I'm not down...it's not even solely about this game really. It's just a video game. I've had discussions with people who think the original games are shit, never bothered me. Heck I've called out a bunch of stuff in BioWare's games before that I think they could improve on.
I've just noticed the cynicism and pettiness rise over the past couple years. It's been building up, and constructive and valueable discussion waning. It's not the kind of community or group of people I like to chat up about games with. Once I start getting accused of astroturfing and junk like that, I realize what I say doesn't really mean anything. The circlejerking's gotten too large for meaningful and valuable discourse.
You all have been fun to chat with, and I've loved all the great people I've met from this site, but it's not worth it since it's become an echo chamber.
If anything, we need you to stay here more than ever.
Look, I've been honest with my criticisms and skepticism of Andromeda. We've personally talked about this. I've had my peaks and valleys in terms of looking forward to this game. You told me over and over "this issue will be addressed" and "you're gonna love this next trailer" and more often than not you've been correct. I still think the first cinematic trailer was the trailer I had spent 2 years waiting for, the first time I actually felt like "this is a real Mass Effect game".
But... you're also not wrong on the budding cynicism, only I don't think it's been merely the last couple of years. Dragon Age 2 left a SOUR impression with many, and then Mass Effect 3 (which even I adore) basically imploded on itself with the controversy about its ending. That was a megaton bomb that years later still hasn't cleared out the fallout. You can't even talk about ME3 without mentioning the ending. I'm someone who actually even likes the ending post-Extended Cut, but I know the general tone of that game is one with a shadow of disappointment, outrage, and anger that lingers still.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is a more recent example, and I'd be lying if I said that, despite enjoying my time with it, it was a far more bloated, boring, and uninteresting title for me to slog through than I wanted. As a controversial opinion (perhaps not), I think I enjoyed playing DA2 more than Inquisition, despite acknowledging all the flaws that game had.
But I was there when the Bioware forums imploded over ME3's ending. When the fanbase love affair died. When every single thread, every single topic, was inescapable in its thunderous cries of protest and outrage, demanding answers and accountability. I remember the polls. I remember the rants. I even contributed a few more reasoned and cool-headed ones myself. But I was keenly aware that, in those weeks and months that followed, the giant group hug that was the Mass Effect fanbase was permanently and irrevocably shattered. We no longer were posting funny comics about our love interests, no longer gushing over who had the best loyalty mission, no longer sharing our thrilling stories of who survived the Suicide Mission, no longer speculating on which parts of ME1 and ME2 our saves could carry over into ME3, no longer coming up with our ideas of how ME3 would resolve all these conflicts, no longer making connections, forging friendships, or keeping each other happy and hyped.
It was over.
The Bioware forums turned into a cesspool practically overnight after the ME3 ending debacle and it never recovered. It was too caustic, and it really bums me out because those folks were, at one point, one of the most creative, funny, uplifting, positive, clever, and supportive fanbases on the planet. Even the start of ME3's ending had us get together to send them cupcakes as both a sign of our displeasure and yet a thank you for all their hard work, or arranging charity play sessions to drum up "Hold the Line" changed ending campaigns but put towards a better cause. But the cynicism and anger won out, even after the endings were addressed.
And it spilled out to everyone else. Bioware shut down their forums, and many of those Mass Effect fans gravitated elsewhere, many of them coming here (like myself).
The general perception of Bioware shifted hard since then. No longer were they the kings of RPGs. No longer were they genre-defining, trend-setting, or guaranteed masterpiece-making. For all my criticisms, I HATE the way history has been altered. "Bioware games were always like this. Bioware games were always this janky. Bioware games were always this bad. That's some trademark "Bioware jank" tm."
BS. Bioware was so ahead of the curve ten years ago that I feel like I'm from a different timeline. They were steamrolling over their competition in regards to visuals, animations, dialogue, player choice, characterization, world building, and ambition. That's what hooked me in the first place, and it's why so many of us revisit those older titles. So many of them still hold up, still are special, and still stand head and shoulders over their peers.
But the perception of Bioware has shifted. Many initially blamed EA for this, and there's some truth there. EA's business interests slowly disrupted Bioware's self-sufficient talents. We began to see them alter their ambitions to suit the corporate demands that EA imposed on them ("get DA2 out in two years!" "Add in these microtransactions!" "It needs multiplayer!' "Make mobile tie-in games!" etc.), but Bioware was talented enough to keep their corporate masters at bay and spin straw into gold in many cases. That simply couldn't last forever.
I don't think Bioware is as good as they used to be. I don't. The culture of gaming caught up with them and has begun to leave them behind while other franchises have picked up their torch and ran with it. But at the same time, the revisionist history of Bioware from jaded fans and skeptical gamers does a huge discredit to Bioware and Mass Effect, painting not just a certain scene as bad, or a whole game as awful, or a whole franchise as garbage, but a whole amazing team as "lazy devs" and slackers unable to make something groundbreaking again. To a far lesser degree... I felt that as a Zelda fan following Ocarina of Time until Breath of the Wild, with amazing games that still felt like safe imitations of a winning formula spinning its wheels for 19 years.
But that's a discredit to the legacy of Bioware and Mass Effect. From tackling major player-driven consequences to saves transferring between titles to loyalty missions to dynamic camera angles during conversation to merging RPG mechanics with action mechanics to so much, SO much more. We see its influence in countless, amazing games today, ones that would not have been anywhere near as good without Bioware laying the groundwork for generations to come.
We have forgotten. We have grown complacent. We take the things Bioware built from the ground up for granted now that everyone copies what they did well.
But, we should take time to remember, regardless of what Andromeda's perception is, despite wacky bugs and glitches that'll be ironed out, that Bioware gave us far more than we ever expected, and raised the bar so high that even they eventually couldn't meet the lofty standards they set for the whole entire gaming industry.
And if ME3's entire debacle has taught me one thing, and one thing only... it's that Bioware does care, more than we'll ever know, and can and will do so much to make it right, even more than we deserve or will ever admit.
I may not buy Andromeda at launch... but I have no doubt in my mind it'll get my purchase one day and, by then, I'll love it just as much as some of my favorite Bioware titles.
So... don't lose hope. And, in the off-chance that any Bioware dev is reading this, please do know that we appreciate not just everything you've done, but everything you're still doing. It's a hard enough task to make a brand new game. It takes a miracle to create a whole new universe.
... And you guys have given us so many universes already.
At least the book releases the 21st over here.
