Mass Effect News Thread

Or better, reveal the protagonist.

If you want to know what the other voices say, check this, it's not 100% done though.


bsn.boards.net/thread/18629/new-mass-effect-teaser-dialogues#

Mass Effect @masseffect
We are honored to be selected as one of the best moments from last year’s #TheGameAwards. That moment was special for us, and we hope it was for you as well.

Michael Gamble @gamblemike
We enjoyed this moment. If we win this, ill reveal one thing about the trailer that we haven't so far.

Michael Gamble @gamblemike
@geoffkeighley we are hustlin up those votes for Mass Effect. Gotta get the page back up so we can mob it!

Geoff Keighley @geoffkeighley
Sorry that vote closed last night!! But love the excitement!!

Michael Gamble @gamblemike

Mass Effect @masseffect
Saren Green Goblin
Handshake
Harassing heroes
on a hovercraft

Deadline Hollywood @deadline
EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Studios is nearing a deal to develop a series based on the best-selling sci-fi video game franchise #MassEffect |
deadline.com/2021/11/the-wheel-of-time-premiere-ratings-amazon-prime-video-mass-effect-lort-of-the-rings-jennifer-salke-qa-1234879517/

"One of the company’s newest hopefuls in the arena is Mass Effect. Amazon Studios is nearing a deal to develop a series based on the best-selling sci-fi video game franchise from Electronic Arts."

Michael Gamble @gamblemike
Hey, what's up yall?

hilary heskett hidey @hilaryheskett

David Gaider @davidgaider
I'm relieved to see that the Mass Effect/Amazon deal is for a potential TV series and not a movie. Even so, the possibility (and likewise for Dragon Age) makes me cringe just a little, unlike many fans who appear... excited?

Let me explain. (Thread)

For starters, ME and DA have a custom protagonist. Meaning said TV show will need to pick whether said protagonist will be male or female. Boom, right off the bat you've just alienated a whole bunch of the built-in fan base who had their hopes up.

Secondly, those protagonists are designed to be a bit of a blank slate, one that the player fills out with their decisions. That's not going to work for a passive medium. So, suddenly, the protagonist will have their own personality... and their own *story*. That will be weird.

You think I'm wrong? Consider just how MUCH of the story is off-loaded onto the companions. They are the cyphers through which the player gets most of their emotional engagement from. On their own, the DA and ME protagonists are... well, pretty boring. That's not going to fly.

And think of those companions. Think of how MUCH the fanbase is attached to them. Now consider the fact that there is no way in hell any single story could encompass them all equally. Think of the howls of rage when companion X is relegated to a cameo... or not there at all.

Having a TV show instead of a movie allows for more companion options, sure, but consider your own playthrough: only a handful of them had any meaningful presence in a single game. That will need to be the case for this story, to maintain coherence. A few companions, one romance.

And that's IF the TV show makers consider the companions to be all that important. They might toss most of them aside in favor of the PLOT. In my mind, that would be a mistake. Both ME's and DA's plots were, at best, serviceable.

And I don't mean that in a derogatory way.

Those plots had to take into account the player's agency. They were kind of the shell upon which that player's emotional engagement was delivered -- usually through the companions and the choices themselves. Choice heightened engagement. Interactivity was the star, not the plot.

Take all that out, lose most of the companions, and you potentially end up with... a pretty run-of-the-mill fantasy or science-fiction show, one where a lot of the built-in audience has possibly been turned into outraged, howling malcontents before it's even released.

All that is, of course, if the DA or ME series is mishandled. I can think of any number of ways it could be done better... but that involves doing more than a strict adaptation, and that comes with its own complications.

Anyhow, good luck to the showrunners. They'll need it!

EDIT:

I'm seeing responses along the lines of "they could do some story within the DA/ME universe and not just the story of the games" -- that IS what I meant by an adaptation in my last tweet above. In many ways, not simply adapting the story of the games would be wiser.

BUT consider this from the perspective of those making the TV show. They are not making it solely for the fans, those who already know the entire story and would be fine with moving onto something else.

The far larger audience are those who know nothing about ME or DA at all.

At some level, this TV series needs to answer the question "what IS Mass Effect?" ...and that means making something that is *recognizeably* Mass Effect. It means retreading ground in a way that fans don't need, and will likely react poorly to.

Maybe. I guess we'll see.

Part of a larger thread discussing how much of the general public isn't aware of the costs of game development. In this case, it started with a fan saying they would pay $10K to have MP added to Breath of the Wild...

Raphael van Lierop (He/Him) @raphlife
So as to avoid just being a complainer and not a solver, let's see if we can't help frame the discussion in a more positive way by finding things in games that can be done for roughly $10k, or explaining what some typical features might cost from an implementation standpoint.

I'll start.

* $10k will get you between 5-7.5 minutes of original music from a good composer.
* $10k will cover the cost of translating about 50,000-75,000 words of text into one language (depending on the language).
* $10k might cover the cost of trademarking your game name in ~1-2 territories, depending on how many Classes you try to protect yourself in.
* $10k might cover the cost of a small number of relatively polished (better than sketches, but nothing near final) pieces of concept art.

Flipping it the other way around, creating a single region in #thelongdark costs about $300k+, considering design time, art, testing, etc. And this is only if the artists are using mostly existing assets. The cost goes way up if you're adding new custom structures, etc.

Charles Randall @charlesrandall
On Assassin's Creed 2, I calculated that a good core team was quite literally worth their weight in gold.

(And what I mean by this, is if you traded for the core team with their weight in gold, you would actually make money.)

Trent Oster @trentoster
We had a derived stat from Mass Effect that the average user could consume about $170,000 worth of level art per minute.

Tom Holiday-Son @taylorson
What’s this, what’s this?!

Outspoken Audio @outspokenaudio
Great article with insights - VO recording for Mass Effect including the mention of inhouse tech VEDA
Thanks to @ Mark_Meer @jhaletweets @newsnationusa

newsnationusa.com/news/technology/video-games/mark-meer-and-jennifer-hale-reflect-on-playing-mass-effects-shepard/

#gameaudio #voiceover #castingcall #gamevoiceover #outspokenaudio #xenovox #GameSoundCon

IGN @ign
The Unlocked crew - @dmc_Ryan, @rianatweetsnow, and @destinlegarie - discuss Amazon’s rumored Mass Effect show and Halo Infinite multiplayer impressions. Plus, remember the canceled Xbox exclusive Scalebound?

Listen here: linktr.ee/podcastunlocked

Tune in next week for more!

Mass Effect @masseffect
"Just like old times."

Alex @mrhulthen
So the Next Mass Effect teaser has disappeared from the main Mass Effect channel on Youtube.
Uuuuuh, Bioware? @bioware
#MassEffect #worried



Mass Effect News @masseffect_News

I have seen some pretty pessimistic theories, I think the most probable explanation for now is that it got accidentally unlisted. If that's indeed the case, the timing of messing with video visibility settings right before the Game Awards is interesting.