Bioware games
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- Feb 3, 2013
: ( I saved Bull's chargers because I am weak woman and over emotional. Bull had just introduced them to me over drinks, and I felt like a shit letting them die. I make myself feel better by saying that if Iron Bull really wanted the Qunari ship saved, he would have let his dudes bite the bullet.
._. But shit, I lost all of my Qunari-spy related missions afterwards, grrr.
._. But shit, I lost all of my Qunari-spy related missions afterwards, grrr.
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
I did the same thing, never felt bad about it. The chargers are a nice bunch of people. I couldn't just let them die. I'd feel bad about it for the rest of my playthrough. I too am over-emotional and get attached to fictional characters too easily, so letting the chargers die was never even an option for me.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2013
Fake. Not even close to enough gay sex for Bioware.
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
I like DA: I because...
That beard.
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2013
There's rumoured Mass Effect 4 leaked info.
"The next Mass Effect game takes place in the Helius Cluster (a cluster of 100s of solar systems in the Andromeda Galaxy), far removed by time and space from Commander Shepard’s heroic acts and the final events of the Mass Effect trilogy. You are a pathfinder, a combat trained but un-tested explorer leading an expedition into the Helius cluster to establish a new home for humanity. As you explore this sprawling series of solar systems (over 4x the size of Mass Effect 3), collecting resources and building colonies, you will encounter the savagery of untamed lands in the form of cut-throat outlaws and warring alien races. To survive and colonize the wild reaches of space, you will need to grow your arsenal, your ship, your crew and make strategic (and often uneasy) alliances to fight against increasingly menacing foes. Along the way, you will encounter the remains of a once powerful and mysterious alien race, the Remnant, whose forgotten technology holds the key to gaining power in this region of the galaxy. As you uncover who the Remnant were, and the mysteries their ruins contain, you are drawn into a violent race to find the source of their forgotten technology that will determine the fate of humanity."
All of this more or less points out to me that the writing staff at Bioware is aware that they wrote themselves into a corner after Mass Effect 3 and they basically need to reboot the game in order to make a sequel.
Also that their writing staff isn't that known for originality given that "Remnant" are just Protheans 2.0
All of this more or less points out to me that the writing staff at Bioware is aware that they wrote themselves into a corner after Mass Effect 3 and they basically need to reboot the game in order to make a sequel.
Also that their writing staff isn't that known for originality given that "Remnant" are just Protheans 2.0
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2015
Yeah a few years back they said that Shepard's story had ended.
People were expecting that they would bring out three new games for the three endings: Red, Green and Blue.
Let us pray Hamburger Helper doesn't get a say in this game and the Love Interests p. sexy.
People were expecting that they would bring out three new games for the three endings: Red, Green and Blue.
Let us pray Hamburger Helper doesn't get a say in this game and the Love Interests p. sexy.
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2013
Well, for starters the lead writer of ME1 and ME2 left after ME2. Casey Hudson left last year. It seems a lot of the Bioware veterans left in the last few years. (including 2 of the 3 original founders of the company, who both left in 2012)
I'm more worried about who they hire to replace all of these people
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2013
I saw the info about ME4 yesterday. Most of it sounds pretty legit, but I don't know about these "remnant"s. So they're basically older versions of the protheans?
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- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
Oh! I hope this info turns out to be true. It could be a good way to revive a feeling of exploration and adventure in the franchise with out doing a prequel game that takes place during the early days of the human's exploration of the Mass Relays. Uncharted territories, new worlds, new alien cultures to discover and interact with...Something more akin to the original Mass Effect. By distancing themselves from the trilogy, they avoid having to illustrate in-game the effects of the "BIG" choices made in the trilogy (the Quarians, the Geth and the Krogan).
That being said... Yes. The changes in staff could make this all turn out to be a mediocre game, you can see how the quality of the writing decreases as the trilogy progresses. But hey! DA: I turned out to be alright, so maybe ME4 will be fun!
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
Yeah, reading that bit it sounds exactly how I hoped they would take Mass Effect.
Geth.
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2014
When I first saw the word remnant I assumed that it was going to be the remains of the Citadel Races. I figured this game would take place after 3 where all the Relays where destroyed making space travel super slow and stranding everyone. Meaning it would be centuries after 3. But since they name drop the Krogan I'm not so sure anymore.
I do like the idea of the multiplayer characters having a role in the single player game. I'm also fine with only humans being playable since this time it sounds like you are really advancing human interests.
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2013
It's likely they're just not going to explain the destruction of the mass relays.
Mass Effect 1: You're the first human specter and you're assigned to kill a Turian who really hates humans all while trying to increase humanity's role in the galaxy.
Mass Effect 2: You are part of a pro-human extremist group and you have to destroy this race that harvests humans and intends to eventually harvest Earth
Mass Effect 3: You are trying to raise an army to take back Earth
Mass Effect has been extremely pro-human for the entire trilogy.
I just see a lot of the concepts they're coming up with as really, really rehashy.
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2013
I wonder if they still plan on killing off one of the races. Hope not.
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2014
I'm probably one of the only ones who thought the extended endings were just as bad, if not worse, than what they supplanted. The "SO BE IT" ending literally, to me, read as a "DON'T LIKE ANY OF MY ENDINGS? WELL FUCK YOU THEN" moment, and I will hear no argument. That ending may as well have been directed directly at the fanbase.
That said.
Bioware's always been hit-or-miss, even when they've been at their best. Blatant pandering and dumbing-downs have always been "things" in Bioware RPGs. I remember in the first Neverwinter Nights game, it's possible to essentially reveal the real culprit for the plague in everything but name, but the game will not let you do anything about it because the plot demands it. If you have the skills for it, there's a scene later on where you can clear the name of Aribeth's husband (who meets his end at the hands of an angry mob with no ability for you to do anything about it), and later, talk her down when she goes full nutter before she can hurt anyone else. It doesn't matter if you get Lord Nasher to concede to every demand: She is executed and dies at the end of the game. Fuck you, you have no agency in this world. Trophies for participation. This is why its expansion, Hordes of the Underdark, was considered the infinitely better game.
ME3 thus seems to be in good company at first, but it's more complex than that. Every stupid problem Bioware has ever had bubbled to the surface of ME3. Every time the game did something amazing, it'd cage it by doing something retarded. I could point out a few thousands of ways ME3 breaks the game's own lore according to the codex (Kai Leng, by far, is the worst offender), and that's not even discussing the endings.
Bigger than that for me though is that the game is mechanically inept.
If you ever see these in a game as the primary means of gear acquisition and progression, turn and leave immediately.
Multiplayer's both fluffy and fun, with ample room for organic storytelling - the story of Professor Bartholomew Cornelius Headbutt the Krogan Sentinel and his Asari Biotic Friends - but it's stapled to the single worst mechanic for gear acquisition in the history of video games, is riddled with game-breaking bugs, and the game actually managed to break harder as the game's development cycle progressed. Essentially, rather than focus on fixing bugs, balance issues, etc - Bioware and EA threw all their multiplayer team at nerfing farming methodologies (making it so that there's almost no completely defensible terrain, essentially) and trying to fix an infinite missile exploit. None of which would have been necessary, mind, if they hadn't turned the fucking game into a fucking cash-extraction engine so you'd buy magic space points that guarantee nothing. What's that? You bought a 99000-credit Double Spectre Pack, which took you 2 play-throughs on Gold or a really agonizing Platinum run? Congrats, you got nothing but consumables. Better luck next time, dickhead. Bioware justified these packs by saying they were responsible for the Free DLC we got. It was a load of shit. The DLC was made entirely from re-used assets and existing content, entirely done to feed the all-consuming grind engine.
All this would be bad enough if they didn't also go out of their way to render classes and skill trees irrelevant. One of the most genuinely useful powers at launch was Decoy, which drew attention and enemy fire from the players and made a damned useful means of controlling enemy position. It got nerfed into the ground with the targeting priority changes and now is an ability tacitly unable to do its fucking job. Abilities like Sentry Turret, which does virtually no damage and does not even draw enemy fire are almost as worthless, with only Geth Turret and Combat Drone worth a damn (and only then because they can actually do their fucking subsidiary jobs). Cloaking was nerfed on the grounds of it being overpowered, forcing players to choose between damage spiking or cloak duration, which led to everyone changing the former because changes to the targeting priorities meant that enemies could pretty much see you cloaked at all times. This kind of shit panned out so many times that it defies reason - Sabotage was the first abilities microtargeted (because it could make the Geth way easier), and every time the farmers moved onto another way to get easy credits, Bioware went and tried to nerf that. It was like playing whack-a-mole with your own junk, and none of it was necessary, just that Bioware was that greedy.
Then you throw in the various changes Bioware made to the engine specifically to fuck over players, however, that's when the ragequits began. People noticed that Geth Hunters could defy physics and deal damage to players when knocked down, dying, or floating from a biotic power. People noticed that Sync-kill units could spawn atop players, catch them immediately in an unavoidable instant death grab, and remove a player from a cell for the rest of the round. Players noticed that the health-gate timing was muted, making it much easier for players to be killed by enemies. Players noticed that the amount of time it took a Sync-Kill unit to peform its kill animation was halved, essentially making it almost impossible to save an ally. People noticed that the game lied openly in its own tool-tips, such as when you destroyed a Phantom's sword with Shotgun fire (which should have eliminated her CQC Abilities), only for her then to Sync-kill you by stabbing you with nothing. Players noticed that no matter how often legit complaints were voiced, they got ignored. There are literally bugs that have been in the game since fucking launch that Bioware never tried to fix at all (Cryo Blast being probably the worst offender, a bug-ridden ability that is on almost a dozen classes and does not fucking work).
One might conceivably make the argument that EA is more responsible for this shit than Bioware. We all know about EA being the publishing equivalent of a serial killer, and it's infamous for ramming its dev studios into the ground. Here's the thing though: I don't care. Bioware's the one whose name is on it, Bioware's the one who wrote the fucking awful story, and Bioware's the one that green-lit the final product.
And here's the tragedy: Bioware's willingness to pander and dumb down are only going to get worse. DA:I was, gameplay-wise, good, but from a lore perspective, was a fucking embarassment. Mark my words, we're going to have a Bioware production in the next few years that makes the storytelling in COD look like a masterpiece. All the best writers the company had fucked off years ago, so you shouldn't be surprised.
That said.
Bioware's always been hit-or-miss, even when they've been at their best. Blatant pandering and dumbing-downs have always been "things" in Bioware RPGs. I remember in the first Neverwinter Nights game, it's possible to essentially reveal the real culprit for the plague in everything but name, but the game will not let you do anything about it because the plot demands it. If you have the skills for it, there's a scene later on where you can clear the name of Aribeth's husband (who meets his end at the hands of an angry mob with no ability for you to do anything about it), and later, talk her down when she goes full nutter before she can hurt anyone else. It doesn't matter if you get Lord Nasher to concede to every demand: She is executed and dies at the end of the game. Fuck you, you have no agency in this world. Trophies for participation. This is why its expansion, Hordes of the Underdark, was considered the infinitely better game.
ME3 thus seems to be in good company at first, but it's more complex than that. Every stupid problem Bioware has ever had bubbled to the surface of ME3. Every time the game did something amazing, it'd cage it by doing something retarded. I could point out a few thousands of ways ME3 breaks the game's own lore according to the codex (Kai Leng, by far, is the worst offender), and that's not even discussing the endings.
Bigger than that for me though is that the game is mechanically inept.
If you ever see these in a game as the primary means of gear acquisition and progression, turn and leave immediately.
Multiplayer's both fluffy and fun, with ample room for organic storytelling - the story of Professor Bartholomew Cornelius Headbutt the Krogan Sentinel and his Asari Biotic Friends - but it's stapled to the single worst mechanic for gear acquisition in the history of video games, is riddled with game-breaking bugs, and the game actually managed to break harder as the game's development cycle progressed. Essentially, rather than focus on fixing bugs, balance issues, etc - Bioware and EA threw all their multiplayer team at nerfing farming methodologies (making it so that there's almost no completely defensible terrain, essentially) and trying to fix an infinite missile exploit. None of which would have been necessary, mind, if they hadn't turned the fucking game into a fucking cash-extraction engine so you'd buy magic space points that guarantee nothing. What's that? You bought a 99000-credit Double Spectre Pack, which took you 2 play-throughs on Gold or a really agonizing Platinum run? Congrats, you got nothing but consumables. Better luck next time, dickhead. Bioware justified these packs by saying they were responsible for the Free DLC we got. It was a load of shit. The DLC was made entirely from re-used assets and existing content, entirely done to feed the all-consuming grind engine.
All this would be bad enough if they didn't also go out of their way to render classes and skill trees irrelevant. One of the most genuinely useful powers at launch was Decoy, which drew attention and enemy fire from the players and made a damned useful means of controlling enemy position. It got nerfed into the ground with the targeting priority changes and now is an ability tacitly unable to do its fucking job. Abilities like Sentry Turret, which does virtually no damage and does not even draw enemy fire are almost as worthless, with only Geth Turret and Combat Drone worth a damn (and only then because they can actually do their fucking subsidiary jobs). Cloaking was nerfed on the grounds of it being overpowered, forcing players to choose between damage spiking or cloak duration, which led to everyone changing the former because changes to the targeting priorities meant that enemies could pretty much see you cloaked at all times. This kind of shit panned out so many times that it defies reason - Sabotage was the first abilities microtargeted (because it could make the Geth way easier), and every time the farmers moved onto another way to get easy credits, Bioware went and tried to nerf that. It was like playing whack-a-mole with your own junk, and none of it was necessary, just that Bioware was that greedy.
Then you throw in the various changes Bioware made to the engine specifically to fuck over players, however, that's when the ragequits began. People noticed that Geth Hunters could defy physics and deal damage to players when knocked down, dying, or floating from a biotic power. People noticed that Sync-kill units could spawn atop players, catch them immediately in an unavoidable instant death grab, and remove a player from a cell for the rest of the round. Players noticed that the health-gate timing was muted, making it much easier for players to be killed by enemies. Players noticed that the amount of time it took a Sync-Kill unit to peform its kill animation was halved, essentially making it almost impossible to save an ally. People noticed that the game lied openly in its own tool-tips, such as when you destroyed a Phantom's sword with Shotgun fire (which should have eliminated her CQC Abilities), only for her then to Sync-kill you by stabbing you with nothing. Players noticed that no matter how often legit complaints were voiced, they got ignored. There are literally bugs that have been in the game since fucking launch that Bioware never tried to fix at all (Cryo Blast being probably the worst offender, a bug-ridden ability that is on almost a dozen classes and does not fucking work).
One might conceivably make the argument that EA is more responsible for this shit than Bioware. We all know about EA being the publishing equivalent of a serial killer, and it's infamous for ramming its dev studios into the ground. Here's the thing though: I don't care. Bioware's the one whose name is on it, Bioware's the one who wrote the fucking awful story, and Bioware's the one that green-lit the final product.
And here's the tragedy: Bioware's willingness to pander and dumb down are only going to get worse. DA:I was, gameplay-wise, good, but from a lore perspective, was a fucking embarassment. Mark my words, we're going to have a Bioware production in the next few years that makes the storytelling in COD look like a masterpiece. All the best writers the company had fucked off years ago, so you shouldn't be surprised.
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2014
I just meant more in the way of answering to alliance authority instead of doing what you want as you want. In 1 and 3 a lot of what you do is to the benefit of the galaxy as a whole and not just humanity. I just wonder if this time the decisions you make to increase humanity's power comes at the cost of alienating other races.
I just would like to see a scenario where the races are more competitive rather than united against a common foe. I feel that it would make a more interesting setting where you aren't trying to make peace with everyone and are trying to come put on top, even if means pitting other races against each other or picking sides in a war.
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2013
Well, yeah. Refusal was basically a giant middle finger towards everyone who hated the other endings. Not that I don't dislike it just as much.