The BioWare / EA / Origin thread

[Chyron8472]

I couldn't readily find a thread specifically about Western RPGs or BioWare, so I made one, and expanded the title to inclue EA and Origin in case the topic changed to such.






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[Darth Marsden]

I can raise two things on topic within this topic.

1) I have yet to play a Mass Effect game, despite owning the first two on PC. Should I start?

2) The video game retailers Game and Gamestation (the UK equivalent of EB), are having financial difficulties and due to stupid, stupid reasons that will forever elude me, have decided not to stock Mass Effect 3, nor any other March release from EA, as they cannot agree on credit terms. Story on Kotaku.

[RetroVortex]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

I can raise two things about Bioware.

1) I have yet to play a Mass Effect game, despite owning the first two on PC. Should I start?

2) The video game retailers Game and Gamestation (the UK equivalent of EB), are having financial difficulties and due to stupid, stupid reasons that will forever elude me, have decided not to stock Mass Effect 3. Discuss.

GAMEstation.

...

I need to complete Mass Effect.

[der_ketzer]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

I can raise two things about Bioware.

1) I have yet to play a Mass Effect game, despite owning the first two on PC. Should I start?

Yes. The first 2 games are worth the time you put into them

[Chyron8472]

I did have a specific question and didn't want the entire thread relegated solely to answering it.

I have played Mass Effect through more than once, and I find it to be a very good game. However, many of the Assignments (sidequests) include clearing a cave, base, or bunker, most of which look identical to each other. It also occurs to me that one of the major gripes against Dragon Age 2 is that many sidequest areas look identical.

This being said, why then is Mass Effect considered a good game while Dragon Age 2 is said to suck (having never played DA2, myself)?

[Rather Dashing]

Bioware can fuck off. When they decided to make linear third person action games that appeal only to idiots(now with MORE inconsequential dialog trees!), they stopped being a company I really feel a desire to support. And now Drew Karpshyn isn't with them anymore, so there's really no reason to think of Bioware fondly at all, unless you're into a very juvenile "Whelp, the world is going to BLOW UP, I guess it's time to BE AN ACTION HERO" sort of thing.

[Darth Marsden]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

This being said, why then is Mass Effect considered a good game while Dragon Age 2 is said to suck (having never played DA2, myself)?

Because Mass Effect is Sci-Fi and Dragon Age is fantasy. Gamers are fickle things.

Well, that's not entirely true. Mass Effect is less of a full-on RPG. It's got over-the-shoulder shooting and taking cover and stuff, so repetition isn't such an issue because it's still involving that fun combat aspect.

Dragon Age is much more of an old-school style RPG, and the combat is much more melee focused, not to mention stat based. As a result it gets much more repetitive, which is why it's come in for so much stick.

Also:


Gee, can't see any capitol letters there. Hmm.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

Dragon Age is much more of an old-school style RPG, and the combat is much more melee focused, not to mention stat based. As a result it gets much more repetitive, which is why it's come in for so much stick.

That's all? RPG's usually get repetitive to a point anyway as a result of having to grind levels. Is that really mainly what people are complaining about?

[RetroVortex]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

Gee, can't see any capitol letters there. Hmm.

I was pointing out that GAME and gamestation are owned by the same people.

(hence why I fused the two together! XD)

EDIT: (Maybe you already know that, and I'm being played a fool again. Not too suprising these days really.. :/)

[Darth Marsden]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

That's all? RPG's usually get repetitive to a point anyway as a result of having to grind levels. Is that really mainly what people are complaining about?

Well, that's the impression I get. I haven't actually played a Bioware RPG since KotOR, but from what I can tell that's one of the main factors. It also doesn't help that in Dragon Age 2, a lot of the sidequest areas are practically identical, which doesn't help in addition to all the combat that the game heaps upon you.

[der_ketzer]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

Well, that's the impression I get. I haven't actually played a Bioware RPG since KotOR, but from what I can tell that's one of the main factors. It also doesn't help that in Dragon Age 2, a lot of the sidequest areas are practically identical, which doesn't help in addition to all the combat that the game heaps upon you.

There is one city and you are having the quest in a number of caves that is a lot smaller than the number of the quests --> playing in the same cave over and over again. At least that's what I heard. I wouldn't touch DA2.

[Alcoremortis]

Mass Effect is pretty fun. There's not anything there plot-wise that you haven't heard a bazillion times over, but the combat flows pretty nicely and the side characters, especially in the second game, are almost worth the price of admission.

Especially Garrus and Mordin. Especially Mordin singing his own version of "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General"

I need to play those games again, if only to keep the single person who marred my nearly perfect playthrough of the second one. Lookin' at you, Tali...

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

That's all? RPG's usually get repetitive to a point anyway as a result of having to grind levels. Is that really mainly what people are complaining about?

Dragon Age 2 is a lot like Mass Effect, yes. You hit the nail on the fucking head with that one.

That's the problem.

Dragon Age was never supposed to be like Mass Effect. Dragon Age: Origins did a lot of things that obviously were meant to be a throwback to Bioware's earlier games, like Baldur's Gate series. More tactical combat, a wide range of character customization options, a more PC-friendly UI setup, less of a cinematic and more of a video game feel.

Dragon Age 2 pisses that away and shits on its grave.

People don't like Dragon Age 2 because it is like Mass Effect and it never should have been. It's okay for Mass Effect to exist. I don't like what it became, some sort of weird cinematic thing with token attempts at making the player feel like they're doing something, now with a deathmatch shooter thrown in for good measure, tied into various social gaming and pre-launch DLC measures and whathaveyou, but whatever. People like that for some reason, so sure, let them have that.

The PROBLEM is that Bioware crafted Dragon Age 2 in Mass Effect's image. A single, voiced, human protagonist rather than the slew of mythical races possible in Origins. Quest types reduced to "go and kill things for me now", in a much less strategic way, like Mass Effect does.

Everything important is a step back from Origins for the people who actually enjoyed Origins. It's more limited in terms of locale, more limited in terms of how it looks, more limited in terms of customization, more limited in terms of strategy, more limited in terms of characters, worse story, they stripped out crafting, you can't customize your companion's armor....

The game is considered awful for being Mass Effect 2 because it's NOT MASS EFFECT 3: FANTASY EDITION. It's DRAGON AGE 2. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are different series, you know, not the same series with different genre skins.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by der_ketzer

There is one city and you are having the quest in a number of caves that is a lot smaller than the number of the quests --> playing in the same cave over and over again. At least that's what I heard. I wouldn't touch DA2.

Again, in Mass Effect 1, you explore planets in the Mako... the ME version of the Warthog (I like the Mako but apparently many complain about it.) On many planets which are not involved in missions (ie. the main plot), there is either a cave, a base, or an underground bunker. Despite there being quite a number of these planets to explore, nearly every base looks the same, nearly every cave looks the same, and nearly every bunker looks the same. It still doesn't mean the game sucks because of it, so I'm not sure why having to melee in one game instead of shoot in another makes the difference between a good game and a bad one.

[KuroShiro]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

I have played Mass Effect through more than once, and I find it to be a very good game. However, many of the Assignments (sidequests) include clearing a cave, base, or bunker, most of which look identical to each other. It also occurs to me that one of the major gripes against Dragon Age 2 is that many sidequest areas look identical.

This being said, why then is Mass Effect considered a good game while Dragon Age 2 is said to suck (having never played DA2, myself)?

Well, Mass Effect actually received a fair amount of flak for its side quests and irritating planet exploration sequences, both things that changed/vanished in 2. The praise for it is far from universal.

Mass Effect was more experimental, a mish-mash of ideas and design features that didn't always come together well. However, it was also pretty well polished, deep, well-written, and basically competent. Dragon Age 2 showed very little effort, made a few really terrible design decisions, and had an overall rushed and slipshod feel -- not to mention a story where you had basically no influence on anything that happened, and no obvious reason to be doing what you were doing until the very ends of the chapters.

Anyway, DA2 wasn't a horrible game or anything, it was just more of a letdown for people used to actual quality games from Bioware. I personally liked Mass Effect 2 a lot as it fixed a lot of the problems that ME1 had (though not without controversy) and was more assured in what it wanted to be. Dragon Age 2 was just a mess, a mix between a mediocre action RPG and a party based RPG. Some people liked it, many people (myself included) were disappointed by it. Such is life.

[taumel]

I enjoyed Dragon Age 2 more than Dragon Age and if i remember things correctly a lot of my friends did the same. I also could argue why but instead there is a nice statement from RPS:

‘SEQUEL TO A BELOVED VIDEOGAME IS A BIT DIFFERENT.’

[Davies]

Meh. Whilst I enjoyed playing 'Mass Effect 2', I never actually completed it and came to the conclusion that it was slightly overrated. None the less, I will get 'round to finishing it one day and then move on to Mass Effect 3. I must say that I preferred the first two 'Knights of the Old Republic' games though.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by taumel

I enjoyed Dragon Age 2 more than Dragon Age and if i remember things correctly a lot of my friends did the same. I also could argue why but instead there is a nice statement from RPS:

‘SEQUEL TO A BELOVED VIDEOGAME IS A BIT DIFFERENT.’

There's a difference between being "a bit different" for creative reasons, and chopping out features and changing the entire creative direction of a series to cynically bring it closer into line with a better-selling product.

[KuroShiro]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

There's a difference between being "a bit different" for creative reasons, and chopping out features and changing the entire creative direction of a series to cynically bring it closer into line with a better-selling product.

Ironically, DA:O (by almost all accounts) was a better selling product that Mass Effect and the best selling product in Bioware history at the time. They just didn't know that when they started development on DA2, and expectations for it were pretty low at EA. Hence the massive overhaul.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by KuroShiro

Ironically, DA:O (by almost all accounts) was a better selling product that Mass Effect and the best selling product in Bioware history at the time. They just didn't know that when they started development on DA2, and expectations for it were pretty low at EA. Hence the massive overhaul.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add in the "There's also a difference between a sequel being a bit different because a developer made changes, and a sequel being different because the publisher that recently bought said developer has some mandates."