I'm not sure why people thought KotOR was so good. It was a simplistic game which took little effort to make it through even on high difficulty settings. It was a huge financial success... why? Because it provided an immersive world for CONSOLE game players to get in on. For those of us in PC land, this is nothing new and it was executed poorly. But I suppose that is run of the mill by now with ported games. The only ported game that I can even remember which was worth playing (without the huge disappointment) was Halo. And the novelty factor of that was dulled by the enormous wait time for it on PC.
The Baldur's Gate series were great. Nonlinear story and the ability to just wander. They packed so much into them it was great fun to play and it took a very long time to make it through. NWN.. eh. It was pretty. But it didn't have the same effect as Baldurs Gate. It needed the other party members in my opinion. The party management was a crucial factor in the RPG format.
I know it wasn't bioware's but it was mentioned... Lionheart was horrible. A game shouldn't be boring. And you shouldn't have to GUESS where the exits (or entrances) to a screen are. It was boring. Very boring.
Bioware has had a huge success with their foray into the console market, I just hope they don't forget that their core fans who made them what they are are from the PC market. (although I still hold them and all others involved accountable for the death of TORN <sigh>) Hopefully their upcoming RPGs will kick ass. The market has been barren of decent ones of late.

This comment was edited on May 12, 04:25.

They mostly make disney RPGs, with very simple plots and stereotypical characterizations

I'd hardly call the plot in Baldur's Gate 2 "simple", but that's obviously a personal opinion. Being the incarnation of the God of Murder isn't something that happens everyday. (although you could say that the "You turn out to be the bad guy turned good" storyline wasn't exactly new.)

Hey Creston, you were getting excited about one Bioware PC release a couple of weeks back and now you have two (presumably) announced. Good times huh?

Oh yeah.
Well, to be honest, I'm VERY excited about KotOR 2, have utter confidence that Dragon Age will be totally great, and I think Jade Empire is going to be very cool as well.
I'm not so sure about the Witcher, since I don't know anything about this studio, and the Aurora engine doesn't exactly fill me with tears of happiness after all this time (although the last NWN expansion pack did do some cool stuff with it.)

I wonder how much of those stories that KotOR actually also uses the Aurora engine is true. If the Witcher used KotOR's engine, I'd be a lot more interested. It's just that the NWN engine is too limited and too samey-samey.
Some peeps still make absolutely great rpgs with it though.
http://www.adamandjamie.com/nwn/

Creston

Edit : D4rkknight, thanks for the reminder of the Paladin series. I had been looking for them, could never find them for some reason, but went back and found them and am going to play them now.

This comment was edited on May 9, 20:50.

NWN was not a disaster, The OC was bad yes, but the expansions are very fun, and Adam Millers Dreamcatcher/Shadowlords campaign is so good you would think your playing a professional Bioware RPG game.

Rick Burton's Paladin series is incredible, Stefan Gagne has made some damn good modules as well, and on top of this you have DL adventures and the Planescape Torment remake, City of Doors Initiative still on the way...NWN is a game that will evolve longer then any game in history.

NWN was meant to succeed through User content, and it has, in fact it has SO much user content I think it has surpassed Biowares original plans.

This comment was edited on May 9, 18:08.

Awesome Spume: "oh and on the top down view for Dragon Age... if you had a massive hit on your hands with KOTOR, which engine are you going to use for your new game?"

Hopefully first person. That's the most immersive viewpoint IMO. Current computer hardware and game engines can certainly deal with it. The isometric view always reminds me of a puppet show.

*edit* Hasn't stopped me from playing and enjoying any number of CRPGs, but it does take away from the potential immersion in the game.

This comment was edited on May 9, 13:59.

Hey Creston, you were getting excited about one Bioware PC release a couple of weeks back and now you have two (presumably) announced. Good times huh?

The Witcher is the one that interests me. It's Bioware's answer to Black Isle's Lionheart. ie they've given their engine to another developer to make a game under their guidance. But this time hopefully it'll be good. I've been pretty happy with the RPG's coming out of Europe, and there's usually a different slant on things.

Dragon Age on the other hand will let us see what Bioware can really do. Their D&D and Star Wars stuff aside, which of their RPGs have been set in their own game world? Exactly. Make or break time but I hope they pull it off.

Currently I'm playing Beyond Divinity, with mixed feelings. I'd just finished Sacred and was extremely underwhelmed by that (it could yet become a quality game with patches but it's just not Diablo 2 enuf yet) and really wanted to like BD but... <spoiler> :
how am I meant to feel about a game that has me fight through 3 levels of lvl 2 skeletons to get to the bottom of a dungeon with TWO lvl 13 bosses, while my 2 characcters are lvl 7? That was a futile exercise in burning through every health and mana potion I owned, before dying.

There are so many ways you can play BD though and it has a certain retro charm to it. Lots of good ideas too. In fact there're so many choices you can get beguiled into gimping your characters by trying out all the secondary skills, and suddenly realising you've no combat skills.

EDIT: oh and on the top down view for Dragon Age... if you had a massive hit on your hands with KOTOR, which engine are you going to use for your new game?

This comment was edited on May 9, 03:12.

Frankly, i'm a little less impartial to Bioware the most. They mostly make disney RPGs, with very simple plots and stereotypical characterizations, hardly 'deep' in any sense of the word, althought they are certainly fun.

NWN was a disaster, true, but KOTOR set them back on track and hopefull they won't sway from it again...

Why are you guys expecting it to be the top-down form?

How could u possibly know how good it will be before any details are announced?

Because of Bioware's track record. With the exception of NWN, which I think is mostly for the reasons I mentioned earlier, Bioware has made absolutely DYNAMITE roleplaying games.

Now, with a setting of their own, built with a system of their own, I'm convinced they will show everyone they rule the RPG genre.

Creston

Dragon Age will stun all of us once it comes out. Not necessarily with its graphics or engine or whatever, but just by how great an RPG it will be.

How could u possibly know how good it will be before any details are announced?


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Bullets taste like chicken!
This comment was edited on May 8, 19:06.

Damnit I hope it's deep and huge like BG, I'd love to have alot of characters again, for those who dont YOU DONT HAVE TO, you can just have one so stfu you sipltons, not all games have to be made for morons.

I dont mind NWN engine much but it always felt like more of tool set to creat your own story, has nothing on BG series beatyfull artwork.


This comment was edited on May 8, 18:43.

Yeah, beaver said it. The characters were a part of the story.

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“The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you learn. Ok?"

I hope youre right there.

btw. I never never had to create more than 1 character in bg1 & 2, I met them all during the game.

Dragon Age will stun all of us once it comes out. Not necessarily with its graphics or engine or whatever, but just by how great an RPG it will be.

NWN's single player campaign was pure pain, everyone agrees on that, but I really think it's because Bioware's guys were afraid to do too much with scripts and possibly breaking shit for a lot of people, as has been seen to happen with quite a few of the modules released on NWNvault.

Not having to worry about an editor or sticking by their promise that "The single player campaign can be recreated with the Aurora toolset", I think Dragon Age will take us back to Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, which were just plain awesome.

As for 1 vs multiple characters, I have no problem with just being one character in an RPG, as long as there are party members that you can bring with you. I often found it hard to empathize with my characters in BG2 because I created six of them at a time. The few times I played through it with just one character and the NPCs, I always enjoyed more for that exact reason.

Really, really, really looking forward to this one, even though I agree it's probably at least two years or more away.

Creston, eager for KotOR2 and Jade Empire.

One character = LAME.

I never played more than an hour of NWN because combat was so boring.

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“The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you learn. Ok?"

I like the NWN and the fact that you only control one character.

zoomed in detail was kind of rubish, and character customisation sucked.

It has no depth (especially when compared with earlier CRPGS (BG, BG2, PS:T)).

Also, having only one party member whom you can only kindof control is not very fun.

What's wrong with the engine?

Don't hold your breath. It's probably two years away from release.

dont let it use the lame ass NWN engine! PLLLUUUUEEEESSEEEE!!!