vlad321 said:
marc said:
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).
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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
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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.
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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.
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My only consolation is that by next gen all games are gonna be like Wii Sports, then I will laugh as I watch the people who like those dumbed down games cry about how THEIR games got even dumber. The irony will be hilarious.
I agree that Morrowind is the best thing to cocme out of Bethesda, sadly I doubt anyhing will change in the future, from either Beth or BW. It will only probably get worse, as I said.
@Kenryouko
I'll measure Old Republic against things like WoW and lineage and everquest, not Neverwinter Nights, BG, and IWD. So in fact it might actually be nice and comples. Or it could be an even more dumbed down MMO than WoW (is that even possible?).
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Lol, what you guys call "dumbing down" I call refinement. I thought some of the "dumbing down" elements in Oblivion were a vast improvement on some of the more annoying elements of Morrowind (fast travel, no hidden stats deciding your accuracy). Don't get me wrong, I miss some of the spells and skills from Morrowind (axes aren't blunt, lol, levitation anyone?) but overall, I liked the direction the series took. Having said that I have to admit, with the number of mods I've installed it's difficult for me to say how the original game played, lol.
And with games like Neverwinter and Baldurs Gate, you kind of needed to include all the stats and the feats as they're a part of D&D which has been going for ages. Star Wars doesn't have aywahere near the depth of D&D for that sort of thing so they could get away with less feats and spells/powers. Again with Dragon Age, they've invented their own system which is quite new and doesn't have the rich history and depth of D&D.
