Were we Too harsh on Mass Effect Andreomda???

Nope. That'd be Superman64, Project Slypheed, and Prototype.

ME2s story is weak if you look at it as a story. If you view it as a journey it's certainly the strongest narrative of the trilogy. It's about forming a team out of entirely different people, thereby allowing Bioware to play to it's strength, which is the creation of believable and gripping characters.

That's what really made ME2 work for me. The characters were great which mitigated the thin story. Also the "round up a team to go break a foot off in some enemy ass like no one else" is much that of one of my all-time favorite war movies "The Dirty Dozen." That film's story has been told in a variety of different ways. Prior to it we had "Seven Samurai" which was remade in the USA as "The Magnificent 7" and most recently in the Tarantino film "Inglorious Basterds."

Look at this.

Well OP to answer your question... its not *really* that simple.

Short answer. Yes. The Fans were too harsh on *Andromeda*.

Longer answer. Not entirely. Or at least. Not for the 'proper' reasons.

Now, I'll be flat out honest and say that I didn't play Andromeda on release. It was only after I'd heard they'd fixed alot of it and it went on sale, did I bother to buy it. It also had Mac Walters at the proverbial helm. So my expectations for this game, quite literally, could not have been lower. Hell, if the game didn't have me rolling my eyes/face palming every other scene I would have probably considered it well above Mac's usual level of competence and thus, a success.

So, all n all, being 'pleasantly surprised' was literally only one of two outcomes available for me. The other, of course, having the dubious pleasure of being 'right' in my expectations.

So, when I looked/finished Andromeda last week, my answer to the question was a flat 'Yeah. People were definitely too harsh on this game. If the dev cycle was as troubled as reported then the MEA team moved mountains to make it what it is'

Now however, after thinking about it some more. I think ME:A was a victim to a much bigger, much more systemic problem that has slowly been plaguing Bioware, and more noticeably, the Bioware Fandom for a while now. And here it finally came to a head in a big way.

In short, dissatisfaction by the community and over-reaction instinct from the Devs.

This started LONG before ME:A I'd say it goes all the way back to DA2. Now, personally, I didn't have much of a problem with DA2... the first time I played it. When I was younger.

Come back a few times though, and you can see how forced, hamfisted and utterly one dimensional the story is. Outside of the Arishok arc, the characters, the plotline, the protagonist, all of it is a 2D set piece with very cheap and obvious 3D spray paint.

This was pretty much the first 'screw up' with Bioware Devs.

Then came ME3

This (For Andromeda anyway) *REALLY* was the big one. And we'll get into this in a bit.

So,the community shouted and bitched and moaned and the Bioware Devs took all of it, and basically threw everything out with the bathwater. The good and the bad from BOTH games. So for DA:I they were basically remaking the whole thing from the ground up.

DA:2 People complained about MMO type spawning enemies from thin air and re-used environments. So the Dev team decided to make a massive MMO style open world game with lots of 'BIG' Locations. About as far removed from DA2 as possible.

But then they forgot that big MMO type maps actually need stuff to FILL these maps. MMO's can get away with it by having tons and tons of players who sometimes PVP or Co-operate and other features to fill in the time sinks. DA:I didn't have that. So, you overshot the solution to one problem and made another problem because of it.

In DA:2 people complained about the insanity of the mage templar war, and the stupidity and forced nature of Anders storyline along with the absurdity in believing that one city will toss the whole planet into a conflict.

So they threw it all out for DAI and moved on to Corypheus. The Mage templar war is practically resolved by the end of act 1. It gets a mention here and there but the bulk of the actual 'War' is finished. Hell, you could have had NO mage templar war in that narrative and it wouldn't have really changed much.

DA2: People complained about the 2 dimensional nature of many characters (Anders, Fenris, Isabela etc.)

So they overcompensate by making a slew of 'complex' characters by giving them all 'Secrets' to hide or needing to 'really get to know them' before you see their charm.

Vivienne with her secret husband.

Blackwall secretly not actually being Blackwall.

Solas secretly being the Dread Wolf

The... what's her face whom I never take into the inquisition for being an utter imbecile. The elf chick.

Now all of the characters are supposedly complex. But the Dev team is trying SO hard to make it happen that it feels, in its own way, largely forced. Sure, there were some good moments but there were also some cringeworthy ones like the infamously pragmatic and role assigned Qunari being accepting of a 'Trans' woman (Though I'm not sure how that would work with no surgery or hormonal altering drugs...)

ME:3 people complain about the ending. So DAI tosses everything out the proverbial window and plays that Vanilla ending as SAFE and GENERIC as one can possibly imagine.

In short, Bioware Devs seem to be suffering from a complete inability to objectively judge the merits of their own game. They lack the ability to objectively determine what 'works' and what 'does not'

All the while, with every 'swing and a miss' that they do, the community dissatisfaction keeps on building.

ALL of this comes to a head in Andromeda.

Now, as I said earlier. ME3 was the 'Big one' for Andromeda, and, frankly, even MORE than Andromeda's own failings, I believe ME3 had basically killed the game in its cradle before it ever had a chance to succeed.

ME3, effectively, marked the follow up game for death no matter what happened.

Firstly; many people viewed Andromeda as a 'cheap' 'soft reset' to escape the Ending Fiasco. To not have to 'deal' with the disastrous ending. So already you're starting off on the back foot. You have a good chunk of the potential buyers looking at this thing, not as a legitimate expansion of the universe, but rather a 'cheap' way, to see if the cash cow is dead or almost dead.

Secondly: You have the inevitable comparison between the original Trilogy working against it. Everyone absolutely everyone would have compared this game, the characters within it to the previous game. Also inevitably, you'll have people who believe the previous works were better for XYZ reason. So that's another sizable chunk of people you're going to be on the back foot with.

Finally, you have the people who WANTED this game to fail. And believe me, there were MANY of them out there who WANTED this game to crash and burn and would have done everything they could to ensure that it did as much as possible because they want 'revenge' for ME3's ending. That's ANOTHER group of people against this game from the onset.

All of this, without even TOUCHING the fiascos during development.

Burning 75% of their time and budget on a feature that was ultimately cut out

The white guy hating developer that had alot of people boycott the game out of principle

The numerous other controversies.

Finally, heaped onto ALL of this... is Bioware's need to overcompensate for criticism which creates its own problems.

"Not enough exploration" Burn so much money on the exploration they nearly blow their budget.

"Don't want to rehash the story with the Krogan" Make it so the Krogan have 'mutated' a cure in stasis. *STASIS*

"No AI vs Creators bullshit" Whitewash everything and all the implications about SAM and make him 'Part' of the Pathfinder to a huge degree. To the point that some even say the Pathfinder is nothing but a meat bag to lug SAM around.

With all of this working against it, without even getting to the animations or overall story flaws (which are definitely there. Mac's plot writing hasn't improved THAT much) Andromeda never had a chance to succeed.

Now, with all that having been said, I still believe ME:A to be a solid game. And if this was the sole game of a developer (any developer) other than Bioware, I would say, it was judged unfairly.

However, given the trend and pattern of conduct seen with Bioware overall; I do believe that this wasn't only merited, but *necessary*.

Bioware NEEDED a kick in the fucking teeth. They NEED to hit Rock bottom. I'm not even sure if they have yet. But they NEED a goddamn wakeup call. They need to take a good HARD look at what they've done, what they're doing and decide how they want to keep moving forward.

If this was the 'death' of the Mass Effect genre; I'll be sad. But if Mass Effect had to die in order to kick Bioware's ass into actually making games that merit their numerous awards and high scores then I can accept the necessary sacrifice.

Do they promote it yet?

No.

So it seems there will be a DA4, but not in the foreseeable future, as in the next 1 or 2 years.

I don't know.

Are we too harsh with the kids at work, or are they really just that fucking stupid?

You decide.

This notice is posted in our work room. We get per diem for our lunches, but cannot tip over 15% for reimbursement. This simple concept is difficult, apparently.

Correct.

The issue is, math is hard. 20% the kids could handle, 15% is too hard.

We always kick a personal dollar per individual to make the tip above 20% - I worked in the industry far too long to be a shady tipper, and vonuber makes a valid point about how some places pay their servers. However, that is a massive digression from the topic at hand.

I guess my point with all of this, was, no not really, "WE" were not too hard on Andromeda, although some of the internet was definitely pretty harsh. I didn't want to burn anyone's house down, or to injure children and kittens. I did think people should lose their jobs.

Gosh, that happened.

I just want them to keep making games