Mass Effect Andromeda Skepticism thread

I'm not bashing, I'm stating why I think Witcher has weak open world design, and I'm giving reasons as to why I think that. Admittedly, I did say the game was trash, but I was mostly being hyperbolic because it makes me laugh. Everything else I said was completely reasonable, as far as I'm concerned. No, open worlds are not inherently fun just because they're open. No Man's Sky was a bad game, and it's the most open- open world game that's ever been made. Witcher doesn't benefit at all from being open world. It detracts from the overall experience.

If you like that game, you're fully entitled to that opinion, but I am absolutely allowed to say why I think it's harmful rather than helpful. Open world has become a fad nowadays, and it's leading to extremely shallow map design. Witcher suffers from this, as does Inquisition. The difference is that Inquisition still built its open world into the mechanics and story. Witcher III did not. Witcher III does not need to be open world. The only thing it adds is a hundred hours of walking. That's not engaging gameplay. 

The only reason I'm skeptical about an open world in Andromeda is because open worlds are done to death, and rarely done correctly, and because Bioware doesn't have the best track record with open world map design. At the very least, I can say that the open world is already worked into the narrative, so they at least put more thought into it than Witcher, but that isn't saying all that much when you consider Inquisition did the same thing, and was still a boring game. 

Non open world games are not dead or unreplayable. That's absolute crap. Dark Souls has become one of the biggest series to enter the fantasy RPG genre and it has linear interconnected map design similar to something like the original Resident Evil. Both of those games are considered classics. Both of those games had purpose behind their level design and worked it into the story and mechanics of their games. 

I haven't been able to play Blood and Wine yet, but people seem to like it. Again, I'm not trying to take that away from anyone. I did complain about the core gameplay in Witcher being shallow and boring, but that's my opinion. You don't have to agree. I just feel that it's my responsibility as a gamer and a skeptic to explain why I don't like something. Truthfully, the thing the Witcher does best is the dialogue and story, but that ends up taking a backseat to exploration in Witcher III, which is a problem for me when the exploration (and core gameplay)  is extremely weak. 

He has indeed a well written plot and a good development for becoming an antagonist, including the last dlc, but yes, to determine if he'll be a good one we have to wait for the game where he is the central antagonist.

I think Hearts of Stone is a lot better, Blood and Wine has good moments but I got bore at half of it. And agree open world works sometimes but I prefer they focus on story and character arcs than anything else really.

Open worlds can be extremely thrilling. My problem is that lately they're all the same thing, and no one is really taking time to think about WHY their game should be open. 

On the flip side of things, great linear map design is making a comeback, like with my Dark Souls example. People are starting to put more thought into WHY their game should be linear again, instead of just doing that because it's easier. Truthfully, if you're doing it right, it's much harder.

That's the problem. When games were going linear just because making hallways was easy, open world games started becoming the new fad. It felt good to be so open and free for a change. Now everyone is trying to do that, but they're not putting in the work, so everyone feels like their open world games are more of a chore than being actually fun. That's why MGSV got shit for open world, why NMS got shit for being so huge, why Ubisoft games are getting so much flak these days, etc...

People aren't tired of open world. I'm not tired of open world. I'm tired of lazy open world. Every game these days has to be 70-100 hours long and the easiest way to do that is to make a big map and stuff it full of boring useless garbage. It's getting old. 

I just started Blood and Wine for the first time after my second playthrough of the main game. I didn't like HoS that much. It's great but I didn't care about Gaunter O'Dimm. It felt like the typical stuff where the writers had written characters expecting me to be really frightened and I just didn't feel the way I was obviously supposed to feel. Geralt isn't a proper protagonist in the DLCs that's my problem with them. He's just sorta there. I played B&W for one hour then stopped. I honestly think I'm done with the game for the time being. I was totally satisfied with the main game and would play it again sometime later.

Instead I'll be playing Fallout New Vegas which I recently aquired for my old PS3. It's such a nice game. Let's me be a post-apocalyptic lone-wolf cowboy who helps small communities by scaring away angry mob gangs and I like the quest design so far. Heard it only gets better from there.

Also, I wish I had my laptop. I'm a subscriber to SWTOR right now because I thought maybe I would try finishing my character before Andromeda but alas it's in for repairs. Instead i looked up some of the newer content on Youtube, some of which Drew Karpyshyn wrote for. O.o It looks pretty great honeslty.



Austin working on ME:A isn't really that scary anymore. They've improved a lot with cinematics and story-focus.

I love New Vegas, but I wasn't a huge fan of the Lonesome Road expansion or the general cowboy theme of the game. Never been big into westerns, and the usual retro 1950s theme is more interesting to me.

That being said, Dead Money is one of my favorite pieces of DLC ever. Atmosphere is perfect, characters are great, etc. 

I haven't played in awhile, but I have extremely vivid memories of limping through Sierra Madre with a broken leg, unable to fix it, the thick red fog blanketing the whole place, the air itself slowly killing my character, trying to sneak around the ghost people while they patrolled the streets... Man.

And Christine is probably my favorite character in that game. Getting to communicate and legitimately bond with a character who can't even speak back to you is something I have a soft spot for, in particular. The writing was great for her character in particular. The whole DLC, really, but I especially liked her.

Also, lighting up the Gala and luring in all the ghost people was fucking intense. I was badly hurt and barely had any ammo, lol.

Man, I wanna play that again...

I'm not against them being more open in Andromeda so long as there are good reasons for it, mechanically and as far as the narrative.

In terms of story, Andromeda has a reason to be open world. I really appreciate that.

We'll see if it actually ends up complimenting the gameplay or not.

What concerns me the most about the open-world by far is how well companions fit into it. It's a code they didn't quite crack with DA:I in my opinion. Both DA2 and DA:I had excessive amounts of banter as you ran around the game world with your companions but DA2 did a far better job of contextualizing and making use of it IMO. There were conflicts within Kirkwall all around it that gave your companions something to talk about and disagree on. In DA:I most of the time it's just "are we there yet" kind of dialogue where they talk because nothing else is happening.

I remember Bull talking about strategies and Sera going "Pfffff" about everything Solas said. It was all just meandering to underline how likeable the companions were in that Citadel DLC-esque fashion.

I was so happy when i replayed it to finally have some sense of weight to their banter during Trespasser DLC when there's actually some stakes for the Inquisitor and worry from your companions.

I also didn't play any of the ME3 DLC, so I don't know that much about the specifics of Citadel. Heard it was good, but it wasn't actually fixing anything, and my Xbox broke a few months after ME3's launch.

Up until now, I actually haven't even really thought about Mass Effect at all... huh.

Idk to me it sounds like there almost no banter at all because the maps were huge.

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