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[orichalcos]

So no multiplayer characters or maps?

New charachter: Turian agent. No new maps. New weapon X5Ghost.

 

[Noisepurge]

"On ice/hiatus" doesn't mean canceled, but it could mean a situation where we won't see another game for over 5 years.

Yeah, and when we do, it's a new reboot with Shepard against the Reapers or something all new again. Andromeda and the choices we made here are dead.

 

[Madness]

Yeah, and when we do, it's a new reboot with Shepard against the Reapers or something all new again. Andromeda and the choices we made here are dead.

Doubtful. They would probably just pick up from Andromeda 2 with it being like 5 years later, Prodromos is a city of thousands now, the Nexus is finished, Quarians and the other species have joined etc. Tell a new story in Andromeda. I do feel ultimately they will pne day revisit post-ME3 milky way, but they aren't there yet.

It isn't dead, just on hiatus for 'now'... we have to see how Edmonton's new IP does. If it flops they'll be on Mass Effect again in short time.

 

[Dany]

No. I really don't care about anything in Andromeda.

Bring the series back in the milky way galaxy. They struck gold with the characters, lore and stories from the original trilogy. Andromeda is rote and boring in every way. This game reminds me of a b-tier Ps2 game that thought it was a AAA game.

 

[Madness]

I feel you. I also want a post ME3 story set in the Milky Way. But it would be an even bigger mistake not to finish what they started with Andromeda. There are too many loose ends and characters now in Andromeda. By the time the next game even comes it will probably have been a decade since ME3 ended.

So even if they go back to ME4 and milky way I will always be wondering about Cora and PeeBee and Jaal and Drack and Remnant and Kett and a whole bunch of other things. I have harped on Andromeda as a setting but now that you have the core set up. Give it back to Edmonton, hire some better quality writers, and make a better game. Maybe some DLC would have alleviated some of this.

 

[Arklite]

I don't get the obsession with the milky way unless people really just want the old crew back. The imminent threat is gone and the galaxy is potentially extremely different depending on ending picked. In either case it's up to compelling story, writing, and tight mission design to push a good narrative. The problem with Andromeda is the execution with each of those, not the galaxy.

 

[Blue Ninja]

After yesterday's news, I think this'll be the last we hear of the universe as we know it. Maybe we'll get a novel to tie up some loose threads, assuming the other novels even get released.

Maybe in a decade or so, they'll reboot the franchise. They could literally start at the start of ME1's story and begin anew.

 

[Neolombax]

New charachter: Turian agent. No new maps. New weapon X5Ghost.

Is the weapon available in single player as well or just MP?

 

[Tony Redgrave]

I don't get the obsession with the milky way unless people really just want the old crew back. The imminent threat is gone and the galaxy is potentially extremely different depending on ending picked. In either case it's up to compelling story, writing, and tight mission design to push a good narrative. The problem with Andromeda is the execution with each of those, not the galaxy.

To be honest, I think people just want the Citadel, Tuchanka, Illium, Rannoch, Thessia, Palaven, the Flotilla and all the rest of the cool locations we barely even got to see back. I know I do at least.

I mean, a current gen ME was a perfect opportunity to explore all that since the Wards alone could carry a whole game by themselves if you use them as big locations (like Witcher 3 cities) instead of hubs.

The Milky way was largely unexplored, many dormant Mass Relays pointed to unknown locations and around ME2 time there were still new alien races being discovered. There might not have been another 'ancient alien race' like the Remnant to base a game around but at the end of the day the Milky Way is simply a more complex and interesting setting, at least compared to Andromeda as it was presented to us.

 

[Ovek]

I really want a comprehensive post-mortem of this game's development. I want to know what the fuck happened.

I bet feature creep happened a lot. BioWare publicly stated that they pissed away an entire year developing a No Man's Sky clone and then ditched it so god only knows what went on behind closed doors.

The game feels patched together because it probably was in the last year of development in a effort to get it out on time.

 

[Patryn]

Doubtful. They would probably just pick up from Andromeda 2 with it being like 5 years later, Prodromos is a city of thousands now, the Nexus is finished, Quarians and the other species have joined etc. Tell a new story in Andromeda. I do feel ultimately they will pne day revisit post-ME3 milky way, but they aren't there yet.

It isn't dead, just on hiatus for 'now'... we have to see how Edmonton's new IP does. If it flops they'll be on Mass Effect again in short time.

I really don't think so. Andromeda didn't sell what EA needed it to sell and wasn't received well, so why should they burden a new game for a new audience with a bunch of references to characters and settings that many people either don't know or don't like or feel an attachment to?

The easiest thing for them to do is just cut all that stuff loose and start over again fresh. That's why I think if there is another Mass Effect game in the future, it'll just be a total reboot.

 

[Cranberrys]

I'm so pissed right now. So I love the game, I'm having a blast with it, but it seems I'll never know what will happen in Andromeda because a X number of people and game journos hated the game and went berserk over it. My 100+ hours are basically worthless (well, I had a good time sure). It's not fair.

When I dislike a game, I don't bring armaggedon to the gamers who like it and I don't waste my precious time talking about such a game, I just play an other game.

 

[Madness]

I really don't think so. Andromeda didn't sell what EA needed it to sell and wasn't received well, so why should they burden a new game for a new audience with a bunch of references to characters and settings that many people either don't know or don't like or feel an attachment to?

The easiest thing for them to do is just cut all that stuff loose and start over again fresh. That's why I think if there is another Mass Effect game in the future, it'll just be a total reboot.

My friend, rebooting will serve no purpose. Why? Because the first is considered one of the best games of all-time and people will have fond memories of the characters and places. They would be smarter to release a 4K remaster of all the games at 60fps with updated visuals and then do a Mass Effect 4 sequel if they go that route.

Also, Andromeda wasn't received well because of its technical issues. The story was still well liked enough that people/fans are already cosplaying the characters, making art and videos. There is no new audience. The fans will still primarily be fans who bought/played ME1 to ME3 and Andromeda. Andromeda 2 because it is so open ended they can go anywhere, whereas the original trilogy, they will be forced to pick a choice and make it canon along with a lot of other decisions. They aren't brave enough for that yet. Maybe once Andromeda is fully done. Also, a lot of Andromeda sales will happen once they are finished patching. This game isn't going away. People will still want to buy and play. If we can remember ME3 5 years later, we will remember Andromeda 5 years later.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Is the weapon available in single player as well or just MP?

Yes, it shows up in the research terminal.
I like it so far.

 

[prag16]

I don't get the obsession with the milky way unless people really just want the old crew back. The imminent threat is gone and the galaxy is potentially extremely different depending on ending picked. In either case it's up to compelling story, writing, and tight mission design to push a good narrative. The problem with Andromeda is the execution with each of those, not the galaxy.

Agreed. The missteps in ME:A imo have NOTHING to do with which galaxy they're in. This obsession with the Milky Way is irrational at this point. They screwed the pooch on that with the ME3 ending. Maybe if EA disagrees and thinks the problems WERE with the galaxy that they were in, they might do something like Madness says below at the end of his first paragraph.

My friend, rebooting will serve no purpose. Why? Because the first is considered one of the best games of all-time and people will have fond memories of the characters and places. They would be smarter to release a 4K remaster of all the games at 60fps with updated visuals and then do a Mass Effect 4 sequel if they go that route.

Also, Andromeda wasn't received well because of its technical issues. The story was still well liked enough that people/fans are already cosplaying the characters, making art and videos. There is no new audience. The fans will still primarily be fans who bought/played ME1 to ME3 and Andromeda. Andromeda 2 because it is so open ended they can go anywhere, whereas the original trilogy, they will be forced to pick a choice and make it canon along with a lot of other decisions. They aren't brave enough for that yet. Maybe once Andromeda is fully done. Also, a lot of Andromeda sales will happen once they are finished patching. This game isn't going away. People will still want to buy and play. If we can remember ME3 5 years later, we will remember Andromeda 5 years later.

We haven't always seen eye to eye in these topics, but I agree 100% with everything in this post. This is also why I don't think they'll COMPLETELY abandon support. I think they'll still do the June patch they promised, and I actually think there's still a good chance we get ONE (but no more than that) substantial single player DLC expansion.

The first impression wasn't what they wanted and needed, but it's too late to change that now. But they can still change the way the game is remembered. As you say a lot of sales will not occur until after the patches. Even if they're discounted sales that don't help EA's bottom line as much, those long tail sales are CRUCIAL in repairing some of the mindshare, and with that type of continued support even from a small team, it lets fans know they still care about Mass Effect, and will help keep a more positive impression in the minds of fans when they bring the series back out of hiatus in 6-8 years or whatever.

This actually may be much ado about nothing, honestly. I was raging last night, but thinking about it now, and reading some posts about Bioware's schedule, there probably was never going to be another Mass Effect in less than 4-5 years REGARDLESS of the reception, between the massive work on the new IP and presumably DA4.

Actually the "It's dead, Jim." from Shinobi is the big blow here, not the Kotaku piece (assuming Shinobi got that from a source other than Kotaku). Either way, Andrew Wilson looks kind of silly assuming there's any truth to any of this.

 

[mbpm1]

Yeah, but I assumed it would take even longer than 4-5 years now with the added hiatus status.

I guess some games are just generational now.

 

[dankir]

Maybe its just me but I find the game looks a bit cleaner or the visuals are popping a bit more after the 1.06 patch.

60 hours in 60% done, pretty good so far. Main story is picking up

Spoiler

Salarian Ark rescue from the Archon mission was very cool

 

[Patryn]

My friend, rebooting will serve no purpose. Why? Because the first is considered one of the best games of all-time and people will have fond memories of the characters and places. They would be smarter to release a 4K remaster of all the games at 60fps with updated visuals and then do a Mass Effect 4 sequel if they go that route.

Also, Andromeda wasn't received well because of its technical issues. The story was still well liked enough that people/fans are already cosplaying the characters, making art and videos. There is no new audience. The fans will still primarily be fans who bought/played ME1 to ME3 and Andromeda. Andromeda 2 because it is so open ended they can go anywhere, whereas the original trilogy, they will be forced to pick a choice and make it canon along with a lot of other decisions. They aren't brave enough for that yet. Maybe once Andromeda is fully done. Also, a lot of Andromeda sales will happen once they are finished patching. This game isn't going away. People will still want to buy and play. If we can remember ME3 5 years later, we will remember Andromeda 5 years later.

Few things:

Mass Effect 2 is considered one of the best games of all time. Mass Effect 1 less so, and I say this as a person who considers ME1 possibly my favorite game of all time.

Secondly, Battleborn had people cosplaying. Don't mistake a handful of fans creating art and the like as widespread support. In fact, the story was very much criticized in a lot of reviews. I definitely saw a lot of people talking about how they couldn't really connect to the crew.

Thirdly, a full reboot makes a lot more sense than a remaster because it allows them to start fresh, instead of rehashing design decisions from last gen. In fact, if you recall, one of the reasons EA cited for ME's reception is its dated game design.

 

[emag]

This actually may be much ado about nothing, honestly. I was raging last night, but thinking about it now, and reading some posts about Bioware's schedule, there probably was never going to be another Mass Effect in less than 4-5 years REGARDLESS of the reception, between the massive work on the new IP and presumably DA4.

I disagree. Had the reception of Andromeda been more positive (in terms of sales, at least), I believe EA/Bioware would have had the Montreal team continue with an Andromeda sequel that would be released in ~2 years using the essentially the same technology with some minor tweaks. The protracted development of Andromeda was due to a new team experimenting with different directions on a new engine; a sequel, on the other hand, would simply build upon the existing framework, like ME2->ME3 (or any of EA's annual releases).

 

[obeast]

In fact, the story was very much criticized in a lot of reviews. I definitely saw a lot of people talking about how they couldn't really connect to the crew.

Yeah, I think that it's important to separate two things that clearly had an impact on ME:A's reception and sales: 1), that it had "hilarious" animation bugs or oddities that were easy to snip and tweet/post/whatever; and 2), that it delivered a ho-hum story experience and gameplay behind these superficial flaws.

Obviously, 2) is more subjective, and some fans of the game disagree, but I think it's fair to say that most of the critical reviews responded to 2) at least as much as 1). And a metacritic score below, say, ~85% is a kiss of death to a single-player AAA RPG.

Personally, I would rank ME:A's flaws something like this:

1) Generally uninspiring story, characters, and dialogue. I liked parts of the game, and thought certain missions were outright good, but there were long, long stretches in which I had to force myself to complete various dialogue trees and questlines - including major story points in which the game really needed to make me feel something, and didn't (

Spoiler

first contact with the Angara leaps to mind - in a better game, that would have been a soaring moment, in which music, cinematography, and dialogue manipulate me into feeling heroic. I did not feel heroic or anything else. I felt bored.)

. ME:A also had some outright bad dialogue and writing, but that I can deal with in a game this size. Its greater sin is a general -- but not total -- lack of interesting moments. I will say that certain main-story and loyalty missions are quite good, on balance. But they comprise maybe 10-15% of the the game.

2) Bloated and repetitive questlines and activities. Quests are too long, involve too much travel, and have too many redundant steps. The first Vault I solved was really neat; by the 4th, I was very, very sick of activating monoliths and what have you. Most long questlines are 20% wheat, 80% chaff. The worst part of this is that the game is very bad at signaling to you which questlines are worth doing, and that many good questlines begin with a series of fetch quests. In my playthrough, this caused me to miss a bunch of good quests (or more specifically, I did the first few steps and never completed them, because the first few steps were tedious).

3) Bad animation, and (especially) a lack of production values in sidequests. This does matter, in that it makes many sidequests feel pointless, and undermines their ability to intrigue or move the player.

4) Static, unconvincing, and faintly MMO-ish worlds and quest hubs.

[big gap]

5) Animation weirdness and other bugs. I honestly don't much care about this, and had relatively few bugs in my (unpatched) initial playthrough on PC.

All that said, I am really saddened that they are apparently killing the series for the time being. I still like ME:A despite all my complaints, and I really like the original trilogy. There just aren't that many games operating in a similar space.

 

[prag16]

Yeah, I think that it's important to separate two things that clearly had an impact on ME:A's reception and sales: 1), that it had "hilarious" animation bugs or oddities that were easy to snip and tweet/post/whatever; and 2), that it delivered a ho-hum story experience and gameplay behind these superficial flaws.

Obviously, 2) is more subjective, and some fans of the game disagree, but I think it's fair to say that most of the critical reviews responded to 2) at least as much as 1). And a metacritic score below, say, ~85% is a kiss of death to a single-player AAA RPG.

Personally, I would rank ME:A's flaws something like this:

1) Generally uninspiring story, characters, and dialogue. I liked parts of the game, and thought certain missions were outright good, but there were long, long stretches in which I had to force myself to complete various dialogue trees and questlines - including major story points in which the game really needed to make me feel something, and didn't (

Spoiler

first contact with the Angara leaps to mind - in a better game, that would have been a soaring moment, in which music, cinematography, and dialogue manipulate me into feeling heroic. I did not feel heroic or anything else. I felt bored.)

. ME:A also had some outright bad dialogue and writing, but that I can deal with in a game this size. Its greater sin is a general -- but not total -- lack of interesting moments. I will say that certain main-story and loyalty missions are quite good, on balance. But they comprise maybe 10-15% of the the game.

2) Bloated and repetitive questlines and activities. Quests are too long, involve too much travel, and have too many redundant steps. The first Vault I solved was really neat; by the 4th, I was very, very sick of activating monoliths and what have you. Most long questlines are 20% wheat, 80% chaff. The worst part of this is that the game is very bad at signaling to you which questlines are worth doing, and that many good questlines begin with a series of fetch quests. In my playthrough, this caused me to miss a bunch of good quests (or more specifically, I did the first few steps and never completed them, because the first few steps were tedious).

3) Bad animation, and (especially) a lack of production values in sidequests. This does matter, in that it makes many sidequests feel pointless, and undermines their ability to intrigue or move the player.

4) Static, unconvincing, and faintly MMO-ish worlds and quest hubs.

[big gap]

5) Animation weirdness and other bugs. I honestly don't much care about this, and had relatively few bugs in my (unpatched) initial playthrough on PC.

All that said, I am really saddened that they are apparently killing the series for the time being. I still like ME:A despite all my complaints, and I really like the original trilogy. There just aren't that many games operating in a similar space.

This is a pretty good summary.

For me #2 is BY FAR the biggest issue and nothing else comes close. Diaspora has devoted pages and pages to this, and rightfully so. #4 would be up next for me, just ahead of #3 and #1 (I took much less issue with the story/writing/characters than many; most of it ranged from fine to great for me). And I agree with #5 being the least of the concerns; I also saw hardly any bugs. I had thought maybe I got the magic copy of the game that had minimal bugs, but maybe you got that copy too.

 

[Madness]

I just don't see how a reboot makes any kind of sense narratively or from a gameplay standpoint. The series is less than 10 years old. What would they remake or reboot that you think would be well received to what ME1 and ME2 and ME3 (ending aside) were?

There would be more fans who would love to see a 4K/60FPS full remaster of ME1 and ME2 rather than a reboot of the story altogether. I mean, narratively and from an established lore point, having ME4 be set 20 years after ME3 Destroy, they can take the story anywhere and even forego a lot of issues with the ending.

Also, Andromeda, people criticized some of the story as being somewhat generic and a retread, but they have now established the game. New species, new enemies, new characters. Can any fans of the series, even if you absolutely hte Andromeda state that you don't care about Drack, Vetra, PeeBee, Jaal etc. That you don't like Kallo, don't want to continue. I have wanted an ME4 more than anyone. But I would want a proper send off for Andromeda before that now. Loyalty missions being well received is entirely the point. That they created a new cast of characters that were well received. Proper writers and better game design and Andromeda 2 could be a good game. Like I said above, this game fully patched, it will grow on people even with the repetitive gameplay, poor sidequests and level design etc.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

So I have everything unlocked, why do I keep getting Cryo points?

 

[prag16]

Like I said above, this game fully patched, it will grow on people even with the repetitive gameplay, poor sidequests and level design etc.

I foresee LTTP topics popping up in the future, with a lot of, "wow this is actually decent/solid/good/great; the internet told me it was an unmitigated trash fire," type comments. Once the game is in its "best" form and when we're distanced from the launch fiasco, I do think it'll be better remembered than the initial reception. (The cherry on top would be some strong single player DLC, which by many accounts helped DA:I's legacy... but we'll have to see if that's still in the cards here...)

 

[magimix]

I foresee LTTP topics popping up in the future, with a lot of, "wow this is actually decent/solid/good/great; the internet told me it was an unmitigated trash fire," type comments. Once the game is in its "best" form and when we're distanced from the launch fiasco, I do think it'll be better remembered than the initial reception. (The cherry on top would be some strong single player DLC, which by many accounts helped DA:I's legacy... but we'll have to see if that's still in the cards here...)

I doubt it. The the core issues of the game are rooted in its design and writing. You don't patch such deep issues away.

 

[prag16]

I doubt it. The the core issues of the game are rooted in its design and writing. You don't patch such deep issues away.

It's already happening in the OT. A lot of people jumping in late regularly wondering what all the hate was about. And a lot of people don't have major issues with the writing.

The quest design on the other hand, yes, they can't just patch that out. I guess making the interstellar travel less laborious could work as a bit of a band-aid for this if they choose to go that route.

 

[mbpm1]

They could just get rid of steps maybe, or put people in different locations, or make it so you don't have to go back to places.

or maybe that would take way too mmuch time idk

 

[magimix]

It's already happening in the OT. A lot of people jumping in late regularly wondering what all the hate was about. And a lot of people don't have major issues with the writing.

The quest design on the other hand, yes, they can't just patch that out. I guess making the interstellar travel less laborious could work as a bit of a band-aid for this if they choose to go that route.

You're in for a rough ride if you extrapolate that out widely. There will be people who will love the game, of course. And people who truly hate it. And those who want to troll in any particular direction, to throw shade at those who love the game, or those that hate it.

What I'd pay attention to is the broad aggregate of all that - the buzz or lack thereof, levels of fan engagement as expressed in various ways (fan art, cosplay, multiplayer community), the tones of the discussions, and the sorts of things that get discussed. The mind share it has over time.

I feel comfortable seeing Andromeda as being broadly disappointing, and I don't believe it is likely to find some future renaissance. I'm actually on the 'was *profoundly* disappointed by the game' end of the scale, and I gave the game much, much more time than I ever normally would to something that wasn't doing the busines for me, and I could write a long essay breaking down the specifics of why (but I won't inflict that on you )

 

[obeast]

The quest design on the other hand, yes, they can't just patch that out. I guess making the interstellar travel less laborious could work as a bit of a band-aid for this if they choose to go that route.

You know, when I first started playing ME:A, I really liked the way they handled interstellar travel - it made Andromeda feel spooky and strange (that black hole in the background!), and the absence of loading screens and/or a stylized galaxy map really immersed me in the setting.

But the rest of the game ended up being designed in a way that directly undercut this - not only did I have to travel *a lot*, I was never surprised at anything I found, as you can only land on a few specified planets that are clearly marked for you in advance. If I were making this game (via a time machine and a bunch of training I don't have, I guess), I would have kept the "surprise" landable planets that they had in ME1 and ME2, and drastically reduced the size and quest density of the MMO playground planets on which you can place colonies. I think that would have gone a long way towards making the exploratory elements of the game feel exciting.

As it stands, you always know when you're going to be able to land somewhere, and when you do land someone has always been there before you. But the galaxy traversal systems are designed as if the game rewarded random exploration in a gameplay rather than statistical sense, and it doesn't. Two design choices that directly damage each other, basically.

 

[The Dude]

Hearing that news about the team and series has basically killed all desire to continue on, and even at that I wasn't having a total blast. What a shame that this once amazing series has been beaten down like this by a bunch of clowns

 

[Outrun]

Yeah, and when we do, it's a new reboot with Shepard against the Reapers or something all new again. Andromeda and the choices we made here are dead.

No. I really don't care about anything in Andromeda.

Bring the series back in the milky way galaxy. They struck gold with the characters, lore and stories from the original trilogy. Andromeda is rote and boring in every way. This game reminds me of a b-tier Ps2 game that thought it was a AAA game.

I feel you. I also want a post ME3 story set in the Milky Way. But it would be an even bigger mistake not to finish what they started with Andromeda. There are too many loose ends and characters now in Andromeda. By the time the next game even comes it will probably have been a decade since ME3 ended.

So even if they go back to ME4 and milky way I will always be wondering about Cora and PeeBee and Jaal and Drack and Remnant and Kett and a whole bunch of other things. I have harped on Andromeda as a setting but now that you have the core set up. Give it back to Edmonton, hire some better quality writers, and make a better game. Maybe some DLC would have alleviated some of this.

I want Andromeda to go the way of Poochie a la Simpsons.

Andromeda Initiative blasted off from Earth, but was never heard of again.

 

[magimix]

I want Andromeda to go the way of Poochie a la Simpsons.

Andromeda Initiative blasted off from Earth, but was never heard of again.

Now see, I wouldn't go that far. I don't have an issue with the premise of the game at all - regardless of the reality of why the premise is what it is. There was *great* potential there - the game just didn't deliver on it. In some ways, it didn't even try to deliver on its premise, inasmuch as the game never felt being 'about' the premise, or otherwise connected to it in a manner the drew all the disparate threads of the game together.

 

[prag16]

You're in for a rough ride if you extrapolate that out widely.
...
I feel comfortable seeing Andromeda as being broadly disappointing, and I don't believe it is likely to find some future renaissance. I'm actually on the 'was *profoundly* disappointed by the game' end of the scale, and I gave the game much, much more time than I ever normally would to something that wasn't doing the busines for me, and I could write a long essay breaking down the specifics of why (but I won't inflict that on you )

Eh, I'm not emotionally invested in the game's reception (at least not enough to do any hand wringing about a "rough ride"). I'll be fine.

And you're probably biased since you personally are profoundly disappointed. I'm probably biased in the other direction. As I said a lot of people picking it up now have been pleasantly surprised. And yes, a lot of people picking it up now are "meh", or "yeah, the haters were right, this is rough". As for where that settles out, time will tell. I obviously could be wrong, but I think it'll be better remembered than the launch annihilation.

You know, when I first started playing ME:A, I really liked the way they handled interstellar travel - it made Andromeda feel spooky and strange (that black hole in the background!), and the absence of loading screens and/or a stylized galaxy map really immersed me in the setting.

Agree completely with this. It's why when diaspora pounds the table for instant forward station to forward station fast travel across all planets, I can't quite get fully on board.
But I also agree that they kind of squandered this appeal as the game played out, due to quest design and some other design decisions. Structure (and reduce the sheer amount of) the optional content very differently in a hypothetical ME:A2 and a lot of that issue could go away.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

It really bothers me that they removed helmets on Kadara in the last patch.

Finally got the Friendly Fire trophy, Architect on Kadara spawns all Nullifiers.

 

[JonnyKong]

My god, scanning all these monoliths for glyph symbols and solving these Sudoku puzzles are the most boring side quests I've ever played in a game.

Edit: I KNEW! that was Dinesh from Silicon Valley playing Jarun, been thinking for ages how familiar the voice sounds.

 

[Vico]

Last time I talked about that, I was told it's easy, but I still have a Big problem with architects. I've been fighting the one on Elaaden for 15minutes, and he barely showed his weaknesses four of five times. He keeps spawning minions. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[SEGAvangelist]

I'm so pissed right now. So I love the game, I'm having a blast with it, but it seems I'll never know what will happen in Andromeda because a X number of people and game journos hated the game and went berserk over it. My 100+ hours are basically worthless (well, I had a good time sure). It's not fair.

When I dislike a game, I don't bring armaggedon to the gamers who like it and I don't waste my precious time talking about such a game, I just play an other game.

Hopefully they release at least one post-game dlc to wrap up everything

Spoiler

before working on Mass Effect 4

.

 

[obeast]

Hopefully they release at least one post-game dlc to wrap up everything

Spoiler

before working on Mass Effect 4

.

It seems really unlikely that they're going to pour time and money into a DLC for this game at this point, right? I haven't seen any statements from Bioware either way, but unless they have a ton of DLC assets already created (and there's no way they do, given how unpolished the rest of the game was at release) I have a hard time imagining the business justification for continued support of the game. Even a great DLC wouldn't be enough to turn around ME:A's image at this point, and creating great DLC is far from a given.

 

[prag16]

It seems really unlikely that they're going to pour time and money into a DLC for this game at this point, right? I haven't seen any statements from Bioware either way, but unless they have a ton of DLC assets already created (and there's no way they do, given how unpolished the rest of the game was at release) I have a hard time imagining the business justification for continued support of the game. Even a great DLC wouldn't be enough to turn around ME:A's image at this point, and creating great DLC is far from a given.

I don't know. A lot of core fans would be pretty disappointed if all the threads and hints in ME:A end up permanently unaddressed. Enough to sour them on a potential revival down the line? I don't know. It can't be that expensive to shit out some DLC that uses mostly existing assets (though if they haven't already ported Quarians and what have you over to frostbite, the case for this becomes tougher to make) to wrap up some of those plot points. It doesn't even have to be "great" necessarily.

 

[obeast]

I don't know. A lot of core fans would be pretty disappointed if all the threads and hints in ME:A end up permanently unaddressed. Enough to sour them on a potential revival down the line? I don't know. It can't be that expensive to shit out some DLC that uses mostly existing assets (though if they haven't already ported Quarians and what have you over to frostbite, the case for this becomes tougher to make) to wrap up some of those plot points. It doesn't even have to be "great" necessarily.

Yeah, you can count me as one of the people who would be disappointed. I do want to know, say, the answers to the mysteries in Ryder Family Secrets. I guess that if they do release a DLC, it'll suggest that they may have another ME game in mind in the medium term, since the only justification I can think of for doing that is, as you say, maintaining goodwill with fans of the franchise. My pessimistic take, though, is that they want ME:A to fall out of the public consciousness, and DLC has the opposite effect, and also costs money and redirects resources from more profitable projects in which I have no interest.

Incidentally, I would wager a fair bit of money that they don't have a quarian model in Frostbite - if they did, it would have found its way into the game (Quarian envoy to the Nexus, or some such nonsense).

 

[prag16]

I guess it depends on the timelines. When all the design work was done they could have had artists, etc, working on some models for DLC while other phases of the project proceeded. These wouldn't have been finalized in time for launch, but if they were far enough along maybe they wouldn't just throw them away. I mean, it seems about 99% likely that at SOME point they FULLY intended to release story DLC dealing with the Quarian Ark.

But the rest of course is entirely speculation.

 

[RedNalgene]

Last time I talked about that, I was told it's easy, but I still have a Big problem with architects. I've been fighting the one on Elaaden for 15minutes, and he barely showed his weaknesses four of five times. He keeps spawning minions. Am I doing something wrong?

Usually the minions come and then after you wipe them all out the weak spots will appear, sometimes after a delay when he blasts you with that biotic looking orb. How close are you to the legs are you after the minions are destroyed? You don't have to be up under him but you have to be somewhat close (not shotgun close, but AR close).

Regarding the discussion around game quality, it certainly seems like parts of it were rushed. Although I'm still really enjoying the game and will finish it, I just feel like some quests are more thoughtful than others. Drack's loyalty mission is one - it's killer, and has a well thought out, fun, unique feel to it. Voeld and Kadara feel soulless and uninspiring in their quests. It feels like they spent considerable time on Elaaden, and that has been the most fun planet for me so far. The vaults could have been very different, but instead they feel like they are a cut and paste job. Plus, the act of turning on the towers for each vault is silly. You just walk up, scan some glyphs, and flip the power on after a sudoku puzzle (that doesn't get any harder as the game progresses)? Given the vault is something that completely saves the planet, why is it just a switch you turn on? Shouldn't that be the central challenge on every planet, with most quests leading towards you figuring out how to fix the planet?

The game is just very choppy in that sense, and I find myself wishing there were more parts like the loyalty missions and less quests that are completely insulated from the rest of the story, or clear copy/paste fetch quests.

 

[obeast]

I guess it depends on the timelines. When all the design work was done they could have had artists, etc, working on some models for DLC while other phases of the project proceeded. These wouldn't have been finalized in time for launch, but if they were far enough along maybe they wouldn't just throw them away. I mean, it seems about 99% likely that at SOME point they FULLY intended to release story DLC dealing with the Quarian Ark.

But the rest of course is entirely speculation.

Oh yeah, they definitely intended to make a Quarian Ark DLC - they rub it right in your face at the end of the game. And you could be right about developing assets in parallel - I'm just skeptical, because it seems like ME:A's development was a bit rushed, including in areas like character design and animation (for example, there's absolutely no way they intended to ship the game with every Asari in Andromeda except for Peebee having Lexi's bone structure). If they were working on DLC at all, they must have pulled people off of it toward the end of the development cycle to try to clean up the base game.

 

[mbpm1]

Oh yeah, they definitely intended to make a Quarian Ark DLC - they rub it right in your face at the end of the game. And you could be right about developing assets in parallel - I'm just skeptical, because it seems like ME:A's development was a bit rushed, including in areas like character design and animation (for example, there's absolutely no way they intended to ship the game with every Asari in Andromeda except for Peebee having Lexi's bone structure). If they were working on DLC at all, they must have pulled people off of it toward the end of the development cycle to try to clean up the base game.

wait...what

 

[Replicant]

What does the patch do and does it fix Sara's awful facial expression during

Spoiler

the Kett's invasion of the Hyperion

?

This is what I don't get. In some scenes, I can see that the characters look great with complete shaders, textures, etc. But in some scenes, it's like the work wasn't completed and as a result the whole thing looks wonky. I don't understand how things like character shader could be inconsistent from scene to scene.

 

[TC McQueen]

Thirdly, a full reboot makes a lot more sense than a remaster because it allows them to start fresh, instead of rehashing design decisions from last gen. In fact, if you recall, one of the reasons EA cited for ME's reception is its dated game design.

I took that as referring to the open world stuff, not the shooter-RPG hybrid stuff, which is the stuff that works pretty well.

 

[Bisnic]

wait...what

He meant that every Asaris have the same face, except Peebee.

 

[semiconscious]

Oh yeah, they definitely intended to make a Quarian Ark DLC - they rub it right in your face at the end of the game. And you could be right about developing assets in parallel - I'm just skeptical, because it seems like ME:A's development was a bit rushed, including in areas like character design and animation (for example, there's absolutely no way they intended to ship the game with every Asari in Andromeda except for Peebee having Lexi's bone structure). If they were working on DLC at all, they must have pulled people off of it toward the end of the development cycle to try to clean up the base game.

yep. & those people went from being pulled to cleaning up the base game to being pulled to ea motive / star wars battlefront. any previously planned andromeda single-player dlc (& i agree, there was gonna be some) is dead, jim ...

 

[Qwyjibo]

There's a section of Kadara (where the SOS signal nav point is) that apparently will crash your game. I'm getting it every time I approach that section. Now I'm reading that several other people are having this problem too.

This friggin' game. I'm almost ready to just plow through the main story and avoid all these buggy side quests. Just to be done with it.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

I like the "new" gun they added in SP. It's a better revenant