Cool vid, got a new sub

​@@triplethtet6734 thank you so much!

Hello, at 9:30 “against” is missing a t

@@Therealonetruejoe oops 😅

Yup. Corporate owned studios have access to more resources but the tradeoff is that they're beholden to an entity that has to show increasing profits every year to please their shareholders.

I hate to say this, I truly do. But that’s right, especially in more creative industries like video games it seems to be better to have a privately owned company that’s run by one person or a small group rather than a publicly traded corporation that absolutely has to increase profits every quarter to appease shareholders.

Publishers and, above all, *shareholders* who run those kinds of companies from the shadows, are the very truly worst part of all of capitalism, especially in the creative world. They ruin everything they touch.

Well yeah Duh...

Independent* *Except Chinese money

Same here, their games used to be great

Star Wars KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1. Ahh, the times when DLCs weren't a massive plague, things got really south with Dragon Age 2 and especially Mass Effect 3

The Citadel was while i won't say perfect, it was a nice send off for the squads.​@Cappuccino_Bunny

EA is the cancer that destroys so many great studios. Only a short sighted fool would let them get a foot in the door.

@@Cappuccino_Rabbit Mass Effect 3 wasn't that bad. its ending may have been somewhat underwhelming, especially on launch, but the game was pretty great throughout. DA2 was kinda dookie, though.

True. That makes them a very special company.

@@notsocasualYT They're indeed legendary world creators standing above almost everybody. I hope they never sell to a public corporation. This is where I'd be fine with nepo babies if they carried the Larian traditions forward.

Sadly, Tencent purchased 30% of Larian after BG3s success

@@AlyssMa7rin Yeah, that news isn't good but I'm going to trust Larian set up appropriate guard rails to prevent their meddling. 10c invests in lots of video game companies and I haven't heard of any undue influence stories about them so let's hope they stay quiet, passive investors.

It's not just the publicly traded company thing though. Because there are still studios that are big publicly traded corporations that still make good games - it's just that almost none of them are WESTERN studios. Capcom, Nintendo, SEGA . . . most of these companies are publicly traded and they still make and publish good games regularly. So it's really a philosophical thing rather than a pure financial thing. *American* corporate mentality is the one which focuses on the "line must go up!" mentality above all else and ruthlessly pursuing this without caring about *how* it can be done. But obviously, not all companies are American, and it's in non-American gaming studios and companies that best seem to be able to keep this perspective these days it seems, whether that's Japanese companies or European, a common denominator is just that they're not North American.

Microsoft is knocking on your door.

More of a vampire because at least the grim reaper kills you instantly, Instead of slowly and painfully

What they did to Westwood with C&C series will never be forgotten.

Any major corporation really

EA is so anti-consumer the moment they bought the NFL franchise after how amazing NFL 2K5 and later could have been with NFL and gaming fans. But dumb NFL gamers continue to support EA games with Madden.

I felt the same with BG3. It made me want to replay older Bioware titles

And the suits who thinks video games are for losers

Not to mention they will borrow heavily against the company to raise profits for shareholders without regard to long term financial viability. Even if absolutely nothing else changed in regards to management, employees, work output, or real profits the debt taken on will bury them sooner rather than later.

I bet you have no clue what a private equity firm actually does for the company.

The entire business strategy for a private equity firm is to seek out firms with alot of potential that need funding to get the cogs spinning. They can also restructure the organisation and ask to take positions on the board of directors. Eventually, the goal is to sell the shares to a higher price than what they bought them for, and also making money from fees and the like. It is litterally a long term investment, and firms that seek private equity funds are probably in financial or some other trouble to begin with.

Don't forget Blizzard North

@@IguanaJoose Yes, indeed. A tragedy so sad, my mind must have refused to add it.

I feel exactly the same!

I know it's a bit of a personal thing, but I would say Dragon Age II and Dragon Age Inquisition are just as amazing in their own ways, but as beat for beat sequels that you are looking for out of Origins they are not, but that doesn't make them any less amazing imo.

@@mrmoviemanic1 As long as you had a good time - it's all that matters.

@@notsocasualYT True mate.

If Larian was owned by EA they would consider those 700 hours "severely undermonetized" because they werent shoving a MTX shop in front of your face the whole time or pushing some 'live-service' bullshit

I hope they keep making great games!

It wasn’t just “non-nerdish masses” as BioWare openly fell into the same trap as so many other developers of that era: “we want the call of duty audience”

I agree with that, looks like is true that a game for all is a game for no one.

The trick isn't to dumb down your game so it's easier for more people to play - the trick is to make the game engaging enough that more players want to learn how to play it.

Agree, no game gave me the same feel for a long time!

BG 1 was the first RPG I ever played. I wasn't even fluent in English back then, and yet I remember the experience fondly. After the Enhanced Edition was released I played it again, and found so much I've missed the first time, just because of the language barrier. It was a wonderful experience, and the people who were involved in it's making deserves credit for making something that great - and laying the foundation for Larian to build on with BG3... Even if the studio itself is but a shell of it's former self.

KOTOR 1&2 was and is the GOAT of series

His story is very motivational 😅

It was dire straits situation. They've even sold their Aurora engine to at the time completely unknown CD Project to try staying independent, but it wasn't enough. Absolute killer was the fact that they didn't own IP for their best selling games and EA locked rights on Star Wars games for long time period.

Bioware die because of the capitalism risk oh yeah they need to be restricted by political correctness.

It's kinda of sad that we never got a sequel. Such a different game!

Jade Empire was awesome.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!

We are very lucky that we've got Larian

I kinda off share the same feeling, but I think will be more like accurately calling it a "spiritual succesor"

@@notsocasualYTI think thats a better way to describe it yes, which is hilarious, as DAO was a loveletter and spiritual successor to BG1 and 2!

@@astralaris8712 They made a strange full circle 😅

As a game, I would say BG3 feels better bc it perfected the balance for making combat and play mechanics engaging without feeling overly complicated. But in terms of story/world-building, DAO was better, through no fault of Larian's. The DnD world is just a bit of a mess, while Thedas just feels like a true living, breathing universe that draws you into its story.

DA2 had it's flaws but at least tried something new with the time skips and a defined protagonist but one you could shape the personality of. DAI went for the most bland and faceless approach to a protagonist and a world that was entirely empty and dull (outside the DLCs). NPC interaction was largely with your party or at special events. While DAO had a a world full of interesting NPCs with story, personality and quests DAI was "collect these items". It also had the most generic and hackneyed fantasy plot, ancient dark lord awakens. It wasn't bad but wasn't in the same league as DAO or BG3 for story or immersive world.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! At the end of the day, that's what matters. I really do hope Dread Wolf will come out well, but I'm quite skeptical about it.

@@101MantI looooved Dragon Age Inquisition. Only game I have ever gotten all achievements on. There’s a lot of depth and personality and way more detail than most people think as many people never escape the Hinterlands and judge the whole game based off that zone. It was so satisfying immersing in the world and they did a great job making an open world Thedas

@CreativeUsernameEh I’m happy you enjoyed it, but personally I find it to be by far the weakest Dragon Age title. It’s still a good game, but I just can’t place it higher than the first 2. DA2 had its glaring issues, but I found the story great and the characters/companions were fairly solid. Even Hawke as a set protagonist wasn’t much of an issue. Inquisition though, the story just felt weak and it shat all over what DA2 had been building. DA2 ends with a massive mage Vs Templar shit storm that seemed like it would change the world, only for Inquisition to essentially turn it into a barely relevant side plot that boils down to you picking a side to be fodder in your army. And the main Villain was a recycled DA2 DLC bad guy… the moment Corypheus was revealed as the bad guy it was a MASSIVE let down. But it wasn’t the end of the world. For the early game it was amazing everything up to Haven I loved especially that final battle which sees the inquisitor go face to face with Corypheus for the first time in What seemed like a guaranteed suicidal attempt to save everyone else. Up until this early point in the game I was loving it, it was tense the stakes seemed high and the situation seemed almost hopeless. And combine that with all the games promo stuff harping the tag line of “lead them or fall” and so by this point I was psyched. If the game kept this dire tone all the way through it would have been epic. Buuuut instead we then gets Leliana’s glee club moment right after on the side of a mountain and everything went downhill from there… The Inquisitor is given an army, a fortress and for the rest of the game proceeds to curb stomp anything that stands in their way. They literally physically go into the fade and only lose 1 person in the process… they’re also apparently this godly warrior/mage despite having no real backstory that would indicate anything like that. They’re either a minor noble before or a mercenary, but either way they’d don’t have any real fighting or combat rep. But can go toe to toe with some of the strongest creatures around. The Inquisitor ends up basically being 100% a Gary/Mary Sue, which isn’t as obvious on your first playthrough, but subsequent play throughs it’s obvious and kind of kills any tension in the story as you know the Inquisitor literally won’t fail at anything after Haven. And that the whole “lead them or fall” tag line was a bunch of B.S. as the Inquisitor not only cannot fail, but cannot die. You can argue the Warden never fails, but the Warden personally builds their army from scratch and it isn’t just given to them. The Warden in basically all Origins is regarded as a fairly adept warrior/mage and is no slouch in combat. And unlike the Inquisitor the Warden CAN die to achieve their goals. Then there’s Hawke, who is not any where close to a Mary/Gary Sue. Hawke despite their fame and all their strength fails on multiple key occasions. By either watching 1 sibling die early. Failing to keep the 2nd sibling from dying/ the wardens/circle-templars. They save the city from the Qunari, but fail to save the viscount who kept Meredith and Orsino balanced. They couldn’t save their mother. And ultimately failed to prevent the Mage vs Templar shit show. Hawke was someone who gained wealth to provide for a family that was dropping like flies and who saved a city once, but failed at literally everything else. And then comes my largest issue with Inquisitions story. And that’s that the actual end to the Inquistor’s story was popped inside a DLC. Like the games REAL ending was a fuggin DLC… that was all kinds of wrong. And that’s not mentioning the companions. Who the vast majority were completely meh. In Origins all the companions were great and even DA2 most of them were pretty good. But for Inquisition I just couldn’t care about any of them really. Cole was kind of interesting and Dorian was likeable and Cassandra was Okay, but she had me intrigued from her appearance in DA2. But the rest I never could care about, no matter how much I tried they just couldn’t hold my interest. And the open world just seemed so unnecessary, just like the stupid war table that ran with real time countdowns which would just artificially inflate playtime. Both these were fine on my first playthrough when the game was at its most interesting, but on subsequent playthroughs it just made the game a massive slog and would usually leave me having to force my self to get to the finish. So yeah, don’t get me wrong despite my crapping on it, I DO like the game. But it will for ever leave a bad taste in my mouth. As it’s a good game, but it had the potential to be so much better than it was.

BioWare didn’t intend to sell to EA.

I really hope we might be wrong about their next games, but I'm skeptical.

That's how it sounds by them potentially reverting back to Shepards story for both fan service reasons + lack of content. It's made me lose faith. I actually have friends who are writers trying to shift from the film industry to the video game industry after the strikes so there's not a shortage of writing talent just whatever they're doing with it. And whatever is happening with Dragon Age is just...ugh.

Oh andromeda lore is already confirmed. ME is finished

Thank you for watching! Unfortunately, it is what it it...

They actually do have great and modern marketing - just direct social media communication that is so much better than traditional ads

Thank you so much! They have a great motivational story. I'm glad everything worked out.

That was an interesting analogy. Let's hope the oldest one will eventually sober up 😅

Im glad you decided to give it a try! Have fun!

Thank you for being here!

Thank you so much! I hope I'll be able to keep up!

Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for this comment.

Thank you a lot! I really apreaciate it.

@@notsocasualYTlooks like it’s picking up a day later! Knew it was gonna do well 🎉

@@Wisdomv3 Never imagined it! 🎉

I hope not! 😅

😂😅

I can’t wait!

Thank you for being here! I really appreciate it!

That's a good one! I thought about it as well, however when I checked Tencent appears to be that they don't have a voting right in Larian - so I believe it doesn't affects their independence. If they'll ever get a voting right... Well, I hope that doesn't happens.

Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for watching

Awesome! Im glad to hear youre having a blast

That's a good analogy

Thank you for watching!

Thank you so much!

Thanks for the suggestion. I thought originally to mention it, but I think this movement deserves a separate video. (so much was going on there!)

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!

Obsidian is my second favorite studio, that im slightly concerned with Avowed, but im sure theyll come up with something great. I wonder what they could do with an AAA budget game

Yeah bg3 is amazing as a board game to fuck around with friends but story just doesn’t seem to be there.

Bg3 could easily have a different title - I agree on that. It seems that nowadays, it is close to impossinlr to make a game that is not a sequel or built up on already existing franchise

Thank you for watching!

It is a great game!

That's amazing! It used to be quite popular back then

Thank you so much. I'll try my best!

Thank you!

Same here, however who knows, maybe one day...

Thank you so much for being here, and I'm glad you liked it! I hope I'll be able to keep up 😅

Hopefully Bioware will find a way out.

And they keep on doing it over and over again...

Have you played pillars of eternity? It might sceatch the same itch as neverwinter

@@notsocasualYT I haven't played that, but my pc is really old now I doubt it will work lol thanks anyway I'll at least check it out on youtube.

@@deusvlad2.083 I don't think the first one is very demanding, but it might be up your alley if you like Neverwinter Nights!

@@notsocasualYT ok thanks m8

It is an amazing game. One of my favorite games ever.

Thanks! That thought was what gave me the initial idea 😅

I felt the same about DAI ans ME3. Thank you so much for this comment, im glad you liked it!

Theyre great games!

It is worth a try!

Try it, you don't need do now DND to play. to be honest the game is Kinda easy in midium difficult, you don't need to optimize builds to finish it, or try hard it to be playable, just don't be stupid and like play a barbarian with high intelligence and you will be fine haha.

My advice is: Don't overthink it. D&D mechanics can be very overwhelming to learn - and even harder to memorize - but the game is pretty casual and forgiving of mistakes, and will even reward experimentation and creative solutions. Sometimes mistakes can even lead the plot in new directions you didn't expect.

Try it. On explorer difficulty you can really just ignore most of the technical aspects. Just keep in mind that in the earliest levels you're super squishy: there may be fights that you can better just avoid for a while in your first run until you have leveled up a bit more if you find you wipe. Don't be discouraged by people minmaxing stuff in their KZfaq honour run tutorials!

I'm glad you liked it! Thanks. Larian's work is really impressive.

They are indeed!

Looks like it. Sad but true

I think Blizzard problems started with World Of Warcraft (of course getting bought by Activision was an issue as well) - I don't think they ever imagined that they will have to become a MMO studio for so many years.

@@notsocasualYTThe problem is that for BioWare's case it was totally unfair. They were sold by private owner to EA for like $ 500k. They didn't get a penny and were then forced to become slaves for EA. Mass Effect being perfect example how EA destroyed the BioWare we loved. Mass Effect 1 was like 100% of the BioWare devs we cared and loved about. The game was little bit janky but it was still a solid BioWare game and people loved it. Mass Effect 2 already started to show the EA signs but it was still a good game of it's time and people loved it even more. But it was only made with 50% of the old BioWare devs. Then came the infamous Mass Effect 3. Oh boy only the 10% original staff members were left by that point and damm it was bad in a EA way. Anthem only had very few elder BioWare like 5 or 7? Which i think pretty much every one left after it. The damage was done. BioWare what we knew and loved was destroyed and dead. For Blizzard it wasn't as unfair. It was more of mistake. WoW was really popular and even on launch it killed the most popular MMORPG on the market EverQuest 1 and 2 it's sequel was aborted because WoW had so much hype around it (They both launched same year of 2004). I mean EQ2 did release but in very horrible rushed state. WoW did drain huge amount of Blizzard staff so i what i understood was that Blizzard wanted to make a deal with Activision to increase their capacity. But turns out Activision (Bobby Kotick) turned their back and pretty much forced Blizzard to be hes slave. And thus the downfall started from there.

i doubt man like sven who went through hell will give it all up for money now. dude kept his relationship and house on line to achieve his vision .. these kinda men are not purchasable with money.

It is. At least weve got Larian now.

Thank you so much! Is quite a crazy story, so many years to finally succeed!

Seems like having a publisher can ruin many studios

Thank you, I'm glad you liked the video!

Very motivational

They used to make great games.

Thank you so much, I appreciate it

Exactly. I watched Mark Darrah test out BG3 and he seemed genuinely upset that the tutorial didn’t hold his hand. He was running through stuff and wishing there was a dash while everyone in the comments was telling him to slow down and actually explore the environment. He got lost in the character creator and decided it was limited because he couldn’t figure it out. The direction BioWare games took just made so much more sense after I watched him play BG3. BioWare doesn’t seem to realize that the people that are going to play their games are already adults and they aren’t stupid. As a result, they dumbed down the dialogue with the stupid wheel with the icons. They drastically dumbed down the combat and I anticipate that the next game is just going to be completely a hack and slash without a strategy at all a la Bethesda (which seems to be what EA told them to aim for.) They definitely dumbed down the story. The story in inquisition is just pathetic. I know a lot of people love the game and the characters are good but there are seriously only two choices you can make in the game that make any difference and there is no way to define YOUR character in what is supposed to be an RPG because they wanted a fully voiced protagonist. (The two choices being red team or blue team and who will I romance. No other choices make any difference at all. In fact you could ignore huge chunks of the game and miss only codex entries and generic mobs.) God I was looking forward to Inquisition and was disappointed within like ten minutes by the lackluster characterization. (Honestly, it was the worst example of a flaw in all of the Dragon Age games. They have an idea of what the real story is and if you don’t follow that story, the game trips over itself making your choices make sense.) BG3 outdoes BioWare by every metric as far as I’m concerned. Even DOSII without the mocap and with the isometric camera, the game was more immersive than Inquisition. The combat was certainly more varied and engaging. There were no battles in any Larian game where I could hold down the A button while I read comments on the KZfaq video I’m watching. But I definitely did that while playing Inquisition. And that’s not even getting into the dialogue and role playing aspects, all of which account for so much more player choice than any BioWare game to date has been able to conceive of. (Textual support is the way the dialogue in Act3 of Origin’s just fails to accommodate a number of possible choices you would have made during the game if you play as a female character. Some of it is pretty funny. They definitely thought the only people that would play their game was boys between the ages of 18 and 24 and those boys wouldn’t stray from what they conceived of as the cannon story. (I say this with love. DA:O is my favorite DA game and I’ve done multiple runs with different characters and origins.))

@@beccangavin And while it flat out *sucks* seeing so many game devs out of work right now, and it is brutal to think (let alone say) that having so many quality devs out from under the umbrellas and control of those who *only* care about our wallets (and how to drain them) might lead them to make their own games... ones with more creativity, more risk, and less "play it safe". In the end the kinds of hardships Larian has had to survive whittled them down to being only those for whom this is a passion they cannot give up on. Ones who will not bow easily to finance vs integrity when it comes to the final product. The kind who make *games,* not profit margins. We should remember that and reward them when they make what looks like something we would enjoy.

DAO was awesome.

Sad but true. I'm glad they made it trough

I'm sorry to hear that! Regards of that, DAO is still awesome.