130 réponses à ce sujet

[Spooky81]

You want them to give up all of that because you are not happy with the direction of their games.  Do you have any idea how selfish that truly sounds?  They aren't going to turn BioWare into a Kickstarter and it's rather silly to ask them to.   

 

I worked for a market research company for 2 years and truth be told, the entertainment industry has never been about benefiting employees of a studio.  CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox could care less about providing job security, benefits, a meal to cast and staff of the studio just for the sake of it.  Either deliver a show that can rake in the viewers and more than pull it's weight in advertising revenue, or join the mountain pile graveyard of cancelled and axed shows.  Not much different with the gaming industry or similar industries.  Cynical view, but all too true.

[dlux]

To Black Isle developers
 
If you are still working for Bioware, please quit and bring back via kickstarter a genuine PC RPG.
 
I have in my HHD right now both Baldurs Gate games, Icewind Dale and Planescape. ANY and I mean any of these games is better than the whole Dragon Age universe (a one-to-three ratio). Even Neverwinter Nights is a far better, richer and deeper experience than Origins (both DA 2 and Inquisition hardly fit my standards of what an RPG actually is and I will not taint the names of the Masterpieces by placing them together in the same sentence).

Black Isle was a subsidiary of Interplay. They published BG and BG2 but Bioware developed them. Icewind Dale and Planescape were developed and published by Black Isle but they licensed the Infinity Engine from Bioware to make those games. NWN was developed by Bioware and published by Atari. And so on...
 
Anyway, I do agree that DA:I is a huge disappointment. I would like to see the old developers get together again to make a really good RPG like Baldur's Gate 2 and put it on Kickstarter.
 

Just in case you don't know ...
Black Isle: check
Kickstarter: check (2 years ago)
PC: check
Release: soon
http://eternity.obsidian.net/

Too bad Pillars of Eternity is dumbed down drivel that has hardly anything in common with any of the Infinity Engine games other than the isometric camera and pre-rendered backgrounds (yes, I am aware of the fact that PoE was never going to use AD&D). Even Dragon Age 2 has deeper combat than Pillars of Eternity. Not to mention that the lead developer also hates Baldur's Gate - no joke.

[Theesit]

People do realise that David Gaider - lead writer on the Dragon Age franchise, and largely responsible for the foundations of the lore and the whole writing approach - has been with BioWare since Baldur's Gate 2, right? There are a surprising number of devs still there from the Black Isle days, and they don't seem ashamed of their work on Dragon Age. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But what would I know? I started playing BioWare games in 1999 and I love the whole DA series, including Inquisition.

What? He did not wrote BG2 for sure just some minor npc if i not wrong . Im fine with DAO but wtf with DAI maybe it not his fault but where thr F@UCK is Oghren? Why Varric not Oghren?

[AlanC9]

Why Varric not Oghren?

Varric's a better character?

[AlanC9]

Too bad Pillars of Eternity is dumbed down drivel that has hardly anything in common with any of the Infinity Engine games other than the isometric camera and pre-rendered backgrounds (yes, I am aware of the fact that PoE was never going to use AD&D). Even Dragon Age 2 has deeper combat than Pillars of Eternity. Not to mention that the lead developer also hates Baldur's Gate - no joke.

What's wrong with PoE combat? I haven't seen any red flags myself.

[King Dragonlord]

Varric's a better character?

 

The absence of Oghren just shows how sensitive everyone is now. Used to have the stomach for a rude, crude politically incorrect character. Now? Nope.

 

Course even when they did have him it seemed like half the point of having him was about trying to make the point that guys like him suck. I felt myself liking him in spite of what it felt like the writer's intentions are.

 

Of course, I like Varric too. 

 

Reminds me of a recent Chris Rock interview where he said he stopped playing colleges several years ago because everybody is too sensitive now.

[Kantr]

who cares about the really old games.

[Iakus]

I haven't finished it, but I liked what I played of SoA. I'm more than comfortable with lack of dramatic flare, as long as the story/dialogue/characters sells me pretty well. Hell, Planescape: Torment had no cinematics to speak of and I consider it among my top games of all time because of the strength of the story. 

And that's why I backed Torment: Tides of Numenera

[King Dragonlord]

who cares about the really old games.

 

Nobody. Just the people who remake them, the people who buy the remakes, the people who create mods to port old games into new engines, the people who kickstart projects and the people who donate to those kickstarters. And all their customers. Just those people. 

[Lee T]

who cares about the really old games.

I don't, at least not as much as some. However reading your post made me sad. They're really not that old and Bioware is not an old company either. The video game industry has a major case of amnesia, forgetting pretty much everything that's ten years old and more. We would not have gone very far if this model applied to every facets of our cultures.

[Miss Greyjoy]

Nobody. Just the people who remake them, the people who buy the remakes, the people who create mods to port old games into new engines, the people who kickstart projects and the people who donate to those kickstarters. And all their customers. Just those people. 

 

I get this, I really do. I have been playing games for a long time (I'm old, okay.). But BG2 came out in 2000, if I'm not mistaken? If a studio hadn't made a game I liked in 14 years, I would move on. But hey, if this thread works, maybe I'll head over to the SquareEnix forums and ask them to make a game just like FFVI.

[Brogan]

who cares about the really old games.

 

[Namea]

As much as I adore Baldur's Gate, Baldur's gate 2 and Neverwinter Nights (Neverwinter nights 2 is by far my least favourite bioware game, sorry but it's just poorly done in comparison with the rich story and characters of their other works.) I can't help but roll my eyes when people say this. You're entitled to your own opinion but if anything the games Bioware produces have become richer and more of an experience than the older ones. (Dragon age 2 is an exception. I love the game but it wasn't an improvement over DA:O in terms of story. Combat yes, technology yes but not story.) 

 

Perhaps your idea of an RPG is Skyrim? A game in which the plot is so background that you can literally do eveything BUT the plot quests and still have the same experience. I like skyrim too but it's the kind of game I play when I'm bored and too tired to actually think or immerse myself in something. Games like that and Dragon's Dogma have their place but none of them are going to take the thought-provoking cake. 

[Eelectrica]

Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera are on there way.

BioWare has 'Sold Out' and became mainstream a long time ago. EA made them even more so.

 

To get games as nice looking as this, they really had no choice, Companies are still making 'Old school' CRPG's. And despite what some (Not all) twitchy console gamers who get the shakes if they go 5 seconds without pointlessly mashing a button think there is still a market for games like that.

[Kantr]

I don't, at least not as much as some. However reading your post made me sad. They're really not that old and Bioware is not an old company either. The video game industry has a major case of amnesia, forgetting pretty much everything that's ten years old and more. We would not have gone very far if this model applied to every facets of our cultures.

People need to let go sometimes. It creates unrealistic expectations and people ignore the flaws

[AlanC9]

The absence of Oghren just shows how sensitive everyone is now. Used to have the stomach for a rude, crude politically incorrect character. Now? Nope.

Oh, please. Oghren was OK, but that's it. Don't you remember all the grumbling that Bio picked him to come back for DAA, rather than one of the more popular characters.

[Wolven_Soul]

If you are still working for Bioware, please quit and bring back via kickstarter a genuine PC RPG.

 

I have in my HHD right now both Baldurs Gate games, Icewind Dale and Planescape. ANY and I mean any of these games is better than the whole Dragon Age universe (a one-to-three ratio). Even Neverwinter Nights is a far better, richer and deeper experience than Origins (both DA 2 and Inquisition hardly fit my standards of what an RPG actually is and I will not taint the names of the Masterpieces by placing them together in the same sentence).

 

You must be awfully ashamed of what has been done to the DA franchise. I understand. It is not your fault at all. You are not responsible of "the doctors" selling their souls to EA. You are not responsible for the cancer that are consoles.

 

Please consider my suggestion for the sake of individuals that still see video games as a form of culture. You are not alone.

 

PD. I will not purchase DA:I just because of the insult of porting the control scheme from consoles. The first title I skip from your studio in...what, 20 years? This represents perfectly what Bioware has become today.

Oh look, another PC elitist.  You know, it's okay not to like consoles.  It's not okay to come in here and treat those of us who do like consoles like second class citizens.  I am getting real sick of people like you.  Get over yourself.

[Lanian]

I have played Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's gate and I'm convinced that what you say is total nonsence. Those where exelents games, nothing to say about that, but you just cannot say that they are richer than Dragon Age.

 

Why ? First of all DA universe is so much vast in lore and the universe the ten times more complex that Neverwinter's Night's. The combat is so more complex and the world of Thedas feels more alive. The one thing that Dragon Age has not and it would ne a great thing if it could be put into the gameplay is the possibility of mixing the clases like in Neverwinter Nights, besides that excuse me but Dragon Age is much better. 

[King Dragonlord]

I get this, I really do. I have been playing games for a long time (I'm old, okay.). But BG2 came out in 2000, if I'm not mistaken? If a studio hadn't made a game I liked in 14 years, I would move on. But hey, if this thread works, maybe I'll head over to the SquareEnix forums and ask them to make a game just like FFVI.

 

I basically agree on all counts (especially when it comes to getting Squeenix to go back to FF6, which to their credit they have rereleased, and I love playing it on my smartphone mounted on a bluetooth controller). I do not think its particularly reasonable to expect Bioware to go back that far and that comprehensively. They've made it increasingly clear what they want to be over a long period of time and its up to all of us to decide whether we want that because if we don't, REJOICE, for there are alternatives (such as the ones mentioned many times in this thread).

 

All I'm defending at this point is the sentiment behind that outcry and you seem to be sympathetic to that so we have no real problems to discuss. 

 

And I say this as someone who was introduced to Bioware via Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins (and was introduced to PC Gaming via Skyrim, so I'm a neophyte grognard). And I loved those games. Then I went back, looked at old Bioware games, and stuff written by Obsidian and Black Isle, Fallout New Vegas is now my favorite RPG ever, and KOTOR 2 locked me in as an Obsidian devotee. Baldurs Gate I put more in the category of good for its time. BG2 was a major leap forward. 

 

We're missing something that those games had. At the same time, we've gained things too. 

 

But, first, these aren't mutually exclusive. We can have a lot of whats good about the old alongside the new.

 

Second, I bristle at any of the following sentiments (which I assume you don't hold to):

1) Change is inevitable.

2) Games have changed, deal with it. (Read: Things are the way I like them at the moment, lets lock it in)

3) Its 2014 get with the program. 

 

These bits of equivocation are used in a lot of arguments.

 

Yes, some change is inevitable. We all grow old and die. The earth keeps on spinning. 

 

But the situations this statement is applied to are not those kinds of changes. They are arbitrary changes made consciously and deliberately by people. You could use this argument to defend any change and it would have equal validity (which is to say, it would have none). 

 

For example at one point this very fandom could have made this argument.

 

"Having characters selling DLC within a video game is just the way of the future. Times change, you need to get with the program. Its 2009 people."

 

And a couple of years later in our sister fandom.

 

"Games withholding important characters to be sold separately is just how business works. Times change. Get with the program. Its 2011 people." 

 

Or 

 

"Games just have less content in them these days. They need to be made quickly. Get with the program."

 

But when those things happened, this community recognized an important fact, not all changes are good and sometimes you need to change things back because it was better before. And guess what? We fought change, we won, and we are better for it. 

 

So lets cut out the sophistry. (directed at others in this thread not really the person I was directly responding too.)

[Thule99]

I basically agree on all counts (especially when it comes to getting Squeenix to go back to FF6, which to their credit they have rereleased, and I love playing it on my smartphone mounted on a bluetooth controller). I do not think its particularly reasonable to expect Bioware to go back that far and that comprehensively. They've made it increasingly clear what they want to be over a long period of time and its up to all of us to decide whether we want that because if we don't, REJOICE, for there are alternatives (such as the ones mentioned many times in this thread).

 

All I'm defending at this point is the sentiment behind that outcry and you seem to be sympathetic to that so we have no real problems to discuss. 

 

And I say this as someone who was introduced to Bioware via Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins (and was introduced to PC Gaming via Skyrim, so I'm a neophyte grognard). And I loved those games. Then I went back, looked at old Bioware games, and stuff written by Obsidian and Black Isle, Fallout New Vegas is now my favorite RPG ever, and KOTOR 2 locked me in as an Obsidian devotee. Baldurs Gate I put more in the category of good for its time. BG2 was a major leap forward. 

 

We're missing something that those games had. At the same time, we've gained things too. 

 

But, first, these aren't mutually exclusive. We can have a lot of whats good about the old alongside the new.

 

Second, I bristle at any of the following sentiments (which I assume you don't hold to):

1) Change is inevitable.

2) Games have changed, deal with it. (Read: Things are the way I like them at the moment, lets lock it in)

3) Its 2014 get with the program. 

 

These bits of equivocation are used in a lot of arguments.

 

Yes, some change is inevitable. We all grow old and die. The earth keeps on spinning. 

 

But the situations this statement is applied to are not those kinds of changes. They are arbitrary changes made consciously and deliberately by people. You could use this argument to defend any change and it would have equal validity (which is to say, it would have none). 

 

For example at one point this very fandom could have made this argument.

 

"Having characters selling DLC within a video game is just the way of the future. Times change, you need to get with the program. Its 2009 people."

 

And a couple of years later in our sister fandom.

 

"Games withholding important characters to be sold separately is just how business works. Times change. Get with the program. Its 2011 people." 

 

Or 

 

"Games just have less content in them these days. They need to be made quickly. Get with the program."

 

But when those things happened, this community recognized an important fact, not all changes are good and sometimes you need to change things back because it was better before. And guess what? We fought change, we won, and we are better for it. 

 

So lets cut out the sophistry. (directed at others in this thread not really the person I was directly responding too.)

Completely agree with you.

Furthermore, I am puzzled by the false dichotomy some people are creating here, isn't a choice between "old or new", actually what we are discussing here are different genres. In one side you have action RPG's -- those exist from a long time ago and in fact are as old as their strategic counterparts (which would be a translation from the pen and paper RPG's) while the former have their roots in arcade games. Both are equally "old" there is nothing new here.

So what is the problem then? Well, companies try to cater to the biggest segment possible, and unfortunately the biggest segment falls under action games, FPS by far, then sport games, and Action RPG's (and no, there is nothing new on this, it was always the biggest segment) But at the same time there is a steady demand for strategy games, and traditional RPG's are part of it. If there is enough demand for a given genre, in this case strategy type RPG's, there will be offers to cover it. And yes, we are MANY people, might not be as massive as the demand for say, FPS, but it is very big nonetheless.

When DA 2, went out the backlash was centered on the simplified action-ish combat (beside the tiny area etc) a shallow game. Knowing the series, we expected something on the lines of DA: O, at least.

DA: I was supposed to go back to its roots, but the first thing you notice is the very lacking tactical combat mode (tac cam) and.... 8 skills? Why? why learn a lot of skills we cannot even use?

So here we are fighting a tendency to turn deep games, where you need to think strategically, into simplified versions, where companies try to bite into both segments at the same time. Again, that is old news.

What we are saying here to companies that cater the demand for strategy games (including traditional RPGs), is -- you'll have our money, as long as you don't try to fool us. Don't try to sell us any game that supposedly is addressed towards us, but then we see is mostly aimed to more mainstream action segment, is an old trick and we are tired of seeing it. I am not really talking here in particular about Bioware, but in general.

Different genres for different people. Don't try to cater for everyone at the same time, it never works.

[Astylith]

Ok, grandpa. We get it, things were better back in your day. You clearly are happy living in the past, and I don't begrudge you that. Let's be honest, modern games are scary: what with their voiced dialogue, 3D graphics, camera that isn't fixed at one angle, and characters that can do several different animations! It's all a lot to take in, I know.
 
The thing is though, while it's totally cool if you want to live in the past, it isn't really fair to be angry with Bioware because they won't stay there with you. You're quite right to point out that video games are a form of culture. But culture is continually changing. And this is a good thing! Culture that can't change and adapt becomes stagnant, and eventually dies. Bioware's willingness to grow and change is what keep their fanbase vibrant. Mass Effect and Dragon Age brought in a whole new generation of fans (including me!), and ensured that Bioware can keep making awesome games for a long time to come. But it wouldn't be fair for me to ask them to keep making the same kind of Mass Effect and Dragon Age games, even if I'll always have a soft spot for them.
 

Your unfortunate level of PC snobbery is a disservice to the gaming community as a whole and to those of us who love PC gaming in particular. No doubt the PC version has issues with its control system. But these will be fixed by community feedback and the efforts of developers, not by decrying the indignity of playing a game made for the unwashed console masses. In case you hadn't noticed, PC gaming doesn't exactly command the lion's share of the enthusiast gamer market the way it once did. Kind of like the first-born kid who got used to having all the best of everything to themselves, it's about time to grow up and realize it's not all about us. Sometimes we'll have to share with our console siblings.

 

this is so disgusting, I feel nauseous after reading this. You have the audacity to talk about snobbery in -that- post? 

[asherbarasher]

i would pay twice of DAI price for BG re-edition  on frost byte 3 =)

[Miss Greyjoy]

<Snip great post>

 

We're missing something that those games had. At the same time, we've gained things too. 

 

 

 

I agree with everything you had to say. But I especially agree with this. I think some people dismiss it as mere nostalgia, but there are some elements that are missing from modern games. And not all "old" things need to change. The problem is, no one can agree on what is a "good" change. I like silent protagonists, but they are few and far between anymore. My good friend thinks that Nintendo should get with the times and make Link a voiced character, complete with dialogue. I want to punch my friend in the throat every time he suggests this. *shrug*

[Teredan]

Wasteland 2 scratched that old itch for me, DA:I just isn't that type of game and complaining about that is kind of useless.