I know you don't want to hear it, but when Bioware was sold to EA, I
KNEW this was coming. Compare Ultima 7 and Ultima 8. It will tell you
ALL you need to know. It's not that EA is evil. Such would be childish
to assume. EA means mass market of the smallest common thing. EA means
endless copy cat series (FIFA) with minimal change and greatest possible
simplification.
The sheer number of creative small studios who
had been bought by EA and over a brief time crushed, is long and sad.
Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin and many others. The story was always the
same. A small studio, famous and respected for making very creative
games, not for a huge Wal-Mart mass market, but for demanding gamers,
then bought by EA, streamlined for mass market taste and ultimately made
superfluous.
Look at you, Bioware. Look how you changed.
Some time ago, when I heard the news Bioware was sold to EA, I was very
bitter and felt it was the end of an era. Then, for a while, I thought
there was hope, I thought EA had learned. Apparently my fears back then
were fully justified.
I am a Game Master for P&P games
for 27 years now. And let me tell you one thing, Bioware. A ROLEPLAYING
game, means that the people involved identify with a role. They want a
vast variety of races and classes, they want a huge plethora of skills
and talents to chose from. The more the better. There were days when
games like Wizardry or Might and Magic (the RPG) had 30 classes and 20
races to chose from. And then?
Then came VOICE OVER. Then came
streamlined story telling. It weren't huge steps in a single game. But
step by step, little by litte, what made a game a RPG was betrayed and
sacrificed on the altar of so called mass market. Now suddenly you speak
of aiming it for your target audience, Bioware. I tell you what. WE
used to be your target audience. WE roleplayers made you great. And now
that Darth EA is behind you, we no longer count. We are no longer enough
for you. We get the burning ring before us like some tamed animal and
we can jump at your whim. Take it or leave it. I am sorry, what you are
doing is wrong.
It is wrong because it leaves us behind who were
your fans for so many years. It is wrong because we made you what you
are and now suddenly we are neglectable and other people seem to be your
new target audience. It is wrong, because THAT target audience may be
more. But they are also fickle. They follow always the newst
shiny. Today it's you, tommorw who knows. Ask SOE about their NGE and
what they learned about leaving it's core audience behind. And this IS
some sort of NGE. Every single approach to ignore the complaints of the
core audience has, in the long run, proven to be a failure. Look at the
"Last Airbender" movie. It was the same argument: they thought to bring
something to a supposed broarder audience, and ignored to critique of
their core fanbase they paid the price for it.
Individuality
and choice from the beginning on, is one of the core features of a RPG.
And what we read sounds like an interactive movie. And already DA:O and
ME2 had gone in the wrong direction. Many old school roleplayers had
complained about WAY too many and way too long cinenatic scenes and
cinematic conversations. Thats not what makes a Roleplaying Game! And
in ME2 we had seen the choices even further limited, and essentially ME2
was mostly an interactive movie with shooter elements. It already was
no RPG. Now in Sci-Fi people may be more forgiving, especially when it
is a new unknown universe. But in fantasy, people EXPECT Elves, Dwarfs
and whatnot. They expect many choices and many egos they can play. They
don't expect an entirely premade character.
As nice as
Voiceover is, it also means the character is not me anymore. What did
the Avatar of Britannia, one of the most iconic heroes of gaming
say? Name, Job, Bye. He never said anything, because he WAS us. He was
the player. And nothing you can voiceover can be so personal as what you
imagine in your mind. What you set a characters name and voice, his
behavior and backstory, its no longer me. It's some stranger I follow
his doings over the shoulder, but I am no longer playing myself, and
THEN all those tough moral choices you add to your games mean null.
Bioware,
you are losing the path. I know you listen to the EA stockholders who
want profit. They want to sell millions of games, and they care less
about the small RPG fan community who made you great. I can't even say
it will be a financial failure if you follow this path. Heck, many
generic games sell in many millions. But for us, who love complex games,
who love to chose, who love to ROLEPLAY and not follow some premade
characters preset narrative story, for us it is a betrayal. Do it if you
think stocks are everything. But don't call it a roleplaying game and
know that you are leaving us behind. You are walking a path I as a
Roleplayer can not follow you.
Retour en haut
