When do you think Mass Effect will finally return?

I'll 1 up you...

I lost 10 hours worth of saves in ME:A due to the companion death bug. It took me a while to notice Peebee floating 50 feet in the air.

Since we have gotten off-topic, I am going to try to put us back onto topic.

To me the time frame will have more to do with what they are going to do with the game instead of what happened with Andromeda. Normally it takes three to four years to develop a new BioWare title which honestly is probably enough time for the wounds that people want to heal will heal, if anything a good game will be a better fix then time. Look at the Assassin's Creed games for example, they still churned them out year after year even when they started to alienate their fans, but Black Flag was received very well.

I think we won't have to wait a long time for another Mass Effect game if BioWare gives up the foolish (in my opinion) attempt to convert their games into open world games and goes back to their strengths. Mostly development time and giving enough of a gap between Anthem and then Dragon Age so they aren't competing with one another.

I can't argue Ryder's sexuality. For sure he/she has that as an advantage. I can only argue from my point of view per the way I play my characters. 

I'm going to be straight up with you here...



...ready?...


If your argument is somehow me calling ME:A a weak rpg then you sir are a fucking idiot. I'm sorry to put it that way but...

I never once called it a weak rpg. Only debating the difference of Geralt vs Ryder.

Take that white knight shit somewhere else please.

In what ways does ME:A have better characterization, though? Sure there's more as you have a ship full of complete strangers who can't wait to bare their souls to you within the first hour meeting, but that doesn't necessarily make it better, more immersive or more believable.

I'm only debating yours (and others for that matter) determination that Ryder is somehow vastly different from Geralt in terms of RP. That's it.

2 years of development after finally scuttling a dead-end track. It actually had five. This is also not the first game bioware released halfbaked or in a mismanaged fashion, as five years of development on SWTOR and a six figure budget yielded borked launch and the rest is history.

that's more of an issue of how Bioware Montreal chose to manage their time. There is no indication that they could not have spent more time and resources on a tighter script. Also, two years is plenty of time to avoid some of the most glaring writing pitfalls of this game. The bar for what's good storytelling for video games is often lower than that for film or tv-- at least looking at all three media at their best.

1)  The Witcher 3 was the culmination of a trilogy, ME:A was beginning of a new series of games with a new protagonist.  The choices in TW3 should matter more.  ME:A was not unlike ME1 - regardless of what you did in ME1, the repercussions were not felt until ME2/ME3.

2)  TW3 did a better job of side missions than ME:A, agree with that.  I think, though, that ME:A was an improvement on DA:I and, as the content in the Mass Effect series and Dragon Age Origins & 2 demonstrated, they are capable of producing quality content.  DA:I and ME:A were developed in Frostbite 3, an engine foreign to RPGs, and a lot of content had to be custom made so I am anticipating their next efforts to be better.

3)  I think ME:A needed more of a "corridor" to advance narrative within the "open world".  One of the faults of ME:A was how it just laid out everything bare in terms of the missions and side-content with no direction in particular for the uninitiated.  Since I've played the game over 500hrs now, I know what I'm doing but I remember struggling a bit at first.  Hopefully, BioWare addresses this after similar complaints in DA:I and ME:A.

4) TW3 had better animations overall than ME:A but was on par with DA:I initially.  TW3 really distinguished itself though with their expansions, "Hearts of Stone" and "Blood and Wine" and overall animations were better.  I thought the body animations chosen for the characters in ME:A were an odd choice as they seemed to be always walking with their arms held at weird angles and eye focus was hit and miss.  Later on after patch 1.09, I could see definite improvements in the facials expressions, especially around the eyes and mouth, for character that spoke with in terms of crew and NPCs.  One thing they need to get away from is the "conversation from a distance" perspective they've used for both DA:I and ME:A.  I'm replaying the trilogy and it makes a difference in terms of immersion.

5)  I liked most of the story and dialogue for ME:A but, yeah, the script was tighter for TW3.  I thought ME:A missed some obvious conversational beats and, for every completed story arc like Drack, you had Liam...just there.  The script is where the quick turnaround time on development was felt the most as certain aspects felt like early drafts.  

My feeling, based on what we've read collectively in articles on the problems with ME:A's development, there was initial vision of where they wanted to go with the franchise didn't work after 3 years and they had crank out something that would make "some" sense or risk burning $40 mil with nothing to show for it.  I liked DA:I so I'm hoping DA4 and, crossed fingers, a new ME sequel has a better birth.

Conversely, I had one bug in my entire playthrough of ME:A on XBox One pre-patch (got to start on 03/15/2017 through EA Access) through patches 1.04/1.05.  The only issue I had was Drack's companion mission at the end when everyone starting floating in a "T" and then it stalled.  I re-started and was able to finish it out with no problem.

Weird how different people get different experiences.

It was supposed to be that though.  

Again bad writing is bad writing when it is not internally consistent or when it does not properly undergo some kind of arc.  And the internal logic of MEA is Ryder is an awkard flirter.  And another clue that this is not bad writing but intentional writing is how Kallo called it out on the bridge when Ryder was flirting with Suvi.  Ryder is an isolated character who probably did not have much experience as flirting...so they flirt awkwardly. 

That's true. It could also be chalked up to which system you played it on. A PC for me.

I have to give a shout out to smilesja. He gives a thumbs up to just about anyone who post back me. A tool is a tool is a...