it was meant to be a RPG yet its story was absolute shit.
We went from ME having this constant issue of Saren that went on to reveal a huge threat to the entire universe to ME2 having just a bunch of asshole aliens who outside of their set structured missions may as well not exist at all.
We went from ME having interesting side missions with a fucked up shadow corporation in the background to ME2s 3 colour coded gangs where the mission was basically just "rush to end of corridor and shut down factory"
We went from a game with huge cities we can run around in in ME to ME2 where everything is just a fraction of the size so they can give us a taste of more cities that are also cut down to a dozen rooms max.
And ultimately, we went from ME being a epic space opera to ME2 relegating us to being Dr Phil in space. I mean come on, my team wont get their heads out of their asses and fight unless I hold their hands and help them with their mommy issues? Fuck them. I shoulda shot their dumb asses and done the mission solo. Hell, even upgrading my ship, instead of going somewhere and getting the parts or even seeing a mechanic its just "click buy to upgrade", it was boring.
Even its "improved gameplay" was still a 3rd rate Gears of War. ME may not have been fantastic but it was at least different to just a rather shoddy gears rip off and each bit of loot and add on actually did something whereas ME2 gave you jack all selection in weapons and most of them sucked total ass anyway.

On Topic: Its Biowares fault. EA may own them but they are the ones who lost their balls and let EA walk all over them destroying their good name and turning them into a franchise. Look how many Bioware stuios there are now.
Ya dont see Activision pushing around Blizzard now do you. Because Blizzard had some balls and told them to fuck off and let them do their jobs.

 

[Phlakes]

*Sigh. You people really think developers are slaves to their publisher? Damn, I know you like to exaggerate how EA and Activision are so evil and corrupt and destroying the industry, but... you know what? Nevermind. Go ahead, believe whatever you read on the internet, I'm sure you'll grow up sometime.

EDIT: Also, those "problems" are completely subjective and there's no "blame" to throw around in the first place.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

People need to stop blaming EA for every questionable decision Bioware has been making. Yes, the rush for DA2 was imposed by the publisher, but a lot of the poor design choices are Bioware's fault alone. David Gaider's gruff online persona is his own, he wasn't being paid by EA to be a prick, he just was being one.

 

[Gizmo1990]

**snip**

Poll fail.

No one is to blame because nothing is wrong with Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2, or Mass Effect 3 (that is, nothing we yet know about - can't say for sure until game is released).

You poll only works for people who agree with your opinion - which many, many people don't. Please try giving a poll option to those who disagree, or we just end up posting in the thread like this.

My bad. Thanks for pointing it out. I have changed it. And it is nice to know that I am not the only one who refues to judge Mass Effect 3 before playing it.

 

[deathbydeath]

I dont understand this hatred for ME2, I can understand it for DA2, but ME2 generally improve gameplay, had more missions, and overall had a self contained plot that tied into the main one.

I simply dont see why it gets derided so much, aside from a couple of superficial choices.

Mass Effect 1 was innovative. it brought new life into the 3PS genre through a few key changes, mainly weapon overheats instead of ammo, a lack of regenerating health unless you put points into it, expansive skill trees and weapon/armor customization, and a (practically unheard of) space opera setting with a compelling story, well-written plot, and epic backdrop.

what did mass effect 2 do?

It replaced overheating with ammo, brought in regenerating health, screwed over stat trees and scrapped weapon customization. note that I haven't even gotten to the plot yet. It brought in not an end-of-the-universe scenario, but instead pulled out "human colonies are mysteriously disappearing", and then explained it in the second mission. you spend all of the story missions doing *****-work for your boss (with no proper justification for making you work for cerberus), are railroaded into making completely illogical decisions that compromise your main goal. and most of the characters are boring.

there are a few really good moments, though....

 

[Atmos Duality]

DA2 was a rush job and it shows. So who sets the release schedule?
EA. They control the money, they make the deadlines.

This is just the most overt sign of EA's meddling interfering with Bioware's production.
Everything else that was questionable in Bioware's games prior to DA2 could be argued either way (stupidly low difficulty vs focus on characters), but that's just the first real signs of trouble with EA; they ultimately can't resist exploiting a good company or their name.

Tangentially, I hear that Mass Effect 3 is going to be dumbed down some more to get more new players on board, and I find it hard to believe that it's possible to "dumb down" what is already one of the easiest game franchises in the modern AAA market.

 

[Mandalore_15]

Bioware is to blame for not sticking to their original artistic vision. If EA had dropped them, there'd be easily plenty of other publishers willing to put their stuff out there.

 

[jklinders]

I enjoyed ME 2 but there were a few steps back taken there. DA 2 was a mess from start to finish.

It's all on Bioware. Bioware was not bought in a hostile takeover, they brokered a deal with EA, presumably with both eyes open and now they have all the wonders of instant money for game development with all the horrors of having no more in house control of their work.

Unless they can be shown to have been coerced in some way to sell to EA it is all their fault.

 

[tendaji]

I always find it interesting how much hate goes out against games that are about to release another game to it. Personally I enjoyed Mass Effect 2 much more than Mass Effect 1, because those skill trees that were so "awesome" I ignored most of those talents to basically max out decryption and electronics so I could actually open containers, and after those were filled it was charm or intimidate depending on the play-through.

I liked that ME2 cleared out a ton of those useless items that you just converted to omni-gel anyways. How fun is it to wade through all the I's, II's, III's, IV's, and V's because all those items were worthless about halfway through the game? As for ammo, I made sure I kept a squad member with me based on who I thought I might encounter on missions.

Despite my not liking the scanning process, it was an improvement over those stupid mako scenes, where you might as well be driving a bouncy ball in search of whatever might be on that planet.

In my opinion, the only thing ME1 did better than ME2 was the plot line. It was more of a action plot than a preparation for action plot.

As for Mass Effect 3, I'm going to wait for it to come out. And for those art book spoilers, I won't consider them to be anything other than concept art until I find out in game. How many times in the books do they have concepts that don't actually make it to the game? Quite a bit, so hold off on judgments until you can actually play.

 

[Racecarlock]

Well, if you've seen even half of the Bioware/EA discussion topics on here, you know people are going to blame EA. Me? I have not played enough bioware games to judge anything. But EA did drive need for speed right into a wall.

 

[devotedsniper]

I never really had an issue with ME2 other than they changed the controls, who seriously changes the controls and system for a sequal??? Yeah i got used to it but why couldn't they just leave things be! (i did like the abolishing of the weapon addons though)

And as for DA2 i just loathe that with a passion, they took something that worked so well, and turned it into something thats easier for the console, esentially turning it into a button basher when the first was really for pc (anyone who disagree's with that is kidding themselves). And then there was the story which just completely lacked that something which DA1 had, i mean i got so sick and tired of it i found myself only doing the main quest.

I fear for DA3 and ME3 after the dread DA2, i blame EA for such a short development times, i'm even dreading having to replay DA2 so my character is up to date for the 3rd one.

 

[silasbufu]

Dragon Age 2 did seem to be rushed, especially with the game's locations, but I found Mass Effect 2 to be improved in absolutely every category possible.

I would say EA is to blame for DA2, but what do I know?