Bioware Appeals For Calm Regarding Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer

[Rawne1980]

That face Shep is pulling in that picture...

Thats the face I pulled when I heard about the multiplayer.

Not due to rage, due to confusion.

I heard someone at Bioware say it's to bring new people into Mass Effect and had to question if the third and final part of that trilogy is the right time to do that.

"Hey, come play our game. You've missed most of the story and will have no clue what the feth is going on but you can be confused with friends in co-op".

Doesn't bother me in the slightest, I won't be using the co-op but i'm sure someone out there will enjoy it.

 

[DSK-]

Screw the multiplayer jazz, I just hope they don't fuck up the entirety of the game. Games I've bought of late have been frighteningly underwhelming.

 

[Awexsome]

Man Bioware has had their "fanbase" flipping shit all over the place for a while now. There's always some section of their fanboys that end up freaking out and calling, "RUINED FOREVER" for every single announcement.

Besides Mass Effect should work well with Co-op. I don't think a traditional multiplayer would work very well unless it was a spin off type thing using different mechanics but co-op should be great.

 

[Zeraki]

I really feel bad for BioWare. It seems like their fanbase is prepared to scream about how the game is ruined forever whenever BioWare changes or even adds something.

Indeed.

No matter what BioWare does, the fanbase always seem to jump at the chance to tear them apart.

Hey man, release some modding tools with ME3, and let modders go insane on the multiplayer component.

Asari sex MMO incoming.

They already said that they won't release modding tools for Mass Effect 3. The engine they use for the game doesn't allow for much modding.

Do they realize the reason some of us are mad is because we feel that the multiplayer is just taking resources that should be used to make sure the single player ends the story well? Multiplayer is fine and all but, when concluding an epic story you don't screw around with a new feature no one asked for, you polish the story and save the new feature for another title. I swear there will be a lot more angry people if the ending fails to conclude the story properly because they decided to put resources to multiplayer.

BioWare has said that two separate divisions are working on each part of the game, and that no resources are being diverted from the single player team. Whether you want to believe that or not is up to you, but that information has been available since around the time of the multiplayer announcement.

Also, the Baldur's Gate games had multiplayer and those are still considered BioWare's best games by a lot of people.

 

[Electric Alpaca]

The reason why the community is getting so up in arms is because BioWare are going against their vision, after they claimed their publisher supposedly isn't pulling their strings.

Co-op wasn't a planned feature of Mass Effect at any point, so it makes one wonder whether they have relented to any other publisher demands.

To be honest, I'm staying silent - gaming as a whole is slowly bullying me out of the market with its constant greed and attention whoring anyway. With most games worth a sniff requiring multiple downloads attained from multiple locations - most of the time in conflicting methods of attainment (i.e. 3 pre order bonuses from 3 outlets) and your figure needing to be firmly on the pulse of the industry to know what you're getting.

Not to mention the fashion that seems to be developing of getting consumers to buy a pass for content not even developed yet thus proving how easy some will happily open their wallets and turn them upside down.

I just find it hard to keep faith anymore - developer morals being stretched is the least of my concerns for the industry.

 

[Imre Csete]

Knowing the BioWare fans, adding romance features to the Multiplayer mode would calm them down.

They can turn a blind eye to absolutely everything if you give them some fanfic material.

 

[ZeroMachine]

I like it.

The face, I mean.

The multiplayer too, I guess. I only know of one person I'll be able to play it with, so, you know. I can take it or leave it.

I just want to play the game already.

 

[FFHAuthor]

Before Battlefield 3, I'd have said that Multiplayer and Single Player can co-exist without weakening one another...but now, I'm concerned that adding Multiplayer to Mass Effect will sacrifice quality when it comes to the single player campaign. If it's the same studio that did ME 1&2, they should have had another of their studios take up the slack, put the Dragon Age 2 makers to some decent work that dosen't involve story or plot, that way they can't hurt anything.

 

[Bacontastic]

Do they realize the reason some of us are mad is because we feel that the multiplayer is just taking resources that should be used to make sure the single player ends the story well? Multiplayer is fine and all but, when concluding an epic story you don't screw around with a new feature no one asked for, you polish the story and save the new feature for another title. I swear there will be a lot more angry people if the ending fails to conclude the story properly because they decided to put resources to multiplayer.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I actually don't mind the multiplayer knowing that's it's only co-op. If I can play it alone I'll be extremely happy. I always wanted to play as a solo asari commando or turian agent. It will be awesome.

 

[sir.rutthed]

I'd just like to take this time to say that is the single most terrifying image of The Shepard I've ever seen in my life.

OT: Why are we getting upset about this? They've been very clear from the offset that skipping the multiplayer won't cut out anything important.

 

[Grey_Focks]

yea, yea, as I've said before, It's cool, I'm on board, but for the love of god, have they mentioned anything about it being split-screen or not? Just let me and a friend play on the same console, and I'll freaking buy two copies.

 

[Yvl9921]

It's not about not being able to access features. It's that now everything in the main game is optional, and loses some of its spirit.

I'd be all for multiplayer that didn't have this effect on the game, though.

 

[kael013]

Before Battlefield 3, I'd have said that Multiplayer and Single Player can co-exist without weakening one another...but now, I'm concerned that adding Multiplayer to Mass Effect will sacrifice quality when it comes to the single player campaign. If it's the same studio that did ME 1&2, they should have had another of their studios take up the slack.

They've already said that two studios are working on this: one for the single-player and one for the multiplayer with the two collaborating on things that relate to the lore (so it's all consistent).

Here is all the info: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113587-BioWare-Finally-Confirms-and-Details-Mass-Effect-3-Multiplayer

To all those "fanboys" who are complaining about this: have you ever wanted to play a different race? Wish you had a third ally and that they were (about) as smart as you? That is essentially ME3 Multiplayer! And you DO NOT have to play it to get the best singleplayer ending! So [i/]please[/i] shut up and let the rest of us go back to deluding ourselves into thinking that humanity is actually smart.

Also, it was really hard to read this article with that image.

 

[bigsby]

The reason I think most people, including myself, are wary of this is because it is a move that tries to appeal to more people, people that were not that much into the first two ME´s. Kinda what they tried to do with DA2 and we all know how that went. It just seems like way too much an EA move to me, a move based on market analysis and not quality of gameplay and story. As was said, noone ever asked for an ME multiplayer...

 

[FFHAuthor]

They've already said that two studios are working on this: one for the single-player and one for the multiplayer with the two collaborating on things that relate to the lore (so it's all consistent).

To all those "fanboys" who are complaining about this: have you ever wanted to play a different race? Wish you had a third ally and that they were (about) as smart as you? That is essentially ME3 Multiplayer! And you DO NOT have to play it to get the best singleplayer ending! So [i/]please[/i] shut up and let the rest of us go back to deluding ourselves into thinking that humanity is actually smart.

Also, it was really hard to read this article with that image.

That's reassuring to know, I'd been unaware of that decision on their part.

But I'll still be cautious, I've brought up my own ideas of how a multiplayer aspect could work and Bioware was apparently listening to me for half of them...but I'm willing to reserve judgement about pass or fail if they're not making their primary studio do Singleplayer and Multiplayer together.

Thanks to Battlefield 3's Single player campaign I'm rapidly becoming a believer that games should be either multiplayer focused or single player focused, not both.

 

[NickCaligo42]

So, fans are getting irrational about a new feature? You never see that happen.

I don't get the rage at this; Bioware said when they announced it that it was seperate from th maingame and you could fully complete everything in singleplayer without touching the MP or that facebook thing they have planned. This is much stressing out over nothing.

They also lied about it repeatedly for several months following the announcement, saying they definitely weren't doing multiplayer, they definitely weren't doing multiplayer, they definitely weren't doing multiplayer--oops! They're doing multiplayer. That doesn't sow a lot of trust among a fanbase, and they haven't been throwing them a whole lot of bones with regards to details on how the game has or hasn't improved.

Plus, in a lot of peoples' minds it means diverting a lot of resources and tech for the sake of a feature that they don't care about--which one could argue would affect the quality of the feature they do care about. In my instance, I really don't care about this multiplayer mode; Mass Effect's exploration mechanics have never been all that fully integrated with the shooting segments and the dialogue segments. Every mode of play is neatly segregated with barely any sense of connectivity. I want to see an improvement on that much more than I want to see a tacked-on co-op campaign.

Thing is, this multiplayer mode isn't going to be worth it. The only reason Bioware would do this is because they're insecure about replayability. It doesn't say good things that they felt a need to go out of their way to add such a significant networking feature to fill in for what was previously accounted for by their signature branching dialogue system.

Nobody's going to play this mode but the most hardcore of Bioware's hardcore fanboys, maybe people who're mildly curious. Mass Effect's shooting is its weakest aspect, something fans of this game tolerate more than they enjoy as they look forward to the next dialogue segment. It's very unlikely that whatever features they might have added will pick it up from mediocre-to-slightly-above-average and actually make people give a crap long enough to want to do the shooting by itself, let alone drag friends into it.

That's just my two cents, though. I don't hold a lot of investment in this series to begin with, just felt like sharing my thoughts.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

... As was said, no one ever asked for an ME multiplayer...

Spoiler

Sorry, I just had to.

OT: Put me down as "cautiously optimistic". I'll wait to see how it is before I pass judgment.