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The Mass Effect Community Thread |OT2|

Lt-47

Member
No way that's happening. That ship has sailed. Old Bioware is gone. The vast majority of the dev team is gone too. Pretty soon they'll have no devs left from the original Bioware.

There's still quite a few veteran working at Bioware but I can't imagine EA greenlight a game like that again.
 

obeast

Member
They are trying to do BG2 and that's the problem. They can't. They aren't staffed for it. They don't have the animators, they don't have the quest designers, they don't have the VA budget for that scope of a game. What modern BW can do well are games like KOTOR and ME2/3: hub-based games with smaller explorable worlds filled with quality content and max out at 40 hours for a COMPLETIONIST playthrough.

They are setting the degree of difficulty at 10 when they don't need to and it might be hindering them to do so.

And btw, I'm not a Chicken Little and I could still love Andromeda for what it is, but this is how I've felt since 2013 when BW first said they wanted ME to go back to the exploration of ME1. My reaction: nooooooo!

This is a good argument, speaking as as someone who really enjoyed the feeling of exploration in ME1 (my reaction to rumors that ME:A was in the same vein was "yay!"), even though it was mostly awful on the level of narrative and gameplay.

BG2 would be hard for anyone to replicate in a modern gaming world that demands beautiful 3D environments, quality voice acting, and conversation-specific animation. I'd argue that CDPR did something similar in TW3, but that was a total moonshot of a game by a developer with a talent for quest writing and design, friendly management, singular focus, and lower production costs. TW3 could have gone very, very badly in the wrong hands.

That said, I'm reserving judgment on ME:A. I am very forgiving of flaws in narrative RPGs as long as some parts of the game work well. For instance, I liked Dragon Age 2 enough to beat it multiple times, even though I objected to all of its well-documented problems.
 

HaloRose

Banned
No way that's happening. That ship has sailed. Old Bioware is gone. The vast majority of the dev team is gone too. Pretty soon they'll have no devs left from the original Bioware.

Of course they're not there. Do u think people work forever. they've retired. that's why they've bring upcoming young develops.
 

diaspora

Member
What is this discord I keep reading? Like a chat for gaffers?
Sort of. You can set up messaging channels for a server/group and voice chat lobbies for multiplayer or cross-platform communication. Server join link is in the OP but it's hidden in email tags.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
I don't mind reviews but I expected more like 80. Seems the bugs and glitches really took it down. EA doesn't forgive and EA doesn't forget. The Montreal team will be on a tight leash from now on if it really took them 5 years :(
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
If the game’s sales are lukewarm I wonder if they'll go standalone with the multiplayer.
 

Maledict

Member
If the game’s sales are lukewarm I wonder if they'll go standalone with the multiplayer.

Have to say, the merc faction is frigging stupid and endemic of the lack of creativity in the whole game. It shouldn't exist. There is absolutely no way there are that many krogan and asari running around murdering people on the formal mission. There just aren't enough of them!
 
Have to say, the merc faction is frigging stupid and endemic of the lack of creativity in the whole game. It shouldn't exist. There is absolutely no way there are that many krogan and asari running around murdering people on the formal mission. There just aren't enough of them!

I'm just baffled The Pathfinder arrives LTTP with Milky Way people running around everywhere, colonies already abandoned and first contact relegated to Codex entries.

Having the player be the actual pioneer and first on the ground talking to natives is such a no-brainer with this premise... why did they not roll with the frontier theme more?
 

Maledict

Member
Just to cross post, but I'm honestly upset and disappointed in the gay male romance options. You get to chose between two character creator NPCs, neither of whom can be squadmates. It's significantly less options than all other sexualities in the game.

It marks a huge difference to ME3, where we had the first AAA game which allowed your protagonist to have a gay male relationship in a game and for it to be something normal and just happen. I know that won't make sense to a lot of people, but it meant something in terms of LGBT representation - and it didn't hurt that it made Kaiden a much more interesting character to boot.

Now suddenly you can't have a love interest as a squadmate (unlike everyone else), you don't get a partner who even looks normal due to the character creator. Oh, and they haven't bothered with actual love scenes either, just a fade to black.

Very, very disappointed in Bioware for that.
 

Madness

Member
Of course they're not there. Do u think people work forever. they've retired. that's why they've bring upcoming young develops.

Not necessarily that they retired. Just that the studio massively grew from ME1 after EA purchased them. A lot of people they brought on were just fans of Mass Effect and not necessarily worked on the first game. This happens to lot of studios. Compare and contrast Bungie after Halo:Reach. Most of the key people gone, a lot of new hiring and the studio itself changed. Marcus Lehto was Creative Director on Reach in 2010. He came back to Bungie after leaving in like 2012 around 2015 and stated he couldn't even recognize anyone or how the studio was. And if you play Destiny it doesn't feel like Halo felt. You get new artists, new animators, new engines and technologies, new sound directors etc.

For what it is worth, Mass Effect Andromeda is not as bad as people are making it out to be. The game is fun and I am enjoying it.
 
So I'm holding off on ME:A until my 1080ti Gaming X arrives (Mid april?). I've decided to fill the time with a replay of ME3 and finally do the DLC's I've never played using a couple of popular mods

Expanded Galaxy Mod + Miranda Mod
ALOT Texture Pack
Controller Support

being the big 3 I've went with.

I doubt anyone cares but I've also modded my shepard to be a Biotic God

2oOMB9F.jpg


Ultimately I'm looking to package up the class powers and turn them into bonus powers and release it on the Nexus so players can basically create a custom class without all the excess work involved in doing it now. They would just buy the power(s) from the med bay
 
Hmm the game crashed for me in MP, but I could just hit "play" again no problem even though my vpn has been disabled all this time.
 

Prelude.

Member
A few things about ME2:

- How much (interesting) dialogue am I gonna miss if I don't romance any of the main characters? I'm trying to decide if it's worth getting a male save file to import since I'm not interested in pursuing any of the three female Shepard options. I've seen how my imported femShep looks in ME2 and she looks pretty cool, so I'm still not sure.
If ME1 is anything to go by, I don't think I'm gonna do a second playthrough, or at least not a not-new game+.

- ME1 was in very much need of improved textures so I used MEUITM. ME2 seems a lot better in that regard, but is there any essential mod I should know of? Anything that improves it while remaining faithful to the source.
 
A few things about ME2:

- How much (interesting) dialogue am I gonna miss if I don't romance any of the main characters? I'm trying to decide if it's worth getting a male save file to import since I'm not interested in pursuing any of the three female Shepard options. I've seen how my imported femShep looks in ME2 and she looks pretty cool, so I'm still not sure.
If ME1 is anything to go by, I don't think I'm gonna do a second playthrough.
If you romanced Liara in ME1 you can continue the romance in Lair of the Shadow Broker. Regarding the rest of the characters, I like Thane and Garrus is a fan favorite but, honestly, the ammount of content you're going to miss is negligible.

ME1 was in very much need of improved textures so I used MEUITM. ME2 seems a lot better in that regard, but is there any essential mod I should know of? Anything that improves it while remaining faithful to the source.
They're better than ME but some are still horrible. A texture compilation called ALOT exists but I think it's not as easy to install as MEUTIM.
 

Prelude.

Member
If you romanced Liara in ME1 you can continue the romance in Lair of the Shadow Broker. Regarding the rest of the characters, I like Thane and Garrus is a fan favorite but, honestly, the ammount of content you're going to miss is negligible.
I did, because I had no other option basically. If I had to choose I would have picked Tali since I found her to be the most interesting character, and now that she's actually romanceable I still can't romance her because only male Shepard is allowed to. But I guess it's fine if the vast majority of her dialogues are included in normal talk.
I know that Kelly is romanceable and I'm gonna go for her this time, but I'm pretty sure she's a secondary character so it's probably not the same thing.

They're better than ME but some are still horrible. A texture compilation called ALOT exists but I think it's not as easy to install as MEUTIM.
Thanks.
 

HaloRose

Banned
Not necessarily that they retired. Just that the studio massively grew from ME1 after EA purchased them. A lot of people they brought on were just fans of Mass Effect and not necessarily worked on the first game. This happens to lot of studios. Compare and contrast Bungie after Halo:Reach. Most of the key people gone, a lot of new hiring and the studio itself changed. Marcus Lehto was Creative Director on Reach in 2010. He came back to Bungie after leaving in like 2012 around 2015 and stated he couldn't even recognize anyone or how the studio was. And if you play Destiny it doesn't feel like Halo felt. You get new artists, new animators, new engines and technologies, new sound directors etc.

For what it is worth, Mass Effect Andromeda is not as bad as people are making it out to be. The game is fun and I am enjoying it.

You just can't expected other people to make same game what you called *old bioware or old bungie* they want leave own legacy. Young upcoming develops can learn from own mistakes. Like if you join bungie or bioware want to create your own experience instead trying to copy what was done in the past.
 

Renekton

Member
You know what? It seems like majority of the issues can explained by Frostbite, or the team's struggle with the engine.

Bugs
Animation - porting ME assets to Frostbite.
Quest design scripting - DAI seems to have the same limitation.
Writing - some reviewers say the writing isn't bad but the delivery is, so back to animation.
 
You know what? It seems like majority of the issues can explained by Frostbite, or the team's struggle with the engine.

Bugs
Animation - porting ME assets to Frostbite.
Quest design scripting - DAI seems to have the same limitation.
Writing - some reviewers say the writing isn't bad but the delivery is, so back to animation.

Don't think the engine is the problem. They had 5 years to work through those problems no excuse. They could just recode anything that didn't work within the engine. I think they're just not that talented. Plus DAI didn't really have all those issues and it was on a much shorter dev cycle.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Inquisition has tons of janky animations. I'm not sure how much asset porting actually took place, and I honestly don't expect it was much. But yeah, Inquisition has numerous animation problems. If anything Andromeda's play animations are much, much better than Inquisition's.

It's the faces where the quality crumbles. Looking at the comparison posted in the Glass Door thread, from the test footage, I'm really suspicious Montreal ran into face rigging and animating issues with Andromeda. The body animations are basically identical between the prototype and final build, but the facial animations are worlds apart; expressive and distinct in one, robotic and emotionless in another. Given this seems to be a universal point of concern for most of Andromeda, I wonder how much fault lies in technical issues over talent.

Combined with hugely limited character creator, it's like something really fucked up with the human faces on a technical level.
 
Inquisition has tons of janky animations. I'm not sure how much asset porting actually took place, and I honestly don't expect it was much. But yeah, Inquisition has numerous animation problems. If anything Andromeda's play animations are much, much better than Inquisition's.

It's the faces where the quality crumbles. Looking at the comparison posted in the Glass Door thread, from the test footage, I'm really suspicious Montreal ran into face rigging and animating issues with Andromeda. The body animations are basically identical between the prototype and final build, but the facial animations are worlds apart; expressive and distinct in one, robotic and emotionless in another. Given this seems to be a universal point of concern for most of Andromeda, I wonder how much fault lies in technical issues over talent.

Combined with hugely limited character creator, it's like something really fucked up with the human faces on a technical level.

Did they use motion capture techniques for the facial animations?
 
Couple things I don't like about mp:

Keyhole targeting.
Marauders were infamous for this nonsense in me3, being able to pinpoint accurate target you if they see even a pixel sticking out through a crack between meshes.

Peeping under the curtain.
Enemes in me3 did this so they could get an updated look at your position every know and then, however in andromeda, enemies seem to know where you are 100% the time.

Surprise spawns.
Remember that room you were just in? Oh some enemies just spawn in there right behind you.

These were 3 things I disliked about me3mp, and it seems they just brought em on back for andromeda.
Cause why not keep all the dumb stuff as well right?
 

Kagutaba

Member
So I'm holding off on ME:A until my 1080ti Gaming X arrives (Mid april?). I've decided to fill the time with a replay of ME3 and finally do the DLC's I've never played using a couple of popular mods

Expanded Galaxy Mod + Miranda Mod
ALOT Texture Pack
Controller Support

being the big 3 I've went with.

I doubt anyone cares but I've also modded my shepard to be a Biotic God

2oOMB9F.jpg


Ultimately I'm looking to package up the class powers and turn them into bonus powers and release it on the Nexus so players can basically create a custom class without all the excess work involved in doing it now. They would just buy the power(s) from the med bay

Hey, that's great. I would love an easy way to essentially create a class in ME3.
 

BouncyFrag

Member
Screw this I want my money back.


The codex Doesn't talk.
That was the first thing I checked for once I got controls in the game. GOAT narrator voice is missed. I've put in a few hours and so far I can see a lot of the critiques but I wouldn't describe the game as bad as the I'm in the 'meh' camp at the moment. The armor and environments do look good and I'm still getting used to the cover system. I'm calling in sick tomorrow thanks to the flu so can get more time in.
 

Sai

Member
So I'm holding off on ME:A until my 1080ti Gaming X arrives (Mid april?). I've decided to fill the time with a replay of ME3 and finally do the DLC's I've never played using a couple of popular mods

Expanded Galaxy Mod + Miranda Mod
ALOT Texture Pack
Controller Support

being the big 3 I've went with.

I doubt anyone cares but I've also modded my shepard to be a Biotic God

2oOMB9F.jpg


Ultimately I'm looking to package up the class powers and turn them into bonus powers and release it on the Nexus so players can basically create a custom class without all the excess work involved in doing it now. They would just buy the power(s) from the med bay
I was hoping somebody would be able to get the multiplayer powers into the single player somehow. Guessing it can't be done on the 360.

Also, you need Warp Ammo in there. :p
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
So is this game actually bad or are people saying it's bad because it's not getting 10s all across the board?

My copy will arrive today and I expect to enjoy it for what it is, but don't expect it to have that same spark that ME2 had.
 
So is this game actually bad or are people saying it's bad because it's not getting 10s all across the board?

My copy will arrive today and I expect to enjoy it for what it is, but don't expect it to have that same spark that ME2 had.

I'm enjoying it so far, but I'm only a few hours into singleplayer and did a couple rounds of multiplayer to figure out the feel of the combat. In my super distilled opinion, it is a Bioware game. There is some great stuff, some good stuff, some wonky stuff, and a couple cringy things. But the cringe is usually a flopped dialogue line or some background animation. I've been enjoying the music, the graphics, the gameplay, and definitely the talking. Gunplay is fast. It doesn't feel as heavy as ME3's, but I haven't picked up any big guns yet, so we'll see. I always felt that ME3's gunplay felt excellent.
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
So is this game actually bad or are people saying it's bad because it's not getting 10s all across the board?

My copy will arrive today and I expect to enjoy it for what it is, but don't expect it to have that same spark that ME2 had.

I haven't played enough, just barely had time to finish the prologue mission, explore the Nexus(what's available anyway) & Tempest, talk to people, fly around the galaxy map a little. Having fun! Definitely doesn't feel like a 75 to me so far, I'd give it something more like 85 maybe and most of the points taken out would be the disappointing facial animations. I mean, I'm kinda used to it after playing the trilogy almost every year, but everybody was expecting at least an improvement.

One other thing I don't like is the zooming in, but not like classic Mass Effect discussions, when talking to certain minor characters. Depending on where you were when you start talking to them, Ryder could be hiding them completely/partially, or simply being in a weird camera angle that you can't even move.

Maybe my mind will change once I start the real game, if the writing is as bad as people say(doesn't bother me so far...) or if I enter any sort of ridiculous bugs like that video with Ryder, Drack and t-pose models everywhere, but I doubt this is something that's frequent and it will most probably get fixed in some patches anyway.
 
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