Mass Effect hiatus speculation and reactions (consolidated thread)

I actually have zero programming experience.  Discussing video game design is just a hobby.  I come from a family of architects and engineers so I grew up with a creative mindset.  I've done IT sales and some consulting, and I've been interviewing with Saleforce, Blackbaud, salesloft, google, amazon, Jet/Walmart, rubicon global, stryker, Eli Lilly, KPMG, Deloitte, Capgemini, Coca cola, home depot, comcast, Accenture, ....the list goes on for software sales, medical sales, and analyst positions.  Just a tough market.  I've also been picky as hell too.  Thanks dude! 

I have your back, regardless. 

I read that too. I have relatives in Ottawa that are passionate gamers and programmers. They already have jobs that pay well, but they're not happy. They told me that many of the postings were already filled and the pay range was still too low to even consider taking.

Exactly. Or... another mass exodus of talented writers and staff. Either way, it's a great lesson learned for everyone in the industry.

Did I not say this about two months ago? I did.

I think to determine whether or not to make DLC, even more important than Sales and reviews, is how many people are playing the game. If enough people are playing the SPer they will make SPer DLC. If enough people are playing the MPer, they will make MPer DLC.

They could do some DLC and use it partially as an experiment to see what people like. If they just decided to return to the ME2/ME3 formula and give us some tight story missions with no explorable planet it might work out better.

After reading the statement from BioWare on Kotaku, I am not exactly sure what it means. The way I am reading the comments is that EA seems happy with the game for they are just moving people from BioWare Montreal to Motive Studios and keeping a small staff at BioWare Montreal which is normally all they use for DLC. I think the problem is that EA wasn't very happy with the reception to Mass Effect: Andromeda was, so they are thinking having another long delay between games is what the franchise needs. If they lost a lot of money I think BioWare Montreal would have been completely emptied out and everything stops now including patches.

Overall I think this is a good think. I think they made several key design decisions that I don't agree with and they were to try and appease the people that were vocal about what they were saying they wanted in the game to the games detriment. The other problem I saw with Andromeda is that BioWare was making two open world games at the same time and without knowing the possible pitfalls of that development and could not make a major improvement because it would have been too far in development. Combine that with going too big with the game, for there were plenty of reports they were calling in help from other EA studios to make the March release date.

In the end I don't think this is the end of Mass Effect, I think there will be a small break between games, but we just had a five year break so another five to six years I am fine with especially since they are probably already working on other games in Edmonton.

Considering the developers have two other IPs to work on, it seems to me like the game's critics are blowing things out of proportion. Again.

If a remaster happens it will be in Frostbite engine probably. 
The point of remasters is to gain money (unless the game is very outdated) not add to the exprience sadly, and a MET trilogy remake would bring back many fans with or without significant upgrades

Hah. If that had been MEA the franchise would certainly be completely and utterly dead. As it stands with everything else about the game in the news and whatnot...it might as well be already.

Lol you really think there will be a sequel? EA will want to put some distance between the series and this game. If anything, I'd expect a remaster first to regain good will. If that's done well, maybe a reboot - Andromeda will remain the black sheep of the series.

At least they said they're still working on milking multiplayer as long as that remains profitable though.

Would they have to rebuild everything from scratch and then deal with all the fans complaining about how it looks like MEA?

Yes, i tried to tell you this earlier today. The core of the Dragon Age team are not working on the new IP, they are working on another game. Their tweets strongly suggest its Dragon Age. What else could it be? Dragon Age Inquisition despite some fan backlash was highly successful, and its DLC sold well on top of that. It would be stupid for EA to ignore it. They want money, Dragon Age would get them money.