Slashdot Mirror
The History of BioWare
It seems somehow appropriate, given the day, to link over to a historical perspective on the developer BioWare. Eurogamer took a look back at the house the doctors built to give us some insight on where the company came from, and where it's going. "The modding community had always rallied around Baldur's Gate, so Neverwinter Nights wisely shipped with the game's toolset available and ready for use by fans. Improved quests were soon blooming all over the internet, like so much role-playing lichen. BioWare also supported the game with their own official expansion packs, and later through smaller downloadable modules, while the game brushed seductively alongside the world of the MMORPG with a hefty multiplayer component that enabled players to join up across the internet to tackle the main story."
Fitting, since Mass Effect was the last game they'll release without the taint of the beast. I still have some hopes for them, but I've seen EA shit all over too many good games and studios to be truly optimistic.
BioWhere?
while the game "brushed seductively" alongside the world of the MMORPG with a "hefty multiplayer component" that enabled "players to join up" across the internet to tackle the main story.
;)
wow....i used to talk in code about sex but this is ridiculous!
(Change out the words "world of the MMORPG" with "Man's" and "across the internet" with "for an orgy"......you can change out "tackle the main story" with whatever you want....lol
Mass Effect has turned out to be disaster that even the mighty marketing budget of Microsoft can't save. The game has turned out to be a massively buggy mess that has huge framerate problems and other graphical issues. Outside of the silly close ups of faces the game actually looks like a last gen game.
But the real problem with Mass Effect is it is mind numbingly tedious. There is a mass of dialog that you end up just plowing your way through with effectively no impact on the actual outcome of the game. After all these years Mass Effect is like a giant leap backwards in the genre. I remember reading the howls of outrage when the first hands on impressions came back stating almost exactly what reviewers are slamming the game for now. BioWare really should have spent less time trying to make the game pretty and taking part in the whole console graphics war thing and just focused on making a good game.
There are lots of people fretting over the losses of Bungie, Bizarre, and BioWare. Microsoft will do just fine without BioWare, whatever talent they had years ago is long gone.
Intro: Three guys want to make a game company.
Next paragraph: They made a game! Next paragraph: They made another game! Rinse, repeat.
This is merely a listing of each game they've made, not much of a "history" at all. How did they start they company? Who were the early employees? How did they come to work with Pyroteck? How did they raise the capital to start a company? How did they learn the basics of computer programming? What were their early influences? What was the role of each founder? What was their first office like? How did it change as they grew? What was/is the corporate culture like?
Simply list all the Bioware games, write a quick summary review of each game, and you have this article. History, my ass. Slashdot, why are you wasting my time with this crap? I have better article downstairs in my cat's litter box. Nice pick, there, Zonk.
Actually very good questions that should have been asked and answered.
I assume with most journalism it was simply too much work to get the answers.
You might not want to face the truth, but it's right in our face... Remember Mythic? Remember the guys got huge bucks from EA, do you know that many of the guys that have founded the company and are shareholders, actually filled their pockets with money.
I am not against it, it's just that we have to accept the fact, some of the veterans in those legendary game developers, are seemingly unwilling to keep living like that, some of them just want to quit.
Why? Because there's overtimes, schedules, deadlines etc. Just like any regular job some would say. But this one involves creativity in a huge way, perhaps they are exhausted.
If EA has enough money and feels like letting the company name live, I'm FOR it. Of course there will always be a doubt concerning, weather the next game with the logo of Bioware on the boxset will be worth anyones time or money.
The next Bioware game will add the following:
1) Warning message at the start "It's really not safe to use swords, leave it to the professionals (dude)!"
2) A menu system that whooshes and bangs through a million options with vibrating screen effects and explosions. That's just for configuring 'invert thumbstick'...
3) A tutorial system using the voice of an actor/actress from Nickelodeon. Surprised no-one released a fantasy roleplaying game that sounds like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie yet?
4) An attention deficit pop music sound track that alternates every 5 seconds from hip-hop to teenie-bopper punk depending on menu depth. Orcs dig Jay-Z!
5) Unlock radical new shields, armor and helmets to make your characters uber cool.
This is the furthest I've ever got through an EA game before I removed the DVD from the console and stomped all over it in fury. So I can't think of any more examples yet...
This isn't a troll per se, but I can't help thinking that BioWare has only gotten worse over the years.
IMHO all their cred comes from Baldur's Gate II. And that cred is well deserved. BG2 is still (imho) one of the best games (let alone best RPG's) ever made.
Neverwinter Nights OTOH, never made anyone's top 10 list. And KOTOR was fun, but the criticisms of "too easy", "too boring", "too limited" were all too frequent to make it a real contender for longevity -- although I did enjoy the hell out of it.
I have high hopes for Mass Effect -- but I can't say that I'm a fan of BioWare's evolution. To me they'll always be the guys that made some beyond-perfect AD&D games a few years back. Since then they've pushed out in new directions that may have scored big points with the console crowd -- but haven't really impressed the hardcore gaming set.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )