Il Divo wrote...
Rockworm503 wrote...
Its funny how many people just flat out missed the point of the OP and then drove that point home with more entitlement issues.
I Bought Neverwinter Nights when it was new my opinion means more than the guy who started playing Dragon Age but I sure as hell can't beat that dude who played Baldur's Gate (<<of course their egos are too big to accept anything else anyway)
Definitely a problem. You get people all over the spectrum who consider themselves "original fans". What happens if someone liked Red Steel, but nothing else? What if someone liked everything up until Dragon Age 2? What if someone hated Baldur's Gate 1, but loved the sequel + Throne of Bhaal? What if someone hates VA or loves it? It's really all over the place. I'd rather dispense with that kind of thinking.
I personally began with KotOR, made my way through each successive game up until ME2, before returning to play Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. They weren't terrible, but there were alot of designs that I would not want Bioware to ever consider returning to, original fan or not.
For me, personally, as much as I rag on BioWare for their more action-oriented approach lately and that since EA took over their games seem to be heading more towards the mainstream CoD audience than the RPG nerds, it's not so much about the fact that they're doing this as much as the way they're going about it.
My main issue isn't so much that their RPGs are getting more watered down, but that they're doing it to their existing IPs that started off as being a little deeper and stronger in their RPG elements and turning them more into action games bu dumbing them down and oversimplifying. That's why I'm fine with Jade Empire and can enjoy it despite it being technically BioWare's shallowest and "least RPG" title in recent years, but Dragon Age 2 feels like a betrayal and massive FUBAR because of what the original was. Had DA2 been a spin-off in the vein of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance rather than a direct follow-up then it wouldn't have been as much an issue, but it wasn't. That was clearly where BioWare wanted to take the series now, and it seemed like a massive middle-finger to the original fans who got into Dragon Age: Origins largely because it was supposed to be the "spritual successor to Baldur's Gate", a proper PC RPG and proper fantasy RPG, et al.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if BioWare wants to start making story-driven action games then fine... all power to them. They can go ahead and do that, I have no major issues with the basic notion and priciple of that. But they should do so via independent IPs designed to be that way from the beginning, and not go alienating a good portion of their established RPG fanbase ("original" or not) by futzing with their current IPs that are designed to be RPGs and turning them into something else and warping them for the sake of mass appeal. I'd rather BioWare actually make a CoD or Uncharted clone or some other action game as their next major IP if it means they start making proper RPGs again as well. They have enough studios and resources these days that they should be able to make multiple types of games for different people.
The problem is at the moment their watering down their RPG titles so spread them as far as they can across as many gamers as they can, and its resulting in a very weaksauce RPG experience, as well as many RPG fans being annoyed by more mainstream, action-game mechanics and factors that they don't want in their RPGs as well. Rather than try and keep making these hybrid, in-between games that marry genres, they should just make RPGs for RPG fans and action games for action game fans, and then perhaps something that also has a bit of both for good measure. Mass Effect was always kind of like this and that's fine, but Dragon Age was never intended to be a half-assed, inbetween Action-RPG: it was supposed to be a proper RPG.
I remember a BioWare employee a few years back responding to criticism against ME2's more action-oriented approach and basically saying, "we're expanding our audience to get people who normally wouldn't play RPGs, and perhaps ME2 can help wean them onto something more hardcore like Dragon Age." Now all I can think is, "that's all very well, but you're no longer even
making hardcore RPGs anymore. You're just drifting towards making story-driven action games like everybody else."
And overall that's kind of my issue: stagnation. Most AAA titles these days are basically the same thing: a story-driven, semi-cinematic action game with light RPG elements. That's not automatically a bad thing, but it's leading to few few games that are actually well-defined and have their own genres anymore. BioWare seem to just be approaching the same target as everybody else, merely from the other side. While the likes of Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Batman AA and AC, etc. come from the evolution of action games that over the years have become more complex and added more customisation and RPG-esque skill progression, etc. along with a stronger focus on story and cutscenes, BioWare's games are cutting back on the RPG and going more for the action aspects.
I personally played BioWare games and got into them because they were great experiences I could lose myself in and were a lot different than other games. They seemed to put story, character, presentation and customisation ahead of raw gameplay, and the raw gameplay made you at least have to think about more than just "who do I kill next?" Nowadays BioWare games just feel like other games, and are less an experience and more just one of the crowd. I remember Christina Norman said while making ME2 they thought less about concerning theirselves with labels such as "RPG" and "Shooter" and just concentrated on making a great game. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Mass Effect 2 became to me that the original didn't feel like: a game.
And that's my overall issue: BioWare games used to be an experience. Now they're just games. Just like the products of UbiSoft, Activision and the rest of EA, and almost everybody else.
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