excalibur wrote:
The trend is games have become very main stream and companies realized they can make a ton of money by marketing to the lowest common denominator. Though some companies like Rockstar with their GTA games have done it better, EA has been trying to creating a franchise that requires little effort but gives them boat loads of cash. So a dumbed down story because they think their consumer are stupid and micro transaction because they equally think people are stupid enough to spend even more money for fake things or at least their parent's money.
Hasn't anyone learned anything from Serious Sam 2?
"I am to liquor what the Crocodile Hunter is to Alligators." - Afroman
Andromeda was dumped on some C Team that had never released a completed project before.
However even the original studios have been hollowed out. One of BioWare's best writers, Drew Karpyshyn, has left recently as well.
We've almost come to the point we have to accept that the name BioWare is just the skin of a beloved studio stretched over the bloated corpse of another EA monster. We all know what's going to happen if Anthem fails.
Thread ends here. Cut along dotted line.
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Lets not start circlejerking about how Bioware was never interested in profit before EA came along.
I doubt they're appealing to the "lowest common denominator" or "dumbing down" anything, the games are still tens of hours long, they aren't 5 hour COD campaigns and many of Andromeda's systems are more complex than ME2s.
EA's problem seems to be that they think they can somehow please everyone by giving people what they think they want. People didn't like the limited space of DA2 so Inquisition had open worlds, people didn't like ME3's ending so Andromeda bypasses it. It's all very safe.
Bioware's first big success was KOTOR which was the risky sequel to an obscure comic book and had no connection to the films other than motifs, it was successful because it was something people didn't know they wanted.
I don't know - my take is that the team developing Andromeda was more concerned with the various romance options, character backgrounds, and what the characters looked like than the actual story and gameplay. And on top of that, the dialog is really ... contemporary (this is how the kids talk now, right?). From what I hear, they didn't even start writing anything until a year from release date (I forget where I read that at, though, some gaming website). I'm kind of glad now that I decided to boycott this game over Manveer Heir and BioWare's and EA's response when it came to people criticizing the openly racist things he was posting on social media, because I missed out on buying this stinker of a game.
Speaking of the romance options, I have to admit that I'm kind of surprised that they actually had visible nudity in it. In ME2 and ME3 I got under the impression that they'd been scared away from it thanks to the completely false characterization the first game got as a "sex simulator."
"Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough."
-TR
I don't know if it's lowest common denominator or not but Dragon Age: Inquisition is very much a "good vs. evil" story in a previously morally ambiguous world, David Gaider was effectively driven from Dragon Age despite it being his baby, and the story was summarized as, "You are the messiah and everyone adores you." It also is mountains and mountains of busy work fetch quests plus the War Table.
Andromeda also is lots and lots of busy work in the exact same way.
Trouble with BioWare is that their games have always been a supporting feature for the story.
If the story is bad, you're left with a lot of sub-par grindy gameplay.
I have a lot of decent memories from Mass Effect. The Virmire choice, Vigil, the entire endings of ME1 and 2. Garrus who is basically bro for life. The Tuchunka sequence in Mass Effect 3. Pieces that were surprising or tied the story together so well they raised the bar for my expectations of any future video game writing.
The loss of writing Talent from Bioware means I don't expect we'll ever see something like those moments in those franchises ever again. It makes my recollection of those moments bitter-sweet.
Thread ends here. Cut along dotted line.
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What was it that originally distinguished Bioware as a developer, and what has changed since?
I'd say they built their reputation first and foremost on attention to story, with an emphasis on the "role-playing" part of role-playing game. Despite being licensed properties, Baldur's Gate and KOTOR took their respective worlds seriously, and tried to immerse you in it like reading a novel, but using the a video game's interactive nature as a means to further your connection to it. There are mechanical trademarks (such as having a base of operations starting with BG2, or companion-specific quests & dialogues, or the oft-derided romances), but those were all just tools in service to the tale they were trying to tell.
I think what's happened with EA has been to treat those game mechanics as an end in and of itself, as though it were a formula to replicate rather than a tool at their disposal. The old Bioware looked at video games, and realized that the interactive nature of the medium allowed them to forge a much stronger connection with the player as the narrative unfolds; it used a (relatively) new technology to further classic storytelling. The new Bioware more or less treats the story as if it were just more scenery to set the next set-piece action sequence in. They'll throw in a token romance and some funny dialogue because that's what previous games had and people seem to like that, and not because it makes sense in the story that the character - and, by extension, player - is currently creating.
Fixer wrote:Trouble with BioWare is that their games have always been a supporting feature for the story.
If the story is bad, you're left with a lot of sub-par grindy gameplay.
I have a lot of decent memories from Mass Effect. The Virmire choice, Vigil, the entire endings of ME1 and 2. Garrus who is basically bro for life. The Tuchunka sequence in Mass Effect 3. Pieces that were surprising or tied the story together so well they raised the bar for my expectations of any future video game writing.
The loss of writing Talent from Bioware means I don't expect we'll ever see something like those moments in those franchises ever again. It makes my recollection of those moments bitter-sweet.
A loos which writers? Drew K kinda butchered Revan for me.
