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The Mass Effect Community Thread
- Thread starter shinobi602
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shinobi602
Member
Personally I don't think it will. It's most likely releasing in 2015, I don't think the ME team will want to dedicate resources to the 360/PS3. I could be very wrong though, just a gut feeling. Still, that is a Yanick-worthy question
I seriously don't get all the ME3 hate. ME2 was a dramatically better game than ME1 (sure, you lost some RPG elements but the core gameplay loop was infinitely better because of it), and ME3 was a revision on that.
And people cared about the story? It's a fucking BioWare RPG story - GO SAVE THE WORLD IN X WAY, HAVE FUN. Christ.
The setting in the Mass Effect universe has always outshined the story. The side stories with characters, races, locations and so on were way better than "REAPERS? OH SHIT SHIT REAPERS".
The multiplayer was fucking fantastic as well. The best part of ME3, hands down. Actual, legitimate challenging content. The unlock system left something to be desired, but... baby steps.
I could not be happier that BioWare Montreal is making ME4. They're already proven in my eyes from the multiplayer, and let a completely different team get a crack at the universe. Maybe it won't be mired in BioWare Edmonton's overwrought story bullshit.
And people cared about the story? It's a fucking BioWare RPG story - GO SAVE THE WORLD IN X WAY, HAVE FUN. Christ.
The setting in the Mass Effect universe has always outshined the story. The side stories with characters, races, locations and so on were way better than "REAPERS? OH SHIT SHIT REAPERS".
The multiplayer was fucking fantastic as well. The best part of ME3, hands down. Actual, legitimate challenging content. The unlock system left something to be desired, but... baby steps.
I could not be happier that BioWare Montreal is making ME4. They're already proven in my eyes from the multiplayer, and let a completely different team get a crack at the universe. Maybe it won't be mired in BioWare Edmonton's overwrought story bullshit.
Basketball
Member
There was a time when people cared about the Mass Effect story sadly that time has past.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
People were disappointed with the story because story, no matter how good/bad or typically BioWare, was a significant component of all three games, and the reason many players invested in individual characters, the universe, and lore. Mass Effect 3's ending was disappointing not because of typical BioWare tropes, but because of it's total ignorance towards what players had come to love about the series, and disregard towards what was established. It's an anti-ending; pandering to nobody, answering no questions, and solving nothing. Like the ending to a completely separate story shoe-horned into Mass Effect.
And I think fans often struggle to grasp this. Like, some readily fall back on the "I wanted a happy ending!" argument when I don't think they really mean that. They only say it because its the first place their mind goes in a better alternative. Every fan would have been happy had the ending simply be thematically relevant and consistent with the series up until that point. It could have been melodramatic, sad, depressing, or whatever, and fans would still be satisfied if it kept context and consistency. It did neither of those things, leaving fans with a sense of complete and utter dissatisfaction. And that's the worst way to end anything.
As for the gameplay, it simply comes down to preference. I'll argue until I'm blue in the face that ME3 is a good contender for the best combat system across all three games, and the first game's inventory/loot was faux-RPG garbage masquerading as real depth while providing almost none, and thus was culled for good reasons. But the first game still did embody certain design qualities, notably exploration and scale, that both ME2 and ME3 abandoned.
ME3 went even further, actually. Where ME2 toned down the scale quite significant and compartmentalised zones, it still switched up missions between hub->shoot->hub->shoot with downtime and questing seamlessly integrated into the encounters. You could engage in a shoot-out, win, holster your weapon, and explore a couple of side rooms and maybe meet an NPC for a sub mission. ME3 completely removed this and every single level is a very straight forward combat scenario.
I just wanted to finish it at some point. Not sure if I made multiple saves. It would have saved me trouble though.
shinobi602
Member
Contender? You mean clear winner.
I'm replying Mass Effect 1 right now on PS3, and I hate how Bioware removed armour and weapon customization from the later games. They also got rid of the on the fly equipment switching which kinda sucks. While the latter games tightened up the gun play and combat, the sense of scale and exploration nose dived. And by ME3, even things like side missions, were extremely pathetic *over hear a conversation and then go scan a planet*
Give me a Mass Effect 4 that has the combat of 2/3, a modified and efficient loot/inventory, and story/exploration in the vein of Mass Effect 1 and/or KOTOR. Bioware needs to stop watering down their games to appeal to the CoD crowd, who really don't care about these type of games to begin with. They did the same thing to Dragon Age and look where that took them.
Give me a Mass Effect 4 that has the combat of 2/3, a modified and efficient loot/inventory, and story/exploration in the vein of Mass Effect 1 and/or KOTOR. Bioware needs to stop watering down their games to appeal to the CoD crowd, who really don't care about these type of games to begin with. They did the same thing to Dragon Age and look where that took them.
Kadayi
Banned
Based on what's known about the original plot, there was a clue, it's just that Hudson & Walters decided to throw it out once Drew K was out of the picture sorting out the crap down in Austin with SW:TOR and concocted their own 'synthetics are the threat' BS out of their own ass fumes and hubris.
The main problem with any sequel is undoubtedly it will likely contain a bunch of retconning BS that will attempt to make all of that ending garbage somehow more palatable. Doesn't matter how much ice cream you pile on top of a shit sundae though..it's still going to be shit.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
If you're referring to the dark energy thing, there was an interview with Drew (by a gaffer, I believe) quite recently where he shot down the idea that these plot threads were in any way well developed and then cast aside. He actually addresses the notion there was something he had different from Walters and Hudson that was a better, and that such things didn't exist. Dark energy was just one of many ideas being thrown around by the entire team.
What does such is how they just upped and abandoned it, which was another consistent fuck-up in the writing department. The team routinely forgot, deliberately or accidentally, plot threads and lore sewn in the previous game and just went with whatever. I think that's actually the reason so many people cite the genophage story as one of the better ones; it's consistent across all three games, in characters and themes. It's not like the Geth story, as established in ME2. Or the dark energy. Or the rachni. Or every other plot thread the writers decided no longer mattered or wasn't worth exploring.
Ammo and armor customization are in multiplayer for ME3 =P Explosive and new Drill rounds are pretty sweet. I think they can take what they learned from that and put it in 4.
Also, I'm not sure they're done watering down DA. =/
shinobi602
Member
They're certainly not watering down the customization aspects. They said full squad customization is back, and combat will be a mix of DA1 and DA2.
truestatic
Member
There are side quests that are more substantive than that. I think of the 'overhear a conversation and then go scan a planet' sidequests as being a replacement for the mineral/medallion/writings collection quests in ME1, which had you accidentally finding an unmarked spot on a desserted wasteland of a planet, or scanning a planet. In that role, I think ME3's "overhear a conversation" quests worked well.
There is no armor customization in the multiplayer mode. But the campaign though, give you a lot of choices for helm, gloves, chest, pants, shoulderpads depending on what stats you prefer. Then you can change the color to your liking too. There is more armor customizarion in ME2 and ME3 than ME1, i never understood that complaint. In ME1, you just take the strongest armor you can find and stick with it. Is it just the loss of armor slots or what?
Captain Tuttle
Member
Man, you are so spot-on with your posts about this series, it's clear how much you love (and hate) it.
I started playing ME1 again and at first was thrilled with all of the loot and different items but a couple of times I was wishing for the straight approach that the other two took. Other than that I'm loving the game, the exploration, the music, the introduction to the universe. And I agree that ME3 had the best combat, I think it's the best game in the series (except for literally the last 5 minutes or so) but ME1 is my favorite.
CharmingCharlie
Member
I wouldn't say the "over heard" quests worked well personally. Especially when you consider the nature of the game. Here we have Commander Shepard desperately trying to unite the universe to fight a nearly invincible foe, yet he has time to find a fucking fridge for a Salarian that he overheard talking about it
I saw a graphic once that gave a breakdown of quests between the 3 games and it really does illustrate how cheap and shoddy Bioware actually went with ME 3 :-
Now I am realistic and all games have "padding" but really compared to the series ME 3 took the padding and pointless quests to new levels. I expect it to be even worse with the next ME I am expecting it to be more multiplayer focused and leave less resources for Single player.
truestatic
Member
I think they're referring to the customization through modifications. Mass Effect 3 has non consumable mods for guns that closely resemble the ones used in ME1, and in multiplayer, ME3 also has consumable mods for both armor and weapons that sort of take the place of the armor mods in ME1.
Kadayi
Banned
The dark energy thing tied in a lot more with the stupid human shaped terminator at the end of ME2 though, with the Reapers deciding that Humanity was the race required to resolve the Dark energy crisis. Drew K was still involved with the series then, it was only ME3 that he missed out on. Personally I'm not convinced a straight up save the galaxy through racial sacrifice Vs defeat the reapers and hope for the best had much of a 'choice' to it, but thematically I'd of been more down with it than 'and joker gets to tap that sweet shiny metal ass' as endings go.
No disagreements there. Also lets not forget how shadowy organisation Cerberus goes from side mission motivator in ME1, to questionable private venture in ME2 to full on quasi-military mega corporation with unparalleled resources in ME3. All in a matter of a few years.
truestatic
Member
I wouldn't say the "over heard" quests worked well personally. Especially when you consider the nature of the game. Here we have Commander Shepard desperately trying to unite the universe to fight a nearly invincible foe, yet he has time to find a fucking fridge for a Salarian that he overheard talking about it
I saw a graphic once that gave a breakdown of quests between the 3 games and it really does illustrate how cheap and shoddy Bioware actually went with ME 3 :-
Now I am realistic and all games have "padding" but really compared to the series ME 3 took the padding and pointless quests to new levels. I expect it to be even worse with the next ME I am expecting it to be more multiplayer focused and leave less resources for Single player.
That's a shallow assessment though. I agree that the quests may not have been suited to the tone of the game, but what was suited to the tone of the game was a plot that railroaded you through from beginning to end. I think making concessions to allow the sort of gameplay we expect from the series, including fluff side quests is a necessary evil, dissonance be damned.
More to the point, it's not just about the number of quests, but the time investment and quality of each. Each fetch quest in ME3 had you overhearing a conversation, finding an item through scanning, and then returning the item to the person in need. There were lots of these quests, but they were brief, and each one had a little bit of backstory. In Mass Effect 1, there may have only been 5 quests, but they were fucking enormous, and had no absolutely no pay off. I'd take a handful of Mass Effect 3's conversation quests over finding Matriarch Dilinaga's writings again any day.
Oh right, THOSE mods. Like +30% shield or +10% speed or +20% power damage for one match. For someone like me that put hundreds of hours into the multiplayer, i sure quickly forgot about that.
truestatic said:
Huh... ME1 had A LOT of quests that wasn't "search for minerals or medallions". And those quests all had a little backstory too, their own planet to explore and actually had dialogue choices unlike the eavesdropping quests of ME3 that were mostly "scan and probe" and "find an item while doing an unrelated primary or secondary mission."
ME3 sidequests were terrible and were obviously a case of rushed development. Hopefully the next game will go back to ME1 or even ME2 type of sidequests and improve on that.
truestatic
Member
Heh, no worries. If you're anything like me you barely touched them, despite the time investment. I was 'saving them' for the step up to gold or plat that I never took. Silver for life.
I know, I really don't think they're a good analog though. The ME1 side quests that actually had you doing interesting things are more along the lines of co-opting the mercenary forces with Aria, saving Jack at Grissom Academy, and going to the monastery with Samara. ME3 had fewer of them but I think they were a little beefier.
Barrow Roll
Member
Kadayi
Banned
I don't think side quests need to be an and/or sort of thing though. With a more rounded game there should be more opportunities for using side quests as a means to simply flesh out characters, experiences, locations etc without necessarily making them physical reward heavy. Also I'd like to see side quests contingent on certain criteria such as relationship status etc. I can't quire recall whether Bioware did a bit of that in DA2, but I think it's a good way to personalize the play experience beyond 'This was what I did in that situation'.
truestatic
Member
I agree that there's too much reliance on a limited number of frameworks here. Conversation/fetch quests probably would've been given a pass if they were just one of several ways in which low effort sidequest padding was brought to the table, but instead they were used over and over and over again until they became a joke.
With the "different quests depending on past choices here," I agree it'd be nice, but they end up asking "how much money do we spend on content only half/a quarter/a tenth of which can be seen in one playthrough, which is all most people will do?" They softballed this aspect by having quests available to everyone, but which featured potential cameos, based on past choices. I thought that was a reasonable compromise, although it got out of hand at times. Like when the game provided a replacement Legion, a replacement rachni queen, and blatantly ignored your decision about the reaper core.
Kadayi
Banned
Agreed. There's a complete disconnect between the events that precede it and the choices made available to you. I often go back that great post on the bioware forums 'all were thematically revolting'
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/11435886
Which does a bang up job of articulating the many problem with the ending in considerable depth. (spawned a great little game articles website though: http://awtr.ca/ )
I think one of the worst aspects of the whole debacle was the insistence by the 'ending was ok' crowd, that the only reason people were upset was because they didn't get the 'blue babies' ending (something that professional trolls like Tom Chick still adhere to) which is just ludicrous and without much merit. Personally given the way that Bioware bigged up the final game as Shepards last mission, I doubt many people were expecting that everything was going to come up roses, but at the same time I doubt many were expecting everything they'd done or achieved up until the ending was largely going to be rendered entirely redundant either.
Yeah I think the combat model in ME3 was great (had a blast with the MP), and overall they got the balance right with regard to equipment, but the lack of diversity and reliance on endless shooting galleries was wearing.
I think the writers were so obsessed with avoiding doing the endings that people expected, that they actually hurt themselves in the long run. It's a Dove/Armageddon 2001 scenario (for those who understand comic references): You sacrifice plot consistency and coherence for the sake of swerving the fans.
Kadayi
Banned
I think with these things in mind I'm actually prepared to give Bioware a bit of slack in truth. As someone else said earlier on the big problem with game design over the last few years has constantly been the hardware constraints of present tech. Having to get games down to a size where in they can run on 360 comfortably without spiraling into several DVD is a major pain in the ass I suspect and imposes all sorts of constraints and compromises on a games design. DA2 suffered greatly from this for example, having all the assets squeezed onto a single disc. It's the real reason behind repeat dungeons Vs lazy devs.
With the next gen and Blu-Ray and HDD as standard across all platforms there should be a lot more opportunity for extending the scope for RPGs with respect to branching.
shinobi602
Member
Denied again lol.
If you want to be absolutely sure to get an answer, might as well ask something like : "Is there gonna be krogans?" or something else too obvious.
Denied again lol.
Thank you for asking nonetheless. I think it will come down to the cost of development and whether EA sees fit to spread the risk on to a wider install base if by late 2014-early 2015 xbone and ps4 together have not sold to a point where EA may see it as sufficient.
Unlike PS2/Xbox days, the programmable shaders of current gen and the yet to be used paradigm shifting feature of next gen (GPGPU through CUs) allows third parties the flexibility that they did not in the preceding generation. The level design will perhaps suffer and the better ideas will be reserved for ME5 and onwards but given we are so used to disappointment from Bioware, we can all afford to remain magnanimous.
shinobi602
Member
This is supposed to be a positivity thread damn it lol.
At this point I would be okay if they didn't include any characters from the shepard trilogy. Except liara considering she can be 1000~. I wonder if the time jump is going to be large enough to account for the universe 'restarting'
The codex in the trilogy gives you an indepth breakdown into everything about every species and event into the smallest details. I would really like to prefer to have a game without the codex and having a character or story isolated from galactic events.
The codex in the trilogy gives you an indepth breakdown into everything about every species and event into the smallest details. I would really like to prefer to have a game without the codex and having a character or story isolated from galactic events.
Mustainium
Banned
I couldn't agree more with this. As far as the moments between Shepard and his crew, I thought ME3 had some of the best moments in the series.
Well you can ask them how close they can get to these in terms of character model fidelity since graphics are the only thing they can or they will respond to:
Shepard 2
Thane
Subject Zero
Mordin
PS: Give it some cool down time because I don't expect him to respond again for some time. You can always link him one of the gifs. In the mean time, how close do you think we'll come to these?
shinobi602
Member
Yea wasn't planning on asking more until next week or something. Anyway, see those GIFs are CG and are a little difficult to fully compare to. On my phone so hard for me to post pics but truthfully I think what we saw from the character models in Dragon Age Inquisition and BF4 is the minimum.Well you can ask them how close they can get to these in terms of character model fidelity since graphics are the only thing they can or they will respond to:
Shepard 2
Wrex
Thane
Subject Zero
Mordin
PS: Give it some cool down time because I don't expect him to respond again for some time. You can always link him one of the gifs. In the mean time, how close do you think we'll come to these?
Given Mass Effect's large focus on characters, I'm guessing even higher fidelity models. Very high res textures on the faces (hair follicles, skin pores etc) and armor, excellent facial animations, the works.
truestatic
Member
When, outside of prerendered cutscene, does Dragon Age need to do this? The giant battle at Ostagar in the beginning of DAO was achieved through smoke and mirrors, same way ME3 conjured up hordes of fleeing civilians in the opening sequence in Vancouver. Worth saying I'm still making my way through DA2, if you're referring to that.
I'm finishing off DA2 finally since this is about to be unveiled and in one of the nightmode maps I ran into a battle with at least ~18 participants by accidentally running into two groups at once.
For my full set of technical constraints Dragon Age 3 has to deal with that Mass Effect 4 might not however:
1.) Dragon Age 3 is a cross-gen game, meaning everything they do has to run on current consoles as well.
2.) Dragon Age 3 started on their old engine targeting March 2013, then got moved to Frostbite 2 and delayed to Fall 2013, and now is targeting Fall 2014, so they have to deal with upgrading lots of legacy assets and acclimating to their new technology.
3.) Dragon Age 3's surveys implied they're increasing the number of party size to at least 5. With a party size of 5, you're also likely fighting a lot of guys at once.
4.) There have been rumblings that DA3 might have isometric mode again, so they might have to be able to support that.
As a whole I'm still imagining Mass Effect 4 as an over the shoulder third person shooter, even if it adopts an open world. I also suspect it's next-gen only given Mirror's Edge 2 and Battlefront are, and I feel DA3 is only on current gen as well because it spent most of its life as a current-gen game already.
shinobi602
Member
Indeed, Yanick already confirmed it is
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
.
So I was discussing the ending of the series again with a friend yesterday and he said that the writers from 1 and 2 were completely replaced for ME3? I honestly hadn't been following the news regarding how the ending was made very closely at the time but that explains a lot if it was true.
Also (according to my friend), the original writers were apparently going to have Shepard destroy the Reapers with something having to do with a star? As he was saying this I recalled the mission in Mass Effect 2 where you recruit Tali on a planet whose sun is dying (can't remember the name of the location, it's been a while since I've actually played the game). Is there any truth to this or is my friend just full of it?
Also (according to my friend), the original writers were apparently going to have Shepard destroy the Reapers with something having to do with a star? As he was saying this I recalled the mission in Mass Effect 2 where you recruit Tali on a planet whose sun is dying (can't remember the name of the location, it's been a while since I've actually played the game). Is there any truth to this or is my friend just full of it?
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer on ME1, and was a writer on ME2. Mac Walters was the lead writer on ME2 and ME3. Outside of these leads there are a number of other writers across all three games. The final resolution to the Reaper arc was not set in stone until the third game. An alternate motivation for the Reapers was considered during the first game, which was that the use of dark energy was somehow bad and the Reapers were around to stop or police it or something like that. You can find interviews with Karpynsyn about it but there aren't many details (and "the reapers leave technology that uses dark energy and deliberately goad civilizations into using it, because dark energy is bad" is every bit as circular and moronic as the actual thing we got in the third game).
The "star" your friend is referring to is the star in the Haestrom (might not be it's exact name) system, where you find Tali in ME2. The Quarians on the planet mention that the star is exhibiting very unusual properties, causing the star to age much faster than it should. They suspected that it was somehow related to dark energy, but did not know much more than that. There was a lot of fan speculation that Haestrom was important to the overall plot of the games, and one such example was the idea that the sun would be related to something that could destroy the Reapers in the third game (this would be why the heretic Geth were after the planet, if that was true). But it was just that, fan speculation. A more popular theory was that the sun was going to be how the Reapers would return to the Milky Way galaxy, the Geth/Collectors/Agents of the Reapers were messing with it, and that's why it was exhibiting unusual properties, and it would form a wormhole or mass-relay substitute. Knowing what we know now, this mission was probably one of many hooks left in the game that could have had important story functions, but the writers weren't sure which precise direction to go in.
Your friend probably heard this stuff from other people, or read about it on the internet indirectly.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Not entirely correct, on both accounts.
Staff juggled back and forth between all three games. The big, significant shift in writing was the lead. ME1 = Drew Karpyshyn. ME2 = Mac Walters, Drew Karpyshyn. ME3 = Mac Walters. Walters worked on all three games, but his position grew to co-lead for ME2, and then full lead for ME3. Drew had nothing to do with the third game.
Patrick Weekes worked on all three. Lukas Kristjanson and Christopher L'Etoile worked on the first two. And ME2 and ME3 each introduced and replaced a bunch of other writers.
As for the story, the simple fact of the matter is the team did not have a concrete path to take, but instead were juggling multiple ideas on where to take the story in ME2 and ME3. One sub plot involved dark energy, likely tied to the star Tali mentions in ME2. But it wasn't to destroy the reapers, instead give reason for them doing what they do (something about dark energy influx in the galaxy threatening all life, reapers keeping it in check).
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Suck it EC
sono
Member
wonderful series, cant wait for 4!
Thanks for this link I hadnt seen it before, this sums up my main concern although the other points are all valid:
Thanks for this link I hadnt seen it before, this sums up my main concern although the other points are all valid:
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
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