Mr Ink 5000 said:
an unexpected yet pleasant response; i think until we get the game none of us can give a final response. to me this reaks of the first DA:O trailer with a single grey warden going into the deep roads; it, gives away nothing.
i think, and this is only my opinion, there is only so much room on a dvd, they're expanding the universe, n they're makin a DA Shepard. if I have a DA:O sized game, with a customazible style Shepard, i'll be happy, i realise others wont be happy but hopefully the graphic improvement will appease them
Well, "Dragon Age: Origins" succeeded with some dated graphics (which were criticized) because of the game play and customization. Those were the aspects of the game that impressed people.
When "Mass Effect 2" came out there was a ton of fan outrage which I think "Bioware" has not been considering over the fact that the game was dumbed down into a shooter compared to the first one. It went over well with a lot of people who were really into shooters, but not so well with the RPG and Action-RPG audience the game was directed at. A lot of those people who had not been following it online and purchused the game on faith due to the first one.
Among a lot of Bioware fans the response was kind of "well, at least we still have Dragon Age", however it seems that Bioware is misunderstanding their success with "Mass Effect 2" to some extent and has been trying to dumb down "Dragon Age" in hopes that this will increase it's sales. Like many companies it seems to be taking the attitude that there is always a lot of negative response, so they should ignore it all and focus only to the people praising them. A very, very, bad move given the quality of a lot of the complaints out there.
Now, we all do expect improved graphics, but those do not justify gutting the RPG gameplay people want from the series. Making your own character being the defining feature of "Dragon Age" compared to a lot of other RPGs that just hand you a predetermined character with very basic customizations. Simply being able to choose a race was a big deal because it's not something you see too often.
Bioware seems to be operating in damage control mode more than any kind of genuine consideration of it's fans, and there have been a LOT of complaints (which you can tell just by their responses). The excuses they have been making are by and large BS, connected to having a full voiceover for the protaganist and such, which anyone who has followed Anime or played "Saint's Row 2" can tell you. A full voiceover does NOT mean your limited to a single voice track/actor for the protaganist.
My big problem is that when the whole "Hawke" thing first came to light Bioware seemed to be sending out feelers to check fan response, they by and large got them bit off, and seem to be going into denial about the entire thing, and doing whatever they wanted to do, which defeated the entire purpose.
People, including Bioware itself, need to realize that games are created for the customers. We need to get the industry out of the attitude that we will buy anything they care to shovel in our direction. The people who are defending "Hawke" and even what they did with "Mass Effect 2" to me seem like the kind of fanboys who will devour anything put in front of them if a big company tells them it's good and pays enough reviewers to reinforce that... and that is exactly why guys like Bobby Kotick feel free to abuse the customers and behave like jerks because they rely on the fact that like a group of junkies we are going to come back for whatever he decides to sell us, and even if we complain that he started cutting our junk with baby powder and rat killer, we're still going to come back when we want a fix because we're addicts. That's kind of what the whole situation here is like, an obviously inferior product using a pre-made stock hero, glossed up with some voice acting, being thrown to the fans in the expectation we'll take it so we can all drool over the next "Bioware" game, because it's the next Bioware game.
Enough rambling, but the bottom line is that the entire thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
