Company News Are BioWare Games Getting Stale?

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: BioWare

incgamers took a scientific approach to Bioware games, 2 teams of 48 eggheads investigated 24/7, analyzed the available evidence and finally - after 5 years of intense work and gathering empirical data - found out the shocking truth: <a href="http://www.incgamers.com/Columns/46/are-bioware-games-getting-stale">BioGames follow a certain formula.</a>
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<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">Stop me when this sounds familiar. You do an opening tutorial section, and then are suddenly gifted with the ability to travel far and wide, with three or four main quests available to you. Every time you complete one of these, which will, if you're very lucky, reveal a little of the overarching story, you can return to your home base – usually either a vehicle or a camp – and chat to your party members to further their backstories and sidequests, and maybe open up some sexytime romance options. You finish those main quests, and then – shock! - there's a plot twist and some major story development, before you continue down the endgame path. In the immortal words of Rolf Harris, can you tell what it is yet? That's right: it's a summary of the general pattern that BioWare games follow.</p>
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OH NOES :panic: BIOGames might become stale. Whadda we gonna do about it?
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However, their newfound insights didn't stop them from <a href="http://www.incgamers.com/Reviews/1025/mass-effect-2-review">scoring ME2 9.6/10</a> fyi.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/96603-are-bioware-games-getting-stale.html">The Banshee News Network</A>

 

[Darth Roxor]

ENOUGH

 

[Black]

You should point out how many threads are about me2 instead.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

you should complain to DU.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

 

[Black]

[Perception] So it's the codex that's getting stale!

 

[Chinese Jetpilot]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I believe they're tapped out creatively concerning RPG development, and I don't see how that will change when much of the lead design talent comes from within. They seem to be focusing more on other aspects of game design (gameworlds and lore, combat mechanics), and the RPG aspects are just imported from their previous games and tweaked slightly, sometimes even abdicating effort entirely. I honestly think their games would have greater entertainment value if they dropped much of the RPG filler, as I noted in a different post:

moreso they are tapped out creatively. I don't mean that as an insult, and I don't doubt they have creative people working for them, but they've basically made the same type of game for over a decade now. To give just one tiny example, they've gone from you taking the effort to find side quests and and at least coming up with some effort to interweave it within the main game, to you being beamed them upon entering a system, and now to have them on a job board somewhere (if you want to do fetch quests so bad, here they are!)

...they refuse to get rid of this dead weight filler that they have clearly given up on, because its codified somewhere that RPG's have to have side quests and they must be 60 hours in game length. All that seems to do is expose the flaws in these games exponentially.

Not that my opinion counts, but I don't mind the news onslaught, especially concerning games that will have an impact upon the overall industry.

 

[DraQ]

Good point - STFU.
:evil:

BTW: I automatically thought of Andhaira when looking at the thread title.

 

[Volourn]

"and the RPG aspects are just imported from their previous games and tweaked slightly, sometimes even abdicating effort entirely."

This is retarded. Quite the opposite. Outside of ME2 to a degree, the role-playing is gettings tronger. BG1 was their LOWEST point when it came to having actual role-playing in their role-playing games.

 

[LazyD]

Bullshit

 

[sheek]

Lies!

 

[DemonKing]

There's no doubt that from a structure/design perspective, the games are stale as they've stuck to the same basic structure/design since KOTOR (I haven't played ME2 yet but I'm assuming it's similar).

Unfortunately, there's so little competition that they really don't need to alter it much as there are very few alternatives for anyone with an RPG itch to scratch.

 

[sheek]

Stop the lies, start the truth.

 

[Luzur]

Stop the lies, start the truth.