We need a bunch of non-backers buying this

[Valmy]

Ooooo-kay then. Well I will try my utmost to remain a Bioware fanboi while also enjoying PoE. I'm hoping no one stabs me for divided loyalties or some such.

 

Again don't worry plenty of Bio fans still here.

[soedenone]

 

 

 

Bioware gets a lot of flack on these forums don't they?

 

They certainly have their fans still but yeah, they moved on from us hardcore RPG fans and we feel sad.

 

That's no joke. Bioware was literally my very favorite game company; they made my favorite games. I loved everything they did--it was like a treasure trove of awesome every time they made a game.

 

Until EAl. When EA ripped out everything decent in Bioware and left a soulless husk, it felt like a direct betrayal.

 

 

I loved the "Dragon Age and Mass Effect will remain separate franchises aimed at different people, don't worry"-pitch.

 

Hahahahaha, oh wow. And then there was EA, ME2, and DA2.

 

There's a reason I got banned there and was locked out of all my EA content I had (DA:O CE, ME2 CE, and all the DLC at the time).

 

What? That doesn't sound very legal.

 

But yeah, Bioware is like an old infected wound that refuses to heal. Just when you think "Oh, finally it will heal and everything will go back to normal" you realise it's still infected, it was just trying to cheat you; trying to assimilate you into the infection and have you become part of the virus.

 

My heart aches.

[Fredward]

 

Ooooo-kay then. Well I will try my utmost to remain a Bioware fanboi while also enjoying PoE. I'm hoping no one stabs me for divided loyalties or some such.

 

Again don't worry plenty of Bio fans still here.

 

 

And by the look of it a lot of bitterness and resentment. ~shrug~ It's good to have a balanced view of these things.

[vril]

PoE will not sell 1.5 million copies like BG2 did. But if will have just at least 500 k copies sold like Divinity: Original Sin had, it will be a win.

 

The only thing worrying about this is, D:OS, if I recall correctly was the top seller on Steam for about a month, and stayed on the top 10 a lot longer.  Even for pre-orders, PoEt has not hit the top 10 yet.

[Katarack21]

It also hasn't been pushed on the featured list like D:OS was, at least not that I've seen.

[Zwiebelchen]

In regards to "post EA bioware releases": Dragon Age: Inquisition is not a bad game. It's just casual and too short.

Mass Effect 3 wasn't a bad game either. In fact, ME3 was a masterpiece if we ignore the ending. And come on, judging a game only for it's ending is just ... wrong. And we know that.

People didn't rate Breaking Bad as a masterpiece just because it didn't have the disappointing series finale we almost expect nowadays.

[Katarack21]

Sure. If you like sitting and watching a movie and hitting buttons every once in a while.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Katarack21

[barakav]

Sure. If you like sitting and watching a movie and hitting buttons every once in a while.

A cRPG elitist here...

 

Mass effects' story was great (Star control 3 FTW) ,the universe and species were interesting ,the character interactions were interesting and the gameplay was fun and dynamic and it had a great multiplayer. I agree that It is a masterpiece.

 

The fact that players got so attached to the story that they became nuts by its' ending just shows how good it was. KOTOR 2 for example had a relatively weak ending and I didn't see fans trying to sue Obsidian for that..

Edited March 23, 2015 by barakav

[Valmy]

Mass Effect was great for what it was. But it was not for me. I played the first one and the second one and knew it was going in a direction I didn't like. ME2 and Dragon Age Origins Awakenings are the last two Bioware games I plan on ever playing. Now that is not say that...wait did you just say Star Control 3 FTW? Oh dear God.

[barakav]

Well it was a very bad game by itself but the main plot was copied directly into Mass Effect and somehow became amazing...

Edited March 23, 2015 by barakav

[Valmy]

Well it was a very bad game by itself but the main plot was copied directly into Mass Effect and somehow became amazing...

 

It was one of those plots that was awesome until they revealed more about it, then it just kept getting dumber. But that is true for a lot of plots.

 

And I am referring to both ME and SC3 here.

[Katarack21]

 

Sure. If you like sitting and watching a movie and hitting buttons every once in a while.

A cRPG elitist here...

 

Mass effects' story was great (Star control 3 FTW) ,the universe and species were interesting ,the character interactions were interesting

 

This is true. I enjoyed the HELL out of ME. ME2, I enjoyed much less. ME3 I hated. A lot. It's not because I'm some kind of elitist; it's because the game became much more linear and limited, and at the same time the "cinematic" quality became much more pronounced. It became less and less of a game and more and more of an interactive movie, and this was intentional, and I didn't like it.

[Sky_walker]

Is this topic still "We need a bunch of non-backers buying this" or suddenly migrated into "Oh my god I love ME3" / "Oh my god I hate ME3"?

[SKull]

I`ve bought it without being a backer and so will two other people I know. And if the game is good and bug free it will sell a lot more. There`s a long neglected market for in depth CRPGs and they don`t even have to be all that original. A lot of people miss the infinity games. The only problem I can see with PoE is that it`s not being marketed as heavily as it could be so many people might miss it. But they will buy it in a trickle over the next few years as they find out about the game I am sure.

[Eurhetemec]

 

 

Sure. If you like sitting and watching a movie and hitting buttons every once in a while.

A cRPG elitist here...

 

Mass effects' story was great (Star control 3 FTW) ,the universe and species were interesting ,the character interactions were interesting

 

This is true. I enjoyed the HELL out of ME. ME2, I enjoyed much less. ME3 I hated. A lot. It's not because I'm some kind of elitist; it's because the game became much more linear and limited, and at the same time the "cinematic" quality became much more pronounced. It became less and less of a game and more and more of an interactive movie, and this was intentional, and I didn't like it.

 

 

That's not true. I've logged hundreds of hours on all three games (ME2 is the best, for my money, ME3 by far the worst if we ignore multiplayer), and ME1 is not "more of a game" than ME2. That's just completely unjustifiable.

 

The idea that even ME3 is an "interactive movie" is beyond a joke, frankly. It's far more of a game, with far more important choices than many well-regarded CRPGs.

[Eurhetemec]

Is this topic still "We need a bunch of non-backers buying this" or suddenly migrated into "Oh my god I love ME3" / "Oh my god I hate ME3"?

 

They kind of relate. Selling to non-backers means having a broader appeal (which means including features like companion AI, currently absent), but the sort of people who loathe ME3 tend to sneer at that.

[Katarack21]

 

 

 

Sure. If you like sitting and watching a movie and hitting buttons every once in a while.

A cRPG elitist here...

 

Mass effects' story was great (Star control 3 FTW) ,the universe and species were interesting ,the character interactions were interesting

 

This is true. I enjoyed the HELL out of ME. ME2, I enjoyed much less. ME3 I hated. A lot. It's not because I'm some kind of elitist; it's because the game became much more linear and limited, and at the same time the "cinematic" quality became much more pronounced. It became less and less of a game and more and more of an interactive movie, and this was intentional, and I didn't like it.

 

 

That's not true. I've logged hundreds of hours on all three games (ME2 is the best, for my money, ME3 by far the worst if we ignore multiplayer), and ME1 is not "more of a game" than ME2. That's just completely unjustifiable.

 

The idea that even ME3 is an "interactive movie" is beyond a joke, frankly. It's far more of a game, with far more important choices than many well-regarded CRPGs.

 

Yeah, okay. I'm done here. If you can't see the very blatant fact that ME2 and ME3 are much lighter on the RPG side of things and much more cinematically influenced than ME1--which is a well known fact and something that was commonly complained about when ME2 came out--then you are just deliberately blind and I can't help you.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Katarack21

[Sky_walker]

 

Is this topic still "We need a bunch of non-backers buying this" or suddenly migrated into "Oh my god I love ME3" / "Oh my god I hate ME3"?

 

They kind of relate. Selling to non-backers means having a broader appeal (which means including features like companion AI, currently absent), but the sort of people who loathe ME3 tend to sneer at that.

 

All I can see is people insulting eachother and arguing whatever one ME-series game is better or the other one. None of which is related to PoE sales nor said in a context of PoE sales.

[Valmy]

Is this topic still "We need a bunch of non-backers buying this" or suddenly migrated into "Oh my god I love ME3" / "Oh my god I hate ME3"?

 

Sorry. Somebody lit up the Bioware-signal.

[Zwiebelchen]

 

This is true. I enjoyed the HELL out of ME. ME2, I enjoyed much less. ME3 I hated. A lot. It's not because I'm some kind of elitist; it's because the game became much more linear and limited, and at the same time the "cinematic" quality became much more pronounced. It became less and less of a game and more and more of an interactive movie, and this was intentional, and I didn't like it.

 

... then again, everyone knew that before buying the game. If you don't like cinematics, just stay away from such games. Tbh, I don't understand all the hate here for modern triple-A standards. The cinematics of ME3 were awesome and the choices presented in those were equally awesome aswell (if we exclude the terrible ending). In fact, at several points of the game, I was like "whoa... I just can't decide on that now." and shut the game down to get time to think it through. I never had that feeling in any CRPG I remember yet. Even the glorified Fallout 1 and 2 or Planescape: Torment didn't have such a moment for me.

 

And if you really feel that an RPG game is all about mechanics and not writing, story or decisionmaking, then I have nothing to say to you.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Luckmann]

What? That doesn't sound very legal.

 

But yeah, Bioware is like an old infected wound that refuses to heal. Just when you think "Oh, finally it will heal and everything will go back to normal" you realise it's still infected, it was just trying to cheat you; trying to assimilate you into the infection and have you become part of the virus.

 

My heart aches.

I don't think I've ever had it described quite that well and fitting before.

 

But yeah, the legality aspect is all kinds of dodgy, but I didn't really have anyone to argue with. I could've reported them somewhere but honestly, it wouldn't have done jack **** in the long run.

 

A cRPG elitist here...

 

Mass effects' story was great (Star control 3 FTW) ,the universe and species were interesting ,the character interactions were interesting and the gameplay was fun and dynamic and it had a great multiplayer. I agree that It is a masterpiece.

 

The fact that players got so attached to the story that they became nuts by its' ending just shows how good it was. KOTOR 2 for example had a relatively weak ending and I didn't see fans trying to sue Obsidian for that..

If you call the KotOR2 ending "relatively weak", that just highlights the level of "quality" you're talking about here. The KotOR2 ending was an unfinished travesty. KotOR2 had other qualities, but the fact that it was so blatantly unfinished is the sole reason it's not the greatest thing since baked bread.

[Sky_walker]

I`ve bought it without being a backer and so will two other people I know. And if the game is good and bug free it will sell a lot more. There`s a long neglected market for in depth CRPGs and they don`t even have to be all that original. A lot of people miss the infinity games. The only problem I can see with PoE is that it`s not being marketed as heavily as it could be so many people might miss it. But they will buy it in a trickle over the next few years as they find out about the game I am sure.

I don't know about the game being bug-free. I'm afriad it will repeat the mistakes of SW:TOR - at the release every single bit of end-game content was bugged because public tests never allowed people to get into these stages of a game. PoE does something similar - allowing people to access only tiny bit of a game more to test the gameplay and generic mechanics than testing... you know... the game itself. It obviously got a huge disadvantages, such as that we don't have any sagnificant spoilers, but it also can cause tons of problems with bugs in the storyline and quests.

 

The other thing is that the majority of gamers these days nver touched any of the Infinity Engine games and those that did and really missed them - most likely already backed either PE or T:ToN, so they're out of the scope for this discoussion ("bunch of non-backers buying this"). The fact that this game is in many ways made to be user-unfriendly doesn't really help, and for that one we can blame the community that's criticising almost every poster suggesting improvements to the GUI or dismissing them as trying to "consolize" / "dumb down" the game, which is a total and utter nonsense.

 

But yea, lack of marketing is rather disturbing. I recall Wasteland 2 got far more active advertisnment campagin and promotion from magazines to various gaming-related websites. Meanwhile we have a release this week and I haven't seen anything mentioning PoE in any of the gaming-releated sites that I read.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Divinity Original Sin had a similar underwhelming campagin before the release? If so then this gives some hope for the future of PoE

Edited March 23, 2015 by Sky_walker

[LeBurns]

Well they could have added romances to get more sales.  That's about the only reason I'm waiting on this one and didn't pre-order.  Not so much that I have to have romances, it's their reasons for not having it that make me hesitate.  If they don't want to be bothered with having to be creative and write a romance, what chance is there that they put much effort into the NPC's at all.  That kind of pulled the game way back for me.  The NPC's are one of my favorite parts of BG and similar games.

[Valmy]

 

I don't know about the game being bug-free. I'm afriad it will repeat the mistakes of SW:TOR - at the release every single bit of end-game content was bugged because public tests never allowed people to get into these stages of a game. PoE does something similar - allowing people to access only tiny bit of a game more to test the gameplay and generic mechanics than testing... you know... the game itself. It obviously got a huge disadvantages, such as that we don't have any sagnificant spoilers, but it also can cause tons of problems with bugs in the storyline and quests.

 

 

SW:TOR was a MMO so we are talking orders of magnitude greater amounts of content and variables. I don't think much can be directly mapped between the two genres.

 

As for the marketing stuff well they are getting stuff out there to all the game bloggers...er...I mean press and various internet gaming personalities. Paradox is not going to be able to do things like take out TV ads and that sort of thing so that will have to do.

[Katarack21]

 

 

This is true. I enjoyed the HELL out of ME. ME2, I enjoyed much less. ME3 I hated. A lot. It's not because I'm some kind of elitist; it's because the game became much more linear and limited, and at the same time the "cinematic" quality became much more pronounced. It became less and less of a game and more and more of an interactive movie, and this was intentional, and I didn't like it.

 

... then again, everyone knew that before buying the game. If you don't like cinematics, just stay away from such games. Tbh, I don't understand all the hate here for modern triple-A standards. The cinematics of ME3 were awesome and the choices presented in those were equally awesome aswell (if we exclude the terrible ending). In fact, at several points of the game, I was like "whoa... I just can't decide on that now." and shut the game down to get time to think it through. I never had that feeling in any CRPG I remember yet. Even the glorified Fallout 1 and 2 or Planescape: Torment didn't have such a moment for me.

 

And if you really feel that an RPG game is all about mechanics and not writing, story or decisionmaking, then I have nothing to say to you.

 

No, an RPG is about choice, interactivity, consequences, writing, story, characters, non-linear gameplay, and a set of mechanics. All of these things are necessary to make an RPG; miss out on one of them and you end up with a game that has RPG attributes. ME3 is a little more of an RPG than, say, Bioshock--but not by a whole lot. It is significantly less of an RPG than System Shock or System Shock 2, to provide other examples. What ME2 really is is a third-person shooter with significant RPG elements.