BioWare - The Cracks Are Starting To Appear

[Alrik Fassbauer]

They wouldn't sell if they called them "interactive movies"

 

[hishadow]

There we have it! Bioware as a somewhat independent entity has now officially cease to exist. Its purely a brand name for EA to exploit. Glad we finally can put that discussion to rest.

 

[Maylander]

What I fail to understand is this: Why are they trying to expand the Mass Effect franchise prior to the completion of the trilogy? If they're going to expand it, expand it with a spin-off or similar - they're not going to capture a bunch of new fans at this point; most buyers of ME3 have already bought and played ME1 and 2.

Imagine Tolkien changing the recipe between book 2 and 3, or George Lucas between SW5 and 6? It makes no sense.

They pulled the same silly stunt with DA2. EA needs to realize that spin-offs can be different, while sequels can't.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

Mass Effect is really a poor shooter and a poor rpg.
It's greatness comes from being an interactive movie really but it's almost like the game would improve if you had a "skip action scene" function, like the old Sierra games.

I would say ME1 was a poor shooter and average RPG, while ME2 is a poor RPG and "good" shooter. Not great, but good.

Both games excel at story, and in creating worlds that are cool to explore (even on a limited basis).

 

[Benedict]

Nothing wrong in that but I dont pay $60 for an interactive movie. Bioware should stop calling them rpgs from on.

They have . . . it's "a genre equivalent of shooter meets RPG" now.

 

[Couchpotato]

They have . . . it's "a genre equivalent of shooter meets RPG" now.

As I said I dont pay for those games. Not worth my money when you finish in 4-8 hrs.

 

[JemyM]

I would say ME1 was a poor shooter and average RPG, while ME2 is a poor RPG and "good" shooter. Not great, but good.

I dunno. I find even ME2 to be quite poor on the shooter department. Even poor shooters such as Black Site Area 51 and TUROK do more things right in comparison.

I do not find any of the shooter mechanics to work well. Well, except for aim and shoot. Movement makes me feel like a rhino. I can just run forward, I cannot jump, not dodge and taking cover is clunky usually ending me up taking cover where I do not want to take cover (the cover and run key are one of the same) and not take cover when I want to take cover.

The weapons have very little variation. They have different damage and fire rate, but they do not feel different which is the key to good FPS'es. The sniper rifle aren't as useful as it is in other games due to the level design and thanks to how health works some weapons primary advantage is lost when they just extended the healthbars to make foes stronger.

The level design brings it down another notch... The game gets very repetitive fast if it wasn't for dialogue, story and cutscenes. You go into a room and opponents pour in, same opponents that you killed the last 30 minutes with very little variation in area design.

There's no physics whatsoever, which really been the main feature in shooters for the last years, neither do the game use light/darkness which have also been a feature in shooters for awhile.

Except for "survive" and "kill em all" there's really not that many tasks to complete in combat either.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

I think the "tank" feel is on purpose, not a flaw. You are a bulked up and armored soldier after all. As for other stuff I think the various powers and the real need for tactics on insane difficulty make it rise far above the average shooters you mentioned.

Opinions will, of course, differ.

 

[DArtagnan]

I dunno. I find even ME2 to be quite poor on the shooter department. Even poor shooters such as Black Site Area 51 and TUROK do more things right in comparison.

I do not find any of the shooter mechanics to work well. Well, except for aim and shoot. Movement makes me feel like a rhino. I can just run forward, I cannot jump, not dodge and taking cover is clunky usually ending me up taking cover where I do not want to take cover (the cover and run key are one of the same) and not take cover when I want to take cover.

The weapons have very little variation. They have different damage and fire rate, but they do not feel different which is the key to good FPS'es. The sniper rifle aren't as useful as it is in other games due to the level design and thanks to how health works some weapons primary advantage is lost when they just extended the healthbars to make foes stronger.

The level design brings it down another notch… The game gets very repetitive fast if it wasn't for dialogue, story and cutscenes. You go into a room and opponents pour in, same opponents that you killed the last 30 minutes with very little variation in area design.

There's no physics whatsoever, which really been the main feature in shooters for the last years, neither do the game use light/darkness which have also been a feature in shooters for awhile.

Except for "survive" and "kill em all" there's really not that many tasks to complete in combat either.

I have to agree with this.

If we were to strip away all the non-shooter elements from ME2 - it would be a pretty bad game.

The story, while not really my cup of tee, is presented very well - and they managed to preserve a strong sci-fi atmosphere. But the actual gameplay was simplistic and predictable.

I still don't understand why so many people preferred it to the first game which, while a downright bad shooter, was better in all other areas.

Well, as was said - opinions differ.

 

[Thaurin]

Just think; if the original (and best) System Shock were made today, it would likely be a HUGE success!! Pity………Remake anyone.

No, if System Shock would be made today, people would complain about the developer dumbing down RPG elements and would they just make a full-on FPS already.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

What I fail to understand is this: Why are they trying to expand the Mass Effect franchise prior to the completion of the trilogy?

Easy :

Expansion -> more people learn about it -> more become fans (or at least more like it) -> more sales of the completing game.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

What I fail to understand is this: Why are they trying to expand the Mass Effect franchise prior to the completion of the trilogy? If they're going to expand it, expand it with a spin-off or similar - they're not going to capture a bunch of new fans at this point; most buyers of ME3 have already bought and played ME1 and 2.

A two side street imo. They might not attract new customers but they are in for keeping the customers who bought one and two.

If they do manage to move the game toward what appears more and more as Bioware's new direction, the base they inherit from 1 and 2 warrant them a number of sales and maybe bestseller status or something like that.

In this regard, they will get a success in the new field they want to establish themselves and will be able to communicate later on basis of sales to prove they do games in that field that can sell.

Now, if they developped a game in the new field, they would start with no warrantee on sales number.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Sounds reasonable.

Diehard fans buy everything no matter what.

 

[Gaxkang]

If you spend any time at all on Bioware forums their developers make their motivations quite clear. They want to avoid the fate of Black Isle and Troika at all cost and they want to sell millions of copies. To do that you need to make mainstream games, period.

Not sure I'd fully agree. They really danced around issues with DA2, ducking, dodging and weaving. The worst were the sins of omission. To their credit they didn't outright lie when they did say something, but they sure played with generally accepted definitions, stretching them a fair bit.

 

[Motoki]

Not sure I'd fully agree. They really danced around issues with DA2, ducking, dodging and weaving. The worst were the sins of omission. To their credit they didn't outright lie when they did say something, but they sure played with generally accepted definitions, stretching them a fair bit.

I'm with you on this one. I have read several statements by Bioware employees along the lines of 'The problem is people expected another Origins'. How is this is problem?

As a customer and fan of the original game I refuse to take the blame for their bait and switch. The real problem is they wanted their cake and to eat it too. Instead of doing the honest thing and presenting it as a spin-off/sidequel they got greedy and feared losing the original audience while going for their new target audience so they made it a full fledged sequel.

Though I can't say that they out and out lied per say, I do feel it was a willful misrepresentation.

 

[aries100]

In this thread at The Bioware ME3 forum, Javierabegazo mentions Christina Norman's response, a tweet (from twitter) that says this:

I was misrepresented in an article recently, which made it sound like I
wanted to remove RPG elements and stats from combat. What I actually
said was, I wanted RPG progression to have a more meaningful impact on
combat, but that was misrepresented as "cutting rpg stats" we actually
have more stats in me3 that affect combat, and the overall impact of rpg
progress on combat is greater. Anyway sorry for the longish tweet but I
just wanted ot clear that up, and a few people were asking me what was
up!

-Christina Norman, Lead Gameplay Designer of Mass Effect 3
Twitter / @Christina Norman: I was misrepresented in an …

However, if you read between the lines, you might be able to interpret what she's saying as 'bioware wants to remove stats alltogether from combat' or at least cut a lot of the rpg stats focusing only on a few 'meaningfull stats' in combat that then will have a much deeper impact on the combat in the game.

As for John Riccitiello's (JR's) comments on Bioware, they could mean that Bioware
will be adding a sort of multiplayer component to Mass Effect 3, and it certainly means that they'll be adding more dlc to improve the 'monetization' of games. And to make sure that games are seen as a service - in the future - not a retail product. JR said, in another comment as well, that he, and maybe Bioware (e.g. Ray and Greg?) wanted to have the market deparments directly involved in the development process.

Alas, I fear this has already happened; and then we got DA2. This game has been built, even admittedly so by several Bioware devs., mainly by telemetry reading as to who did play which origins in DA: Origins. And also to cater to Call of Duty's audience which I did not think they did at all - or at least not in the numbers they would have wished they did.

As for Bioware games, they have always been about the story, not the gameplay or the combat. A logical consequence of this is to move rpg games closer to interactive movies.
The stats in an rpg is there to help the combat along, not because they have any value in themselves (imo, of course).

As for Bioware wanting to sell many games, the doctors (Ray and Greg) have always wanted to sell many games, their second game was an RTS, Battleground Infinity, but then Feargus Urquhart, the CEO of Black Isle/Interplay mentioned they could sell more games, if they made it into an rpg, thus Baldur's Gate was born. And the Infinity Engine, too. I clearly remember David Gaider, Fernando Melo, and maybe Stanley Woo?, saying on the Bioware forums 'look at Troika, look at Black Isle/Interplay, look at Origin' and then asking 'where are they now?'

I do believe that Bioware has a fear of them, Bioware, going out of business by not selling enough copies of their games, and then to suffer the same fate as Troika, Origin, and Black Isle/Interplay. And this is deepest reason behind the sell(out) to EA, the wish to sell million of copies. However, somewhere in there, even a game company needs to make sure that it doesn't lose its - ahem - soul.

Edit:
Also, as we all know, as Sten says, The cake is a Lie. (thanks to Portal, the first)

 

[JemyM]

I think the "tank" feel is on purpose, not a flaw. You are a bulked up and armored soldier after all. As for other stuff I think the various powers and the real need for tactics on insane difficulty make it rise far above the average shooters you mentioned.

Opinions will, of course, differ.

My opinion is that you are overwhelmingly apologetic if you call this a design choice rather than a flaw. Mass Effect was clearly copying titles such as Gears of War where the characters were far bulkier than Sheperds slimmed armor. In non-interactive action sequences Shepherd and others move fluidly without much effort in that armor.

There have been plenty of run-and-cover games since, Uncharted being one of my favorites. Had they been able to match these games in gameplay and truly built an action title with RPG-mechanics, the game might have been an excellent shooter. Thing is that they really do not have the same experience that groups like Epic Software have. I say thats the reason that the shooter is clunky.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

we actually have more stats in me3 that affect combat, and the overall impact of rpg
progress on combat is greater.

They should stick with concepts like combat stats. That would allow a more sensical speech: focusing on how to make combat stats more relevant to combat.

You've got to love when she stated that the RPG stats have to get more impact on combat. RPG stats having impact on RP parts? No, not enough sophisticated.

 

[JemyM]

They should stick with concepts like combat stats. That would allow a more sensical speech: focusing on how to make combat stats more relevant to combat.

You've got to love when she stated that the RPG stats have to get more impact on combat. RPG stats having impact on RP parts? No, not enough sophisticated.

The best example of rpg stats making impact on action combat to me is Gothic. Becoming better in something like hand-to-hand combat was based on actual techniques that really made you better.

Then again, I am dead drunk when typing this post so I might be mistaken on whatever it was that I just replied to.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

Not sure I'd fully agree. They really danced around issues with DA2, ducking, dodging and weaving. The worst were the sins of omission. To their credit they didn't outright lie when they did say something, but they sure played with generally accepted definitions, stretching them a fair bit.

Well I'm not sure about recently, but they have definitely posted often about wanting to avoid the fate of other CRPG developers in the past, and about how the method to do that is to make more mainstream games.

Which really, if we're being honest with ourselves, is not a false statement.