Role-Player said:
Personally, i won't criticize a company that harshly because i have no right to criticize a company if i'm not involved in the same medium they're in. This isn't to say i won't point out a companies' mistakes - but i won't go as far as bashing them because somehow my personal expectations were not met, i think i'm fairly above that.
Congratulations, you're precisely the impotent chimp BioWare looks for in a suck...err...consumer. You're also part of the biggest problems of the gaming industry to date.
As far as the rest, you seriously need to get out a bit more into some real role-playing. I wouldn't even dare to try and force the group I play with to experience anything as banal and cookie-cutter as the uninspired crap that BioWare shovels out. Try playing Ultima 7 sometime for a very good example of a bright game world.
Aside from the self-fellating interviews and other releases by BioWare,
check out this. Yes, that twit is supposedly what passed for a BioWare "developer", especially obvious when he really has no clue about what is involved with cohesive development for multiple character types. Hence, that is why BioWare's work neatly falls into the aforementioned cookie-cutter methods. This is especially evident when you can get to the point with "unfeasable characters" like Sawyer even claimed were possible in Fallout and Fallout 2. Back in reality, Fallout 1 at least allowed you to go through tasks in a number of ways. What choices do you have in BioWare games? That's right. Fuck speech or anything like that, it's time to min/max your ass because that is essentially all that matters to them. Don't forget to pick up your complimentary CHA 18 magic ring on your way out into the wilderness.
Prov is right. Baldur's Garbage would have tanked like what it's considered by many - a shitty half-Diablo half-Fallout clone, possessing little of what made either game fun to play, going with an uninvolving combat system, and tossing in Drizzt and other characters for nothing more than fanservice.
I see people criticize the Infinity Engine on various levels when the only criticizable thing there i can see is the pathfinding, hands down.
Then you need to open your eyes. Your hands might be down, but your head is up somewhere else. AI, pathfinding, poor combat, bastardizing many of the rules, extremely limited interactivity with the environment, and about everything Prov mentioned as well.
Let's also not forget the annoying games of "hunt the pixel" to search for containers/etcetera.
On the real time issue... i had a debate with other users on various forums. I know that it makes perfect sense to have combat in TB mode when the game in question comes from a PnP system. I know it has to be TB because that how it works in PnP, otherwise the players and specially the DM would lose track of what happens. However, how many people would have the time and patience to click endlessly in a game just to make it move? The real time factor of the engine makes it so combat doesn't become boring.
Funny, I thought staring at the screen while doing nothing but waiting for something to require pausing the game again is a hell of a lot more boring.
On that expectations thing... what i meant was, that everywhere i go, all i see is people criticizing various games because they didn't managed to meet their expectations. Im not against having expectations around a game, but seeing unnecessary, rude, and flaming comments against a developer because X fans wanted Y thing but got Z thing instead, irks me. That's all. If what was promised wasn't delivered, its fair to criticize. But thats where the fairness ends regarding flaming atittudes. I for one, would never call the developers mother******s, or tell them to go f*** themselves. I think thats uncalled for. Not mentioning the janitor jokes
Yup, just as I thought. A nice, complacent consumer without any spine to believe that pig in a poke hype developers should get what they deserve. Hell, Gold Box was better than the IE games in many ways. Yet BioWare keeps crowing and crowning themselves kings at every turn. Their only saving grace is that they had D&D and Forgotten Realms. Without the inevitable fanboys those bring, BG would have been an uninspired pile of trash and more people would have said as much. is it any wonder why TORN was canned, aside from some incredibly poor decisions at IPLY/BIS? it was because it was really nothing special at all, instead following along high fantasy.
While you are being nice-nice to the developers, you're being ignored. There's many cases of where those who posted critical bug reports to the official NWN forums would have the topic locked or deleted, and some were banned. In most cases, they would try to hide the problem, using "This should be sent into the bug report email addy" as some kind of validation to hide whatever they want. Yet those topics with vitriol would get the attention of the developers rather quickly as it waves a bright red bullshit flag that others can see and only spells problems for BioWare if they were to make those "vanish", much like IPLY is feeling some kicks to the ass because of their methods.
Sorry to break it to you like this, but if nobody treats lacking quality as pariah-worthy evidence, then there would be nothing but regurgitated bullshit floating around the industry. Oh, hey, that is already happening because of the mindless fanbois slobbering over the developers for their next munchkinfest, and then there's apologists like yourself who are too neutered to be of any care to BioWare. Do you think you matter to BioWare or any other company with a nice smile but telling them something is wrong? Sorry to break reality to you again, but at that point you're nothing more than a prison bitch with your money in their hands. Do you think you matter anymore to them after that? You're on some serious drugs or grievous head injuries if you think you do. Well, I guess BioWare might have some care for you; you're little more than a bit more cash in their pocket and spin-doctoring over forums.
I've seen work that easily tops their crap aside from a shiny user interface. That was also about 15 years ago, and Ultima 7 still kicks BioWare's work down pretty hard, retroactively, in terms of world design. Troika's work provides a hell of a lot more playstyles and paths to be taken in the game than "click through speech options until you get to combat" that generally stands for BioHype's work.
You might be impressed with BioWare's work, but I've come up with better ideas while taking a shit.
