BioWare in general is dead for me by the end of Mass Effect 2 basically. ME3 wasn't horrible (aside from the ending) but I'm pretty sure the shift towards progressivism happened partway through ME2's development.
It's an utter shame because Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age Origins are quite nice games.
After the founders left, they are slowly replacing the original talented developers with diversity hires. Of course the quality of the games went down. They hired a cosplayer to be the lead facial animator for Mass Effect Andromeda, we all know how that turned out.
That's the fucking point! It's throwing giant balls of fire at everything including allies because friendly fire is a thing in this game!
Also they might just go mad for being born and/or end up possessed! That's a pretty big downside if you ask me!
That said giving mages the ability to wear full plate, use a sword and board, still cast fireball, and debuff enemies with the spirit warrior sub class was up there with kensei-mage dual classes from Baldur's Gate 2 being utterly broken and unkillable. You'd think they learn these things given the company hadn't turned to shit yet.
what is the purpose of trans people in a fantasy world when they can just sex change via magic themselves (without any of the side effects of actual transitioning) or ask an able wizard to do so?
Utterly fucking nothing beyond social media virtue signalling because when in situ it doesn't make any fucking sense due to arcane, divine, and cursed magics literally being able to perform the deed depending on what someone would want to pay for it.
Arcane: pay a wizard to zap you in the crotch, wait no that's electroshock therapy. Unless... ?
Divine: pay a church to pray away your problem.
...
Hold up! ?
Curses: belts like the one in BG2 found veeery early on in the tent after you escape the tutorial dungeon, spell defenses like on the tome Edwin[a] botches while trying to get more UNLIMITED POWAH! ⚡, pissing off Elminster after getting the tome curse was fixed and getting turned back onto Edwina again because you're a fucking moron Edwin, I don't care how high your INT stat is!
Dragons can probably do something too since many can shapeshift and fuck almost as many random mortal races as the in universe Gods do. Also shape-shifting are the druids so Harpers Larpers and otherkin wannabes would probably take a shot before in all likelihood being actually shot when they transform into a wild animal in a residential area.
Or just burned for being a witch or something else since that too happens in BG2 when you first meet Viconia and depending on whether you bother saving the stupid bint.
Being "trans" wouldn't even be a thing.
Indeed it wouldn't because anyone who wanted to be MtF or FtM could get it done and wouldn't be MtF or FtM. They'd just be whatever they didn't start as.
Or dead. D&D at times has a habit of rewarding stupidity with a proverb for the next idiot to try the same thing like "Don't cast cloudkill in a sealed room."
It's not super in your face, you see the character a fair amount, but the trans thing really only comes up in one conversation with The Iron Bull (he likes the article). Of course in that one conversation he retcons the Qun.
Briefly the Qun states everyone has an exact place in society, and to reject your assigned spot gets you sent to the Qunari re-education camps (literally). Except being trans and rejecting your actual sex has a word and is A-OK for them. The character is a young woman who looks like a teen boy in armor.
Bioware is dead to me. There is no way in hell they can create a good game anymore, that is what you get when you hire based on diversity and inclusion. Let them rot, I was hoping EA would close them after Anthem.
It's really depressing how far Bioware has fallen.
We've gone from Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1+2 and arrived at Mass Effect: Andromeda, DA: Inquisition, and fucking Anthem.
I'd actually EA just put them out of their misery so they can't sully their memory any further. Once upon a time I looked at the Bioware logo with respect. Nowadays I just wonder how bad things are going to be.
Best game. I have a bi-annual play through of 1/2/ToB even though I always end up making almost the same choices class wise and story wise. As fun a 1 is its the life given to the companions in 2 that helps make the game grow. Regardless of any complaints I voice BG1-ToB is my top favourite game.
Make way villain, hero coming through!
A likely brain damaged ranger who isn't wrong about his hamster being a miniature giant space hamster ?
Neverwinter Nights
Also beat game. Just so much shit going on all at once you can lose track of what you were meant to be doing and end up in the city catacombs punching a lich in the face.
KOTOR
There are few things more enjoyable than force leaping around a room and landing like 5 attacks at once due to various skills and abilities.
Except maybe force lighting storms.
Jade Empire
Never actually plays this one.
Mass Effect 1+2
More best games. Before they went to shit and loot crates and absurd DLC packets that were originally core game contents. OK that happens in 2 as well especially as Zaeed has a few too many topical dialogue lines to be a random insert after the fact. Despite lore recons 2 was still good and at least had a BBE to fight at the end. Rocking a soldier with the Mattock, headshotting half the things that looked at you funny, fucking the other half, memorable characters. Another hamster ?
Jade Empire is amazing and I would highly recommend it.
Just as a note get the GoG version instead of Steam since when EA put it on Steam they broke the game and made it unplayable without external patching.
I’m willing to bet that will be a black panther situation. Like it will actually be in support of “alt right” politics but the left will love it for a very superficial reason.
Set up the politics to be a city in decline with a ruling class more concerned with furthering their wealth and agenda, aka nyc. The guy in charge corrupt as fuck (deblastio) but they’ll call him orange man and all the libs will rant about how it’s a scathing rebuke against republicans.
Just like how all the libs want to live in wakanda, the wall building, antiglobalist ethnostate that judiciously keeps out illegal aliens.
It really is, I can’t image how heavy-handed they’d be with some of the more ambiguous parts if they made it nowadays. Plus both of the female romanceable party members are actually hot.
I actually know a guy who was part of Bioware's "inner circle" back then. Everyone important left the company over the years following EA's acquisition. The name is the only thing they've got left from those days.
This series went to hell with the release of the second game. Hell, you could even argue it went to hell after the first game was released. DAO was good, but the signs of decay were definitely there with most of the DLCs and the expansion, particularly since they were out and out advertised in the game. Even its director, Brent Knowles, saw change was in the wind at Bioware, and not the good kind, and left the company once DAO was complete.
Anyway, this is an incredibly pointless video with just a bunch of fluff, saying that they're now tackling "new" things. Like being someone with no power, or how those who do have power don't actually do anything. You already did that in Origins! Two out of the six origin stories were about being on the bottom rung of society, and much of the game's story happens because those at the top are so laser-focused on their own personal agendas that they are completely blind to the greater threat of the Darkspawn encroaching upon them. Or because they honestly just didn't give a fuck about the lower classes.
Whats hilarious is that they barely even have the blocking out of level geometry done. This indicates to me that this is yet another Anthem situation. If this is all they have done a year and a half after Anthem released, then they for sure already canned an earlier build.
I don't understand why the gamers in general still have faith in bioware for. Bioware was dead after Drew (Kasypsian or whatever his name is) left and that was long ago.
Divinity: Original Sin 3 looks amazing, I refuse to call it Baldur's Gate since it won't play like BG, won't use the same system as BG and Baldur's Gate won't even be in the fucking game.
The only reason why its called BG3 is for marketing and I refuse to support that.
Dragon age is dead to me
BioWare in general is dead for me by the end of Mass Effect 2 basically. ME3 wasn't horrible (aside from the ending) but I'm pretty sure the shift towards progressivism happened partway through ME2's development.
It's an utter shame because Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age Origins are quite nice games.
After the founders left, they are slowly replacing the original talented developers with diversity hires. Of course the quality of the games went down. They hired a cosplayer to be the lead facial animator for Mass Effect Andromeda, we all know how that turned out.
https://theralphretort.com/a-cosplayer-with-no-video-game-experience-was-the-lead-facial-animator-for-mass-effect-andromeda-3017017/
"But the mage class is OP..."
That's the fucking point! It's throwing giant balls of fire at everything including allies because friendly fire is a thing in this game!
Also they might just go mad for being born and/or end up possessed! That's a pretty big downside if you ask me!
That said giving mages the ability to wear full plate, use a sword and board, still cast fireball, and debuff enemies with the spirit warrior sub class was up there with kensei-mage dual classes from Baldur's Gate 2 being utterly broken and unkillable. You'd think they learn these things given the company hadn't turned to shit yet.
I liked inquisition well enough, except for the trans character which was retarded...they retconned the entire Qun for that character.
Utterly fucking nothing beyond social media virtue signalling because when in situ it doesn't make any fucking sense due to arcane, divine, and cursed magics literally being able to perform the deed depending on what someone would want to pay for it.
Arcane: pay a wizard to zap you in the crotch, wait no that's electroshock therapy. Unless... ?
Divine: pay a church to pray away your problem.
...
Hold up! ?
Curses: belts like the one in BG2 found veeery early on in the tent after you escape the tutorial dungeon, spell defenses like on the tome Edwin[a] botches while trying to get more UNLIMITED POWAH! ⚡, pissing off Elminster after getting the tome curse was fixed and getting turned back onto Edwina again because you're a fucking moron Edwin, I don't care how high your INT stat is!
Dragons can probably do something too since many can shapeshift and fuck almost as many random mortal races as the in universe Gods do. Also shape-shifting are the druids so
HarpersLarpers and otherkin wannabes would probably take a shot before in all likelihood being actually shot when they transform into a wild animal in a residential area.Or just burned for being a witch or something else since that too happens in BG2 when you first meet Viconia and depending on whether you bother saving the stupid bint.
Indeed it wouldn't because anyone who wanted to be MtF or FtM could get it done and wouldn't be MtF or FtM. They'd just be whatever they didn't start as.
Or dead. D&D at times has a habit of rewarding stupidity with a proverb for the next idiot to try the same thing like "Don't cast cloudkill in a sealed room."
"I will not move when Flame Wreath is cast or the raid ... blows ... up."
Or "yes fireball will almost certainly fill that room, by t forget that includes your healer"
It's not super in your face, you see the character a fair amount, but the trans thing really only comes up in one conversation with The Iron Bull (he likes the article). Of course in that one conversation he retcons the Qun.
Briefly the Qun states everyone has an exact place in society, and to reject your assigned spot gets you sent to the Qunari re-education camps (literally). Except being trans and rejecting your actual sex has a word and is A-OK for them. The character is a young woman who looks like a teen boy in armor.
that trans character is fuckining laughable. I ignore any interaction with it where the game allows.
You can get it killed so it isn't that bad
Bioware is dead to me. There is no way in hell they can create a good game anymore, that is what you get when you hire based on diversity and inclusion. Let them rot, I was hoping EA would close them after Anthem.
It's really depressing how far Bioware has fallen.
We've gone from Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1+2 and arrived at Mass Effect: Andromeda, DA: Inquisition, and fucking Anthem.
I'd actually EA just put them out of their misery so they can't sully their memory any further. Once upon a time I looked at the Bioware logo with respect. Nowadays I just wonder how bad things are going to be.
Best game. I have a bi-annual play through of 1/2/ToB even though I always end up making almost the same choices class wise and story wise. As fun a 1 is its the life given to the companions in 2 that helps make the game grow. Regardless of any complaints I voice BG1-ToB is my top favourite game.
Also beat game. Just so much shit going on all at once you can lose track of what you were meant to be doing and end up in the city catacombs punching a lich in the face.
There are few things more enjoyable than force leaping around a room and landing like 5 attacks at once due to various skills and abilities.
Except maybe force lighting storms.
Never actually plays this one.
More best games. Before they went to shit and loot crates and absurd DLC packets that were originally core game contents. OK that happens in 2 as well especially as Zaeed has a few too many topical dialogue lines to be a random insert after the fact. Despite lore recons 2 was still good and at least had a BBE to fight at the end. Rocking a soldier with the Mattock, headshotting half the things that looked at you funny, fucking the other half, memorable characters. Another hamster ?
Before the dark times. Before the EAmpire.
Jade Empire is amazing and I would highly recommend it.
Just as a note get the GoG version instead of Steam since when EA put it on Steam they broke the game and made it unplayable without external patching.
What’s that, a BioWare game has current year politics?
Yeah, that one line about the government not doing anything...
Just reeked of "ORANGE MAN BAD!!!!"
I’m willing to bet that will be a black panther situation. Like it will actually be in support of “alt right” politics but the left will love it for a very superficial reason.
you kinda lost me there...
Set up the politics to be a city in decline with a ruling class more concerned with furthering their wealth and agenda, aka nyc. The guy in charge corrupt as fuck (deblastio) but they’ll call him orange man and all the libs will rant about how it’s a scathing rebuke against republicans.
Just like how all the libs want to live in wakanda, the wall building, antiglobalist ethnostate that judiciously keeps out illegal aliens.
Also, despite all the paranoia about "colonizers", the biggest threat to Wakanda happened to be one of their own who was raised without a father.
Damn, I’m just replaying DA:O right now, I forgot how great BioWare used to be.
It's a stark difference, isn't it? Modern writers are trash.
It really is, I can’t image how heavy-handed they’d be with some of the more ambiguous parts if they made it nowadays. Plus both of the female romanceable party members are actually hot.
I actually know a guy who was part of Bioware's "inner circle" back then. Everyone important left the company over the years following EA's acquisition. The name is the only thing they've got left from those days.
This series went to hell with the release of the second game. Hell, you could even argue it went to hell after the first game was released. DAO was good, but the signs of decay were definitely there with most of the DLCs and the expansion, particularly since they were out and out advertised in the game. Even its director, Brent Knowles, saw change was in the wind at Bioware, and not the good kind, and left the company once DAO was complete.
Anyway, this is an incredibly pointless video with just a bunch of fluff, saying that they're now tackling "new" things. Like being someone with no power, or how those who do have power don't actually do anything. You already did that in Origins! Two out of the six origin stories were about being on the bottom rung of society, and much of the game's story happens because those at the top are so laser-focused on their own personal agendas that they are completely blind to the greater threat of the Darkspawn encroaching upon them. Or because they honestly just didn't give a fuck about the lower classes.
So much so it felt like being ejected mid victory lap.
DAO was a lot of fun.
DAA was... boring.
Whats hilarious is that they barely even have the blocking out of level geometry done. This indicates to me that this is yet another Anthem situation. If this is all they have done a year and a half after Anthem released, then they for sure already canned an earlier build.
Really? You had hope after the dumpster fire that was Cisquisition and bioware/EA's track record?
I don't hate everything like the majority of gamers in general, and especially those here.
I don't hate all movies and TV either.
I can dislike SJW parts without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I mean... i'm pretty easily amused/to please but everything i've seen from bioware doesn't exactly instill hope these days.
I don't understand why the gamers in general still have faith in bioware for. Bioware was dead after Drew (Kasypsian or whatever his name is) left and that was long ago.
Divinity: Original Sin 3 looks amazing, I refuse to call it Baldur's Gate since it won't play like BG, won't use the same system as BG and Baldur's Gate won't even be in the fucking game.
The only reason why its called BG3 is for marketing and I refuse to support that.
I was worried about this project till I saw that the lead writer is a man with an effeminate voice and blue hair. Now I know it's in safe hands.
Bioware hasn't made a good game since Mass effect 2. That was 10 years ago. I don't buy their games anymore.
thats looks like absolute woke shit, but I knew that already because its from Bioware.
After Inquisition, does anybody care?
I’ll just play modded Skyrim on PC