Not just my loyalty, but my faith that things could get better for the company.
Did I fall for a bait and switch in the marketing? Yes.
I purchased the game because of all the hype surrounding the keep and the idea that I would lead an ACTUAL military inquisition with massive battles, castles, templars, mages, and ultimately stop literal Armageddon... That IS what they showed us afterall. What I didn't want, was to not only not have ANY of those things, but wind up stopping "Armageddon" in act 1, then spending the rest of the game killing a guy I already killed in the last game. (This is uncharitable, but its true)
Did I fall for the heavy real world political hand of BW? Yes.
Had I known prior to purchase that David Gaider had been given total control, I would have been far more cautious. Hes an activist who wants to push his politics in all his writing/products and current BW under EA is more than excited to help him. Old BW rung him to being a character guy. "Pushing the envelope" is something he loves doing. Every one is allowed their opinion, but I never would have expected Bioware to push so hard in their games. I feel like I've watched Thedas go from a Grim/Dark Fantasy to a weird, relatavistic, kinda-sorta-all good-"inclusive" nothingness. So if I criticize the writing, I'm a homophobe. Well played. I never knew that being "inclusive" could be so "exclusive". I do wish we could return to a time when BW simply wrote heroic tales, and didnt try to pander to groups or force-feed me politics.
Did I fall for the Crafting and "Open World"? Yes.
Watch Razorfist. Yes, the crafting of weapons is awesome, but armor crafting is terrible. The variations are abysmal. All toons regardless of class wind up looking very similar at end game. Dont even get me started on the crap RNG of the schematics. And as we all know now, the "open world" isn't really that open at all. They are just large zones that take a long time to traverse because of mobs and constant gathering of "stuff" with the occasional star puzzle and shard you jump to that gets old quick. Its an illusion. A very pretty illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.
My God, is actually hard to put it all together. Characters, retconns, controls, cut-content, PC crashes, multiplayer issues, DLC (thats terribly overpriced yet sorely needed)... The list of "mediocrity" seems endless. Its obvious that the project lead didnt actually lead. There was a clear lack of a singular vision of what this game was supposed to be. Then all the other teams were sent off to go do what they thought was best. And at the due date, this is what they had finished... And it took them years for this.
Trying to understand current BW both in terms of a company made up of people and understanding Dragon Age is like trying to untangle a web of mediocrity.
The real crime, the REAL thing that my loyalty was worth, was giving Bioware one more chance. And they squandered it. Why did I care and why do I hang around here now? Because gaming as I imagine it is for many of us here, is one of my passions. Theres plenty of people here on these forums that would say "relax, its a game" or "stfu ****** I LUV IT WHOOO". You'd be right about that second thing, I am just some ****** on the internet. But that person doesn't know what its like to decide on the system you will be purchasing, based on the question: "what will BW make games for?", That person doesn't know what it was like to simply wait for the next BW title with eager anticipation, for years I may add, practically ingoring other RPGs because they simply weren't Bioware. We didn't know what it was, but we knew it was gonna be good.
Thats the loyalty they lost.
What does this mean for the ME4 team?
They could tell me its epic. Redefining Sci-fi as we know it. Now that the Reapers are dead, theres a massive civil war between all the races. You can pick your species, theres tons of well written characters. Want romance? You can bang almost anything in the game. They could show me videos of actually commanding large space battles, numerous ships to choose from for your flagship. 200+ hours of cinematic glory and adrenaline pumping action with almost no fetch quests! Emotionally engaging decisions that dramatically change the story based on consequences. Hell, its practically a different game entirely if you choose to be paragon or renegade!!!
This is certainly a game where I would be throwing money at my screen. I'd wait years to play this...
But I wouldn't believe a damn thing they said. Why? Because I saw similar rhetoric for DA:I. I've seen "footage" of entire segments of the game where you make choices and everything just weeks prior to the game coming out... all to have it be entirely absent.
I find it hilarious that the marketing game has just started for ME4, and what is their first message? "ME4 will NOT be like DA:I". I had to laugh at that. Even the ME team is going to try and distance themselves from DA as much as possible now. Damage control at its finest.
I have no hopes for them though. I wish them the best, but lets be honest, they are going to try to breath life into a series which suffered a franchise killing ending. I mean its over... just let it go.
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