prag16
Banned
Lots of hyperbole in this topic. "Total shambles of a game" is ridiculous.
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Kotaku: The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development
- Thread starter kulapik
- Start date
I mean, Stargate Atlantis had this guy.
And Michael, too. Andromeda needed a kett with this kind of depth, and it never quite happened. But I'll give BioWare credit -- the Archon and his followers are more interesting villains than plenty of video game baddies. Just not really on the level of the better BioWare fare, like Saren and Loghain.
Yeah, I think anyone who found this story interesting will love my book, which consists of 10 stories like this one, each about a different game ranging from excellent (The Witcher 3) to disastrous (Star Wars 1313). The ME:A story is... DLC.
I lol'd earlier in the comments thread when someone said you should have saved this one for the book and you told them they're right and we should all avert our eyes.
TC McQueen
Member
Todd's the fucking best. Him and Baal are the top tier Stargate villains.I mean, Stargate Atlantis had this guy.
And Michael, too. Andromeda needed a kett with this kind of depth, and it never quite happened. But I'll give BioWare credit -- the Archon and his followers are more interesting villains than plenty of video game baddies. Just not really on the level of the better BioWare fare, like Saren and Loghain.
That said, I really don't get the love for Saren. Sure, he was trying to save everyone in a really dumb way, but for most of the game, he's just a space asshole. Loghain, though, he works a lot better because the player character actually gets to interact with him, so it's easier to bring out the depth in a character.
Honestly, if Bioware actually bothered to either A) give the player and villain time to interact without killing each other (like how Baal and Todd were introduced in Stargate) or B) just went full ham with their villains (like Metal Gear Rising did with Armstrong), they'd feel more interesting across the board.
Mr. Phellps
Member
I thought the Kett were such a mediocre threat. Their motivation seems to be exactly the same as the Reapers': "ascending" other species into one of them.
I thought their visual design was awesome, but story-wise, they were severely underplayed. I never respected them as a threat. I couldn't take them seriously, even less so when Liam's loyalty mission was all about mocking them as if they're nothing.
When I received message that a derelict Reaper had been found in Mass Effect 2 and that I was essentially going in to find out why a research team had gone MIA, I was like "Shit, this is going to be good!". The same happened with the Collector Ship.
I never felt this during Andromeda. Not even when finding Meridian, because the last portion of the game was so fucking rushed that I never had the time to develop the desire of FINDING Meridian, it was thrown at me five minutes later.
I really enjoyed Andromeda for its gameplay and combat, which was the best in the series, but its story is average at best. Not a good thing for a Mass Effect game.
I thought their visual design was awesome, but story-wise, they were severely underplayed. I never respected them as a threat. I couldn't take them seriously, even less so when Liam's loyalty mission was all about mocking them as if they're nothing.
When I received message that a derelict Reaper had been found in Mass Effect 2 and that I was essentially going in to find out why a research team had gone MIA, I was like "Shit, this is going to be good!". The same happened with the Collector Ship.
I never felt this during Andromeda. Not even when finding Meridian, because the last portion of the game was so fucking rushed that I never had the time to develop the desire of FINDING Meridian, it was thrown at me five minutes later.
I really enjoyed Andromeda for its gameplay and combat, which was the best in the series, but its story is average at best. Not a good thing for a Mass Effect game.
Absolutely.
I'd say Loghain is the superior of the two, and I'd consider putting the Illusive Man above Saren for similar reasons. I think Saren just capitalizes well on the time he has, and ME1's third act is so good it helps him raise further in the eyes of the fans.
I also really love
convincing him to stop himself at the end.
In my mind, the perfect game has a little bit of both, yeah.
This is kind of a strange recurring element lately -- subpar antagonists who get mocked by the party as a means to "bring a little much-needed levity to a dark threat" but because they're so subpar, it just kind of comes across as inadvertently apt. See: everyone (and especially Sera) mocking the ever-loving heck out of "Coryphyfish" or whatever in Inquisition.
Great read that helps to clarify the shortcomings of the finished product. The signs of troubled development were there early on and there is plenty of blame to go around, along with plenty of tireless crunch from thankless team members to even bring the game to the state it ended up in.
Found the insight on pre-production dysfunction and the warning signs that were apparent even then particularly enlightening. Same with the admission of regression during the late stages of development instead of seeing everything coming together.
One thing I'm still not clear on is the degree to which Mac Walters helped or hurt the project - on one hand it sounded like it was going nowhere before he was brought in, on the other if his new vision is representative of the writing and tone we got in Andromeda he's a big reason why it left such a bad taste in my mouth. Hard to put it all on his shoulders after reading the article but not sure what BioWare was thinking either, especially with the additional political animosity it introduced between Edmonton and Montreal.
Found the insight on pre-production dysfunction and the warning signs that were apparent even then particularly enlightening. Same with the admission of regression during the late stages of development instead of seeing everything coming together.
One thing I'm still not clear on is the degree to which Mac Walters helped or hurt the project - on one hand it sounded like it was going nowhere before he was brought in, on the other if his new vision is representative of the writing and tone we got in Andromeda he's a big reason why it left such a bad taste in my mouth. Hard to put it all on his shoulders after reading the article but not sure what BioWare was thinking either, especially with the additional political animosity it introduced between Edmonton and Montreal.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Would you settle for a "highly disappointing of a game" then?
Crazy to think they spent that long pre-planning with no real vision and then had to rush the game. All that cascading seem to really hurt the things that kind of mattered the most (story, cutscenes, and animation).
I liked MEA alright, but it is definitely more disappointing than the original trilogy. Damn, I hate to see the series go out like this.
Good work on the article Kotaku.
I liked MEA alright, but it is definitely more disappointing than the original trilogy. Damn, I hate to see the series go out like this.
Good work on the article Kotaku.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
The game is fun though because the combat really exceeds despite the less than stellar worlds and situations it puts you in (except the loyalty missions, where the game actually shines). It's basically a FF13 situation where the game is carried by the combat system alone.
Mr. Phellps
Member
Oh, God, thankfully I never even started a single conversation with Sera. Thought she was annoying from the get go. BioWare can be great at unexpected humor, but sometimes they miss the mark really bad.
In the case o Corypheus, this was handled better, I think. I mean, I never even got that dialogue from Sera, so mocking the villain wasn't as prominent as an entire loyalty mission like in Andromeda. And Corypheus was a better developed villain than the Kett as well.
Inquisition has another example of mocking an antagonist without making them a joke. After Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, if you end up killing the duchess, you actually get to judge her remains. And sentence her with community service, which results in the War Table operation "The Duchess In a Box Tour". It's easily the most hilarious, tongue-in-cheek part of Inquisition and it doesn't undermine the antagonist because it only happens after you've dealt with her.
Short of somebody at EA telling us, nobody knows. Conference presentations don't really give an insight into those workflows. I would say internal tools will be a lot more raw than something like UE4 or Unity, though it may be that they treat their tools etc like a 3rd party would.
prag16
Banned
I wouldn't agree, but it would be a far more reasonable statement than things like "total shambles" "train wreck" "broken" "shit" and "garbage". So sure.
I mean, the game was broken in some ways at launch, and the development story makes it sound like it was indeed in total shambles. The writing/story are pretty shit. It's not that inaccurate.
shitty animations and naggy bugs are one thing that I think more polish and time would have fixed.
What wouldnt be fixed is the half baked story..
I really was excited at the reveal thinking this would be a focus on exploration, diplomacy, building colonies, making crucial decisions on which planet to try and visit next while measuring risk and resources..
instead we arrived in a fully explored galaxy with yet another evil assimilating enemy and an extinct mysterious race... sigh.
What wouldnt be fixed is the half baked story..
I really was excited at the reveal thinking this would be a focus on exploration, diplomacy, building colonies, making crucial decisions on which planet to try and visit next while measuring risk and resources..
instead we arrived in a fully explored galaxy with yet another evil assimilating enemy and an extinct mysterious race... sigh.
I got a question. Why didn't EA let Bioware use the Unreal Engine 4?? Is it because EA doesn't mandate using other engines?? Or is there a company mandated memo stating Frostbite or your project gets canned. The first 3 ME were using Unreal Engines and it did great. EA messed with the formula and tried something new and paid for it by downsizing Bioware Montreal. Think its a damn shame that Mass Effect: Andromeda got released all buggy as hell
matrix-cat
Member
Excellent article. I started getting kind of anxious reading it, thinking about the nightmare that it must have been to show up for work day after day for five years on a project that's just slipping further and further away.
Though I had to laugh at this part:
Good luck with that, guys
Though I had to laugh at this part:
Good luck with that, guys
Auto-Reply
Member
I somehow think the same could be said about Andromeda and the last gen trilogy... heck, even ME1 vs 2 and 3.
I can't help but imagine that even if production would have went according to plan with Andomeda, we still would have gotten a ME game that nobody really ever wanted to see, some people just wanted some of that magic back and it was never going to be found here.
From the article, the decisions seem to be Bioware management's rather than any EA strong-arming.
Frostbite sounded good on paper circa 2013.
Not finished yet but goddamn EA really doesn't know what there doing also Frostbite? Yeah beautiful engine for sure to think it is even more complex than i thought it would.
Could have been much better if it utilized UE4 by that matter. Still very good stuff from jason..a shame how this game ended up..
Could have been much better if it utilized UE4 by that matter. Still very good stuff from jason..a shame how this game ended up..
guybrushfreeman
Unconfirmed Member
Thanks Jason, that was an excellent piece. I feel so sorry for the staff in those conditions. That crunch just sounds brutal. I have no idea how people mentally make it through a situation like that
TBF, UE 4 likely wouldn't have worked out of the box either. It's been having a really slow adaption and some problems on it's own.
How many big open world games have we seen on UE4 that would suggest it would have been much better than frostbite ?
Lol wtf? Have you seen Battlefront? Excellent graphics and performance.
Not dice fault that bioware sucks.
OminoMichelin
Member
Please read the article. The engine not having an animation system is pretty bonkers and unthinkable in 2017.
I guess I was in part right when I said that a lot of problems seemed related to the engine, the question is why they still weren't fixed them by DA. Someone HAD to pick up the phone and talk with the engineers by that point, right?
Frostbite was created specifically for games like Batllefront/Battlefield. The difficulties arose because the games that BioWare creates (RPGs/Action-RPGs) absolutely do not operate the same way that FPS games do. See something like Dragon Age: Inquisition that allows for you to switch between party members and employ a tactical camera, have an RPG-grade inventory and crafting system, etc. Those elements had to be created entirely from scratch.
Great article. Its sad that this is how ME is going to be sent off. I think there is a lot of blame to go around but I think this mostly falls on Bioware's upper management. Their scope was way too big for a game like Mass Effect. You don't have to go to every single planet there is, you just need to make the ones we do get to explore interesting and exciting. And it had no focus either. 3 years and they didn't have a focus until Mac Walters came on board. That's just poor management.
I also think EA's insistence that all their games run on Frostbite is hurting Bioware. Their games don't fit in Frostbite. What does EA expect when they are making them use an engine that doesn't have animations in it and Bioware has to build them on their own? Its amazing that DA was well received (though I think they are just lucky that no good AAA games came out that year or that game would've been shit on instead of being praised) and ME even came out or wasn't more busted than it was. I'm now really worried about DA4. I wasn't big on the direction it took and just hearing how limiting Frostbite is makes me feel that DA4 will never reach its potential.
Did you read the article? Frostbite doesn't have animations in their engine. Bioware had to build them into the engine from scratch all by themselves. EA forcing them to use Frostbite isn't the main reason why ME:A failed but it sure as hell didn't help.
I also think EA's insistence that all their games run on Frostbite is hurting Bioware. Their games don't fit in Frostbite. What does EA expect when they are making them use an engine that doesn't have animations in it and Bioware has to build them on their own? Its amazing that DA was well received (though I think they are just lucky that no good AAA games came out that year or that game would've been shit on instead of being praised) and ME even came out or wasn't more busted than it was. I'm now really worried about DA4. I wasn't big on the direction it took and just hearing how limiting Frostbite is makes me feel that DA4 will never reach its potential.
Did you read the article? Frostbite doesn't have animations in their engine. Bioware had to build them into the engine from scratch all by themselves. EA forcing them to use Frostbite isn't the main reason why ME:A failed but it sure as hell didn't help.
Does it have FFXV?
Edit: Oh I just saw the cover of the book. No FFXV. But still I'd like to read the whole thig so will definitely buy the book in September. Maybe Part 2 will have FFXV?
I think these games should steer clear of procedural generation until they can figure out how to overcome the flaws. Reading the article they pretty much realised the end result that No Man's Sky got eventually.
Sure the team would have had easier time if Frostbite had all the features already, then you take a look at numerous of other games that use their own engine and had to build all from scratch, the team simply wasn't competent enough to craft the missing stuff from Frostbite, be it lack of talent,time or funding. Just look at the comparison videos of dialog system from ME:A vs Witcher 3 it's pretty laughable.
C'mon at least read the article the threads based on. It goes into detail why the engine isn't suited for this kind of game and caused issues for both Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
That was the entire point of who they were.
dr_rus
Member
Why would Bioware move from a tried and tested tech which they've used for at least ten years already to a new engine which doesn't provide that many benefits above what's possible in UE?
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Excellent article. I started getting kind of anxious reading it, thinking about the nightmare that it must have been to show up for work day after day for five years on a project that's just slipping further and further away.
Though I had to laugh at this part:
Good luck with that, guys
This is an unpopular opinion, and I love BW, but they always have been up their own ass.
Always.
This isn't a new development. They've always thought they were the King Shit, and internally refer to themselves as the King Shit.
darkinstinct
...lacks reading comprehension.
The article says that but I find that hard to believe. Battlefield has a lot of animations, so of course Frostbite has support for animations.
RayCharlizard
Member
Because UE4 wasn't ready and they saw how pretty Battlefield 4 was and thought "this is the one." /s
Seriously though, Frostbite was used for one title that wasn't a shooter until DA:I, which also had a troubled development. Only EA can be blamed for pre-production woes, I'm just surprised they gave Bioware so much time to push out Andromeda.
Without issues in Dragon Age? The DA dev team has famously complained about Frostbite multiple times. Getting Frostbite to work was a massive pain and one of the largest challenges for the Dragon Age team, as the article mentions.
It just looks like the Dragon Age team had better leadership and planning and was able to overcome the challenges in a way that the ME team couldn't.
I'm reading between the lines here, but it sounds like in the rivalry between Edmonton and Montreal communication broke down, and some of the solutions that Edmonton found to the Frostbite problems weren't handed over to Montreal.
panda-zebra
Member
Very interesting and eye-opening read, it's more understandable why certain aspects of the game are such a step backwards from previous ME games. There's a few parallels with Destiny in some regards. Tempted by the book now, love this kind of insight.