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marc on 19 December 2009
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vlad321 said:
Cueil said:
vlad321 said:

Big words coming from a developer whose games went backwards with times. CJust compare Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect and KOTOR to see just how far a step back they had to make when ti comes to depth. Even Dragon Age is really shallow compared to Baldur's Gate and NWN.

However, I do agree with him though, even if he has committed a worse crime (dumbing down instead of just stagnation).

Nastalgia warps your sense of judgment... I love the BG series that Bioware did, but in now way are they complex... their story was based in a massively rich world that had almost two decades of lore to build on... so in that sense they "went backwards", but KotOR and Mass Effect are massive improvements in story telling and Dragon Age was clearly BG's spiritual successor.  Sure it has it's problems, but if you play the PC version you'll find that you will have more than a little bit of nastalgia.   And if you really want to talk about dumbing down everything is trash compared to Wizardry and Might and Magic back in the day... games that required you(at the time no intertron really) to goto the library to figure some of the shit out

Not really nostalgia. You can measure how they are dumbed down. NWN  had hundered of feats, aout 200 spells, and more skill sthan KOTOR. Also 9 completely different classes. What did KOTOR have? 3 root classes, about 30 feats, a dozen skills, and a some force powers (spells). That is what I call dumbed down for the general audience of consoles, the people who wouldn't be able to even begin to understand how NWN worked. BioWare's last deep RPG was Neverwinter Nights, afte that they have ust dumbed down everything more and more. Thnk god DA brought it back some, but still a little too simple.

 

Very good points As much as I loved the polished quality of DAO, it was without a doubt dumbed down for the consoles. So was KOTOR I & II. Thats not to say that I didnt like them, actually I thought they were great because of their production quality (kotor II excluded it was horrid save for the story), but the fact is they do not a hold a candle to NWN, BG, IWD customization wise. It is truley sad but we all know why it happened and  it does open the door for another company to bring back those types of games while Bioware goes on to mainstream development.

Bethesda is also going down the same route. Every iteration of EScrolls is dumber than the previous although I thought that Morrowind was the best game ever produced. I really hate to see all the dumbing down for $$. Sometimes is better to be happy with making a modest living but leaving behind a greater legacy than making tons of cash and being forgotten... but this will not happen with publically owned companies that are owned by people who dont play games at all.