05 Nov, 2009, Zeno wrote in the 1st comment:
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BioWare has launched a Facebook clone site. I'm annoyed they decided to develop this over actual multiplayer in DA, but whatever. I know a number of you have DA.

Add me, I need friends. :P
http://social.bioware.com/playerprofile....
05 Nov, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 2nd comment:
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BioWare has fantastic games in terms of story, characters, and design, but their tech team has been lacking since their very first game. Everything they've done has been either buggy, full of weird-ass design issues that bite them and the players in the ass in weird ways, or just lags behind the state of the art by several years. NWN was when I pretty much switched from accepting their technical prow as "good enough" and started feeling that their technical prow was totally inadequate. A custom script engine that was slower than most other languages, lacked the features of most other languages, and didn't even have persistent storage? Their total inability to add true hidden doors to the engine? The fact that they wrote a custom graphics engine when there were plenty out there that did everything their's did, did it better, and compared to their development costs would have been cheaper? The way that path-finding in NWN still sucked just as hard as it did in the original Baldur's Gate?

Yeah, Bioware recoding a social site that breaks and causes issues for everybody is not surprising. Par for the course in Bioware-land. The sooner they hire in a few new top-tier programmers and an actually knowledgeable tech director, the better.
06 Nov, 2009, Dean wrote in the 3rd comment:
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That'd be EA's influence right there (The social site I mean). I've been too busy playing the actual game to check out the site though. :lol:
06 Nov, 2009, ATT_Turan wrote in the 4th comment:
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Dean said:
That'd be EA's influence right there (The social site I mean). I've been too busy playing the actual game to check out the site though. :lol:


QFT. EA has been integrating their games with your online account for almost a year now, it doesn't surprise me that they're trying to push this. I'm ignoring it in favor of smashing things with my golem.

elanthis said:
BioWare has fantastic games in terms of story, characters, and design, but their tech team has been lacking since their very first game.


Nothing you say is untrue, but weigh in the fact that those first things are so fantastic that I have several friends who still will reference and bandy quotes with me from KotOR, Neverwinter Nights and even Baldur's Gate, and I have absolutely no regrets about playing every BioWare RPG. No game is perfectly done, and if I have to choose between Dragon Age or, say, Star Ocean 3…well, BioWare wins the day by far.
06 Nov, 2009, Lobotomy wrote in the 5th comment:
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ATT_Turan said:
No game is perfectly done, and if I have to choose between Dragon Age or, say, Star Ocean 3…well, BioWare wins the day by far.

Edit by Orrin: The originally posted inl...
06 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 6th comment:
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Umm, Lobotomy, what?
06 Nov, 2009, Lobotomy wrote in the 7th comment:
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David Haley said:
Umm, Lobotomy, what?

Just venting at ATT_Turan for insulting one of my favorite games. Nothing serious.

Quote
link to image containing possibly offensive language

If you're going to censor my post then at least make it obvious that the replacement is not what I originally said (aside from the lazy English).

Edit: That is to say, make it obvious within the post itself, is what I mean.
06 Nov, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 8th comment:
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Lobotomy said:
If you're going to censor my post, at least make it obvious that the replacement is not what I originally said (aside from the lazy English).

Edit: That is to say, make it obvious within the post itself, is what I mean.

Feel free to edit the post and replace the link text. If you're unable to edit it (not sure if the forum software allows it at this point) then PM me your choice of words and I'll edit it for you.
06 Nov, 2009, Lyanic wrote in the 9th comment:
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I'm not sure I understand elanthis' bashing of BioWare RPGs… BioWare is widely considered one of the premiere RPG developers in the world. Each of their games is critically praised and well received by the public. Dragon Age is fantastic - though I'm actually avoiding playing it for a bit, because it's distracting me from actual responsibilities. :sad:
06 Nov, 2009, Zeno wrote in the 10th comment:
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I think they were the premiere RPG developer, but no longer. Now they spend more money on advertising than actually developing a multiplayer mode. Not only that, I came across a NPC and one of the choices was "(Buy new DLC) Yes I'll help you". Freaking ridiculous. Valve has been releasing new maps/weapons, gamemodes etc all for free on TF2. And here's BioWare grabbing all the money they can get.
06 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 11th comment:
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I think Elanthis's comments were more about technical properties, not the games themselves. In fact, he said that their games are in several ways "fantastic".
06 Nov, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 12th comment:
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Zeno said:
Not only that, I came across a NPC and one of the choices was "(Buy new DLC) Yes I'll help you".


heh

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1...
06 Nov, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 13th comment:
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Zeno said:
I think they were the premiere RPG developer, but no longer. Now they spend more money on advertising than actually developing a multiplayer mode. Not only that, I came across a NPC and one of the choices was "(Buy new DLC) Yes I'll help you". Freaking ridiculous. Valve has been releasing new maps/weapons, gamemodes etc all for free on TF2. And here's BioWare grabbing all the money they can get.


Why does multiplayer mode have anything to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of an RPG?
However, I do cringe at the microtransaction bit…

The sad thing is, every single game company out there seems to believe microtransactions are the future, and players who complain about it just don't understand it yet. *sigh*
06 Nov, 2009, Zeno wrote in the 14th comment:
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Quote
Why does multiplayer mode have anything to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of an RPG?

BG1, BG2, NWN1, NWN2, these all had multiplayer. DA was advertised as "from the developers of BG" so one would think it would be on the same level as BG. I was wrong. Not including multiplayer is just one more feature missing from a game. DA with or without multiplayer, what's the obvious choice?

Quote
The sad thing is, every single game company out there seems to believe microtransactions are the future, and players who complain about it just don't understand it yet. *sigh*

I already provided an example of a good company (Valve) who isn't doing microtransactions. It still exists in this day and age.
07 Nov, 2009, ATT_Turan wrote in the 15th comment:
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Lobotomy said:
Just venting at ATT_Turan for insulting one of my favorite games. Nothing serious.


Erm…I'm not sure how off-handed mention of a game in a comparison is in any way a personal attack directed at you, but okay.

I will admit I mistyped - I quite liked Star Ocean 3, it was the new Star Ocean 4 that was moderately terrible…aside from the interesting combat system, though, I didn't like even Star Ocean 3 as much as Knights of the Old Republic. Without the ability to make story-affecting choices, a lot of the "RP" is taken out of an "RPG".
07 Nov, 2009, Lobotomy wrote in the 16th comment:
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ATT_Turan said:
I will admit I mistyped - I quite liked Star Ocean 3, it was the new Star Ocean 4 that was moderately terrible…aside from the interesting combat system, though, I didn't like even Star Ocean 3 as much as Knights of the Old Republic.

Fair enough. As for Star Ocean 4, I haven't had a chance to play it yet so I can't say whether or not I agree with your assessment of it.
07 Nov, 2009, Dean wrote in the 17th comment:
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Personally, I did not get the impression DA would have multiplayer because the promo 'From the developers of Baldur's Gate'. In the 40+ hours I've invested into it so far, I'm quite happy to say that I've enjoyed the single player experience and that there is no multiplayer to speak of. Sure, as the game progresses and certain bosses smack you silly, it'd be handy to have your party members being controlled by other players but oh well, that's what the custom tactics are for (once you master them).

Also, I have no problem with microtransactions, I for one in fact think that for commercial games it is a good thing. Especially considering pre-ordered or limited/collectors edition ingame items you might get. Though, I will say I was alittle annoyed to see The Wardens Keep DLC released like a day after the game hit stores (at least I think it did as it wasn't in the DLC list when I was downloading all my goodies :tongue:)
07 Nov, 2009, Lyanic wrote in the 18th comment:
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Zeno said:
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Why does multiplayer mode have anything to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of an RPG?

BG1, BG2, NWN1, NWN2, these all had multiplayer. DA was advertised as "from the developers of BG" so one would think it would be on the same level as BG. I was wrong. Not including multiplayer is just one more feature missing from a game. DA with or without multiplayer, what's the obvious choice?

BioWare didn't develop NWN2. They did develop KotOR, Jade Empire and Mass Effect. With Dragon Age, now, that means over half their games are NOT multi-player. This seems like a trend to me. Also, I'm of the opinion that big budget RPGs work best as a single-player affair. If anyone feels otherwise, don't buy their games. That doesn't detract from their quality in the slightest bit, though.
07 Nov, 2009, Lyanic wrote in the 19th comment:
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Found a link I thought some people might want to check out: The Future of Single-Player RPGs
07 Nov, 2009, Zeno wrote in the 20th comment:
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Jade Empire and Mass Effect weren't developed for the PC by BioWare. KoTOR was made for a console first. I wouldn't expect a console RPG by BioWare to be multiplayer in terms of how BG was.
0.0/28