Nomen Mendax wrote...
I don't think you are being fair even though I much preferred DAO and would also prefer a silent protagonist.
I don't know any company that is going to come out and say that they made a bad product (unless it kills some people, and maybe not even then), particularly when you are talking about something as subjective as a game. Various Bioware representatives have admitted there were flaws with DA2, but I don't think they are going to come out and say that the game itself was awful.
There are definitely people who preferred DA2 to DAO, and who prefer its art style and faster paced combat (I'm not one of them), so for them DA2 is a better game than DAO. There are also a lot people who would prefer a voiced PC. And maybe you are right and they want to start making games that are more cinematic, and have less choices and are less deep in terms of role-playing. If so then I'd say that's more our problem than Bioware's.
...and...
Emzamination wrote...
Word of David
There's a difference between "entitlement" and being miffed because a game isn't even sticking to it's original source material and style and getting pretty much rebooted and retooled for the sake of mass appeal and broadening the audience. DA2 was largely disappointing because it seemed to spit on everything the original Dragon Age was supposed to be and the very core reasons why it was made.
The Dragon Age IP was created to be an epic fantasy RPG with deep, tactical gameplay, a return to BioWare's roots, a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate with the PC as the lead (and, for the longest time,
only) platform.
Dragon Age 2 was not only none of these things, but it seemed to directly go out of its way to contradict these factors utterly with wilful intent on the part of the developers to do so. It wasn't epic, it was short and rushed and lacking in scope or the ability for players to even choose multiple races, let alone have their character not be Hawke. It didn't have deep, tactical gameplay, it was basically a button-masher hask'n'slash affair that put style over substance with repeatedly magical-spawning enemies. It was not a return to BioWare's roots, nor a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, instead going to a distinctly modern action-based approach, and the consoles were the lead platform over the PC.
So, no... disgruntled RPG fans who liked Origins aren't "entitled" at all. They just wanted BioWare to stuck to their roots and make Dragon Age consistent and be what it was originally supposed to be, instead of retooling it for the sake of pandering to the mainstream masses. Again, BioWare's problem lately is they are too concerned about trying to grab as many people as possible and they don't care that they are dumbing down and gutting their existing IPs to do it, just so they can maybe bring in Biff Jockson the CoD player who finds RPGs too long and talky and complex.
BioWare don't seem to either realise or care that they can't do this without making their games so shallow and simple that it ends up alienating and annoying the hardcore RPG crowd. They're basically trying to go for the same thing as the likes of Assassin's Creed, Uncharted and Batman AA/AC, i.e. the story driven action game, but it's not going to work for them because they're coming at it from the wrong side and doing it for the wrong reasons. Adding depth to the action genre makes sense and works, and that's where those above titles were born from. BioWare is instead removing depth and player agency from their RPGs and watering them down to try and make the same things, which is annoying those of us who like those factors.
It wouldn't be so bad if they were doing it with new IPs, or even spin-off titles, but they aren't... they're doing it by ruining their existing material and warping it into something it was never originally supposed to be. DA2 reminds me of what Sauron and Saruman were doing to create Orcs and Uruk-hai and the other fell beasts of Mordor and Isengard: corrupting it for the sake of their cause.
And nothing has changed. Them saying that DA3 is going to try and find a middle-ground between Origins and DA2 just proves this. They're still trying to please too many and broaden their appeal, and still just trying to find that perfect balance that doesn't really exist between the hardcore RPG fan and the casual, mainstream gamer who usually only players shooters. They're just going to spit out another half-assed, half-cast mongrel game that pleases some in the middle, but is still too complex for the casual gamer and still too watered down and shallow for the hardcore RPG fan. That's what happens when your games are no longer made with love and care, but are instead nothing but a cold, mechanical construct engineered to try and be that "perfect" blend of ultimate mass appeal.
They also prize cinematic flow and the cinematic direction they've taken over the years far too much. It was a necessary step to take at first, and the correct one too, but like anything it can be taken too far. BioWare's more recent entries have already begun to step on the toes of player agency and customisation for the sake of cinematic design, but they don't seem to acknowledge the fact that it's gone too far. Players are becoming more restricted and having control and even their characters taken from them for the sake of a factor that has become far more dominant that it should be. Cinematics should be used to enhance the gameplay and game, not control it and dominate it.
This is why the AAA releases these days are largely all the same, brown mush. Everybody wants the same audience, and everybody is making the same types of games. There are differences on the surface, maybe, but what we have today is basically a AAA line-up consisting of Shooters, Story-driven action games, and Story-driven action shooters. The pure class genre is slowly dying.
Newsflash BioWare (and admittedly, the gaming industry as a whole): Different people like to play different things! Cinematic action games aren't inherently bad, but one gets bored of them when there's little else on the table. And Dragon Age was
supposed to be an RPG. I like chocolate, but I don't want every damn meal I have to be chocolate or some kind of chocolate product.
The main basic issue is this: BioWare basically pulled the rug out from under the feet of DAO fans. You can't spend years setting up this new IP that's supposed to herald the dawn of a new age of proper, epic fantasy RPGs and then immediately pull a 180 on all of that with the first sequel only about a year after the original came out.
franka_h wrote...
And, I have to agree with TelvanniWarlord, why is everybody so bent out of shape about a dialogue wheel?
It provides far more limited choices and categorises them into set types (i.e. moods or intents) too often compared to a list format. It also restricts the amount of a choice that can be displayed, meaning it's often merely paraphrased or in some cases (like Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex: HR) no more than one of those previous set types I was talking about. They're basically set up for voiced protagonists, and you're given far less choices and far less likely to get unique, skill-based dialogue with one.
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