EA Tweaking Mass Effect 3 to Appeal to Wider Market
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
Let's all remember that they've said repeatedly before now that one of their main design goals was to focus more on the RPG elements than they did in ME2.
It sounds to me like they're polishing it by trying to make it both a good shooter and a good RPG rather than focusing on one over the other. If they made that work, it could be a truly great game.
There's also the strong, strong possibility that they just needed more time to finish it and this is the bullshit excuse given to investors.
It sounds to me like they're polishing it by trying to make it both a good shooter and a good RPG rather than focusing on one over the other. If they made that work, it could be a truly great game.
There's also the strong, strong possibility that they just needed more time to finish it and this is the bullshit excuse given to investors.
Yes why wait for actual news about the game? Let's all jump to conclusions before we've even seen any game-play footage. Have fun being melodramatic for no reason kiddo.bfgmetalhead said:
There are no words to adequately describe my feelings on this matter so here's a vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSz5-fhZznQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSz5-fhZznQ
"Hey BioWare?"
"Yeah EA?"
"You know what was great?"
"What?"
"How shitty Dragon Age 2 was."
"Yeah that was amazing."
"Hey, just got an idea."
"What's that?"
"You want to ruin Mass Effect too?"
"You God damned right I do."
"Sweet, lets go count money."
They started with a great Sci-Fi RPG, dumbed it down a bit, and now I guess it's going to be gears of war with a dialogue wheel.
"Yeah EA?"
"You know what was great?"
"What?"
"How shitty Dragon Age 2 was."
"Yeah that was amazing."
"Hey, just got an idea."
"What's that?"
"You want to ruin Mass Effect too?"
"You God damned right I do."
"Sweet, lets go count money."
They started with a great Sci-Fi RPG, dumbed it down a bit, and now I guess it's going to be gears of war with a dialogue wheel.
BioWare has said countless times that they are trying to find a balance between to two. But it seems people would rather kick and scream, instead of calm down and wait to see how the game turns out.Animyr said:
This. So much this.distantworlds said:
When I played ME1 I thought it was perfect. Now, having played ME2, I can barely stand it.
I play Dwarf Fortress; I know what it means to play a game that appeals to a specialized crowd. Still, I would like it if DF had a mode of play that did not scare off so many people, because I want others to experience the awesomeness. DF could be "dumbed down" quite a bit and not suffer much for it. In the end I think it would appeal a lot more to general audiences.
You know what I'm wondering. I'm trying to think of a single non-Bioware EA game that deals in any way deals with homosexuality. Of course, Bioware does a pretty awful job of that, like all things sexual, in that it writes adult relationships as though they were in the minds of inexperienced-but-desperate teenagers (case in point: Isabella in DA2 is intended to be a 'sexually confident' character, yet her constant obsession with throwing sexual details into every bit of conversation just screams 'teenage virgin who is really self-conscious about sexuality').
Given the poisonous degree of homophobia that infests parts of the gaming community, and especially the teenage-male shooter-fan market where 'gay' is a standard insult, will EA allow Bioware to continue devoting resources to gay characters? I'd rather that gay characters didn't have to come in the form of a 'collect 'em all, one for each type' Biowarean romance-plot-as-designed-by-pokemon, and that instead gay characters were woven into the story and themes (more akin to how Obsidian does romance/sex aspects). Yet, Bioware's main response to homophobic comments about Dragon Age 1/2 was 'you didn't have to see it unless you pursued that path'. Now, for me that's part of what I find problematic about the Biowarean approach, in that it makes the characters feel a bit faceless/empty, but it shows that even the mere inclusion of gay characters really angers the homophobes in the market.
Now the invisibility of gay characters in most games doesn't come because EA/Activision are homophobic. It comes because they know that they will lose sales if they include prominent gay characters, whereas gay gamers aren't necessarily going to buy a game just because it has gay characters. The conventional wisdom is just that prominent homosexuality is fine for niche products, or products in advanced markets like TV or film where you can produce different products for different market segments, but that it loses you money if you put it in 'mass-market' products. And EA has all but declared that they want to cater to the mass market.
What do people think? Are we likely to see less homosexuality in Bioware games, if they are chasing the CoD market?
Given the poisonous degree of homophobia that infests parts of the gaming community, and especially the teenage-male shooter-fan market where 'gay' is a standard insult, will EA allow Bioware to continue devoting resources to gay characters? I'd rather that gay characters didn't have to come in the form of a 'collect 'em all, one for each type' Biowarean romance-plot-as-designed-by-pokemon, and that instead gay characters were woven into the story and themes (more akin to how Obsidian does romance/sex aspects). Yet, Bioware's main response to homophobic comments about Dragon Age 1/2 was 'you didn't have to see it unless you pursued that path'. Now, for me that's part of what I find problematic about the Biowarean approach, in that it makes the characters feel a bit faceless/empty, but it shows that even the mere inclusion of gay characters really angers the homophobes in the market.
Now the invisibility of gay characters in most games doesn't come because EA/Activision are homophobic. It comes because they know that they will lose sales if they include prominent gay characters, whereas gay gamers aren't necessarily going to buy a game just because it has gay characters. The conventional wisdom is just that prominent homosexuality is fine for niche products, or products in advanced markets like TV or film where you can produce different products for different market segments, but that it loses you money if you put it in 'mass-market' products. And EA has all but declared that they want to cater to the mass market.
What do people think? Are we likely to see less homosexuality in Bioware games, if they are chasing the CoD market?
I'm reserving judgement until I actually see how the game turns out. Going apeshit to this degree over a game we literally know next to nothing about is pointless, and immature. People are too eager to find something to be angry about.bfgmetalhead said:
Tell me what they can do to Mass Effect to make it any more dumbed down than they already have.bfgmetalhead said:
They are not making Mass Effect into a Gears of War clone. They are ADDING rpg elements. They have said so. When they say "Making it appeal to a wider market" they mean BOTH the rpg and shooter market.
ME2 was both a sub-par shooter game, and a dumbed down rpg game. They are improving the shooter part to compete with games like COD, and improving the rpg elements for fans of the series.
They are not stupid. Completely switching the tone of a series is taking a risk, and that is not what big companies like to do. So why would they do that here? ESPECIALLY after the Dragon Age 2 fiasco?
and thus, all the elitists who hate other people enjoying what they enjoy QQ'd themselves into oblivion
I have nothing agiants them tweaking the shooting aspects.
But they better not take any more RPG elements out of the game.
ME2 was already quite poor compared to ME1 RPG elements.
So yeah, dnot mess it up or i forone will leave BioWare.
DA2 was already enough to make me doubt in BioWare, and now if
they were to do the same to ME3 that would be it.
But they better not take any more RPG elements out of the game.
ME2 was already quite poor compared to ME1 RPG elements.
So yeah, dnot mess it up or i forone will leave BioWare.
DA2 was already enough to make me doubt in BioWare, and now if
they were to do the same to ME3 that would be it.
I don't know...Leximodicon said:
"Yeah, sure they said the exact same things about Dragon Age II, and I put out the same 'wait and see' line, and it turned out that you hated DAII and were right about everything you said about it, but why on Earth should you draw any conclusions from that?"
I can't quite say that they're underestimating the brain power of their new target audience. Remember, Fallout 3 didn't sell as much as Modern Warfare 2. Anything less means that they haven't "broadened their appeal" enough.
So how many times do we have to witness the exact same process repeat itself before we're permitted to expect that repeating the same actions will lead to the same outcome?Fanboy said:
You're acting like this is the first time that EA has done this. It isn't.
Look at EA's history and the absorption/closure of Origin, Westwood, Bullfrog, Maxis - just to name a few (to get the full list, wikipedia EA acquisitions). Each of those were heavily creative (arguably more so than Bioware) developers at the absolute pinnacle of their markets. On each occasion, EA bought them, then ordered them to produce one game per IP per year (irrespective of time needed to make a quality game), and to widen the target markets of their products. On each occasion, the products changed from being the greatest at what they did, to being utterly dumbed down, generic mass-produced drivel aimed at teenage action fans.
Origin was thrice the rpg studio that Bioware is. Under Garriott and Spector, it was the undisputed king of rpgs during its existence, with the Ultima series repeatedly smashing expectations of what gaming could produce. Even today, Ultima 7 is cited by many developers (e.g. Bethesda's lead Todd Howard) as being the greatest game ever made. Add to that the Wing Commander series, that was legendary in its own right, and the Ultima Underworld games that invented the first-person crpg and the hybrid system that led to Spector's post-Origin masterpieces System Shock 2 and Deus Ex. The concept of Origin - the company whose slogan was 'we create worlds', the 'Luke Skywalkers' of game development compared to EA's Empire - turning into a corporate drone that produced mindless entries in its IP, with platformer and action elements to draw in the kiddie masses, devoid of self-respect or artistic credibility, was utterly inconceivable (unless you took account of EA's history, which even then was pretty ugly).
Yet like every other EA acquisition before and since, the orders came down to produce one game per IP per year, despite the crpg field being one where years can be needed to give the scope/choices/balance/freedom that is required for a great game. And like every other EA acquisition before and since, Origin became 'just another producer of generic EA games'. And like every other EA acquisition before and since, EA milked Origin's IPs by selling them to the lowest common denominator, until eventually they lost all market credibility and the studio was formally dissolved (its actual creatives having already left as the inevitable became the obvious).
EA has done this over and over again, to the point where 'buy a more creative competitor to access their IPs, pump out generic games under those IPs for the lowest common denominator, close the studio and move onto a new one once the IPs are no longer credible' is pretty much their standard operating procedure. It's how they make money.
Given that, don't you think we might be justified in asking what, exactly, is going to make things different this time around?
i was being sarcastic, im not going to cancel my pre-order silly. But I do fear for the future of mass effect as EA has less than no respect for it's consumers and will obliterate a franchise just to make a profit, look at command and conquer westwood made four amazing games. Then EA decided to start "tweaking" and we had generals (decent at best) command and conquer 3 (again decent at best as horrible balancing) then the horrible red alert 3 and the extremely awful command and conquer 4 which was so bad even EA had to admit it was bad! What i am trying to say is:
EA RUIN VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING THEY CAN GET THEIR CORRUPT MONEY GRABING HANDS ON IF GIVEN THE CHANCE OR TIME AND THEY WILL NEVER CHANGE UNLESS THERE TORTURED CONSUMER BASE BOYCOTS THEM.
sorry if that was blunt but yea thats the truth
EA RUIN VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING THEY CAN GET THEIR CORRUPT MONEY GRABING HANDS ON IF GIVEN THE CHANCE OR TIME AND THEY WILL NEVER CHANGE UNLESS THERE TORTURED CONSUMER BASE BOYCOTS THEM.
sorry if that was blunt but yea thats the truth