I wanted to know the GB community's thoughts about this gaming giant.  With the recent "failure" of Dragon Age 2, I've heard many negative things about Bioware.  Though I don't think DA2 a failure, I do think its a dissapointment, and probably one of the biggest mistakes BioWare has ever made.  But then I think back to all their successes, the original Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, neverwinter nights, and the classic Baldurs gate 2.  Now with all this in mind, where do you stand with Bioware?  With both the recently anounced Dragon Age 3 and the soon to be Mass Effect 3 coming, will you be forgiving and forgeting?  Or will you pass these up until you know that these games are the real deal?

They are a terrible company. I mean lets totally forget all the amazing games they made before Dragon Age 2 and call them shit! 

Bioware is shit compared to cd project red 
 
Dragon age orgins is the best game they have made on the 360 but its still only mediocre compared to the witcher 2  
 
and dont even get me started about mass effect 2 its overly simplified and even an retarded cat could beat that game sure it has a okey story (alot of filler) but who the fuck cares about that when the gameplay is shit  and there is not much to explore

My favourite game developer. /thread

They are a terrible company. I mean lets totally forget all the amazing games they made before Dragon Age 2 and call them shit! 

Their games are too predicated on right and wrong choices, good/bad, red/blue. I want some damn granularity in ME3.
 
Thats all I have to complain about. ME3 seems to be taking the action and RPG in the right direction

I got kinda tired of them after KOTOR.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't Dragon Age 2 developed in a short amount of time (shorter than the usual Bioware development cycle)?  That could have contributed to the game's perceived failure. Keep in mind that I haven't played DA2, but I'm just guessing about what they did wrong here. All of the Bioware games I have played (KOTOR, ME 1 and 2, and DA:O) have been fantastic, and I still regard them as one of the best developers right now.

Bioware games just have way too much dialogue for me to enjoy them. Their games are like interactive novels more than anything, kind of in the vein of the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books. I find their games very boring, personally, but I know that a lot of people love them for the very reasons I don't. They seem like a great developer if you want (much) more story than you do game.

Their old-school PC games were great.
 
They kind of suck now, though.

So they made one ok, not bad but ok game game. 
You never eat food again just because some food was once not as good as other?

Favourite developer. Mass Effect especially hooked me in a way that I'd only previously experienced with Ocarina of Time. Dragon Age 2 was a bit disappointing, but I don't think one bump in the road will turn them into Neversoft (a great, creative studio that got run into the ground). I will pre-order ME3 as soon as it has a date, and I will be awaiting Dragon Age 3 whenever that comes to pass. It's already gotten to the point where I will snatch up anything with the Bioware logo on it, and if people want to act like they suck or that there's another studio doing what they do better, that's nice. I'll be sitting here with my favourite games and playing them into the wee hours of the morning.

Their old-school PC games were great.  They kind of suck now, though.

@superseagull7: HAHAHAHA one of the best devlopers? 
 
you dont play alot of games do you  
 
i can think of 100 developers that are far more superior than mediocre bioware  
 
your right dragon age orgins was pretty cool but is fucking shit compared to a game like the witcher 2  
 
also both me 1 and me2 are just dumb console rpgs for casuals

mass effect is great, dragon age is so-so imho

mass effect (1) is one of my favourite games this gen. i still have faith in bioware.

@superseagull7: HAHAHAHA one of the best devlopers?  you dont play alot of games do you   i can think of 100 developers that are far more superior than mediocre bioware   your right dragon age orgins was pretty cool but is fucking shit compared to a game like the witcher 2   also both me 1 and me2 are just dumb console rpgs for casuals

I've only really played the Mass Effect franchise by them, and I absolutely love that franchise with every fiber in my body

@superseagull7: HAHAHAHA one of the best devlopers?  you dont play alot of games do you   i can think of 100 developers that are far more superior than mediocre bioware   your right dragon age orgins was pretty cool but is fucking shit compared to a game like the witcher 2   also both me 1 and me2 are just dumb console rpgs for casuals

@FancySoapsMan said:

Their old-school PC games were great.  They kind of suck now, though.

Play DA:O, it is a lot like the BG series. 

Easily my favorite developer. Now that doesn't mean that I'm going to blindly defend every decision they make. Combat in most of their games isn't really up to par but the story and dialog easily makes up for it (imo of course).
 
Dragon Age 2 definitely wasn't their best attempt but considering how great their other games were (BG, NWN, KOTOR, Jade Empire, ME, DA:O) I wouldn't exactly go out and say they're the worst developer ever. 
 
If you like the kind of games they make then you most likely love Bioware. If you're not into RPGs then most likely you're not going to like Bioware.

The pride of Canada, and my favorite developers in the world.  No game developers  know how to immerse me in a story the way Bioware does.  Sure, their games aren't perfect, but they are still the best at what they do.

I think the witcher 2 was the pinnacle of what Bioware tried to do with DA or DA2. and I think that Obsidian's sequels are miles better than the games that came before. ME's alright but I dunno if I could play the third at this point, all those screenshots look so boring

Love the Mass Effect series. Like the Dragon Age series. They make good games. Would like a new KOTOR though.

I love both Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. One of my favourite developers no question.

@floodiastus: This saddens me.   Because dragon age: Origins was my favorite game. for pc. 

Guys, ME2 wasn't that great, either. (I'm actually being serious; that story was crap)

@superseagull7: HAHAHAHA one of the best devlopers?  you dont play alot of games do you   i can think of 100 developers that are far more superior than mediocre bioware   your right dragon age orgins was pretty cool but is fucking shit compared to a game like the witcher 2   also both me 1 and me2 are just dumb console rpgs for casuals

They'll always be legendary for giving us Baldur's Gate. DA:O was good but had plenty of issues. It provided a solid foundation that should have been built upon for DA2. Instead, they rushed DA2 out and gave us a mediocre game.
 
Haven't played Mass Effect yet. Planning on getting to it eventually. Was never much of a ''space guy''. I need my elves and dwarves!

Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 were classics, Dragon Age: Origins was a decent attempt to recapture that glory, and everything else has been simplistic and bad from a mechanical standpoint, although of variable quality in writing. Jade Empire, KotoR, Mass Effects and Dragon Age 2 are not even in the league of those aforementioned three games, and we can expect that EA will bleed the company dry until there's no integrity or quality left.

I loved them until Mass Effect 2. That game was such a disappointment that I have very little faith left in them.

They are a good developer and I have enjoyed many of their games and ideas.

@shinigami420 said:

@superseagull7: HAHAHAHA one of the best devlopers?  you dont play alot of games do you   i can think of 100 developers that are far more superior than mediocre bioware   your right dragon age orgins was pretty cool but is fucking shit compared to a game like the witcher 2   also both me 1 and me2 are just dumb console rpgs for casuals

You should take this groundbreaking find to some developers, apparently the more complicated a game is the better it is. They'll be really excited about this.

Favourite developer. Mass Effect especially hooked me in a way that I'd only previously experienced with Ocarina of Time. Dragon Age 2 was a bit disappointing, but I don't think one bump in the road will turn them into Neversoft (a great, creative studio that got run into the ground). I will pre-order ME3 as soon as it has a date, and I will be awaiting Dragon Age 3 whenever that comes to pass. It's already gotten to the point where I will snatch up anything with the Bioware logo on it, and if people want to act like they suck or that there's another studio doing what they do better, that's nice. I'll be sitting here with my favourite games and playing them into the wee hours of the morning.

Lately I've been getting pretty damn tired of the old Bioware plot formula: Linear opening, travel to 3 or 4 places in whatever order you choose, event in the middle, linear ending. Somewhere in there you have sex with a party member. 
 
If ME3 starts off with with some event on Earth and then says "now travel to X number of planets to recruit some aliens to fight the Reapers" I'll be really disappointed.

I can understand if people have been disappointed with their recent offerings but to ignore their illustrious history because of it is madness. Feel free to write them off for whatever the "developer-of-the-month" is but years from now someone will still be playing Balder's Gate again or for the first time while most of these other games have been long forgotten. 
 
People talk about CD Projekt's incredible Witcher 2? I have to wonder how much of that development was funded by people buying Bioware's back catalog off of GOG.com?
 
I'm not even a big fan but I gotta give respect where respect is due.

I like DA 2 more than origins so I feel out of place in this forum, but they did make on of my favorite games of all time. They are starting to get into a Good/Bad choices routine for some time now but I'm still excited for ME3. Unfortunately that's the only one of their games I'm looking forward to.

They made a Sonic RPG on Nintendo DS, and it was terrible. 

Critically DA2 was kind of a failure but I believe it sold well. Just on the name alone. 
 
But I think Bioware is going downhill, quality wise. To me their peak was Mass Effect 1. Mass Effect 2, while it FELT good to play, was dumbed down and was basically a game full of side missions with no real story. Sure the production values and presentation were good but a game needs more than that. Well, at least a big budget Bioware game. 
 
After ME1, Dragon Age came out and while lots of people loved it I found it incredibly dull - uninspired setting, very boring combat, very predictable and anticlimactic.Then Dragon Age 2 came out and I think everyone knows by now the massive and numerous faults that game had.
 
So I'm not really having much high hopes for ME3. I know it won't top the amazing experience I had with Mass Effect so I won't set it up for disaster. I'm sure it'll be a good game but it won't be the same old Bioware I used to love.

@NeverDave said:

@shinigami420 said:

@superseagull7: HAHAHAHA one of the best devlopers?  you dont play alot of games do you   i can think of 100 developers that are far more superior than mediocre bioware   your right dragon age orgins was pretty cool but is fucking shit compared to a game like the witcher 2   also both me 1 and me2 are just dumb console rpgs for casuals

You should take this groundbreaking find to some developers, apparently the more complicated a game is the better it is. They'll be really excited about this.

That's actually exactly right, as long as the complexity is justified and rewarding, and the systems are at least made somewhat clear to the player. To put it in the same condescending terms, humans are learning animals, and once you've learned to solve a set of problems you move onto more complex ones. The correct approach is to have introductory difficulty modes but retain some depth for the sake of more experienced players, instead of the general approach which has been to drastically simplify and streamline.