Bioware - anyone really notice something?

[Dark Jezter]

You heard me. (And yeah, of course it's "my view" - whose view would it be? Make no mistake, you'll find nothing available in terms of an 'objective truth' here...)

In my view (since apparently you need this clarified for you), the narrative was kludgy, stilted, and didn't flow in any way, shape, or form. Transitions were erratic, and dialogue was vague at best. There's definitely an awesome story in there somewhere, but it didn't show while going through the game.

And yeah, it was incomplete. No conclusion = incomplete.

Nope, thankfully, for multiple reasons. I needn't get into them, as your statement is not comparable and relatively meaningless (maybe even a non sequitur). Are you going to try that trick with Fellowship of the Ring, too? Wait! I've got a better one! How about Attack of the Clones? Or any Hollywood motion picture designed with multiple movies in mind, guaranteed to be properly completed (as much as Hollywood can guarantee such things, which in any case has been historically proven to be orders of magnitude more superior than the software industry), released for relatively the same price in a reasonable time frame, and still had storylines that were self-contained?

Sheesh, arnwyn. No need to act so snide and condescending just because people don't share your view of HALO 2's storyline.

 

[Orius]

All of their games have had pretty much the same type of story outline since Baldur's Gate?

Hero has no memory or a mysterious past that he/she does not know about.
super villian knows but isn't telling
you find nuggets of info all thru the game, then the final mystery is revealed and you kill the bad guy in the end.

Maybe this is why I haven't bought a game since Neverwinter Nights, and haven't finished one since BG II.

I don't remember any such amesia/unknown past storyline from Neverwinter Nights. It was present in Baldur's Gate, but that game is also the best damn computer adaptaion of D&D I've ever played.

 

[Arnwyn]

Sheesh, arnwyn. No need to act so snide and condescending just because people don't share your view of HALO 2's storyline.

Sadly, when the responses are:

"but that's your view, not mine. Poorly done? Right"
and
"So Empire Strikes Back must have been very incomplete for you"

then I might have to explain a little more forcefully than usual that it's my personal opinion (and how I personally feel isn't up for debate).



(On the other hand, I'd have been quite happy with a simple "I disagree" or "I thought it was fine". That's perfectly valid and understandable.)

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

(On the other hand, I'd have been quite happy with a simple "I disagree" or "I thought it was fine". That's perfectly valid and understandable.)

I disagree as I thought it was fine.

(Just some humor for a topic that's gotten way to serious... as in serious in a bad way.)

 

[Jupp]

In response to the OP:

I frankly did not care too much about the official campaign at all because about one month after release the first very good community modules were released. After that point I only did buy the expansions (SoU and HotU) too stay up to date content wise and to be able to play the latest user made modules.

This game's main purpose is to provide a central platform to create adventures that can be played either online or in single player mode. Who the heck cares for an official campaign given the awesome high standard when it comes to community made content

Given all that I still think NWN is the most flexible and interesting (online)RPG so far. The graphics might not be up to todays standard, but I see every day what can be done with a 5 year old game engine, and it's just mind-bogglingly cool

 

[takyris]

All of their games have had pretty much the same type of story outline since Baldur's Gate?

Hero has no memory or a mysterious past that he/she does not know about.
super villian knows but isn't telling
you find nuggets of info all thru the game, then the final mystery is revealed and you kill the bad guy in the end.

Maybe this is why I haven't bought a game since Neverwinter Nights, and haven't finished one since BG II.

That commentary is approximately as useful as saying that "Bad guy almost wins because he has an obvious advantage, but then good guy turns it around to save the day" is overdone as a story device. Well... yeah. It is. Along with "Mystery novel in which someone kills someone else, and the hero of the mystery has to figure out who it is" and "Romance novel in which the heroine falls for the hero, and then a disagreement or misunderstanding serves to break them up, and then they get back together in the end happily." It's not what formulae you use. It's how well you use them.

Baldur's Gate: You have a past of which you are unaware, namely that you're the child of a god.

Baldur's Gate II: You have a past of which you are completely aware. So already, this has broken down, since there's no new amnesia attack in BG2. You're the Bhaalspawn. You know that. It's part of the story.

Neverwinter Nights: No. No amnesia, no big backstory, nothing like this at all. Sorry.

Shadows of Undrentide: Nope.

Hordes of the Underdark: There's a twist related to your identity, yeah, but it's a one-shot plot device whose sole purpose is to explain why you have to be the one to take down the big bad, as opposed to any of the insanely powerful folks tromping around the Forgotten Realms. You're not the child of a god, you don't have amnesia, and the plot is nothing like Baldur's Gate.

Knights of the Old Republic: Yep, amnesia. Nailed that one. Although I'd argue that there's some slight difference between BG1's "Wander all over the world, exploring and solving mining conflicts, only to be forced into a confrontation with a fellow Bhaalspawn at the end" plot and KotOR's "Desperate battle to stop massively superior Sith fleet by finding star-maps, realizing partway through that you were actually the Sith commander and that large parts of this attack were your fault."

Jade Empire: The only past of which you are unaware is revealed to you in approximately the first hour or two of gameplay. You know about it from that point on. There are certainly twists in the story, but who and what you are isn't one of them. You're pretty much what Master Li says you are in Chapter 1.

It sort of seems just a bit like you might possibly be reaching a tad with this conclusion. If you don't like Bioware games, that's fine, but arguing that they're not using the tropes of the Black Company, but instead using the tropes used by, say, the other 99% of the fantasy bookshelves at the average bookstore, strikes me as a bit naive. I mean, heck, put aside what I think personally of the following series, and just go with their plot devices:

Wheel of Time: Uh, past of which the hero is unaware? Yeah, maybe, a bit.

Sword of Truth: Hero gets a special title and ancient artifact in the first act, which is, but for the handwaving, exactly the same as getting a special important backstory. Oh, and the hero already has another special important backstory at this point, so... yeah.

Song of Ice and Fire: Nope. Although a persnickety person might argue that having most of the protagonists be the scattered children of a now-fallen noble family is sort of at least in the same ballpark.

Robin Hobb's Assassin Trilogy: Hero has slowly explained and developed power from not just one but two different familial sources, and has to learn about and accept them.

Belgariad: There might be some kind of important past that the hero is unaware of here, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Lord of the Rings: Young peasant lad is informed that a family heirloom is actually a powerful magical talisman for evil bad guys, and that he is the only one who can destroy said evil talisman. He doesn't have amnesia, but it's at least as much of a convenient backstory plot device as those mentioned in the Bioware games.

The Entire Set of Arthurian Folklore: Sword. Stone. King. Yep.

That awful Rhapsody series: Girl is chosen one because of big-ass time-travel handwave at the beginning of the story, which the reader isn't supposed to figure out, apparently.

That awful Sara Douglass Wayfarer series: Axis, when he is not brooding and broodful and broodtastic, turns out to have a secret past that makes him incredibly powerful, while evil bad guys snarl at him and try to kill him and taunt him with knowing a bit more than he does for the entire frelling book.

So, going by shelfspace, we've got Martin, Glen Cook, and... well, we could start looking at Melanie Rawn or Mercedes Lackey, but I don't imagine that your solution to the problem of overused fantasy conventions is adding in overused romantic fantasy conventions. And, at least as far as epic fantasy goes, that's pretty much it.

 

[WizarDru]

That may have been one of the most spoilerific posts EVAR.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Although I consider myself fairly jaded and cynical, even I was surprised by the Knights of the Old Republic revelation

Spoiler

that the PC = Revan

. Like all good revelations, the hints were there all along, they were just easy to overlook as you played.

 

[Jeremy]

*cheers takyris for mentioning Melanie Rawn*

 

[Mystery Man]

That may have been one of the most spoilerific posts EVAR.

LOL! Yeah. Some good points raised though.