I played Dragon Age: Origins. Predictably, I feel two things about this game I was so hopeful for.

Bioware has learned nothing from their prior designs except minutia in design. They're still making the RPG equivalent of a B-film. Unintentionally, I am to gather. Yes, the members of the party are all reflecting pop culture symbols like Scooby Doo cartoons and a wide variety of other computer games both past and present, but one cannot help but begrudge Bioware the in-referential parodies. The parody seems almost unfriendly, you see. Stupidity is alwaysthe unfriendly, reflexive gesture of a brain that is starving in some regard.

Bioware has also inexcusably ignored potential of hyping early game licenses. Early paper and pen RPG such as Empire of the Petal Throne, Arduin-Grimoire, Villains and Vigilantes -- all opportune for use and all available. Newer quality RPG such as Pathfinder, Spycraft 2.0, and Mastercraft are all dangling temptingly. What does Bioware do? Offers us another B-quality computer game. This after the insults of Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 showed that Bioware doesn't care about the casual consumer enough to offer easy to use game designtool kits as they promised.

So I am glad that Bioware doesn't have access to the licenses to Forgotten Realms, Baldur's Gate, nor D&D in any form. These games were not so formative as many think. Introducing a John Irving and Magic Realism literary aproach to dialogue and event in D&D computer games was refreshing butisn't central in importance here (nor was it so important there). It was nice of them to reintroduce AD&D to computer games and single-handedly foist computer role-playing games (and by extension RPGs and videogames) back into the public forum.

Bioware does deserve their well-gotten wealth. Yet I think their formula has been written and they'll begin straying more and more into the stale world of repititive game structures. Theymight suffer the same fate as syndicated comic strips. It's a pity but it might happen. It might not though -- and in fact, if they begin diversifying their theme and graphical approach they might come into splendor again.

After all, onceBioware's diffident Star Wars game is made, they'll have access to a 3D jumper. They'll do Q*bert RPGs. Right? Maybe not, but at least they might start approaching broader and more malleablestory systems. Bioware might even beget a few 20s detective/spy thriller CRPGs.

This has little impact on the gaming industry entire.

Turbine screwed up the D&D license making the world's most improbably bad D&D MMORPG, even though people have beendiscussinghow to do such a thing since the early eighties at least. Turbine dealt with it as a meme rather than asa discourse. As a result, D&D 4th edition is turbulence in the fart machine, nothing more, anunpremeditated descriptionof badly made massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Turbine also screwed up Lord of the Rings Online, making it into Everquest 2 of the Rings Online. And Funcom decided to do Conan a disservice by describing it as a war on terrorism between a Scottish comic book superhero with a sword and a fairly anestithized Thoth-Ammon, just because Medieval Total Warmade a better wargame thanthe Braveheart computer game without acknowledgement of this competition as a competition. And behind closed doors it was a competition. A person hears much when many of his friends are highly paid escorts, actual secret society members, and royalty.

Tinker and Smith isn't really capitalizing on their great licensing material. The multiplayer shoot-em-up Microsoft Shadowrun should never have been the computer game it was; that was Microsoft's fault. Shadowrun is not that great a role-playing game (then again, it's one of the best currently published role-playing games) and as a pre-cursor to White Wolf's Storytelling/Storyteller system as well as a pre-cursor to one stylistic approachto gaming intheir World of Darkness game, Shadowrun remains of interest widely. Although most people wouldn't see the reason for Shadowrun's popularity as being resonant with World of Darkness in any way. The real reason Shadowrun is still popular is because it addresses certain real global issues with panache and does so as a high tech version of theBorrible story cycle. Tinker and Smith should find a licensee for Shadowrun and swiftly before their pretty little game is forgotten. 2012 should be the year of Shadowrun. After all, they just need to use a cheap Unreal engine and grab the smartest game designers available. There's alot of ex-Infocom personnel and descendents running about. Why not... you know... grab the aristocrats and beg them for help.

Mongoose and Rebellion Developments are tied together. This might be the marriage no one should care about except to complainthat the trailer park by the junkyard has been a gaming standard since D&D was born. We cannot expect wisdom and luxury to be comingled. One or the other and it's always we choose luxury. Runequest will be a computer game. I asked one of the developers of the original Glorantha setting and he confirmed this. I do not know if it will be an MMORPG, nor if it will actually have RPG elements. We see Runequest is being released by Mongoose in a revised edition (Runequest 2) and we note that King of Dragon Pass is still questionably available. King of Dragon Pass isa noteworthy computer game in the setting of Glorantha and it's only questionably available because the question has always been whether or not someone is de-evolving computer game quality before we receive word ofthese computer games. Rebellion Developments now have ownership of several interestinglicenses: Runequest, Paranoia, Traveller, and Moorcock-based properties. We hope not to see an MMORPG based on their other licenses that are mostly Dethklok as compared to History of the Runestaff. I do catch Dethklok on Adult Swim -- this does not mean I really like it at all.

On an interesting note, City of Heroes and D&D Online have met the fates I thought they would. City of Heroes is going the way of Matrix Online. D&D Online has become "free to play" with purchasable extrasbecause all along it's just been a fancy Facebook application. I do not much commend Cryptic for its failure to exploit its (probably plaguarized) material. Cryptic is doing Star Trek Online which Ihave been claiming to want toplay but I suspect I won't play for long. And I purchased it too. Stupid of me, I should have thought in terms of stark reality. The stark reality is that Pac-Man doesn't make one a better nor more interesting person. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (properly speaking) does as it encourages interest in the Humanities fields of studies. In any case, I encourage everyone interested in playing a game made by Cryptic to take up playing a Facebook application for two weeks in preparation for Cryptic games.

And here comes Dragon Age 2. I cannot possible explain what this means to me except I'm almost always willing to give Bioware another chance, just like I'm willing to give Yale fellatrices another chance.