How the hell do Bioware find the time to do all these things at once? Do they have, like, a million staff members?
BioWare Shuts Down Cerberus Network, Confirms New Mass Effect DLC
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
My thoughts on the subject are "way to go Bioware" with as much sarcasm as I can muster.
Simply put, it hasn't even been a year since the release of "Mass Effect 2" it was released on like January 17th of last year. It's close, but not quite. This is one of the biggest and most successful games they have ever released, by a powerhouse company, and they are killing the online bells and whistles for it already? Even Atlus has done better in keeping the online support for "Demon's Souls" up and running.
See, the arguement for all of this online connectivity stuff is how cool it is, and the flavor text from Cerberus Network and the like is one of the defenses to how it can increase game immersion and the like. However as we're seeing here, companies are not going to commit to this kind of thing for the long term. That's not surprising due to the fact that they need to pay for the servers and the people doing the writing and everything else.
To be honest the whole thing was a giant bit of DRM anyway, and I'm not sorry to see it go overall, especially if it means I can play without having to be online, but the point is that this pretty much killed a lot of the arguements in favor of such things. If they can't keep a simple message-server running, just imagine how annoying it's going to be when we see some of these "next gen" ideas for linking interconnectivity into single player games, and serious chunks of content being cut (which didn't happen here) whenever the company decides to start focusing on it's next title.
Simply put, it seems like we're pretty much getting it from both ends here. No point in selling the positive features you can add to that DRM/login bit, if your not going to maintain it for the long term. But then again I think I said similar things about the realities of "the bottom line" back when this first launched.
Simply put, it hasn't even been a year since the release of "Mass Effect 2" it was released on like January 17th of last year. It's close, but not quite. This is one of the biggest and most successful games they have ever released, by a powerhouse company, and they are killing the online bells and whistles for it already? Even Atlus has done better in keeping the online support for "Demon's Souls" up and running.
See, the arguement for all of this online connectivity stuff is how cool it is, and the flavor text from Cerberus Network and the like is one of the defenses to how it can increase game immersion and the like. However as we're seeing here, companies are not going to commit to this kind of thing for the long term. That's not surprising due to the fact that they need to pay for the servers and the people doing the writing and everything else.
To be honest the whole thing was a giant bit of DRM anyway, and I'm not sorry to see it go overall, especially if it means I can play without having to be online, but the point is that this pretty much killed a lot of the arguements in favor of such things. If they can't keep a simple message-server running, just imagine how annoying it's going to be when we see some of these "next gen" ideas for linking interconnectivity into single player games, and serious chunks of content being cut (which didn't happen here) whenever the company decides to start focusing on it's next title.
Simply put, it seems like we're pretty much getting it from both ends here. No point in selling the positive features you can add to that DRM/login bit, if your not going to maintain it for the long term. But then again I think I said similar things about the realities of "the bottom line" back when this first launched.
I think there are suppose to be different dev teams for different area's of work. So a seperate team will work on DLC for their games.MiracleOfSound said:
It's pretty amazing how they pump out so many quality games and add ons in such a short time.Flamezdudes said:
All they're doing is putting the news feed on hiatus until it's time for the final DLC to be released, and then again until the sequel is getting close.Therumancer said:
DLC and such will work just as they have since the game was released, unless they patch that out later.
With slight melancholy: I rather enjoyed those little news snippets, they offered a sometimes humorous outlook on the future of Earth.
Read the article. It's only temporary and only effects the "latest news" section of the menu while they get the new DLC ready, does not prevent DLC from being used or purchasedTherumancer said:
Yeah I don't have any fun playing my video games. I just buy them so the other video game nerds won't make fun of me. That's why I have to buy the new madden every year.XT inc said:
well, Bioware do have what? 5 studios(including 1 in Ireland) so I'm pretty sure they can do it, I'm guessing that they have 1 studio develop Mass Effect 3, another run the Cerberus network and port make the PS3 port for Mass Effect 2(the CN's news feed is probably being temporarily shut down to focus on the Port and that extra DLC) and the other 3 studios working on everything else.MiracleOfSound said:
Maybe they'll do moar news snippets in ME3
"In other news every planet is screwed because of these so called "Reapers"... And now for the sport"
Also sweet new DLC though can it beat the epicosity of LoTSB?
"In other news every planet is screwed because of these so called "Reapers"... And now for the sport"
Also sweet new DLC though can it beat the epicosity of LoTSB?
Aw man. I liked the little bit of background "news" going on from the Cerberus network. Mind you I never read it in game, it was so annoying to do so. Instead I just read it off the ME wiki. Oh well, that'll give me time to catch up. And just when I got a new copy of ME2 too...
I never paid any attention to the Cerberus Network. Good thing it was free with the game. I'd be pissed if I'd been one of the poor saps who had to pay for this.
I got the Cerberus Key over Steam, and it has done absolutely NOTHING for me so far.
None of the DLC was activated, and any attempts to activate it are met with advertisements for the DLC.
So in the end, the Cerberus Network (for me) has been nothing but pointless bling on the startup screen. Hell, it's been less than that; it's DRM.
None of the DLC was activated, and any attempts to activate it are met with advertisements for the DLC.
So in the end, the Cerberus Network (for me) has been nothing but pointless bling on the startup screen. Hell, it's been less than that; it's DRM.
Probably Christmas time. The last report I saw about it from Bioware said something like "looking to get the best sales market possible" (paraphrasing, of course) which generally shoots for the end of the year.I_am_a_Spoon said:
Alas.
Caligulove said:
I read the article. Whether it's a major feature or not, the bottom line is they are removing the news ticker function, because they don't want to pay for it, and will only bring it back up when they have a product they want to sell.
I'm not claiming this is a major feature, or that it was going to influance the DLC.
Understand, what "The Cerberus Network" is, is a fancy piece of DRM. It basically forces you to check in with Bioware on the internet before you start your game up, both allowing them to confirm your not a pirate, and probably track what your doing for purposes of marketing research. Bypassing this (which is tricky) is going to disable your DLC, some of which they provide for free to discourage you from doing so. Not to mention that some of that DLC is going to cause serious problems if it doesn't load (as the game will tell you if you try and load a save game without properly logging into the Cerberus network) making it so your unlikely to be able to use your save games as well.
The defense of the Cerberus Network, was always kind of weak, and was that we get the amusement/immersion of their news ticker and updates and so on. What they are doing is
pretty much removing the one aspect of this that was positive. As I understand things this isn't changing anything, your still going to need to login.
Understand, I am anti-DRM to begin with. I'd have vastly preferred just doing the DLC without the online components to begin with. I hate the entire idea. What they are doing here seems even more lame however. As you pointed out, they are doing nothing but removing the customer-friendly part.
I'll also be blunt that I am becoming increasingly irritated about game companies using these kinds of systems to track player activity as I mentioned. This year I've seen stuff abotu people logging 70,000 years in "Black Ops." how many critters have been killed by the community in "Red Dead Redemption", and of course breakdowns of what class is most popular for Shepard in "Mass Effect", all of this gathered by using the internet to spy on the community. Now granted, this stuff is all fairly harmless, but it does make me wonder what else they could be gathering, especially seeing as they wouldn't exactly admit it. Yep, I am paranoid... and even if it is actually harmless right now, I think anyone who doesn't think it will snowball is naive.
I'm gettng off the subject though.
Yeah, I activated it there, and the Cerberus Network went up on the title screen, but no DLC activated in game or downloaded. I'm unsure what the hell happened (in comparison, my Borderlands GOTY DLC installed and worked as expected).JediMB said:
My attempts at reclaiming it went unattended, save for a few obvious automated PR responses.
That was months ago.
Thanks anyway.