19127 réponses à ce sujet

[JackPoint]

Oh i'll purchase ME4 when its in the bargain bin on steam or Origin, and in the mean time i will quietly laugh at those on the forums crying how they wasted $90 for a DAI copy n paste.

[Rizilliant]

The ONLY way i would purchase anytihng EA, is if its a used copy, and they get zero revenue.. Pirated.. or given as a gift... And more than 6months old, so that the beta testing pre orderers, and release days buyers have finished what should have been done 6-12months prior to release!

 

Anyone this day in age, who still thinks preordering from any company is a logical decision, is a fool... You are given them credit, before viewing their product.. And so many of these big names, deserve the exact opposite.. EA, Bioware, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Activision, Capcom, Blizzard, and im sure many, MANY others.. Theyve shown what their priorities are, and its not passion for videogames, nor their customer!

[chrstnmonks]

I think the main reason why people feel this way, I know I do, is because of the change of personnel in the company.  I think the only people that are left at Bioware from before the merger with EA is only around a handful, and thats if you are including the writers as part of the dev team.  At least thats the predominant rumor.

 

The new people that came in have no experience on working in previous BW games before the merger (obviously, they weren't there to do so), and many of them are younger, of a new generation with different values in what they want to see in a game - this is also true of the current Bioware community of gamers as these forums demonstrate.  This covers everything from the types of characters and archetypes, to the very type of story they want to tell or experience.  Their first RPGs were not voiceless, long, story-driven epics that require a great deal of patience and investment for there to be an enormous payoff, like an involved novel; but instead stories that maintain a small, but constant rate of engagement.  

 

The tradeoff is that in the "new" attitude, the player won't get the feeling of a monumental buildup - they can't, they start in the action and are told to move forward, so there cant be an enormous payoff when its done.  The feeling of accomplishment is diminished.  Switching to hard mode is not the accomplishment I'm talking about.

 

What I miss in the old BW titles that is still there in the older games, that some other companies are trying to now seize on since BW has "moved on", is that epic narrative.  The western storytelling hero's journey is timeless, because its forumla is capable of adapting to any setting or situation.  You can present any theme or idea you want, and give it the time or pacing it needs to draw the audience to your side.  We are talking about major themes: the nature of life, the nature of death, the existence of God and the afterlife, the meaning of love, objective good, evil etc.  The old storytelling mechanisms allowed you to give adequate due, to those concepts.

 

Man, I miss dialogue trees... 

 

Bioware lost the majority of the "older gen" with the collapse of ME3.  Leaving those of us who still have/had hope that they will recover, amidst the "new" generation, who if the forums are any indication, favor "romance" and sex above all, followed by characters that they can empathize with on a personal level, followed by action, followed by story or grand themes...  This is personally what I find distasteful, because the new audience make it impossible for the writers to say, make a genuinely flawed character, because the new audience sees all characters in relation to themselves.  So if they view a character as "racist" or (insert "flaw" here), they want nothing to do with the character.  Otherwise, it would mean that they as a person, via self insertion, condoned or supported those feelings.

 

In that way, i feel sorry for Gaider and the writers, because if they make a deep character with flaws and reasoning to explore, that comes off as personally distasteful, the players will simply reject it.  So all characters need to be bland and lack real conviction.  The templar that loves the Maker and the Chantry, yet wont push you to believe if you *gasp* don't, and is supporting of everything even if it goes against them.  The Qun follower, that doesnt take it all that seriously, when his culture is deadly serious about it.  The racist, who is really not that racist at all, because he openly deals with the race he "hates".

 

When devs and writers create worlds or characters we may disagree with in the world, it actually allows us to learn something about ourselves, if we engage with them.  Assuming they aren't token strawmen attitudes, and theres nuance there.  Because thats how people are in reality.  But I digress...

 

Maybe you think this assessment is unfair, since the Dragon Age team is different from the Mass Effect team.  But they both represented Bioware equally.  People don't see the different teams, they see Bioware.  It pops up at the start of both of the games.

 

Is Bioware dead?  I think it is.  They have made it clear that they are able, and more than willing to indulge their new audience.  And frankly, its the direction Bioware has wanted to go for awhile now.  Remember what the doctors said before they left?  "EA just gave us enough rope to hang ourselves".  So this is it.  This is the kind of game they want to make.

 

Will I purchase another Bioware title?  Maybe, but it depends on reviews from reviewers I trust, that place narrative and story first.  Obviously, I won't pre-order anything.  Pre-ordering is for suckers, especially on the PC.

 

Edit:  Oh maker...  This was A LOT more written than I thought.

I agree with the majority of what you just said. But I would take it a step further in older games your reputatiion afffected more than just who would be your friend. If you done  things like murder a civilian on purpose or accidently it affected how you were viewed in the world. Random npcs attitudes would change based on those actions. Merchant prices where affected. Your reputation carried more weight. Being a thief and getting caught was acutally bad. Now it seems like it doesn't matter. 

[jcmuki]

isn't it strange how bioware devs only commicate on the forums when a patch is about to drop, and immediately afterwards complete silence accomplianed by something that takes thier attention

 

like:

Patch 2:  some communication on the forum, then next day patch releases, then zero commication again, then holiday break

Patch 3: some communcation on the forum, then next day patch releases, then zero communication again, now PAX south this week friday-sunday

 

i predict that Patch 4 will release around:

the last week of february or first week of march because march 2-6 is GDC and the 6-8 is PAX east

or

the second week of june because the week after that the 16-18 is E3

or

even further then that the first week of august cause the 5-9 is gamescom or the last week of that month cause 28-31 is PAX prime

 

cause it seem to follow bioware pattern for DAI patches releasing

[jcmuki]

 

I'm just tired, I do not want to know more about this game or Bioware in a long time.

 

Also I will not waste my time waiting for a patch, it was fun to follow this thread, but I will spend my time in more important things than a despicable company which do not care about their customers.

 

plus there many new games releasing soon, like Witcher 3, Arkham Knight, Pillar of Eternity from companies that care about their consumers

[Harbinger1975]

Spoiler

I think the main reason why people feel this way, I know I do, is because of the change of personnel in the company.  I think the only people that are left at Bioware from before the merger with EA is only around a handful, and thats if you are including the writers as part of the dev team.  At least thats the predominant rumor.

 

The new people that came in have no experience on working in previous BW games before the merger (obviously, they weren't there to do so), and many of them are younger, of a new generation with different values in what they want to see in a game - this is also true of the current Bioware community of gamers as these forums demonstrate.  This covers everything from the types of characters and archetypes, to the very type of story they want to tell or experience.  Their first RPGs were not voiceless, long, story-driven epics that require a great deal of patience and investment for there to be an enormous payoff, like an involved novel; but instead stories that maintain a small, but constant rate of engagement.  

 

The tradeoff is that in the "new" attitude, the player won't get the feeling of a monumental buildup - they can't, they start in the action and are told to move forward, so there cant be an enormous payoff when its done.  The feeling of accomplishment is diminished.  Switching to hard mode is not the accomplishment I'm talking about.

 

What I miss in the old BW titles that is still there in the older games, that some other companies are trying to now seize on since BW has "moved on", is that epic narrative.  The western storytelling hero's journey is timeless, because its forumla is capable of adapting to any setting or situation.  You can present any theme or idea you want, and give it the time or pacing it needs to draw the audience to your side.  We are talking about major themes: the nature of life, the nature of death, the existence of God and the afterlife, the meaning of love, objective good, evil etc.  The old storytelling mechanisms allowed you to give adequate due, to those concepts.

 

Man, I miss dialogue trees... 

 

Bioware lost the majority of the "older gen" with the collapse of ME3.  Leaving those of us who still have/had hope that they will recover, amidst the "new" generation, who if the forums are any indication, favor "romance" and sex above all, followed by characters that they can empathize with on a personal level, followed by action, followed by story or grand themes...  This is personally what I find distasteful, because the new audience make it impossible for the writers to say, make a genuinely flawed character, because the new audience sees all characters in relation to themselves.  So if they view a character as "racist" or (insert "flaw" here), they want nothing to do with the character.  Otherwise, it would mean that they as a person, via self insertion, condoned or supported those feelings.

 

In that way, i feel sorry for Gaider and the writers, because if they make a deep character with flaws and reasoning to explore, that comes off as personally distasteful, the players will simply reject it.  So all characters need to be bland and lack real conviction.  The templar that loves the Maker and the Chantry, yet wont push you to believe if you *gasp* don't, and is supporting of everything even if it goes against them.  The Qun follower, that doesnt take it all that seriously, when his culture is deadly serious about it.  The racist, who is really not that racist at all, because he openly deals with the race he "hates".

 

When devs and writers create worlds or characters we may disagree with in the world, it actually allows us to learn something about ourselves, if we engage with them.  Assuming they aren't token strawmen attitudes, and theres nuance there.  Because thats how people are in reality.  But I digress...

 

Maybe you think this assessment is unfair, since the Dragon Age team is different from the Mass Effect team.  But they both represented Bioware equally.  People don't see the different teams, they see Bioware.  It pops up at the start of both of the games.

 

Is Bioware dead?  I think it is.  They have made it clear that they are able, and more than willing to indulge their new audience.  And frankly, its the direction Bioware has wanted to go for awhile now.  Remember what the doctors said before they left?  "EA just gave us enough rope to hang ourselves".  So this is it.  This is the kind of game they want to make.

 

Will I purchase another Bioware title?  Maybe, but it depends on reviews from reviewers I trust, that place narrative and story first.  Obviously, I won't pre-order anything.  Pre-ordering is for suckers, especially on the PC.

 

Edit:  Oh maker...  This was A LOT more written than I thought.

 

Gundar, I agree with you on this.  But I will add just a little bit more to it.  While it is yes, a big reason why people say Bioware is dead, it's not the full reason.  The original Bioware cared about their customers.  They worked hard to make their games the best in the business by fixing things and often quickly.  The games were very playable at launch.  They remind me of early Blizzard Entertainment.  No game was released until it was VERY polished.  Not perfect.  Things cropped up.  And they acknowledged this.  But they were on it like white on rice.

 

Now?  Bioware...excuse me...EA has done what they did best.  Destroyed the franchise.  And I don't say that from a story perspective.  Or at least not only a story perspective.  They destroyed the franchise through lying, deception, money mongering and delivering half assed products.  Command And Conquer (the Tiberium Series).  The fourth game in that franchise?  Yeah, that got utterly mutilated by EA.  I knew someone that did work on that and EA basically said:  Do it this way and get it out the door.

 

I LOVED Command and Conquer.  Both versions.  i still have them on my Steam Library.  Play them when the mood strikes me.  HAIL KANE!  Err...ahem...sorry.

 

But don't think I don't agree with you Gundar.  I completely do.  There's just another aspect to it too.

[JackPoint]

Sure would be hilarious to see Pax Prime EAware stand get visited by an Occupy parade

[Peregrinus]

too tired to rage.. so 

[TobyJake]

All I can say is thank God for Nexus! DAI Modmanager crashed on patch 3. They fixed and upgraded it within 24 hours!

No PJ's in Skyhold! And other things!

Soon modders will drag this game out of Intensive Care, heart swap and running again.

Finished with BW, couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery.

[JackPoint]

 

 

Proof the cut scene fps command line doesn't work anymore, Top right corner, tried it with and without the com line additions since P3.

[Jackal19851111]

I ironically started posting on this forum (if you read my first posts) as a fanboy defending Bioware after seeing its user metacritic scores, but now they just keep giving me reasons after reasons not just to stop defending them, but boycotting them/EA completely.

 

I'll get my $90 worth through the very capable modders and then that's it. I despise EA after Westwood, with Bioware they still got my money however, I just told myself "FK EA, at least Bioware is still alive" and even with everything piling up with DAI PC, still giving Bioware the benefit of the doubt but then that Xbox exclusive article to hear the same BS I heard from Crystal Dynamics on TR being Xbox exclusive - lying to my face... forget it. I had enough.

[jcmuki]

The original Bioware cared about their customers.  They worked hard to make their games the best in the business by fixing things and often quickly.  The games were very playable at launch.  They remind me of early Blizzard Entertainment.  No game was released until it was VERY polished.  Not perfect.  Things cropped up.  And they acknowledged this.  But they were on it like white on rice.

 now it's more like polishing a turd, a shining golden turd

[Postem]

EA still polishing

 

[Ncongruous]

isn't it strange how bioware devs only commicate on the forums when a patch is about to drop, and immediately afterwards complete silence accomplianed by something that takes thier attention

like:
Patch 2: some communication on the forum, then next day patch releases, then zero commication again, then holiday break
Patch 3: some communcation on the forum, then next day patch releases, then zero communication again, now PAX south this week friday-sunday

i predict that Patch 4 will release around:
the last week of february or first week of march because march 2-6 is GDC and the 6-8 is PAX east
or
the second week of june because the week after that the 16-18 is E3
or
even further then that the first week of august cause the 5-9 is gamescom or the last week of that month cause 28-31 is PAX prime

cause it seem to follow bioware pattern for DAI patches releasing

It's not strange. It's frustrating even if it coincides with excusable absentia. Befuddling how they continue to ascribe to the notion that this is how you are going to win us out. À la attrition. I can be pretty stubborn.

Post patch silence should be the perfect time for updating the Master Patch thread with a list of current investigations. And time stamp that thread's OP please Conal. I beg of you.

[Jeran]

 

 

Proof the cut scene fps command line doesn't work anymore, Top right corner, tried it with and without the com line additions since P3.

What a pretty Lady Inquisitor...

[Minsc88]

There are 5 stages of loss and grief:
1 Denial
2 Anger
3 Bargaining
4 Depression
5 Acceptance

It seems to me that most people in this forum are now at stage 4 or 5. Yesterday, I reached stage 5. I uninstalled the game and watched the remaining cut scenes on youtube. They were mediocre and completely forgettable, like the rest of the game. Afterwards I donated another 20 bucks for "Torment:Tides of Numenara" (if you don't know it, you should definitely look into it).
Since DA:O I always wished to enter the Black City and get an explanation for the Blight. But now I think I don't want to know. The chances are high that I would just meet Starchild disguised as the Maker, giving me some really dumb explanations....

I actually enjoyed reading many of the well-written critiques and suggestions for improvements. Unfortunately the ostriches on the receiving side just stuck their head in sand and celebrated their new "masterpiece".

[MatrixGirl]

Cyan Griffonclaw
The 1% must keep making money and get their large bonus at the end of the year
And they do that on the back of us the consumers in this game for sure :-)

[Gundar3]

Harbinger and Cyan, and others; I think you are all right.  Especially if your addressing the business and mechanical side.  The point of my post just to try and find where the stark differences in the story telling came from.

 

I didn't think DA:I was garbage, but I thought it was exceptionally mediocre...  To the point where as Minsc88 said, I got to the end, and just wanted it over.  I didn't care anymore.  I get the feeling that BW was trying to cater to EVERYONE, and in so doing, catered to no one.

 

And its really not good if writers claim that they will retconn elements of the world, to tell a tale that they want to tell...  That sounds like a catastrophe.  Like fan-fiction...  No wonder I felt that the grittiness of this "dark fantasy" was missing.

[day83]

2 months and the game still freezes.  using a GTX760