Can you elaborate on what Bioware did to cater to the " hamburgler hepler" crowd that was different from Baldur's Gate etc? I am really curious as I could never get past the terrible isometric style graphics of those types of games, Diablo included. I just thought it was so antiquated, even back then.
Dragon Age: Inquisition (Plot Details in Spoilers!)
- Thread starter Eonan
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I blame consoles and this new generation of "action" players!
Goddamn kids!
/grumpy old man
What are you, 12?!?! Proper RPGs should be isometric, 3rd person! None of this 1st person shit!
Fucking kids!
/grumpy old man
hodj
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They pushed romance bullshit over core gameplay experience. It led to probably an overreaction but a warranted one.
Like even their advertising and stuff started focusing on how you could bang all your friends in your party and blah. Then we get a game like DA2. Some people here may have liked some aspects of it, some may have even enjoyed it, but in terms of what was promised before DA:O about how they were giving the hard core RPG crowd a return to baldur's gate, and how DA:O was good, but just needed more polish, more in depth implementation of the mechanics, they just threw that all in the toilet for the sequel.
You couldn't write a better recipe for a shit load of pissed off neckbeards bro.
This fat chick that worked as a writer there was featured in some video and became like the face of everything going wrong at Bioware. The internet ripped her to pieces.
Like even their advertising and stuff started focusing on how you could bang all your friends in your party and blah. Then we get a game like DA2. Some people here may have liked some aspects of it, some may have even enjoyed it, but in terms of what was promised before DA:O about how they were giving the hard core RPG crowd a return to baldur's gate, and how DA:O was good, but just needed more polish, more in depth implementation of the mechanics, they just threw that all in the toilet for the sequel.
You couldn't write a better recipe for a shit load of pissed off neckbeards bro.
This fat chick that worked as a writer there was featured in some video and became like the face of everything going wrong at Bioware. The internet ripped her to pieces.
That is a big reason why DA2 creates such hate I think. Besides being a bad game, DA:O was really great and we were all expecting DA2 to be "DA:O but MOAR!!" and it really wasn't.
If it was named "Timmy's Adventure" and produced by a different company, I don't think anyone would hate it so much, it probably would have just become forgotten.
If it was named "Timmy's Adventure" and produced by a different company, I don't think anyone would hate it so much, it probably would have just become forgotten.
hodj
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Yep. Everyone who bought the first game on the premise we were getting essentially an entire new Baldur's Gate style story arc and gameplay experience were RIGHTFULLY pissed the fuck off when the franchise they single handidly supported and created with their dollar stabbed them all in the back to get the hamburgler hepler crowd who are the emo kids who sit around talking about their waifus and shit.
Bioware got bought up by EA and they said "This is what focus groups the best the character interaction stuff, so push it" and since then every bioware game has been more about the interparty romance shit than about good gameplay and strong narrative
Bioware got bought up by EA and they said "This is what focus groups the best the character interaction stuff, so push it" and since then every bioware game has been more about the interparty romance shit than about good gameplay and strong narrative
You know, The Bureau Xcom game was basically Mass Effect/DA2 style gameplay with a weakish story. It got hammered in the ratings. DA2 easily would have been hammered just as much if not more so if it weren't for those EA dollars backing it up. Its just not as tactical and the quality of the game play is not as good in 3rd/1st person as it would be in the top down isometric views of Baldur's Gate and DA:O. It never will be. It works okay when you do sci fi and have guns you need to aim and shoot and what not, but when you do magic and swords and you need to place tanks and dps and healers in proper positions to prevent them getting breathed on by dragons and shit, the 3rd person and 1st person camera view just does not cut it.
khalid
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Hodj, are you agreeing with the neckbeards or mocking them? I really hope mocking them, because saying shit like how interparty romance took away from good gameplay is just not true. You must know that totally different teams work on that shit. Do you really think the team working on balancing the talent trees and implementing the combat of DA:2 was the same team making sure you could romance Anders?
The neckbeard freakout that Anders would hit on you was pretty hilarious and a sign of how utterly immature the gaming audience can be. OMG a gay character in a game asked me out, squick!
The neckbeard freakout that Anders would hit on you was pretty hilarious and a sign of how utterly immature the gaming audience can be. OMG a gay character in a game asked me out, squick!
I'm not saying it wouldn't have gotten bad reviews. I'm saying we wouldn't care much. We wouldn't be discussing the game today and still be butthurt over it.
khalid
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Bureau tried to copy ME2/ME3 gameplay but did an absolutely horrible botch of it. If DA2 or ME3 had the gameplay of that game, they would have been killed also.
hodj
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I did not played DA2 long enough to get to the romance shit. I literally hated that game the second I turned it on, by the end of the tutorial I was done. Everything about it is cancer to me. That combat system immediately turned me off. It was 100% console controls and gameplay and not a single nod towards the PC crowd who bought the shit out of Dragon Age Origins and loved it. I wanted to nuke EA head offices from orbit. I began praying Osama bin Laden would declare Jihad on them and someone would fly a plane into the bioware head offices.
I'm over it now for the most part but that was my single least favorite game ever. Period. I played DA:O through 3 or 4 times. I maxed out that melee wizard class and was soloing the dragons and shit. I loved that game even though it was relatively mediocre compared to its forebears. But to see them just....completely abandon us, the core fans of that series. Just completely abandon us. Yeah that shit made me pretty goddamn angsty at the time bro. I was like cutting myself and shit (not really).
But it seems to me the primary point of the neckbeards who hounded Jennifer Hepler from her job there was that she exemplified Bioware's failure to focus on quality gameplay and narrative over bullshit relationship shit.
I'm over it now for the most part but that was my single least favorite game ever. Period. I played DA:O through 3 or 4 times. I maxed out that melee wizard class and was soloing the dragons and shit. I loved that game even though it was relatively mediocre compared to its forebears. But to see them just....completely abandon us, the core fans of that series. Just completely abandon us. Yeah that shit made me pretty goddamn angsty at the time bro. I was like cutting myself and shit (not really).
But it seems to me the primary point of the neckbeards who hounded Jennifer Hepler from her job there was that she exemplified Bioware's failure to focus on quality gameplay and narrative over bullshit relationship shit.
You know what's funny the first time I played through DA:O I didn't even romance anyone, not even unintentionally. I had a vague idea that characters could get together, but did not care. I ended up selling or destroying all those trinkets because I had no idea what they did lol. I still enjoyed it, but I mean come on, it was just a small part of the game that was easily avoidable and there was still a ton to do.
hodj
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I'm sorry its been a really long time but I don't recall anally raping any of my baldur's gate 2 compatriots. Maybe that's just me.
Anyway, if you don't think that's what the broad community was complaining about (a focus on relationships over delivering a quality game) why was Hepler's statements about not even enjoying playing games so focused on in the backlash against her? She was quoted as saying stuff like
It came to exemplify what people felt was going wrong with Bioware, a focus on pandering to the relationships and female demographics over delivering solid gameplay to the core gamer set who have been lost in the wilderness since the early 2000s hoping for someone to take up the banner of making quality strategy style RPGs.
But here, you tell me, would press button receive awesome not be a good example of focusing on style over substance?
Because that was a direct quote from a developer of Dragon Age 2 prior to its release. The "button/awesome" connection.
khalid
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Which was complete crap. Abunch of upset neckbeards that Anders would hit on them and turn them gay or something.
hodj
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You don't see a problem with a focus on "press a button receive awesome" gameplay? Its pure pandering and watering down to the most casual segment, when the baldur's gate audience tends to be the hardest core demographic gamer around.
I don't see how you can't see that this would lead to some pretty big issues. Taking what was sold as a series meant for the core demographic gamer and turning it into press button/receive awesome "We want the Call of Duty audience" style gameplay?
hodj
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No the press button receive awesome was by someone else not Hepler.
Might have been a marketing guy. Not that it matters.
Taken by itself as "not an xcom game" at all, instead I looked at it more like Mass Effect 2.5, it's completely playable just bland and mediocre. Taken as an Xcom game, its a horrible abortion that should have been flushed down the toilet.
Might have been a marketing guy. Not that it matters.
Bureau after the patches was actually playably decent. I got to the last battle before I got bored. The story is shit but its a good example, because it suffers from the exact same problem DA2 does: Its a bad imitation under the same name abandoning everything that makes the actual core franchise great, that being strategic gameplay with RPG heavy mechanics and character progression with an overarching storyline that justifies the existence of the rest of the game.
Taken by itself as "not an xcom game" at all, instead I looked at it more like Mass Effect 2.5, it's completely playable just bland and mediocre. Taken as an Xcom game, its a horrible abortion that should have been flushed down the toilet.
Urlithani
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I don't hate it, but I was a little disappointed. The fact that it went from a living world with all sorts of sights to see, to a small box surrounding a city is what irked me the most. I still enjoyed it for what it was once I got past the changes.
khalid
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How is it watering down if you don't press that button though?
The easy mode of pretty much ANY game is like that. What game isn't trivial on easy? The only difference was that this mode would let you not do any fights, vs being forced to do completely trivial fights on easy. If they want to make a mode that nongamers can use to enjoy the story, I don't understand at all how it waters down anything.