Oh, I see what you mean. Well at least my ability to get the wrong idea remains undiminished!


I think I'd agree with that assessment. Although Skyrim didn't have some of DA2's more glaring flaws, it left me feeling similarly unfulfilled at the end; though if anything, I probably preferred DA2. There, I said it.

Out.

Now.

Or face the guillotine!

Oh, be away with you! You'll be claiming that Sims 3 isn't a proper RPG next.

ever since morrowind ive wanted shahres in betyhesda, i was only a kid when i decided this, but im a nerd, it would be part of my gaming collection

wa
s
nt skyrim cods only competition this yr?

We're talking about the company that created one of the best CRPG series of all time, Baldur's Gate. Dragon Age: Origins was pretty decent because Bioware had autonomy when making it, EA basically just handed them the money to develop it. But once DA: O was released and EA saw Bioware put out a successful franchise under their name, is when EA butt it's nose into Bioware's business, and Bioware lost it's autonomy. Dragon Age 2 was the result of that. EA forced Bioware to pump out a crappy sequel as fast as possible in order to capitalize on the recent success of the previous game in the series, to milk it's fan base. The rest of the Dragon Age series, will likely be crap too as the result of it. Kind of like how Square Enix uses the fame/success of the previous games in the FF Series (FF7 in particular) to pump out crappy sequels and milk it's fan base.
EA is like the Borg of Star Trek, they go around "assimilating" other companies, and then strip them of all individuality/uniqueness.

B/c Bethesda doesn't make games for the money. They make games for gamers and to be fun and egrossing. Why do you think Skyrim won so many game of the year awards.

When you love your craft and you only want to make the best games ever, you wouldn't want to work for a company that tries and makes games for the masses.

Of course, DA was first shown at E3 2004. EA didn't buy Bioware until 2007. I think the forum for it on the old Bioware boards opened late 2003/early 2004--so it had signigicant time in development, even before Bioware became part of EA.


Also, I think that companies can make games both for the money and for the joy of it. And that loving your craft doesn't automatically mean lack of interest in making games that lots of folks can enjoy. It could even make you want to create such games.

itt:
>dev makes bad game
>game is published by EA
>OMG EVUL CORPORASHUN RUINING MAI LYFE

If Skyrim was made just to make quick money it wouldn't have been released 5 years after Oblivion.

Blaming bioware, what is this [censored]. Everyone knows Bioware is pperfect, all problems are a result of EA. EA made Bioware retcon things in DA2, they made Gaider a [censored] on the forums forcing him to say "its not your story, its our story, svck it up princess" (along those lines) the list goes on.

Im glad bethesda arent owned by EA actually. Bethesda is much like Bioware, they used to mean something, now they just follow the money. Skyrim was a streamlined, hand holding, piece of [censored]. But hey there is no EA to blame. So maybe, just maybe. People can blame the devs for once. Instead of scapegoating publishers. Maybe if people called the developers out, instead of defending them and passing on responsability, I could take them seriously when they complain about the state of gaming. But anyone who complains about its current state, and then blames the pbulisher for everyingm deserves to have their games ruined. You people are part of the problem.

What game are you playing? My version of Skyrim is a better TES game than Morrowind.

Sounds like you're playing...

Make Believe!

The one filled with corridors dungeons with crappy pillar puzzles, essential npc's everywhere, a thieves guild that can be completed as an orc beserker, a mage guild with 6 dungeon crawls, and less rpg elements than oblivion. There are more things, but what it lacks in everything, it makes up for in dragons. If people didnt tell me they were dragons I would jsut assume cliffracers had evolved.

LOL @ orc berserker completing the thieves guild.

Funny because I'm in the process of completing it with my orc berserker. Lockpicking is very high because basically you can pick any lock regardless of character skill, and since the minigame is very easy leveling up lockpicking is very simple.

i.e. broken.

The fact you dont need stealth and can just kill everything that moves with a hammer, helps too.
You can even fail the intro mission and get a "hmm, maybe I expected too much, sorry. But you have potential, join anyway."

I also became arch mage, while only knowing the firebolt spell...

Seriously? I admittedly had to load twice to steal the ring. Thought I wouldn't be able to join.

As for the mages quests, I also only knew a firebolt spell. During the quests, if a magic spell is required you actually find it laying around in the room.

Terrible handholding.

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but I can't consider the series an RPG series anymore. Also, coupled with the fact that every person on my facebook who never played an RPG in their life love Skyrim, I'm certain there is no going back (i.e. going back to making the game challenging).

Skyrim was a complete piece of [censored] in my opinion. Morrowind FTW.

Beth's already owned by Zenimax, so no need for EA or activision to gobble them up. Plus Zenimax is a private company which is a huge difference from EA/Activision.

Yes. Zenimax is more like VALVe then EA or Activision. They don't have shareholders to please so they can and have done whatever they want. Morrowind's development went kinda like this "Todd: Okay, guys, our last few games have been a flop, and our only chance to survive is to make one really good game that everyone will buy and use up all our remaining money or don't use the money and coast along for a few years more." "Zenimax: Okay, we believe that you can do it, here's some money."

It helps that both Zenimax and Bethesda were founded by the same guy.

"the abysmal SWTOR" lol what? SWTOR is an amazing game. It's the fun of WoW with the crap taken out. You're apparently just not a fan of MMO's; why even attempt a judgement?

SWTOR is not that great of a game. If it weren't Star Wars you wouldn't think that. A lot of ppl are discontinuing their subs.

I have to agree.

I think the hate comes, partially, from the fact that they had way too big of a shadow standing over them. Same goes for Skyrim, Uncharted 3, and few other sequels. People love the original so much that when they release the next game, its just can't live up to its predecessor's greatness. On their own, their pretty good. But considering their the next major title in the series, people are disappointed because they expected it to be on par with the first game.

Sure, DA2 also has reused environments, no top-down view, and its main focus has been moved to the console generation (instead of the PC like the original), and it has a whole host of fetch quests, and a couple game crippling bugs (fixed by patches), but under all of the problems is a solid game with decent writing, excellent characters and companions, a great friendship/rivalry system, and solid RPG mechanics. They did the best they could with their 8 month development window, which is the only part of my disappointment I will associate with EA (In truth, it was a main reason for a good amount of the issues). Some of Bioware's choices when making the game disappointed a lot of fans, and that is all on them. They still created the game, and need to stand behind their decisions, or fix them in the future.

I was content with it. The Internet makes it seem like the plague of this generation, but I personally found Skyrim a bigger disappointment. At least some of the choices you make in DAII might matter. Sometime. In the distant future. Hopefully in a game that returns to its Dragon Age: Origins roots.

What you have described is exactly what is happing to Bethesda, its been going down hill since Oblivion in that regard. The graphics keep getting better, the drm & distribution harsher, the games aiming for mass appeal. All that and the fact that they can now sell there game to 3 different markets, I dont think Bethesda has money problems.

Zeni max was founded by the creators of Bethesda. Companies do this to create legal barriers for them selves, seeing as the guy they bought in to co found it, it makes sense.

I have only one thing to say: I am enjoying SWTOR. Yeah, it is essentially vanilla WoW with voice acting and lightsabers, but that's not a bad thing in my book.

How is Skyrim trying to apeal to the masses?

Before you answer know that everyone game developer tries to apeal to the masses somewhat. They want as many ppl to enjoy their game as possible.

So how is Bethesda/Skyrim apealing more to the masses than say The Witcher 2 or something.