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Bioware games vs Bethesda games

Joined
Dec 17, 2013
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Let me break it down for you, Sir Nooblet 2020:

Bethesda has never made a good game.

Bioware made a couple of quality games 20+ years ago.

The end.
 

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
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Games that BioWare designed that were either truly decent or at least memorable:

- Baldur's Gate
- Baldur's Gate 2 I guess?

Games that Bethesda designed that were either truly decent or at least memorable:

- Daggerfall
- Morrowind I guess?

So it's a tie.
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
Games that BioWare designed that were either truly decent or at least memorable:

- Baldur's Gate
- Baldur's Gate 2 I guess?

Games that Bethesda designed that were either truly decent or at least memorable:

- Daggerfall
- Morrowind I guess?

So it's a tie.
baldur's gate is arguably responsible for the near-death of turn-based RPGs and the popularity of a bastardized RPG-RTS control scheme.
 
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Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
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Baldur's Gate is almost a masterpiece.

It is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time and the 4th greatest RPG of all-time.

Bethesda has nothing in top 100.
 

oldmanpaco

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With Bethesda I still get the feeling that if they just changed things a bit (a little more depth to RPG mechanics, a little more quest variety, a little more investment in writing) they could make a good open world RPG. Or at least a mediocre one that could be modded because the underlying foundation was more solid than Skyrim/FO4. Will that happen? Almost certainly not but I'm at least a bit interested in what the space sex simulator and Syrim II will look like.

On the other hand Bioware is a tranny paradise run by degenerates. I have no hope for anything they squeeze out of their prolapsed rectums.
 

Tyrr

Liturgist
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Remember horse-armor DLC? Bioware at least had to be forced by EA to add that shit into their games. (starting DA:O if I remember correctly)
 

jac8awol

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Who cares? Both being modern US entities, current and future products are/will be watered down, lowest common denominator mass appeal SJW-infested shit. LGBT BLM propaganda for people who can barely tie their own shoes.
 
Joined
Dec 24, 2020
Messages
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It is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time and the 4th greatest RPG of all-time.

Bethesda has nothing in top 100.
The words of a philistine. Considered on its own it isn't a terrible game but it was a terrible D&D adaption. What came before and after were miles better, the Goldbox games, Temple of Elemental evil and even Baldur's Gate 3 is a better adaption of the ruleset than Baldur's Gate was.
Bethesda has never made a good game.

Bioware made a couple of quality games 20+ years ago.
Bioware made one half-decent game and then kept attempting recapturing what made it slightly more than mediocre for the rest of the company's existence. They applied more but terrible action elements, they tried making it a singleplayer MMO, they gave it a coat of Star Wars and Wushia paint those two times, they badly ripped off George R. R. Martin and Warhammer while they were badly ripping off D&D with Dragon Age. The joke is that the original game was never that good, they just didn't know how to make anything else.

Bethesda was always an innovative company. They have some touchstones that they stick to, but during their early games anything went and up until they were bought up by Microsoft they still tried new things with each release. Arena was an entire fantasy world on eight floppies or a CD-ROM. Daggerfall took that and gave it more flavor and improved the richness of the experience, it was one of the most ambitious titles ever released. After that they took the Elder Scrolls series in fresh new directions by making one pure dungeon crawler with Battlespire and an action adventure game (what Bioware should have been making) with Redguard. Morrowind changed direction again, trying to combine what made their earlier games great with a smaller and hand-crafted world. In Oblivion they tried to make that world come alive. This streak continues until just recently. A large part of their customer base wanted something like the TES series but online, but another company made the TES online game and it was made in a engine without as much fidelity as the main series had. In response they made their Fallout online game in-house and using existing Fallout 4 parts, which had nailed a good gameplay loop and decent action gameplay.

Before they were eaten by Microshaft they were working on a new IP featuring things the company has never done before. You can say what you want about Todd, their greedy monetization schemes, and about how shallow the experiences they offer are. That doesn't change the fact that they still are a company that after its founding 34 years ago still retained an unique culture and made games that no other studio to this game has truly been able to compete with.

There is a reason why Bethesda games are so heavily modded and it's not because they are broken, but because they offer a playground of systemic gameplay with adequate core mechanics and gameplay loops. Bioware never nailed the gameplay, relying on a broken twitch adaption of D&D from the start and then threw anything they could think of at the wall to make their samey story and structural beats actually be enjoyable to plow through. Bioware games are always enjoyed despite the gameplay. The only good things I have to say about the gameplay of the BG series is that it's over quickly if you know what you're doing. Dragon Age and Mass Effect were even worse. The only time Bioware made something of note was with Neverwinter Nights, because while that was still a terrible Adaption of D&D it gave players a toolset to play around with and used multiplayer to get closer to the collective storytelling experience of D&D. The actual game was a dumpster fire, but much like with FRUA that was less important.
 

eli

Learned
Joined
Aug 30, 2020
Messages
187
It is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time and the 4th greatest RPG of all-time.

Bethesda has nothing in top 100.
The words of a philistine. Considered on its own it isn't a terrible game but it was a terrible D&D adaption. What came before and after were miles better, the Goldbox games, Temple of Elemental evil and even Baldur's Gate 3 is a better adaption of the ruleset than Baldur's Gate was.
Bethesda has never made a good game.

Bioware made a couple of quality games 20+ years ago.
Bioware made one half-decent game and then kept attempting recapturing what made it slightly more than mediocre for the rest of the company's existence. They applied more but terrible action elements, they tried making it a singleplayer MMO, they gave it a coat of Star Wars and Wushia paint those two times, they badly ripped off George R. R. Martin and Warhammer while they were badly ripping off D&D with Dragon Age. The joke is that the original game was never that good, they just didn't know how to make anything else.

Bethesda was always an innovative company. They have some touchstones that they stick to, but during their early games anything went and up until they were bought up by Microsoft they still tried new things with each release. Arena was an entire fantasy world on eight floppies or a CD-ROM. Daggerfall took that and gave it more flavor and improved the richness of the experience, it was one of the most ambitious titles ever released. After that they took the Elder Scrolls series in fresh new directions by making one pure dungeon crawler with Battlespire and an action adventure game (what Bioware should have been making) with Redguard. Morrowind changed direction again, trying to combine what made their earlier games great with a smaller and hand-crafted world. In Oblivion they tried to make that world come alive. This streak continues until just recently. A large part of their customer base wanted something like the TES series but online, but another company made the TES online game and it was made in a engine without as much fidelity as the main series had. In response they made their Fallout online game in-house and using existing Fallout 4 parts, which had nailed a good gameplay loop and decent action gameplay.

Before they were eaten by Microshaft they were working on a new IP featuring things the company has never done before. You can say what you want about Todd, their greedy monetization schemes, and about how shallow the experiences they offer are. That doesn't change the fact that they still are a company that after its founding 34 years ago still retained an unique culture and made games that no other studio to this game has truly been able to compete with.

There is a reason why Bethesda games are so heavily modded and it's not because they are broken, but because they offer a playground of systemic gameplay with adequate core mechanics and gameplay loops. Bioware never nailed the gameplay, relying on a broken twitch adaption of D&D from the start and then threw anything they could think of at the wall to make their samey story and structural beats actually be enjoyable to plow through. Bioware games are always enjoyed despite the gameplay. The only good things I have to say about the gameplay of the BG series is that it's over quickly if you know what you're doing. Dragon Age and Mass Effect were even worse. The only time Bioware made something of note was with Neverwinter Nights, because while that was still a terrible Adaption of D&D it gave players a toolset to play around with and used multiplayer to get closer to the collective storytelling experience of D&D. The actual game was a dumpster fire, but much like with FRUA that was less important.
Is this a new templarGR account?
 

eli

Learned
Joined
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Messages
187
Let me break it down for you, Sir Nooblet 2020:

Bethesda has never made a good game.

Bioware made a couple of quality games 20+ years ago.

The end.

Good games made by Bioware:
Baldur's Gate 2.

Good games made by Bethesda:
Daggerfall, Morrowind.

Bethesda wins out.
Bg1 good exploration makes it on a level of morrowind's but it is just different. While morrowind is good at setting and lore exploration bg1 is good at adventuring and content exploration and it is flexible with its narrative. morrowind and Bethesda games in general are extremely weak in that department as a sandbox adventure is not much of an adventure as screwing around without any clear focus, mechanical content like itemization is not that exiting as bg because of the broken game systems (although huge selection is good in general) and the narrative of quests/ main/ side trees are very weak in general.
 

Kalon

Scholar
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Jan 21, 2016
Messages
189
I enjoyed Morrowind as well as BG 2. And also KotOR 1. But then that's pretty much 3 of the 5 games I ever played.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,110
With Bethesda I still get the feeling that if they just changed things a bit (a little more depth to RPG mechanics, a little more quest variety, a little more investment in writing) they could make a good open world RPG.

Emphatic no.

Bethesda would have to change everything in order to make a good RPG. Fire everyone, find good RPG developers, change all their processes, code a new engine, and start from scratch. In other words, Bethesda is in the same exact position to make a good RPG as ... you.

There is not a single element of game development that Bethesda is good at:

Combat - every Bethesda game to date has been either a click-fest or a REALLY, really mediocre shooter.
Exploration - what kills their games in this aspect is the copy-pasting. Their games are always too large to hand-place stuff as better studios do (e.g. Piranha Bytes), so they always resort to using some procedural software to generate dungeons and points of interest. Everything feels the same after a while.
Writing - I am a dragonborn! Fus Do Rah! Or Little Lamplight. Enough said.
Character development - Lol, what's worse, becoming weaker as you level up in Oblivion and vermin rats start to prance around in Daedric Armor, OR, or that constellation shit in Skyrim?
Graphics/physics/engine - Do i need to post the equine mountain climbing meme?
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Bg1 good exploration makes it on a level of morrowind's but it is just different.

BG1's exploration consists of systematically revealing the fog of war in maps where you can exactly see the borders, so there is never any surprise there. You know where the edges are, so you just walk from edge to edge until all the fog of war is revealed, then you press TAB to highlight interactable objects. Wow such "exploration".
And yes, I know that in the original release of BG1, tab-highlighting was not a thing yet. But that's even worse. Pixel hunting isn't exploration either.
 

eli

Learned
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Messages
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Bg1 good exploration makes it on a level of morrowind's but it is just different.

BG1's exploration consists of systematically revealing the fog of war in maps where you can exactly see the borders, so there is never any surprise there. You know where the edges are, so you just walk from edge to edge until all the fog of war is revealed, then you press TAB to highlight interactable objects. Wow such "exploration".
And yes, I know that in the original release of BG1, tab-highlighting was not a thing yet. But that's even worse. Pixel hunting isn't exploration either.
how is that different from the nature of exploration in most games, to go to position x to reveal things your character can see.
and the fact that there are fixed borders doesn't mean you can't be surprised as you can find caves/ enemies whatever in the middle or near the edges of the map.
 

Butter

Arcane
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Bg1 good exploration makes it on a level of morrowind's but it is just different.

BG1's exploration consists of systematically revealing the fog of war in maps where you can exactly see the borders, so there is never any surprise there. You know where the edges are, so you just walk from edge to edge until all the fog of war is revealed, then you press TAB to highlight interactable objects. Wow such "exploration".
And yes, I know that in the original release of BG1, tab-highlighting was not a thing yet. But that's even worse. Pixel hunting isn't exploration either.
how is that different from the nature of exploration in most games, to go to position x to reveal things your character can see.
and the fact that there are fixed borders doesn't mean you can't be surprised as you can find caves/ enemies whatever in the middle or near the edges of the map.
Most games have bad exploration.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Baldur's Gate's exploration is weak from a systemic standpoint (just unveil fog of war in maps whose size you know lmao), and it also has little of interest to find.

The majority of the wilderness maps is made up of empty woodland or grassland, filled with a couple of generic bandit and orc encounters. Yawn.
Sometimes you find an NPC who says one or two generic lines. Yawn.
Most of what you find is just boring and generic. BG1 feels like a DM's first D&D campaign, zero imagination to it.
 
Joined
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Baldur's Gate exploration, now that's something I haven't seen being discussed here before.

We used to have epic debates about BG1 exploration years ago here.

My position is that while 3D first/third person games have higher potential for exploration, BG1 exploration was still quite good.
 

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