Report: Mass Effect Put on Indefinite Hold

[TT Kairen]

I sence a great disturbance in the Buthurt.Projecting a bit hard aren't we sweety?Did i offent your magnificent and unreproachable taste in video games so hard, that it led you to making pathetic ad hominem attacks?
Jut FYI - the only thing i was a fanboy of was Fallout and that was before Bethesda decided to brutally murder and then rape the still twitching corpse of one of my favourite rpgs.

I don't know what's more hilarious; the fact that you just succinctly proved my point, or the fact that you countered a "pathetic ad hominem" with a pathetic ad hominem.

Though in fairness I will completely cede one point.

Waifus/husbandos and tumblerites who only care if there is an NPC that self-idenifies as a tapeworm.

I don't know if you caught this in the game, but they apparently made male-pronoun-preference asari a thing. Despite the fact that they have no biological equivalent, and prior to becoming spacefaring, would have little concept of what male *is*, because muh-progresshun.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't really care. I think Mass Effect should have ended with ME3 anyway.

 

[FoolKiller]

Well, this sucks. I was very happy to be surprised at how good Andromeda is, and sequels were clearly planned for it. If it really is over it will be a sad case of a good franchise killed by a shitty fan base, and that just upsets me.

No good Sir, there comes a time when you can no longer blame the Toxic Community? for everything bad.

This was EA cashing in on the brand name, with the B team handling a project that was way over their heads.

I'm with Vampwizimp... I liked it.

Sure the first 10 hours were a drag but I found that to be true of Mass Effect as well, and I love that game. Once you meet the Angaran and the story picks up, it becomes a great game. I don't care for the facial animation during convos anyways. I care about the way the game looks during gameplay and the story in this case. Both were excellent.

 

[breadsammich]

I think Totalbiscuit said it best when he said that if ever there was a 7/10 game in the truest sense, this would be it. The problem is that too many people see this as a binary state. The game is either amazing or the worst game ever. How many people who would have *actually* enjoyed the game were dissuaded by this scorched-earth hate policy? If there were more voices saying, "yeah, it's a pretty fun, yet flawed game", which I think is the case, you might have more people picking it up and having a decent time of it.

It's gotten to the point where I don't give any weight to any criticism that doesn't have at least one praise. I mean come on, you mean to tell me you started up the game and didn't have an ounce of fun from the second you started? There was no redeeming quality to the game? I'm sure it happens, but not as often as the internet seems to indicate. Overall I loved Andromeda, but I'm not looking for a mindblowing experience, nor do I really have high expectations for just about any game. I'm pretty easy to please, and I'm sure there are a lot of people out there like me. I hope there weren't many turned away by the vitriol.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

The ultimate message is to STOP PREORDERING GAMES!

I have a very simple policy, if I liked the last game from a developer I'll preorder the next one.

I cheated a bit with pre-ordering ME3, but at least the multiplayer saved it.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

Some things you just can't write a sequel to, and Mass Effect is one of them.

An intentional choice by McCasey of course, which is why I agree with the poster who said that the ME3 ending was entirely on Bioware.

 

[AD-Stu]

Hopefully EA have at least learned that pushing out a game that is clearly not ready just to make quarterly earnings call is ultimately self defeating. In addition to the lost sales as a result of the horrible PR around the launch, how much brand damage has Mass Effect and Bioware sustained as a result of this debacle? There's no avoiding the fact that this is at least partially a management induced own-goal.

Partially, sure, but I think a lot of this has to be put back on Bioware: they did have five years and a AAA budget to make this game after all.

If they gave them more time and money I think you definitely get better QA and better animation. But I don't know that you necessarily get better pacing or writing or a better overall concept.

 

[pookie101]

im not surprised its put on hold when EA were expecting sales of 6-9 M units basically the same if not more sales than ME3.. there is no way it was going to achieve that level

 

[Orga777]

im not surprised its put on hold when EA were expecting sales of 6-9 M units basically the same if not more sales than ME3.. there is no way it was going to achieve that level

Really? These sales expectations of big AAA companies are getting more and more ridiculous...

 

[pookie101]

im not surprised its put on hold when EA were expecting sales of 6-9 M units basically the same if not more sales than ME3.. there is no way it was going to achieve that level

Really? These sales expectations of big AAA companies are getting more and more ridiculous...

i know right..

ME3 the end of a beloved trilogy sold 6M units and they were expecting the start of this new one to make that or more..

 

[AD-Stu]

By the by, that's not all that unreasonable. It's inline with the growth shown between previous entries. Of course that doesn't account for ME3 being shit and burning people, plus MEA looking more garbage the closer it got to release.

Yeah it's the ME3 aftermath that's the biggest problem IMO - there's just now way they shouldn't have revised expectations for the next game downwards after the *ahem* passionate and prolonged response ME3 got. Plus ME3 had the benefit of being marketed as the ending to an existing trilogy, so they could be pretty certain people who'd bought the previous games were going to want to get the final one.

They had to know they burned a pretty big portion of the marketplace with ME3, and what marketing I saw for MEA didn't really do anything to reach out to those people and convince them to come back.

 

[Poetic Nova]

I don't know if you caught this in the game, but they apparently made male-pronoun-preference asari a thing. Despite the fact that they have no biological equivalent, and prior to becoming spacefaring, would have little concept of what male *is*, because muh-progresshun.

I'm all in for more diversity in gaming, but I don't agree on it if it as hamfisted as this.

 

[votemarvel]

I don't know if you caught this in the game, but they apparently made male-pronoun-preference asari a thing. Despite the fact that they have no biological equivalent, and prior to becoming spacefaring, would have little concept of what male *is*, because muh-progresshun.

It's highly unlikely that every species on Thessia reproduced like the Asari, so it is very likely that as a species the Asari would have a concept of male and female.

However them using male terms to refer to themselves isn't a new thing. Matriarch Aethyta refers to herself as Liara's father and rebukes Shepard who explains that on Earth they would both be referred to as the Mother.

So I don't see how it is a huge problem that some Asari prefer to be considered the 'males' of their society.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

I don't know if you caught this in the game, but they apparently made male-pronoun-preference asari a thing. Despite the fact that they have no biological equivalent, and prior to becoming spacefaring, would have little concept of what male *is*, because muh-progresshun.

It's highly unlikely that every species on Thessia reproduced like the Asari, so it is very likely that as a species the Asari would have a concept of male and female.

However them using male terms to refer to themselves isn't a new thing. Matriarch Aethyta refers to herself as Liara's father and rebukes Shepard who explains that on Earth they would both be referred to as the Mother.

So I don't see how it is a huge problem that some Asari prefer to be considered the 'males' of their society.

Primarily because they're actually lacking in male terms. Remember Patriarch on Omega? Aria gave him that name as an insult because it's a completely meaningless word to Asari. In all honesty, the use of mother and father with Asari couples are most likely just the closest equivalent the translators provide. Heck, Liara's father was basically using that term to get the point across quickly.

 

[AD-Stu]

I don't know if you caught this in the game, but they apparently made male-pronoun-preference asari a thing. Despite the fact that they have no biological equivalent, and prior to becoming spacefaring, would have little concept of what male *is*, because muh-progresshun.

If that happened I completely missed it... and I've been playing about 150 hours at this point. Do you remember where it was?

I remember the super-unsubtle transsexual NPC that got patched out for whatever reason, but not this.

 

[TT Kairen]

I don't know if you caught this in the game, but they apparently made male-pronoun-preference asari a thing. Despite the fact that they have no biological equivalent, and prior to becoming spacefaring, would have little concept of what male *is*, because muh-progresshun.

If that happened I completely missed it... and I've been playing about 150 hours at this point. Do you remember where it was?

I remember the super-unsubtle transsexual NPC that got patched out for whatever reason, but not this.

It's an ambient conversation between the asari and the angaran ambassador in the Cultural Exchange Center on the Nexus, so it's easy to miss, especially if you're there for a certain mission with the VI right next to them.

 

[TT Kairen]

I don't know if you caught this in the game, but they apparently made male-pronoun-preference asari a thing. Despite the fact that they have no biological equivalent, and prior to becoming spacefaring, would have little concept of what male *is*, because muh-progresshun.

It's highly unlikely that every species on Thessia reproduced like the Asari, so it is very likely that as a species the Asari would have a concept of male and female.

However them using male terms to refer to themselves isn't a new thing. Matriarch Aethyta refers to herself as Liara's father and rebukes Shepard who explains that on Earth they would both be referred to as the Mother.

So I don't see how it is a huge problem that some Asari prefer to be considered the 'males' of their society.

In addition to Metalix Nightmare's reply above, while they would have a concept of male and female (possibly, the fauna of Thessia has not been explored), gender dysphoria would be an impossibility for them. Asari have been described as 'all-female' by the codex, and mono-gendered by Liara, our primary source of asari information. Since they are all biologically female, they cannot disassociate with their sex/gender because there is no alternative that they could have been born as.

 

[breadsammich]

I don't know if you caught this in the game, but they apparently made male-pronoun-preference asari a thing. Despite the fact that they have no biological equivalent, and prior to becoming spacefaring, would have little concept of what male *is*, because muh-progresshun.

I'm all in for more diversity in gaming, but I don't agree on it if it as hamfisted as this.

I don't see how a brief and easy-to-miss conversation between two npc's is "hamfisted". A trans character blurting their backstory--that's a bit hamfisted. But even Bioware acknowledged that one was a little goofy and insensitive.

 

[AD-Stu]

In addition to Metalix Nightmare's reply above, while they would have a concept of male and female (possibly, the fauna of Thessia has not been explored), gender dysphoria would be an impossibility for them. Asari have been described as 'all-female' by the codex, and mono-gendered by Liara, our primary source of asari information. Since they are all biologically female, they cannot disassociate with their sex/gender because there is no alternative that they could have been born as.

*shrugs*

They've been around other sentient species that identify as male/female for thousands of years. Maybe some of them resented being automatically labelled as "female" by all the other species, or thought they felt more male than female once they discovered the meaning of the terms or whatever. Who are we to tell them what they feel?

Either way, this is a massive storm in a teacup IMO.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

In addition to Metalix Nightmare's reply above, while they would have a concept of male and female (possibly, the fauna of Thessia has not been explored), gender dysphoria would be an impossibility for them. Asari have been described as 'all-female' by the codex, and mono-gendered by Liara, our primary source of asari information. Since they are all biologically female, they cannot disassociate with their sex/gender because there is no alternative that they could have been born as.

*shrugs*

They've been around other sentient species that identify as male/female for thousands of years. Maybe some of them resented being automatically labelled as "female" by all the other species, or thought they felt more male than female once they discovered the meaning of the terms or whatever. Who are we to tell them what they feel?

Either way, this is a massive storm in a teacup IMO.

I'd call it more an easily missed tip of the iceburg.

Continuing on, WHY would Asari resent automatically being labeled female when by all accounts they didn't have a need to even come up with any words for males until they met the Salarians? That would be like a human taking offense at being labeled human.

The whole exercise is basically taking human mindsets and forcing them onto a non-human species. Legion's loyalty mission in ME2 goes into this. Humans and Asari have a lot of similarities, but the two are still VERY different in terms of cultural upbringing, and biology. An Asari would have absolutely no real basis for wanting to be seen as male simply because there are no male Asari. An Asari going around calling herself male would probably be looked at like Humans look at Otherkin.

Really, this whole mess is just indicative of just how BAD the writing has gotten at Bioware as of late. ME1 and even 2 managed to keep a fair bit of this stuff in mind when it came to establishing their universe, whereas the current crop seem more interested in virtue signaling (to the point that it looks like you can't even be an asshole in this game like you could with Shepard) than expanding or working with a universe.