Star Wars, Bioware and story telling

[Horizon]

So, here recently I've gone back to SWTOR and looked back on the KOTOR series itself and noticed that Bioware has seemingly gone down with its story telling a bit. Whether or not this is true, I feel this is mostly an opinion of mine. Was wondering if other people have noticed this trend.

Specifically a big fan of KOTOR 2, which is definitely an unpopular opinion.

 

[Gamov]

I have certainly noticed this trend myself. I'm not the greatest fan of SWTOR, so I can't really speak to it's story with relation to KOTOR from an unbiased position, but speaking as a fan of the other big names on their docket - Mass Effect and Dragon Age - recent offerings in both series were decidedly lacking.

I'm still a member of the camp (albeit less bitter than I was after the initial punch to the gut) who firmly believes they absolutely ruined Mass Effect with that hack job of a "conclusion" in 3, and no amount of debating that the story was "intended to be interpreted" this way or that will ever convince me otherwise. Likewise, Dragon Age: Inquisition, while (I thought) was a solid game throughout and otherwise thoroughly enjoyable, also suffered from a lackluster conclusion that felt like it had been pulled together from discarded scraps on the author's desk at the last minute.

Whatever the folks in Bioware's writing department are doing... it isn't really having a positive impact on me personally.

One can only hope the (near universally negative) feedback they've received from their fan base over the past few years has managed to sink in and forced them to re-evaluate their approach in penning a worthy successor to Mass Effect in Andromeda. But I certainly won't be holding my breath.

 

[Horizon]

Mass Effect: Inquisition you mean?

 

[The Living Daylights]

So, here recently I've gone back to SWTOR and looked back on the KOTOR series itself and noticed that Bioware has seemingly gone down with its story telling a bit. Whether or not this is true, I feel this is mostly an opinion of mine. Was wondering if other people have noticed this trend.

Specifically a big fan of KOTOR 2, which is definitely an unpopular opinion.

KotOR II is actually by Obsidian, which probably explains why :)

But yeah, I'm in agreement with you. K2 is vastly underrated and better than KotOR on a lot of fronts (characters, themes, etc.) - not that KotOR itself isn't amazing. SWTOR is kind of meh to me and the storytelling's considerably worse than in either KotOR game.

 

[Horizon]

KotOR II is actually by Obsidian, which probably explains why :)

But yeah, I'm in agreement with you. K2 is vastly underrated and better than KotOR on a lot of fronts (characters, themes, etc.) - not that KotOR itself isn't amazing. SWTOR is kind of meh to me and the storytelling's considerably worse than in either KotOR game.

I'm a real slut for Obsidian. Aka, New Vegas.

 

[The Living Daylights]

I'm a real slut for Obsidian. Aka, New Vegas.

I probably need to play that some time soon :)

 

[Horizon]

I probably need to play that some time soon :)

I'd play it on the computer and just get some really good restoration mod. Honestly, you can drown yourself in the story on that one. Some legit things to think about when exploring the core story through the DLC's.

 

[The Living Daylights]

@Horizon - Being an Obsidian game, I have high expectations for it, but I know it won't fail me. :)

BioWare, on the other hand, has gone down the trash chute.

 

[Lavi]

SWTOR's stories feel lacking at times because I get the impression that the writers were forced to make stuff up for the purpose of gameplay progression, rather than trying to find a happy middle ground between development and story. Because of that, the stories frequently felt like they were repeating the same thing with a new coat of paint. The Imperial stories were comparatively better because of the untapped story potential compared to the more well-traveled Republic stories.

Honestly speaking, I don't have high hopes for the Mass Effect Andromeda story, given the lack of marketing being utilized towards getting fans involved in a brand new storyline. It seems to be more about open-world exploration, which isn't necessarily bad, but Mass Effect has been noted for its narrative.

Obsidian Entertainment is a very good company, by the way.

 

[Green Ranger]

Daily reminder that SWTOR is primarily done by Bioware Austin, who have little to do with Bioware proper except for the name.

But, at risk of sounding all apologist, Mass Effect 3 had incredibly good game mechanics (best in the trilogy by far) and a relatively solid story (with a few minor issues that were negligible) up to the admittedly flawed ending. The way that it tied up the loose ends of all your companions from the last two games was incredibly satisfying as well. Unfortunately, all perspective is lost and everyone just foams at the mouth and raves BUT THAT ENDING RARGH. And it's like...okay valid opinion is valid, but can please we stop for a moment and appreciate the other 90% of the game for being genuinely good?

Dragon Age: Inquisition was some of their best work (easily better than 2, obviously, but arguably better than Origins as well), and this is coming from someone who has played every game they've ever made, bar three of their earlier/smaller releases. Trespasser was clearly designed from the getgo to be the final epilogue chapter to Inquisition, and it shows, because it lifts the entire game to even higher levels. Genuinely, Inquisition's up there with Baldur's Gate 2 as far as storytelling goes - and that says a lot, because Baldur's Gate 2 is, and probably always will be, the daddy of RPGs.

Knights of the Eternal Throne was actually quite good - the problem with Fallen Empire is that ultimately it's only the first half of a story, so you kind of have to go back, play through both Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne to get the whole story. Is it Bioware's best work? Absolutely not, but it's not bad either. It's quite solid, and honestly, significantly braver writing that KOTOR (which was Neverwinter Nights in spacedrag)

I still prefer Obsidian's works over Bioware - most of the Black Isle folks went on to make Obsidian, so the writing heritage Bioware usually takes credit for is actually at Obsidian (see Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, or KOTOR2. Tyranny's quite good as well, and I hear Pillars of Eternity's fairly quality too, though I've never finished it myself), but Bioware's probably at, or getting close to, being at the top of their game again, and while they generally err on safer writing/ more traditional RPG style writing compared to Obsidian (i think Obsidian self-publish now, which is a huge part of the equation), they're still very, very good at what they do when they are on top of their game.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Daily reminder that SWTOR is primarily done by Bioware Austin, who have little to do with Bioware proper except for the name.

But, at risk of sounding all apologist, Mass Effect 3 had incredibly good game mechanics (best in the trilogy by far) and a relatively solid story (with a few minor issues that were negligible) up to the admittedly flawed ending. The way that it tied up the loose ends of all your companions from the last two games was incredibly satisfying as well. Unfortunately, all perspective is lost and everyone just foams at the mouth and raves BUT THAT ENDING RARGH. And it's like...okay valid opinion is valid, but can please we stop for a moment and appreciate the other 90% of the game for being genuinely good?

Dragon Age: Inquisition was some of their best work (easily better than 2, obviously, but arguably better than Origins as well), and this is coming from someone who has played every game they've ever made, bar three of their earlier/smaller releases. Trespasser was clearly designed from the getgo to be the final epilogue chapter to Inquisition, and it shows, because it lifts the entire game to even higher levels. Genuinely, Inquisition's up there with Baldur's Gate 2 as far as storytelling goes - and that says a lot, because Baldur's Gate 2 is, and probably always will be, the daddy of RPGs.

Knights of the Eternal Throne was actually quite good - the problem with Fallen Empire is that ultimately it's only the first half of a story, so you kind of have to go back, play through both Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne to get the whole story. Is it Bioware's best work? Absolutely not, but it's not bad either. It's quite solid, and honestly, significantly braver writing that KOTOR (which was Neverwinter Nights in spacedrag)

I still prefer Obsidian's works over Bioware - most of the Black Isle folks went on to make Obsidian, so the writing heritage Bioware usually takes credit for is actually at Obsidian (see Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, or KOTOR2. Tyranny's quite good as well, and I hear Pillars of Eternity's fairly quality too, though I've never finished it myself), but Bioware's probably at, or getting close to, being at the top of their game again, and while they generally err on safer writing/ more traditional RPG style writing compared to Obsidian (i think Obsidian self-publish now, which is a huge part of the equation), they're still very, very good at what they do when they are on top of their game.

 

[Green Ranger]

bite me, boy scout.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

bite me, boy scout.

I learned how to use knives and fire, come at me breh

 

[Eternix]

So, here recently I've gone back to SWTOR and looked back on the KOTOR series itself and noticed that Bioware has seemingly gone down with its story telling a bit. Whether or not this is true, I feel this is mostly an opinion of mine. Was wondering if other people have noticed this trend.

Specifically a big fan of KOTOR 2, which is definitely an unpopular opinion.

As someone who recently got back into SWTOR I agree. The problem with that game is that its always been half-rate in every department. As Lavi pointed out the story always took a dive in order to supplement the traditional MMO quest design and mechanics (I must have destroyed thousands of power generators in my Knight playthrough). The pve and pvp content was always solid but the patches never came often enough to keep me interested. With KotET and KotFE, however, the devs decided to throw out PvX content entirely and focus on creating the awesome SW narrative that the game always lacked. I really enjoyed the story and am glad that they decided to make that decision, but after my month sub was up I dropped the game again, nothing new outside the story to really do. The Imperial Agent story has some pretty great writing in the vanilla experience if you feel things are a bit too dull with whatever class you are playing.

As for Bioware in general I felt that they peaked in 2009 with ME2 in terms of story and have been in a steady decline ever since. More BW games have come around that are more impressive in their gameplay and mechanics but don't bring it with the writing. ME2 was a small scale (In terms of the narrative of the series, but obviously epic in its execution) character driven experience, and I think BW might be taking a hint and heading back to that with Andromeda, hopefully.

 

[Tristar]

Pillars of Eternity detected! Swells with Pride Now that's a game with a storyline that, while isn't Baldur tier, was really good in its own ways. Certainly an interesting one that I haven't seen done before, and it was done pretty well. Asides from some flaws in combat system (which was rectified with patches from community suggestions), it's my spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series.

I give it a 5/7. Thought it was pretty good.

Mass Effect 2 felt incredibly short- I pretty much finished the game in 2-3 days, and that's with all the side missions done. The only thing I didn't bother to do was buy all the upgrades (just the necessary ones or the ones that'd help the most). Mass Effect 3 was good, yes sloppy/half-arsed ending but I still managed to enjoy the game a lot more than I did mass effect 2 (which i still feel is overpriced for its length.). Depends on what you expect of your stories and the level of compromise you're willing to take for gameplay/narrative. SWTOR obviously needed to lean more towards its MMO aspects and as such tailored its stories towards that direction.

 

[Dmitri]

My issue with some parts of KOTFE and KOTET is how some trails just run cold or there are 'choices' that don't really impact anything. Who you save of the three prisoners doesn't matter. Novo living or dying only impacts why he hates you in his second fight. I think it could have been interesting if, on the Light Side end if Novo had been spared twice, that he was the insider rather than Indo.

 

[Lavi]

My issue with some parts of KOTFE and KOTET is how some trails just run cold or there are 'choices' that don't really impact anything. Who you save of the three prisoners doesn't matter. Novo living or dying only impacts why he hates you in his second fight. I think it could have been interesting if, on the Light Side end if Novo had been spared twice, that he was the insider rather than Indo.

No one remembers Ralo. Even BioWare seems to have forgotten Ralo and Sergeant Dol (or whoever he was called).

 

[Dmitri]

No one remembers Ralo. Even BioWare seems to have forgotten Ralo and Sergeant Dol (or whoever he was called).

Your choice basically only impacts of Ralo greets you or stares at your angrily. Then disappears.

 

[Lavi]

Your choice basically only impacts of Ralo greets you or stares at your angrily. Then disappears.

He gets briefly mentioned somewhere in KOTET, I believe. In any case, way to make one of your first character interactions totally inconsequential, BioWare.

 

[Calixis]

BioWare's writing has never been especially stellar. Good, but rarely groundbreaking or truly excellent. They were popularised as 'the story in games' company, but there's been far better examples of such games during their, what some would call, golden age (BG1 - ME2). They made okay games, wrapped up in a good narrative, that presented with more polish (see: funding) than most of the B-Market stuff out there at the time (Vampire: The Masquerade, anything from Obsidian, etc) that never found the same large fanbase. We see it today with Besthesda and Skyrim. In terms of an RPG it has the depth of a puddle, but it's largely considered one of the greatest RPG's ever and beloved by millions.

SWTOR's problem was that they tried too hard to push "muh Star Wars fantasy" right from the start. KotOR didn't escape this problem either, where despite being thousands of years in the past and much of the established EU material very much presenting the idea that, yes, technology did actually progress since that time and things were more primitive and closer to typical 'fantasy', you could barely tell the time period of KotOR apart from The Phantom Menace. If you ask people what they enjoyed about KotOR most people say "the Revan twist" which, honestly, I've never been a fan of. In retrospect I think people just liked it because it made their self-insert this amazing and (at the time) 'canon' thing, though since they tried as hard as possible to nail down a very specific canon for Revan as time went on this turned out meaningless anyway. I also can't forgive their total ignoring of KotOR2 literally because the writer "didn't play it lol" but now I'm getting off-topic.

So anyway, when you look at SWTOR and people inevitably ask what the best story is they say "Agent." Why? Well, simply because it was the only class they really had any freedom with. They tried desperately to cram as muh of that 'fantasy' into the other classes that the whole thing felt like this awkward slurry of... kind of going through a checklist of "DUDE IT'S JUST LIKE I'M LUKE/VADER/BOBA FETT/HAN SOLO LMAO!". It neither felt entirely original, but there was enough originality there to make it... tolerable. Agent avoided this issue because there wasn't any real comparison that could be drawn from Star Wars beyond the aesthetic of Imperial officers so they actually had to pen something original. Even then, the Agent story is absolutely chalk full of horrendous writing mistakes, plot holes and forced suspension of disbelief (what idiot would allow Kaylio on your team?) in part because of game mechanics ("You're now a Republic double agent, Cipher- no, no, I think literally taking Taris for the Empire may be a bit too deep into your cover...") but also because... well, BioWare writing has never been that great.

Everybody knows about how DA2. My personal belief is that they saw just how well Mass Effect was being received and somebody (I don't want to say EA but eh it wouldn't surprise me) wanted to replicate that success. If you read any of the earlier Dragon Age interviews, they make it clear several times that Origins in the title was a deliberate thing and that the Warden was very much going to be their Shepard-lite across multiple games. I think around this time everybody saw how much people gushed over the conversation wheel and a fully voiced protagonist, but realised people wouldn't take kindly to the Warden suddenly speaking. So they tossed their plans in the bin, came up with Hawke to be their 'Fantasy Shepard' and it all fell to pieces from there.

Inquisition was alright. I think most of its success can be largely attributed to "well it wasn't Mass Effect 3/Dragon Age 2" and at the point it came out just about everybody was anticipating it to be total shit, so when it turned out... okay people were merciful enough to accept it. Plus after three years of absolutely ripping them apart over DA2 and ME2 (rightfully so) everybody was just a bit sick of it. The best word for Inquisition is probably "forgettable" neither bad enough to be remembered with as much scorn as their previous three games, but not so good that it really stood out at a time when Triple-A RPGs were becoming much more prominent.

Mass Effect 3 was a mediocre game, wrapped up in a bad story. The entire plot is actually pretty dreadful, it's just the ending was SO bad that the rest of it - especially Tutaunka - looked decent by comparison.