Never have I cared for any Bioware game. My opinion has never changed, although from feed back on the Internet about SW:TOR I am speculative about them now.
In my mind there is one company that sets the bar for others. A company that views their games as a works of art. Time and time again they have developed content that strives to change the systems. If you want a game, a story, a virtual living world you know who you turn to.
These polls are always hilarious. You are in a forums, known for its outright negativity towards every game, asking what people think of an entire company based on SWTOR.
#1--The team that worked on SWTOR aren't the same people that worked on the other Bioware projects. There may be a few people whom have crossed over but the bulk of them have never worked on anything but SWTOR. (FACT—based on the games credits)
#2—EVERY, and I do stress EVERY, MMO to ever be released was riddled with bugs at its launch. It has lacked endgame content and had many PvP imbalance issues. So as far as MMO's go SWTOR is par for the course.
#3--You can't comment on your own poll if you are looking for a serious result. You are outright fueling the negativity in your own thread. That pretty much equals a tainted poll.
#4--Do you take your opinion on all of activision based on what World Of Warcraft does? or Call of Duty? This poll is a sweeping idiotic generalization of an entire company of developers based on a studio in Austin. If I theoretically found out you lived in let’s say California and I said my opinion of Californians as poll takers has dropped into the tank because of you that would be incredibly ignorant. What you are doing is the same thing.
#5--People have unrealistic expectations these days when it comes to MMO's. They like to play the "I didn't pay $60 for a beta" card and it’s silly. No company ever promises their players that the game will be bug free. In fact—that is impossible even with 50,000+ people testing in the beta. 50,000 people may be in, but about a fraction of those actually are looking for bugs. The majority of people who get into betas do it as a free preview of the game and then turn around and blast it based on the actual beta. I’m not even referring to just SWTOR—that is every single beta that is available.
The people who most enjoy SWTOR aren’t spending a whole lot of time on the forums answering polls like this. Players who didn’t have a good time in any game are going to be on here blasting that game rather than playing it. So if you think you’ve grabbed a legitimate cross-section of the SWTOR community in this poll you are a complete fool.
I blame EA for the DLC bullshit. Bioware has always handled its expansions great.. Look back at NWN and NWN2. both games were fun and had multiple expansions released. Even ME2 wasn't handled that horribly. EA comes in and its DLC every few months(or less) including DLC at Launch(Dragon Age had bonus DLC that only came from some stores others ended up having to pay for). Wanna see another nice big "Screw you!" to its fan base? Buy Tiger Woods 12 and start the PGA Tour season. Third or Forth week in in the tour season Downloadable courses were used and if you wanted all the achievements it was drop money on new courses or skip em and never be able to finish the game entirely.
You want to blame anyone blame EA. I'll still buy anything related to Dragon Age and Mass Effect. I heard Cryptic is all over Neverwinter now but ill probably buy it just because ive enjoyed the other neverwinter games.
I think BW got diluted too much, too many studios doing too much crap, they currently are running 6 studios which means it had to dilute its original talent by quite bit in order to fill key roles.
I answered "don't know." Because the truth is, my vision of Bioware started to shift in the negative ever since DA1, which is incidentally the first major gamet hey released where EA could have had some influence.
Before DA1, you used to be able to buy an expansion that provided over 30 hours of gameplay for like $30...a pretty good deal. But with DA1, Bioware sold the Warden's Keep, which provided maybe 1.5 hours of gameplay for $7! That's over a FOUR TIMES price increase on content. What a freaking rip off. Not to mention that they probably developed the Warden's keep with the game and then just separated them at launch to make more money.
Then SWTOR comes out, made by "Bioware Austin," which is NOT the same Bioware that made all the other games we know and love no matter what you want to believe. And really, I think the quality difference shows. I'm sorry, but the vast majority of SWTOR's stories and quests are just not as interesting as other Bioware games. Add this to the fact that they charge you a sub fee for an MMO that desperately tries to be a single player game at every corner, and you have a lot of disappointed fans.
And now we have ME3, which, despite being actually made by the REAL Bioware, features the BIGGEST RIP OFF OF ALL. They ripped an entire plot-critical character out of the game and made him paid DLC for $10! W.T.F!!!!! Man, the whole thing just sickens me. They effectively raised the price of ME3 by $10 in a very dirty way. Check out Totalbiscuit's rant on this if you want more information.
And as for the future of Bioware? It looks even worse. EA is in full "brand exploitation mode" with Bioware. They have already rebranded SEVERAL of their studios as "Bioware," so that there are now EIGHT separate Biwoare development studios, one of which is a rebranded social gaming studio!!! Seriously, WTF, does anyone believe that the quality of Bioware games will stay consistent now that EA has renamed several crappy studios to be "Bioware?" No, I don't think so. My guess is that the new "Bioware" C&C game will be just as crappy as the last few that EA has churned out, but will just have "Bioware's signature dialog" stapled onto it.
So in conclusion, yes my opinion of Bioware has dropped dramatically over the last few years. But you can't blame all this on SWTOR. SWTOR is just a small piece in the horrible puzzle of EA's destruction of Bioware.
After SW:TOR and the ME3 DLC Day One controversy, I now consider Bioware to be the Bashar al-Assad of MMORPGs. By that I mean, that Bioware started out in a fine way, but at some point during its lifetime something seriously screwed up their mind and now we are where we are.
To be honest I view them as another EA company. They'll put out the same product over and over with a different number attached to it and the fanboys will continue to buy it.
I don't blame EA or Bioware. I blame the kids that buy stuff that isn't finished. The only kind of whining/crying these companies will listen to is the kind you do with your wallet. It was crystal clear TOR was gonna be WOW in space with VO instead of text dialogue. Yet they hyped it enough so that all the fanboys and star wars fans would buy it day 1. Despite knowing it was a steaming pile of poo. After I was luckly enough to get into a beta stress I took it off my pc and replaced it with Flyff, a real mmo.
I view them the exact same way as I did before. They are a single player RPG game developer who has to face the hard reality of how easily any game they put out can be pirated and mmorpg seemed like the solution. The problem is the mmo and rpg part did not over lap very well.
Picture I made for those not getting it. See how the mmo and rpg hardly cross over. You can not just add raids, crafting and some BG's and call it a mmo.
But Bioware's last straw for me as a company? Day 1 DLC for Mass Effect 3.
I'm done. I can't take this shit anymore.
They did it with DA1 as well. As far as Bioware goes my opinion hasn't changed, I'll play their games for the stories at some point and that's it, I'll pick up ME3 as a rental or in a bargain bin down the road, that's all their titles have been good for since NWN, the one and only game they've made that had any form of longevity.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
now: GW2 (11 80s). Dark Souls 2. future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord. "Bro, do your even fractal?" Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
No, this has nothing to do with the "hard reality" of having your games pirated. It has to do with the hard reality of Bioware not having a single original thought when designing this game. My theory is they wanted to stay "safe" so they went with a wow clone. They aren't the first ones either. I remember SWG did it, AOC did it. I liked the concept of telling a story more in depth, but the gameplay is exactly like wow. Which is fine if you like wow, but if your like me and traded your copy of wow for a bottle of jergens then it's a horrible design that deserves to fail.
No change in opinion after SWTOR. After ME3 demo and the news of heavy DLCing for $ has me irritated. Not going to write off BW though, they still do put the best stories in games.
I view them the exact same way as I did before. They are a single player RPG game developer who has to face the hard reality of how easily any game they put out can be pirated and mmorpg seemed like the solution. The problem is the mmo and rpg part did not over lap very well.
Picture I made for those not getting it. See how the mmo and rpg hardly cross over. You can not just add raids, crafting and some BG's and call it a mmo.
Your picture lacks cutting-edge graphics, therefor it will be largely ignored. Some explosions should spruce things up a bit! <---(FYI: The smiley means I'm joking)
I can agree with that, though. I never had much of an opinion on BioWare to begin with. They haven't made a game I've liked that I can think of. SWTOR was worth the free month I'd say, but not a subscription fee for me. Its not the miracle MMO people hyped it up to be before it launched, but it's not the apocaMMORPG the haters are implying either.
No, this has nothing to do with the "hard reality" of having your games pirated. It has to do with the hard reality of Bioware not having a single original thought when designing this game. My theory is they wanted to stay "safe" so they went with a wow clone. They aren't the first ones either. I remember SWG did it, AOC did it. I liked the concept of telling a story more in depth, but the gameplay is exactly like wow. Which is fine if you like wow, but if your like me and traded your copy of wow for a bottle of jergens then it's a horrible design that deserves to fail.
This backs up my point. You have single player RPG devs losing millions on pirated games looking for a solution and making their game into a mmorpg seemed like the way to go. As my diagram shows there is not nearly enough over lap to justify it.
It would be like Bethesda adding some raids, BG's into Skyrim and calling it a mmorpg. People would shit a brick and a few others would /wrist because it would make literally no sense. This is like when Final Fantasy 11 came out and everyone went "soooo why are they charging me monthly?". It is the same idea of trying to make money.
No, this has nothing to do with the "hard reality" of having your games pirated. It has to do with the hard reality of Bioware not having a single original thought when designing this game. My theory is they wanted to stay "safe" so they went with a wow clone. They aren't the first ones either. I remember SWG did it, AOC did it. I liked the concept of telling a story more in depth, but the gameplay is exactly like wow. Which is fine if you like wow, but if your like me and traded your copy of wow for a bottle of jergens then it's a horrible design that deserves to fail.
This backs up my point. You have single player RPG devs losing millions on pirated games looking for a solution and making their game into a mmorpg seemed like the way to go. As my diagram shows there is not nearly enough over lap to justify it.
It would be like Bethesda adding some raids, BG's into Skyrim and calling it a mmorpg. People would shit a brick and a few others would /wrist because it would make literally no sense. This is like when Final Fantasy 11 came out and everyone went "soooo why are they charging me monthly?". It is the same idea of trying to make money.
How did FFXI make no sense, and who is "everyone" because the game was pretty damn popular when it came out? Its a little off-topic, but I loved the game, so I'm just curious.
Comments
Never have I cared for any Bioware game. My opinion has never changed, although from feed back on the Internet about SW:TOR I am speculative about them now.
In my mind there is one company that sets the bar for others. A company that views their games as a works of art. Time and time again they have developed content that strives to change the systems. If you want a game, a story, a virtual living world you know who you turn to.
My praise goes to Bethesda Softworks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethesda_Softworks
I have enjoyed the Mass Effect games but Bioware has no clue how to make or run an mmo.
I blame EA not Bioware...
These polls are always hilarious. You are in a forums, known for its outright negativity towards every game, asking what people think of an entire company based on SWTOR.
#1--The team that worked on SWTOR aren't the same people that worked on the other Bioware projects. There may be a few people whom have crossed over but the bulk of them have never worked on anything but SWTOR. (FACT—based on the games credits)
#2—EVERY, and I do stress EVERY, MMO to ever be released was riddled with bugs at its launch. It has lacked endgame content and had many PvP imbalance issues. So as far as MMO's go SWTOR is par for the course.
#3--You can't comment on your own poll if you are looking for a serious result. You are outright fueling the negativity in your own thread. That pretty much equals a tainted poll.
#4--Do you take your opinion on all of activision based on what World Of Warcraft does? or Call of Duty? This poll is a sweeping idiotic generalization of an entire company of developers based on a studio in Austin. If I theoretically found out you lived in let’s say California and I said my opinion of Californians as poll takers has dropped into the tank because of you that would be incredibly ignorant. What you are doing is the same thing.
#5--People have unrealistic expectations these days when it comes to MMO's. They like to play the "I didn't pay $60 for a beta" card and it’s silly. No company ever promises their players that the game will be bug free. In fact—that is impossible even with 50,000+ people testing in the beta. 50,000 people may be in, but about a fraction of those actually are looking for bugs. The majority of people who get into betas do it as a free preview of the game and then turn around and blast it based on the actual beta. I’m not even referring to just SWTOR—that is every single beta that is available.
The people who most enjoy SWTOR aren’t spending a whole lot of time on the forums answering polls like this. Players who didn’t have a good time in any game are going to be on here blasting that game rather than playing it. So if you think you’ve grabbed a legitimate cross-section of the SWTOR community in this poll you are a complete fool.
I blame EA for the DLC bullshit. Bioware has always handled its expansions great.. Look back at NWN and NWN2. both games were fun and had multiple expansions released. Even ME2 wasn't handled that horribly. EA comes in and its DLC every few months(or less) including DLC at Launch(Dragon Age had bonus DLC that only came from some stores others ended up having to pay for). Wanna see another nice big "Screw you!" to its fan base? Buy Tiger Woods 12 and start the PGA Tour season. Third or Forth week in in the tour season Downloadable courses were used and if you wanted all the achievements it was drop money on new courses or skip em and never be able to finish the game entirely.
You want to blame anyone blame EA. I'll still buy anything related to Dragon Age and Mass Effect. I heard Cryptic is all over Neverwinter now but ill probably buy it just because ive enjoyed the other neverwinter games.
I think BW got diluted too much, too many studios doing too much crap, they currently are running 6 studios which means it had to dilute its original talent by quite bit in order to fill key roles.
I answered "don't know." Because the truth is, my vision of Bioware started to shift in the negative ever since DA1, which is incidentally the first major gamet hey released where EA could have had some influence.
Before DA1, you used to be able to buy an expansion that provided over 30 hours of gameplay for like $30...a pretty good deal. But with DA1, Bioware sold the Warden's Keep, which provided maybe 1.5 hours of gameplay for $7! That's over a FOUR TIMES price increase on content. What a freaking rip off. Not to mention that they probably developed the Warden's keep with the game and then just separated them at launch to make more money.
Then SWTOR comes out, made by "Bioware Austin," which is NOT the same Bioware that made all the other games we know and love no matter what you want to believe. And really, I think the quality difference shows. I'm sorry, but the vast majority of SWTOR's stories and quests are just not as interesting as other Bioware games. Add this to the fact that they charge you a sub fee for an MMO that desperately tries to be a single player game at every corner, and you have a lot of disappointed fans.
And now we have ME3, which, despite being actually made by the REAL Bioware, features the BIGGEST RIP OFF OF ALL. They ripped an entire plot-critical character out of the game and made him paid DLC for $10! W.T.F!!!!! Man, the whole thing just sickens me. They effectively raised the price of ME3 by $10 in a very dirty way. Check out Totalbiscuit's rant on this if you want more information.
And as for the future of Bioware? It looks even worse. EA is in full "brand exploitation mode" with Bioware. They have already rebranded SEVERAL of their studios as "Bioware," so that there are now EIGHT separate Biwoare development studios, one of which is a rebranded social gaming studio!!! Seriously, WTF, does anyone believe that the quality of Bioware games will stay consistent now that EA has renamed several crappy studios to be "Bioware?" No, I don't think so. My guess is that the new "Bioware" C&C game will be just as crappy as the last few that EA has churned out, but will just have "Bioware's signature dialog" stapled onto it.
So in conclusion, yes my opinion of Bioware has dropped dramatically over the last few years. But you can't blame all this on SWTOR. SWTOR is just a small piece in the horrible puzzle of EA's destruction of Bioware.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
They are the same thing.
I see them as another Oil company. Milk the cow dry.
This is very much the wrong community to give a poll to. They will troll vote for the "worst" option.
Bottom feeders.
After SW:TOR and the ME3 DLC Day One controversy, I now consider Bioware to be the Bashar al-Assad of MMORPGs. By that I mean, that Bioware started out in a fine way, but at some point during its lifetime something seriously screwed up their mind and now we are where we are.
To be honest I view them as another EA company. They'll put out the same product over and over with a different number attached to it and the fanboys will continue to buy it.
Sennheiser
Assist
Thage
When you dance with the devil...
It's time to realize and accept that.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
I don't blame EA or Bioware. I blame the kids that buy stuff that isn't finished. The only kind of whining/crying these companies will listen to is the kind you do with your wallet. It was crystal clear TOR was gonna be WOW in space with VO instead of text dialogue. Yet they hyped it enough so that all the fanboys and star wars fans would buy it day 1. Despite knowing it was a steaming pile of poo. After I was luckly enough to get into a beta stress I took it off my pc and replaced it with Flyff, a real mmo.
I view them the exact same way as I did before. They are a single player RPG game developer who has to face the hard reality of how easily any game they put out can be pirated and mmorpg seemed like the solution. The problem is the mmo and rpg part did not over lap very well.
Picture I made for those not getting it. See how the mmo and rpg hardly cross over. You can not just add raids, crafting and some BG's and call it a mmo.
They did it with DA1 as well. As far as Bioware goes my opinion hasn't changed, I'll play their games for the stories at some point and that's it, I'll pick up ME3 as a rental or in a bargain bin down the road, that's all their titles have been good for since NWN, the one and only game they've made that had any form of longevity.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
BIOWARE...
Sorry guys, had to :P
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
"Bro, do your even fractal?"
Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
Amen brother.
I am in that same boat with ya =(
No, this has nothing to do with the "hard reality" of having your games pirated. It has to do with the hard reality of Bioware not having a single original thought when designing this game. My theory is they wanted to stay "safe" so they went with a wow clone. They aren't the first ones either. I remember SWG did it, AOC did it. I liked the concept of telling a story more in depth, but the gameplay is exactly like wow. Which is fine if you like wow, but if your like me and traded your copy of wow for a bottle of jergens then it's a horrible design that deserves to fail.
No change in opinion after SWTOR. After ME3 demo and the news of heavy DLCing for $ has me irritated. Not going to write off BW though, they still do put the best stories in games.
Your picture lacks cutting-edge graphics, therefor it will be largely ignored. Some explosions should spruce things up a bit!
<---(FYI: The smiley means I'm joking)
I can agree with that, though. I never had much of an opinion on BioWare to begin with. They haven't made a game I've liked that I can think of. SWTOR was worth the free month I'd say, but not a subscription fee for me. Its not the miracle MMO people hyped it up to be before it launched, but it's not the apocaMMORPG the haters are implying either.
This backs up my point. You have single player RPG devs losing millions on pirated games looking for a solution and making their game into a mmorpg seemed like the way to go. As my diagram shows there is not nearly enough over lap to justify it.
It would be like Bethesda adding some raids, BG's into Skyrim and calling it a mmorpg. People would shit a brick and a few others would /wrist because it would make literally no sense. This is like when Final Fantasy 11 came out and everyone went "soooo why are they charging me monthly?". It is the same idea of trying to make money.
How did FFXI make no sense, and who is "everyone" because the game was pretty damn popular when it came out? Its a little off-topic, but I loved the game, so I'm just curious.