07 Nov, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 22nd comment:
David Haley said:
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".
Yup. Bioware is my favorite game company. The fact that I like their games doesn't mean I'm willing to stick my head up my butt and pretend they're flawless, though. They've all been buggy as hell. The fact that such buggy games are still totally freaking awesome is a testament to how wonderful Bioware's game design team is. I only wish their tech team was at the same level, because then Bioware games would be _even more_ awesome, if such a thing can be imagined. ;)
Now, Bethesda is another story. Their tech is bottom-barrel crap and their game design is nothing more than "as much random shit as we can possibly pack into the game to make it seem long and well thought out, even though 98% of the content is totally unrelated to anything else in the game." I think Fallout 3 managed to be so great only because of the non-Bethesda talent that got pulled in for that project (including some of the original Fallout designers, if I recall). It's an interesting comparison of how a game can be so good that its technical flaws can be overlooked (Bioware games, Fallout 3) versus those that go from okay games to unplayable pieces of crap (Oblivion, I mean you).
Don't misinterpret what I'm saying, though. I'm not saying that tech is more important than gameplay. There are many companies that have freaking awesome tech teams but their games still suck. Like Microsoft. The Halo series is a technical masterpiece and yet it's a boring piece of excrement. Or Fable II, which I don't recall running into many bugs while playing at all, but its gameplay was just mediocre in every way.
07 Nov, 2009, Lyanic wrote in the 23rd comment:
elanthis said:
Yup. Bioware is my favorite game company. The fact that I like their games doesn't mean I'm willing to stick my head up my butt and pretend they're flawless, though. They've all been buggy as hell. The fact that such buggy games are still totally freaking awesome is a testament to how wonderful Bioware's game design team is. I only wish their tech team was at the same level, because then Bioware games would be _even more_ awesome, if such a thing can be imagined. ;)
Now, Bethesda is another story. Their tech is bottom-barrel crap and their game design is nothing more than "as much random shit as we can possibly pack into the game to make it seem long and well thought out, even though 98% of the content is totally unrelated to anything else in the game." I think Fallout 3 managed to be so great only because of the non-Bethesda talent that got pulled in for that project (including some of the original Fallout designers, if I recall). It's an interesting comparison of how a game can be so good that its technical flaws can be overlooked (Bioware games, Fallout 3) versus those that go from okay games to unplayable pieces of crap (Oblivion, I mean you).
Don't misinterpret what I'm saying, though. I'm not saying that tech is more important than gameplay. There are many companies that have freaking awesome tech teams but their games still suck. Like Microsoft. The Halo series is a technical masterpiece and yet it's a boring piece of excrement. Or Fable II, which I don't recall running into many bugs while playing at all, but its gameplay was just mediocre in every way.
David Haley said:
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".
Yup. Bioware is my favorite game company. The fact that I like their games doesn't mean I'm willing to stick my head up my butt and pretend they're flawless, though. They've all been buggy as hell. The fact that such buggy games are still totally freaking awesome is a testament to how wonderful Bioware's game design team is. I only wish their tech team was at the same level, because then Bioware games would be _even more_ awesome, if such a thing can be imagined. ;)
Now, Bethesda is another story. Their tech is bottom-barrel crap and their game design is nothing more than "as much random shit as we can possibly pack into the game to make it seem long and well thought out, even though 98% of the content is totally unrelated to anything else in the game." I think Fallout 3 managed to be so great only because of the non-Bethesda talent that got pulled in for that project (including some of the original Fallout designers, if I recall). It's an interesting comparison of how a game can be so good that its technical flaws can be overlooked (Bioware games, Fallout 3) versus those that go from okay games to unplayable pieces of crap (Oblivion, I mean you).
Don't misinterpret what I'm saying, though. I'm not saying that tech is more important than gameplay. There are many companies that have freaking awesome tech teams but their games still suck. Like Microsoft. The Halo series is a technical masterpiece and yet it's a boring piece of excrement. Or Fable II, which I don't recall running into many bugs while playing at all, but its gameplay was just mediocre in every way.
I could agree with most of that. The difference in opinion regarding the bugginess of BioWare's games seems to stem from a PC versus console perspective, though. As I mentioned earlier, BioWare seems to be favoring consoles more, so they tend to put more of their QA time into that version. They figure the PC version is less important to ship bug-free because PC gamers should be used to a "release and patch" strategy by now. BioWare is far from the only company doing that - it's one of the reasons why I gave up on PC gaming long ago (aside from MUDs).
07 Nov, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 24th comment:
As we seemed to be developing two parallel discussions I've split the microtransactions discussion to this thread.
09 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 25th comment:
Just thought I would mention that the thread enticed me into picking up DA:O and it's been fantastic so far. My only complaint is I have a machine far above the system requirements in every aspect and it still seems to feel clunky. I play a lot of games that seem like they would take more resources flawlessly. So *shrugs*. Still a great game so far. :)
10 Nov, 2009, Kayle wrote in the 26th comment:
Beat it. Definitely has as much, if not more, replay value then Mass Effect and other previous BioWare titles. I highly recommend anyone who doesn't have it but likes RPGs pick it up, and give it a try. Also, the new 30 Seconds to Mars Single in the ending credits is pretty good as well.
10 Nov, 2009, syn wrote in the 27th comment:
I have not beaten this yet but the game rocks. I love it so far and as compared to the insanely short Mass Effect and thrilled that a game is longer than 9 hours for the actual story!
Havent noticed that myself, it runs without any slowdown on my system, feels quick and light on my system. What hardware are you running it on?
My setup is:
win 7
6gb ram
e8400 dual core intel
gtx 260
xfx 780i motherboard
my friend ran it on a similar system only it has an 8800 gt oc and 4 gb of ram and it performed almost the same.
Quote
Just thought I would mention that the thread enticed me into picking up DA:O and it's been fantastic so far. My only complaint is I have a machine far above the system requirements in every aspect and it still seems to feel clunky. I play a lot of games that seem like they would take more resources flawlessly. So *shrugs*. Still a great game so far. :)
Havent noticed that myself, it runs without any slowdown on my system, feels quick and light on my system. What hardware are you running it on?
My setup is:
win 7
6gb ram
e8400 dual core intel
gtx 260
xfx 780i motherboard
my friend ran it on a similar system only it has an 8800 gt oc and 4 gb of ram and it performed almost the same.
10 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 28th comment:
Vista
4 gigs high performance ram.
core 2 duo t9300
9800gtx 512m
Like I said. It runs pretty well on this machine. It's just I'm used to running a lot of DX10 games flawlessly. Modern warfare, etc. This one at times likes to tear.
4 gigs high performance ram.
core 2 duo t9300
9800gtx 512m
Like I said. It runs pretty well on this machine. It's just I'm used to running a lot of DX10 games flawlessly. Modern warfare, etc. This one at times likes to tear.
And Dragon Age was developed for PC and console at the same time. What does this tell us? Two things: 1) BioWare is favoring consoles more and more and 2) PC RPGs that aren't MMOs are a dying breed. Read the article I linked to earlier. It addresses a lot of the topics coming up in this thread, from the developers' perspectives.