Company News BioWare is still alive

[Volourn]

A lot mroe reliable than someone who feels the need to bullshit publicly about someone else's private stuff just to stir up shit.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I don't know Volly.
People said the Bio Docs leaving was all BS if I recall when rumors about it first started a while back.
Everyone claimed lies lies lies on that one.
It's not that I'm gullible, but at the same time I have a really hard time believing the docs over this guy.
Maybe it's because of all the corporate bullshit that they've spewed.
Maybe it's because of the fact that they put out a few crappy games of late that even fans didn't like.
Maybe it's because of whatever, I can't think of anything else but there are reasons.
But I would think that maybe there's an ounce of truth to what this guy is saying.
It's not everything, but being despised by people so vocally can weigh down on a man.

 

[Volourn]

Oh, FFS, This is fukkin' Oyster we are talkin' 'bout. The guy is fukkin' with BG EE.

The guy comes out and makes up bullshitz about how he 'is in the know' not 2 days later one of the docs come out and call him a maker up of bullshit rumourz on twitter. That says a lot since the docs aren't exactly twitter spammers from whgat I know. The guy is a piece of fukkin' shit douchebag yet he claims to be a 'friend'. And, he gives absolutely no evidence to back up his claim. I say let HIM proof his accusation.

There's been nearly 20 eyars of proof that the BIo dcos can deal with bashing/criticism just fine. L0LZ

 

[Major_Blackhart]

EA hasn't shut him up yet, and nobody's gone on damage control yet within EA.

 

[Serious_Business]

L0LZ indeed my friends

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I'm not saying it's the only thing, not by a long shot.
All I'm saying is that I'm sure it weighed on them.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Well the Muzyka tweets were fairly slippery in their wording. He never actually denied anything, just said sites shouldn't speculate and implied Oster was ill-informed. Oster's statements about Muzyka were confined to speculation about TORmageddon leading him to be driven out.

Given highly suggestive circumstances, it would take much stronger denial for me to believe it wasn't related to TOR being the Heaven's Gate of videogame flops:

1. A shake-up at Bioware is pretty apparent - the lead designer of TOR and the producer of TOR have left recently and there have been multiple rounds of layoffs, its pretty reasonable to assume there is some internal shake-up going down related to TOR.

2. Most willing departures are made with a job lined up. Neither the docs nor the aforementioned designer or producer have gigs lined up. (A beer show? WTF. Just say you're spending time with your family like every other failed executive). And non-competes will never be interpreted by a court with enough breadth to stop someone from being able to get a job, so that's not it.

3. EA acquisition included chunks of vesting stock options. The five-year anniversary of that deal and, therefore, the commencement date of the vesting period may be coming up this month. So its distinctly possible there is some kind of vesting cliff EA avoids by their departure.

So we have highly suggestive circumstances and a non-denial of those circumstances being the cause of their departure from Bioware.

I'm convinced!

 

[Volourn]

None of that is proof of anything. Proof please.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Well, there's proof in that if you piss in the wind you get a wet face.
But proof about this? None whatsoever.
However, I say it's more than likely the circumstances at this point being what they are, anything is true.
Maybe they realized how much they'd failed you volly over the years.

 

[Zed]

I think EA had ordered a Bioware assassination already, but they won't kill command until DA3 results are in. Then they'll probably kill them either way, for shits and giggles.

Trent Oster should shut the hell up and deliver on his over-hyped Baldur's Gate port instead. They have already post-poned past delivery date (for which they took pre-orders) and he's still whining like a bitch on twitter about how nothing works in their shit code. They now have one more month to finalize it and he's still talking about adding features.

 

[Micmu]

It was pretty obvious that after a colossal failure like TOR, heads are gonna roll. And execs never get fired, they "retire".
No hard proof needed, just common sense and basic knowledge how big ruthless business like this works.

 

[Jaesun]

Hopefully the TOR fiasco will have LA approach Obsidian to finally do a KotOR III. <3

 

[Ulminati]

Hopefully the TOR fiasco will have LA approach Obsidian to finally do a KotOR III. <3

Yay! A buggy game with shit combat and lightsabers! :D

 

[ravenshrike]

I think EA had ordered a Bioware assassination already, but they won't kill command until DA3 results are in. Then they'll probably kill them either way, for shits and giggles.

Trent Oster should shut the hell up and deliver on his over-hyped Baldur's Gate port instead. They have already post-poned past delivery date (for which they took pre-orders) and he's still whining like a bitch on twitter about how nothing works in their shit code. They now have one more month to finalize it and he's still talking about adding features.

I can't help but wonder what the fuck he thought would happen trying to putz around with the IE. It was never all that capable.

Hopefully the TOR fiasco will have LA approach Obsidian to finally do a KotOR III. <3

Ha. Ha.. ha.. hAHAHahahaHAHAAAHhahaahhahaaha.

Now that's some funny shit right there. The reason LA never allowed Obsidian to go back and properly patch KOTORII after release in the first place was because midway through development Lucas decided he HATED the idea of ambiguity in the Force. They were too far along to cancel the project outright, so LA told them to wrap up development and shove it out the door.

 

[Jaesun]

Now that's some funny shit right there. The reason LA never allowed Obsidian to go back and properly patch KOTORII after release in the first place was because midway through development Lucas decided he HATED the idea of ambiguity in the Force. They were too far along to cancel the project outright, so LA told them to wrap up development and shove it out the door.

Your source for this?

 

[Grimlorn]

After playing Kotor 2 recently. I'd rather not play another Kotor game or really any Star Wars game at this point. After reading some of the EU stuff related to the OT and PT, I think the Star Wars universe is overhyped trash. It only gained its fame from its special effects and crappy philosophy that was new in the 70s. If you released the OT today it might make money but wouldn't gain the huge fanbase it has today. And if you read some of the EU crap it's even worse and they just rehash the same stuff over and over and over again.

 

[ravenshrike]

Now that's some funny shit right there. The reason LA never allowed Obsidian to go back and properly patch KOTORII after release in the first place was because midway through development Lucas decided he HATED the idea of ambiguity in the Force. They were too far along to cancel the project outright, so LA told them to wrap up development and shove it out the door.

Your source for this?

The reason for cutting the development and not allowing Obsidian to patch is just a guess, but it's the only one that makes sense under the circumstances. As for the idea of absolute morality in the SW universe, did you not watch the prequel trilogy? Not to mention he works damned closely with all the novel writers, and in case you missed it the Drew Karpyshyn novel COMPLETELY retcons any moral ambiguity out of the events of KOTORII.

 

[Jaesun]

Now that's some funny shit right there. The reason LA never allowed Obsidian to go back and properly patch KOTORII after release in the first place was because midway through development Lucas decided he HATED the idea of ambiguity in the Force. They were too far along to cancel the project outright, so LA told them to wrap up development and shove it out the door.

Your source for this?

The reason for cutting the development and not allowing Obsidian to patch is just a guess, but it's the only one that makes sense under the circumstances. As for the idea of absolute morality in the SW universe, did you not watch the prequel trilogy? Not to mention he works damned closely with all the novel writers, and in case you missed it the Drew Karpyshyn novel COMPLETELY retcons any moral ambiguity out of the events of KOTORII.

Oh just a guess. OK. I can guess stuff too.

 

[Brother None]

In this thread, people guess lots of stuff.

Though on the topic of the BioWare co-founders leaving, is it really "speculation" to say it's tied to the Old Republic's failure? That seems more like "really fucking obvious".

 

[Grimlorn]

In this thread, people guess lots of stuff.

Though on the topic of the BioWare co-founders leaving, is it really "speculation" to say it's tied to the Old Republic's failure? That seems more like "really fucking obvious".

I prefer to believe Trent Oster and that consumers shat on their games so much it hurt their feelings and they gave up. Also I believe it turned Greg into an alcoholic.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

In this thread, people guess lots of stuff.

Though on the topic of the BioWare co-founders leaving, is it really "speculation" to say it's tied to the Old Republic's failure? That seems more like "really fucking obvious".

No shit.
You have to wonder that, the failure and loss of cash aside, if the EA execs were happy to get them the fuck out of the company.
Who knows, maybe they were sick to death of coddling these guys.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Now that's some funny shit right there. The reason LA never allowed Obsidian to go back and properly patch KOTORII after release in the first place was because midway through development Lucas decided he HATED the idea of ambiguity in the Force. They were too far along to cancel the project outright, so LA told them to wrap up development and shove it out the door.

Your source for this?

The reason for cutting the development and not allowing Obsidian to patch is just a guess, but it's the only one that makes sense under the circumstances. As for the idea of absolute morality in the SW universe, did you not watch the prequel trilogy? Not to mention he works damned closely with all the novel writers, and in case you missed it the Drew Karpyshyn novel COMPLETELY retcons any moral ambiguity out of the events of KOTORII.

Oh just a guess. OK. I can guess stuff too.

Release date: December 6, 2004 aka Christmas Sales!!!

 

[tuluse]

But why push up the date for that? Shouldn't they have planned that from the beginning?

 

[kris]

And, he gives absolutely no evidence to back up his claim. I say let HIM proof his accusation.

What kind of evidence are you talking about? You think he should have taped them saying this?

(note: I don't think his (Oyster) claim is believable)

 

[Vault Dweller]

But why push up the date for that? Shouldn't they have planned that from the beginning?

No idea. It's common knowledge that the development time was cut short by 2-3 months and Lucas Arts forced them to ship the game earlier than Obsidian expected. Since it was released on Xmas, the most obvious guess is that LA wanted to hit the holiday period, which is the Mecca of sales.

If I have to guess, Obsidian was given a standard contract and nobody at LA thought twice about the release date - that's how corporations usually work. Comes the holiday season, LA needs money now and is looking at everything that can boost their cash flow. KOTOR2 looks almost ready, so why not? People love that shit, don't they? Who wouldn't want to play a SW game this holiday season? So what if it's incomplete? It's not like the movies were much better. I bet it's gonna sell a million copies, so we're sitting on 60 million much needed bucks right fucking now. What's there to think about?