Anyone else feeling kinda depressed with the recent news? A gamer's confession to similar-minded

Aug 23, 2017 14:28:37 GMT Heimdall said:

It looks like EA hasn't given up on the franchise, but I get the sense that they're reconsidering the Andromeda setting.

Patrick Söderlund (EA's Executive Vice President) interview with GameReactor

“Well I think, my personal opinion is, I think that the game… I usually don’t do this, but this is one of those places where I feel like the game got criticised a little bit more than it deserved,” Söderlund said. “I think the game is actually a great game. Yes, we have to acknowledge the fact that there were some things that maybe we could have done better, absolutely, but as a whole, if you go in and you buy the game today with everything that’s in it today, I believe that that’s a game worth buying, personally.”

“So that’s the first thing I’ll say. The [second] thing I’ll say is, for Mass Effect as a franchise, that has such a big fanbase, and you know I’ve seen people saying ‘Oh, EA’s not making another Mass Effect’. I see no reason why we shouldn’t come back to Mass Effect. Why not? It’s a spectacular universe, it’s a loved [series], it has a big fanbase, and it’s a game that has done a lot for EA and for BioWare.

“What we need to be careful though of is, whenever we bring Mass Effect back again, we have to make sure that we bring it back in a really [relevant] way, and in a fresh, exciting place. That’ my job, and that’s Casey’s [Hudson] job, and BioWare and the Mass Effect team’s job, to figure out what that looks like, and that we don’t know yet, but we will.”

The recipe to heal breaking the continuation for Generation I Fans is to break the continuation for Generation II fans. Brilliant. Generation I fans will still bitch about how it's not the same even if they get to play in MW, and I don't think anyone will experience anything but a brief feeling of being vindicated for getting their Shepard back in Incarnation 3 & then thgey will restart whining "it's not the same", "IF we did not have those ME3 ending, well, then, maybe...." "OMG, BioWARE really is milking it now, how far they have fallen", while dumping Ryder & Andromeda with all the Unfinished Business will set the remaining fan base's (fan as in a person who actually liked the game) teeth on edge.

The only remotely possible way out with saving some integrity and dignity was to keep fixing and expanding Andromeda without making a big deal about it, giving us more and more interesting threads, and then launching a sequel with Ryders growing closer to what Shepard was and giving those unsatisfied with the coming of age story a grizzly vet they wanted to play. Yes, it's not exactly honest & sticking to their guns with what Ryder is, that clandestine replacement of him with Definitely-Not-Shepard, but  it's subtler and more clever than openly courting the "FU, that's NOT the Shepard I remember!" by giving the audience what they SAY they now want. That will just make it even clearer to peeps how tired they are from the ME/Shepard staples.

Aug 23, 2017 14:45:00 GMT @endless said:

Aug 23, 2017 14:31:24 GMT @carefull said:

Right. Some people enjoy sleeping on a bed of glass I am sure When I think of a replay, ME1 is specifically the reason I don't want to. Relevelling all the skills, driving Mako, clunky combat, the same planets all the time, wooden Shepard & I don't like the companion cast/romances in it. Unfortunately, it is not optional and there is no way to set up Shepard's decisions the way you want without playing ME1. In that respect, DA franchise did well with Tapestry.

While I respect your opinion, I disagree almost completely...

-Shepard was FAR from being wooden. At least he had some really good options dealing with people that got in your face (so to speak). There were several times when npc would start talking shit to Ryder only for Sam to say, "You don't want to get involved" and you just walk away with your tail between your legs.

-I liked the leveling aspect of it but if you dont you could just use the console commands if you play on pc.

-Companions (across all the games) are hit or miss. The only one I didn't care for in ME1 was Kaidan. But he always dies in my playthroughs so...

-I never felt the combat was ever clunky. Dated by today's standards sure, but never clunky

-Planets (like companions) are hit or miss. In ME:A I hated Havarl but really like Voeld 

-And the Mako is just the Mako. That boiled down more to the game physics

I understand the difference between Shepard and Ryder, and I understand why people like Shepard being unaccountable, not giving a shit, spitting into authority's face, and not being called into question ever over any action whatsoever. Shepard was his own law on the fast track to godhood. Even if he is not canonized as a God of Reapers, he hits demigod status the moment he is called a Specter, and comes back from the dead as a Force of nature in the beginning of the second game. Ryder existed from the start in a hierarchical structure and plays by society's rules as a fairly junior member of that society, even if those rules are relaxed. It's not accidental that most "examples" of "bad/juvenile writing" in Andromeda has to do with encounters where Ryder is reminded that he is a guy with the job, his dad's son at best, and a newb at that. Peeps did not like the Trooper in SWTOR vs Shepard by the very same reason.  It does not convey the illusion of power and control in their time set aside for escapism, but remains all to real and makes them deal the way they deal (or should be) in an adult "setting" of RL. Ryder was always just a man, and his father, in SAM's voice tells him that all the time.

Shepard in ME1 is still monotone & companions are still info-dumps on legs. It's a setting-building game, not really much time left for individual expression.