why do people like bioware games so much?

[BiscuitTrouser]

I dont really agree with much you said.

so, i've been trying to figure htis out for a while about why people think the mass effect trilogy and dragon age 1 were such great games. whennever i think about them i think they have bad locations that don't feel as epic as they're trying to be made out, an impenetrable story with many, many plot holes, bad writing where alot of the background is in the pause menu rather than weaved into the story, akward conversation options and bland, boring gameplay.

This doesnt really sound anything like a Bioware game. I am not a big Bioware guy, but writting, epicness feelings, conversations, gameplay, writting and story is what bioware games are most known for. It is alright if you don't like Bioware, but I think much of what your saying is biast.

Its like saying Crysis 2 looks ugly. I may not like the game, but the game looks amazing, and it has very good and intense gameplay

Well, there have been a lot of plotholes. Example: In the Dwarf commoner beginning storyline, a Dwarf rogue who is level 1 beats up canonically great warriors in a straight fight. It was immersion breaking.

In all fairness he/she did live in cut throat slums doing slightly shadey buisness for people. A merc like that would have skills comparable to your average arena participant.

OP: People think differently from you because people have different opinions. Deal with it. I LOVED ME1. Characters, dialogue, story, combat, RPG elements I LOVED TO BITS (thus why ME2 was a bit... meh for me) and brilliant back story. I actually related to characters. I did. Sometimes you cant understand someone else s opinion because... it isnt yours. You cant agree with them. Its not hard to understand.

Also if you say "EVERYONE loves it" I will bet you TEN MILLION DOLLERS in cash (i will provide my pay pall) that i can find someone who doesnt. You are not the only one. You are not special. People have a huge range of opinions.

 

[pspman45]

Characters with human like qualities, flaws and goals ect.
great writing
good set pieces for the action
interesting combat systems
each franchise has a unique aesthetic to it, with matching graphics, sound, and feel.

and just being plain awesome

 

[GigaHz]

I can understand the appeal of why people like Bioware games so much, but I also agree with the OP about a few points.

The first Mass Effect seemed more like a buggy concept demo than an actual polished game. While the campaign certainly had its moments, the awkward side questing, the cut and paste interior environments, and the clunky combat really drew me out of the experience. I never felt immersed in the universe or attached to any of the characters, with the exception of Wrex and Captain Anderson. It felt more like I was going through the motions to either progress the story or level up. While it was definitely better than the average game, it certainly didn't deserve some of the very high scores it received. Mass Effect 2 however, addressed just about everything wrong with the first game. It definitely deserved the praise it received, though it wasn't perfect either.

Dragon Age: Origins is more a matter of personal taste. It's not a game that you can faithfully experience unless you play the PC/Mac version on the hard or hardest difficulty. My gripes with the console version is that there is no overhead view and the difficulty is scaled down considerably. That and I believe that Dragon Age's saving grace is its gameplay and not its story, which is almost the opposite of the first Mass Effect. While the story itself is written pretty well, and some side quests and characters are interesting, the experience as a whole felt very bland. On top of that, your dialogue choices rarely have an impact on what happens in the story as you usually arrive at the same outcome. Plus, it's hard to take whats going on in a conversation seriously if your character is covered in blood or glowing from an aura. If they were trying to go for a realistic approach (for whatever reason), they failed miserably.

Bioware is a company that has earned a reputation for creating solid titles. While they have been guilty of releasing a few stinkers (Dragon Age 2, KOTOR 2) there is a level of consistent quality you can expect when you play a Bioware title. Do I believe that people are a little biased to Bioware? Most definitely, but you could say the same thing about anyone loyal to any developer. It might not be that a particular game they release is 'bad', it might be that the subject matter is not akin to your personal taste.

 

[Sephren468]

Well most of the games are pretty good, but they have not released a good game since Dragon Age: Origins. I am confident that TOR will be good though.

 

[Blackpapa]

In short: They make RPGs and they aren't Bethesda.

 

[AgentBJ09]

so, i've been trying to figure htis out for a while about why people think the mass effect trilogy and dragon age 1 were such great games. whennever i think about them i think they have bad locations that don't feel as epic as they're trying to be made out, an impenetrable story with many, many plot holes, bad writing where alot of the background is in the pause menu rather than weaved into the story, akward conversation options and bland, boring gameplay.

i understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if you enjoyed all of biowares games then good for you, but it seems EVERYONE thinks bioware is one of the greatest game makers of all time

I can see what you mean, but a few other Western games besides Bioware ones have information left out of dialogue. It's to make sure it sounds more natural, rather than someone who should have experience with the subject being told about it once again.

Bethesda does this with their book system of storytelling, so you can read the actual lore in books rather than hearing most of it. Eidos did other things similar to it with Deus Ex 1 and 2. It mostly depends on how the story is being told. That said, I do find the tone and expressions in some Bioware games, mostly the early ones but a few recent ones as well, very lacking in terms of delivery. Mass Effect didn't have very well presented expressions of shock, and the dialogues did get a bit long at times.

As for everyone thinking Bioware is good, that's mostly due to their history, but I have to question some of their recent games and the changes made to them.

 

[Seives-Sliver]

I liked the characters, the lore was a blast when you could get into it, and it was challenging without being facedesk awful.

 

[Windcaler]

I wouldnt say of all time but I might go as far as the best game developer of recent memory. I like being able to make my own character and actually roleplay in a roleplaying game. I can make them grow, develop, and change over the course of the game according to my interpretation of the character and I really like that.

Add to that good writing (writing that is IMO on par with best selling fiction novels) and an easy and adaptive combat system and I have a lot of fun. The games fun for me on a lot of fronts unlike other games that are just kill fests or stories with horrible pacing and/or writing.

 

[RelexCryo]

I dont really agree with much you said.

so, i've been trying to figure htis out for a while about why people think the mass effect trilogy and dragon age 1 were such great games. whennever i think about them i think they have bad locations that don't feel as epic as they're trying to be made out, an impenetrable story with many, many plot holes, bad writing where alot of the background is in the pause menu rather than weaved into the story, akward conversation options and bland, boring gameplay.

This doesnt really sound anything like a Bioware game. I am not a big Bioware guy, but writting, epicness feelings, conversations, gameplay, writting and story is what bioware games are most known for. It is alright if you don't like Bioware, but I think much of what your saying is biast.

Its like saying Crysis 2 looks ugly. I may not like the game, but the game looks amazing, and it has very good and intense gameplay

Well, there have been a lot of plotholes. Example: In the Dwarf commoner beginning storyline, a Dwarf rogue who is level 1 beats up canonically great warriors in a straight fight. It was immersion breaking.

In all fairness he/she did live in cut throat slums doing slightly shadey buisness for people. A merc like that would have skills comparable to your average arena participant.

OP: People think differently from you because people have different opinions. Deal with it. I LOVED ME1. Characters, dialogue, story, combat, RPG elements I LOVED TO BITS (thus why ME2 was a bit... meh for me) and brilliant back story. I actually related to characters. I did. Sometimes you cant understand someone else s opinion because... it isnt yours. You cant agree with them. Its not hard to understand.

Also if you say "EVERYONE loves it" I will bet you TEN MILLION DOLLERS in cash (i will provide my pay pall) that i can find someone who doesnt. You are not the only one. You are not special. People have a huge range of opinions.

I never said it was a bad game. In the original quote, the poster stated that there were plotholes, and a second poster quoted them stating that they had seen no plotholes. I corrected them.

A) If your character was a heavily experienced mercenary, they would have been higher than level 1.

B) The characters your fought in the arena were warrriors that had experiences that would have made them higher than level 1. And you fought them in a straight fight as a level 1 rogue.

This doesn't even scratch the surface of the plotholes in DA:O however. In the mage tower quest, the templars are overrun by....the very mages they are explicitly trained to fight. Templars have extremely high mental resistance so they can resist mind control, but many Templars get mind controlled. Templars have abilities designed to nullify all magic around them, but they get caught in magic prisons. Aside from which, mages are canonically supposed to be badasses, yet the tower is the first place you go, and consequently, the wizards are some of the weakest NPC's in the game. The fact that dwarves, elves and humans can all interchangeably wear armor makes the game more convenient, but also makes no logical sense due to the differences in size.

 

[Bostur]

so, i've been trying to figure htis out for a while about why people think the mass effect trilogy and dragon age 1 were such great games. whennever i think about them i think they have bad locations that don't feel as epic as they're trying to be made out, an impenetrable story with many, many plot holes, bad writing where alot of the background is in the pause menu rather than weaved into the story, akward conversation options and bland, boring gameplay.

i understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if you enjoyed all of biowares games then good for you, but it seems EVERYONE thinks bioware is one of the greatest game makers of all time

Your post makes me curious about why you think BW games are so bad. More specifically what other games do you compare them to that you think are better? On the PC platform there isn't a whole lot of titles to choose from in the RPG-flavoured genre.

I'm not saying I disagree with your assessment, but it seems to me to be a common description of most modern games.

 

[DustyDrB]

I like BioWare games because they typically have pretty good stories with fantastic characters, wonderful writing, deep and fleshed out worlds (or universes), and great gameplay.

 

[Outcast107]

see, i'm seeing alot of people claim interesting stories, but the mass effect games have rather flawed stories, since the entire of mass effect 2 is just being rail roaded, where you work with cerberus because you can't work with the alliance, you can't work with the alliance because you're working with cerberus. and is filled with plot holes, the first is about 10 minutes into the game where a terrorist organization manages to make a better ship than the entire allience could.

and hta characters aren't really that great, overlooking the fact that two of them (miranda and hte justicar) are shamelessly there for sex appeal, alot of them don't actually come in use in the big mission. why did you need 2 biotics experts if you only need one? why not bring more weapon experts?

I really don't see how the stories are flawed or where the plot holes are. You're working with Cerberus because they're doing something about the abductions. You aren't working with the Alliance because they're not. Also the Normandy SR-2 isn't really better. It just has more already available technology tacked onto the original design. Also the alliance has to worry about an entire species whereas cerberus are free to sink all their money into making one ship.

Not to get into a mammoth of a debate but ME2's main plot is the definition of a plothole riddled mess and lack much required exposition. To use the examples you touched upon, Shepard is forced to work with Cerberus disregarding their past atrocities and simply taking TIM's word at face value. Remember, we only discover after the Alliance and Council are inept we agree to sign up with TIM. This is particularly egregious for those who chose the Sole Survivor angle, wherein Cerberus was wholly responsible for the death of your squad and the horrific experimentation, yet Shepard never even brings it up. Other examples include but are not limited...

Spoiler

- Shepard's body being recoverable
- TIM's logic for reviving Shepard, or lack thereof
- Shepard being a brick
- Mordin pulling the plot device out of his ass
- Everything about Horizon, especially the horrendous VS exchange
- Most of the Collector Ship
- The derelict Reaper coming out of nowhere
- Everyone hilariously leaving the Normandy because the plot demanded it
- Basically the Suicide Mission amounting to "Lets bullrush it!" with no actual plan
- Baby Reaperminator, every little thing
- Destroying the Collector Base

All the above pertains to plotholes, inconsistencies, contradictions and/or lack of exposition in the narrative. Bluntly stated, no ME2's plot is not good. Where this game shines is in the recruitment and loyalty missions. Basically the secondary plots are why ME2 is an enjoyable experience from a narrative perspective. The main plot is damn well rubbish.

My god you are so wrong. Here is some plot hole filler.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2011810

 

[LWS666]

so, i've been trying to figure htis out for a while about why people think the mass effect trilogy and dragon age 1 were such great games. whennever i think about them i think they have bad locations that don't feel as epic as they're trying to be made out, an impenetrable story with many, many plot holes, bad writing where alot of the background is in the pause menu rather than weaved into the story, akward conversation options and bland, boring gameplay.

i understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if you enjoyed all of biowares games then good for you, but it seems EVERYONE thinks bioware is one of the greatest game makers of all time

Your post makes me curious about why you think BW games are so bad. More specifically what other games do you compare them to that you think are better? On the PC platform there isn't a whole lot of titles to choose from in the RPG-flavoured genre.

I'm not saying I disagree with your assessment, but it seems to me to be a common description of most modern games.

it's not so much i feel there are alot of developers better than bioware, although new vegas and FO3 i felt were 10x better, it's that people seem to think bioware games are the shit but i just feel they're above average at best.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

I dont really agree with much you said.

so, i've been trying to figure htis out for a while about why people think the mass effect trilogy and dragon age 1 were such great games. whennever i think about them i think they have bad locations that don't feel as epic as they're trying to be made out, an impenetrable story with many, many plot holes, bad writing where alot of the background is in the pause menu rather than weaved into the story, akward conversation options and bland, boring gameplay.

This doesnt really sound anything like a Bioware game. I am not a big Bioware guy, but writting, epicness feelings, conversations, gameplay, writting and story is what bioware games are most known for. It is alright if you don't like Bioware, but I think much of what your saying is biast.

Its like saying Crysis 2 looks ugly. I may not like the game, but the game looks amazing, and it has very good and intense gameplay

Well, there have been a lot of plotholes. Example: In the Dwarf commoner beginning storyline, a Dwarf rogue who is level 1 beats up canonically great warriors in a straight fight. It was immersion breaking.

In all fairness he/she did live in cut throat slums doing slightly shadey buisness for people. A merc like that would have skills comparable to your average arena participant.

OP: People think differently from you because people have different opinions. Deal with it. I LOVED ME1. Characters, dialogue, story, combat, RPG elements I LOVED TO BITS (thus why ME2 was a bit... meh for me) and brilliant back story. I actually related to characters. I did. Sometimes you cant understand someone else s opinion because... it isnt yours. You cant agree with them. Its not hard to understand.

Also if you say "EVERYONE loves it" I will bet you TEN MILLION DOLLERS in cash (i will provide my pay pall) that i can find someone who doesnt. You are not the only one. You are not special. People have a huge range of opinions.

I never said it was a bad game. In the original quote, the poster stated that there were plotholes, and a second poster quoted them stating that they had seen no plotholes. I corrected them.

A) If your character was a heavily experienced mercenary, they would have been higher than level 1.

B) The characters your fought in the arena were warrriors that had experiences that would have made them higher than level 1. And you fought them in a straight fight as a level 1 rogue.

This doesn't even scratch the surface of the plotholes in DA:O however. In the mage tower quest, the templars are overrun by....the very mages they are explicitly trained to fight. Templars have extremely high mental resistance so they can resist mind control, but many Templars get mind controlled. Templars have abilities designed to nullify all magic around them, but they get caught in magic prisons. Aside from which, mages are canonically supposed to be badasses, yet the tower is the first place you go, and consequently, the wizards are some of the weakest NPC's in the game. The fact that dwarves, elves and humans can all interchangeably wear armor makes the game more convenient, but also makes no logical sense due to the differences in size.

Theres a difference between "learning to stab with a dagger right" and practicing a true profession with tutors along the way and skills that you pick up from party members. You are level one because ALL level ones start with knowledge and basic instruction on how to fight with their chosen weapon. Heavily experienced in knife use. Not heavily experienced in being a rogue/mercenary with little tricks and skills.

B:And you know this howwww? These are nobles son. Tutored perhaps with riches but ZERO field experience. I think that matches up nicely.

The mage tower can be the last place you go. Its open world and levels with you, you pick the order you do quests. That was blood magic. The EXPRESS reason it is banned so forcefully is because the mind control is insanely powerful. Templar's are not immune to magic. The idea is that all of them can swiftly destroy a single abomination, perhaps a few if a ritual goes bad. Its about an even fight if the ENTIRE tower erupts into revolt which none of them predicted it would. Abominations are far more powerful than regular mages, its freaking daemon possession. Ill grant you this one, however ill counter with the fact that since the thread is about BIOWARE games, Mass effect accounted for this fact.

 

[Hamish Durie]

the whole masseffect is awesome through me at first and dragon age origins was........alright
but the reason i love bioware games is the writing

 

[RelexCryo]

I dont really agree with much you said.

so, i've been trying to figure htis out for a while about why people think the mass effect trilogy and dragon age 1 were such great games. whennever i think about them i think they have bad locations that don't feel as epic as they're trying to be made out, an impenetrable story with many, many plot holes, bad writing where alot of the background is in the pause menu rather than weaved into the story, akward conversation options and bland, boring gameplay.

This doesnt really sound anything like a Bioware game. I am not a big Bioware guy, but writting, epicness feelings, conversations, gameplay, writting and story is what bioware games are most known for. It is alright if you don't like Bioware, but I think much of what your saying is biast.

Its like saying Crysis 2 looks ugly. I may not like the game, but the game looks amazing, and it has very good and intense gameplay

Well, there have been a lot of plotholes. Example: In the Dwarf commoner beginning storyline, a Dwarf rogue who is level 1 beats up canonically great warriors in a straight fight. It was immersion breaking.

In all fairness he/she did live in cut throat slums doing slightly shadey buisness for people. A merc like that would have skills comparable to your average arena participant.

OP: People think differently from you because people have different opinions. Deal with it. I LOVED ME1. Characters, dialogue, story, combat, RPG elements I LOVED TO BITS (thus why ME2 was a bit... meh for me) and brilliant back story. I actually related to characters. I did. Sometimes you cant understand someone else s opinion because... it isnt yours. You cant agree with them. Its not hard to understand.

Also if you say "EVERYONE loves it" I will bet you TEN MILLION DOLLERS in cash (i will provide my pay pall) that i can find someone who doesnt. You are not the only one. You are not special. People have a huge range of opinions.

I never said it was a bad game. In the original quote, the poster stated that there were plotholes, and a second poster quoted them stating that they had seen no plotholes. I corrected them.

A) If your character was a heavily experienced mercenary, they would have been higher than level 1.

B) The characters your fought in the arena were warrriors that had experiences that would have made them higher than level 1. And you fought them in a straight fight as a level 1 rogue.

This doesn't even scratch the surface of the plotholes in DA:O however. In the mage tower quest, the templars are overrun by....the very mages they are explicitly trained to fight. Templars have extremely high mental resistance so they can resist mind control, but many Templars get mind controlled. Templars have abilities designed to nullify all magic around them, but they get caught in magic prisons. Aside from which, mages are canonically supposed to be badasses, yet the tower is the first place you go, and consequently, the wizards are some of the weakest NPC's in the game. The fact that dwarves, elves and humans can all interchangeably wear armor makes the game more convenient, but also makes no logical sense due to the differences in size.

Theres a difference between "learning to stab with a dagger right" and practicing a true profession with tutors along the way and skills that you pick up from party members. You are level one because ALL level ones start with knowledge and basic instruction on how to fight with their chosen weapon. Heavily experienced in knife use. Not heavily experienced in being a rogue/mercenary with little tricks and skills.

B:And you know this howwww? These are nobles son. Tutored perhaps with riches but ZERO field experience. I think that matches up nicely.

The mage tower can be the last place you go. Its open world and levels with you, you pick the order you do quests. That was blood magic. The EXPRESS reason it is banned so forcefully is because the mind control is insanely powerful. Templar's are not immune to magic. The idea is that all of them can swiftly destroy a single abomination, perhaps a few if a ritual goes bad. Its about an even fight if the ENTIRE tower erupts into revolt which none of them predicted it would. Abominations are far more powerful than regular mages, its freaking daemon possession. Ill grant you this one, however ill counter with the fact that since the thread is about BIOWARE games, Mass effect accounted for this fact.

Actually, you fight experienced champions, and soldier veterans in the Dwarf Commoner storyline. Templars are not immune to magic, but they can dispel all magic around them- which would make it impossible to imprison them in a magic circle- and they do have extremely high mental resistance, which would make it hard to mind control them.

And you can't just go whereever you want to go. Each area actually has a set level, but Bioware never actually tells you this.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Main_quests_(Origins)

Check out "Ideal Order" on the wiki page I just linked. The Circle Tower has the lowest level of the pre-set levels. Abominations are supposed to be amazing horrors...but they are quite literally some of the weakest things in the game.

 

[BenzSmoke]

Well, I like them for the colorful characters and dialogue that I actually didn't want to skip. Though I did want locations to be larger and more open, and combat gets really boring and repetitive in almost all Bioware games. As for plotholes, every game has those.

Spoiler: Plothole Example: (Fallout 3 Spoiler!)

In Fallout 3 additional super-mutants are created by taking captured humans to Vault 87 and exposing them to FEV. However, in the game world, the surface entrance to the vault is bathed in deadly levels of radiation. So how do the super-mutants get their captives into the vault without them dying of radiation sickness?

That said, I still didn't like how Cerberus became the faction in ME2. In the first one they were just cannon-fodder that only posed the same threat as the mercenary groups.

 

[Haagrum]

Bioware games generally have good writing. They have interesting characters, and usually a lot of humour. They're generally low on the gorn factor and aim to draw players in with actual gameplay and story. One of the most memorable things about Bioware games like Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age is the party banter. Just about every dialogue involving Minsc, or Zevran, has me laughing because I can visualise a character, not just a meatbag who's potentially valuable for their statistics and combat skills.

Furthermore, not every scene or dungeon needs to be "epic". Hell, some of their best work is in positively grim, nasty situations which are remarkable only because they're a race against time (in story). Not every scene has to end with the hero and his friends outrunning the detonation of a cave/corridor/ship/colony made of explodium. Not every discovery has to be interrupted by a dragon/boss fight/biotechnological terror.

As for the plot holes... well, I don't want to get drawn into this argument. I'll just settle for saying that if we presume we know everything relevant to the backstory of an imaginary world which is another person's intellectual property, and expect it to conform precisely to the information that we have been given, we're not being reasonable.

People dig the romances for a variety of reasons. Take ME2 as an example. Yes, Miranda is blatantly there as a third-person seductress for Shepard in ME2 (and Jacob's pretty much the same), but so what? It's the three-ring-circus strategy. If you like stories about profoundly damaged people finding comfort or peace, you'll probably gravitate towards Jack/Thane. If you're more intrigued by the "friends becoming lovers" archetype, you'll likely end up with Tali/Garrus. Or, you could just ignore that sub-plot and all its potential depth and just play the game.

I haven't played DA2, but I haven't been disappointed with any of Bioware's other efforts. I think that's a solid basis for liking their games. Opinions may legitimately differ on what makes a game good, and to the extent that anyone disagrees with me, that's fine.

 

[OpticalJunction]

Bioware is one of the few devs that can actually write a decent story and likeable characters. There's a HUGE lack of this in the game industry. I'm truly surprised other devs haven't copied their technique.