BoboTheMighty
SasqWatch
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?