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Post by SirSourpuss on Jul 16, 2019 16:51:32 GMT
That’s the nature of the industry. You don’t have full control over when you launch and no control over when others do. But you do. You can just launch later. Nobody is putting a gun on anyone's head, here. It is an entertainment product, it is not a necessity of life. It's not medicine, it's not food, it's not water. EA, of all publishers, is milking its customers enough through other forms of revenue that Andromeda not releasing in Q4 FIY 2016 or whatever it was and releasing in Q1 of the following year, would not have made EA go under. It was a conscious decision to release their game at that time frame, they agreed to it and went along with it. They believed it was a better game and were proven wrong. Critical reception and the very fact that they even had this conversation is a testament of Andromeda's under performance, in at least one aspect. As you quoted MEA is a deeply flawed game I don't need to say anything past that, that is coming from the proverbial horse's mouth.
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Post by samhain444 on Jul 16, 2019 17:11:10 GMT
That’s the nature of the industry. You don’t have full control over when you launch and no control over when others do. But you do. You can just launch later. Nobody is putting a gun on anyone's head, here. It is an entertainment product, it is not a necessity of life. It's not medicine, it's not food, it's not water. EA, of all publishers, is milking its customers enough through other forms of revenue that Andromeda not releasing in Q4 FIY 2016 or whatever it was and releasing in Q1 of the following year, would not have made EA go under. It was a conscious decision to release their game at that time frame, they agreed to it and went along with it. They believed it was a better game and were proven wrong. Critical reception and the very fact that they even had this conversation is a testament of Andromeda's under performance, in at least one aspect. As you quoted MEA is a deeply flawed game I don't need to say anything past that, that is coming from the proverbial horse's mouth. EA needed a game launched in fiscal Q4 2016 window...they are a company that releases games based on these fiscal windows. They couldn't delay "Andromeda" for the same reason they didn't delay "Anthem", which was the fallout financially would have been worse if they released nothing versus releasing the flawed games we got. It's same reason that EA exposed two obviously flawed games to EA Access and EA Access Premier respectively...the interest and desire to play these games generated a lot of money that, in the end, was basically pure profit for EA since they're subscriptions. The take away is EA doesn't really care about BioWare's reputation if they are going to lose millions in stock value in order to prop it up.
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Post by SirSourpuss on Jul 16, 2019 17:47:01 GMT
But you do. You can just launch later. Nobody is putting a gun on anyone's head, here. It is an entertainment product, it is not a necessity of life. It's not medicine, it's not food, it's not water. EA, of all publishers, is milking its customers enough through other forms of revenue that Andromeda not releasing in Q4 FIY 2016 or whatever it was and releasing in Q1 of the following year, would not have made EA go under. It was a conscious decision to release their game at that time frame, they agreed to it and went along with it. They believed it was a better game and were proven wrong. Critical reception and the very fact that they even had this conversation is a testament of Andromeda's under performance, in at least one aspect. As you quoted I don't need to say anything past that, that is coming from the proverbial horse's mouth. EA needed a game launched in fiscal Q4 2016 window...they are a company that releases games based on these fiscal windows. They couldn't delay "Andromeda" for the same reason they didn't delay "Anthem", which was the fallout financially would have been worse if they released nothing versus releasing the flawed games we got. It's same reason that EA exposed two obviously flawed games to EA Access and EA Access Premier respectively...the interest and desire to play these games generated a lot of money that, in the end, was basically pure profit for EA since they're subscriptions. The take away is EA doesn't really care about BioWare's reputation if they are going to lose millions in stock value in order to prop it up. Still no guns involved whatsoever. They chose to release two unfinished game, consecutively and got they flak they deserved. Now EA are seeing all their games, outside of sports, underperform. Consequently, shareholders aren't happy and their stock price is now nearly $60 down compared to last year. That will have an effect on further investments in EA and that means less capital readily available. Further more, I see Juventus just broke away from FIFA and signed an exclusive deal with PES. Add to that the looming threat of all MTX bans and perhaps the time of the fat cows is now gone for EA. Perhaps they could have prevented some of that, had they made a few different decisions that didn't look to short term profit. Not an economy expert, but just my two cents.
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Post by samhain444 on Jul 16, 2019 18:27:59 GMT
EA needed a game launched in fiscal Q4 2016 window...they are a company that releases games based on these fiscal windows. They couldn't delay "Andromeda" for the same reason they didn't delay "Anthem", which was the fallout financially would have been worse if they released nothing versus releasing the flawed games we got. It's same reason that EA exposed two obviously flawed games to EA Access and EA Access Premier respectively...the interest and desire to play these games generated a lot of money that, in the end, was basically pure profit for EA since they're subscriptions. The take away is EA doesn't really care about BioWare's reputation if they are going to lose millions in stock value in order to prop it up. Still no guns involved whatsoever. They chose to release two unfinished game, consecutively and got they flak they deserved. Now EA are seeing all their games, outside of sports, underperform. Consequently, shareholders aren't happy and their stock price is now nearly $60 down compared to last year. That will have an effect on further investments in EA and that means less capital readily available. Further more, I see Juventus just broke away from FIFA and signed an exclusive deal with PES. Add to that the looming threat of all MTX bans and perhaps the time of the fat cows is now gone for EA. Perhaps they could have prevented some of that, had they made a few different decisions that didn't look to short term profit. Not an economy expert, but just my two cents.
This "guns" argument is silly though. Yeah, no one physically threatened violence towards them if they didn't release the game leaving a big hole in their fiscal quarter but they employ analysts that project out what the ramifications are of not releasing anything. You weigh cost of development, projected sales and reputational risk versus how much you stand to lose in millions if you don't release. EA's highest stock price the last 6 months? On Feb 15th, the day "Anthem" was available for EA Access Premier members, when it hit $106.84 per share. Also, it's been as high as $102.72 per share as recently as July 2nd ($92.22 per share as of July 15th). As for releasing "Andromeda" early on March 21, 2017, their stock price was $89 per share at that time and by the end of the year it was $105 per share and kept increasing until it hit $148.73 per share on 07/13/2018l, which was highest it has ever been in EA's history. Like you said, though, maybe that strategy is catching up to them and it's impacting stock, maybe it's a natural regression of an over-priced stock, or maybe it's both. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that BioWare was left with little options by EA but to release what they could when they could and suffered the consequences for it. On BioWare's side, the majority of BioWare's development issues were under Aaryn Flynn's watch from 8/2010 to 07/2017 (when Casey Hudson took over). This included DA:I's much documented crunch and Andromeda and Anthem failure to progress fast enough from conceptual stages which set everything else behind. Based on Schreier's article, "Anthem" really came into focus when Mark Darrah was brought on board near the end of 2017 as Executive Producer much like Andromeda needed Mac Walters to get it focused. Based on "Dragon Age" getting a re-start, it appears they are taking their time with this one so hopefully they have indeed learned from Andromeda and Anthem's past mistakes. Time will tell.
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Post by SirSourpuss on Jul 16, 2019 18:53:21 GMT
it hit $148.73 per share on 07/13/2018l And has been going back down since then, with releases consistently failing projections and the only salvation being, perhaps, Jedi:Fallen order. I predict EA will continue to see their stock plummet, for the foreseeable future. My point is that the point is too critical to let time tell. It will require action to turn things around, on EA's part.
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Post by Ascend on Jul 16, 2019 20:36:29 GMT
The series needs a reboot. Start from scratch. Worst. Idea. Ever... Why? - They can't really create a Milky Way sequel without pissing off at least a third of their fan base.
- They can create prequels, but many people are not that interested in that, because they know how things are going to end already. I don't agree with that argument, considering something like Halo reach is a good game despite it happening before Halo Combat Evolved, but I see the argument often enough to know it's an issue.
- A follow-up to Andromeda is going to be met with huge skepticism, and some people won't even look at it due to the name associated with the game.
- They can create sidequels, but this is only delaying the inevitable, and I don't think players are waiting for that.
What else is left? A remaster does not solve the major issues each game has, but only gives it nicer graphics. A remake would practically turn it into a reboot, if they want to make things as they should be. It's the best they can do really... Fix the gameplay, fix the plot holes, fix the enemies and fix the ending. At this point, I don't know if BioWare is up to it. Maybe the franchise is best left to another studio. It's not as if the veterans are there anymore anyway. Everyone but a few have left.
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Post by SirSourpuss on Jul 16, 2019 20:48:36 GMT
They can create sidequels, but this is only delaying the inevitable What if the sidequel presents a new way out?
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Post by Phantom on Jul 16, 2019 21:28:30 GMT
They can create sidequels, but this is only delaying the inevitable What if the sidequel presents a new way out? I have ideas that sidequels that can go pass the ME3 ending. One of them does involves a Mission to Dark Space and meeting a Lovecraftian Horror that bypasses the Starbrat but his very being did change the Leviathan into the Reapers. So by killing him, it reverses the indoctrination. I haven't iron it out.
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Post by SirSourpuss on Jul 16, 2019 21:54:25 GMT
So by killing him, it reverses the indoctrination Which could make for a very nice story element, as well. What if you had to make that trip because, in spite of defeating the Reapers in the Milky Way, still a large chunk of it remained indoctrinated?
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Post by Link"Guess"ski on Jul 16, 2019 21:57:23 GMT
Why? - They can't really create a Milky Way sequel without pissing off at least a third of their fan base.
- They can create prequels, but many people are not that interested in that, because they know how things are going to end already. I don't agree with that argument, considering something like Halo reach is a good game despite it happening before Halo Combat Evolved, but I see the argument often enough to know it's an issue.
- A follow-up to Andromeda is going to be met with huge skepticism, and some people won't even look at it due to the name associated with the game.
- They can create sidequels, but this is only delaying the inevitable, and I don't think players are waiting for tha
Not making another Mass Effect ever is a better idea than rebooting it. The reason I would want more Mass Effect is because the setting they made and its history/lore is so vast and yet so unexplored both in story, theme, time, scope, you name it, that I can think up a dozen pitches that would be a decent campaign-hook for a great single-player game.
If they make the decision not to make a spinoff, side-quel or prequel because they asked fans on Twitter if it would be exciting well, maybe that's why: It's not exciting on paper. Nothing is exciting on paper but if they said "Guys we're remaking Mass Effect 1 ON PAPER!" you would flip your pants off in an exciting spaz because YOU KNOW how good Mass Effect 1 (or conversely the other 3 games) is because you've already played it. The idea of Andromeda being a soft-reboot that has ties to ME3 was exciting because people craved more after ME3 because that has an inherent promise that just maybe some of the things you would've wanted will be present. At the end of the day, what you need is a good sell, and that comes by itself when a game reaches the end of production and the world gets a jam-packing trailer of epic showcasing the "on paper" pitch AND its execution in video-format with awesome acting snippets, music and next-gen graphics. They can totally do prequels or a side-quel, they just need to show the world it can be interesting when we wouldn't expect anything interesting from it.
Rebooting it would be like missing the point of a joke.
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Post by Phantom on Jul 16, 2019 23:34:22 GMT
So by killing him, it reverses the indoctrination Which could make for a very nice story element, as well. What if you had to make that trip because, in spite of defeating the Reapers in the Milky Way, still a large chunk of it remained indoctrinated? Project: Dark Star is my rough draft and It would works best with my Cerberus Phantom Commander and him leading the last of the Cerberus cells that were alive and un-indoctrinated and using an experimental device similar to an Mass Relay that directly connects into Dark Space and a Station that left by an previous species beforehand. Well there will be a lot of Lovecraftian Horrors to fight and kill.
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Post by SirSourpuss on Jul 17, 2019 10:58:48 GMT
Which could make for a very nice story element, as well. What if you had to make that trip because, in spite of defeating the Reapers in the Milky Way, still a large chunk of it remained indoctrinated? Project: Dark Star is my rough draft and It would works best with my Cerberus Phantom Commander and him leading the last of the Cerberus cells that were alive and un-indoctrinated and using an experimental device similar to an Mass Relay that directly connects into Dark Space and a Station that left by an previous species beforehand. Well there will be a lot of Lovecraftian Horrors to fight and kill. I really liked the idea of the Reapers being comprised of smaller, man sized, reaper bots, with each bot being unique and resulting in a unique reaper with various little details. It would be like ... remember Dante's Inferno? For each pillar, the artists had made a unique mural, so each pillar was different. That's what the Reapers would look like. Which is incredibly ambitious and would require a hell of a lot of resources to accomplish, but man, that would be amazing.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2019 13:26:43 GMT
No doubt, but in several cases in ME3, their use of pathos rather than logos was spot on, IMHO... particularly when combined with Mark Meer's voicing. IMO, ME3 contains some of the best moments in the franchise... along with some of the worst. I would say the same for ME1, ME2 and ME:A though. Pathos is nothing without ethos and logos (wow we're really in the clouds now) like... yeah ME3 had excellent emotional performances and great sensations but they were often botched due to the lack of a logical dimension to them.
You know, scenes like the "why is Cerberus here!?" moment or when Shepard stands over Ash/Kaidan with Liara reminding him they need a doctor. Totally get the desire to have an emotional performance over something tragic or shocking but moments like those lack a certain level of "why?". Shepard gets no meaningful response from the dying Cerberus trooper he asked - we don't even get a clear idea later; cut the moment. Shepard could potentially have been an asshole to Ash/Kaidan every past incident, or he could've acted like an egomaniacal jerk to them just an hour before on Mars, or s/he knows that either EDI could try her hand as a Normandy Doc as established in ME2 or that they need Chalkwas or another doctor's help, so him acting stunted by the sight of their unconscious body is a weak moment. So often in the game they opt for melodrama in turn making Shepard appear like a moron instead of showing intellect or action. It's at its worst whenever Kai Leng shows up and Shepard deliberately waits for Kai Leng to do something bad just so the cinematic team could shows us how "bad" Kai Leng is.
Logos is Step 1. then you can pull all of the ethos and pathos out of a plotted sequence you want, and that's how Mass Effect should move forward, not even further down the pathos hellhole it went in ME3 and consequtively Mass Effect: Andromeda.
That's not what I was saying and you know it. ME3 has some of the best moments of the Trilogy and some of the worst... regardless of whether they were appealing the to the player's logic or emotion. Sometimes they hit the mark and sometimes they didn't and that is consistent across all of the games.
Leng is one of the worst. However, one example of one of the best is the moment with Mordin before the decision is made on the genophage cure works well from both perspectives regardless of whether the player approaches the scene from a paragon or renegade stance. It builds towards a logical conclusion AND it appeals to the player's emotional position also regardless. It 's well written because of that.
Too often in ME1, there is poor overlap in the writing such that the dialogue gets confused regardless of how the player approaches the scene. For example, the shooting of Jeong. Clearly Juliana statement about "now we're shooting people in the back" is in error, since no one shoots anyone in the back. This results in a jarring break in the flow of things and this sort of thing occurs multiple, multiple times in ME1. If you don't shoot Jeong at all things don't get much better. Instead you have Shepard being able to talk Jeong into disobeying Exogeni's orders by telling him about some fanciful promotional potential of that place for just surviving an attack? Where's the logos in that, really? Jeong still answers to Exogeni. Exogeni still wants the place purged. Shepard has offered no solution to Jeong's problem, so why should Jeong logically stand down at that point?
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Post by Phantom on Jul 17, 2019 14:55:00 GMT
Project: Dark Star is my rough draft and It would works best with my Cerberus Phantom Commander and him leading the last of the Cerberus cells that were alive and un-indoctrinated and using an experimental device similar to an Mass Relay that directly connects into Dark Space and a Station that left by an previous species beforehand. Well there will be a lot of Lovecraftian Horrors to fight and kill. I really liked the idea of the Reapers being comprised of smaller, man sized, reaper bots, with each bot being unique and resulting in a unique reaper with various little details. It would be like ... remember Dante's Inferno? For each pillar, the artists had made a unique mural, so each pillar was different. That's what the Reapers would look like. Which is incredibly ambitious and would require a hell of a lot of resources to accomplish, but man, that would be amazing. Yes I do remember Dante's Inferno. So I would love the challenge of having unique Reaper bosses battle in the same vein of Dante's Inferno.
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Post by alanc9 on Jul 17, 2019 16:10:56 GMT
EA needed a game launched in fiscal Q4 2016 window...they are a company that releases games based on these fiscal windows. They couldn't delay "Andromeda" for the same reason they didn't delay "Anthem", which was the fallout financially would have been worse if they released nothing versus releasing the flawed games we got. It's same reason that EA exposed two obviously flawed games to EA Access and EA Access Premier respectively...the interest and desire to play these games generated a lot of money that, in the end, was basically pure profit for EA since they're subscriptions. The take away is EA doesn't really care about BioWare's reputation if they are going to lose millions in stock value in order to prop it up. Still no guns involved whatsoever. They chose to release two unfinished game, consecutively and got they flak they deserved. Now EA are seeing all their games, outside of sports, underperform. Consequently, shareholders aren't happy and their stock price is now nearly $60 down compared to last year. That will have an effect on further investments in EA and that means less capital readily available. Further more, I see Juventus just broke away from FIFA and signed an exclusive deal with PES. Add to that the looming threat of all MTX bans and perhaps the time of the fat cows is now gone for EA. Perhaps they could have prevented some of that, had they made a few different decisions that didn't look to short term profit. Not an economy expert, but just my two cents.
Would the games have made more money if they'd been delayed? I don't know when the optimal release points were, and I don't have the data to second-guess EA with any confidence.
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Post by Pounce de León on Jul 17, 2019 16:26:50 GMT
Why? - They can't really create a Milky Way sequel without pissing off at least a third of their fan base.
- They can create prequels, but many people are not that interested in that, because they know how things are going to end already. I don't agree with that argument, considering something like Halo reach is a good game despite it happening before Halo Combat Evolved, but I see the argument often enough to know it's an issue.
- A follow-up to Andromeda is going to be met with huge skepticism, and some people won't even look at it due to the name associated with the game.
- They can create sidequels, but this is only delaying the inevitable, and I don't think players are waiting for that.
What else is left? A remaster does not solve the major issues each game has, but only gives it nicer graphics. A remake would practically turn it into a reboot, if they want to make things as they should be. It's the best they can do really... Fix the gameplay, fix the plot holes, fix the enemies and fix the ending. At this point, I don't know if BioWare is up to it. Maybe the franchise is best left to another studio. It's not as if the veterans are there anymore anyway. Everyone but a few have left. Same old shit regurgitation. We had a decent trilogy. Why rape it with repetition? It won't get any better by that.
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Post by Link"Guess"ski on Jul 17, 2019 17:43:52 GMT
Pathos is nothing without ethos and logos (wow we're really in the clouds now) like... yeah ME3 had excellent emotional performances and great sensations but they were often botched due to the lack of a logical dimension to them.
You know, scenes like the "why is Cerberus here!?" moment or when Shepard stands over Ash/Kaidan with Liara reminding him they need a doctor. Totally get the desire to have an emotional performance over something tragic or shocking but moments like those lack a certain level of "why?". Shepard gets no meaningful response from the dying Cerberus trooper he asked - we don't even get a clear idea later; cut the moment. Shepard could potentially have been an asshole to Ash/Kaidan every past incident, or he could've acted like an egomaniacal jerk to them just an hour before on Mars, or s/he knows that either EDI could try her hand as a Normandy Doc as established in ME2 or that they need Chalkwas or another doctor's help, so him acting stunted by the sight of their unconscious body is a weak moment. So often in the game they opt for melodrama in turn making Shepard appear like a moron instead of showing intellect or action. It's at its worst whenever Kai Leng shows up and Shepard deliberately waits for Kai Leng to do something bad just so the cinematic team could shows us how "bad" Kai Leng is.
Logos is Step 1. then you can pull all of the ethos and pathos out of a plotted sequence you want, and that's how Mass Effect should move forward, not even further down the pathos hellhole it went in ME3 and consequtively Mass Effect: Andromeda.
That's not what I was saying and you know it. ME3 has some of the best moments of the Trilogy and some of the worst... regardless of whether they were appealing the to the player's logic or emotion. Sometimes they hit the mark and sometimes they didn't and that is consistent across all of the games.
Leng is one of the worst. However, one example of one of the best is the moment with Mordin before the decision is made on the genophage cure works well from both perspectives regardless of whether the player approaches the scene from a paragon or renegade stance. It builds towards a logical conclusion AND it appeals to the player's emotional position also regardless. It 's well written because of that.
Too often in ME1, there is poor overlap in the writing such that the dialogue gets confused regardless of how the player approaches the scene. For example, the shooting of Jeong. Clearly Juliana statement about "now we're shooting people in the back" is in error, since no one shoots anyone in the back. This results in a jarring break in the flow of things and this sort of thing occurs multiple, multiple times in ME1. If you don't shoot Jeong at all things don't get much better. Instead you have Shepard being able to talk Jeong into disobeying Exogeni's orders by telling him about some fanciful promotional potential of that place for just surviving an attack? Where's the logos in that, really? Jeong still answers to Exogeni. Exogeni still wants the place purged. Shepard has offered no solution to Jeong's problem, so why should Jeong logically stand down at that point?
Sure ME1 fails to connect emotionally at times but I would also argue it doesn't set out to do it. It has emotional scenes that fail to resonate but it doesn't seem to have a pretension that it will. It's very in-character and it's up to the audience whether they like it or not. ME3 pushes a lot more emotion on you, I felt where control is often taken away for the sole purpose of showing you an "awesome setpiece" and sometimes a full ensemble of emotion like at the end of Mars or whatever.
In ME1 I can think of the moment when Benezia dies and the scene where it's like "Did Shepard die?" at the end, and those happen in between many sequences of great player agency. In ME3 they started working in the other direction, countering themselves in order to "Create THE FEELS" and if you don't like it, nice you now have 10 minutes of emotive cutscenes that you don't even care about.
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Post by Ascend on Jul 17, 2019 18:23:38 GMT
Why? - They can't really create a Milky Way sequel without pissing off at least a third of their fan base.
- They can create prequels, but many people are not that interested in that, because they know how things are going to end already. I don't agree with that argument, considering something like Halo reach is a good game despite it happening before Halo Combat Evolved, but I see the argument often enough to know it's an issue.
- A follow-up to Andromeda is going to be met with huge skepticism, and some people won't even look at it due to the name associated with the game.
- They can create sidequels, but this is only delaying the inevitable, and I don't think players are waiting for that.
What else is left? A remaster does not solve the major issues each game has, but only gives it nicer graphics. A remake would practically turn it into a reboot, if they want to make things as they should be. It's the best they can do really... Fix the gameplay, fix the plot holes, fix the enemies and fix the ending. At this point, I don't know if BioWare is up to it. Maybe the franchise is best left to another studio. It's not as if the veterans are there anymore anyway. Everyone but a few have left. Same old shit regurgitation. We had a decent trilogy. Why rape it with repetition? It won't get any better by that. Was the Dark Knight Trilogy the raping of Batman? They would have never been made if people said we had 'decent' Batman movies, why rape them with repetition. I'm not saying it's guaranteed to be better if they go for a remake or reboot, but at least the franchise gets the opportunity to be. None of the games nailed it. ME1 was strong in plot and closure, but sucked with gameplay and characters. ME2 was strong with gameplay, closure and characters, but sucked with plot. ME3 was strong in gameplay, but was just ok with characters and plot, but sucked with closure. And Andromeda, rather than taking all the good things from each game, it took all the bad ones and tacked the good gameplay onto it. Imagine if the trilogy can be released with all three games having strong plot, closure, gameplay and characters. If you want to settle for decent, be my guest. I don't think anyone can fault me for wanting greatness rather than decency for the Mass Effect franchise. I don't care how they do it, as long as they do it. I simply happen to believe that it's more practical to do it if they go for a reboot. Anyone can disagree, just do me a favor and don't call my opinion regurgitated shit.
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Post by Pounce de León on Jul 17, 2019 18:58:54 GMT
Same old shit regurgitation. We had a decent trilogy. Why rape it with repetition? It won't get any better by that. Was the Dark Knight Trilogy the raping of Batman? They would have never been made if people said we had 'decent' Batman movies, why rape them with repetition. I'm not saying it's guaranteed to be better if they go for a remake or reboot, but at least the franchise gets the opportunity to be. None of the games nailed it. ME1 was strong in plot and closure, but sucked with gameplay and characters. ME2 was strong with gameplay, closure and characters, but sucked with plot. ME3 was strong in gameplay, but was just ok with characters and plot, but sucked with closure. And Andromeda, rather than taking all the good things from each game, it took all the bad ones and tacked the good gameplay onto it. Imagine if the trilogy can be released with all three games having strong plot, closure, gameplay and characters. If you want to settle for decent, be my guest. I don't think anyone can fault me for wanting greatness rather than decency for the Mass Effect franchise. I don't care how they do it, as long as they do it. I simply happen to believe that it's more practical to do it if they go for a reboot. Anyone can disagree, just do me a favor and don't call my opinion regurgitated shit. One is a game the other a movie. Like in: completely different experiences.
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Post by helios969 on Jul 17, 2019 19:30:19 GMT
Still no guns involved whatsoever. They chose to release two unfinished game, consecutively and got they flak they deserved. Now EA are seeing all their games, outside of sports, underperform. Consequently, shareholders aren't happy and their stock price is now nearly $60 down compared to last year. That will have an effect on further investments in EA and that means less capital readily available. Further more, I see Juventus just broke away from FIFA and signed an exclusive deal with PES. Add to that the looming threat of all MTX bans and perhaps the time of the fat cows is now gone for EA. Perhaps they could have prevented some of that, had they made a few different decisions that didn't look to short term profit. Not an economy expert, but just my two cents.
Would the games have made more money if they'd been delayed? I don't know when the optimal release points were, and I don't have the data to second-guess EA with any confidence. Definitely. Would TW3 have made the money it made with a half-assed released? It's typical for AAA games to have initial hype and week long sales numbers, but great game experiences continue to fuel the hype long after the "shiny new thing" mentality that seems to govern consumers nowadays subsides. That doesn't even factor in the monetary advantages that cultivating your fanbase brings...and the goodwill it builds. Bioware/EA have so badly mismanaged this latter aspect that I'm skeptical DA4 will arrive to much fanfare. I guess we'll see in a couple years.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2019 19:31:40 GMT
That's not what I was saying and you know it. ME3 has some of the best moments of the Trilogy and some of the worst... regardless of whether they were appealing the to the player's logic or emotion. Sometimes they hit the mark and sometimes they didn't and that is consistent across all of the games.
Leng is one of the worst. However, one example of one of the best is the moment with Mordin before the decision is made on the genophage cure works well from both perspectives regardless of whether the player approaches the scene from a paragon or renegade stance. It builds towards a logical conclusion AND it appeals to the player's emotional position also regardless. It 's well written because of that.
Too often in ME1, there is poor overlap in the writing such that the dialogue gets confused regardless of how the player approaches the scene. For example, the shooting of Jeong. Clearly Juliana statement about "now we're shooting people in the back" is in error, since no one shoots anyone in the back. This results in a jarring break in the flow of things and this sort of thing occurs multiple, multiple times in ME1. If you don't shoot Jeong at all things don't get much better. Instead you have Shepard being able to talk Jeong into disobeying Exogeni's orders by telling him about some fanciful promotional potential of that place for just surviving an attack? Where's the logos in that, really? Jeong still answers to Exogeni. Exogeni still wants the place purged. Shepard has offered no solution to Jeong's problem, so why should Jeong logically stand down at that point?
Sure ME1 fails to connect emotionally at times but I would also argue it doesn't set out to do it. It has emotional scenes that fail to resonate but it doesn't seem to have a pretension that it will. It's very in-character and it's up to the audience whether they like it or not. ME3 pushes a lot more emotion on you, I felt where control is often taken away for the sole purpose of showing you an "awesome setpiece" and sometimes a full ensemble of emotion like at the end of Mars or whatever.
In ME1 I can think of the moment when Benezia dies and the scene where it's like "Did Shepard die?" at the end, and those happen in between many sequences of great player agency. In ME3 they started working in the other direction, countering themselves in order to "Create THE FEELS" and if you don't like it, nice you now have 10 minutes of emotive cutscenes that you don't even care about.
Forgive my bluntness, but Benezia's death scene is a load of horsepucky from either the perspective of logos or pathos. The whole conversation between her and Liara fails to connect the two of them on any emotional level beyond Liara's VA overacting the "don't go, mother" type lines. Therefore, it's largely impossible for the player to feel anything either good or bad when Benezia dias. On the logic front, they tried to build up beforehand about Liara and her monther having a less than ideal relationship. but then they followed through with nothing about it at all... so it becomes another example of where logic is just dropped. The opportunity is ideal for Benezia to really explain herself in a logical way, but instead the whole thing is glossed over in the catch-all basket of "indoctrination" that ME1 abuses constantly Then, they introduce the notion of her being able to block off a portion of her mind... yet fail to follow through with anything on that either. Why couldn't Shiala have done the same, for example. It was a concept that never gets revisited in any way shape or form in the entire Trilogy; even though logically, it should have been a great defense the Asari could have used against the Reapers.
Then there's the jarring cinematics - Benezia going down during the first fight (so weakened each time by calling in troops)... but then she bounces up like nothing's wrong... so we pump her full of lead and biotics, then she stands right back up for a line or two before finally staggering muttering about the light. Through it all, Liara remains standing in her squad position, screeching her lines; but no cradling of her mother in death even though she's supposed to be so terribly broke up about the whole thing. Conversely, the death scene between Shepard and Miranda (if LI's) is much, much better done from both perspectives of logos and pathos.
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Post by alanc9 on Jul 17, 2019 20:41:54 GMT
Would the games have made more money if they'd been delayed? I don't know when the optimal release points were, and I don't have the data to second-guess EA with any confidence. Definitely. Would TW3 have made the money it made with a half-assed released? It's typical for AAA games to have initial hype and week long sales numbers, but great game experiences continue to fuel the hype long after the "shiny new thing" mentality that seems to govern consumers nowadays subsides. That doesn't even factor in the monetary advantages that cultivating your fanbase brings...and the goodwill it builds. Bioware/EA have so badly mismanaged this latter aspect that I'm skeptical DA4 will arrive to much fanfare. I guess we'll see in a couple years. OK, make the case. How much of an extension would you have asked for, and exactly what would have been the design objectives for the extension periods? I can see, say, two months to clean up facial animations in ME:A. That might have done somethibg
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Post by Ascend on Jul 18, 2019 0:49:12 GMT
Was the Dark Knight Trilogy the raping of Batman? They would have never been made if people said we had 'decent' Batman movies, why rape them with repetition. I'm not saying it's guaranteed to be better if they go for a remake or reboot, but at least the franchise gets the opportunity to be. None of the games nailed it. ME1 was strong in plot and closure, but sucked with gameplay and characters. ME2 was strong with gameplay, closure and characters, but sucked with plot. ME3 was strong in gameplay, but was just ok with characters and plot, but sucked with closure. And Andromeda, rather than taking all the good things from each game, it took all the bad ones and tacked the good gameplay onto it. Imagine if the trilogy can be released with all three games having strong plot, closure, gameplay and characters. If you want to settle for decent, be my guest. I don't think anyone can fault me for wanting greatness rather than decency for the Mass Effect franchise. I don't care how they do it, as long as they do it. I simply happen to believe that it's more practical to do it if they go for a reboot. Anyone can disagree, just do me a favor and don't call my opinion regurgitated shit. One is a game the other a movie. Like in: completely different experiences. So what? The point is still the same, which is that remaking/rebooting is not necessarily bad for a franchise. Do I need to take a game example? Ok. Was Pokemon Heart Gold & Soul Silver the raping of Pokemon Gold & Silver? Was Ninja Gaiden Black the raping of Ninja Gaiden? Was the 2016 Doom the raping of 1993 Doom? Was the 2013 Tomb Raider the raping of 1996 Tomb Raider? There's Metroid, Mortal Kombat, God of War... Upcoming there will be Final Fantasy VII... The original Mass Effect was released almost 12 years ago. There is little reason for not trying a reboot.
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Post by themikefest on Jul 18, 2019 1:33:50 GMT
Resident Evil 2 was remade. It did very well. Even though it hasn't been announced, Resident Evil 3/Nemesis will likely be remade especially with the success that RES remake got.
I would not complain if Mass Effect was to get a remake.
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Post by Link"Guess"ski on Jul 18, 2019 7:10:21 GMT
Forgive my bluntness, but Benezia's death scene is a load of horsepucky from either the perspective of logos or pathos. That's why I brought it up. That scene is not well executed and the other scene I mentioned arguably was but failed to connect because it's very railroaded. That said they don't seem to go on for too long and were surrounded by moments of player agency giving the player the opportunity to goof up the surrounding context, take it seriously or move it along neutrally. ME3 hamstrings the emotion throughout the experience and has very big, indulgent sequences with Kai Leng; with Ashley or Kaidan; with the dumb kid and even parts of Tuchanka and Rannoch. Any part of the game hampers itself to am extent to force emotion on the player when they don't have a choice to reject it unlike previous games. Andromeda has the same vibe and it is felt right down to the increase in piano music and ethereal sounding soundscapes. This is just not that recognizable anymore as Mass Effect in my opinion. We need back more of an Alien meets Bladerunner meets Babylon 5 vibe and not this Hollywood meets superemotional a la soap opera with Michael Bay explosions and Inception noises crap.
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