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Bethesda vs. Bioware

IronicNeurotic

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3 years ago this wouldn't even have been a valid question but after New Vegas and Skyrim the tables have pretty much turned.

Whats your opinion?
 

Tel Prydain

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IronicNeurotic said:
3 years ago this wouldn't even have been a valid question but after New Vegas and Skyrim the tables have pretty much turned.

Whats your opinion?
They both suck?
:lol:

Bethesda didn't have much to do with the bits of Vegas that didn't suck. Skyrim is alright, but I'm not convinced that it's not an anomaly.
And after ME1, DA2 and ME3, I'm not sure that Bioware are interested in even pretending to make RPGs.
 

Hobo Elf

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At least Bethesda gave us Morrowind and Daggerfall. Bioware only has Bladder's Gate, and even then it's not really that great.
And what does New Vegas have to do with Bethesda? Is this secretly a troll thread?
 

Jaesun

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Turd-o-Meter v3.1

Shit                                   Kinda Shit                                         Less Shitty
|--------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------|-------------------------|
 |                     |                                                                |
 Bethesda            BioWare                                                        Obsidian
 

Infinitron

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Betheda is in the business of making dumb games that can be fun.

Bioware has a severe identity crisis and it's not clear at the moment if they even like making games, let alone RPGs.
 

IronicNeurotic

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Hobo Elf said:
At least Bethesda gave us Morrowind and Daggerfall. Bioware only has Bladder's Gate, and even then it's not really that great.
And what does New Vegas have to do with Bethesda? Is this secretly a troll thread?

I meant more that they let Obsidian do a Fallout game in the first place.
 

Black

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Both are bad. Won't touch Skyrim, FO4, ME3, DA3 or TOR. There are enough bad games out there if I wanted to play one.
 

Peter

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Infinitron said:
Betheda is in the business of making dumb games that can be fun.

Bioware has a severe identity crisis and it's not clear at the moment if they even like making games, let alone RPGs.

Pretty much this. At least Bethesda can make a halfway decent hiking sim, which is more than I can say for Bioware.
 

Tel Prydain

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IronicNeurotic said:
I meant more that they let Obsidian do a Fallout game in the first place.

So... just to be clear here...
You're giving Bethesda credit for letting someone else do their job for them?
And you're giving the credit for that to Bethesda.
Bethesda, not Obsidian.
Really?

:?
 

octavius

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Between the makers of moddable open ended sand box games where you can role play any character you want (assuming you know the difference between role playing and LARPing), and the makers of interactive movies I prefer the former.

I feel that Bethesda is more ambitious too. Making a heavily scripted railroad game is easier than making an open world game where not much is scripted, but where NPCs react to each other and the player based on their AI setting.
Sure, the results are often bad, but I prefer games with some unpredictabilty (for better or worse) than games where nearly everything is scripted and there is no room for exploring and where role playing boils down to the three standard BioWare choices:
1. Yes, I will do it.
2. What's in it for me?
3. No
Where upon chosing 3, you need to ask again and chose 1 or 2 to advance the movie.
 

IronicNeurotic

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Tel Prydain said:
IronicNeurotic said:
I meant more that they let Obsidian do a Fallout game in the first place.

So... just to be clear here...
You're giving Bethesda credit for letting someone else do their job for them?
And you're giving the credit for that to Bethesda.
Bethesda, not Obsidian.
Really?

:?

I'm giving Obsidian the credit of making the game.

I'm giving Bethesda the credit of hiring Obsidian to do a Fallout game. They could have just as easily not do that.

I'm also giving Bethesda credit for allowing Obsidian to work in some more rpg mechanics and not just cockblock them.


Could have been completly different considering some other publishers.
 
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Ulminati

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Peter said:
Infinitron said:
Betheda is in the business of making dumb games that can be fun.

Bioware has a severe identity crisis and it's not clear at the moment if they even like making games, let alone RPGs.

Pretty much this. At least Bethesda can make a halfway decent hiking sim, which is more than I can say for Bioware.

Bethesda makes bad RPGs that are good for what they are (Hiking sims).

Bioware makes bad RPGs with high production values. (90% of the credit goes to Jennifer Hale).

Obsidian takes turds and polishes them to a shine. Pretty, but forever marred by the stench of the material they had to work with. And you will some away smelling slightly fouler.

Of the three, I'd rather find myself playing a Bethesda or Obsidian product than a Bioware product. I'd rather play FO:NV than Skyrim. I'd rather play Morrowind than Alpha Protocol. I'd rather suffer third-degree burns to my testicles than suffer through Oblivion or Dungeon Siege 3 again.

Let Obsidian write the story and quests, bethesda make the landscape and put bioware in charge of facial animation and voice acting. Under no circumstances should you let Bethesda near quest design nor allow bioware to write dialogue for player companions. That goes double for female party members. Triple for Carth Onassi. You'd still have to find a company to code a decent engine for the game and someone to write a compelling conflict/combat/character advancement system though. I'd play that game.

[edit]

Thinking about it for a bit, I might be convinced to let Blizzard do the engine and have a say on combat mechanics. Their game engines are usually pretty good at what they set out to accomplish. But not until they purge themselves of darkness. (AKA throw off the shackles of Bobby the Jew)
 

Drakron

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Well BioWare is just in hubris before fall.

Bethesda as publisher is no EA, I would say after Oblivion it could only go up and as I cannot say what is going on in their studio, it seems the Toddler design idiocy that was so present in Oblivion appears to have mitigated in Skyrim.
 

racofer

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Ulminati said:
Obsidian takes turds and polishes them to a shine. Pretty, but forever marred by the stench of the material they had to work with. And you will some away smelling slightly fouler.

Like Alpha Prototurd and Dungeon Shit 3, right?

r00fles!
 

Xor

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Jaesun said:
Do we know actual sales numbers for Capitol Wasteland vs Fallout:New Vegas?

According to what I could find they both had around the same sales figures.

Infinitron said:
Betheda is in the business of making dumb games that can be fun.

Bioware has a severe identity crisis and it's not clear at the moment if they even like making games, let alone RPGs.

This, except I think Bioware's problem right now is less of an identity crisis and more poor management. You have idiots like Laidlaw being put in charge of production, and the writers are basically being allowed to put in anything they want no matter how little sense it makes. EA is presumably pressuring them to make their games more "actiony" too, since they think that's what sells.
 

Trash

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Studios go to shit, others incline and in the end they all go down or change into something unrecognisable. These are no different.

Skyrim was slight incline as a game but more proof that Bethesda is done with rpg´s. Bioware is bought by EA and by now we all know what happens with studios that let that happen. The chance for a good rpg is probably still the same from both of them. None.

Apart from CDproject and Obsidian there is noone left who even has a remote chance of accidently making one anymore. Perhaps some slav devs will make something good by accident or an indie might see the light. Apart from that the genre has gone the way of the dodo.
 

Nael

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Drakron said:
Well BioWare is just in hubris before fall.

And the fall will come in the form of the Old Republic MMO. That game is like looking into a toilet right before you flush to see if your turds were as large as they felt going through beta... I mean your butthole.
 

SCO

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Bioware: haven't played anything after throne of cheese
Beth : haven't played anything after morrowind.
 

racofer

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Nael said:
Drakron said:
Well BioWare is just in hubris before fall.

And the fall will come in the form of the Old Republic MMO.

I agree with that.

That game has cost millions so far, plus years of development. And once it goes live, there will still be server maintenance costs involved and a lot of people working on the game itself, adding content. This is not cheap and WoW players (EA's target audience) will not give up on their favorite game and move to Bioware's, at least not for good. Soon enough, as it always happens with Biowarian games, people will get bored of the constant cutscenes and dialog driven "gameplay", something Blizzard knows doesn't cut it with the MMO audience. MMO players crave for heavy loot, quick progression and larping.

Also, everybody will want to be a Jedi/Sith, and everybody knows Jedis/Siths are supposed to be the most badass guys in the SW universe. But, you still have Bounty Hunters, Soldiers and other non-jedi classes to be concerned about. This means Bioware will have to give those classes a fighting chance or nerf the others to balance things out, and for this very reason, SWTOR is doomed to fail.
 
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Ulminati

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racofer said:
Ulminati said:
Obsidian takes turds and polishes them to a shine. Pretty, but forever marred by the stench of the material they had to work with. And you will some away smelling slightly fouler.

Like Alpha Prototurd and Dungeon Shit 3, right?

r00fles!

Never said a man could not attempt to polish his own feces. Although if mythbusters is to be believed, said man should eat a lot of meat in his diet for the best results.
 

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