Many here are not fond of Inquisition, which is interesting cause most of the reception I've heard has been quite positive.
Mass Effect 4 Details Possibly Leaked
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While I think ME has historically been a significantly stronger franchise than DA, this reeks of Dragon Age Inquisition design paradigms, which is a bit unsettling. DA:I was not a very good game. It was positively riddled with flaws and absolutely stuffed to the gills with some of the more tedious and regressive content to ever stain the genre.
ME might get around some of that with its inherently better/smoother combat and (Gods willing) a better script. But I'm not holding my breath on that latter point, Bioware seems to have suffered a serious talent exodus over the last 4-5 years.
ME might get around some of that with its inherently better/smoother combat and (Gods willing) a better script. But I'm not holding my breath on that latter point, Bioware seems to have suffered a serious talent exodus over the last 4-5 years.
Inquisition was my last straw with bioware. Interesting as it was the first game I felt hyped for sense like 2012- and even after hearing all of the "Itz 7autta10" reviews I still really wanted to play it.
Mass Effect 2 remains my favorite game, but honestly I don't think ME4 will be any good, saying this when pretty much no one knows anything about it. I enjoyed ME3, up until, you know... But I honestly feel like there isn't a direction they could go that would make me interested in throwing my money away for them again.
Mass Effect 2 remains my favorite game, but honestly I don't think ME4 will be any good, saying this when pretty much no one knows anything about it. I enjoyed ME3, up until, you know... But I honestly feel like there isn't a direction they could go that would make me interested in throwing my money away for them again.
Honestly give their track record for promising the moon and the stars and only delivering a wet piece of paper with the word Space written on it, I think we can safely say only about...what, 1/5 of what they say will be in the game actually will be.
So go ahead and read the list of all the neat things they're promising and pick one to be in the game.
So go ahead and read the list of all the neat things they're promising and pick one to be in the game.
Yesterday when I read this I was disappointed. But I had some time to think. Now I'm pissed. Like I said above, new galaxy is a cheap way of not addressing the ending of ME3. If they wanted a cheap way out they could have used the silly fanmade Indoctrination Theory. Why, you may ask. Well, because they could've lied about it. They already lied about the nature of Mass Effect 3 so why not lie about The Indoctrination Theory too? They could have said that it was their idea from the start. If they wanted a cheap way out they had one that didn't include sacrificing an entire universe that so many of us have grown to love. If this info is true, then fuck Bioware and fuck EA.
In order:Johnisback said:
1. The reapers only seemed to be limited to the milky way galaxy, not the entire universe, they had a mass relay that warped them outside the Milky Way galaxy, which is where they hung out between cycles, there is nothing to suggest that the Reapers were a universe scale threat. In ME4's case, it is likely removed by the fact that it takes place away from the Milky Way, and far in the future, so they can essentially handwave away whatever ending you got in ME3.
2. From what I'm reading, it's not that the humans got there first, it looks like the ME races have all sent their own colony fleets to the andromeda galaxy, humans likely arrive around the same time or slightly before all the other ME races, still setting this way in the future of post ME3 which is why it's never mentioned in those games.
3. This is something that most people thought happened, but got retconned after the ME3 extended cut ending. The mass relays were not destroyed, they were damaged, but the epilogue in the extended cut reveals that they were rebuilt, meaning that a trans galaxy relay would be able to be repaired as well. Given that this game likely takes place a long time after ME3, it is also possible that the ME races simply built their own mass effect relay, or discovered another form of FTL.
4. No clue on this one, depending on how far the jump in time is, the level of technology should be a hell of a lot more advanced, especially with the control and synthesis ending, there would be no excuse to have us just drive around a slightly retooled MAKO.
5. I doubt these remnants are Protheans, that seems like a bit of a cop out.
Cool. My thoughts on subject matter:
1) It's not a Mass Effect game at all. Other place with different setting, no connection to story of ME1-3 or characters. If those will pop up, it will be dumb.
2) Absolutely stupid premise with intergalactic colonization.
3) Obvious attempt to distance from ME3 fiasco. Too late, sorry.
4) Even less RPG then before. More crafting and shooting. Mentioned 'diplomacy' will boil down to 'tough choice' between two groups you don't give a fawk about.
Final verdict: don't care.
1) It's not a Mass Effect game at all. Other place with different setting, no connection to story of ME1-3 or characters. If those will pop up, it will be dumb.
2) Absolutely stupid premise with intergalactic colonization.
3) Obvious attempt to distance from ME3 fiasco. Too late, sorry.
4) Even less RPG then before. More crafting and shooting. Mentioned 'diplomacy' will boil down to 'tough choice' between two groups you don't give a fawk about.
Final verdict: don't care.
I'm sure they are trying to get away from the endings by distancing themselves but I don't see how you can make a sequel that distances itself. If you went for destroy all the AIs (like the Geth) are dead, if you did synthesis everyone is a cyborg, if you did control the galaxy is ruled by a dictator Reaper conciousness which may or may not be Shepard (it was pretty unclear) and if you did refusal everyone is dead. All of those are very different and they'd all impact people a lot even if they did move to another galaxy. That's part of the problem with the Mass Effect 3 endings, you can't ignore it and sweep it under the rug if you make a sequel. Only hope to avoid dealing with it is in a prequel or an interquel. Or retcon the whole thing but I doubt they will at this stage.
well that kinda makes sense, to be honest.I mean, obviously it's going to be seperate from the Shepherd/Reapers narrative, could even be a soft reboot but this is kinda acceptable in Sci-Fi. We get to keep the general style and a bunch of the cool races but it can be seperated from the existing trilogy so it isn't 60% "Hey, remember this character from the three previous games who now has an even longer branching story that eats into the plot?"
Basically ME1-3 is Kirk
ME4 is Picard
I'm also not going to whine that one of the three characters they mention is a Krogan.
I love it. I see many people not happy about the new galaxy part, but to me it's the best thing about this whole thing (which I hope will end up being true).
To me, dwelling too much in the same place tends to get stale. We've seen a lot of the Milky Way and while there are, of course, infinite possibilities still there, I think that moving to another galaxy gives more opportunities for inventing new stuff. The thought of exploring a new galaxy excites me greatly. While I liked all the games in the original trilogy, I don't think it would be beneficial to tie the new games to that. Not even with the ending. I don't want the new games to be constant callbacks to the previous ones, I want them to be new games. Moving to a different location is a great start for me.
Of course, things can still end up being bad, but so far, I'm excited about these new possibilities.
Captcha: history repeats itself. Is this a warning?
To me, dwelling too much in the same place tends to get stale. We've seen a lot of the Milky Way and while there are, of course, infinite possibilities still there, I think that moving to another galaxy gives more opportunities for inventing new stuff. The thought of exploring a new galaxy excites me greatly. While I liked all the games in the original trilogy, I don't think it would be beneficial to tie the new games to that. Not even with the ending. I don't want the new games to be constant callbacks to the previous ones, I want them to be new games. Moving to a different location is a great start for me.
Of course, things can still end up being bad, but so far, I'm excited about these new possibilities.
Captcha: history repeats itself. Is this a warning?
Trust me, you aren't the only one. I'd love the chance to play a Female Turian Sentinel, or a Male Quarian Infiltrator if given the chance. But I think part of it is because, unlike Inquisition where all of the races were essentially different flavors of Human (Normal Humans, the Short Humans, the Wiry Humans with pointy ears, and the Tall, Muscular Humans with big horns), which were all relatively easy to customize the appearance, trying to customize a Turian or a Krogan would be much harder, and trying to customize a Quarian, depending on how they go about them, would probably end up being either useless or amount to customizing their initial suit, assuming they would still wear them.Hades said:
Regardless, I'm cautiously optimistic. Sure, they took the easy way out to avoid the problem of Mass Effect 3's endings by placing it all in a new Galaxy, but that opens up quite a few possibilities. I'm also hoping that the crew is varied, and isn't essentially a carbon copy of any of the other squadmates that Shepard had. While I really wish the plot didn't sound like it's centered around humanity expanding it's colonies, it could easily be subject to change. I'm a bit iffy when it comes to the idea of raiding "Vaults" left by ancient aliens, it really depends on how they go about it.
Still, looking forward to Mass Effect 4 regardless.
Here's the thing... For every interesting thing Inquisition did right, Bioware fracked over fifty more things. Multiplayer? The mechanics themselves could be fun, but everything from balance to gear to even just unlocking classes was horribly borked. It grew repetitive by lvl 5 for your first character, and getting new armor, weapons and classes is so nestled in RNG that you'll need to have lightning strike three times in the same place, before you have a chance to potentially unlock a new class. Maps are bland, enemies even more so, and keepers and the barrier spells are so broken it trivializes everything.IOwnTheSpire said:
And the story...? It's great! For the first quarter of the game. After Skyhold is reached though it's this tepid, weak attempt to try and out hype itself as it draws to a completely boring, uninteresting, unoriginal ending that has no respect for any of your choices. The worst of which is the post credit scene that COMPLETELY negates what would of been a drastic and life-altering detail for either your main character or another.
Then there are companions, which are about as weak as can be. The strong point is Varric. The weak point is there is zero companion quests that have a major turn or revelation. You get maybe one actual quest or interaction, then the rest is carried out through the war table. You don't get to learn or do much of anything with any character. Sera, for instance, has one thing where you go out and deal with her quest personally. The rest? War table missions where all you get is a brief mention of the chaos it caused (or didn't cause) and some approval. And the approval system itself is even weaker than ever. Bioware claimed to have removed it to make it more "realistic", but in all actuality it's a way to hide just how shallow it is to hit "full approval" and how deep it is to go near "full disapproval". From my experience, it takes almost nothing to cause characters to love you, while it takes lots of work in order to get them to hate you.
War table is bloody pathetic, plain and simple. I could write an essay on the various ways it was screwed up. Safe to say the game itself is only 10-15 hours max, with 90+ hours of meaningless, shallow F2P-Quality MMO quest filler. And war tables just add to that with meaningless time-limited mechanics.
But yes. A lot of the early reception was positive. Yet as time has passed people have soured as the game has had time to settle and sink in. The more time is spent, the more that gold paint wears off to expose murky, bland brown.
And what's worse? I'm seeing plenty of these issues likely rising up in ME4. Strike Teams? It's the war table, trading in guaranteed success but sometimes lengthy missions for RNG based success chances that will serve nothing more than a sink for resources for the player. It'll be a way to create an illusion of "careful choice and decision making". This whole "100s of planets" shtick reminds me of Mass Effect 1, which promised much the same but we saw the extent of the copy-paste Lego block level design that later reared its ugly head in Dragon Age 2. The claim of seamless travel moreso, because Inquisition has load times that puts pre-patch Bloodborne to shame. Now, I'm not saying it isn't impossible. MMOs like World of Warcraft load zones as you walk, creating the illusion of a seamless world. Yet that also required server architecture supporting each area, and while it might work for most of one continent, it's only for that continent. Loading is required to switch between them. And, quite obviously, Mass Effect 4 won't have the ability to do this considering it all has to be run off a single console and what information is on the disk.
That's not touching on the utterly bland choice of story presented, the fact that despite being a seemingly generic character we are locked to human, and this "raid" system sounds like a way to shoe-horn gear with stats or the like into the game along with something that could potentially end up being attached to micro transactions. Star Keys? Required to access special areas that don't sound to be necessary for main story progression? Yeah... I'm expecting to see a 5pack for ten dollars. I'll keep an eye on the game for sure... But mass effect 3 and Dragon age 2 (and Inquisition to a lesser extent), has made me wary of Biowares competence or ability to actually deliver a satisfying game in both gameplay and narrative. Hell... You still can't collect EVERYTHING in DA Inquisition I believe, since several mosaic pieces were last I heard still placed and glitched out of the level geometry and thus impossible to obtain.
Again? Last time this happened they kneejerked so hard the end result (pun intended) creaed the biggest, most lasting gaming shitstorm until gamergate rolled around. And apparently no one learned shit from it.
And now that I've indulged my inner bitterness, I'm gonna be a massive hypocrite and take a look
And now that I've indulged my inner bitterness, I'm gonna be a massive hypocrite and take a look
Maybe the beginning of ME4 makes it clear the ME3 was just a fever dream after Shepard fell ill on an alien world. Then ME4 can be the ME3 that should have been.
I don't see what's wrong with the Milky Way. I mean, Andromeda is really far away. Even in Mass Effect it is still hugely far away. I mean ridiculously far away. Why would I want to go there when the Milky Way has all the things I want. It has beautiful parks, shopping on the Citadel, Blasto Movies, and Liara's tight ..... embrace (eternity). If I want adventure I'd just pop off to the 99% of the Galaxy that I have not explored yet.
And what does Andromeda have? Really good restaurants? Like I can't get that here.
And what does Andromeda have? Really good restaurants? Like I can't get that here.
While I'm still opposed to calling Inquisition a genuinely bad game, it is a shame that so much content had to divert to quantity over quality. For all the complaints I've heard about DA2's repetitiveness, I remember far more from talking to people in Kirkwall than I do about completing random fetch quests in Inquisition.SilverHunter said:
My hope is that the next Mass Effect doesn't fall into the trap of spreading things thin. It's fine if they pay homage to ME1's Mako and have more explorable areas, but the core of the game should be about the characters and their stories, not an excuse to dump all resources into the environment's new graphics engine.