Just posting to say that even mentioning trying out Dragon Age 2 makes me angry. I'm a BioWare fanboy but Dragon Age 2 is so crappy that I really want the game to crash and burn as much as possible so that they understand that they cannot just make the game stupider and we as loyal sheep are going to go buy it anyway.

If you are considering buying Dragon Age 2 I urge you to just forget about that game. If you can convince yourself that Dragon Age 2 NEVER EVER existed then you would be even better off. Because what has been seen cannot be unseen.

Man, I cannot believe how bad Dragon Age 2 is, even now, months after release. Thankfully I didn't spend any money on it. I just saw it first on a friend's computer.


To understand just how bad Dragon Age 2 is I'll just remind you two things which may seem irrelevant but they are FAR from irrelevant.

1} A few weeks after the bad news about how crappy DA2 was were starting to circulate the internet, they announced that they are giving away Mass Effect 2 for free to anyone that buys DA2.

Hmm, let's see. We have here a highly recognized and very successful game being given for free with a new game that almost everyone says that it's crap.

Isn't this something like giving free chocolate to anyone that pays money to buy a turd? Yeah it's exactly like this.

and

2} A few weeks later and after many people were posting things like "Never preordering a BioWare again" and "I fear that Mass Effect 3 will be just as bad if this is the new direction BioWare is going to" they announced that Mass Effect 3 will NOT be released this year as was planned and that it will be released 7-8 months later!!!

Game release delays are common in the industry but announcing that your almost finished game is getting another 8 months of development REEKS that they wanted to get the ME3 release date as FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE from the Dragon Age 2 release date and following months of rage so that angry fans will have forgotten by then how crappy DA2 was.
It may also mean {of course I can't prove it but} that they did made Mass Effect 3 stupider just like they did with Dragon Age 2 and after seeing what a disaster it was they pulled it back to the drawing board in order to add more complexity to it in order to avoid another fiasko.

Treating gamers with a "Mature" game that assumes that its crowd is just a bunch of stupid kids who want to press a "button of awesome" to win the game is insulting.


~vented now, thanks.

Once you play Dragon Age 2 (after playing Dragon Age Origins or any good RPG game), you will never EVER forget Dragon age 2. I was unlucky to fall into this Bioware's RPG frontier and never recover from the imbued FARCE of the gameplay elements....

For more Dragon Age 2 fun, head to the Bioware's Dragon Age 2 forums..I really enjoyed reading other players agony of playing Dragon Age 2..there was this one thread which asked what is Hawk's relevance to Dragon Age 2 story and damn it was more fun to read than playing game itself.

Had you played Neverwinter Nights ( also Bioware ) you could pick a voice to your liking in the Character set up, also NWN 2. Proabably should have left that feature in..

While I agee that they botched DA2 (which I would absolutely adore, if they hadn't eliminatd every positive aspect of DA:O), I think they are aware of that and that's why they give away ME2, so everyone who hasn't played that before, now plays it end gets engrossed in the series and goes and buys ME and ME3. Simple promotion and damage control. They need to compensate their losses on DA2.

And that's also the reason they delayed ME3, because they rather work on it some more than having another desaster like that. Probably they made ME3 similarly simplified to DA2 in the hopes the audience would not notice, but now they know that they do. If they'd fail with ME3, that'd probably be the end of BioWare. Desperate times and desperate measures and all that.

Not to mention BW invested over 100mil into MMO that hasnt been released yet. And so far reactions are, that TOR is just WoW in space. I think that is going to be biggest flop since Daikitana.

If ME3 fails too, BW is dead. Thats why they cant let it get EA'd too.

Yep, no real dialogs, completely different thing. They also had that in DA:O and I hated that, because it's too bad, when your character, which you are supposed to releate to, is dumb. In every sense of the word. That's the one thing they did right in DA2 - except for the female voice, haha.


WOW! Just wow! If you think that TW2 was made with $8mio. and look how that turned out... So true. I do fear for ME3, for I expected a glorious end of the series and now I'm not so sure anymore. But it was kinda to be expected when EA took BioWare prisoner, that company is just EVIL. :(

Yeah, this is true. " To Battle! " and the like doesn't make for dialog, but you can make it sultry, bitchy, or some such thing. : )

I have played ME and ME2, but ME3 isn't on my list at the moment.

Guys,

Let’s look at the facts.

SWTOR, the post made by BioWare (not by EA) is a PR disaster one that shows disregard for parts of their community… and yet is it dressed up in customer service excuses and coloured with some comments about global community. This all taking place two months after their community servers were hacked…

I tell things how I see it, so I do not appreciate when people piss on me and tell me it’s raining… I am not blind or stupid.

Basically EA/BioWare, generated hype around their vapourware product, worldwide. Then due to lack of in house skill in optimizing the multiplayer code (this is the first BioWare MMO and the last multiplayer code they worked on was Neverwinter Nights, now 10 years old) and due to overblown budget (155 mil or so I read) they realised they will face serious issues.

Please note that the points below should be considered as informed speculations…

1. With un-optimized code, higher (by US standards) latency connection in the world will not cope well and it will bring their engine down, so they decided to cut them out.

2. Obviously buying this from Amazon.com will not solve the issue and I have no doubt that the second their engine sneezes they will IP block or drop high latency connections, so all those people from Red Zone and third world countries (like Australia or other members of EU because that’s third world… right?) are making a mistake buying an unplayable product.

3. The situation will impact Green Zone clients as well as clearly they are not going to allow sale of the game to Red Zone because that will simply bypass their precious customer service exercise. So at worst they will limit the number of copies released on launch, at best drop slower connections regardless of source (since any savvy individual these days can route their traffic via proxy services to bypass regional IP blocks).

4. Obviously they have very little content available and are rushing through, they are being afraid of 10 mil people dropping on their door step on day one and then leaving 4 weeks later realising just how poor the product is. They do not want to build the infrastructure for 10 mil people and then downscaling it to 1 mil of fanboys) so they are just dropping of the markets they consider of low interest, that is all fine when said openly but when dressed up in PR and customer service propaganda it is nothing less than offensive mistreatment of customers (some of whom have been a member of the community for 10+ years).

5. People play together, there was a talk of whole guilds migrating from one MMO to another, clearly this now applies to whole US/western EU guilds only… way to create and maintain a community, but hey, it’s all good customer service right?

6. Note that the examples of excluded countries are: Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Bulgaria, Romania (some of those countries are part of EU, other have trade agreements with US and are certainly not third world locations).

How would you feel if LOTR or The Hobbit movies were never released because New Zealand was treated as a third world country…

As for Mass Effect being delayed, that too was a PR sales stun, the announcement of ME3 release for Christmas came at the same time E3 was being signalled and Arrival DLC was being sold. It was intended to hype up the DLC and the E3 presence. Then, once the sales were successful and the E3 went away the truth was posted. Of course the ME3 will be delayed and even further delayed because EA and BioWare want SWTOR out and like hell they are not going to create the environment in which sales of SWTOR are competing with sales of ME3.

Last but not least, all those fat PR execs appears to think that you and I are idiots (and were most of BioWare community is concerned they are right)… because once again, what was the most convenient time to announce the work on DA3? Right after Witcher 2 came out and right before E3 as well… Hyping up much? Trying to keep yourself in the spotlight much?

So in the end BioWare now is not the company I grew up with and supported for 12+ years… and I fell ill thinking about what it has become…

I like the new Triss :)

Actually I like the UI in the witcher too - it has obvious flaws in implementation, and at least CDPR are patching some of those, but I like the look and feel of it - wouldn't say it's perfect by any means though :)


yeah, so true :) Witcher has a genuine story, a beautiful atmosphere, a living world.

Also, I love party games, but like a few other posters have said, ME, DA2, they're not really party games, I agree the last one that felt genuinely like a party was KotOr, although DA1 captured it to some degree, and it makes it seem a little false. Bioware makes me sad, I really loved everything they made up till now, I hope they can pick up again. :(

EDIT: Sorry about the double-post, I was expecting it to consolidate into one, guess I left it too long inbetween.

I got frigtened when I read your post, I've been on the fence about SWTOR but I couldn't believe they would just drop half the world like that.

But I looked it up, it's true. Maybe we'll be able to play, maybe not. I don't know, and that bioware is taking a stance like this, it's making me not care. This current trend with Bioware makes me grieve for those last, as you say, 12+ years (almost 14 now since the first BG). I am filled with sorrow for a group I thought would be a bright light in the future.

I don't like how he categorized witcher 2 into a "niche" game. that is my only complain from that quote. I hope witcher 2 will sell 1 - 2 mill copies. that would be a pretty big niche. I have convinced 2 of my friends so far to buy it :P they are loving it.

Well by categorizing it like that you are basically marginating it’s influence or telling blind masses (the ones who cannot think of themselves) that it is not a mainstream product that they want to play. It is a clever play of the words that in the end actually discredits the product and not congratulates on its successes…

Then again, if the only way to get a good game from a good developer in the future is to stick with niche gaming, then I do not mind it at all… Last thing I want is for the Witcher fans to becomes so blind, fanatical and childishly demanding as BioWare fanboys.

there are no fanatics. it is just mostly hot air blown about by the haters. I used to care a great deal when the game was just released, then realized how futile it is when talking to solid steel walls. I am glad you caught the negative tone too :P

I didn't actually count witcher 2 as a niche game. when a game sells 1-2 mil copies, it is main stream imo. the best example of niche gaming are games publish by paradox. cheap games with low production values selling few hundred thousands copies at best. but I concur, if, that is a big IF, witcher 2 is a niche game, I pray for more games like it.

It's a common PR/marketing/sales tactic. As you are not supposed to bash your competitor openly, you say "This is a very good NICHE product" and that leaves the customer with a question in his head "Do I want to be in a niche?".

It only shows that they see The Witcher 2 as a potential threat. Which is a right way to see things.