This isn't true at all.
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Will Bioware ever depart from its "Player Ego-stroking" formula?
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
This isn't true at all.
EmCeeGramr
Member
Oh, when did they say that? I kinda tuned out right around the Extended Cut and Citadel, and during Extended Cut they
even ADDED another bit where your LI refuses to add your name to the wall during destroy as if they know you're alive.
If they changed their minds on that, heh, wouldn't be the first time (I remember them going back and forth on what happened to the people inside the Citadel at the end of 3).
JeffG
Member
So in one playthrough you want your companions to approve and disapprove at the same time? Cool trick
Looking at my Good Twoshoes Elf Maiden and my total Bitch Dwarf thief playthroughs. Their playthroughs were the EXACT same....except one punched Solas, the other romanced him and the same person punched Dorian and had Blackwall leave town just after getting to Skyhold.
So...yea...no repercussions to choices I made.
JeffG
Member
You would think a game where you spent time cleaning a toilet for hours and then going home getting drunk and beating your wife would sell like hotcakes.
Sometime after Citadel, can't remember if it was on Twitter or the BSN but it was definitely an Edmonton dev.
The whole point of the "Herald" is that people are choosing to believe in your supposed divinity using a preexisting faith in spite of the truth the game goes out of its way to present to you. The game literally tells you you're not divine and lets you either take advantage of people's faiths or spite them.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
I honestly as far as Chosen one, that didn't really urk me, it's more the fact in a game called Dragon Age: Inquisition, you do fuck all in it' forming and are litterally given power and control of it just because (you don't one part of it despite the game spending the entire as if you do).
Would have made fair more sense and much more satisfying being in control of a massive organization if you actually formed it yourself and at the very did something meaning to derserve the power your given within from the second you join. It's called the inquisition for god's sake where's the, ambition, back stabbing power, grabbing and conniving.
PetriP-TNT
Member
I am only 5 hours into Fallout 4 and I am already a member of Brotherhood Of Steel, General of some guys, an article has been made about me about how great I am and while doing that I have also killed like 2-3 big Raider guys. I truly feel like The Chosen One
chosen to search for my child, that is
Bioware always panders to what Bioware Social these days wants
If you watch the forums, you can literally see stupid shit being molded for the sequels via their echo chamber community. See, romance-able Tali or 'Every romantic interest just happens to be bi and willing to fuck you' in ME3 or Fenris in DA 2 in general
If you watch the forums, you can literally see stupid shit being molded for the sequels via their echo chamber community. See, romance-able Tali or 'Every romantic interest just happens to be bi and willing to fuck you' in ME3 or Fenris in DA 2 in general
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
Dragon Age Origins kinda sorta didn't have it. Lots of people resent listening to you but you force them to because you have the treaties. You still become the savior of an entire country by the end. Funny that Dragon Age 2 is supposed to be the game where you play as a nobody, but every time anyone, no matter how important, wants to give you a quest, they take one look at Hawke and "Aye, I can tell ur a special one."
Mass Effect 2 really stepped this shit up. "Shepard is the last hope for humanity!" "You are an artist on the battlefield," et cetera.
I don't mind being the savior because whatever, it's an RPG and that's going to happen often. But the way every NPC insists that the player character is a beautiful, flawless hero straight out of one of their Japanese animes I would like to see go away for a while.
Mass Effect 2 really stepped this shit up. "Shepard is the last hope for humanity!" "You are an artist on the battlefield," et cetera.
I don't mind being the savior because whatever, it's an RPG and that's going to happen often. But the way every NPC insists that the player character is a beautiful, flawless hero straight out of one of their Japanese animes I would like to see go away for a while.
It's why Bethesda grates on me more. Bioware just seems to do a bit more than needed to try to tell an epic story where you're the character in charge, at least it took ten or twenty hours to properly be labeled Inquisitor in DA:I. Bethesda just throws all this shit at you with everyone fawning over you after like one quest. If that. I guess at least Bioware seems to try for more three dimensional interactions while Bethesda's just full on ego stroking to the point it feels patronizing.
This misinformation is so damn obnoxious.
Vaan was always there, he just had a slightly different role.
It's kind of like the stuff in the Matrix about how a perfect paradise was TOO unrealistic and people weren't buying it though. I guess enough are easily satisfied enough to justify the shallower attempts, bout I kind of wonder if people are enjoying Bethesda's stuff more in spite of the pandering and not because of it. Or it's more "cool I can do all this guild/group shit" and the pandering is just a side effect.
The only reason you find it insulting is because you make the fallacious assumption that you are the media you consume. When a game gets criticized, you think it also criticizes you. You have been groomed to identify with the product you consume instead of being able to distinguish between your person and the media you consume. It is entirely possible to possess criticial skills while enjoying something superficial and childish. Nothing wrong with enjoying pulp entertainment, that doesn't make the person unintelligent . You need to realize this, otherwise going on GAF and seeing criticism of your favorite games will be aggravating.
However, if you think that the pulp in question is an intelligent and nuanced simulation of the human condition (e.g. Bioware and how their games convey a love relationship between two people), then such an opinion is naive and unconvincing, based on the identifiable shortcomings of the pulp in question.
Because of creative aspirations beyond the financial motivations?
I don't know. While I haven't finished it yet I have found what I played of Inquisition more enjoyable than The Witcher 3, a state of affairs I would not have predicted. Compared to the Witcher 2 which had important choices without lacking in character, the Witcher 3 is almost sterile in its more realistic outlook (compare the voice acting and character models of both Witcher games to catch my meaning).
I remember this. It being Shepard's last breath was just one possibility for what that scene implies depending on what you wanted it to represent. I think it was some panel about the game where it was first mentioned that they added the scene to at least give some semblance of hope to players as they felt all of the other endings were too grim.
Demoskinos
Member
I would really like if more games could explore this. I think stories where you aren't some deified figure are way more interesting.
I sort of agree with you but I also sort of don't because Shepard was a god damn badass because of this. Revan also.
Bioware's problem is more that they have just hugely dropped in overall quality ever since ME2. DA:I was a slight upwards turn but they are still far from what they used to be.
Bioware's problem is more that they have just hugely dropped in overall quality ever since ME2. DA:I was a slight upwards turn but they are still far from what they used to be.
Maybe because that's what real actual people are.
Said the person with a Harvest Moon avatar. Once again, there is an area between chosen one and everyman.
From what I can tell from some of the war table missions, being dealt with by Leliana.
The Bethesda design of making the player the head of every major organization with no consequences is the worst thing. It's so antithetical to the DNA of Fallout and is even more ridiculous in the wake of New Vegas. I get they want the player to see all the content on a single character, but there's better ways to do it than making things exist in a vacuum.
JonnyDBrit
Member
To be fair, the language and context used around such things - ie, 'turn off your brain' - isn't always helpful in making that distinction. Especially in the case of video games, which implicitly rely on player interaction and (assumed) consent, so that divide isn't as simple as... well, simply keeping it critical.
shinobi602
Member
I have zero problems with criticizing faults in games, even my the ones I hold dear. The games I love most are regularly shitted on here, everyone's free to enjoy or dislike what they want. I don't form attachments like you're insinuating. I do have a problem with acting like there is only one way to view the piece of entertainment you're talking about. Calling it something where you can "turn your brain off" passive aggressively implies an intelligent person shouldn't see it or experience it as anything more than for dummies, indirectly at least. "It's just dumb fun." Some don't think it's dumb you know.
You can say otherwise but that's how many would see it. Who are you or anyone else to call something that? According to who's standards? I say this as someone fully detached from Bioware games. Yes, they make some of my favorite games but I couldn't care less about the piece of entertainment in itself. I'd hold this same feeling for a game I wasn't into at all. I regularly criticize games I enjoy overall, but I don't cross into the territory of defining a piece of entertainment as dumb or intelligent, because that implies there's a level of those two ideas that's defined that everyone agrees on. I just find that angle distasteful.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Thanks, i needed that laugh. The fact you personally don't do or see practically any of that and it's hidden behind f2p-esk mechanics apart from Orlais (which has more to do with how Orlais operates than you), is still pretty laughable.
Yeah, don't get me wrong I'd like to see more stories being told of people that aren't heroes of the universe, but if I compared Dragon Age Inquisition to what I've played of Fallout 4 so far, DA: I is infinitely more logical as to why you're looked to like you are. At least Bioware gives some reasons for it. Bethesda's reason is just their game formula. They don't terribly care much about the story.
I think the reason Bioware gets sucked into the huge godly hero story is because of the game mechanics they want to put in. The war table stuff wouldn't make terribly much sense without that story.
My problem with the "chosen one" or "save the world" plots in RPGs isn't so much the idea itself or the pandering, it's that it rarely allows for a believable simulation of what repercussions your choices would have. When the scope is that large, there's only so much impact developers can afford to have your decisions make. It's why I never put too much stock into Mass Effect's save transfers between games.
I'm not sure it's simply that people just want to play as an everyman instead, they just want depth in terms of choices and consequences, and a smaller scale narrative gives more opportunity to do this. Just look at games like The Witcher or Alpha Protocol, they excel at this and I think it's largely down to the fact that the choices you make are centred around your relationships with other characters and not so much world events. Geralt and Michael Thorton are not even close to being the everyman but their games keep things intimate and are all the better for it. It's a shame BioWare haven't given it a shot as the strong character relationships are what most people consider memorable about their games anyway.
I'm not sure it's simply that people just want to play as an everyman instead, they just want depth in terms of choices and consequences, and a smaller scale narrative gives more opportunity to do this. Just look at games like The Witcher or Alpha Protocol, they excel at this and I think it's largely down to the fact that the choices you make are centred around your relationships with other characters and not so much world events. Geralt and Michael Thorton are not even close to being the everyman but their games keep things intimate and are all the better for it. It's a shame BioWare haven't given it a shot as the strong character relationships are what most people consider memorable about their games anyway.
Partially. Most of DAI's faults come from overcompensating for DA2's.
Yeah definitely true. They tried a more contained story and it was harshly judged. Yes, most of the harshness wasn't because of that story, but still... they definitely tried to back away from things and overcompensate.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
TBF TW2 almost outright ignores the impact of your choices in W1, until like the end, where Frederickis either friendly or not (can't remember if he can be killed in W1 is or what the non human affects. But honestly CD Projekt, aren't much better than Bioware in this regard if at all since rather than even trying to resolve it they move the story so far away that the choices in the previous game really don't matter. I mean Shani straight up dissapears (haven't got round to playing W3 so maybe it's a bit better there.)
ROUGE_BLOCK
Member
This is just a general problem of pretty much of all RPGS or even games. They almost always cater to the ego and make the most important thing ever in the narrative. Movies do this, books, comics, it just seems inherent to really any narrative based medium
Thanks for the laugh, if you think it's hidden at all, then its pretty clear you don't know anything about the game, plot, lore, or mechanics.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Tell me more about it then, give me examples beyond text bubbles in time based map. Seriously dude what are you even smoking
The first fucking hour starts with you deciding the fate of a traitor, talking to Charter later on when finding Butcher's corpse reveals there's another traitor among them. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Nope, because it seems to sell. I hope they do a better job of it in the future though. I still laugh at how your character went from suspected terrorist who murdered her holiness(and most of the church's upper hierarchy) to de facto leader leader in zero seconds flat in DA:I.
I see what you mean since W3 basically plays out exactly the same no matter what you did in the prior games. However, I was referring more to each game as a self-contained entity, I only mentioned never truly buying the Mass Effect transfers as it was something they explicitly advertised as though it would make a big impact. Although in fairness, there probably are better examples than The Witcher for what I was talking about.
You seem to move on to a different argument now than the original one where you thought that enjoying 'dumb entertainment' meant that the ones consuming it were dumb. Now you are making an argument based on the semantic of the term 'dumb/intelligent' as if they imply universal values for everyone, when clearly that isn't part of what I said. Remember that 'dumb' is just shorthand for 'badly constructed entertainment with nonsensical content / unnuanced understandings of aspects of human life / unbelievable or self-contradictory established laws.
This is an example of what I would call 'dumb':
And it is totally fine if you don't think this is 'dumb'. It is not possible to have an objective and universal description of an aesthetic object. Everyone can prefer whatever they want to prefer.
But this does not mean that this is just some bullshit relativism where all viewpoints are equally valid. Saying that "Dragon Age Inquisition is critical commentary on the Japanese economic bubble 1986 to 1991" can be disqualified by looking into what the game actually says. So remember that it is possible to point out if the game is successfull in what it aims to do based on what can basically be considered agreed-upon standards - i.e. that the story shouldn't contradict itself, that the established rules in the fiction shouldn't only matter when it fits the writers, that characters can have depth and agency, that believability and empathy matters in fictional characters, and so on. And in that regard, Bioware has a couple of instances where the writing simply is dumb and where the narrative fails.
And this bares repeating: This does not mean that you as a person is dumb or that you are unintelligent. It is entirely possible to point out the flaws of something based on quality arguments with convincing evidence to support the conclusion of the argument. And in that regard, it is possible to find plenty of instances across Bioware's games that I would classify as 'dumb'.
Psychoward
Banned
Why do people always say this about Inquisition, did you pay attention to the story at all? They clearly subverted that trope and even your player character can comment on that fact of being the chosen one or not.
Astral Dog
Member
Here is your answer, plus sales.This. I don't want to play an RPG where noone cares who I am or what I do. I get enough of that in real life.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
I don't think you have any understanding on what I'm talking about. So let's just end it there. What your talking about is literally one of the most cliche plot ponts ever. I'm talking you or your party members visbliy, usurping, back stabbing and conniving your way to power through ambition (since that's what the inquisition was actually about, what your talking about has nothing to do with "witch" finding the Spanish inquistion was known for), which is almost all localised in orlai visibly and you do it because you have and your character even makes several snide comments about the way, the aristocrats operate.
Except you can't renounce your position or do anything different with it - you must still walk the path of the Herald. You can't tell people, hey, I just got this glowy mark by accident, don't worship me.
When Corypheus confronts you the first time around, I was glad that he was looking to take away the mark; it would have made for a great turn from Herald to Nobody, a loss of power and trying to lead without relying on it. Instead of course, it's now part of the body so that the Herald can go on Heralding without problems.
Psychoward
Banned
You can do exactly that though....
Uh no, unless you count just telling them in a throwaway dialogue that. Seen that dialogue option but it does jack squat in terms of actual impact on the story.