Anthem… makes me sad.

Signs of Bioware fall were going on first with BG2 and their sudden open love of Diablo over traditional CRPG's. They started adding elements of it there which were very visible in the Throne of Bhaal expansion.

Wut? How on Earth they are even remotely similar? Bioware was more influenced by JRPGs with focus on characters, relationship development than their contemporaries from Black Isle. Icewind Dale and Dungeon Siege are damn lot closer to Diablo than anything BW did.

NWN was an action RPG

How? In action rpgs, all of your actions are determined by player skill, primarily. NWN plays, for the most part, as 3d version of rtwp like Baldur's Gate.

This was followed by the fully 3d Jade Empire which signalled the start to go after a larger market instead of recreating the games of their youth.

That is true. JE was Bioware fully transitioning to more action based combat/gameplay, though you can see it already in KOTOR.

Bioware, to me, officially ends when they publically anounced their strategy on game design was to be focus group base. As soon as they saw the statistics on SP vs MP and the lack of DM Client use on NWN, they completely lost their vision.

If that were the case, why KOTOR, JE, ME, DAO..had no multiplayer?

Their sellout to EA, the abandonment of their 2m strong original forums for a "social one" and their sudden commitment to forcing social causes on their players were all just signs of the rot within which only finally became internally acknowledged after the failure of SWTOR.

\

They were losing money at the time and in jeopardy of shutting down. They probably wouldn't even be around today otherwise.

And common, 'social cause' is overblown, you can find it everywhere in older games. Shar Teel, Nalia, etc?

Anthem looks good to me. Anyway, I'm sure Pirhanna Bytes will trot out another retread/re-skin of Gothic in 2019 to keep you guys occupied.

And social justice stories in games? What's not to like?… it pisses off all the assholes!

Originally Posted by Ovenall
Anthem looks good to me. Anyway, I'm sure Pirhanna Bytes will trot out another retread/re-skin of Gothic in 2019 to keep you guys occupied.

And social justice stories in games? What's not to like?… it pisses off all the assholes!

The lack of nuanced story telling in modern bioware games was the point being made ie. 'forcing social causes'. Not the inclusion of social justice which has been present in all previous bioware games.

It has never appeared to me that Bioware was forcing social causes, but I don't have time to pay attention to that nonsense anyways. I'm sure some of their critics are well-intentioned, but many just strike me as hateful people looking to be outrage.

Originally Posted by Silver Coin
It has never appeared to me that Bioware was forcing social causes, but I don't have time to pay attention to that nonsense anyways. I'm sure some of their critics are well-intentioned, but many just strike me as hateful people looking to be outrage.

You would think asking for better characterization of diverse characters would be considered pro-social justice, but what do I know. No tokenism is all thats been asked for. I don't remember anyone complaining about Shadowrun: Dragonfall and that game had a diverse cast. Why? Because they were well developed characters with strong themes. They didn't just exist because of some group identity.

Bioware commonly reacted to criticism like you kicked their dog. People assume where you are coming from and feel free to personally attack you as if you represent a group of people rather than the individual you are. A conversation cannot happen if you are called someone a bigot all the time and other 'isms.' I rather think that was the intention.

I agree with Bobo except for his last comment on social cause bit.

Neither BG2 nor NWN were the beginning of the downfall. I'd say it started with KotOR/Jade Empire.

I tend to agree later Bioware games all have characters of certain "identity group" without proper character development or adequate depth.

I can't comment on Bioware specifically since I haven't played through Inquisition or Andromeda, but it seems with every game that comes out nowadays there's some drama about SJWs and forced diversity, mostly from dumb Americans.

I'm not saying there aren't well-intentioned people with legitimate criticisms about how diversity is portrayed in videogames, but many just strike me as being hateful and bigoted. They will manafacture any reason to go on an angry tirade about feminism, homosexuals, and minorities even if it means grasping at straws.

I don't remember anyone complaining about Shadowrun: Dragonfall and that game had a diverse cast. Why? Because they were well developed characters with strong themes.

I do remember many people complaining about Harebrained Schemes being SJWs while they were developing the Shadowrun games. Not as much as Battletech however.

Can we move the SJW discussion to the codex, as appropriate? From the posts I read here, this branch started as a misunderstanding anyways.

It certainly is the last reason why I would complain about Anthem.

Are flying mechas suddenly popular in the West? Just looking at the trailer had me disappointed in the game. It's like they're making a game for the Japanese mecha worshippers. Maybe I don't understand something, but why do they expect this to sell in the West?

Originally Posted by Elel
Are flying mechas suddenly popular in the West? Just looking at the trailer had me disappointed in the game. It's like they're making a game for the Japanese mecha worshippers. Maybe I don't understand something, but why do they expect this to sell in the West?

IRONMAN!


Also, BioWare very first video game was Shattered Steel, a Mech simulator. There is probably some mecha culture still hanging around the studio (and believe it or not, there are still people from back then still working at BioWare).

Originally Posted by Elel
Are flying mechas suddenly popular in the West? Just looking at the trailer had me disappointed in the game. It's like they're making a game for the Japanese mecha worshippers. Maybe I don't understand something, but why do they expect this to sell in the West?

It's a 'murican thing. They do love their big mechanical toys, don't they? Ever watched Monster Trucks?

Originally Posted by BoboTheMighty
It's a 'murican thing. They do love their big mechanical toys, don't they? Ever watched Monster Trucks?

Could be as I loved mechs as a child, and it all started with RoboTech in the 1980's.

I don't know about Anthem, I'm outright not interested in it, but I do like playing SWTOR. Also by Bioware.

But - SWTOR has been pushed into "subscriber only" areas so much. I mean, they literally cut content to make people NOT remain within the older content - which is F2P - and did so many thing to PUSH players into the "subscriber only" end content. The older content seems to rot right away, with small exceptions here and there.

To sum it up, it has become so much obvious that SWTOR is seen as a tool to make money by pushing players into "subscriber area". It's like I developed it long ago : You can see decisions from the management - how a game is being treated - like a watermark through everything.

Regarding that "mecha culture" : The last few super bosses from raids (raids in SWTOR = "Operations") in SWTOR are indeed giant droids.

I'm sure they're just trying to capture that Battletech heavy buzz that seems to be all over the place these past few months. How can you go wrong with a fifty plus tonne behemoth running wild? =p

Battletech? I always thought they were going after the Destiny crowd …

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
But - SWTOR has been pushed into "subscriber only" areas so much. I mean, they literally cut content to make people NOT remain within the older content - which is F2P - and did so many thing to PUSH players into the "subscriber only" end content. The older content seems to rot right away, with small exceptions here and there.

Is it really that bad now? When I used to play SWTOR, it was the most generous MMO money-wise. Very little was hidden behind the sub wall, really, and you only needed to sub once to get ALL new content. Neither would it disappear after next month you don't sub anymore. Features hidden behind the paywall would also continue being available to you after you unsub.

And now that I play ESO, I have to compare… and it's a horrid comparison. ESO has you pay for the main game and an expansion, which cost A LOT. ESO sub costs A LOT. They give you access to DLCs, but not expansions, if you sub, but if you don't continue subbing, all of it is taken away next month. And they do some really obnoxious things with inventory and storage to force people to sub continuously. Well, I'm immune to that, as I'm from Russia, and unlike SWTOR, they don't give regional discounts, so I simply don't bother even thinking of subbing. Not for my wallet.

I don't really get it. WoW, the most popular MMO, is dirt cheap, and subbing is dirt cheap. So why do companies overcharge like this, do they believe they can't keep a decent playerbase? If so, then their 'strategy' is a self-fulfilling prophecy…

Originally Posted by BoboTheMighty
It's a 'murican thing. They do love their big mechanical toys, don't they? Ever watched Monster Trucks?

When I think of giant robots, all I feel is boredom… and a touch of 'that's too kiddy'. I thought that they're making games for the whole world, but it looks like they've chosen a relatively small niche: young boys (and by young I mean kids, not even teens). That's strange, both for Bioware and for EA.

Bioware nowadays for me seems to epitomize the whole, "all flash absolutely no substance" mantra. It's really quite sad with all the tools, talent and funds at their disposal, and they release such shoddy products these days. On the plus side, they make minor studios look like utter geniuses.

Originally Posted by Elel
Is it really that bad now?

It's in parts very subtle. But … just two examples : They cut quest givers. No more cinematic quest giving. No more cinematic quest outro. They wanted people to proceed through the so-called "Heroics" as fast as possible.

Some rooms were cut and closed. In the Senate, for example, a quest giver located in a bit more distant room got literally moved into the main hall - and his room got closed - or cut.

and then these "XP events". Lots and lots and lots of experience points. Level 30 while still being on a starter planet !

Raids cannot be accessed by F2P players anymore. The "Cartel Market" doesn't even offer one-time raid passes anymore !

Things like that, very subtle.

Of course, the real "subscriber-only" part is basically both expansions only (and their related content like crafting materials located there), but people are *pushed* into that so much !

Originally Posted by Elel
Is it really that bad now? When I used to play SWTOR, it was the most generous MMO money-wise. Very little was hidden behind the sub wall, really, and you only needed to sub once to get ALL new content. Neither would it disappear after next month you don't sub anymore. Features hidden behind the paywall would also continue being available to you after you unsub.

It haven't changed since they added the command crate stuff (and even that was altered from what I've read). I think Alirk is more talking about the content design, which is pretty much linear, but unless you raid, I don't see why he's putting the blame on the sub.

I don't really get it. WoW, the most popular MMO, is dirt cheap, and subbing is dirt cheap. So why do companies overcharge like this, do they believe they can't keep a decent playerbase? If so, then their 'strategy' is a self-fulfilling prophecy…

With 10% of whales among their playerbase, they make more money than if 100% of the playerbase was forking ~15$/month. Being F2P also allows for constant new players even if they don't stick around much. Also, it seems that console players are more likely to fork $$$ over cosmetic/DLCs going by ESO and DCUO than PC players.

As for WoW, it started slowly to move to a B2P/F2P model, the only thing stopping them to do a total conversion is probably that the game is too old to attract enough new players to patch the lost of the old playerbase.