They also worked under the belief of “Bioware magic” (literally what they internally called it) instead of actually having a plan on how to make a game. Their magic was always going to run out.
If I’m the manager of BioWare, and my EA bosses put an incentive in front of me to make a live service, then I’d probably make that decision “myself”, too.
Pretty much every studio making live service trash claimed that it was 100% their decision and that it was the game they always wanted to make since they were a little baby.
But it can all easily be related. Planned beats or dialogue that didn’t work in the engine the way they wanted and had to be rewritten, or worked better in a multiplayer context.
I don’t see any of their writing in the last decade as anything but tired tropes and juvenile simplistic plots and characters.
Elden Ring’s item descriptions have more depth and character than BioWare’s characters that have endless mind numbing dialogue. I could say the same about the plot.
The company founders left over a decade ago. They weren’t perfect but whatever was left was just IP and not ability.
There was an article at the time of Baldur’s Gate 3’s release (so 2023) that one of the original writers of BG1 had been laid off, so post-doctors, they still retained writers from whatever you consider to be the good old days.
If the writing needs better direction to write a good story then the writers are not good. Also, 2023 is way past their good old days.
BioWare was good but they always seemed to push more and more into a casual audience while expecting the RPG fanbase to stick around no matter what. They took the RPG fans for granted and now they have other developers to care about.
Dragon Age never got a true gameplay sequel. They didn’t waste a second abandoning that genre in favor of dumbed down throwaway games. I was so pissed off for buying Inquisition on day one after the universal acclaim it got in the press. Absolutely boring fetch quest trash.
They were dealt the live service and Frostbyte cards and had to play them.
They also worked under the belief of “Bioware magic” (literally what they internally called it) instead of actually having a plan on how to make a game. Their magic was always going to run out.
Frostbite was a bad card dealt to them.
They dealt the live-service card themselves - They swore over and over that Anthem being a live service was their choice.
If I’m the manager of BioWare, and my EA bosses put an incentive in front of me to make a live service, then I’d probably make that decision “myself”, too.
Pretty much every studio making live service trash claimed that it was 100% their decision and that it was the game they always wanted to make since they were a little baby.
That’s why I mention the writing.
That’s separate from gameplay and level design.
But it can all easily be related. Planned beats or dialogue that didn’t work in the engine the way they wanted and had to be rewritten, or worked better in a multiplayer context.
I don’t see any of their writing in the last decade as anything but tired tropes and juvenile simplistic plots and characters.
Elden Ring’s item descriptions have more depth and character than BioWare’s characters that have endless mind numbing dialogue. I could say the same about the plot.
The company founders left over a decade ago. They weren’t perfect but whatever was left was just IP and not ability.
There was an article at the time of Baldur’s Gate 3’s release (so 2023) that one of the original writers of BG1 had been laid off, so post-doctors, they still retained writers from whatever you consider to be the good old days.
If the writing needs better direction to write a good story then the writers are not good. Also, 2023 is way past their good old days.
BioWare was good but they always seemed to push more and more into a casual audience while expecting the RPG fanbase to stick around no matter what. They took the RPG fans for granted and now they have other developers to care about.
Dragon Age never got a true gameplay sequel. They didn’t waste a second abandoning that genre in favor of dumbed down throwaway games. I was so pissed off for buying Inquisition on day one after the universal acclaim it got in the press. Absolutely boring fetch quest trash.