Mass Effect News Thread

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Makes sense.  The game agnostic worker bees switch while the core game architects stay on track.  This leads to some interesting speculations.

For example:
Launch of DA:I     = 2014 (Dec) but dev switch was early 2015.
Launch of ME:A   = 2017 = Montreal  + 2/3rds Edmonton
Launch of New IP = 2019 = Edmonton + 2/3rds Montreal 
Launch of DA4     = 2021 = Edmonton + 2/3rds Montreal 
Launch of ME:A2 = 2023 = Montreal  +2/3rds Edmonton 

Basically, it takes two years with both Edm+Mtl working on the same game to complete a AAA title.  If this holds true, then the New IP will also take two years or so.  Barring any unknowns, Bio can launch AAA titles every two years or so, depending on current circumstances.  

Can anyone remember when the first hints of a new IP were made?

DA4 in 2021? I don't think they're going to take 7 years to release DA4, Sartoz. That seems excessive.

A bit unrelated, but I was actually thinking about this "silence" thing from Bioware.
And how it's actually useful for the industry not showing or promising anything because then a lot of that wont be in the game. This ways they save everyone from a huge disappointment.

And the game it comes to mind now is No man's Sky.
I wasn't excited for the game, I wasn't following the game, I honestly wasn't interested in the game. But there's a lot of fuss around the internet about it and I wanted to check out what the deal was.
In short they basically promised tons of stuff that never ended up in the game. Nonexistent features, stuff that they showed on videos that are not a thing in the game. And unsurprisingly enough, people seem to be super disappointed and angry about that.

Maybe Bioware, or EA, or both, figured this could happen to ME:A just recently (say a few weeks prior E3 2016) and decided that they will show nothing until the game is super close to release. This way they can save themselves (hopefully) from showing something that wont be in the final product, thus not triggering the anger of the crowd yet again.

I know this was suggested in the past, but now I see first hand how it can really by a problem, taking No man's Sky as an example.
Maybe this will be their modus operandi from now on with their games. Who knows.

BioWare ‏@bioware

ICYMI, Matt made a full-scale Krogan suit and it's amazing: bit.ly/2bxajKT

Yeah, I suspect it will be more like this: 

Early 2017: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Late 2018: Secret IP
Early 2020: Dragon Age: ?????
Late 2021: Mass Effect: ?????

A year and a half between game releases makes sense, since the time support of a game ends the time to start promoting the new game begins. 

Yah, overhyped can be just as deadly to a game as hype exhaustion.

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A clay model?

They could just be clear that this is what they want to put in a game; some ideas, but it's not in game yet. There will still be those that say they promised something would be in the game.

The game companies/publishers have not been the most scrupulous, upstanding people. There's a reason people don't trust them. They have too often shown themselves to not be trustworthy.

On the other hand, you have people that have made it an industry to pick apart games and devs and publishers. They make money off of it.

I've heard about the No Man's Sky flak. I didn't follow NMS; looks cool, but I'm not interested in it. From what I've heard, though, it seems the dev did "exaggerate" things.

I think the real lesson is to be honest about what's going on with your games. Even painfully so. Even if that means showing less than cgi perfect graphics in a trailer, etc. Not go hide under a rock and try to pass it off as a marketing strategy.

Gamers are much more forgiving about these things when you're straight up with them. It's the idea of being conned that gets to people.

People are tired and wary about being lied to because it's not just game industry that does it. We are drowning in Spin.

The PAX demo.

QFT!

Frankly, I'm on the brink of some kind of existential crisis right now trying to rationalise the year 2021 being anything more than some faraway, hypothetical future ripped from the page of a Philip K. Dick novel. The very notion that we could go that long without another Dragon Age installment....? Nope! Unconscionable. Do you hear me, Bioware?! UNCONSCIONABLE!

*cries at the thought of 2021 for another DA installment* Heck, I'm continually surprised that ME3 was released in 2012.....and I have finally comes to terms (meaning ignore it) the ending of ME3, and just want back into the ME universe...

I was hoping also with a new IP that there would be a yearly or every other year release of a Bioware game.

If all games are on new engine, and they don't keep changing that, wouldn't it compress a release schedule, since physics developed for one game could be used in another? (I know nothing about making a game)

I enjoyed the old version, the one that actually showed the tweet. instead of text. There are too many posts in the thread and I somehow manage to bypass most of the tweets while reading other people.