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Guest_Cyan Griffonclaw_*
The downturn in the franchise can essentially be traced to the moment Laidlaw took over from Brent Knowles.
It would be wholly reasonable to blame him, but I think there are a lot of others who misunderstood or failed to grasp what a blow they were making to the PC Community. Then the subsequent responses (or lack thereof) showed me that there is little Bioware left in Bioware. It seems DICE are the guys. Maybe, DICEware?
<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>
Tsk, tsk, tsk..
Which sites, do you know of and use that has no errors? I believe. if memory serves, that you mentioned you make an informed decision when buying a game.
The one odd pattern that popped out, for me, is those sites that have both the pro and gamer stats side by side. That review pattern is as follows:
1. pro high review, gamer low review
2. pro low review, gamer high review
Also,it appears to be a consistent sotto voce understanding between pro gamer site reviews, never to mention their review hardware platform nor do I remember reading any of these sites comparing their game review against another platform. Example: compare PC vs console review for the same game.
While I agree that unverified user reviews are suspect, me playing a game on my friend's computer makes me a qualified candidate to review the game as the "verified" one. With that note, "pro site" that have a game review that gushed with sugar and spice and everything nice and with a slick marketing written article using all the correct word phrases are also suspect.
In the end, it comes down to trust.
Edited for clarity
Guest_offline_*
Hi, my name is Chris and I am a game reviewer (my DA:I review linked below). I feel that I need to comment on some of the opinions bouncing around here regarding game reviewers, the PC audience, and the game in general. I understand the frustration many people are feeling regarding the game and the lack of feedback given to PC players regarding the release and current states of the game.
First off I am a PC gamer, and have been since the 80's (check my profile for my PC game collection). I have ever only ever owned 2 consoles, and do not own any of the new-gen consoles. I really like(d) DAI, but have many of the same concerns about the control scheme as you do, but in my case that did not taint the entire experience for me. I played the game with KB/Mouse and Controller and found them to work well enough. Certainly not as well as I would have liked (as I mention in my review). I (like basically every game reviewer on the planet) am a gamer, and when I write a review I stick my name and photo on it. I am not protected by anonymity, and my reputation and that of the publication I write for are extremely important to me, just as they are for any reviewer. To write off a review because you disagree is disingenuous and oft times insulting to the writer. We need to be honest, and at the end of the day can only express our own subjective appraisal of the game. Remember reviewers are gamers, and us publishing a dishonest review would only hurt us and the website/publication we contribute to in the both the long and short term. Reviewers are not paid by developers or publishers, we are not incentivized to give higher scores, and we certainly would not outright lie about the quality of a game.
Metacritic is awful in my opinion. It reduces a review to nothing but a score, and that does not paint the full picture. There can be a lot of issues with a game, but the score can still be high due to the overall enjoyment of the title. Also a 10 does not mean perfect, and a 9 does not mean almost perfect. Each site/publication has their own rules about what a score means, but basically a 10/100/100%/5outof5 means that the game earned that reviewers highest possible praise for what ever reason. The score without the context of the review is almost utterly pointless. We agonize over what score to give a game, just as we take care to give as much relevant information as we can about what we thought of a game. Still these are only opinions, and just because we have a greater number of people reading our opinion does not make it any more important than your. Neither do these opinions negate or validate any other review or opinion. Every review should be seen as an isolated opinion, the hows, the whys, and reasons for are specific to that reviewer. Review aggregation sites ignore this and create an artificial representation of those individual opinions. Additionally reviews taken as a whole are not representative of the entire audience. Even if there was 100 reviews for a AAA title that would only account for an almost insignificant percentage of the player base. Which is another reason why you should be wary of using a aggregation site as a yardstick to judge a game on.
Case in point; the community here is also the tiniest fraction of the total audience, even the PC audience. Your concerns are valid, but for the majority of players they are not as important as they are in here. That does not diminish how severe you find them, but context is important.
I would love BioWare to improve the controls in the game, as well as add in a proper command queue, and I sorely miss the expanded tactics options from the previous games. I loved Origins, and consider DAII to be the worst RPG sequel released since the equally dire Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, and see DAI as a massive improvement over DAII. I also recognize that the audience has changed since Origins was released, and is completely different from the audience that BioWare had 15 years ago. As a result the games they create will also be different. I don't like many of the changes, but I understand them.
The issue I have here is the bile and vitriol that is spat out is not helpful, and if anything only makes it harder for anyone to engage in a meaningful way. I do not wish to undermine the frustrations and disappointments here, but at the same time I would love to see this forum try and be more proactive about sending a positive message to the developers. Its that whole honey catches more flies analogy.
So I guess what I am saying is that every informed opinion is valid, and all should be respected. BioWare have made a massive game that has some issues even now, but tearing down any opinion or discounting every review you don't agree with does not help anyone.
Sorry for the long post.
[edit] I should add for complete transparency that I purchased the Inquisitors Edition, but reviewed the game on pre-release review code provided by EA.[/edit]
http://www.gameplane...isition-review/
Fair review, thanks for posting.
I would love BioWare to improve the controls in the game, as well as add in a proper command queue, and I sorely miss the expanded tactics options from the previous games. I loved Origins, and consider DAII to be the worst RPG sequel released since the equally dire Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, and see DAI as a massive improvement over DAII. I also recognize that the audience has changed since Origins was released, and is completely different from the audience that BioWare had 15 years ago. As a result the games they create will also be different. I don't like many of the changes, but I understand them.
The issue I have here is the bile and vitriol that is spat out is not helpful, and if anything only makes it harder for anyone to engage in a meaningful way. I do not wish to undermine the frustrations and disappointments here, but at the same time I would love to see this forum try and be more proactive about sending a positive message to the developers. Its that whole honey catches more flies analogy.
Hello, thank you for your post.
1. I have the context of finishing my second DA:O play-through about three months ago, and my second DA II play-through about two days before I played DA: I; earlier this week. I accept that to a great degree, whether DA:I is an improvement over DA II is in the eye of the beholder. For me, it was not. I was not happy with DA II, but DA:I combat tactics are not even on par with DA II. Visually, I must concur that DA: I was stunning; gorgeous. But the combat controls basically made the game unplayable for me. They are counter-intuitive and clunky. I played for an hour, then spent over an hour (on the phone with EA, online text chat with EA, looking through the game manual) trying to figure out how to control the game so I could go back and play it. DA II, for all of its (in my opinion) regression from DA:O, was still somewhat intuitive to play. Developing tactics on harder difficulty was fun, and adequately prepared me for boss fights on harder difficulties. In DA:I, I barely got past the first fight without Cassandra dying (in the *tutorial*) because I couldn't quite line up my sword with that demon. Further, I couldn't figure out why my Inquisitor ought to want to help Cassandra, who only moments before interrogated me in a jail cell, then threatened to kill me if I don't drop a sword after killing a demon that almost killed her. Why is all of this stuff that's happening *my* problem exactly? I suppose most people who played through the game could answer this, but BioWare couldn't bother to answer this in the prologue. I really wanted to like DA:I. But for me, on these two critical points, DA:I was so far behind even DA II (let alone DA:O) that I gave up. I uninstalled after three hours of play (which included two play-throughs of the tutorial).
2. The thing about numbers is that they mean different things to different people. On one hand, I read through most of your review, and thought to myself that you seem to understand both my frustration and disappointment with DA:I. Then you give it an 8.5/10. Lots of companies advertise numbers in their commercials for their games. What 10 means to you isn't necessarily how 1,000 different individual potential customers are going to define it. The fact that DA:I is getting high numbers from critics, regardless of the numerous substantive flaws with this game, means that this game will likely be remembered as a critical success, and a contributing factor to BioWare continuing the series in this direction. As a fan of DA:O, that breaks my heart. When I look at Metacritic, and see a stark disparity in numbers between the critics and the gamers, I read the gamer reviews to figure out why they're rating it differently. The impression I get is that many critic reviewers only play part of the game, and do not fully experience the flaws and short-comings of the games they review. They put in six, maybe eights hours of a complimentary copy and write a review. My impression is that the gamers on Metacritic not only paid for their copy of the game, but played a substantial portion of the campaign. (Probably not all of them, but you can pick up on how much they played based on what they wrote.) There also generally seems to be greater disparity in scores on Metacritic among the gamer scores than the critic scores.
3. The vitriol, as you put it, serves two purposes. The obvious is that it lets BioWare know that their customers are not happy (assuming they read here), in a way that we might not otherwise be able to by just not buying the DLC or their next game. We can tell them why we're not happy, how intense our dissatisfaction is, and so forth. (I make no defense of the personal insults and threats. These are unacceptable and counterproductive.) The second purpose is that this sort of shared hardship among those of us who like characteristics of the series that BioWare appears to have abandoned builds community, and helps us to mourn the loss of that which we loved so that we might move on.
Stats are used to lie quite often. A friend of mine once heard that a majority of the populace were injured or killed within 5 miles of home, so he when his mailing address became established, he would move again. Or this:
"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you." - Rita Mae Brown
Using a site known to have errors, inaccuracies, and skewed data seems unwise. While Player scores may not be much higher at some other sites, at least some should try and use those that are verified owners; not those posting with hidden agendas like the 'paid professionals'.
78% of statistics are made up on the spot. 
78% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Hi, my name is Chris and I am a game reviewer (my DA:I review linked below). I feel that I need to comment on some of the opinions bouncing around here regarding game reviewers, the PC audience, and the game in general. I understand the frustration many people are feeling regarding the game and the lack of feedback given to PC players regarding the release and current states of the game.
snip
Thanks for you input!
I posted earlier about reading page 1, then the absolute lack of any Bioware involvement in this topic.
724 pages, 1000's of posts. All anyone wanted was Bioware to be here! The vitriol that should have been here was not evident.
That in itself is an example of how many people truly wanted this game to and Bioware to succeed.
Sure you can play it with the existing controls, I have. The graphics are gorgeous if you can avoid DirectX CTD's.
The story is rather poor.
But the underlying message from Bioware has been, put them in a topic, ignore them and they will go away.
I have nothing but disgust for the way Bioware has handled this. Darrah and Laidlaw in particular.
They had the total goodwill of the PC community at the beginning. Then they trashed it.
Guest_offline_*
Hello, thank you for your post.
1.
2.
3.
(snipping to prevent text explosion in the page)
Point 1: As I said each individual experience will be different. Subjectivity and opinions.
Point 2: Thats actually my point. Scores mean nothing without context, and the use of Metacritic and its ilk have ruined the best part of game reviews... the actual content. Score aggregation is just awful. Reviewers usually have access to the game weeks ahead of release and we try to play them to completion. I don't know of a single reviewer that does not play at least the majority of the game before reviewing the game. I put in 50+ hours for my review. Again, remember we too are gamers. I loved the game in spite of the issues I had with it.
Point 3: I understand, and my concern was more about belittling people than the ire and discontent from people unhappy with the game.
Thanks for the reply!
I'm still having frequent crashes during full cutscenes with an nVidia gtx 760. I gather their were known problems with this and bioware was working with nvidia to fix them, but has there been any word? I have the latest official drivers and tried the game again after a break, but was still having issues. The doesn't seem to have been any official statement on this for some time. Is it worth trying hotfix beta drivers?
Guest_Cyan Griffonclaw_*
Hello, thank you for your post.
1. I have the context of finishing my second DA:O play-through about three months ago, and my second DA II play-through about two days before I played DA: I; earlier this week. I accept that to a great degree, whether DA:I is an improvement over DA II is in the eye of the beholder. For me, it was not. I was not happy with DA II, but DA:I combat tactics are not even on par with DA II. Visually, I must concur that DA: I was stunning; gorgeous. But the combat controls basically made the game unplayable for me. They are counter-intuitive and clunky. I played for an hour, then spent over an hour (on the phone with EA, online text chat with EA, looking through the game manual) trying to figure out how to control the game so I could go back and play it. DA II, for all of its (in my opinion) regression from DA:O, was still somewhat intuitive to play. Developing tactics on harder difficulty was fun, and adequately prepared me for boss fights on harder difficulties. In DA:I, I barely got past the first fight without Cassandra dying (in the *tutorial*) because I couldn't quite line up my sword with that demon. Further, I couldn't figure out why my Inquisitor ought to want to help Cassandra, who only moments before interrogated me in a jail cell, then threatened to kill me if I don't drop a sword after killing a demon that almost killed her. Why is all of this stuff that's happening *my* problem exactly? I suppose most people who played through the game could answer this, but BioWare couldn't bother to answer this in the prologue. I really wanted to like DA:I. But for me, on these two critical points, DA:I was so far behind even DA II (let alone DA:O) that I gave up. I uninstalled after three hours of play (which included two play-throughs of the tutorial).
2. The thing about numbers is that they mean different things to different people. On one hand, I read through most of your review, and thought to myself that you seem to understand both my frustration and disappointment with DA:I. Then you give it an 8.5/10. Lots of companies advertise numbers in their commercials for their games. What 10 means to you isn't necessarily how 1,000 different individual potential customers are going to define it. The fact that DA:I is getting high numbers from critics, regardless of the numerous substantive flaws with this game, means that this game will likely be remembered as a critical success, and a contributing factor to BioWare continuing the series in this direction. As a fan of DA:O, that breaks my heart. When I look at Metacritic, and see a stark disparity in numbers between the critics and the gamers, I read the gamer reviews to figure out why they're rating it differently. The impression I get is that many critic reviewers only play part of the game, and do not fully experience the flaws and short-comings of the games they review. They put in six, maybe eights hours of a complimentary copy and write a review. My impression is that the gamers on Metacritic not only paid for their copy of the game, but played a substantial portion of the campaign. (Probably not all of them, but you can pick up on how much they played based on what they wrote.) There also generally seems to be greater disparity in scores on Metacritic among the gamer scores than the critic scores.
3. The vitriol, as you put it, serves two purposes. The obvious is that it lets BioWare know that their customers are not happy (assuming they read here), in a way that we might not otherwise be able to by just not buying the DLC or their next game. We can tell them why we're not happy, how intense our dissatisfaction is, and so forth. (I make no defense of the personal insults and threats. These are unacceptable and counterproductive.) The second purpose is that this sort of shared hardship among those of us who like characteristics of the series that BioWare appears to have abandoned builds community, and helps us to mourn the loss of that which we loved so that we might move on.
Maker Bless You. Well said. There will come a time, at least for me it's May 19th, when you have to stop shouting into the wind and say your final piece. Mine is already written. Almost a 1k posts cover this. That's when it hit me... 1k. Bioware isn't going to get it and my wallet is open to anything, but Bioware and EA. I blame both, not the PC Community, not the PC Players Group, not even Elhanan, the critics, media, etc. I blame both for killing my own personal passionate view of what the two Doctors created in spirit.
Guest_Cyan Griffonclaw_*
Thanks for you input!
I posted earlier about reading page 1, then the absolute lack of any Bioware involvement in this topic.
724 pages, 1000's of posts. All anyone wanted was Bioware to be here! The vitriol that should have been here was not evident.
That in itself is an example of how many people truly wanted this game to and Bioware to succeed.
Sure you can play it with the existing controls, I have. The graphics are gorgeous if you can avoid DirectX CTD's.
The story is rather poor.
But the underlying message from Bioware has been, put them in a topic, ignore them and they will go away.
I have nothing but disgust for the way Bioware has handled this. Darrah and Laidlaw in particular.
They had the total goodwill of the PC community at the beginning. Then they trashed it.
Maker Bless you too.
Guest_Cyan Griffonclaw_*
Point 1: As I said each individual experience will be different. Subjectivity and opinions.
Point 2: Thats actually my point. Scores mean nothing without context, and the use of Metacritic and its ilk have ruined the best part of game reviews... the actual content. Score aggregation is just awful. Reviewers usually have access to the game weeks ahead of release and we try to play them to completion. I don't know of a single reviewer that does not play at least the majority of the game before reviewing the game. I put in 50+ hours for my review. Again, remember we too are gamers. I loved the game in spite of the issues I had with it.
Point 3: I understand, and my concern was more about belittling people than the ire and discontent from people unhappy with the game.
Thanks for the reply!
Maker bless you and thank you for coming to visit us in this thread. I read your article and I see your point of view. I disagree with you on some points, but overall I think you're in the right place to be. I wish you a lot more success.
Hello Cryocore,
Nice review... I liked the game too, but as I said previously in the topic, greatness was missed by some oversighted kb+m controls and others nitpicks...
What do Bioware expect : that every PC players was going to buy a Xbox controller to play their game?
I played 6 times DAO, completely with extension and all dlc, I played 8 times DAII with all DLC and I cannot finish a second playthrough of DAI...
And I like the game...
But this game is clearly action oriented, with constant fighting against gray enemies, as soon as you forfeit the use of the mount which is awfull in PC version...
And we get from Dropping Man in DA2 to Popping Bear in DAI... 
Normally, I don't bother, but the kb+m controls for melee character is just awful... And there is a lot of fights and useless ones with the limit level in each zone...
In DA2, the kb+m controls were clearly better even if the rest is subpar...
I WAS NOT EXPECTED THIS from a so-called AAA title payed at least 3 times the price of Pillars of Eternity for me (25$)...
When I bought a AAA title, I expect at least that the controls for my PC will be correct and that the promise we got about a better Tactical gameplay than in DA2 was fulfilled...
This is my main grip with the game and the reviews that clearly omit this part : I mean what we were advertised before preordering the game...
About the vitriol, it was not there at the beginning of the topics... We were certainly happy to be heard...
But the patch number increasing, and no major improvement in the controls and tactics (the auto attack is a joke), no message from the devs, I suppose we fell discarded and started to be really acidic in our comments...
Who to blame for that?
JPR out!
I loved the game in spite of the issues I had with it.
and then gave it an 8.5 out of 10. What happens with a game you love that doesn't have issues? The problem with game reviews is that anything under an 8 or 8.5 is seen as a failure. 7 doesn't mean "good" anymore and a 5... hell that might as well be a 2. When mediocre-to-average games like DA: I get 8.5s (when it deserves of 6 or 7 at best given it's numerous design flaws and awful combat), the rest of us begin to doubt the numbers at all. And what are the odds of getting a comp copy of the next Bioware game if you gave DA: I an honest 7 instead of an inflated 8.5?
You are an honest fellow. You tell the good AND the bad. I think it is natural not to agree with you on everything but after playing the game id have to say you made an honest review and mentioned the pros and kontras of game throughout it. If i read you review i would not have bought Inquisition just because i was expecting to use tactical camera 100% of the time in combat alone. Still i think you and most of the reviewers underestimated how important the good keyboard+mouse control scheme and interface for PC gamers when you gave the final score.
EDIT: Plus all the reviews focus only on how big the playable area is but none mention that the actual content put into it does not match in size or quality. A big forest is good for sure to have but a big forest with mostly collection quests and some fetch quests put into it idoes not have much gameplay value. Most of the backstory of the areas lack of narrative. Massive in scope has a different meaning to me than to game reviewers i guess.
EDIT: No, that was just sugar-coating it. Most of the reviews out there are not reviews but ads.
and then gave it an 8.5 out of 10. What happens with a game you love that doesn't have issues? The problem with game reviews is that anything under an 8 or 8.5 is seen as a failure. 7 doesn't mean "good" anymore and a 5... hell that might as well be a 2. When mediocre-to-average games like DA: I get 8.5s (when it deserves of 6 or 7 at best given it's numerous design flaws and awful combat), the rest of us begin to doubt the numbers at all. And what are the odds of getting a comp copy of the next Bioware game if you gave DA: I an honest 7 instead of an inflated 8.5?
That's a weird thing, really.
I mean, look, their publication gave 7.5 score to the Lords of the Fallen while stating that:
"Fairly generic, samey setting and story. Some meandering level design. Unintuitive inventory/character management system. Camera sometimes misbehaves."
When the exact same thing happens in DA:I and you give it a 8.5... so... What's up with that?
That's a weird thing, really.
I mean, look, their publication gave 7.5 score to the Lords of the Fallen while stating that:
"Fairly generic, samey setting and story. Some meandering level design. Unintuitive inventory/character management system. Camera sometimes misbehaves."
When the exact same thing happens in DA:I and you give it a 8.5... so... What's up with that?
Becuase it has HUGE zones with lots of shards. Thats worth 1 more point. 
No that was a joke, i might be wrong but the 8.5 is a universal rating for all platform releases. Cant let the c****y pc version pull down the others if you need to rate it for all platforms with one number i guess. Lol, no, im wrong. Its because of the shards. Sorry.
Becuase it has HUGE zones with lots of shards. Thats worth 1 more point.
No that was a joke, i might be wrong but the 8.5 is a universal rating for all platform releases. Cant let the c****y pc version pull down the others if you need to rate it for all platforms with one number i guess. Lol, no, im wrong. Its because of the shards. Sorry.
But...but...LotF had shards too...
I read the comments on your review. Before and after a few days of release people were out of their mind, waiting for Inquisition. Then people started whining about pc controls and bad combat without tactics and such with some Elhanans interrupting from time to time. (For reference: Elhanan is a person here who defends Bioware and their design choices no matter what).
Some even tell on the early days to get a controller . You dont know what happens around here when someone says that sacrilege.
Guest_offline_*
and then gave it an 8.5 out of 10. What happens with a game you love that doesn't have issues? The problem with game reviews is that anything under an 8 or 8.5 is seen as a failure. 7 doesn't mean "good" anymore and a 5... hell that might as well be a 2. When mediocre-to-average games like DA: I get 8.5s (when it deserves of 6 or 7 at best given it's numerous design flaws and awful combat), the rest of us begin to doubt the numbers at all. And what are the odds of getting a comp copy of the next Bioware game if you gave DA: I an honest 7 instead of an inflated 8.5?
You seem to be confused about what I wrote, and again seem to fixate on the score. I rated the experience as 8.5. Warts and all that's my honest appraisal. To insinuate that my score is inflated or dishonest is insulting. My enjoyment is just that; mine. Anyone elses thoughts or feelings literally have no impact on what I think. Just as my opinion should have no impact on how you feel. So please take a step back and stop trying to undermine another persons opinion because you do not agree with it. For me the control issues were not enough of an issues to taint my experience with the game.
I enjoyed my time with the game very very much. It still did not make my top 5 games of 2014 though (Divinity: Original Sin, Shadow of Mordor, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Wasteland 2 and Transistor took those spots), but still feel its an exceptional experience. Again that is my opinion, and nothing more than that.
I purchased the Inquisitor Edition because I enjoyed the game so much. I obviously didn't need to buy it as I already had the game. I think that says enough about how strongly I feel about the game.
That's a weird thing, really.
I mean, look, their publication gave 7.5 score to the Lords of the Fallen while stating that:
"Fairly generic, samey setting and story. Some meandering level design. Unintuitive inventory/character management system. Camera sometimes misbehaves."
When the exact same thing happens in DA:I and you give it a 8.5... so... What's up with that?
2 reviews 2 different reviewers. Again, personal opinions are just that. What is not a significant issue for one person maybe unbearable for another.Stop looking at a score as being the whole picture.
I read the comments on your review. Before and after a few days of release people were out of their mind, waiting for Inquisition. Then people started whining about pc controls and bad combat without tactics and such with some Elhanans interrupting from time to time. (For reference: Elhanan is a person here who defends Bioware and their design choices no matter what).
Some even tell on the early days to get a controller
Those opinions are valid. That goes back to what I was saying. A review is an opinion of one person. That's all, my review has no more validity simply because it is published by a gaming site.
Your Elhanan comment I do have an issue with. Again its just someone trying to undermine another opinion because they disagree with it. Please don't do that. That opinion is just as valid as yours. I understand you may strongly disagree with it, but labeling it as having less value for any reason is just an insult, and serves no purpose. It doesn't strengthen your argument, nor weaken theirs. If anything it just shows an unwillingness to debate it on equal footing, which could be construed as an indication that your argument might not be able to stand up to such a debate.
If you strongly dislike the game, I can understand that, I certainly can see the frustrations with the game as it stands. I too would like to play the game using a better cotrol scheme, with better tactical options. I am however not so sure that it would significantly improve my enjoyment of the game as a whole.
Hi, my name is Chris and I am a game reviewer (my DA:I review linked below). I feel that I need to comment on some of the opinions bouncing around here regarding game reviewers, the PC audience, and the game in general. I understand the frustration many people are feeling regarding the game and the lack of feedback given to PC players regarding the release and current states of the game.
First off I am a PC gamer, and have been since the 80's (check my profile for my PC game collection). I have ever only ever owned 2 consoles, and do not own any of the new-gen consoles. I really like(d) DAI, but have many of the same concerns about the control scheme as you do, but in my case that did not taint the entire experience for me. I played the game with KB/Mouse and Controller and found them to work well enough. Certainly not as well as I would have liked (as I mention in my review). I (like basically every game reviewer on the planet) am a gamer, and when I write a review I stick my name and photo on it. I am not protected by anonymity, and my reputation and that of the publication I write for are extremely important to me, just as they are for any reviewer. To write off a review because you disagree is disingenuous and oft times insulting to the writer. We need to be honest, and at the end of the day can only express our own subjective appraisal of the game. Remember reviewers are gamers, and us publishing a dishonest review would only hurt us and the website/publication we contribute to in the both the long and short term. Reviewers are not paid by developers or publishers, we are not incentivized to give higher scores, and we certainly would not outright lie about the quality of a game.
Metacritic is awful in my opinion. It reduces a review to nothing but a score, and that does not paint the full picture. There can be a lot of issues with a game, but the score can still be high due to the overall enjoyment of the title. Also a 10 does not mean perfect, and a 9 does not mean almost perfect. Each site/publication has their own rules about what a score means, but basically a 10/100/100%/5outof5 means that the game earned that reviewers highest possible praise for what ever reason. The score without the context of the review is almost utterly pointless. We agonize over what score to give a game, just as we take care to give as much relevant information as we can about what we thought of a game. Still these are only opinions, and just because we have a greater number of people reading our opinion does not make it any more important than your. Neither do these opinions negate or validate any other review or opinion. Every review should be seen as an isolated opinion, the hows, the whys, and reasons for are specific to that reviewer. Review aggregation sites ignore this and create an artificial representation of those individual opinions. Additionally reviews taken as a whole are not representative of the entire audience. Even if there was 100 reviews for a AAA title that would only account for an almost insignificant percentage of the player base. Which is another reason why you should be wary of using a aggregation site as a yardstick to judge a game on.
Case in point; the community here is also the tiniest fraction of the total audience, even the PC audience. Your concerns are valid, but for the majority of players they are not as important as they are in here. That does not diminish how severe you find them, but context is important.
I would love BioWare to improve the controls in the game, as well as add in a proper command queue, and I sorely miss the expanded tactics options from the previous games. I loved Origins, and consider DAII to be the worst RPG sequel released since the equally dire Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, and see DAI as a massive improvement over DAII. I also recognize that the audience has changed since Origins was released, and is completely different from the audience that BioWare had 15 years ago. As a result the games they create will also be different. I don't like many of the changes, but I understand them.
The issue I have here is the bile and vitriol that is spat out is not helpful, and if anything only makes it harder for anyone to engage in a meaningful way. I do not wish to undermine the frustrations and disappointments here, but at the same time I would love to see this forum try and be more proactive about sending a positive message to the developers. Its that whole honey catches more flies analogy.
So I guess what I am saying is that every informed opinion is valid, and all should be respected. BioWare have made a massive game that has some issues even now, but tearing down any opinion or discounting every review you don't agree with does not help anyone.
Sorry for the long post.
[edit] I should add for complete transparency that I purchased the Inquisitors Edition, but reviewed the game on pre-release review code provided by EA.[/edit]
What you say is certainly true for someone taking a very diplomatic position. And we also understand that it is your job to give a complete and balanced opinion (for the sake of your own good reputation), apparently not based purely on your personal experience of the game. That is all very understandable.
And you have raised some very good points and also mentioned things that are particularly hard to swallow for avid Dragon Age fans like myself.
You see, the biggest problem here is not the game we received, but the game we were PROMISED.
Bioware made a marketing video squarely aimed at PC gamers, claiming the game "was made by Pc gamers, for PC gamers." Note how they did NOT make any similar videos for console players. No. They deliberately made all this **** up to butter up PC gamers.
And we believed and trusted them.
Have you been around during the development cycle for this game? I think perhaps not.
I would love to see this forum try and be more proactive about sending a positive message to the developers.
We as a community were fired up to the max for this game!
But as you know, what was promised and what we actually received in the end are two vastly different things.
Show me a single element of DAI that says "This is a PC game". I dare you!
The fact is, it is NOT a PC game. Even the PC version is optimized to use a controller. At the time of release, this game had absolutely minimal Keyboard & Mouse support. ABSOLUTE MINIMAL!
Look at the UI - does that reflect in any way, shape or form, a PC game to you?
But you come here and tell us that the bile and vitriol towards Bioware is somehow unwarranted?
Have you also missed the part where Bioware signed us up to their Beta Patch test program, only to flat out IGNORE feedback on PC issues?
I think the actual situation is much more severe than what you are trying to make it out to be.
This is the most expensive game for PC I have ever paid for - even more expensive than the upcoming Witcher 3 game, which I promise you, will put DAI in the shade in every single aspect.
I do not know what your motivation was for coming here and telling us in the nicest way that our anger is unwarranted, but you are clearly not seeing the big picture.
Bioware knows full well they sold a dishonest game to PC gamers and they are doing their best to hide that fact instead of manning up and apologizing for their deliberate deceit. And THAT is what has caused all this anger. But you expect US to send THEM a positive message?
Tell me then, what exactly should we be so positive about? Should we tell Bioware it is OK to lie to us? That it is OK because the game is oh so pretty and that makes everything better?
Not until we get an official apology!
@Cryocore
is there a version of this review that doesn't hurt my eyes?
like... no pictures, no ads, no... annoying stuff?
Guest_offline_*
snip
First off. I was not being diplomatic in my review. Thats not how reviews work. They are 100% personal opinion pieces. If they are not, then they have no value.
Secondly, I have not even intimated that the anger here is unwarranted. If anything I have stated that I understand it, and to a degree agree with it. Please read what I wrote, I made an observation and a request that the anger funneled differently to provide better, and easier to digest feedback. Agai; more flies with honey.
As for the severity of the situation, that's a personal judgement call, and I can not state how another person feels about it.
I came here try and provide some feedback and hopefully shine a light a bit from a reviewers perspective. Not once have I suggesed that anyones opinion is invalid or their feelings unwarranted. If anything I have been stating the exact opposite the entire time.
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