Upon rolling out its “massive” 1.2 patch earlier this week, Bioware fell into a tad of a PR mess, after offering to give their “most valued players” (active players with at least one maxed-out character) free months of gametime (among other rewards). The backlash was enough to prompt Kotaku to run this story, discussing the qualifications of a valued player and summing up some of the complaints on the forums.
Now today, the man himself (no not that man), Dr. Greg Zeschuk, has released some info on the forums, widening the free month of gametime for a new definition of “most valued players”: those that have reached Legacy Level 6. Don’t ask me what that means; his explanation is as follows:
First, you need to have passed Chapter 1 to unlock your legacy. Examples of how to get to Legacy Level 6 include:
- A pair of characters Level 45 and 42
- A trio of characters of Levels 45, 32 and 32
- A bunch of characters Levels 35, 33, 31, 29 and 20
- A single 50th level character that has enjoyed the endgame for a brief time
Remember these are just examples – you’re free to choose how to earn your Legacy experience to gain Legacy Level 6.
For me, that sounds great. Some of the arguments against max-level characters being the only criteria of a valued player revolve around people who suffer from alt-itis (or altoholics), people with other responsibilities (read: other, more fun game interests), or people with two-year-olds running around, wiping their nose on everything in the house (including, but not limited to keyboards and mice).
The post goes on to explain that they are going to extend the amount of time players have to reach this tier, allowing active subscribers to cram the last little bits of legacy-gaining until April 22nd.
I think it’s a good move, PR-wise, and one that might help EA avoid the ‘Worst Company of 2013‘ title next year.
Personally, I have a problem with the fact that they caved under pressure by a bunch of whiny little bitches. Not that they weren’t doing the right thing; that’s debatable. But I’m worried about the sense of entitlement that many gamers are getting (specifically toward Bioware, ironically enough). Like the Reverend touched on in his Mass Effect 3 review, gamers are forming these unhealthy relationships with games, assuming rights in the way companies create and maintain their content.
If Sully had died at the end of Avatar, leaving behind several pregnant and confused Nav’i, and a bunch of people started asking Cameron to change the ending, he would laugh. If J.K. had killed off Harry, I doubt she would even consider changing the ending because of pissed-off readers. It’s a troubling trend in gaming, and I’m sure that there are philosophical or social reasons for this (something to do with the rise of crowd-sourced beta testing, aggregated data-sharing, or Kickstarter funding), but as someone who has some experience with working with students, I know that if you give an inch, soon you’ll be asked to give a mile.
I might be biased, as I haven’t been a fan of a lot of the SW:ToR forum-posters ever since my first beta-testing weekend. Many came across as whiny bitches, expecting a fully-functional and bug-free MMO right out of the gate. It seemed that there was this ridiculous mix of people expecting a WoW clone with Star Wars characters; a bunch of Galaxies refuges, hoping for more of the same; and a slew of MMO snobs who were so critical of everything in the game, I could only wonder what in the hell they were doing, testing a game that they hated so much.
I can’t fault Bioware for caving under the pressure (even though I do), and I’m not sure if they’re doing it because they care, because they are trying to create a friendly brand image, or if they’re worried about the game not being as successful as they had hoped (The game is consistently discounted, they have given 25 free friend invites to each player, and they keep giving out free weekends—all possible actions of a troubled game).
Yes, I understand that there is a lot of conjecture here, but what do you think? Are they caving or caring?
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I agree 100% with you. Had a little argument a while back, about that, on G+.
Discussing exactly a Bioware game.
Someone was saying that DA2 was a bad game. I asked, “Well why old chap?” and, even though some of the reason are valid and well known, one of the reasons made my spider sense tingle.
“The less lovable character of all, Anders”
Well, Anders its a creation of one of the authors of Dragon Age 2. You liking the character or not has nothing to do with how good the game is. Anders its a character and if he makes you feel something, then he damn well is doing a good job. Its unsettling how people are sensing they now own the story and the content of the games they play, to the point that a video game writer its loosing all freedom of expression.
This might be an unforeseen evolution to the fact that in Bioware games, players are very active in choosing how and when the story evolves. They somehow feel more like authors and less like players.
They are not. People labored in all those options you make, you are not actually in a position to decide what they should have done. Take their narrative and be happy with the fact that it makes you feel uncomfortable or that it makes you look beyond yourself. That’s what good narratives do to you.
You bring up a good point. There could be a direct link between player choice and a sense of entitlement, and yes, making them feel like an author instead of a player could give them a sense that they have a right to dictate how things should play out.
Ironically, if they were an author, they wouldn’t have that much choice in the development, either. But I digress…
To answer your question, as to whether or not Bioware is caring and caving, I’m going to say caring. The press release I read distinctly said the new DLC would “explain” the ending for us feeble minded who apparently need doctorates to understand it. Since they are not changing it, they’re not caving, therefore they must be caring. (I only had two choices.)
As for the ending… I am the first person to jump on the masses for being whiny, but in this case I will defend them. Partially because I think they are right, partly because the only two posts so far are against them!
You used Harry Potter as an example. I only read the first book, but discussed the series in depth in my Children’s Lit class. From what I can gather, J.K. is an intelligent author who had a purpose for everything that happened – including the deaths of some key characters. If Harry died at the end, I’m fairly sure, while disappointing, it would have been intelligently and purposefully done, leaving less of a nerd rage in its wake and – since I was the only guy in the class – I assume a lot of tearful women.
The Mass Effect ending – after three $60 games and hundreds of playing hours – was absolutely the most horrendous mess I’ve ever read or seen. I was prepared for a bad ending because most stories I read with all powerful enemies often end bad. But this was beyond anything I was prepared for – especially when I exited out of the credits and saw that… ugh. Nothing about the end made any sense. The only thing I can think of is it was a dream – and I hope that’s not true. I’ll give Inception a pass since that was a movie about dreaming (still hated that ending), but the “it was all a dream” ending is the ultimate hack’s ending requiring the cutting off of fingers and removal of tongues so said writer(s) can never tell another story. And oh yeah, three complete different choices all end with the same ending. If I feel entitled to anything, I suppose it’s competence. I’ve read lots of great books that didn’t end the way I wanted them to, but the endings made sense. After months of endless promotion about how your in game decisions result in drastically different endings Bioware brought this on themselves.
If you’re really interested in my full opinion about the game, I can post up my review of ME3, which IMO was a very flawed game even without the travesty of an ending. For me the ending just exasperated these flaws. All these suck up game journalists should be ashamed of themselves for all the 9 and 10 scores they’ve been handing out like M&Ms at Halloween.
I would also submit, that not liking Anders (never played that game) does make it a bad game, as it directly affected that person’s enjoyment of the game. Jessica Sanchez may be the best singer on this year’s American Idol, but she’s annoying so I’m not voting for her (that is if I did bother to vote.) I think baseball is a terrible game and I use it as a sedative. But hey, maybe you’re on the edge of your seat for that late inning double switch and think it’s the greatest concept of human history. To each their own.
JP, if you don’t mind me calling you JP, I think that you raise a couple of good points.
“the “it was all a dream” ending is the ultimate hack’s ending requiring the cutting off of fingers and removal of tongues so said writer(s) can never tell another story” I tend to agree with that, unless you are trying to say that there is something intrinsically important about the act of dreaming itself, or if you’re clumsily equating sleep with some other aspect of the story… Holy shit I still haven’t finished ME3, and I’ll be honest: when the shitstorm about the ending started, I was so worried that it was all a dream… Please, please, please don’t let it be… Not out of a sense of entitlement, but just because I like the idea of space operas being real.
And yes, I do think that they’re caring, but I think they’re caring about PR more than their audience. The original post was about Star Wars more than ME3, but there’s definitely a link there. I would like them to say something and stick by it (as a writer, I’d love it if the writer’s vision was protected and defended, but that never seems to happen), even if it pisses some people off. That being said, if you structure a game where it’s better to play multiple play-throughs rather than one sustained play-through (Star Wars and to a lesser extent, DA1 & 2), you better take that into consideration when doling out presents.
And yeah, I’d always love to read a harsh review. the0therbk[at]gmail[dot]com
Sent! It’s not terribly harsh. I contained the sailor in me. But it was a 4 page rant so I didn’t even touch on multiplayer. Which I love.
If you like harsh reviews (and don’t mind a metric butt-load of f bombs) have you ever checked out Zero Punctuation? It’s really the only video game site I go to regularly. I thought the guy hated every game he’s ever played until I saw his Top Five of the year, then I was like “Wow, I didn’t know he actually liked that game.” If I had to choose a personal hero on the internet it would be that guy.
I can’t say much about The Old Republic. Played it for three months. Thought it was a great game. Had zero issues with it on an older computer. I only quit because I’ve determined paying online subscriptions for video games it retarded. There were times playing Warcraft that I thought I should be getting a discount! Once you start drawing lines, people outside the lines not getting the goodies get upset. Is it an EA thing? Or a Bioware thing? I always thought Bioware was a great company, maybe the modern age of communicating is exposing them, maybe they they’ve changed, but I can’t remember ever being really pissed about some business decision they’ve made regarding their games before now.