The State of BioWare

Mass Effect combat got better with every installment.

I agree

Sounds like the discussion between Shepard and the Catalyst. "I think we'd like to keep our own form." "No, you can't."

Shepard is pretty clear that becoming a Reaper (or a slave, per the conversation with Saren) is NOT a level of existence s/he believes the MW races would want for ourselves.

Bioware used to stand for strategic combat, adventure, a good and epic story.

These days Bioware stands for epic action combat, exploration, romance/character interaction.

Completely different and it makes me sad. "Bioware isn't the same company" - Knowles

I love Bioware. I don't always love their games, but so far I feel I have gotten my money's worth and am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. To me they are similar to Pixar. Some of their products are true masterpieces like Finding Nemo (DAO), others are at the level of The Good Dinosaur or Cars 2 (DA2, my first and last preorder).

The ending of the OT really soured the fanbase on gaming journalism and Bioware. I doubt most reviewers got to the end of the game by the time the presses figuratively rolled, so their rosy reviews were completely justified if one never finished the game. While I went through a grieving process at the end of ME3 (enough to start a protest of sorts) I... eventually... got over it. I think much of the fanbase felt like their girl/boyfriend had cheated on/dumped them and they are still bitter and vengeful in a way that only obsessive geeks can be. In response, the gaming journalists were much more cautious in praising Andromeda, which was mostly justified as Andromeda is about Finding Dory-level for me (good, and fairly nostalgic, but somewhat lacking). It still doesn't keep me from wanting MEA2, though.

One thing that strikes me when I look at all of the Mass Effect and Dragon Age games is that I am not sure Bioware knew what the secret sauce that makes their games so delectable IS. "People loved Alistair, let's trot him out every game to say swooping is bad!" "People loved the Citadel DLC, let's make an entire game with that tone!" "People loved ME3MP, let's put multiplayer in everything!" I feel that they tried to recreate past successes without really delving into what made them successes to begin with. On the last day of the old BSN I made a rather pretentious post on the subject, the upshot of which was: No, we don't love Alistair, we love his relationship with the Warden. No, we don't love the Citadel DLC because it was fun and goofy, we loved it because it allowed us to say goodbye to characters we had spent 3 GAMES getting to know. That cameraderie has to be earned. We didn't love multiplayer, we loved being able to put together a rag-tag squad and finally beat the Reapers (at least temporarily).

Bioware's new mission statement makes me hopeful they are finally conscious of what makes a Bioware game a Bioware game: lore and deep relationships. Whether they can translate this understanding to Anthem, where at least some of the relationships are going to be with other real people (a fraught proposition) remains to be seen. I'm still on the fence as far as Anthem is concerned, but I'm not expecting it to ruin my childhood or anything. I'm very glad to hear rumblings about future Dragon Age and (Maker willing!) Mass Effect projects. I hope story and relationships take precedence over empty open maps and multiplayer (I love ME3MP to the tune of >11k matches, but didn't care for DAMP or MEAMP at all).

We can only speculate on BioWare's internal state as a workplace- though I'm sure we've all heard stories.

Otherwise, going forward, all I can say is they need a solid vision. Mass Effect, even at the height of its power had a little too much of "throw stuff at wall, see what sticks". It only worked up to a point, and then they wrote themselves into a corner, where they had a (likely drug/stress-induced) vision that was entirely tacked-on and wtf to try and end it. The number of false starts Andromeda experienced isn't a vision, it's following (and dropping) fads as someone above said. Does Anthem have a vision? We won't know until it hits. It's easy to claim "Destiny clone", but it could still surprise us.

But yeah, knowing fuck all about anything behind the scenes, that's my commentary. Have a vision. Make your game about something, make it say something. And not some bullshit agenda of the day crap either. But rather, something that sparks the imagination of the audience and draws them in to engage. Something with a sense of wonder, and a clear care in every aspect of its communication. Something serious, that can also take the piss out of itself at times. Everything else, what you innovate, what features you want to put in, should all be in service of this central vision.

I'm actually optimistic for two reasons. First, Anthem on a technical and production level is looking far more polished than ME:A. It may even be that ME:A got the 'B' team while Anthem got the studio's real talent. Secondly, DA:I was in part a return to form - far better than DA2 if reviews are correct. And the next DA has been in production a long time, which shows how patient EA is being here. So as I see it, the studio has two major projects coming up to redeem themselves.

To be honestly frank, I think some BW fans put too much pedestral to certain old games like ME1.

You'd think with the hyperbole around the game that it would be the greatest thing of all time since sliced bread.

Indeed, when people tell me that there was no bad fetch quest in previous Mass effect and it's one of the reason why MEA is bad compare to them. I always wonder : did we play the same Mass effect franchise? 

Because I remember the recycled envinronments in ME 1, the saelon ship was build the exact same way as the one with the biotics extremist, and the same where a woman kill all of the crew to save her vegetative husband because they were going to unplug him. Same things with the planet base, recylced as hell. When you visit the one where some biotics created a cult, it's the same architecture as the one that has red sand dealers, or the outpost where you find Nassana's sister. Yes the recycling did not started with dragon age 2, it was there since 2007 before EA take in and yes it was made by the same BW people have so much nostalgia for.

And I will avoid elaborating about the scan we have to do of the keepers or find 50 turian emblems, on more than 20 planets, or pretty much tons of quest explaining your actions in textboxes instead of showing it to you...

And somehow, ME 2 manage to be even worst in terms of story for the N7 quests, because yeah I did not forgot the quest where the goal is just to find battery for a mechs so he can destroy walls and you can advance. Or the one where you have to rescue a quarian, or the one where the point is simply to kill all blue sun members and press a button. those quest had No dialogues, bare minimum cutscenes (and no a batarian smoking his cigar and walking back it's base when he sees our shuttle is not enough) and your reward in terms of story is a textbox explaining to you why it the mission was sucess... 

In fact, most of the time, the moment you left a main planet (like the citadel, noveria, feros, illium, omega etc.) and were not doing a companinon quest you were in for a boring time in side activites. Now I am not saying that MEA does not have shit side quest (like scanning minerals or bodies) it sure has them, but the mass effect pretty much had a history of doing such things yet some people seems to have forgotten that.

Actually if BW were to make a remaster of the previous trilogy, I think some people would have a hell of an awakening when they see the first Mass effect again with updated graphics. And realise all the flaws that game had when nostalgia is not as present on a newer version. When the game came out, while most gamers praised the main storyline and presentation, the side quest were criticized harshly and rightly so. But with times it appear people just don't remember them.

im not optimistic for DA:4.