Bioware to focus on PC games

[thesheeep]

It wasn't a shooter. A shooter is something like Half-Life, NOLF, Fear etc. Or 3rd-person shooters like MDK, Inferno, Kane & Lynch etc. Mass Effect was clearly an RPG, like it or not.

I hope that's a joke. Have you even played the game?

I have, and the only RPG-ish elements it has are the character creation, development and very, very limited choices (most consequences only affect yourself and not the world around you). Everything else belongs to either the Action or Shooter genre.
Best example is driving around in the Mako, killing hordes of enemies without your stats being of any importance. Same is true for the other shooting (more or less) since the only thing that really matters is the weapon itself and not your training with it...

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, I liked the story, the voice acting, etc. But it has nothing to do with RPGs.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

It wasn't a shooter. A shooter is something like Half-Life, NOLF, Fear etc. Or 3rd-person shooters like MDK, Inferno, Kane & Lynch etc. Mass Effect was clearly an RPG, like it or not.

I hope that's a joke. Have you even played the game?

I have, and the only RPG-ish elements it has are the character creation, development and very, very limited choices (most consequences only affect yourself and not the world around you). Everything else belongs to either the Action or Shooter genre.
Best example is driving around in the Mako, killing hordes of enemies without your stats being of any importance. Same is true for the other shooting (more or less) since the only thing that really matters is the weapon itself and not your training with it...

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, I liked the story, the voice acting, etc. But it has nothing to do with RPGs.

You think an RPG must always have the same set of features? Is BG an RTS because it has top-down view and you can marquee-drag a rectangle over your characters?

Bioware is free to choose how they design their games, and which elements and genre-blends they want to incorporate. I rather like to see a company making some experiments with Action and RPG, instead of just re-using the same set of gameplay mechanisms over and over again. I'm sure the Codex would like to see Bioware creating BG clones with the IE for the rest of eternity...but games have to evolve, ya know.

 

[Raapys]

but games have to evolve, ya know.

Is that what they're doing, though? Everytime I start up a new game these days I always feel like I've played it ten times before, just with worse graphics & less hand-holding.

 

[gamefan]

When and where, my fellow faggot?

Today, mid night at the dumpster where you live .

 

[Lumpy]

It wasn't a shooter. A shooter is something like Half-Life, NOLF, Fear etc. Or 3rd-person shooters like MDK, Inferno, Kane & Lynch etc. Mass Effect was clearly an RPG, like it or not.

I hope that's a joke. Have you even played the game?

I have, and the only RPG-ish elements it has are the character creation, development and very, very limited choices (most consequences only affect yourself and not the world around you). Everything else belongs to either the Action or Shooter genre.
Best example is driving around in the Mako, killing hordes of enemies without your stats being of any importance. Same is true for the other shooting (more or less) since the only thing that really matters is the weapon itself and not your training with it...

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, I liked the story, the voice acting, etc. But it has nothing to do with RPGs.

I take it you agree that Baldur's Gate is also not an RPG? Because I don't remember any choices with consequences affecting the world around you. In fact, I don't remember all that many consequences at all.

 

[Volourn]

"since the only thing that really matters is the weapon itself and not your training with it..."

Simply not true. But, then again, it's an Action RPG hence why player skill does play a part. Just like BL. Another Action RPG where player skill is a huge part of it; but stats also matter but to a lesser degree yet it too is an Action RPG not a 'Shoote' or 'FPS'.

And, ME has role-playing. It also has chocies. The fatc that the cosnequences are 'limited' doesn't make it a non RPG. It just means its not as strong a RPG, as say, FO. Dumbass.

Again: I hate MW. Hate with a passion. But, guess what? It's still a RPG. Dumbass.

On top of that, ME has more role-playing than most other BIO games that people have no problem calling RPGs. Most notably BG. It aloas has more role-playing than some of the Codex's favorite RPGs.

R00fles!

 

[gamefan]

"since the only thing that really matters is the weapon itself and not your training with it..."

Simply not true. But, then again, it's an Action RPG hence why player skill does play a part. Just like BL. Another Action RPG where player skill is a huge part of it; but stats also matter but to a lesser degree yet it too is an Action RPG not a 'Shoote' or 'FPS'.

And, ME has role-playing. It also has chocies. The fatc that the cosnequences are 'limited' doesn't make it a non RPG. It just means its not as strong a RPG, as say, FO. Dumbass.

Again: I hate MW. Hate with a passion. But, guess what? It's still a RPG. Dumbass.

On top of that, ME has more role-playing than most other BIO games that people have no problem calling RPGs. Most notably BG. It aloas has more role-playing than some of the Codex's favorite RPGs.

R00fles!

Fuck you.

 

[Ryuken]

"DA is Bioware's chance to get some street cred back"

hate to break it to you; but if 'street cred' = Codex and interent geeks; BIO (and, espicially EA) simply don't give a shit.

Is that why every Bio and EA bigwig starts praising DA because it will go back more to BG-roots? Hell, as that Bioware About page shows, more than enough people other than some "Codex and internet geeks" have enjoyed the BG-series and I am willing to bet they haven't enjoyed the more recent Bioware games as much as the BG ones.

There is a big gap in the market for a good PC partybased RPG (not à la NWN/KotOR/JE/ME), period. And having street cred =/= constantly producing console ports which are nothing more than that: ports, games explicitly designed for consoles. An improved interface doesn't change that at all.

 

[buccaroobonzai]

You need to add UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy together to get the same size market as the US.

And people wonder why they won the war.

'They' won the war? Even most US historians say that Russia won WW2 for the allies (or Germany's stupidity for trying to invade russia). Russian history is pretty amusing - all the different sub-cultures seem to hate each other and keep on periodically fighting each other...until each time that an outside force is dumb enough to set foot in the country, in which case they band together and pwn them before going back to killing each other...etc. etc."

Actually a slow start(winter arriving and german lack of preparedness) and lack of continual advance(or a penchant to try to pummel every city, no matter what cost and time it took)after encircling Stalingrad is what won the war in the Eastern Front. Urban warfare tactics only mean something if you choose to fight in the defender's setting...(READ: The Art of War, Sun Tsu).
The germans should have encircled resistance urban pockets leaving smallish forces surrounding the cities with artillery battalions bombarding them for weeks in seige warfare starving them out. All the while the main Army Groups could have continued the advance. After reaching the oil fields in the Cacauses the Army Groups should have concentrated on securing the north encircling Moscow. With this stratagy they could have encircled Moscow by the first winter.
You would have had Kiev, Stalingrad, Leningrad, and Moscow all encircled in siege and battering the cities with artillery and aerial bombardment. Motorized divisions could sweep the countryside ttacking any possible relief forces from breaking through.
What most likely would have happened would be a retreat of the Russian resistance to the west over the Urals and continued guerrilla warfare for years.
Another helpful tactic would have been more communication with the Japanes and focusing the Japanese to march through China, or even around and into western Russia to pincer the Russians between them and the Germans. Getting Russia out of the picture as quickly as possible would virtually enable conquest of both continents with only China and U.K. buffed India to conquer.
As it was, Stalin was hiding in the Urals when his officers came to inform him of the advance towards Moscow, Stalin was ready to off himself before they even told him any news.
Of course all of that would have been horrible if they would have won...

 

[Texas Red]

you edited your post after a week

 

[AzraelCC]

Bioware Wii = LARPing

Wheeee.