>>145744
Honestly most of the hatred I've seen is directed towards EA's shit handling of just about everything, not Bioware itself. Some flack for the samey graphics and bad animations, though.

>>145744
>works of Rowling and Meyer

>Hack that ripped off most her shit from other books.
>Twilight author...nuff said.

It is funny how that article mentions nothing of the volumes of writing they touted putting into the game and it all sounds like Shakespearean Fanfiction or...Twilight.

>>145744
>I deserve credit for having a vagina.

>>145753

I think the problem is that we can tell it's all a facade by EA to make people think it's the same Bioware that made good games.

It isn't. Every interview, every press release, every game itself screams that it's an office full of underpaid scared incompetents who are slavishly directed to keep to a sterile formula and under no circumstances admit to or allow an opinion that might waiver in confidence. It's all a plan by EA to ride on developer brandname alone.

It's like most people on deviant art: They're not actually good, but they ape people who are and then they pander to whoever will talk to them.

>Articles Claming they are almost at two million active subscribers ( around 1.7 million to be specific)
>Admits somewhere in the article that at least half that number are still on their trial subscriptions as of Jan 31st.
>says they need 500k to break even and a million to make profit.

MY HEART WILL GO OOOOOOOON!!!!!

http://penny-arcade.com/2012/02/13/swtor3
Welp.

>>147112
Wow guess lack of narration can be just as bad as shit narration. But I'm sure they'll get some dialog for that person at some point because they've got a whole stable or poor bastards contracted into this for the long haul.

>>147112
Gabe hates a Star Wars game.

FUCKING GABE, HATE A STAR WARS GAME. THAT IS THE LEVEL WE HAVE REACHED.

>>147118
And this is a man who has been addicted to MMO for years. That's how bad this game is. It turns off the most addictive and devoted star wars nerds in a matter of months. That's not a good sign of sustainability, not even in free to play terms as they may not even last to the really expensive shit.

>>147112
Funny considering how hard they were gushing over SW:TOR in preceding months.

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA

OH GOD MY SIDES

>>147489
Such scathing wit...

>>147489

>>147515
John Madden weighs in.

oh, there is more entertainment in the TOR WAR than in the game itself.

Blogs all over the internet are defending Hepler by implying that people only hate her because of sexism.

http://www.themarysue.com/inclusion-what-jennifer-heplers-story-is-all-about/

>>147549
To be fair to the feminists--there are a lot of dude writers who write terrible, terrible, terrible game stories all the time, and they don't get this sort of reaction. Sexism may not be why they hate her, but I imagine it's a contributing factor to why they're going to such lengths to act hateful towards her.

>>147554
That's because, in this case, she ruined something that was promising to begin with.

>>147556
Wouldn't it be more that she propped herself up as the writer for this stuff? Lots of promising things turn out crap: but we don't blame specific writers as much as the companies usually. But now someone has made themselves a name, and that makes her a target.

>>147557
Yeah, look at every Final Fantasy game. Any title you look at will have a situation where a large number of people thought the previous game in the series was the Peak of its storytelling, and maybe even the peak of video game storytelling in general, and that the one that came after it was the very worst thing ever written in any medium. Except maybe 13. I don't think anyone thought 13 was the peak of the series' storytelling. But I've definitely seen fans of 8, which I would personally consider the series' low point, so there probably are some for 13 that I just haven't met yet.

But despite that huge disappointment those fans must've felt, I've rarely seen a huge hullabaloo made about seeking out the writers to send them abuse over it.

>>147554

Nah, you should have seen the hellstorm that R. A. Salvatore got back in the day being the unlucky bastard who got saddled with killing off Chewie at the beginning of the Vong War series. He got a whole ton more shit then that woman has and he was just the unlucky guy picked to write the book. The man got death threats over the whole thing..I've not seen anything close to that as of yet for her.

>>147562
The lowest I've seen for her are people that either make rape fics they act came from her or question if she is a post op.

>>147556
Hey!...she's ruined at least two things now.

>>147549
"Her point about how video games should have less interactive gameplay is PERFECTLY proven by the ubiquiety of Angry Birds. Because Angry Birds totally isn't just a gameplay mechanic with a colorful theme."

>>147554
I dunno, people shat on David Gaider pretty hard. Sure /v/ has a hateboner over hamburgerhelper right now, but Gaider got some similar treatment a while back and no one defended him.

>>147573
It is perfectly made to be addicting to norms but that's a side part of this massive several headed argument that I'm not sure needed to be there. Polo is like the bizzaro Fat Man Sterling, still a vapid bag of wind but now completely non-patronizing about anything they say.

>>147578
Wikipedia says he was a major hand in writing Cassandra, Fenris, and Meredith as well as two of the books for the Dragon Age franchise. That isn't something to be proud of or win people over to their defense league.

Still Helper has just fed the hate fires people have for this game and Bioware in general, I only wonder what the consequences of this will be for everyone involved.

>>147582
>It is perfectly made to be addicting to norms

And reasonably fun for more serious gamers as well. Puzzle games (especially portable ones) tend to do well across casual and hardcore demographics because they offer both challenge AND low level distraction. There's a reason why Tetris is available on every platform you've been able to buy since 1988.

>I'm not sure needed to be there

Of course it didn't. It had the opposite point to the defense of Helper's argument. Angry Birds is completely gameplay driven. It is a physics simulator dress up in cartoon birds, and the entire game is projectile motion. Helper came out saying "Video Games are too hard for girls, because girls need to cook and clean and don't like violence" so video games need to cut out everything but the poorly written romance crap.

They are completely different points. Angry Birds isn't really diversifying ANYTHING. It is just a wildly successful game in a genre that has existed since SCORCHED EARTH and TANK WARS, optimised for the now ubiquitous touch screen smartphone.

http://kotaku.com/5886418/bioware-trio-leave-to-make-a-strategyrpgthing

People Jumping Ship.

>>147600
And we take another step on the thinning bridge.

Also, great art.

>>147606
Yea I find the idea of a Viking SRPG to be an interesting one.

>>147589
hey don't belittle tetris, it came from russia and was a rare treat for the time that thankfully made its way to the west as big as it did.

>>147630
I'm not. Tetris is a TRIUMPH of a game. Simple enough for literally ANYONE to play after about 14 seconds, and hard enough to maintain it's challenge for decades.

>>145744
>Literally the only game I have ever beaten by them is the first Knights of the Old Republic, and though it is perhaps in my top 25 games of all time, I felt that the literally half-finished Knights of the Old Republic II by Obsidian is better in virtually every department. I did not like Mass Effect because of a severe lack of flow, and Dragon Age just bored me after I learned most of its tricks, though I appreciated its story and setting. I am not a Bioware fanboy, and any member of the ‘I Hate Bioware and Need to Let the Universe Know’ club who is prepared to call me a Biodrone is only making themselves look stupid. They are a below average developer to me.
You know, it would be a lot more succinct if this guy just said "I don't like Bioware, I just have shit taste."

To be fair, KOTOR 2 is better than KOTOR 1. But yeah otherwise the article is pretty bullshit.

>>147696
Honestly, I was very, very underwhelmed with KOTOR 1.
I never played 2, but I don't doubt it was better.
I don't remember anything particularly impressive about the gameplay. It was an okay recreation of a sub-par table top game.

He complains about Mass Effects lack of flow, but it had nothing on the flow killing power of Kotor. You go through the first few missions and you behave in a certain way, and start to become invested in your character as a soldier in the republic, a guy caught up in a war, getting involved in the world of organized crime aaaaaaaaand then you become a Jedi.
It comes out of fucking nowhere, you have no imput in it, and delays the plot by months. And then I just go off and do what the council tells me to do.
If they wanted me to be loyal Jedi, why didn't they just start the game right there?

It's not that KotOR was a bad game, it's just not nearly as good as it's described as, and definitely wasn't Bioware's best work. Jade Empire, Mass Effect and Neverwinter Nights were all better, more ambitious games.

>>147703
Well, I'd agree with most of your statements about KOTOR 1's flaws (though the main twist of the game basically justifies the whole jedi thing), but I'd absolutely disagree that Mass Effect and NWN are better. NWN is good but in terms of ambition is little more than your average D&D campaign, and Mass Effect is a mediocre space shooter which got worse with the sequel (and then there's ME3 which looks just outright dreadful). Jade Empire was an ambitious title true, but what it ended up coming out as was a mediocre beat em up with neat ideas. The best Bioware game will always be BG2 in my book (although I've never played the expansion so it's possible that ruined it).

As for KOTOR 2, you're a jedi from the get go but the actual storyline is much more personal and far less like "the Star Wars movies featuring Baron Underbheit." If you want something a little darker from your Star Wars game, give it a go with the restoration mod.

>>147706
>NWN is good but in terms of ambition is little more than your average D&D campaign,
Well yeah, you don't buy the game for the default campaign. The thing about NWN, and NWN2 is that you're basically buying a tool kit. It's like complaining that RPG makers default game samples are bad. NWN and NWN2 weren't great games, but they were definitely more noteworthy then KOTOR. I'd rather a glitchy, buggy game making interface then an incredibly forgettable RPG.

>and Mass Effect is a mediocre space shooter which got worse with the sequel (and then there's ME3 which looks just outright dreadful).
Mass Effect is a mediocre space shooter on top of a very good role playing game. The fact that it qualifies as mediocre is a success (not a brilliant success, but a success) because that's only the medium by which the RPG is conveyed. As a roleplaying game, it's better then anything else they've made, with more genuine choice and actually engaging character development. In that regard, I certainly consider the second game to be much better then the first one.

One thing that always strikes me about people, even if they criticize Mass Effect, is how much they can remember about it. KOTOR is basically a big empty spot on my brain. I actually had to look up a plot summary to even write the post above, because I really can't remember doing anything. I have only the vaguest recollections of two NPCs and one of them was the R2 unit (R4 unit?).
Mass Effect has so many characters, places and scenes that stick with you that I feel it's easily the strongest game they've ever made. For me, a Role Playing game is about my ability to be invested and care about the characters and setting. I think one of the reasons we hear so much complaining and dread about Mass Effect 3 (and I'm definitely in this camp) is that, for fans, it's not just a matter of a disappointing game, but the potential for ruining the characters and setting that has people on edge.


I've never played Baldur's Gate, I'd like to get around to it, but I think we can agree that saying KOTOR was the best Bioware has to offer, followed by defending TOR pretty much establishes that you have bad taste and should feel bad.

Goddamnit /v/. Now you're just being retarded.

>>147723
>NWN and NWN2 weren't great games, but they were definitely more noteworthy then KOTOR.
Yyyyyyeah, no.

>>147725
>Go back to reddit

>>147729
Well they're both shit so either he's one of them deflecting the blame or he's stupid and it doesn't matter.

>>147727
Can you please explain why you feel KOTOR was noteworthy?

>>147723
I'm sorry but if you actually think Mass Effect is a good role playing game you've never played a good role playing game.

Mass Effect is the perfect example of a game where roleplaying boils down to "perfect pretty princess of justice" vs "stupidly evil." Games with good roleplaying are Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, or Planescape Torment (which, because it's in Planescape, still has to be good/neutral/evil but puts considerable effort into making each one intelligent).

There are occasionally good bits in the Mass Effect games, such as almost everything involving Mordin or Samara in the 2nd, but for the most part the memorable bits tend to be the egregiously stupid choices.

>>147773

None of the Mass Effect games have an option for you to be actually evil, chucklehead.

Except for Jack's loyalty mission, that let you be totally evil. It's like they hit their head and wrote it during an extended flashback to writing KOTOR.

>>147777
Would you rather I say "jackass?" Because that's what the renegade option is 90% of the time, just being a jackass for no goddamn reason. They set up Renegade/Paragon as this attempt to break away from that kind of nonsense by being a sort of Kirk vs Picard deal but they treat it little differently from any other brainless moral choice system.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/13/star-wars-the-old-republic-is-free-to-play-this-weekend/

Yep.

>>149856
MY HEAAAAAARRT WILL GO OOOOOONNNNNN

>>149856
Hint at the future all you want, you cannot escape this destiny TOR!

>>149863

What are you talking about, it was a huge success, because that's what all the big gaming websites told me to think and I believe everything I read on IGN.