I'm with you on the final fight. I know some people didn't like how it went, but I pretty much agree with your sentiments. As for the dev cycle, I'm fairly certain it's 24 months; DA2 was 18, or thereabouts. It was discernibly shorter, but how much that factored in I'm not sure. Not that I'm trying to excuse them either, of course.
I can also see Cassandra being a party member in 3.
Of Greek mythos?Originally Posted by The JG Man
Man, if Cassandra worked for Bioware three years ago, nobody would have believed her. "People will call one your writers a fat cunt and harass her at home because she likes writing more than gaming. People will want your writers to quit because they're 'trying to push a homosexual agenda.' People will all agree that every game you've made lately is shit, and will only differ with one another on when the turning point was. People will call the Federal Trade Commission on you because a game ending was lackluster, and demand not only refunds but apologies. And these people are your fans."
There is no doubt that DA2 got a whole metric ton of crap because it wasn't DA Origins part two. If you look past that fact and treat it as a game in it's own right there is a bit of enjoyment to be had with it. Nonetheless I still think it's a fairly poor game when ignoring the departure from Origins. You listed some of the main faults in the opening post and for me the repeated environments and poor combat system really sucked alot of my enjoyment out of the game. I didn't like the characters either (except Aveline) so this is probably why we have such differing opinions of the game. As Kadayi mentions, the final chapter of the game is poor, which when added to all of the other faults made me reach the point where I just wanted the game to end. This was a pretty big deal for me as I usually really love Bioware games.
part of the reaction against the game was a response to the overbearing & hyperbolic marketing of EA and the bullshit reviews their ad money bought. Lets pretend it's 2011 & you bought the game new for $60 (or the $120 CE) after reading GOTY type reviews from professional gaming journos who extolled the combat as being the best rpg combat ever and how it was so much better than the first one; with absolutely no hint of the glaring flaws, or how radically the game design had been changed from DAO. If you're like most people, just getting an average game for your money is going to make you feel disappointed, lied to, and maybe even angry.
It really is a terrible way to market products if a company wants to grow the market long term.
I want to call that hyperbolic, but it's just funny.
The only thing I cared about with all that was how shallow the homosexual romances were.
Just as shallow as the heterosexual ones, hahaha!
Seriously though, I think only the fans cared about where they thought the games turned sour. I wasn't really a Bioware fan, but wow okay I just looked up games I thought had been made by Bioware. Nope. All Obsidian. So I guess I thought Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age 1 were okay, and I never played KotOR.
Really had thought Storm of Zehir was made by them for some reason. I actually distracted myself so much with that I forgot where I was going with this all.
I won't admit that because it's not how I feel. As someone who hasn't played DA2 (bar the demo), I have absolutely zero investment in any character (even the returning ones), yet Aveline is the only character I'm interested in. At all. On any level.
Could be wrong, but Dragon Age: Origins was in development in some form for about five years, DA2 was 18-24 months.
In other words, she's more realistic than most BioWare characters.
It was written as a joke, but everything in it's true. Bioware fans hate Bioware almost as much as Star Wars fans hate George Lucas.
Nowt wrong with Aveline. I don't like this "quiet strength and resoluteness is boring" fad. Not everyone needs to be a broken emo.
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
Agreeing with that would be very unfair to everyone I know. Guess we hang out with different kinds of people. Anyway, she goes from bland to "oh come on" when she takes an interest in one of her guardsmen and starts making romantic approaches with the skill of an awkward teenager from a hollywood movie. She is different, I give you that, but so is a car without an engine.
This is so true. Entitlement is strong there.
Oh no she's not perfect what shall we do
Everyone loves Cartman, but he's nothing without the red-headed Kyle.
Exactly. Some of these party members aren't characters so much as caricatures. Personally I can't even look at Fenris without rolling my eyes.
Last edited by Drake Sigar; 02-04-2012 at 09:17 AM.
But surely you have to concede that Bioware are at least partly to blame for so many of their fans turning against them, or rather the relationship devolving into a love/hate dynamic? I also think it's a bit unfair to lump in the Hepler and homophobia bullshit with ligitimate criticisms like poor writing, rushed development etc... For me the Bioware name was practically sacrosanct until ME3. I skipped DAII because I heard about the recycled environments and other signs of rushing and didn't want to encourage what was obviously a too tight development time in future Bioware games, but I viewed DAII as an anomaly. But then came ME3, with the day 1 DLC, the cash shop multiplayer, the ending controversy - each of which has negatively affected my opinion of the company. Now as the ME3 ending mega-thread that's still raging shows, each of my complaints are subjective, debatable and certainly not shared by all. But it doesn't change the fact that Bioware's business and creative decisions have negatively coloured my view. If it was just me, then this wouldn't mean jack to anyone but me. But as you pointed out, this kind of sentiment is increasingly shared by a lot of Bioware fans. If it's happening on such a scale, then I feel the company's got a problem.
You can tell the dreadful nature of the Bioware fanbase by the sheer volume of fanfiction it spews out. Dragon Age fans are the worst for this.
The Bioware hate really gets in the way when you're trying to criticize them for something, too. Most of the Bioware hate is twaddle, so if you happen to be criticizing them for something you don't like (for instance, DA2) you get drowned out by the twaddle. It's hard being on the same side as idiots. Fortunately, as a Tory, I have plenty of experience of this situation.
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
It's interesting that DA2 really does feel rushed: repetitive environments, waves of identical enemies, no changes to the town over the years...
But on the other hand, so much time and effort was put into the characters, and how they interact with each other, and how they interact with each strand of the main plot. There's so much dialogue you won't pick up on in a single play-through, it's far, far cleverer than most Bioware titles in that way. And I kind of admire that they focused their energy, time and money into that, rather than combat and environments. Which they could have done fairly easily I imagine, and it wouldn't have got all the hate, it'd just be more DA:O but shorter.
That explanation doesn't make much sense, though, because if you have limited time, energy, and focus, it makes no sense to change all the game mechanics and encounter design.
Irrelevant on further examination of the rest of the thread.
Exactly. Change can be good, but largely if it ain't broke don't fix it, a mantra BioWare really don't have a grasp of. But what they tend to do is completely change things rather than fix them. ME1's inventory being a prime example.
@ Sirkicksalot
No the combat is bad. Objectively bad. It relies on respawning enemies, it's easily exploitable, completely unbalanced, it removes all tactics as enemies just appear behind you out of nowhere and the battles take place in recycled environments so you get to fight the same fights over and over and over.
"Future waves force you to adapt" would be true if it wasn't the exact wave again and again and after every battle *ding* health restored to maximum and you get more potions back than you used. Battling enemies you had no way of predicting who appear in midair is absolute bullshit.
Your praise centers entirely around cool down bars. I never thought I'd read people defending korean mmo combat in a single player game.
The combat is really really bad is what I'm saying.
@Deano2009
What are you talking about?
Firstly they took the time to make the combat system even worse and secondly the party members still have no real purpose to be there. Some just sort of tag along, so saying they took the time to intergrate the characters into the story is rubbish. Theres also the fact that the people who wrote the script are not the same people who designed the game so saying they took the time to do this instead of that is double rubbish.
Last edited by Bhazor; 02-04-2012 at 01:10 PM.
Something is not sacrosanct if it's not sacrosanct. So if you avoided DA2 because you heard things, it clearly was not sacrosanct, or even close. Yes I am going to nitpick your block of text.
For me, the "homophobia bullshit" was people getting too angry to point out the homosexual romances were as flat as to be carciatures- so really, not any different than the heterosexual ones. I know it's a race to call other people bigots first, but if you respond to people being dicks with "YOU MAD BECAUSE I HAVE A VAGINA" rather than having your PR department take over, then you've already lost. Throwing words at your accuser to up the ante of name calling is a fun game, but it's not one that anyone wins, besides perhaps the neutral spectators like myself.
Surely, the fans have the problem, whereas Bioware is the problem.
I really like the idea that the fans are just mad about the angry about the ending because it is an ending, though that's surely not the case. At least, not mostly.
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