186 réponses à ce sujet

[meznaric]

After playing multiple Bioware games, I realized that the story structure of Bioware is made on a template. It goes like this:

1) Start in the middle of action, with a few temporary members already there. Some of them will die.
2) The whole story is revealed. Your enemy is revealed and your target is revealed.
3) Find another team member (or kill/recruit another Jedi master, or find another Star Map, or go to another planet and kill everything moving)
4) Repeat 3
5) Repeat 3
6) Repeat 3
7) Repeat 3 as many more times as the development resources permit
8) Do the final big boss and finish the story revealed in 2

For the majority of the game one therefore knows what will happen until the end. This is why I am starting to get bored of Bioware games. Compare this to Fallout 3 (if you intend to play it  and haven't already these are going to be major SPOILERS):

1) Find out your dad is missing, without knowing why
2) Start getting hints of where your dad is
3) Find your dad and find out why he left
4) Help your dad fix the purifier
5) Enclave captures the purifier
6) Get the last important piece required to start the purifier before the assault can begin.
7) Get captured by Enclave and talk to the president
8) Find out what president wants and that enclave is divided. You get released.
9) Assault the purifier and activate it (no final boss)

Awesome story structure! Lots of new things happening all the time, and the story gets revealed as you collect more and more clues. The sense of mystery is great. In Bioware stories, there is not such a sense of mystery as regards the progression of a story within a SINGLE episode of the game (ME1 for example is a single episode). So one piece of advice I would give to Bioware is this: DROP THE TEMPLATE and be CREATIVE.

Anyone else feel the same?

[aaniadyen]

If anything, I'd say they're at least better than Bethesda. Especially after Oblivion.

[Oawa]

So let me get this straight....you're comparing the stories of multiple games made by the same company to 1 game from a different company?



Perhaps before making a comparison like that, it would help your argument if you played more games made by Bethesda and see if there is a pattern in their story telling as well.

[TheLostGenius]

 I thought that the story in Fallout 3 was about as thin as they come. Like it or not, Bioware are some of the best story tellers and character developers in the business.

[Unit-Alpha]

aaniadyen wrote...

If anything, I'd say they're at least better than Bethesda. Especially after Oblivion.

You sound kinda stupid. Oblivion and all Bethesda games are focused on the gameplay aspect of RPG's. Bioware is a story/character based game company. So don't make any more uninformed statements.

[meznaric]

Oawa wrote...

So let me get this straight....you're comparing the stories of multiple games made by the same company to 1 game from a different company?

Perhaps before making a comparison like that, it would help your argument if you played more games made by Bethesda and see if there is a pattern in their story telling as well.

What I am complaining about is that the whole story is revealed after playing the game for 5 minutes. You tend to know who/what is your target and what you need to do (usually totally repeatable element). And BTW,  I played Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3. That's more than 1. Yes, there are repeatable elements, but the story is never revealed from the beginning. Total mystery until you put the clues together.

[Llandaryn]

Bioware templated stories are boring

And yet you keep buying them.

[ZennExile]

Llandaryn wrote...

Bioware templated stories are boring

And yet you keep buying them.

Maybe he's one of the 20 thousand or so people who stole it?

[Unit-Alpha]

TheLostGenius wrote...

 I thought that the story in Fallout 3 was about as thin as they come. Like it or not, Bioware are some of the best story tellers and character developers in the business.

It's sad that I have to defend Bethsoft on a BW forum. Actually I liked FO3's story because it was a helluva lot more original than most game's story. Even BW has a few issues with the idea of cliche in Mass Effect. However, DA puts an interesting spin on the whole fantasy RPG sterotype.

[Llandaryn]

Ugh, stupid forum double-posting.

Modifié par Llandaryn, 28 février 2010 - 09:17 .

[meznaric]

ZennExile wrote...

Llandaryn wrote...

Bioware templated stories are boring

And yet you keep buying them.

Maybe he's one of the 20 thousand or so people who stole it?

Stole it? First of all, I don't consider piracy to be stealing. Second, I could not be on this forum if I had not bought the game.

[meznaric]

Llandaryn wrote...

Bioware templated stories are boring

And yet you keep buying them.

Well I used to find them fun at the time of Kotor 1 and 2. Maybe I was just younger and expected less sophistication from the story. The opinion that Bioware is good sort of stuck with me until quite recently when I started to realize that the stories are way too simple and not mysterious enough. Anyway, I am very likely to buy ME3 as well, simply because I want to know how the whole thing ends (which of course I have to give credit to Bioware for). Part of me hopes, though, that ME3 will have a less templated and more creative story structure.

[max_ai]

meznaric wrote...

ZennExile wrote...

Llandaryn wrote...

Bioware templated stories are boring

And yet you keep buying them.

Maybe he's one of the 20 thousand or so people who stole it?

Stole it? First of all, I don't consider piracy to be stealing. Second, I could not be on this forum if I had not bought the game.

You don't consider it such because (most probably) you haven't created anything of value yet...
Try it, it might change your point of view.

[cronshaw8]

meznaric wrote...
I played Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3. That's more than 1. Yes, there are repeatable elements, but the story is never revealed from the beginning. Total mystery until you put the clues together.

So you missed Brother Jaufree talking about Mehurns Dagon and Mancor Cameron in the first 15min of the game?

[Oawa]

meznaric wrote...

Oawa wrote...

So let me get this straight....you're comparing the stories of multiple games made by the same company to 1 game from a different company?

Perhaps before making a comparison like that, it would help your argument if you played more games made by Bethesda and see if there is a pattern in their story telling as well.

What I am complaining about is that the whole story is revealed after playing the game for 5 minutes. You tend to know who/what is your target and what you need to do (usually totally repeatable element). And BTW,  I played Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3. That's more than 1. Yes, there are repeatable elements, but the story is never revealed from the beginning. Total mystery until you put the clues together.

This is kind of what I was getting at, in your OP, you're comparing two different things.  Biowares "template" to Fallout 3's actual story.

And thank you for clarifying what your main issue is.  A bit more mystery isn't so much a bad thing.

[Nozybidaj]

meznaric wrote...

Anyone else feel the same?

I think you are partly right.  One thing I noticed while playing ME2, BW games are really really boring when you can't empathize with the characters.  The one thing BW seems to do well is create great characters that pull you into the world and create connections for you the player and your PC avatar that make it all worthwhile.

In ME2 without these characters that I cared about I had no attachment to the game, the world, or Shepard.  It's all just a fairly boring backstory to create an illusionary sense of reason to shoot stuff.  Part of it is also the format for ME2, where the characters are the story, aside from that the "main" story was really weak.  If you can't connect to the characters the game is basically just a big filler episode in the trilogy without much of anything of importance happening.

So yes, I can see what you are saying though maybe for different reasons.

[aaniadyen]

meznaric wrote...

ZennExile wrote...

Llandaryn wrote...

Bioware templated stories are boring

And yet you keep buying them.

Maybe he's one of the 20 thousand or so people who stole it?

Stole it? First of all, I don't consider piracy to be stealing. Second, I could not be on this forum if I had not bought the game.

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy

Piracy is stealing.

[meznaric]

max_ai wrote...

meznaric wrote...

ZennExile wrote...

Llandaryn wrote...

Bioware templated stories are boring

And yet you keep buying them.

Maybe he's one of the 20 thousand or so people who stole it?

Stole it? First of all, I don't consider piracy to be stealing. Second, I could not be on this forum if I had not bought the game.

You don't consider it such because (most probably) you haven't created anything of value yet...
Try it, it might change your point of view.

You likely do not realize that copyright laws are not in the interest of some of the creative industries. The people who make money out of copyright are publishers... For musicians, for instance, piracy is actually good. The more pirated their music is (regardless of how much they sell), the more money they make. So I think one seriously needs to ask themselves what is good here and who is stealing.

[aaniadyen]

Unit-Alpha wrote...

aaniadyen wrote...

If anything, I'd say they're at least better than Bethesda. Especially after Oblivion.

You sound kinda stupid. Oblivion and all Bethesda games are focused on the gameplay aspect of RPG's. Bioware is a story/character based game company. So don't make any more uninformed statements.

Oh, no! I crossed a Bethesda fanboy. Jeez, cry more. 'Sides. If Bethesda was focused on the gameplay, why does their combat suck more than any RPG I've played in the past ten years?

Modifié par aaniadyen, 27 février 2010 - 11:30 .

[Oawa]

meznaric wrote...

max_ai wrote...

meznaric wrote...

ZennExile wrote...

Llandaryn wrote...

Bioware templated stories are boring

And yet you keep buying them.

Maybe he's one of the 20 thousand or so people who stole it?

Stole it? First of all, I don't consider piracy to be stealing. Second, I could not be on this forum if I had not bought the game.

You don't consider it such because (most probably) you haven't created anything of value yet...
Try it, it might change your point of view.

You likely do not realize that copyright laws are not in the interest of some of the creative industries. The people who make money out of copyright are publishers... For musicians, for instance, piracy is actually good. The more pirated their music is (regardless of how much they sell), the more money they make. So I think one seriously needs to ask themselves what is good here and who is stealing.

Huh? If a musicians music gets pirated, they don't get their royalties....how does that equal more money for the musicians?

[Unwise Wisdom]

I agree.



Also, becoming someone important early on in the game in order to save the world: Jedi, Grey Warden, Spectre.

[meznaric]

cronshaw8 wrote...

meznaric wrote...
I played Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3. That's more than 1. Yes, there are repeatable elements, but the story is never revealed from the beginning. Total mystery until you put the clues together.

So you missed Brother Jaufree talking about Mehurns Dagon and Mancor Cameron in the first 15min of the game?

The only thing you know at that time is that the killers are the followers of Mancor Cameron who worship Mehrunes Dagon. That's it. You don't know anything else yet, nor where they are or how you're going to get there. Compare this to ME2. You start, you learn collectors are the bad guys and where to find them. You know you need to pick up the team and then head through Omega 4 to get to their homeworld (OK, here is a bit of mystery. The player thinks it's a world they're after until the very end).

[ZennExile]

meznaric wrote...

max_ai wrote...

meznaric wrote...

ZennExile wrote...

Llandaryn wrote...

Bioware templated stories are boring

And yet you keep buying them.

Maybe he's one of the 20 thousand or so people who stole it?

Stole it? First of all, I don't consider piracy to be stealing. Second, I could not be on this forum if I had not bought the game.

You don't consider it such because (most probably) you haven't created anything of value yet...
Try it, it might change your point of view.

You likely do not realize that copyright laws are not in the interest of some of the creative industries. The people who make money out of copyright are publishers... For musicians, for instance, piracy is actually good. The more pirated their music is (regardless of how much they sell), the more money they make. So I think one seriously needs to ask themselves what is good here and who is stealing.

True enough but the western gaming industry is controlled by publishers so stealing software has a very real and negative impact on development.

[Oawa]

Unit-Alpha wrote...

aaniadyen wrote...

If anything, I'd say they're at least better than Bethesda. Especially after Oblivion.

You sound kinda stupid. Oblivion and all Bethesda games are focused on the gameplay aspect of RPG's. Bioware is a story/character based game company. So don't make any more uninformed statements.

I hate to say it....but you totally seemed the miss the context of the discussion...This isn't an argument about who is the better dev, it's an argument about story telling specifically...

It's pretty obvious to me, the poster you quoted was arguing their position that Bioware was a better story teller than Bethesda, citing Oblivion as their last decent story.

Maybe I'm wrong on the last comment.

[cralexns]

Now that you (indirectly) mention KOTOR, did you really find the plot twist in this game boring and/or unsurprising? I thought it was pretty awesome.

As for the recent games by Bioware, I would be inclined to agree that they're adhering more to a pattern than some of their older games but if you look around you will find patterns everywhere, like in movies or music..

Due to the economy no company can allow themselves to take much risk so it makes sense that they try to stay close to well-defined success models that cater to as wide an audience as possible.

Bioware is still my favourite game studio though and I will continue to worship them and throw my money at their titles.

Modifié par cralexns, 27 février 2010 - 11:36 .