Bioware games

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Jaimas said:
Bioware's always been hit-or-miss, even when they've been at their best. Blatant pandering and dumbing-downs have always been "things" in Bioware RPGs. I remember in the first Neverwinter Nights game, it's possible to essentially reveal the real culprit for the plague in everything but name, but the game will not let you do anything about it because the plot demands it. If you have the skills for it, there's a scene later on where you can clear the name of Aribeth's husband (who meets his end at the hands of an angry mob with no ability for you to do anything about it), and later, talk her down when she goes full nutter before she can hurt anyone else. It doesn't matter if you get Lord Nasher to concede to every demand: She is executed and dies at the end of the game. Fuck you, you have no agency in this world. Trophies for participation. This is why its expansion, Hordes of the Underdark, was considered the infinitely better game.
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I will say as bad as the vanilla NWN's campaign was, Bioware at the very least created an SDK for the game so you could make whatever campaigns you wanted. Which greatly extended the game's lifespan and allowed people who have no idea how to design games make simple and easy scenarios. However the biggest difference between old Bioware and new Bioware was that old Bioware cared about the fans, and wanted to make their games appeal to their core fans as much as possible.

As far as Bioware always being hit or miss I'm ever so slightly inclined to agree. I'd say almost every Bioware game has flaws and those flaws began to crop up as they released more titles. (There was that infamous "Bioware cliche chart" that showcased how almost all of their games featured basically the same plot, down to almost each game starting with two party members. One a fighter and the other a mage.) However in their earlier titles Bioware at the very least seemed like they cared about the games they were making. As it went on I got the sense they cared less and less. To the point where Mass Effect 3 was largely the developer painting by numbers until the end when they rushed the shit out of it so they could add multiplayer.

I still remember how David Gaider (a Bioware developer who's been with the company since Baldur's Gate 2) released a popular mod for Baldur's gate 2 called "Ascension" that fixed a great deal of story inconsistencies with the game's expansion Throne of Bhaal. And later he was the lead writer on Dragon Age 2 and claimed the fans didn't get his vision. As Bioware got larger and more money exchanged hands on their projects the developer egos began to bleed through their projects more and more.
 
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For all of its faults, I love Bioware.

I think the first titles I played by them were Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. I've played through both series, or at least I'm still playing through Inquisition. They may not have the best looking games or animations, but they know how to tell a story. (Eh... Dragon Age 2 I'm not fond of, but the ideas are there and I do get the whole "sometimes there is no choice" thing. But it was just... everything felt futile. No matter what you did, no matter how many good or bad choices you made, it all came down to a choice similar to Mass Effect 3's ending. Maybe that was the point, but I didn't like it, especially when the previous game had you actually making a difference. It doesn't help that Hawke was praised like a living god while the Warden got a "Oh, yeah, I knew that person. They were cool too, I guess, BUT OH MY GOD THE CHAMPION!")

I didn't get a chance to play the Baldur's Gate series until I found out they had them on GOG, so I got them and honestly it's fought its way to being one of my favorite series of all time. (Now I can finally get those references!)

I still don't agree with ME3's ending or how DA2 was pulled off. And I don't like what I've been hearing about the final battle of DAI. But I really admire their ability to tell a story with characters you can really get attached to, and I'd really like to get my hands on more of their older games as well to see how their games have gradually evolved into what they are today.
 
Bioware's always had issues with endings tbh. Even the "golden age" games of theirs the ending was always a bit of a letdown. That said actually getting to it has always been a great adventure, and that's why I still play them. Except DA2 because the fucking gameplay itself annoyed me and fuck if I'm playing a combat RPG where the combat is just awful.

That said the twist in KOTOR was legitimatly unexpected, even though as a beat for beat New Hope/Strikes Back remake essentially I should have sen it coming a mile away.
 
Strelok said:
Bioware's always had issues with endings tbh. Even the "golden age" games of theirs the ending was always a bit of a letdown. That said actually getting to it has always been a great adventure, and that's why I still play them. Except DA2 because the fucking gameplay itself annoyed me and fuck if I'm playing a combat RPG where the combat is just awful.

That said the twist in KOTOR was legitimatly unexpected, even though as a beat for beat New Hope/Strikes Back remake essentially I should have sen it coming a mile away.
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I think it's partially because of all the build-up to the ending, and the fact that they're never quite as expansive as one could want. It's not so bad in games like Mass Effect 1 or 2 where it needs to lead up to something else, but the third needed to end the series, and I think they were too ambitious with what they were doing.

Or were neutered by the publishers. Who knows.
 
I can't even be excited for another Mass Effect. They handled 2 and 3 so poorly and after playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, I have no idea whether the writers there actually know how to write a story that makes sense anymore.
I guess I'll give it a pirate when it comes out, but I'm not planning on giving them a cent if they can't deliver a quality product that isn't just built up by hype.
 
I'd disagree about Mass Effect 2, which I think was well handled, but I'll agree that the story segment of ME3 was not nearly up to par.

The multiplayer was surprisingly good, but I doubt anyone bought it for the multiplayer.
 
Sallet Lad Jim said:
I'd disagree about Mass Effect 2, which I think was well handled, but I'll agree that the story segment of ME3 was not nearly up to par.

The multiplayer was surprisingly good, but I doubt anyone bought it for the multiplayer.
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The plot of Mass Effect 2 is completely irrelevant to the Reaper threat and if you removed that entire game from the series it wouldn't matter at all. Killing off Shepard and then having him be revived was a dumb thing to do and didn't really matter at all besides to provide the player a possibly emotional moment. Majority of the game is spent recruiting a team for a suicide mission and then playing daddy to solve all their personal problems that somehow affects their performance on the suicide mission. The only really relevant characters in Mass Effect 2 are the ones central to navigating the Collector Base effectively (Tech specialist, biotic specialist, team leader) and Mordin (developed Seeker Swarm protection) and every other character could have been replaced with a generic Cerberus crew member at the end. The human Reaper is possibly one of the most retarded final bosses I have ever had the pleasure of encountering and made me laugh a good amount when I first saw it.
ME3 did have good multiplayer, but I just wanted to play the singleplayer. I just wanted to be able to play singleplayer and get all the best endings without investing time in the multiplayer or iphone app.
 
GeorgeDaMoose said:
The plot of Mass Effect 2 is completely irrelevant to the Reaper threat and if you removed that entire game from the series it wouldn't matter at all. Killing off Shepard and then having him be revived was a dumb thing to do and didn't really matter at all besides to provide the player a possibly emotional moment. Majority of the game is spent recruiting a team for a suicide mission and then playing daddy to solve all their personal problems that somehow affects their performance on the suicide mission. The only really relevant characters in Mass Effect 2 are the ones central to navigating the Collector Base effectively (Tech specialist, biotic specialist, team leader) and Mordin (developed Seeker Swarm protection) and every other character could have been replaced with a generic Cerberus crew member at the end. The human Reaper is possibly one of the most retarded final bosses I have ever had the pleasure of encountering and made me laugh a good amount when I first saw it.
ME3 did have good multiplayer, but I just wanted to play the singleplayer. I just wanted to be able to play singleplayer and get all the best endings without investing time in the multiplayer or iphone app.
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I definitely agree about Mass Effect 2 - I mean, it feels like they were trying something a bit different, but the main thing I remember about it was the combat - I feel like it improved greatly on that.

Mass Effect 3 didn't really improve on anything.
 
Sallet Lad Jim said:
I definitely agree about Mass Effect 2 - I mean, it feels like they were trying something a bit different, but the main thing I remember about it was the combat - I feel like it improved greatly on that.

Mass Effect 3 didn't really improve on anything.
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Mass Effect 3 had a great system for modifications, better character movement, a huge arsenal of weapons, a weight system that was actually decent, an improved skill system that allowed for pretty diverse builds, a useful (but retarded looking) melee, a much better health system, and removed fatigue for sprinting. It pretty much fixes every issue I had with ME2's skill system and combat.
I still prefer ME1's combat just because I felt it was a lot more rewarding and fun, but ME3 is great for its gameplay.
 
I do love Bioware lore and world building as a writer, and Dragon Age has great appeal to my swords and sorcery loving self. My favorite game is actually Dragon Age 2 for a lot of different reasons.

My only issue is that I'd love to play Mass Effect but I can never find a copy of the first game in game stores. Their Star Wars games are also right out, can't find those either. Anyone know of any reputable sites I can order from that may have even just the first ME?
 
Unironic Subversiveness said:
I do love Bioware lore and world building as a writer, and Dragon Age has great appeal to my swords and sorcery loving self. My favorite game is actually Dragon Age 2 for a lot of different reasons.

My only issue is that I'd love to play Mass Effect but I can never find a copy of the first game in game stores. Their Star Wars games are also right out, can't find those either. Anyone know of any reputable sites I can order from that may have even just the first ME?
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You can always try ordering from Gamestop or Amazon. That's how I got mine.
As for Star Wars, I think GOG.com has a few. It's how I got Baldur's Gate. They also have some of the other older games like Jade Empire.

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And as for ME2, I think there were several things they were trying to build up that were meant to be relevant later on to the Reaper threat but were ultimately dropped for one reason or another.
 
KoTOR: awesome. Almost everything made after KoTOR: crapola (except Jade Empire which I enjoyed for some reason).
 
caffeinated_wench said:
You can always try ordering from Gamestop or Amazon. That's how I got mine.
As for Star Wars, I think GOG.com has a few. It's how I got Baldur's Gate. They also have some of the other older games like Jade Empire.

EDIT:
And as for ME2, the dark matter (or whatever it was, it's been a while) thing was supposed to tie into the Reaper stuff later, from what I heard, but it was dropped.
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The Reapers were supposed to be harvesting civilizations to find a way to stop dark energy from destroying the entire galaxy. The end of Mass Effect was supposed to be something like destroy the Reapers and doom the galaxy to end eventually or let the Reapers continue their harvest and hope they can do something.
 
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). That game's generally offered up as an example of one of Bioware's fails, so I thought I'd give my thoughts on it.

I'll start by saying that I don't really play MMOs. I've tried to get into them, but the thing which always happens is that I hit a hard part and have to grind for hours which I hate having to do. SWTOR represents the most I ever got into an MMO - I managed to ascend to level 36 (the level cap was 55 at the time) before giving up.

I like the epic, sprawling universe you get to run around and the lore and storytelling of the game. The fact the whole thing's fully voice acted is pretty awesome too.

But when I first played the game I hadn't played either of the KOTOR games and I remember reading stuff online where people said they wished Bioware had just made KOTOR 3. I went off and played KOTOR 1 and 2 and... man do I understand where they were coming from. Now whenever I think about SWTOR I just end up wishing it was KOTOR 3 instead. And the way they wrapped up Revan's story in SWTOR was just horrible.

I don't hate SWTOR (like a lot of people seem to), I just kind of wish it had been something else.
 
TheImportantFart said:
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). That game's generally offered up as an example of one of Bioware's fails, so I thought I'd give my thoughts on it.

I'll start by saying that I don't really play MMOs. I've tried to get into them, but the thing which always happens is that I hit a hard part and have to grind for hours which I hate having to do. SWTOR represents the most I ever got into an MMO - I managed to ascend to level 36 (the level cap was 55 at the time) before giving up.

I like the epic, sprawling universe you get to run around and the lore and storytelling of the game. The fact the whole thing's fully voice acted is pretty awesome too.

But when I first played the game I hadn't played either of the KOTOR games and I remember reading stuff online where people said they wished Bioware had just made KOTOR 3. I went off and played KOTOR 1 and 2 and... man do I understand where they were coming from. Now whenever I think about SWTOR I just end up wishing it was KOTOR 3 instead. And the way they wrapped up Revan's story in SWTOR was just horrible.

I don't hate SWTOR (like a lot of people seem to), I just kind of wish it had been something else.
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I don't absolutely hate SWTOR, but I think it's still a bad game. The way they the story part and MMO part ended up really awkward in my opinion and the insanely horrible animations were really jarring. They never really got better, even after launch. Also the voice acting was ridiculously unconvincing. David Hayter voices one of the Jedi classes and he sounds like HOT garbage.
 
GeorgeDaMoose said:
I'm not really sure who this is and I'm not sure what affect this might even have on the game at this point.
Either way I hope ME:A turns out to actually be good and not another singleplayer MMO.
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Read the article. They've also lost one of their longest serving and most prolific employees, and ME:A's previous development lead in a span of about 2 and half months.
 
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