Bioware: Next Mass Effect on "The Right Track"

[NortherWolf]

Sorry if I'm being cynical here but...


How exactly is this news? How does this qualify as anything close to news, or even information anyone would care about? The whole bloody article can be summed up as "Current Bioware Employees Think Game is Awesome! BUY IT!". Why in all the hells of the world should I care what they think about it, when it is tied to their EMPLOYER. I'd be more impressed if Moviebob, or Yahtzee, or Biscuit said something about how the game looks to be coming out awesomely. But employees? Employees who wear their "I work at Bioware" tag right on the front of their announcement about how awesome this game is?



Yeah... How about no.

Captcha: You're fired!

Good point captcha. If any of these employees were caught bad-mouthing the game even slightly on their Bioware-labeled public forms of communication, they'd probably get the boot real fast.

I agree with this poster. What the hell Escapist? Are you a gaming site or a PR-site for gaming? "This just in, people trying to sell you this game says it's the best thing since sliced bread! Back to you Dianne!"

Back to the article: Yeah, woo...Guys making game swears it's good. You know, the guy making that shitty ZOmbies survival game on steam said it was awesome too, but he lied through is teeth.

 

[Ticklefist]

The version I paid 80 bucks for is on sale for $8 this weekend. 10% after 18 months. Minority. Right.

You better tell Steam that sales of year and half old games = shit, then. EA too, since they're trying to copy Steam's model even after criticizing it. Or really anyone else for that matter. Not to imply the person you were talking to was any better, but you are using some horrible logic. Hell, it could be that a majority thought it absolutely stunk, but you're not doing yourself any favors in proving that with your absurd arguments.

I guess anyone's arguments are absurd if you completely avoid the context and create your own. Steam doing deep discounts is every day business. EA doing them is not.

 

[LetalisK]

The version I paid 80 bucks for is on sale for $8 this weekend. 10% after 18 months. Minority. Right.

You better tell Steam that sales of year and half old games = shit, then. EA too, since they're trying to copy Steam's model even after criticizing it. Or really anyone else for that matter. Not to imply the person you were talking to was any better, but you are using some horrible logic. Hell, it could be that a majority thought it absolutely stunk, but you're not doing yourself any favors in proving that with your absurd arguments.

I guess anyone's arguments are absurd if you completely avoid the context and create your own. Steam doing deep discounts is every day business. EA doing them is not.

Oh please, don't pretend you had any context to begin with. Again, not to imply the person you were talking to was any better, but you're just throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping something sticks, even if it makes no sense. Your initial logical argument, besides ultimately being illogical, was completely counter-productive for you, so you fell back on a crappy argument about a sale with the completely unproven(and probably unprovable) assumption that no less than a 50% dissatisfaction rate could lead to such a thing.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Lost our shit about how SHITTY it's going to be, right?

You scummy charlatans have no right to hype anything of that garbage to us anymore after the literal scandal that is the ME3 ending. Go fuck yourselves, sincerely.

 

[pandorum]

As long as they do not blow the budget on shitty multilayer! then I am game.

 

[Icehearted]

I think it's cute that people think BioWare is still a company and not a corpse stuck on the end of one of EA's tentacles like some gruesome puppet.

I think its cute that people keep thinking EA is some kind of monolithic monster that devours souls.

EA owned Bioware while it released four of my favorite games of all time: Mass Effect 1, 2, & 3; and Dragon Age: Origins (& Awakening, so 4.5 games). Of those, EA owned them during the development of all but 1, the weakest of the 4, Mass Effect 1.

I think assumptions aren't cute, so I won't assume you assumed what I was thinking. I do, however, think it's cute when people copy what I write and change a few words as a counterpoint. Just look at all this cuteness!

Of course, cutest of all is the putting of words into mouths. Even cuter when erroneous facts are used to make a counterpoint, and just so terribly cute when these fictitious points only support a subjective argument rather than a factual one; ergo I made this up and it supports my opinion and is by virtue of this a truth.

Cuteness aside, BioWare is a collection of IPs and a brand owned by EA, run by EA, they are in fact EA. Bullfrog went through this once, as did Origin. EA bought Origin and made a RPG into an action game, basically trying to turn something like Bauldur's Gate into something more like Mario Bros. Except with Mass Effect they took a RPG and made it into a 3RD person shooter. Some loved it more than others, but this was reflective of the new direction they call "broader appeal" and others call homogenization, like in the link below. C'est la vie.

Then there's this:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5946-Why-Do-People-Hate-EA

Wish I could find it, but he's also said pretty much what I did about BioWare, that it's not BioWare except in name only but is otherwise EA.

Hugs-n-Stuff.
Your pal,
Icehearted

 

[Metalrocks]

well, if they really take their time and EA is not forcing them to rush it, it might be better. at least EA did show some improvement lately.
but im still very skeptical about it. i still love the franchise as such and the extended ending made me play it again with my other characters but well, lets see.

 

[mrverbal]

snip

oh boy

so, a shitty last 5 minutes completely tainted an entire universe and series forever and ever and ever and ever? Talk about over-reacting.

Like...do you ever go back and play ME1 or 2? (I'm guessing no because the sheer sight of the game boxes makes you vomit blood because they wrote a weak ending, but for the sake of a discussion lets assume you like to replay the old games for nostalgia's sake) How can you stomach finding Saren when you know it's just going to end in ME3? the entire franchise is ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuined every story is rruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuined nothing matters cause its ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuined


You can have stories set in the same universe, prior to any big world ending plot. And you don't need to one up any action quota or have any "sequel escalation", go small and focus on characters. Shit, wasn't that the point of Mass Effect 2? That entire game was about Shepard pretty much ignoring the reapers to find some aliens that kidnapped an inconsequential number of humans. But it worked, because the characters were incredibly well rounded and developed, and pretty much carried the game on their backs till the end.

Do that again.

Go small. Do something on Omega. Make a game set in the years Shepard disappeared or something.


seriously, give me a character focused narrative thats set in the mass effect universe and I will eat that up

I couldn't give two shits if the trilogy ended on a whimper.

It's a lot more than the last five minutes. The entire game past the Quarian/geth action is dreadful (so the entire last third, essentially).

And, really, the game is full of fundamental flaws in the first 2/3rds that make themselves known only at the end. Saved the quarians? 2 seconds of cutscene. Saved the geth? 2 seconds of cutscene. Saved the geth primes? NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER.

Gained the undying loyalty of your crew and saved them all in ME2? thats nice, here's a boring as shit musclehead and a stupid robot character. Dealing with change is hard!

None of your choices in the game - and hence the series as a whole - actually impact the ending one fucking bit. Yes, the last five minutes of a game can ruin the whole series, or at least severely taint it.

edit: Also how the fuck is "Executive in charge of making people buy something says it is cool" news? Come on, escapist.

 

[james.sponge]

So the hype begins two or three years before the release? Good job guys! They should create new ip and abandon ME in some dark corner, enough with stupid sequels, prequels, spin-offs! I think many of us had enough and want something fresh.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

I want to be optimistic, I really do. I loved mass effect, but the more I think about it, the more I realise I loved mass effect 1. I just don't have a huge amount of faith in bioware anymore.

 

[M920CAIN]

Bioware will fail to deliver. They just don't have the magic anymore. Yes, I'm a pessimist. Don't mind this post, it's just based on them trying to probably be even more commercial while appealing to a broader audience and all that stupid sh-t.

 

[Sidmen]

Yes! Lets redo what they did in KOTOR 2 and Dragon Age 2! Because it worked so f-ing well in those games, right? Just keep riding the same damn horse until its well beyond the point of dead. KOTOR 2 was terrible by every imaginable, measurable definition. That's why you're not getting a KOTOR 3 - except for a...what was it again...and MMORPG? No that can't be right -that'd validate my earlier point, so lets just ignore it. We can always go with DA2, a game so universally panned they made ME2 and ME3 to bleach the memories of Dragon's Age from our minds and risk a completely unrelated relaunch of the franchise. If you think those are SMART decisions, then by all means, have Bioware make a new Mass Effect game set in downtown Citadel with a few patched together characters with implied depth and meaning. I'm sure it wont be seen as a cheap knock off and desperate attempt to cash in on fan's love and loyalty. Not at all. Nothing Bioware has done would ever, EVER even hint that something like that could happen.

You're good to go. Hope it pays off mate,

*Raises eyebrow*

KOTOR 2: The Sith Lords was a friggen awesome game, probably played it more than I did the first one. Its only problems can be directly pointed to the fact that it was made by Obsidian. It had bugs (so many bugs), and it had a pretty crap ending. The rest was great!

And Dragon Age 2? How did a single sequel count as "riding a horse beyond the point of death"? My problems with it weren't even remotely related to the fact that it was set in Thedas. Its problems were its crap combat mechanics and short development schedule (which meant it couldn't have the number of unique assets it should've). I can't speak about its story, because the former two meant I didn't get much past the "become rich" cutscene.

I think you just have a problem with sequels. I don't. You have the option to -NOT- buy a sequel, I don't have the opportunity to make one magically appear if they don't make it. So, yeah, I want them to make as many sequels as they can get away with whilst they're still fun.

 

[InterrogationBear]

I don't think they even entered production yet. The Lead Writer and Lead Gameplay Designer positions are still open and Yannik Roy indicated three month ago that they are still in the concept phase.
They might have finished porting a lot of the Mass Effect assets (like the Citadel) from the Unreal Engine 3 to Frostbite 3 and created new ones they intend to use.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

People within the dev team talking up their product? Well that MUST be a sure sign of quality! After all, someone must have thought multicoloured endings were a brilliant idea at the time of creation.

Without being the whiny little cry baby who didn't get the ending he wanted, I really am done with Mass Effect. I think a trilogy is more than enough for pretty much any franchise. After that the well of innovation seems to run dry. See pretty much any game with a 4 in its name.

Plus, it'll most likely be on the Xbone, a console I won't be buying.

 

[spartandude]

Developers of a game say their game is awesome? well then it must be good /sarcasm
Im still very bitter over the complete lies that they made surrounding the ME3 ending (and the fact their last 3 games they made were shit imo) so forgive me if i dont take their word for it.

Capha- gee whiz. seriously you always know how to finish my comments

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

As done as I am with Mass Effect, I must admit that I am curious to see what Bioware is going to do with this next game. If only to see how they possibly can move past Walters and Hudson's burning of the franchise. I guessing there will be a liberal use of retcons and hand waves.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

I've been rather hyped about this for quite a while.
I fall into the category of hating the pre-EC endings of ME3, but absolutely loving the EC endings. I also really liked the overall game too.
Seeing as the two main reasons for the "i love faith in bioware" (DA2, ME3) were games I actually liked and enjoyed to a rather extensive degree, and based on what we've seen of DA:I, I'm rather confident that this will turn out quite nicely.

 

[Ninjat_126]

Never understood the massive hate over an ending like ME3 received. Looking forward to see what they do with the series from here on out.

That's exactly what they said for Mass Effect 3.

Biggest waste of $60.00 I ever spent.

I pre-ordered the special edition, and I live in Australia. Also, I have no disposable income and have no career or employment prospects.

Please, continue to complain about your loss of $60.



(Okay, I speak in jest. But I think after the backlash from ME3, Bioware and especially EA are going to need to sit down, have a big think, and come up with an original IP or two before going back to Mass Effect. Which is exactly what they aren't doing. Yay.)

 

[xplosive59]

People are still complaining about the ending? 99% of the game was great, only the last 5 minutes were mediocre. It is a bit cliche to say but: The journey was more important than the ending in Mass Effect's case, the main story was nothing special but the atmosphere and characters were all excellent... Except for Kai Leng, fuck Kai Leng.

 

[Vrach]

Mass Effect 3 as a whole was an <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/9458-Mass-Effect-3-Review>excellent game, but many still left the experience feeling burned on account of its <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/9506-Mass-Effect-3-Ending-Controversy>controversial ending.

Nope. The ending is a bit stupid, but it's not a big deal. The game as a whole sucked ass when compared to either of it's predecessors and was at best a below-mediocre AAA title that no one would've paid attention to if it wasn't the third game in the series.