264 réponses à ce sujet

[Catastrophy]

Weaken-ing their integrity!

The artistic one? Don't even know what that is: "artistic integrity". So let's throw a warp ball at it and see if it holds together.

[Sanunes]

For me what is ruining BioWare games isn't EA, but the requests you keep seeing in threads here, so I wish BioWare would stop trying to give people what they want since people don't know what they want or believe they speak for everyone when they don't.

 

Dragon Age 2 had many people wanting the game to go open world, and BioWare gave us an open world with Dragon Age: Inquisition and then people were upset that it was open world.

 

Mass Effect 1 had the annoying segments with the Mako so they might have to the extreme and removed the Mako from Mass Effect 2, but that was because people were complaining.

 

After Mass Effect 2 people wanted "their" favorite companion to return to Mass Effect 3 and boom we got them all to return, it just was a horrible diluted experience.

 

All those things are to get more people to buy copies of the game, but at the same time it is what we are asking for.

[ZipZap2000]

The artistic one? Don't even know what that is: "artistic integrity". So let's throw a warp ball at it and see if it holds together.

Deploying warp field!

[Il Divo]

They'll make their money anyway. Let's bioware have full control. They'll get their money. They make enough from those darn sports games every year.

 

Well, that's where the question becomes: how much control has Bioware actually lost under EA? It's tempting to believe they have no say, but that doesn't really tell the whole story. 

 

Somebody could point out a loss of originality since post-EA Bioware seems addicted to sequels -  Bioware made Mass Effect with an import trilogy in mind and Dragon Age had too much time/energy invested to abandon after a single game. BG/NWN and KotOR reusing the Sword Coast and Star Wars settings are also examples of a lack of originality, in terms of setting.

 

Somebody could mention that post-EA Bioware has really cut out the "meat" of RPG gameplay - but then Jade Empire and Mass Effect 1 had an insane level of action focus to them. If you look at Bioware's gameplay trends, there is a pretty consistent move away from DnD mechanics with their additional games even before EA took over.

 

Those are just a couple examples. No doubt, having a boss over your head changes aspects of the development process. But if we're going to make the jump to "everything pre-EA is amazing and everything post-EA is terrible",  then it's a pretty good idea to consider what Bioware actually prioritized even before EA took control. It's rarely as simple as complete artistic freedom to do whatever you want vs. being a slave to the new overlords. 

[Iakus]

A lot of rose-tinted view points in this thread. Personally, I'll take any post-EA Bioware game over the likes of Baldur's Gate 1 and Neverwinter Nights, which accounts for a pretty significant chunk of their legacy. 

 

Bioware's integrity isn't all that important to me - good games are what I want. 

*looks up from his latest run of Baldur's Gate*

 

Hmmmm?

[wolfsite]

For me what is ruining BioWare games isn't EA, but the requests you keep seeing in threads here, so I wish BioWare would stop trying to give people what they want since people don't know what they want or believe they speak for everyone when they don't.

 

Dragon Age 2 had many people wanting the game to go open world, and BioWare gave us an open world with Dragon Age: Inquisition and then people were upset that it was open world.

 

Mass Effect 1 had the annoying segments with the Mako so they might have to the extreme and removed the Mako from Mass Effect 2, but that was because people were complaining.

 

After Mass Effect 2 people wanted "their" favorite companion to return to Mass Effect 3 and boom we got them all to return, it just was a horrible diluted experience.

 

All those things are to get more people to buy copies of the game, but at the same time it is what we are asking for.

This deserves to be on the front page of the forum.

[Iakus]

 

And you should care about BioWare's integrity. It's when people still have integrity that they do their best against all odds. And this is also with this kind of very professional attitude they can possibly create the good games you're asking for.

Or go "SO BE IT!!!" and flip the table 

[Commander Rpg]

Starving artists have integrity too - but that doesn't stop their art from being ignored. Bioware's success is founded on making games people enjoy - enough that they can make more of them, whether under EA or independently. Virtually every criticism people have thrown at post-EA Bioware can equally be thrown at their pre-EA titles: weak main plot, undeveloped characters, bland setting, action combat, etc.

 

 

It's all art. None of it stops being art merely because I like or dislike it. Speaking for myself - I would take each one of them over Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. I can't say specifically what you like about Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights - but if we're going to defend BG's story/characters and Neverwinter Night's single-player on the grounds of artistic integrity (just as an example), then artistic integrity shouldn't be high on the priority list. Artistic vision sometimes produces amazing products - but that's not exclusively the case. 

Pre-EA titles weren't all immaculate, but if you watch at the binomial "resources spent and final quality", all those products where on the upper side of the market. There may have been old BW products - usually made with a lot less of money than today - that sold little, although being good products, but I can't remember so many old BW games that have been bad and sold a lot.

Practical examples be their old games' list

 

Baldur's Gate: produced with few resources, big success.

Baldur's Gate 2: produced with many more resources than the previous, bigger success.

Neverwinter Nights: large amount of resources employed, half and a half. Great online experiences, in the past, highly customisable, but weak single player campaigns.

Star Wars: KotOR: Huge resources, given the year, were employed for this game: simply a success in every aspect (except online of course).

Jade Empire: Their black sheep in the old age. The setting wasn't developed well enough, the story has plot-holes and some characters lack scripting. However the combat system and the experimenting with a brand new world set in an oriental universe is admirable. So-so, but not terrible.

 

This is where the line had been drawn. After that, in the immediate period of time, you have two products who were already in production (if I recall correctly) before the EA acquisition, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. It's not a mistery that those products are still valid, they weren't polluted by the new order, to make profitable games that people would have bought, without spending too much resources and/or making the least efforts to ensure the biggest incomes.

 

I am stating that the artistic integrity can (and must, if you have to live on it) cohexist with the need of goods. Michelangelo was highly paid for his work in the Sistine Chapel, but look at what he did. On the contrary, I don't tolerate an artist that indulges on himself, trying to make money doing works that people buy just for his notable name, and just because his art-works fulfill the bad-taste of those people, despite the works being totally uninspired and with real uncaring for their real final quality.

 

That's it, saying that previous games, taken together, are far better than any game made past the EA-taking control line, is not a guilt, it's telling the truth. Stating the contrary requires a direct comparison, both in effort and resources spent in addition to quality, and requires to look at things without preconceptions.

[Giantdeathrobot]

There's a word for companies that don't care about how many copies of their product they can sell. The word is "bankrupt."

 

This. Do people really think indie devs and less-big AAA studios like CDPR don't care how many copies they sell? Of course they do. Some indies perhaps even more than big studios; this is their livelihood. No sales means less money for them, and can potentially cost them their jobs if it gets bad enough. I've worked in a small-scale movie studio, and I can tell you everyone is biting their nails in a film's opening week. Because if it bombs, many of them can only expect one final paycheck and a pat on the back as management wishes them good luck in finding a new job.

 

Can we please stop living in an imaginary world where the only good games come out of a lone prodigy's integrity-laden dream? These things cost a ton of money to make, a long time to design, you need to pay artists, coders, project managers, animators, level designers, gameplay designers, writers in some cases. Sure, once in a blue moon this one guy makes an indie darling like Undertale, but for every good indie game you've got a hundred absolute stinkers shoveled into Steam on a daily basis that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

 

The world sure isn't divided between pure-hearted indie devs and evil corporate overlords. Such a vision is, if you ask me, foolishly naive.

[Commander Rpg]

The world sure isn't divided between pure-hearted indie devs and evil corporate overlords. Such a vision is, if you ask me, foolishly naive.

There are perfectly healthy middle grounds, there's no need to venture into perilous extremes.

[pdusen]

They need to go back to making games for the sake of making good games and stop worrying about how many copies of their games are going to sell.

 

1. They still make good games.
2. I'm pretty sure they've always worried about how many copies they would sell.

[Beerfish]

BioWare still has some very good people working for them that try and do the right things in regards to games, they also have some super talented people but the end product did change when the Doctors no longer assumed direct control.  The games still have some very good qualities, much of the other stuff regarding presentation and promotion is much much much worse imo

[Giantdeathrobot]

There are perfectly healthy middle grounds, there's no need to venture into perilous extremes.

 

''Perilous extremes'' is what I see when people treat EA as the source of all there is bad in Bioware, with no other reason or explanation than "duh, it's EA, obviously they did bad things!".

 

I prefer assigning responsibility where it's most likely to be had. Overpriced DLCs and rushed release dates (DA2)? That's on EA, for sure. But questionable writing or gameplay decisions? I have a hard time thinking it comes from anyone but Bioware. At worst EA goes "our market research shows people like shooty. Try to make it more shooty" which, if it results in ME3's gameplay over ME1's, I'm all for honestly. It's not like Bioware wasn't already drifting towards action-based combat; Jade Empire is still their game with the least RPG elements, and it was released before the merger, a decade ago now.

 

Plus, people have very variable appreciations of "artistic integrity". When it's used to justify/defend their pet game or game features, oh, then we're all over it. But when Bioware uses it to defend the endings they wrote for ME3, suddenly most folks couldn't give a toss about Bioware's integrity and want them to change things, now. I know, I was one of those.

[Kierro Ren]

Sometimes I wonder what kind of games would have we got if BW was bought by Bethesda or was an independent studio like CDPR. 

 

Bethesda is good, but there's alot of idiots too. They have a game filled with bugs and instead of putting DLC on hold, to fix said problems. They let PC MODs fix their mistakes, and leave consoles to suffer until DLC releases with a load more of bugs added on. Bethesda has great ideas but they only do half the work, then let players do the rest... not good business.

[Cyonan]

People say "It's easy, just make good games" like this is still the 1990s and AAA games don't cost in the millions of dollars to make. Every AAA developer worries about selling enough copies, even fan favourites like CDPR.

 

We can talk about how it would have been nice if another not so widely hated company bought them, but the reality is that EA bought them because "old BioWare" wasn't doing so well despite releasing good games all the time.

 

You can also see BioWare's shift to cinematic before they're bought out by EA. Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire started the shift towards more cinematic story telling. Mass Effect was also largely developed before EA got involved, which puts two games with action based combat in it.

 

There's plenty of things we can blame EA for, but it's not like old BioWare was going to just keep remaking Baldur's Gate style games forever. They were already moving in this direction before EA showed up.

[Sanunes]

Sometimes I wonder what kind of games would have we got if BW was bought by Bethesda or was an independent studio like CDPR. 

 

I have a lower opinion of Bethesda then I do EA so that first example for me would be a worse game that is frustrating to play because lack of quality control.  You have to remember EA wasn't BioWare's choice they tried to merge with Pandemic and the venture company sold both studios to EA, so you could easily have the problem that EA would own both studios even if it wasn't BioWare/Pandemic it could have been BioWare/CDPR that EA bought.

[Iakus]

Starving artists have integrity too - but that doesn't stop their art from being ignored. Bioware's success is founded on making games people enjoy - enough that they can make more of them, whether under EA or independently. Virtually every criticism people have thrown at post-EA Bioware can equally be thrown at their pre-EA titles: weak main plot, undeveloped characters, bland setting, action combat, etc.

 

And yet until a few years ago, Bioware was the name for cRPGs.  At least for Western ones.  I remember playing BG for the first time and was amazed that the companions had their own backstories and agendas.  And may disagree with me, or with other companions.  Imagine my surprise when Jaheira and Khalid squared off against Monteron and Xzar!  That never happened to me before in a game, where the companions could defy me if pushed too far, and wouldn't play nice just because I told them to!  When it came to story and characters, they were way ahead of the curve, once upon a time.

 

But now they're moving away from this stuff more an more.  And now there's competition.  CDPR, InXile, Heck even Obsidian is resurgent.

 

 

It's all art. None of it stops being art merely because I like or dislike it. Speaking for myself - I would take each one of them over Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. I can't say specifically what you like about Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights - but if we're going to defend BG's story/characters and Neverwinter Night's single-player on the grounds of artistic integrity (just as an example), then artistic integrity shouldn't be high on the priority list. Artistic vision sometimes produces amazing products - but that's not exclusively the case.

A crucifix in a jar of urine may be "art" but I'm certainly not going to pay money for it.  And I'm certainly going to be unhappy if I get one expecting something else, and  get told I simply "need closure" if I complain.

 

Funny thing about BG and NWN.  Their appeal to me is similar to that of Skyrim.  The main story and characters are certainly not as developed as characters are in games nowadays.  But they are also so very moddable.  I mean, sure people rave about Skyrim being open world.  But it's a world the players (on a PC at least) are encouraged to fill themselves.

[Sanunes]

A crucifix in a jar of urine may be "art" but I'm certainly not going to pay money for it.  And I'm certainly going to be unhappy if I get one expecting something else, and  get told I simply "need closure" if I complain.

 

Funny thing about BG and NWN.  Their appeal to me is similar to that of Skyrim.  The main story and characters are certainly not as developed as characters are in games nowadays.  But they are also so very moddable.  I mean, sure people rave about Skyrim being open world.  But it's a world the players (on a PC at least) are encouraged to fill themselves.

 

I could understand if they made a change overnight, but they have been making these changes for over a decade and seven games so expecting a game to be more like Baldur's Gate or anything before Jade Empire seems to be ignoring the direction they wanted to go.

[Iakus]

I could understand if they made a change overnight, but they have been making these changes for over a decade and seven games so expecting a game to be more like Baldur's Gate or anything before Jade Empire seems to be ignoring the direction they wanted to go.

The thing is, with DAI, they did seem to be trying to be more like Baldur's Gate (huge, open zoned, rather than truly open world) and made no question of studying the popularity of Skyrim

[Il Divo]

And yet until a few years ago, Bioware was the name for cRPGs.  At least for Western ones.  I remember playing BG for the first time and was amazed that the companions had their own backstories and agendas.  And may disagree with me, or with other companions.  Imagine my surprise when Jaheira and Khalid squared off against Monteron and Xzar!  That never happened to me before in a game, where the companions could defy me if pushed too far, and wouldn't play nice just because I told them to!  When it came to story and characters, they were way ahead of the curve, once upon a time.

 

 

 

But this is exactly what I mean by rose-tinted glasses, which is simply the idea that we fondly remember certain experiences, while neglecting or outright ignoring the bad. Let's put it this way: as soon as someone makes an appeal to: "I remember how great it was when x happened for the first time", they have made an appeal to nostalgia. 

 

Baldur's Gate was highly influential and played a key role in subsequent RPG's, both from Bioware and others. But that doesn't wash away for example the 1-dimensional companions, the scavenger hunt main plot, and arguably some of the weakest dialogue to be found in gaming. It's great that BG introduced the concept of personalized story-telling with Jaheira and Monteron duking it out. Other companies (Ex: Planescape Torment) were able to take a great concept and deliver it with a level of gravitas that I was able to take what was happening on screen seriously. 

 

But now they're moving away from this stuff more an more.  And now there's competition.  CDPR, InXile, Heck even Obsidian is resurgent.A crucifix in a jar of urine may be "art" but I'm certainly not going to pay money for it.  And I'm certainly going to be unhappy if I get one expecting something else, and  get told I simply "need closure" if I complain.

 

 

 

In keeping with your jar analogy, I'll point out that in terms of quality, I do honestly regard BG/NWN to be about that level. But regardless, the point was simply what Robot pointed out: talking about vague appeals to artistic integrity doesn't really help. It's too vague a concept to do anything with, especially since we're not on the insider's perspective of game design. Not to mention, it ends up being a double-edged sword since the same artistic integrity which justifies something you might love (like BG) also justifies something we hate (like the ME3 endings). 

 

Funny thing about BG and NWN.  Their appeal to me is similar to that of Skyrim.  The main story and characters are certainly not as developed as characters are in games nowadays.  But they are also so very moddable.  I mean, sure people rave about Skyrim being open world.  But it's a world the players (on a PC at least) are encouraged to fill themselves.

 

 

Mods offer a great degree of customization beyond the base game, but I'm not just evaluating whether Bioware can let other people do great work. I loved modded Morrowind. But if I thought the base game is terrible, then I would call Morrowind a terrible game that other people dramatically improved. 

 

To me, that just leads to a  semantics argument, whether we say "Baldur's Gate is a bad game that mods made much better" or "Baldur's Gate is a good game because of mods". The key point remains the same: Bioware themselves released a game with very weak characters and incredibly weak dialogue and they shouldn't get explicit credit for good work that modders do. 

[Iakus]

But this is exactly what I mean by rose-tinted glasses, which is simply the idea that we fondly remember certain experiences, while neglecting or outright ignoring the bad. Let's put it this way: as soon as someone makes an appeal to: "I remember how great it was when x happened for the first time", they have made an appeal to nostalgia. 

 

Not was, though, is.  I really am replaying the game now (just finished werewolf island last night).  The game still holds appeal over a decade later.  Beamdog just came out with an expansion for BGEE in fact.

 

Whereas ME3 was controversial (to say the least) from the get -go

 

 

To me, that just leads to a  semantics argument, whether we say "Baldur's Gate is a bad game that mods made much better" or "Baldur's Gate is a good game because of mods". The key point remains the same: Bioware themselves released a game with very weak characters and incredibly weak dialogue and they shouldn't get explicit credit for good work that modders do.

 

Unless the game was designed with modders in mind?  I mean, I honestly can't say if the BG games were made with them in mind (though there are certainly a LOT of mods out there) I know for fact that NWN was designed that way, with the OC being essentially an extended demo to show what "DMs" can make for players.  I don't think it's quite fair to put such games in the same category as those which the main plot is supposed to be the selling point.  

[marktcameron]

 I do not blame ea. I blame bioware they have the option to go back to their roots if they wanted to.                                                ​

[Il Divo]

Not was, though, is.  I really am replaying the game now (just finished werewolf island last night).  The game still holds appeal over a decade later.  Beamdog just came out with an expansion for BGEE in fact.

 

Whereas ME3 was controversial (to say the least) from the get -go

 

 

Depending on what you enjoy, maybe. Although I wouldn't appeal to "new content being released" as a measure of quality. If we're taking that approach, then ME3's dlc (especially Citadel) and ME:A still show an insane amount of appeal for the Mass Effect brand, regardless of ME3's controversy which was ending-centric. 

 

When people ask me whether they would enjoy Baldur's Gate: the first thing I ask them is: do you like DnD 2.0? If they tell me no, that's a warning sign. The second thing I ask them is: are the characters your favorite part of Bioware games? If they tell me yes, I tell them to steer clear of Baldur's Gate. 

 

 

Unless the game was designed with modders in mind?  I mean, I honestly can't say if the BG games were made with them in mind (though there are certainly a LOT of mods out there) I know for fact that NWN was designed that way, with the OC being essentially an extended demo to show what "DMs" can make for players.  I don't think it's quite fair to put such games in the same category as those which the main plot is supposed to be the selling point.

 

 

This is why I say it's a semantics argument.What you're basically saying is that Bioware gave modders the tool to make a half-way decent game. At best, that gives them a role in its success, but we shouldn't attribute the success of the Mona Lisa to the guys who made the paint - we should give the most credit to the guy who made the Mona Lisa.

 

Fair ultimately doesn't factor into game design. It wasn't fair for example that Obsidian was screwed on the development cycle for KotOR 2, but saying "KotOR 2 is bad because Lucas Arts rushed it" is still saying that KotOR 2 is bad. I'm glad that Bioware was able to give modders the ability to add fun companions for some players. But that still leaves the problem that BG1 has characters so utterly one-dimensional that they make every succeeding Bioware game look like a masterpiece, at least in terms of cast. 

[Cyonan]

As somebody who only first actually finished Baldur's Gate a few years ago, I think that it does still have appeal but there are also a lot of design choices in there that would be highly questionable by today's standards.

 

A lot of the characters are one dimensional to the point where my latest playthrough I just finished in BGEE I just created my own party and didn't feel like I really missed a whole lot.

 

The combat also is just horribly outdated, and not just because it's using the outdated AD&D2 ruleset(but that doesn't help because THAC0 is stupid). Basically none of the terms are actually explained in the game which means the tooltips are going to be incredibly unclear to anybody who hasn't been playing tabletop games.

 

Allied AI pathing is dumb as a rock and will often get stuck on an actual rock or other party members, so your melee characters will sometimes be sitting in the back letting your casters sit on the front line. Even setting all my tankier characters to the front in the formation, I would often find them sitting in the back for reasons unknown.

 

On top of that, and this is against the D&D ruleset itself, magic becomes completely broken in the game. It turns every single fight into a CC based fight. Either you CC them before they CC you, or you have to stack CC resistance because CC will absolutely wreck anybody in the game. Often my strategy for beating a difficult fight was to just have my Sorcerer web spam the entire area and let my Paladin/Barbarian deal with everything, as they were wearing items which rendered them immune to web.

 

I will note: I did find Baldur's Gate to be a very good game even going back and playing it for the first time years after the fact. I just think a lot of the design decisions didn't age well at all from the 90s. Especially in the combat area of the game.

[Iakus]

Depending on what you enjoy, maybe. Although I wouldn't appeal to "new content being released" as a measure of quality. If we're taking that approach, then ME3's dlc (especially Citadel) and ME:A still show an insane amount of appeal for the Mass Effect brand, regardless of ME3's controversy which was ending-centric. 

 

When people ask me whether they would enjoy Baldur's Gate: the first thing I ask them is: do you like DnD 2.0? If they tell me no, that's a warning sign. The second thing I ask them is: are the characters your favorite part of Bioware games? If they tell me yes, I tell them to steer clear of Baldur's Gate. 

\

I will concede the point if the Mass Effect franchise is still cranking out content a decade from now  

 

And I think you are doing Bioware fans a disservice.  At least as far as BG2 goes.  Characters like Minsc, Edwin, Imoen, Haer'dalis, etc are still remembered today.

 

 

 

This is why I say it's a semantics argument.What you're basically saying is that Bioware gave modders the tool to make a half-way decent game. At best, that gives them a role in its success, but we shouldn't attribute the success of the Mona Lisa to the guys who made the paint - we should give the most credit to the guy who made the Mona Lisa.

Fair ultimately doesn't factor into game design. It wasn't fair for example that Obsidian was screwed on the development cycle for KotOR 2, but saying "KotOR 2 is bad because Lucas Arts rushed it" is still saying that KotOR 2 is bad. I'm glad that Bioware was able to give modders the ability to add fun companions for some players. But that still leaves the problem that BG1 has characters so utterly one-dimensional that they make every succeeding Bioware game look like a masterpiece, at least in terms of cast.

THing is, I don't think KOTOR 2 was a "bad" game.  It certainly had it's problems.  Especially with the endgame.  But I say it "didn't achieve its potential"

 

But then, I say much the same of DA2.

 

As for BG1 characters.  Again, you have to look at when the game was made.  Nowadays, the characters are primitive.  But at the time, I found it effing revolutionary!  Light years ahead of Ultima, or the Gold Box games.