Interview Dragon Age 2 vs. Fable 3

[Carlos' Bitch1]

And Bethesda is the one game studio that never changed its recipe except to improve upon what they'd already been doing.

I fear some here may disagree with you there, sport.

One piece of developer-chippiness I've seen more than once on the Bioforums is,

(paraphrase; in response to criticism)
"In the end, it's *our* game. And we're going to do what we want with it."

Could be that you just develop that sort of attitude after years of listening to fans yelp, "we want sex with Legion!"/being cooed over by gaming critics/being successful whatever you make, but that sort of precious entitlement seems to me a fucking bad attitude. Yes, it is their game. They don't have to cater to requests from their so-called fans, because, apparently, everyone will buy it anyway, regardless.

Biohubris. Will TOR puncture it?

Like Bethesda, they have new fans and those fans are legion.

Though something has got me thinking: The old time fans (apart from the usual set that back up every decision) apparently are not happy with DA2. Why would the Larping fans be happy with it? Less choice to make Larpable characters. Less opportunity to draw their little romance cartoons. One would think that they too would be angry over the new direction.

 

[grotsnik]

Though something has got me thinking: The old time fans (apart from the usual set that back up every decision) apparently are not happy with DA2. Why would the Larping fans be happy with it? Less choice to make Larpable characters. Less opportunity to draw their little romance cartoons. One would think that they too would be angry over the new direction.

Well, they've been given an instantly recognisable PC face. So they can all happily draw their Hawke/Varric sex-toons months before the game's even out.

 

[Baron]

Dragon Age 2 vs. Fable 3

One paid for Speedtrees™ and the other told it to go fuck itself?

 

[CraigCWB]

And Bethesda is the one game studio that never changed its recipe except to improve upon what they'd already been doing.

I fear some here may disagree with you there, sport..

Yeah, I'm sure that most Bethesda fans will. But, you see, I was never a Bethesda fan until Oblivion shipped. I absolutely LOATHED Arena. Really, really hated it. I felt like they took all the fun out of RPGs and turned the whole concept into enless D&D tabletop style "random encounters" that lazy DMs used to use. Daggerfall was no better despite their promises to the contrary. Morrowind was... OKish. They were at least headed in the right direction, finally. So, for me, Oblivion was Bethesda's first RPG that I can honestly say I liked. And Fallout 3 was... better.

From my perspective, there's been a steady evolution in Bethesda games from Arena to Fallout 3. Somebody who preferred the grindy reliance on randomly generated content and the "you can spend the rest of your life playing this game" approach of their earlier titles would see it as a devolution, right?

But in either case, they've just been tweaking their one recipe the last 2 decades. They haven't been trying to transform their games into something they never were before.

And yes, of course everyone will buy their games no matter what. Until, one day they don't. And by then of course it's too late for them to rehabilitate themselves, so they just go out of business and in a few years nobody even remembers they ever existed at all except for Codexians who will occasionally do retrospective reviews where they claim the twilight games that tanked were actually pretty good. We've all seen how that works.

 

[DalekFlay]

Laidlaw admits he's including features for the... disabled. Otherwise RPGs will be KILLED. Then one of the cinematic designers chimes in with

Oh the dissonance. I love Bioware so much.

They're so scared of mass market goons feeling insulted they would never admit to any kind of intelligence difference. Not surprising. This industry is so marketing-driven now that every developer uses the go-words "accessibility" and "streamlining"... they've all been trained like monkeys. Even small indie developers tend to self-regulate themselves in similar fashion, either just from having the words of others seep into them or out of similar marketing desires.

Politics, games, movies, technology... fucking everything would benefit from people being honest about the fact that 80% of the county is more stupid than the other 20%, but needing the approval and money of that 80% prevents anyone from doing so. Classic "damned if you do..." scenario I guess.

All that said however, intelligence is not the only part of it. A lot of it is simply how much people care about certain things. I barely care at all about music, so my tastes in music tend to be more mainstream because I don't want to put the effort forward to discover or understand anything else. A lot of people feel the same about games, obviously... "just give me my Madden and Call of Duty for some fun hours, my actual passion lies elsewhere."

Those people may or may not be stupid, but the core problem is they are paying games only a cursory look. Bioware wants those people to buy their games too, thus they make them instantly gratifying and simple to pick up and play.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

But in either case, they've just been tweaking their one recipe the last 2 decades. They haven't been trying to transform their games into something they never were before.

Nothing wrong with this in principle. Unfortunately, it never happened with any decent set of CRPG's. Well, there were plenty of Goldbox games I suppose, but look what happened to Ultima...

Just out of curiosity, what aspects did you enjoy so much in Oblibion?

 

[CraigCWB]

But in either case, they've just been tweaking their one recipe the last 2 decades. They haven't been trying to transform their games into something they never were before.

Nothing wrong with this in principle. Unfortunately, it never happened with any decent set of CRPG's..

Which is why those devs are gone now. And Bethesda isn't.

My opinion only, of course

Well, there were plenty of Goldbox games I suppose, but look what happened to Ultima...

Origin is a counter-example. They made it all the way to #7 without changing the recipe much. And then Richard Garriot decided to chase the newly-emerged "mass market".

Sir-Tech made the same decision at the same time. And they also made it to #7 with their Wizardry series before they hit the skids.

Seven is a pretty big number. That's more games than Bethesda has put out in their TES series so far.

Just out of curiosity, what aspects did you enjoy so much in Oblibion?

I mostly liked the fact they were trying to make it more of an RPG, when at the time every other dev was trying to make their RPGs less RPG-like. I also liked the Sandbox mode as opposed to the (barely)interactive movie mode that Bioware was into by then. The storyline was pretty thin but there was lots to do and a lot of it was pretty interesting.

Things I still didn't like:

The horrible voice acting, especially that woman who did all the various elves. Fixed in FO3.

The "leveled lists" which were pretty much all that remains of their old random-is-cool philosophy. Only partly fixed in FO3.

And of course, Bethesda has always sucked at the storytelling and probably always will. They should seriously consider farming that part out to somebody who does it better.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

I like the direction DA2 is taking - in a sort of poetic justice kinda way. I mean, most of the people who liked DA were tards (VD and a few others excepted) who dragged the overall level of the genre down, but they were tards on an entirely different level than, say, Bethesda fans. Now with DA2 Bioware goes down to sub-Bethesda levels, and the DA1 fans are left wondering what happened to their genre. You shall reap as you sow!

I only wonder whether Bioware will be able to dumb down DA2 even further. I mean, at some point the dumbing down must stop.

 

[grotsnik]

I like the direction DA2 is taking - in a sort of poetic justice kinda way. I mean, most of the people who liked DA were tards (VD and a few others excepted) who dragged the overall level of the genre down, but they were tards on an entirely different level than, say, Bethesda fans. Now with DA2 Bioware goes down to sub-Bethesda levels, and the DA1 fans are left wondering what happened to their genre. You shall reap as you sow!

I've got to say, I've never really understood this Codexian habit of indulging in schadenfreudeian cackling and rubbing their hands at the sight of RPG elements in mainstream games being hacked away.

 

[hoochimama]

As long as Bioware doesn't have to compete for sales against other RPGs in the same time window they can take the "core" crowd for granted.

Blockbuster action games are a bigger threat to them.

 

[Volourn]

"Also, Fable is more RPG than Dragon Age will ever be. Plus, it's more stable and have no bugs that break quests or special systems stolen from other developers."

Bullshit.


"As for why the fanbase for RPGs may be shrinking, this gentleman might wanna look in the mirror. RPGs were the best selling games throughout the 1980s and remained so until people with HIS philosophy hijacked the genre and tried to dumb it down for the masses in the mid 1990s. RPGs were again the best selling genre in the late 1990s, and part of the reason for that was Bioware's emergence with the Baldur's Gate games. If the fanbase is shrinking now it's not the fault of the market - the demand is there. It's the fault of developers."

Proof please? I'd wager the Marios and the Tetrises would argue yoyr thesis.


And, I'm glad BIO lays down the law with internet geeks who think they know everything. BIO games are BIo games and they can make it the way they fuckin' want. If you dion't like it don't buy it. FFs

 

[Xor]

Oh god what is the world coming to; I actually agree with Volourn.

 

[Raapys]

And, I'm glad BIO lays down the law with internet geeks who think they know everything. BIO games are BIo games and they can make it the way they fuckin' want. If you dion't like it don't buy it. FFs

Well, most of us probably just pirate it to check it out.

You do see the point though, don't you? Sure you can choose *not* to buy/pirate/play their games. Problem is, Bioware is one of the few companies that has made okay'ish (a)RPGs in the past; they *can* do it. But they won't, because of all the marketing bullshit trying to appeal to more and more people. So in effect, we're losing something, specifically the opportunity to get potentially good games from them in the future.

If there were dozens of companies making decent (a)RPGs, then at least as far as I'm concerned Bioware could go over to making Tetris: The Next Generation. But there aren't, so gaming-wise it's kinda sad to lose one of the diminishing few which remain.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Oh god what is the world coming to; I actually agree with Volourn.

And you're even admitting it on the world wide spidermanweb.

Fuck this, I'm going back to VD's Age of Empires forum!

"Also, Fable is more RPG than Dragon Age will ever be. Plus, it's more stable and have no bugs that break quests or special systems stolen from other developers."

Bullshit.

Dragon Age, huh? More like My First Obsidian Entertainment's Influence System.

And Awakening? More like The Buggening. Or The Crashening or The Bullshittening or The Bad Programmening, shit, maybe simply The Fuck you-ening considering both Bio and EA told us there wouldn't be a patch to address the million broken quests and influence scripts.

Meanwhile New Vegas comes out with some rotating limbs and it's the worst game ever.

 

[grotsnik]

And, I'm glad BIO lays down the law with internet geeks who think they know everything. BIO games are BIo games and they can make it the way they fuckin' want. If you dion't like it don't buy it. FFs

It's true - they can. But from an RPG developer's perspective, surely only Bioware could get away - somehow- with doing such a U-turn on their own series (because they can make it any way they fuckin' want) and expect to keep their core audience.

 

[Volourn]

"Dragon Age, huh? More like My First Obsidian Entertainment's Influence System."

Don't be a retart. BIO has been using the influence system since BG2 you fuck not. Obsidian couldn't even use it right as their so called influence system which was supposed to be player injfluencing the npc worked the other way. You had to agree with the npc or else. LMFAO


"And Awakening? More like The Buggening. Or The Crashening or The Bullshittening or The Bad Programmening, shit, maybe simply The Fuck you-ening considering both Bio and EA told us there wouldn't be a patch to address the million broken quests and influence scripts. "

Awakeningn never crashed for me once, and no obvious bugs.


"You do see the point though, don't you? Sure you can choose *not* to buy/pirate/play their games. Problem is, Bioware is one of the few companies that has made okay'ish (a)RPGs in the past; they *can* do it. But they won't, because of all the marketing bullshit trying to appeal to more and more people. So in effect, we're losing something, specifically the opportunity to get potentially good games from them in the future."

The idea that it is logical to buy shit just because none shit isn't available is retarted. You do see the point right?

Also, if you are wone of the moronic BG2 fanboys who think all their games since suck.. you do realize that BG2 was half a dozen+ games ago. Get over it.

Bottom line is if you don't like BIO or their games don't fuckin' buy/steal/play them.

 

[nFn]

But in either case, they've just been tweaking their one recipe the last 2 decades. They haven't been trying to transform their games into something they never were before.

Redguard wasnt a generic 3rd-person-action-adventure when everyone else was churning 3rd-person-action-adventures
Battlespire...it wasnt a half-assed slam-dunk-dungeoncrawl
Ascension was a decline - Oblivion was an incline

I think someone is going senile

 

[Andyman Messiah]

"Dragon Age, huh? More like My First Obsidian Entertainment's Influence System."

Don't be a retart. BIO has been using the influence system since BG2 you fuck not. Obsidian couldn't even use it right as their so called influence system which was supposed to be player injfluencing the npc worked the other way. You had to agree with the npc or else. LMFAO

Think this through, Volleyball. Why did I use Dragon Age, of all Bio games, as the example? Is it because that's when they started to use visible numbers, large letters and "agree with me or else" or is it because TV's greatest sitcom of all time, Joey, is awesome? Think, Volleyball, think. Don't just jump to the conclusion that I'm not fucking with you. I am fucking with you.

"And Awakening? More like The Buggening. Or The Crashening or The Bullshittening or The Bad Programmening, shit, maybe simply The Fuck you-ening considering both Bio and EA told us there wouldn't be a patch to address the million broken quests and influence scripts. "

Awakeningn never crashed for me once, and no obvious bugs.

Awakening doesn't crash for me either, but you've clearly not played it if you haven't encountered endlessly looping dialogue, problems with the aforementioned influence system and quests that fail to trigger without going into the console or downloading fanmade patches.

edit: Not to mention that Awakening is pretty much just a pointless (and bugged) Crossroad Keep minigame with a really boring story tacked on.

 

[Excommunicator]

I like the direction DA2 is taking - in a sort of poetic justice kinda way. I mean, most of the people who liked DA were tards (VD and a few others excepted) who dragged the overall level of the genre down, but they were tards on an entirely different level than, say, Bethesda fans. Now with DA2 Bioware goes down to sub-Bethesda levels, and the DA1 fans are left wondering what happened to their genre. You shall reap as you sow!

I've got to say, I've never really understood this Codexian habit of indulging in schadenfreudeian cackling and rubbing their hands at the sight of RPG elements in mainstream games being hacked away.

Hatred, spite and retribution are addictive and very, very satisfying. It's very energising to see someone getting what they deserve after committing a wrong against one's sensibilities, and seeing the Codex's enemies on the brink of suffering through their own misguided attempts to succeed brings the Codex together. It is a magical thing.

 

[Sceptic]

Redguard wasnt a generic 3rd-person-action-adventure when everyone else was churning 3rd-person-action-adventures
Battlespire...it wasnt a half-assed slam-dunk-dungeoncrawl

Fuck off. Battlespire was an awesome dungeon crawl with the single best chargen to ever grace a CRPG. Redguard was a cash in on the popular genre of the times, but it was also pretty good and had a very nice outdoor exploration element that was absent from most action-adventures of the time. MQ was also surprisingly nonlinear (well, not so surprising after Daggerfall).
I agree about Oblivion and Ascension though. They were both of the highest order.

 

[Volourn]

"Awakening doesn't crash for me either, but you've clearly not played it if you haven't encountered endlessly looping dialogue, problems with the aforementioned influence system and quests that fail to trigger without going into the console or downloading fanmade patches. "

I played it twice with no obvious problems.


"Don't just jump to the conclusion that I'm not fucking with you. I am fucking with you."

Troll admits to being troll. News 11. I don't ive a shit if you do it for giggles. I post on the Codex .. fixed.. internet.. for giggles. *shrug*

 

[Cassidy]

It is hilarious to read Obsitards bashing Biotards considering that both companies are mirrors of each other right now regarding their current design philosophies, specially when it comes to the common target audience between both.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

"Awakening doesn't crash for me either, but you've clearly not played it if you haven't encountered endlessly looping dialogue, problems with the aforementioned influence system and quests that fail to trigger without going into the console or downloading fanmade patches. "

I played it twice with no obvious problems.


"Don't just jump to the conclusion that I'm not fucking with you. I am fucking with you."

Troll admits to being troll. News 11. I don't ive a shit if you do it for giggles. I post on the Codex .. fixed.. internet.. for giggles. *shrug*

When did I fuck with you? Just then, or that time? Canadafolk cannot read between the lines.

Also, you played Awakening twice without encountering any bugs. Volourn confirmed as blind, deaf and dumb with hired manservants playing his games for him and lying about the experience. I pity you, princess. You need a horse.

It is hilarious to read Obsitards bashing Biotards considering that both companies are mirrors of each other right now regarding their current design philosophies, specially when it comes to the common target audience between both.

Not really, died at tutorial level-idy.

 

[Dantus12]

Funny thing about the bugs,I never had to read my endings on the interwebs ,the way i had with DAO.And yes some people like to see,or read their endings.
Awakenings had game breaking bugs,the Silverite one for example,or again the ending epilogues not being related in any way with the decisions I made.
The Ultimate edition for PS3 came without DLC`s,and the broken endings are still not fixed 4 months before DA2comes out.
And we are supposedly able to import our choices,not that they matter.

 

[CraigCWB]

re: RPGs being the most popular computer game genre in the 1980s?

Proof please? I'd wager the Marios and the Tetrises would argue yoyr thesis.

You are comparing nintendo cartridge games to computer games? They weren't even remotely related back then, and I'm sure an expert game historian like you must know that the whole console game industry went bust about 1990 so even if they were competing the consoles clearly lost that fight. Consoles didn't make a come-back until a new breed (like Sony, and later MS) showed up with consoles that mimicked much of a PC's functionality.

And seriously, why should I have to provide you with proof of something everyone who was around back then knows? Do your own legwork. Just pretend Google is a roleplaying game and you get an accomplishment for finding the correct puzzle solution.