So....Mass Effect 4

[triggrhappy94]

I wish they'd do ME4 with a Krogan protagonist. Krogan characters in multiplayer was the best thing about ME3.

"Mrawwww!"

No way. It was all about the Engineer. That class was so broken, I carried the team most of the time.


I'm a little uneasy about this. I like the series, but it's had so many missteps.

 

[Nieroshai]

I wish they'd do ME4 with a Krogan protagonist. Krogan characters in multiplayer was the best thing about ME3.

"Mrawwww!"

I'd love to see Mass Effect get the Dragon Age: Origins treatment. Letting us choose species would just be awesome. 3 reset enough of the universe that we wouldnt need to carry too much over, but the problem presented is that the game would start in one of 3 galaxy realities: AI destruction, AI enslavement, or (this would take up its own entire game?) synthesis. In all 3, the mass relays are gone. Unless 4 takes place in a hub world where all the species were present, that might make things difficult.

 

[Nieroshai]

I am of the opinion that Mass Effect 3 was a great game, tainted by some broken promises and a hastily rewritten ending. The other 95% of the game was good. Great, even. Just that last part was kind of a screw up.

Unlike more recent disappointments (AC3), I will still plop my money down on the counter for ME4. UNLESS I detect one of the following.

#1. Prequel
As a writer, the idea of the prequel is offensive, to me. So many of them rob their prede(ante?)cessors of ontological inertia and serve as a cheap and lazy way to reset the setting so that you can have Stuff Get Wrecked from the same starting point. It is my feeling that Mass Effect does not need prequels. ME1 IS the prequel.

#2. The Tyranny of Choice
Much as I dislike many elements of JRPGs, at least they are willing to strongly characterize their protagonists (even if there's only two kinds of protagonists in JRPGs, and they're both some iteration of Angsty Male Teenager With Confidence Issues). Having another prot who's dull as dishwater boring because the story has to adapt to whether he's a humanitarian or a badass will bore me, and not get me to do a second playthrough. Skyrim is the epitome of this tyranny -- you handle your character's build and the order in which he tackles quests, but otherwise, the world would clearly turn without you and whatever choice you make. ME3 escaped that -- the choices you make matter to the Defense of All Intelligent Life fleets, even if they don't the ending. More of that, less of stuff like LA Noire.

And to everyone asking for create your own protagonist, down to species, recall that every unique beginning story/staring area, more content is going to be taken out of the middle/end of the game.

DA1 had far more content and was far more interesting than DA2. Your concluding thoughts are a valid worry, but not a proven certainty.

 

[Kae]

but seriously does anyone know if Bioware Montreal is the Bioware studio formed by the Pandemic guys?

No, Bioware Montreal are the dickweevils who made Army of Two.

Not a good indicator for people hoping ME4 will be 'more RPG, less shooter'.

Oh that's disappointing, Army of Two was a well made game but it was rather disappointing, pretty boring, I guess the gun customization thing could be good for Mass Effect as it's a little RPG-ish but only if they add more depth to it, I didn't care for Ao2s story at all though, so I'm expecting pretty weak writing.

Please stop tossing around incorrect facts like that.

They did not work on Army of Two, that was EA Montreal (different studio).

Bioware Montreal is like made up of half former Edmonton/ME people. They worked on some levels for ME2 and the multiplayer component of ME3 AFAIK.

OH I see, I didn't toss around any incorrect facts, I just asked a question and got an incorrect answer, but anyway, I guess that's better but it's still not what I expected which was the possibility of spaceship piloting.

 

[ThriKreen]

OH I see, I didn't toss around any incorrect facts, I just asked a question and got an incorrect answer, but anyway, I guess that's better but it's still not what I expected which was the possibility of spaceship piloting.

Whoops, yeah sorry, I should have separated the quotes out! I'll go fix that.

But it's depressing to see people not knowing anything about the subject still tossing out their opinions as if it was fact, when even an easy search would show otherwise.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Well look at the bright side it can't be worse than Mass Effect 3 unless the box contained AIDS. and the only way to open the box was to stick an Xacto Knife up your genitalia.

I can see the marketing campaign now! Mass Effect 4: Genital Mutilation Edition.
And that's not even the worst marketing campaign EA's ever thought up

 

[Kae]

OH I see, I didn't toss around any incorrect facts, I just asked a question and got an incorrect answer, but anyway, I guess that's better but it's still not what I expected which was the possibility of spaceship piloting.

Whoops, yeah sorry, I should have separated the quotes out! I'll go fix that.

But it's depressing to see people not knowing anything about the subject still tossing out their opinions as if it was fact, when even an easy search would show otherwise.

I see, I would have looked for it but I was feeling rather sleepy and tired, but neat and thanks for the info.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I liked all the other games, give an rts, tbs, shooter or anything a bit different and I will play it. So long as it's good, just because a franchise starts their games in one genre doesn't mean they have to just keep it there.

Look at Warcraft, now I'm not a huge MMO guy, and I'm still waiting for my next single player Warcraft fix, it did well and was a different type of game to the rts. People need to be more open with this concept.

 

[JamesStone]

I won't touch another Mass Effect game with a 10-foot pole. Mass Effect 3 was the harbinger for what is coming, and what is comming is EA bullshit with no concern for fans or coherent storyline (yeah, I just went there).

I expect nothing more than a steaming pile of turd, and I am completely prepared for that. Even if it isn't bad, I guarentee it won't be a Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3 (minus the last 15 minutes).

 

[spartandude]

im going to be honest i just dont care about bioware anymore, its kind of like a football team where all the players are gone and replaced with new ones, same name but thats it

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Gonna call it right now: It's gonna be beep-boop corporate sludge 3rd-person-shooter with token RPG upgrades, a 4-hour story and weak multiplayer.

 

[Nicolairigel]

It disturbs me that they're already working on a ME4 so soon after ME3...
It screams of the mistake that was made with KOTOR 2, pushed it out a year after KOTOR and it suffered, alot.

It's a shame, to. KOTOR 2 had brilliant characters, story, theme, pretty much everything, yet the technical misgivings made it so under appreciated and diluted. I think if it was given another year or two, allowed to have every twist and turn it was orginally supposed to, it would have far surpassed the first game.

 

[Thoric485]

Just to clear things up, BioWare Edmonton is the only BioWare that has existed before the EA buyout.

Half their workforce is still there. And losing their biggest franchise to a smaller studio, contained inside an EA HQ, doesn't bode well for the company.

 

[Cabisco]

I love Mass Effect and it's universe, I won't complain about getting to play more of it. If it's a bad game that will be a shame but I'm happy they are attempting to do more.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I'll join the droves of unimpressed Escapists who believe that a third-person shooter with a light drizzle of (optional) RPG mechanics is what's going to surface. Can't get the CoD crowd to think about putting points in a menu; that's just too hard for the average quick-scoping brain!

 

[Stalydan]

is a happening thing

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/11/mass-effect-4-development-shifted-to-bioware-montreal-using-new-frostbite-engine/

AND being given to a different studio "Bioware Montreal" or somthing ( or BioWare?s new studio in Ubisoft Montreal which I'm guessing is a typo in the article)

well I suppose you could say "Bioware" isn't "Bioware" anymore and I can already hear people raging probably

I don't feel strongly about this because what I cared about (Shepard and other characters) is all said and done...for Mass Effect 4 I'll wait and see...with cautious optimism

I mean, if you liked mass effect 2, then EA is going to float your boat just fine from here on out. Its the Mass effect 1 fans who have cause for lament. You know, the people who care about compelling narratives and whatnot. And the machine keeps churning, and people keep not thinking

Yeah, how about those positive points about Mass Effect 1 that definitely weren't in the other two, that amazing driving system and those really fair difficulty spikes at random points in the game. Fans really have a lot to miss from it, don't they?

Dropping the sarcasm now because it gets old quickly, even for me, ME1 is by no means a bad game but it's certainly unpolished. The story and characters were great and it did have some moments in it that I still think of as being some fine moments in gaming but the gameplay does leave a lot to be desired.

Besides, I'm happy to see some more Mass Effect. They're good games with interesting lore behind them. If there's anything I'd like to see in the next set of them, it'd be furthering away from the military setting of the previous three and more towards the criminal underworld you get to see glimpses of occasionally as you help C-Sec or Aria. If we're distancing the next protagonist away from being another Shepard, having them not be in the military would be a good way to go about it.

captcha: panic stations

It's as if it already knows what I should be heading for with some of the flack I fear I'm probably going to get from this.

 

[hazabaza1]

And here is a picture of all the people who were surprised at this happeneing.

 

[Karhukonna]

They could stop faffing about and announce an Origins-style ME game where you can freely choose a race and class and get this over with. I reckon that's the only way to improve any further.

'Sides, can't wait for the completely inapropriate race-class combos. I'll only play two characters, a Krogan Infiltrator and a Volus Soldier.

 

[White_Lama]

Will have to wait and see later on in development how I like this idea.

Going with a different kind of gameplay (wouldn't surprise me if they went for full on 3rd person shooter) is NOT what I want for a new ME game.

Like they pretty much did in ME3?

 

[Nimzabaat]

All I'm wondering right now is "Who will I be playing?"...it's not Shepard...then who. (And if we could get multiple races would be cool even though I would still be human.)

That is my #1 concern for Mass Effect 4.

Hearing that we won't be playing as Shepard makes me really wonder where Bioware (now as Ubisoft Montreal) is going to take the series. I would be very happy if I could play as a Quarian, or Krogan for the next game. We should be allowed to pick a race and go off that for our main character because- hey, ME3 multiplayer is a huge hit thanks to the alien races and classes you can pick.

Imagine if ME3 multiplayer only had human classes to pick. It wouldn't last, and would feel lazy on Bioware's part but luckily they added so many races that I never grow bored of the game now (single player on the other hand.. the ending killed it for me, but least the extended cut fixed the plot holes mostly.) If I have to be a human for ME4 then I won't bother buying it. Humans in the ME universe are quite boring, literally. Only Shepard was an exception because you were him/her.. otherwise every other human was bland.

Yeah that was the bait-and-switch they pulled with ME2's marketing campaign. Shepard is dead! Yay, we'll get to roll another race and continue the fight! But no... Shepard will just come back to life and Bioware's human/racism thing will carry on. From the company that made Dwarves interesting in Dragon Age Origins, that was such a disappointing turn. Then they compounded it with DA2 and ME3 and SWTOR (five races to choose from, two of which are human, in the Star Wars setting? Bioware...) Yeah I think the last two ME games sucked all of the optimism out of me, cautious or otherwise.