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The Mass Effect Community Thread

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prag16

Banned
I don't get your point. What does that article have to do with the dogpiling Neogaf users bring upon Bioware?

Yeah, it doesn't matter who wrote the article. The content dictated that it would become a major showpiece for the doubters. Nothing to do with the author.

Like anything else, even if the game is great there sounds like there will be enough there for the "haters" to latch onto in order to declare that they were right all along about their red flags and that the game is crap.
 

Renekton

Member
I don't get your point. What does that article have to do with the dogpiling Neogaf users bring upon Bioware?
They took a dump on John Walker, like declaring his articles universally shoddy, because he spoke out against Valve.

But when he posts a negative-ish impression of MEA, it's like wow he says it like it is.
 

Retrofluxed

Member
They took a dump on John Walker, like declaring his articles universally shoddy, because he spoke out against Valve.

But when he posts a negative-ish impression of MEA, it's like wow he says it like it is.

I reread your post a few times, and I thought that's what you were getting at. Whatever fits the narrative at the time. People are claiming they won't buy Andromeda now, as if they were going to buy it in the first place.

Edit: And please don't take my earlier reply as combative, I truly didn't get what you were hinting at.
 

ObsidianG

Member
I'm digging the new Ultra Rare MP character

C67LV6gVsAACGcG.jpg:large


Though on an unrelated note, I noticed that biotics don't seem to deal bonus damage to armor anymore (I was hoping we would have a warp substitute). I guess it's back to the drawing board for my character, but that will help me kill time until next week!
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I do try to make a conscious effort to avoid effectively subtweet bitching about communities, but a common problem I see in many online communities is fixation on reports that fit whatever narrative consensus seems to be loudest within the community, regardless of statistical ratio of a series of positive and negative articles. And I don't mean that as a dismissive of articles that go against the curve, so much as the insistent to use singular articles as a mouthpiece of truth amidst opposition as said article justifies preconceived beliefs.

John might be right on the money that Andromeda actually is kinda shitty, and maybe much of GAF will find it shitty. But at the moment it's the hot article to discuss as a bastion of truthful concern, despite the fact an overwhelming majority of other articles and previews have been exactly the opposite. If we look statistically at the preview consensus for Andromeda, opinions skewer heavily towards positive.

We see the opposite all the time, too. A GAF/community darling (Breath of the Wind perhaps being the most immediate example) has said community fixate on articles/previews/reviews that justify the consensus, and when dissent arrives in the form of an alternative if minority perspective excuses are made and slander spent to dismiss said perspective. They reviewer must have played it wrong, or they have a bias, or they didn't finish the game, or they sucked at it, or they're dumb, or they hate Nintendo, or whatever other dumbfuck excuse is used to silence a perspective.

Ultimately, and unfortunately, people like to have their beliefs and preconceived notions, along with suspicions, entirely justified by external sources. To be fair this is an understandable approach to reason when we're talking about an unreleased game: observers only have marketing and preview material to formulate a view, and if they're worried about something based on that material it's only normal to have those concerns justified when they're echoed by someone who has been exposed first hand to the content.

It's just tiring (and this isn't Andromeda specific at all, but universal) when attention is fixated on articles that support a preconceived consensus while opposition is questioned. To use Andromeda as an example: numerous previews have been fairly positive. Shonibi has early access to the game, he is positive as a fan. John Walker is also given early access to the game for free, but his perspective is heavily negative. Both perspectives are equally justified and it's ludicrous to outright dismiss one because it doesn't favour your presumptions.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
I'm digging the new Ultra Rare MP character

[IMG.]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C67LV6gVsAACGcG.jpg:large[/IMG]

Though on an unrelated note, I noticed that biotics don't seem to deal bonus damage to armor anymore (I was hoping we would have a warp substitute). I guess it's back to the drawing board for my character, but that will help me kill time until next week!

BDSM Jar Jar Binx.

PC version is looking great in that Lady Insanity stream. I can't wait.
 

tootie923

Member
I am always tempted to try EA Access games on the early Access trials. It the three times I've done it they loook like relative shit because of Xbox One (NFS, Battlefront, DAI) in terms of image quality and more. It's like a spoiled first impression I'm not sure I want when my first impression could just be the PS4 Pro version if I wait.

I just got a $1 XBL Gold offer on my dashboard. It would have been perfect timing to do EA Access on the Xbox One this weekend, but I can't see doing $5 for ten hours of multiplayer. I have my PS4 copy coming on Tuesday from Amazon. I'll probably settle for good old ME3 MP over the next week.
 

prag16

Banned
I do try to make a conscious effort to avoid effectively subtweet bitching about communities, but a common problem I see in many online communities is fixation on reports that fit whatever narrative consensus seems to be loudest within the community, regardless of statistical ratio of a series of positive and negative articles. And I don't mean that as a dismissive of articles that go against the curve, so much as the insistent to use singular articles as a mouthpiece of truth amidst opposition as said article justifies preconceived beliefs.

John might be right on the money that Andromeda actually is kinda shitty, and maybe much of GAF will find it shitty. But at the moment it's the hot article to discuss as a bastion of truthful concern, despite the fact an overwhelming majority of other articles and previews have been exactly the opposite. If we look statistically at the preview consensus for Andromeda, opinions skewer heavily towards positive.

We see the opposite all the time, too. A GAF/community darling (Breath of the Wind perhaps being the most immediate example) has said community fixate on articles/previews/reviews that justify the consensus, and when dissent arrives in the form of an alternative if minority perspective excuses are made and slander spent to dismiss said perspective. They reviewer must have played it wrong, or they have a bias, or they didn't finish the game, or they sucked at it, or they're dumb, or they hate Nintendo, or whatever other dumbfuck excuse is used to silence a perspective.

Ultimately, and unfortunately, people like to have their beliefs and preconceived notions, along with suspicions, entirely justified by external sources. To be fair this is an understandable approach to reason when we're talking about an unreleased game: observers only have marketing and preview material to formulate a view, and if they're worried about something based on that material it's only normal to have those concerns justified when they're echoed by someone who has been exposed first hand to the content.

It's just tiring (and this isn't Andromeda specific at all, but universal) when attention is fixated on articles that support a preconceived consensus while opposition is questioned. To use Andromeda as an example: numerous previews have been fairly positive. Shonibi has early access to the game, he is positive as a fan. John Walker is also given early access to the game for free, but his perspective is heavily negative. Both perspectives are equally justified and it's ludicrous to outright dismiss one because it doesn't favour your presumptions.

Well reasoned post, and right on the money. Especially the part about when we see it in reverse (I've been dogpiled multiple times on here for stating that TLoU is an 8/10 game for me). I'm probably guilty of being a little too quick to shit on Walker. Ludicrously hyperbolic as the article was. (Unless I really DO get to reunite an infant with a rabid tiger, or click 17 (SEVENTEEN) levels deep into a menu to get to something...)
 

Renekton

Member
I reread your post a few times, and I thought that's what you were getting at. Whatever fits the narrative at the time. People are claiming they won't buy Andromeda now, as if they were going to buy it in the first place.

Edit: And please don't take my earlier reply as combative, I truly didn't get what you were hinting at.
Yeah my beef is that suddenly Shinobi is a shill and all is well with John.
 

Lime

Member
LadyInsanity is streaming. She seems to like the game.

https://www.twitch.tv/ladyinsanity

She's played 16 hours of it off camera so I'd say that seems good.

I just hit a
romance
conversation with Cora. The facial animations are completely jarring, I'm sorry I cannot get over it, it's so bad.

At least it's cool to see the hair have actual animations though. The hair texture also seems less worse than before.

But overall, the game looks very rough in terms of visual presentation. Must have had troubled development with these jarring kinks after 5 years or EA simply slashed the budget and told Bioware to ship it.
 

Dany

Banned
BioWare Montreal. Formed in March 2009 to assist the Edmonton studio as necessary,[6] it is, as of November 2013, working on Mass Effect: Andromeda.

So this is the studio that made the multiplayer that grew and expanded to develop ME: A? Hmm.
 

Ralemont

not me
I just hit a
romance
conversation with Cora. The facial animations are completely jarring, I'm sorry I cannot get over it, it's so bad.

At least it's cool to see the hair have actual animations though. The hair texture also seems less worse than before.

But overall, the game looks very rough in terms of visual presentation. Must have had troubled development with these jarring kinks after 5 years or EA simply slashed the budget and told Bioware to ship it.

I'm not saying people are wrong to criticize the facial animations, but I just can't understand how anyone can find them a big deal while also claiming to be a fan of RPGs.
 
Nothing against John Walker in general, I've enjoyed his writing before, but I can tell that his experience of the game is going to have zero in common with mine.

The one thing that does concern me a little is the menus. I HATED the UI in Inquisition, particularly the inventory menu. Managing my party's equipment felt like a huge chore and it absolutely hindered the fun I was able to have with the game. I'm really hoping that Andromeda doesn't repeat that.
 

Retrofluxed

Member
The one thing that does concern me a little is the menus. I HATED the UI in Inquisition, particularly the inventory menu. Managing my party's equipment felt like a huge chore and it absolutely hindered the fun I was able to have with the game. I'm really hoping that Andromeda doesn't repeat that.

Knowing Bioware's history of knee-jerk removal of flawed game systems, DAI is probably why we don't manage our party members gear, lol.
 

Kneecap

Member
Nothing against John Walker in general, I've enjoyed his writing before, but I can tell that his experience of the game is going to have zero in common with mine.

The one thing that does concern me a little is the menus. I HATED the UI in Inquisition, particularly the inventory menu. Managing my party's equipment felt like a huge chore and it absolutely hindered the fun I was able to have with the game. I'm really hoping that Andromeda doesn't repeat that.
Yeah, I hear you on the DAI UI. Yuck.

However, all the ME games have had dodgy PC UIs. In part because of the primacy of consoles for EA-ware, and in part because they just don't seem to care. I can't tell you how many items I converted into omnigel in ME1 for example.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
BioWare Montreal. Formed in March 2009 to assist the Edmonton studio as necessary,[6] it is, as of November 2013, working on Mass Effect: Andromeda.

So this is the studio that made the multiplayer that grew and expanded to develop ME: A? Hmm.

Yes and no, kinda. Montreal was established with the end goal of staffing up to operate as a fully functional independent (in context) arm of BioWare, similar to Edmonton and Austin. They did some minor support work on Mass Effect 2 (culminating with the Arrival DLC), then significantly more on Mass Effect 3 thanks to a staffing increase. They're widely cited as being responsible for the multiplayer (and I think this is true), but they were also heavily involved in the gameplay design of Mass Effect 3's campaign (namely the encounters and combat), and headlined the Omega DLC almost exclusively.

By the time Mass Effect 3 had shipped and BioWare was moving on to then cross/next generation games, development pipeline had shifted somewhat. AAA games required such a tremendous workload that most studios at this point (Ubisoft being a good example) pilfered staff from various branches of the parent company to assist in timely production. BioWare under this structure still has games headlined by the core studio, but in reality there's a lot of fingers in the pie from all across the board. Montreal, for example, I'm fairly certain did support work on Inquisition (including the multiplayer), along with that cancelled BioWare game.

As it stand though, yes; Montreal is headlining Andromeda, as in the lead writers, designers, artists, and so forth are mainly based at the Montreal office. Other studios are helping out as necessary throughout production, and Mac Walters is creative director, but effectively Andromeda is being lead by a team that is made of those who assisted in Mass Effect 2 and 3 (emphasis on the latter) along with fresh blood.
 
Galaxy Map Theme

That's real good. Echoes of Uncharted Worlds in there.

Nice and ambient though I do feel like it lacks a memorable melody like OG Galaxy Map. A few of the people who have early videos up about the game do mention the music is not quite as good and memorable as the original trilogy as a whole which is a bummer. I think the OG trilogy had some of the best music in games across all three of them. I guess I'll see for sure before judging for myself.
 
Against better judgment I decided to tune in briefly to read the chat of a streamer playing the game early to see impressions. Instead I ended up watching the streamer get his ass kicked by the same random remnant enemies on Hardcore difficulty for 25 minutes.

Non-Spoilery things I learned (but I'll spoiler tag anyway just to be safe):

- Insanity will probably be on par with Mass Effect 1 for initial struggle before you get enough gear and leveled up abilities to compensate.
- Squadmate AI seems particularly dumb as bricks. With no overall control of squadmates anymore they seem to run in and die (Cora just biotically charged in and proceeded to die instantly by a million lasers every time).
- Taking pull without throw in higher difficulties means you'll be granting yourself a quick encounter with death.
- Remnant enemies will do everything they can to flank you and obliterate your cover.

I was considering doing my first run on Insanity but I'm not so sure anymore.
 
I do try to make a conscious effort to avoid effectively subtweet bitching about communities, but a common problem I see in many online communities is fixation on reports that fit whatever narrative consensus seems to be loudest within the community, regardless of statistical ratio of a series of positive and negative articles. And I don't mean that as a dismissive of articles that go against the curve, so much as the insistent to use singular articles as a mouthpiece of truth amidst opposition as said article justifies preconceived beliefs.

John might be right on the money that Andromeda actually is kinda shitty, and maybe much of GAF will find it shitty. But at the moment it's the hot article to discuss as a bastion of truthful concern, despite the fact an overwhelming majority of other articles and previews have been exactly the opposite. If we look statistically at the preview consensus for Andromeda, opinions skewer heavily towards positive.

We see the opposite all the time, too. A GAF/community darling (Breath of the Wind perhaps being the most immediate example) has said community fixate on articles/previews/reviews that justify the consensus, and when dissent arrives in the form of an alternative if minority perspective excuses are made and slander spent to dismiss said perspective. They reviewer must have played it wrong, or they have a bias, or they didn't finish the game, or they sucked at it, or they're dumb, or they hate Nintendo, or whatever other dumbfuck excuse is used to silence a perspective.

Ultimately, and unfortunately, people like to have their beliefs and preconceived notions, along with suspicions, entirely justified by external sources. To be fair this is an understandable approach to reason when we're talking about an unreleased game: observers only have marketing and preview material to formulate a view, and if they're worried about something based on that material it's only normal to have those concerns justified when they're echoed by someone who has been exposed first hand to the content.

It's just tiring (and this isn't Andromeda specific at all, but universal) when attention is fixated on articles that support a preconceived consensus while opposition is questioned. To use Andromeda as an example: numerous previews have been fairly positive. Shonibi has early access to the game, he is positive as a fan. John Walker is also given early access to the game for free, but his perspective is heavily negative. Both perspectives are equally justified and it's ludicrous to outright dismiss one because it doesn't favour your presumptions.
This is definitely true, and I've been noticing it more and more. It's not a GAF-specific thing, either, but it's definitely an issue here. Someone like Shinobi posting a positive first impression is dismissed by a lot of people because "he's a shill", "he's friends with the developers", "he liked Inquisition", etcetera, but then you get a few random tweets about supposed performance issues and they take it as proof that BioWare phoned it in. It's tiring, and it's one of the main reasons I don't spend as much time on GAF as I used to.
 

SliChillax

Member
No, you still get 6 days cause the game releases on the 23th for EU zone
It was advertised as being available on the 16th for Origin Access users, me included. This bullshit EU and US having different release dates never made any sense to me. Do you have a source about the game unlocking on the 18th? Would using a vpn be a viable option?
 

Caboose

Member
Asked this before but I'll try again. Will there be a way to buy/upgrade to the deluxe version if you bought the physical standard edition? No physical deluxe in my country :(
 
I like the look of the Human Female Adept in the multiplayer trailer. Going to see if that face can be recreated for SisRyder. Hopefully the prerendered head shapes aren't too constricting.

Clipboard01_zpsqbsls63b.jpg
 
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