Dragon Age 2

[Orogun01]

Hasn't Bioware been catering to this crowd since BG2? What's there to be surprised now?

Yeah but this crowd had devolved since BG2, the price of making games popular I guess.

[HoonDing]

"Pest"? Did I miss another character reveal?

[Monte Carlo]

It's Twilight because

[Volourn]

"but I think it only had FF for one of them on the consoles."

 

No.

[alanschu]

A game like Silent Storm, in my opinion, exists purely for the combat. I will say that if you're hoping for anything resembling a tactical experience like Silent Storm, you will be disappointed with DA2 and pretty much every BioWare game that has existed, before or after.

 

You misunderstood. My example with the Silent Storm Sentinels wasn't about tactical depth of that game (it certainly have that) but the fact that Nivel took a leap of faith and put some trust into more experienced players. Actually Baldur's Gate series (or any AD&D infinity engine game) could have used the similar difficulty sliders rather then offering (only) fixed set of difficulty levels.

 

I was more pointing out that the game's focus existed for having tactical gameplay. I wouldn't say that Nival took "a leap of faith," they just made a game with a different focus. I would be surprised if they did a fire and forget and added those with only a minimal amount of assessment that the systems worked through the permutations and at more than just the surface. With the game's focus on combat, my guess is that the idea for allowing flexibility for how the combat played probably game earlier than the 11th hour. It's also a game targeting a different audience.

[RPGmasterBoo]

I wonder when the BG crowd is going to be the target audience of a Bioware game.

[sorophx]

I wonder when the BG crowd is going to be the target audience of a Bioware game.

we all know the answer

[MrBrown]

I wonder when the BG crowd is going to be the target audience of a Bioware game.

 

Is this crowd big enough to be considered to exist?

[Nepenthe]

I wonder when the BG crowd is going to be the target audience of a Bioware game.

 

Is this crowd big enough to be considered to exist?

I think that we he says "BG crowd", he means just himself. And maybe Sorophx, but primarily himself.

 

'Coz I for one have not found liking BG(1-2) and, say ME1-2 mutually exclusive. I'll refer to Purkake's twinky comment re: DAO, had fun while it lasted, gave me indigestion afterwards.

[Deraldin]

DA:O had FF for most difficulties though, not only for Nightmare. So there was a change.

 

I think it depended on platform. It had FF for most difficulties on PC, but I think it only had FF for one of them on the consoles.

 

Normal and up for PC, Hard and up for Console.

[Slowtrain]

I wonder when the BG crowd is going to be the target audience of a Bioware game.

 

 

Is 26 people a crowd?

[Deraldin]

I wonder when the BG crowd is going to be the target audience of a Bioware game.

 

 

Is 26 people a crowd?

 

Well, if 3 is a crowd, 26 seems like more than enough to me.

[Niten_Ryu]

I was more pointing out that the game's focus existed for having tactical gameplay.

 

Again, it don't matter if the game is tactical or not. It could be on trails FPS, it could be submarine simulation, it could be The Sims (actually The Sims 3 did allow some amount of rule customization, ie how fast sims age and such). Fixed set of difficulties are always worse option then user selected. Some don't want challenge at all and just want to experience the story/setting and some do like the challenge.

 

And going from 50% to 200% from several different categories might as well be fire and forget. As long as 100% if relatively in the middle of the average difficulty (meaning that developers manage to beat their own game).

[Tigranes]

I don't think the "BG Crowd" can be so easily dismissed, the games sold well and have been supported for a decade by a very dedicated community, and the games themselves have achieved a high level of cultural... thingy. Obviously what Boo means by the BG crowd is a bit more exclusive.

[Slowtrain]

I don't think the "BG Crowd" can be so easily dismissed, the games sold well and have been supported for a decade by a very dedicated community, and the games themselves have achieved a high level of cultural... thingy. Obviously what Boo means by the BG crowd is a bit more exclusive.

 

 

The thing is alot of the old BG/BG2/NWN crowd will probably buy ME/DA anyway, but the newer crowd raised on DA and ME probably won't buy BG. So its not that the BG crowd is being dismissed, it's just being taken advantage of a bit.

[Tigranes]

Exactly.

[Slowtrain]

Don't get me wrong. As a gamer, I think Bioware has settled into a very uninteresting niche. But I can't really criticize the desire to make money, especially after so many other developers have failed to survive.

[entrerix]

people talk about bioware like they make knock-off hostess cupcake snacks.

 

just because they no longer make traditional crpgs doesnt mean they don't make decent story driven action games with some decent/good choice and consequence and dialogue.

 

maybe its just easy to lose perspective because they once were the kings of the crpg?

 

if bioware had never made BG or BG2 would they get the same treatment? or are expectations still insanely high despite about a decade since BG2?

 

don't get me wrong, baldurs gate 1/2 is imo their best work to date, but imo mass effect 2 is their second best, despite being a totally different genre.

Edited December 20, 2010 by entrerix

[sorophx]

imo mass effect 2 is their second best

this says it all, because ME2 is not a very good game. it's plain "good". and dropping from the epic BG2 to a mediocre ME2 isn't very inspiring

[Monte Carlo]

people talk about bioware like they make knock-off hostess cupcake snacks.

 

Could have fooled me. DA2 is the quintessence of fast-food rpg-lite gaming.

 

just because they no longer make traditional crpgs doesnt mean they don't make decent story driven action games with some decent/good choice and consequence and dialogue. maybe its just easy to lose perspective because they once were the kings of the crpg?

 

Say Relic stopped making great RTS games and started making dating sims? Or Blizzard decided to make FPS games? Does it start making more sense now with regards to perspective?

 

if bioware had never made BG or BG2 would they get the same treatment? or are expectations still insanely high despite about a decade since BG2?

 

I see where you're coming from, but the point surely is that they did make BG and BG2. It's like saying why are people upset about Robert De Nero making 'Righteous Kill' just because he was in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull?

[alanschu]

Again, it don't matter if the game is tactical or not.

 

What matters is the decision as to whether or not such variability in setting up the rules is considered to be a part of the package you are wanting to deliver. The thing about Silent Storm was that they felt the strength of their game was in the tactical combat system, and felt that allowing the user to manipulate the rules for this system was enough value added for the time required to implement to do so. I'm not stuck on "tactical combat." I'm just using the example that you provided.

 

 

Fixed set of difficulties are always worse option then user selected. Some don't want challenge at all and just want to experience the story/setting and some do like the challenge.

 

I can understand what you're saying, but I think you're trivializing the work required component. If user variable is always better than fixed set, how come it is so rare? I have seen a lot of people state how easy it is to implement a lot of options (it's just a checkbox) and so forth. How come gaming companies everywhere continue to overlook what many fans assure is a simple amount of work for a significant benefit to the end user (complete with pseudocode solutions that get posted on the BioWare's boards).

 

 

And going from 50% to 200% from several different categories might as well be fire and forget.

 

Fire and forget for a feature is a good way to have those parts of your program cause game ending blocking issues for end users that use them because they were never properly reviewed or QA'd. No one at BioWare likes sending out show-stopping issues into the wild, and as I am in QA, I do feel a degree of responsibility when a user's game experience is severely compromised (or worse, outright blocked) because of something we didn't account for. It's already a situation where we have to make decisions on where we focus our efforts because we can't examine every aspect of the game with the same level of coverage throughout.

 

 

The thing is alot of the old BG/BG2/NWN crowd will probably buy ME/DA anyway, but the newer crowd raised on DA and ME probably won't buy BG. So its not that the BG crowd is being dismissed, it's just being taken advantage of a bit.

 

This is a hard distinction to make I think, because I am a part of the old BG/BG2/NWN crowd, and in some ways consider DAO and ME to superior to the old games. In short, I think that most of BioWare's games have been very well done. All the ones I have played (never played JE, SS, or Sonic) have given me many hours of enjoyment. It's probably not that easy to make a separation between BG fans that feel "taken advantage of" and those that still enjoy games like DA and ME for what they are.

 

Those that enjoyed BG for its open world exploration are certainly not finding as much in BioWare's latest games (heck, since BG2 even). Those that preferred the combat system have definitely been left wanting more since BG2. Those that enjoy the story and the characters will probably make up more of the people that enjoy the more recent games. Not all, mind you, because a lot of what people like about the stories and characters is very personal. I enjoyed BG, but BioWare had me hooked with BG2 as I loved the stories and characters in that game. Since then there have been some ups and down, though I think they've become too formulaic in their writing with their recent releases.

 

I actually don't know a whole lot of the actual story for DA2, but there have been some pleasant surprises and seeing some of the subtle nuances that exist in the conversation trees is almost bittersweet because I wonder how many people will actually notice it. At least there isn't some ancient evil

 

At least that I know of

 

 

 

EDIT:

Say Relic stopped making great RTS games and started making dating sims? Or Blizzard decided to make FPS games? Does it start making more sense now with regards to perspective?

 

Actually I think your hypotheticals help to obfuscate the issue rather than help it make sense. For example, you may not care for the party aspect and the characters that make up them up and their personal stories, but the fact is that those aspects have been a part of BioWare's games since the first Baldur's Gate. It is not as if BioWare now makes suddenly completely different games.

Edited December 20, 2010 by alanschu

[Monte Carlo]

^ To you maybe there are similar games, for me the differences are profound enough to make the comparisons valid.

 

Bio games are now FPS (ME) or console-action games with a novel bolted on.

 

BG / BG 2 and the Black Isle games are completely different.

[Maria Caliban]

It's the 20th, so the embargo has ended. Here's a 4-page write up by the Escapist and a German preview.

 

RPG France.

Edited December 20, 2010 by Maria Caliban

[Morgoth]

ActionTrip Hands-On

[entrerix]

Black Isle dying was infinitely worse than a trip down action-game lane by bioware. I thought Planescape Torment and Fallout 1/2 were miles better than the baldurs gate games (which I enjoyed a lot as well, just not on the same level), so maybe it's just that I never really expected great rpg's from bioware since they were always second best to begin with, thus the betrayal of the spirit of their best games doesn't seem like as big of a deal to me. I should probably just keep my mouth shut though, if baldurs gate was my favorite rpg i'd be pretty pissed too.

 

Also the Relic example works fairly well because I'm actually a little annoyed with relic because Dawn of War 2 kinda sucked. I've been aching for another homeworld game for years and they have been making junk lately, dawn of war 1 was average, company of heroes was better but not great (i know some people love this game, i think its only ok). but I no longer think of relic as a great developer, and no longer look to them for great rts games, i think they have the potential to make another great one, but its been so long I just don't get my hopes up for it.

 

I stopped being mad at bungie around the time halo 2 came out. I desperately wanted another Myth, and they made halo instead (which was like eating paint chips compared to half-life), but by the time halo 2 was released i had given up hope for another Myth in the foreseeable future.

 

obsidian on the other hand, after new vegas, my hopes are obscenely high for their next game, or at least the next game that sawyer is in charge of. But up until new vegas I just thought of obsidian as decent, but still under the shadow of black isle.

 

 

I'm just rambling, but my point I guess is this: If you have disliked every bioware game for the last ten years, then why the hell are you still caring? its been ten years, they probably don't even remember what a good rpg looks like, so stop expecting one from them, the next great crpg will be coming from a different company, not bioware.

 

as an aside:

bioware games ranked by fun according to this user:

 

1. Baldur's Gate 1

2. Baldur's Gate 2

3. Mass Effect 2

4. NWN Hordes of the Underdark

5. Dragon Age: Origins

6. KOTOR

7. Mass Effect

8. Jade Empire

 

last note: the UI for dragon age 2 is TERRIBLE. They need to postpone this game 6 months and get their **** straight. I have seen not a single good piece of news about the sequel and it comes out in two months.

 

edit: crap while i wrote all that some previews came out, lemme read them and see if i change my mind about that last note...

 

edit 2: ok i found some stuff i like, the stats now clearly indicated what the derived bonus' are, and the skill trees look better designed/thought out.

Edited December 20, 2010 by entrerix