Bioware: Next Mass Effect on "The Right Track"

[endplanets]

These articles always strike me as kinda weird. I want to be all excited, and the game is almost assured to be awesome, but all this post says is "the developers think production is going well and their game is great". As opposed to all the developers who say "our game sucks".
All though there are plenty of developers who actually do say "our development is hellish, but the game will be good".

 

[Matthi205]

It tried to legitimize the idea that artists cannot control their own work. the endings were what they were and people still moan about it over a year afterwards.

Bioware already legitimized that artists can't control their own work when they took Drew Karpyshyn(the series lead writer) off of Mass Effect 3 and replaced him with people who ignored all of the plot devices, foreshadowing, and character arcs that he'd set up.

There's my biggest problem with ME3: most of the characters acted what I perceived then as "strange" and not how that character would usually react. The ending was just the tip of the iceberg: it was disappointing and didn't show anything that happened afterwards (well, nothing significant, anyway).

An example:
The Illusive Man, even if indoctrinated, wouldn't have acted this way... something the new writers neglected, thoroughly. To the old Illusive Man, Shepard was an invaluable asset for humanity that he didn't want to lose at any price, that he wanted to have on his side to work with him rather than against him. Even indoctrinated, he would have tried to hold Shepard as long as possible, and continued his normal behavior of not telling Shepard more details than the ones she needed to know. This was the most "odd" part of TIM's behavior in Mass Effect 3: he spoke to Shepard, and actually explained stuff... reasoned. Something the old Illusive Man wouldn't have done. He would have provided Shepard with just enough data to go on to work for him rather than against his cause.

 

[Snotnarok]

I'm not trying to be insulting with this but I think so many are far too critical on games and they have 2 scores for games, crap and amazing, there's no middle ground or points between and it's kind of jarring.
I'm sure there's people who've put over 300 hours into the ME series in it's entirety with replaying and all that jazz and are now calling the series shit because of a 15 minute ending that wasn't what they expected or wanted.
I think the truth of the matter is given such a vast and popular series there wasn't going to be anyone satisfied despite that, and yes I've heard it boils down to all your effort was shot down, well that's life sometimes and again given there's no series like this and it did over a hundred hours of entertainment on average with fun characters, fun events, amusing gameplay I don't think perspective is being taken here.

I'm not trying to defend the series, like what you like but it's just an interesting thing to me to see the lack of middle ground these days. You can't even rate a Nintendo game a 8 without people raging because it's Zelda or Mario and they don't do anything less than amazing.

 

[magnetite2]

I saw Extended Ending, but read up on the original ending. But I've seen people complain about how your choices didn't effect the game and I didn't get that honestly.

People are in disagreement over what the word "ending" means. Most people that were upset belived all these choices would affect the last 5 minutes of the game. What really happened was their choices affected the game as a whole. I mean with a game that has over 1000 variables shaping the third game, how could they wrap all that up in the last 5 minutes?

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/258534/mass-effect-3-to-follow-over-1000-story-variations/

If you look at the entire game as the end of the trilogy, then yeah, there's tons of different variations it can play out. Yeah the last 5 minutes might be kind of similar, but the entire game plays out differently.

For example, if you didn't do a mission in the first game, someone in the third game will die. I won't say who it was, but if you did the mission in the first game, then he'll live. That's just one example of choices impacting the story.

As for the whole ABC thing, if you just play the third game (no import), there may only be one ending (destroy), so I don't see an ABC ending promise there.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/323/index/16992625/4#16995510

^ This guy seems to have a more level head on the ending subject.

I was not upset over the ending personally. I think the ending was absolutely brilliant. It just requires a bit of thought and using your imagination and some logic to fill in the blanks. Oh, and not taking the ending at face value. Very important.

I'm personally looking forward to the next game.

 

[IronMit]

maybe its because i played the entire series after the whole ending controversy thing happened but i thought mass effect 3 was fine, certainly not as good as mass effect 2 but that is setting the bar pretty damn high

i did dislike the ending given that it contradicted something that had happened half way through the game but if you made different choices i guess it might make sense

still why are they making a new mass effect game? that story's over why not just make a new science fiction series

It may be because you played them all after as you said.
Some other people were invested into the story, thought it through, read theories, and were quite aware of what was and was not possible in the Mass effect universe.
So when there were sudden macguffins, contrivances and plotholes it immediately stood out.

why a new mass effect game? money. It's an established franchise that some people are still invested it. It will market itself. it's a safe bet/ low risk. New IPs are risky.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

I saw Extended Ending, but read up on the original ending. But I've seen people complain about how your choices didn't effect the game and I didn't get that honestly.

People are in disagreement over what the word "ending" means. Most people that were upset belived all these choices would affect the last 5 minutes of the game. What really happened was their choices affected the game as a whole. I mean with a game that has over 1000 variables shaping the third game, how could they wrap all that up in the last 5 minutes?

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/258534/mass-effect-3-to-follow-over-1000-story-variations/

If you look at the entire game as the end of the trilogy, then yeah, there's tons of different variations it can play out. Yeah the last 5 minutes might be kind of similar, but the entire game plays out differently.

For example, if you didn't do a mission in the first game, someone in the third game will die. I won't say who it was, but if you did the mission in the first game, then he'll live. That's just one example of choices impacting the story.

As for the whole ABC thing, if you just play the third game (no import), there may only be one ending (destroy), so I don't see an ABC ending promise there.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/323/index/16992625/4#16995510

^ This guy seems to have a more level head on the ending subject.

I was not upset over the ending personally. I think the ending was absolutely brilliant. It just requires a bit of thought and using your imagination and some logic to fill in the blanks. Oh, and not taking the ending at face value. Very important.

I'm personally looking forward to the next game.

Yeah that's what threw me for a loop while playing ME3 (which was last week) I was seeing how some scenes could be different depending on how you played the first two. Like when ***** helped you fight Kia Lang I was wondering "What would have happened if he had died". There were other moments like that where if I did things differently it could have played out differently (Like when I tried to once again punch out the reporter she seemed to dodge a move she saw coming from the second game). But yeah I think your choices affect the journey not the end soooooo....yeah

 

[jklinders]

And so we counter no data with flawed data.

Then how are Bioware meant to recieve fan feedback, which they claimed to welcome at one point, if these polls are worthless? While potentially wrong, they have a better chance of being accurate than just pulling a viewpoint out of thin air.

We have a situation where Bioware claim that they're listening to fan input, only to then assert that what appears to be the majority view isn't. So either they have absolutely no basis to the "you are in a minority" claim, or they have data supporting their view, but are keeping it to themselves, which doesn't seem like a sensible idea to me.

Because that was the actual point of the video which by extension means it had no point. I saw the "point" of that video quite clearly. It was a "fan creation" with made up crap for stats to flog and alternative ending that was never intended by Bioware. It tried to legitimize the idea that artists cannot control their own work. the endings were what they were and people still moan about it over a year afterwards.

Now this is the only Clever Noobs video I've watched, but you're attributing them an agenda that I just don't see in the video itself. The video only lists the polls they tracked down and the results of those polls, with a little speculation at the end that the fans won't let it go unless Bioware do a better job of fixing it. Now you can disagree with that speculation but the only "flogging" of the Indoctrination Theorey in that video was them onberving that it was a popular option in those polls.

Every dev says they listen to fan feedback. Bioware did as well. They at their own expense did the Ec. It didn't satisfy everyone? Boo hoo. Seriously. They did more with the EC then most would have bothered to but because they did not buy into the fanbases pet conspiracy theory they were not listening? Any other pieces of flawed logic you want to toss in for good measure.

Bioware screwed up with the original ending. I feel that if the EC was released first we would not be bickering about this. They fixed by explaining themselves while keeping their integrity intact. Yet this is somehow violating their integrity. Frankly the IT theory folks confuse the heck out of me.

Clever Noobs whinged about IT for a good 40% of their video. their agenda was clear to me even if it was not to you. Just giving my opinion here but it was backed up by Clever Noobs own focus on their video. IT was the most riduculous and stupid fan theory out there. For every plot hole it filled it created three. Popular does not mean good and just because the fan base wanted it to be the real ending doesn't mean they get their wish. There are mods for the so called happy ending. For those who want those I suggest using them.

 

[jklinders]

It tried to legitimize the idea that artists cannot control their own work. the endings were what they were and people still moan about it over a year afterwards.

Bioware already legitimized that artists can't control their own work when they took Drew Karpyshyn(the series lead writer) off of Mass Effect 3 and replaced him with people who ignored all of the plot devices, foreshadowing, and character arcs that he'd set up.

It was created by Drew but not owned by him. He also did not create it alone. There were three lead writers in ME. And a whole boatload of secondary writers.

Besides his books sucked. Good game content by an average writer. His original ending idea about human DNA being somehow key to the dark energy eating the universe voodoo sounded like it came out of a fever dream invented out the vapours of one of L. Ron Hubbard's cocaine binges. Drew was shunted aside because his vision was in the minority of the writing team. I have seen no indication that it was anything else.

 

[jackinmydaniels]

Nope, not interested. ME3 was and is by far the worst out of the entire franchise yet and I'm not eager to see more of... whatever that mess of a game was supposed to be.

 

[Sarge034]

It was not too long ago that another company was sending employees out in droves to proclaim how "good" and "awesome" their product was while refusing to actually show the product...

It was Microsoft, and we got the Xbone (pre-180).

I'll reserve judgment until I see more information, but after DA2 and ME3 I'm not holding my breath.

 

[nuttshell]

Everytime I hear shiny praise about BioWare anywhere since Dragon Age 2, I suspect bullshit. The news about DA:Inquisition made me drop my guard for a bit but this here is making me very suspicious again. I refuse to be dissapointed again.

 

[Megalodon]

Every dev says they listen to fan feedback. Bioware did as well. They at their own expense did the Ec.

Yes they did, but not out of the goodness of their hearts, they realised that the fan outcry was hurting thier future profit potential and deemed that the resources to make the EC were worth it to claw back some of their estranged fans. I would say they were reasonably successful in this.

It didn't satisfy everyone? Boo hoo. Seriously.

Of course it didn't satisfy everyone, who really expected it too?

They did more with the EC then most would have bothered to but because they did not buy into the fanbases pet conspiracy theory they were not listening? Any other pieces of flawed logic you want to toss in for good measure.

It comes down to this. There are three possible stances about the state of the fanbase post-EC, the majority are OK with it, the majority are not OK with it, and we don't know who's in the majority. Bioware claimed that the first option was true, when any data available to the public suggested the second option was the truth. Now if the data available is inaccurate, the default position becomes "we don't know", as if the polls are worthless there is no data to support either of the other two options.

But Bioware were talking like they had proof that they were right, so either they had data they refused to share (I've already explained why I think this would be a bad idea), or they're talking complete BS.

Bioware screwed up with the original ending. I feel that if the EC was released first we would not be bickering about this.

Yeah, I agree with this bit.

They fixed by explaining themselves while keeping their integrity intact. Yet this is somehow violating their integrity.

I don't really want to get into an argument about artisitc integrity, they never seem to end well. But from my perspective, if the EC was just "clarification" of the original ending, it shows how badly the original was mangled, given the complete tonal shift in the EC (from "soI just killed everyone" to "hey, we actually did win").

Frankly the IT theory folks confuse the heck out of me.

True enough, never liked the theorey personally. Not only are you pretty much told flat out during the game that Sheperd isn't indoctrinated, if true, the bait and switch ending (without any resolution) would have been an almighty slap in the face to the audience. It's a telling sign of how badly the original ending goofed that IT got as popoular as it did.

 

[spartandude]

I saw Extended Ending, but read up on the original ending. But I've seen people complain about how your choices didn't effect the game and I didn't get that honestly.

People are in disagreement over what the word "ending" means. Most people that were upset belived all these choices would affect the last 5 minutes of the game. What really happened was their choices affected the game as a whole. I mean with a game that has over 1000 variables shaping the third game, how could they wrap all that up in the last 5 minutes?

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/258534/mass-effect-3-to-follow-over-1000-story-variations/

If you look at the entire game as the end of the trilogy, then yeah, there's tons of different variations it can play out. Yeah the last 5 minutes might be kind of similar, but the entire game plays out differently.

For example, if you didn't do a mission in the first game, someone in the third game will die. I won't say who it was, but if you did the mission in the first game, then he'll live. That's just one example of choices impacting the story.

As for the whole ABC thing, if you just play the third game (no import), there may only be one ending (destroy), so I don't see an ABC ending promise there.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/323/index/16992625/4#16995510

^ This guy seems to have a more level head on the ending subject.

I was not upset over the ending personally. I think the ending was absolutely brilliant. It just requires a bit of thought and using your imagination and some logic to fill in the blanks. Oh, and not taking the ending at face value. Very important.

I'm personally looking forward to the next game.

Yeah that's what threw me for a loop while playing ME3 (which was last week) I was seeing how some scenes could be different depending on how you played the first two. Like when ***** helped you fight Kia Lang I was wondering "What would have happened if he had died". There were other moments like that where if I did things differently it could have played out differently (Like when I tried to once again punch out the reporter she seemed to dodge a move she saw coming from the second game). But yeah I think your choices affect the journey not the end soooooo....yeah

The things it has little to no impact on the journey

Spoiler: to use your example

If Thane is alive he will fight Kai Leng and die but councilor lives. if Thane is dead but Kirahee is alive then he will die and the councilor lives, if neither is alive then the councilor dies and the consequence of losing one of the rulers of citadel space is that you dont get the salarian fleet which means you dont get another thing added to your warscore.... but dont worry doing a small sidequest will easily fix that, so there really isnt anything big about it.

To use another example, The Rachni queen.
Now the big choice in ME1 was to kill her or save her, and this was a choice really hyped up for ME3. So if you save her you get a quest to find the source of the Reaper/Rachni hybrids where you find her and are given that choice again. If you killed her you get the same quest where you find a different queen and have pretty much the same conversation with only SLIGHTLY different dialogue and you get given the choice again, seriously its ridiculous how little effort was put in there. And again the only consequence you get depends on the choice you make in ME3 and again its represented as a number on the galactic readiness/

Not to mention that they could have done what Dragon Age: Origins did with its ending in that after the last cutscene we got some small text boxes detailing how our choices have had an impact, that really wouldnt have taken up too much time at all, especially considering DA:O is about the size of that entire trilogy (almost). The closest we got to that was in the extended ending and even that barely gives us anything to go on and really doesnt take into account much of the choices or the impact they had.

 

[Whateveralot]

This is why I don't get excited for Bioware games anymore, which is a bummer because I used to think they were the bees knees of american RPGs. Hey that rhymed.

I started losing interest in Bioware around Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2, so I never even considered picking up Mass Effect 3. A bad ending doesn't turn me off from a series, but most things MinionJoe mentioned about EA does.

How on earth did he get banned for this? Who requested this? Dafuq.

 

[Kingjackl]

To the people going 'every company says "our game is awesome", this isn't news', by commenting on this thread, you are sort of validating the journos decision to post this article. The difference between Bioware and, say, Rockstar is that Rockstar haven't been under the same level of scrutiny from gamers. Their past games have been good, so if they come out and say "GTAV is going well", it's not news because we already knew that. It's different for Bioware: whether you liked Mass Effect 3 or not, the direction they took with it and the controversy it generated means people are going to be following this one very closely. Granted, most of that will be from jaded fans with crossed fingers muttering "please don't suck, please don't suck" over and over, but knowing that the devs think it's on the right track is cause for comfort.

I'm wondering if they're going to bother trying to reconcile this new game with all the hundreds of permutations created by the old trilogy. Thanks to next-gen consoles, it's pretty unlikely save-imports will be a thing, so the next best bet is to either give the player the option to fill everything out on a checklist right at the start, or just not bother with continuity. I for one hope it's the latter.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

This is why I don't get excited for Bioware games anymore, which is a bummer because I used to think they were the bees knees of american RPGs. Hey that rhymed.

I started losing interest in Bioware around Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2, so I never even considered picking up Mass Effect 3. A bad ending doesn't turn me off from a series, but most things MinionJoe mentioned about EA does.

How on earth did he get banned for this? Who requested this? Dafuq.

Occasionally we get user requesting that they wish to be banned themselves, he isn't the first nor I suspect he will be the last.

 

[dementis]

They said that mass effect 3 was going to be amazing too. I don't I can trust what Bioware say after their performance for the past few years.

 

[Austin Manning]

It was created by Drew but not owned by him. He also did not create it alone. There were three lead writers in ME. And a whole boatload of secondary writers. Drew was shunted aside because his vision was in the minority of the writing team. I have seen no indication that it was anything else.

So, in other words, he was an artist who took part in creating a work but the corporation known as Bioware did not allow him to have any control over how it turned out, to the detriment of the series. Thank you for agreeing with my original point. Also, while his planned ending may have been ridiculous (we'll never know) it still would have been better than what we got by virtue of it having been foreshadowed as early as Mass Effect 2. It would have fit into the universe and made (some sense) within the context of the series without needing to retcon everything the way ME3 did.

 

[jklinders]

Every dev says they listen to fan feedback. Bioware did as well. They at their own expense did the Ec.

Yes they did, but not out of the goodness of their hearts, they realised that the fan outcry was hurting thier future profit potential and deemed that the resources to make the EC were worth it to claw back some of their estranged fans. I would say they were reasonably successful in this.

It didn't satisfy everyone? Boo hoo. Seriously.

Of course it didn't satisfy everyone, who really expected it too?

They did more with the EC then most would have bothered to but because they did not buy into the fanbases pet conspiracy theory they were not listening? Any other pieces of flawed logic you want to toss in for good measure.

It comes down to this. There are three possible stances about the state of the fanbase post-EC, the majority are OK with it, the majority are not OK with it, and we don't know who's in the majority. Bioware claimed that the first option was true, when any data available to the public suggested the second option was the truth. Now if the data available is inaccurate, the default position becomes "we don't know", as if the polls are worthless there is no data to support either of the other two options.

But Bioware were talking like they had proof that they were right, so either they had data they refused to share (I've already explained why I think this would be a bad idea), or they're talking complete BS.

Bioware screwed up with the original ending. I feel that if the EC was released first we would not be bickering about this.

Yeah, I agree with this bit.

They fixed by explaining themselves while keeping their integrity intact. Yet this is somehow violating their integrity.

I don't really want to get into an argument about artisitc integrity, they never seem to end well. But from my perspective, if the EC was just "clarification" of the original ending, it shows how badly the original was mangled, given the complete tonal shift in the EC (from "soI just killed everyone" to "hey, we actually did win").

Frankly the IT theory folks confuse the heck out of me.

True enough, never liked the theorey personally. Not only are you pretty much told flat out during the game that Sheperd isn't indoctrinated, if true, the bait and switch ending (without any resolution) would have been an almighty slap in the face to the audience. It's a telling sign of how badly the original ending goofed that IT got as popoular as it did.

From the content of this we seem to be in agreement that Bioware fucked up with the original ending and mostly fixed it with the EC. Cool. Nothing more to discuss. The rest is just quibbling over guesses and assumptions over the reason for the EC. I'm not getting into one of those circular arguments any more than you want to clash over artistic integrity.

This is as close agreement as we are likely to get so I am going to call this a natural stopping point.

Cheers.

 

[jklinders]

It was created by Drew but not owned by him. He also did not create it alone. There were three lead writers in ME. And a whole boatload of secondary writers. Drew was shunted aside because his vision was in the minority of the writing team. I have seen no indication that it was anything else.

So, in other words, he was an artist who took part in creating a work but the corporation known as Bioware did not allow him to have any control over how it turned out, to the detriment of the series. Thank you for agreeing with my original point. Also, while his planned ending may have been ridiculous (we'll never know) it still would have been better than what we got by virtue of it having been foreshadowed as early as Mass Effect 2. It would have fit into the universe and made (some sense) within the context of the series without needing to retcon everything the way ME3 did.

Drew was one of many writers who was clearly in the minority. Please read a man's post before you reply to it. I did not prove any point you made because he was one of three fucking lead writers.

How abaout a different scenario. A kitchen full of chefs are making a 4 star meal. One chef wants to make chicken cordon blue the others want grill it with a baste of garlic and rosemary. That one chef is in the minority. Everyone else is against his idea, regardless of it's merit. Does that one chef get to dictate to everyone else how it turns out?

Yeah there was a bit of retconning needed. I suspect that the crackhead Idea Drew came out with for the ending was dropped in committee between game on e and 2. He was voted down and that left a few hanging plot threads. Foreshadowing does not equal good. It's nothing more than a writing tool really. The ending we got was stupid but not nearly as stupid as a race's DNA "fixing" dark energy. I read the notes. It was a hash dream in text.

Did you really want a mass effect that ended with Harbinger presenting Shepard with the choice to believe that the survival of the galaxy meant allowing humanity to be reaperized because our DNA is "special" to the idea of controlling dark energy? There was absolutely nothing in the existing product, including Kai fucking Leng. It was that fucking stupid.

Somehow I left this behind about 14 months ago. I really can't believe people are still going apeshit over this 18 months after the fact.