[quote]TonyTheBossDanza123 wrote...
I want to address two things in this post.
1. In regards to the "Stale" review comments, I don't see how this is an issue. Now, don't misunderstand, I am a huge proponent of innovation in the gaming genre, but DAO was anything but stale. In any other medium it would be called "Retro", a revitalization of old school. DAO came out at a time, which still exists, when the BG style of RPG is so old it's "new". I for one, and I'd wager many people agree, consider DA2 to be "Staler" than DAO.[/quote]
I wouldn't confuse under-exposed to being retro. It may seem to you like it's "so old it's new," but console players haven't been exposed to BW's style nearly as much as PC gamers. BioWare has made the same style of game for over a decade, and it would behoove them to find things to do besides their current style - hence the ME Universe, which is also massively popular.
[quote]It's also worth noting that the "Freshness" of games isn't so vast that it warrants the overhaul that DA2 recieved, especially not after one installment.[/quote]
This is just your opinion, even if others have it as well.
If you can find me a few reviews on gaming sites that say the visual and mechanical overhaul DA2 received wasn't an improvement, I will bake you a few cookies. So far, even sites which gave the game low scores, still praised the visual and mechanical overhaul.
[quote]We're many entries into the "Zelda" series, and reviewers are just now beginning to critique it for being "Stale", and even that is outweighed by it's polish. The key to avoding "Staleness" is to refine, not to reimagine. The second part of that is to balance your release schedule. Distance only makes the heart grow fonder, which is another reason why many companies spread their entries in series apart.[/quote]
The Zelda series has been called stale for a while, depending on which reviewers you follow. Staleness can be overcome by "refining" (making small changes), but eventually lots of small changes add up to one big change ("reimagining").
While I'll generally agree that more time usually results in more quality, the release schedule is not dictated by intent, but by financial restraints. Very, very few companies can afford to take as much time as they want on games. In fact, out of the dozens of developers, those which are financially secure enough to be able to make AAA titles on their own time could fit on one hand.
BioWare is not one of them, mostly due to the fact that they haven't diversified at all until ME came along.
[quote]2. The second thing I want to address is your statement that critique is unwarranted unless you've played the game. That is not true.While I'd agree that the critique of someone who did play the game is more valid than that of someone who hasn't...[/quote]
If you haven't played the game you can only critique things second-hand (save the visuals). Second-hand critiques aren't simply less valid, they are invalid. They are not based on any sort of reality, but pure speculation.
If you could explain to me how an invalid critique is warranted, please do so.
[quote]...you can't bank on that pre release of a product. The opinions formed prior to the games release are a large, if not the largest, influence on sales, and this shows with DA2.[/quote]
Yes, that would be why marketing plays a huge role.
However, that still doesn't make a second-hand critique valid. Just because you have assumptions about what the game is going to be doesn't mean those assumptions are true, and it doesn't mean your critique of a game is any more valid than my critique on movies which I've only seen the trailers for.
It's just chance that some assumptions are correct while others aren't, and just because the assumptions are verified post-release doesn't make them valid before the product was released.
Also, I have already seen numerous posts about people who didn't like the character design, didn't like the language the developers were using to describe DA2, didn't like the screenshots, didn't like the demo, and still bought the game. Then they come onto the forums saying that they didn't like what they thought they wouldn't like.
That is not a fault of BioWare, that is a fault of the buyer. If you assume you won't like something, don't buy it and then complain you don't like it. Wait until someone you know and trust provides incentive to make the purchase. Too many people see BioWare as this trustworthy grognard of the RPG genre, and it's entirely artificial.
[quote]In an entertainment medium, the opinions of your internals are unimporant when compared to the opinions of your consumers, if you want to succeed.[/quote]
The majority of your consumers, yes. These forums do not represent anything near the majority. We know DA2 has shipped at least 2,000,000 copies. I doubt the forum population exceeds 20,000 - or 10% of the total. Given that even forumits are disagreeing - and you often see the same dozen or so people running through every thread, disseminating their opinion as much as they can - it's difficult to ascertain whether or not negative reviews (or positive) make up a majority of the consumers from where we're standing.
This is why BioWare's internal metrics are important. They're able to show how many people are playing the game on a daily basis, how many finish, how many finish more than once, and have those numbers to compare to DA:O. If they fall short, then it becomes an internal decision to sift through the opinions of their customers to figure out why and what can be done about it.
[quote]I'm not so cynical as to think that Bioware was lying to us for the last year, that their testers gave them negative feedback and they ignored it, forcing the product out and betting it all on sales based on the names "Dragon Age" and "Bioware".[/quote]
You should be. BioWare is a company, not a person. True, people work for BioWare, but the respect that BioWare's individuals have for the genre are eclipsed by the desire to stay financially sound.
[quote]I think it's much more likely that they're testers, and the developers, legitimately thought, and perhaps think, that DA2 is the better product, and the consumers and reviewers disagreed.[/quote]
I would disagree with you. I'd bet you a year's worth of homemade bread that they would've loved to put more maps, more locations, more characters, more nuances, and a thousand other things in - but were limited to focusing on a few things they tried very hard to do well and worked as hard on the rest as they could.
To that, I haven't seen a profession review yet (again, even if the score was sub-par) that didn't like the way the combat worked and the new visual style.
[quote]The issue at hand is that we, forumites, voiced our concerns to them before hand, months beforehand, and we were told that we were wrong.[/quote]
And for all you know you could have been. If DA2 had outsold DA:O you would be "wrong."
Take the recent Doomsday cult. They have as much (if not more) material to work from than your assumptions about DA2 prior to its release. From that material they extrapolated conditions based on assumptions devised from prior experiences. The rhetorical difference between the forumites that voiced certain concerns and the Doomsday cult is that your rapture came to pass and theirs didn't.
[quote]We were told on multiple occaisions that either "DA2 wasn't the game for us"...[/quote]
Wait, what... Seriously? So you were told by the company making it that DA2 wasn't the game for you and still have the gall to berate BioWare because you didn't like it?
No offense, but if that's true - that is seriously messed up.
[quote]...that "We misconcieved the direction the game was heading", or that "It was better off this way, trust us (Bioware)". [/quote]
Well, both of those are pretty stereotypical marketing jargon. I don't see why they should have any more meaning coming from BioWare than any other developer, unless you make the mistake of thinking BioWare's actions are dictated by quality instead of economy.
To me those might as well be "Action-packed thrill ride!" on movie posters and "Four Stars!" without a reference; practically meaningless.
[quote]This was told to us in posts that reeked of arrogance, as if the
developers at Bioware had grown fat on their fans fervor for previous
products.[/quote]
So why did you buy it?
So far the picture you have painted of the "Concerned Fan" is someone who didn't like the direction of the game, didn't like the arrogant/insulting attitude of BioWare, didn't like the previews, didn't like (or didn't play) the Demo, was told by BioWare themselves that the game wasn't for them, and still bought the game anyways. The proceeded to say that they didn't like it.
This just blows my mind... This is not the attitude of a mature adult, people! This is like something my 8yr old brother would pull.
[quote]In the end, as we know, it backfired. Fears and complaints were realized when the game was released, and Bioware paid the price in lesser sales and a severe loss of respect among the gaming community.
[/quote]
Why do you care? You just got through saying that fat, money-grubbing BioWare execs lied to you over and over again while refusing to listen to your criticisms.
Unless you're simply here for cathartic release, some weird desire to rub BioWare's nose in what you perceive as their own filth, you should be buying from other companies that make games you do enjoy and whose business practicies you're fine with.
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