I get less and less excited for this game the more I see of it

me3 media block out until the reviews come out for me.

If mp has any meaningful effect on how the single player experience goes I will skip it.

I've read the story spoilers, including the final choice and basic gists of the ending cutscenes.

...I really hope they change it, because it reads like fan-fiction level of bad. Really hackneyed.

Man, action mode sounds like a pretty interesting idea, but the idea of Mass effect without dialogue choice sounds miserable...

People play Mass Effect for the combat?

@Brodehouse said:

@Crushed

I've read the story spoilers, including the final choice and basic gists of the ending cutscenes.

...I really hope they change it, because it reads like fan-fiction level of bad. Really hackneyed.

At some level, all video game writing is hackneyed... Are we talking bad in the 'how could you possibly think anyone would accept this?' way, or bad in the 'that's the most obvious thing you could've done' way?

From the makers of

[img]http://images.wikia.com/dragonage/images/c/c6/BioWare%27s_take_on_Dead_Characters_coming_back_alive...jpg[/img]

I am now officially going on a ME3 blackout until release. I got ME2 ruined by spoilers one week before release, won't let it happen again.

Man, action mode sounds like a pretty interesting idea, but the idea of Mass effect without dialogue choice sounds miserable...

I got some on my shirt, it's pretty rancid.

I will now turn my, "Block every single Mass Effect 3 related story/form thread ect..."

Action mode now frees up BOTH hands for players in anticipation of their dalliances with Tali. All deep thoughts by Bioware, sympatico with their most fervent Talibans.

Alright, if anything I read from the leak is true, this game is two stars.

Jesus, I can't wait for March to verify this crap.

That "mode" stuff actually sounds kind of cool.

@Death_Unicorn said:

Lol action mode.

Just in case you get bored of not playing CoD.

@zoner said:

@nmarchan said:

Yeah it's totally awesome that a developer/publisher has veto power over what an independent gaming forum talks about.

And no journalists will say anything about it because they don't want to lose those cushy events and review copies. Don't worry though, we'll get an article about people being upset about reviews.

Let Patrick prove you wrong, c'mon Patrick. You can do it...

Stumbled upon the ending.
 
FUCK

Wait wait, let me get out my Jump to Conclusions mat.

@zoner said:

@Brodehouse said:

@Crushed

I've read the story spoilers, including the final choice and basic gists of the ending cutscenes.

...I really hope they change it, because it reads like fan-fiction level of bad. Really hackneyed.

At some level, all video game writing is hackneyed... Are we talking bad in the 'how could you possibly think anyone would accept this?' way, or bad in the 'that's the most obvious thing you could've done' way?

From the makers of

[img]http://images.wikia.com/dragonage/images/c/c6/BioWare%27s_take_on_Dead_Characters_coming_back_alive...jpg[/img]

Wow, that's fucking insane.

@Three0neFive said:

@Anwar said:
Never gonna happen. Patrick's a pretty respectable guy - especially in this line of work, where it's hard to find someone who doesn't just regurgitate press releases and call it news - but there's no way he'd jeopardize all of Giant Bomb's future coverage over something like this. And I honestly can't blame him.

Over what exactly? over reporting how a videogame company seems to feel they have the right to tell people what they should or shouldn't discuss? NEOGAF didn't hack or steal anything, they just reposted information available elsewhere, the same way you can find information about any other videogame and you could post it here without having to worry about a legal team coming for you. Hell, when it was MW3 spoilers Kotaku was pretty eager to post them in their webpage and Giantbomb reported it. I don't see how it is any different in this case.

I can blame him if he is all about the "news" but is worried more about pissing off EA over this than mentioning the issue, which is clearly pretty despicable and goes against freedom of speech for as petty as the subject matter can be.

I remember when, at the beginning of the EA/Bioware merger, there was that immediate period where you felt like that was the end of Bioware as a developer. Quality would suffer as games were shoved out the door and visions were replaced with dollar symbols (hyperbole!).

Then they pushed out games such as Mass Effect, Sonic Chronicles, and Dragon Age, and while a couple of those were in development for much longer than this merger, they turned out to be amazing games (at least DA:O and ME, but I still think that Dark Brotherhood is good for what it is).Then there was Mass Effect 2, definitely developed after the merger, and it turned out to be pretty much genre-defining in its quality.

Then we get Dragon Age 2, we see the direction with SWTOR (sweater), and the odd things coming out of Mass Effect 3.

I recently changed my stance on movies/TV shows where I had this revelation that once something I used to like ceased to be fun to watch because it was on its fourth iteration or season and things were beyond stale, I could, in fact, stop watching it. There was no force holding me there to observe the further exploits of a dead cast of characters and essentially waste my time (ironic considering the couple of minutes I'm wasting just typing this).

That stance has carried over to video games. I couldn't continue on in Dragon Age 2 because it was a completely different game from its predecessor and it didn't appeal to me. I loved Modern Warfare, but when it reached critical mass and the sequel was pumped out solely as a money-making endeavor, it soured me. I worry so much that Mass Effect 3 will hit me the same way, because it's no longer a vision: it's a matter of tossing everything against a wall in an attempt to cash in on every possible gamer. Once I see it as such, I want to run the other direction for fear of rewarding such behavior. Unfortunately, I'm so close to alone in this endeavor that my stand is meaningless against the millions more this game will sell.

But then, Bioware is a different company. Bioware is actually many, many other companies now. I guess it makes sense that things are different.

As long as RPG mode retains what we enjoyed in previous Mass Effect games, they can add twenty more different modes if they wish.

@Anwar said:

@zoner said:

@nmarchan said:

Yeah it's totally awesome that a developer/publisher has veto power over what an independent gaming forum talks about.

And no journalists will say anything about it because they don't want to lose those cushy events and review copies. Don't worry though, we'll get an article about people being upset about reviews.

Let Patrick prove you wrong, c'mon Patrick. You can do it...

Man, I hope Patrick writes something about it. This is some straight up bullshit EA/Bioware is pulling.

i might actually play this if i can skip the dialogue. i never played more than an hour or two of the first two because holy crap those people never shut the fuck up and you can't skip the stupid cutscenes.

@phrali said:

i might actually play this if i can skip the dialogue. i never played more than an hour or two of the first two because holy crap those people never shut the fuck up and you can't skip the stupid cutscenes.

You can.

The wrath of the Bioware doctors on this day shall be glorious.

Somewhere at Bioware, something is on fire right now.

@phrali said:

i might actually play this if i can skip the dialogue. i never played more than an hour or two of the first two because holy crap those people never shut the fuck up and you can't skip the stupid cutscenes.

why skip the best part?

So you control The Reapers at the end of Mass Effect 3 to fight against them. Big whoop.

You guys just wait. Next year EA will put out some stats that show that 70% of players played the action mode. They will use that as justification to further dilute the RPG elements in future games until they are gone for good.

Ok, I made the mistake of seeing some of those spoilers. They sound bad. Like... face-palmingly idiotic. Listen, I realize all that stuff about player choice is actually bullshit and always has been, but at least try to pretend it matters instead of offering the player an upraised middle finger to whatever they decided in the last game.

In any case, I'm going to have to find out for myself, and if it ends the way I hope it doesn't, I may have to rescind my status as a fan of Bioware.

@AndrewB said:

I remember when, at the beginning of the EA/Bioware merger, there was that immediate period where you felt like that was the end of Bioware as a developer. Quality would suffer as games were shoved out the door and visions were replaced with dollar symbols (hyperbole!).

Then they pushed out games such as Mass Effect, Sonic Chronicles, and Dragon Age, and while a couple of those were in development for much longer than this merger, they turned out to be amazing games (at least DA:O and ME, but I still think that Dark Brotherhood is good for what it is).Then there was Mass Effect 2, definitely developed after the merger, and it turned out to be pretty much genre-defining in its quality.

Then we get Dragon Age 2, we see the direction with SWTOR (sweater), and the odd things coming out of Mass Effect 3.

I recently changed my stance on movies/TV shows where I had this revelation that once something I used to like ceased to be fun to watch because it was on its fourth iteration or season and things were beyond stale, I could, in fact, stop watching it. There was no force holding me there to observe the further exploits of a dead cast of characters and essentially waste my time (ironic considering the couple of minutes I'm wasting just typing this).

That stance has carried over to video games. I couldn't continue on in Dragon Age 2 because it was a completely different game from its predecessor and it didn't appeal to me. I loved Modern Warfare, but when it reached critical mass and the sequel was pumped out solely as a money-making endeavor, it soured me. I worry so much that Mass Effect 3 will hit me the same way, because it's no longer a vision: it's a matter of tossing everything against a wall in an attempt to cash in on every possible gamer. Once I see it as such, I want to run the other direction for fear of rewarding such behavior. Unfortunately, I'm so close to alone in this endeavor that my stand is meaningless against the millions more this game will sell.

But then, Bioware is a different company. Bioware is actually many, many other companies now. I guess it makes sense that things are different.

Dragon Age 2 was the only game from them I hated with every fiber of my body. I played that game for 10 mins and uninstalled, complete and utter pile of shit.

@phrali: You can do that, but I'm not sure why you would. The plot, characters, dialogue choices, moral choices, world etc are the reasons to play the game, not the shooter gameplay, which is merely competent enough to build everything onto. That's why this supposed 'Action Mode' baffles me completely. I guess EA want a big third person shooter, so this turns ME into that?

@ArbitraryWater said:

Ok, I made the mistake of seeing some of those spoilers. They sound bad. Like... face-palmingly idiotic. Listen, I realize all that stuff about player choice is actually bullshit and always has been, but at least try to pretend it matters instead of offering the player an upraised middle finger to whatever they decided in the last game.

You know what's funny?

I made some posts after ME2 came out ago predicting Bioware will do exactly that. That all your choices and save imports are kind of meaningless, and that I would not be surprised if the same happened in ME3. People didn't listen.

Oh this is so delicious.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm yum

@Tennmuerti said:

@ArbitraryWater said:

Ok, I made the mistake of seeing some of those spoilers. They sound bad. Like... face-palmingly idiotic. Listen, I realize all that stuff about player choice is actually bullshit and always has been, but at least try to pretend it matters instead of offering the player an upraised middle finger to whatever they decided in the last game.

You know what's funny?

I made some posts after ME2 came out ago predicting Bioware will do exactly that. That all your choices and save imports are kind of meaningless, and that I would not be surprised if the same happened in ME3. People didn't listen.

Oh this is so delicious.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm yum

I think everyone is excited for that one day where people capitalize on the advantage that video games have over movies: the ability for the player to weave their own story. They want to believe. Bioware seemed to come the closest to that dream.

Oh hey, that's cool, MS. Because I can just stay off the internet for five months or so. No big.

@ArbitraryWater said:

Ok, I made the mistake of seeing some of those spoilers. They sound bad. Like... face-palmingly idiotic. Listen, I realize all that stuff about player choice is actually bullshit and always has been, but at least try to pretend it matters instead of offering the player an upraised middle finger to whatever they decided in the last game.

In any case, I'm going to have to find out for myself, and if it ends the way I hope it doesn't, I may have to rescind my status as a fan of Bioware.

Are they "Oh come on, did you even think about it for a minute before you did that?" or like "well they had kind of painted themselves into a corner so a retcon was probably the only option" sorts of things?

Hope that sentence was coherent.

@elko84 said:

@phrali said:

i might actually play this if i can skip the dialogue. i never played more than an hour or two of the first two because holy crap those people never shut the fuck up and you can't skip the stupid cutscenes.

why skip the best part?

the best part should be the game play

Pat, my boy, you're onto something.

Should have been released this Tuesday just saiyan

Everyone who says "Who would play action mode? durrrrrr" needs to actually think instead assume. I for one, would love action mode AFTER I've beaten the game the first time. This allows me to skip all the needless conversations that I've already played through. This is assuming of course that I even buy this game.

@Clinkz said:

Everyone who says "Who would play action mode? durrrrrr" needs to actually think instead assume. I for one, would love action mode AFTER I've beaten the game the first time. This allows me to skip all the needless conversations that I've already played through. This is assuming of course that I even buy this game.

ofcourse youll buy the game

@ArbitraryWater said:

Ok, I made the mistake of seeing some of those spoilers. They sound bad. Like... face-palmingly idiotic. Listen, I realize all that stuff about player choice is actually bullshit and always has been, but at least try to pretend it matters instead of offering the player an upraised middle finger to whatever they decided in the last game.

In any case, I'm going to have to find out for myself, and if it ends the way I hope it doesn't, I may have to rescind my status as a fan of Bioware.

Are they "Oh come on, did you even think about it for a minute before you did that?" or like "well they had kind of painted themselves into a corner so a retcon was probably the only option" sorts of things?

Hope that sentence was coherent.

@gladspooky said:

@elko84 said:

@phrali said:

i might actually play this if i can skip the dialogue. i never played more than an hour or two of the first two because holy crap those people never shut the fuck up and you can't skip the stupid cutscenes.

why skip the best part?

the best part should be the game play

Exactly. These new ideas are suppose to streamline game play and cater to gamers, not RPG players. Why should we hate that they want to bring this game and experience to many more? Also this is a game about choices, this is just another choice.

Change is not always bad it brings innovation, and if it does fail (which it won't) the next thing will be ten times better.

@Brodehouse said:

@wsowen02 said:

@ArbitraryWater said:

Ok, I made the mistake of seeing some of those spoilers. They sound bad. Like... face-palmingly idiotic. Listen, I realize all that stuff about player choice is actually bullshit and always has been, but at least try to pretend it matters instead of offering the player an upraised middle finger to whatever they decided in the last game.

In any case, I'm going to have to find out for myself, and if it ends the way I hope it doesn't, I may have to rescind my status as a fan of Bioware.

Are they "Oh come on, did you even think about it for a minute before you did that?" or like "well they had kind of painted themselves into a corner so a retcon was probably the only option" sorts of things?

Hope that sentence was coherent.

I read them. Probably 80% of them are pretty predictable, one of them is kind of a bummer, but only one of them is a complete ass pull. Most of them are just 'oh, well, okay' but one of them is kind of fucked up. Then again, the game will probably explain itself so it might seem okay. Most of them you could predict if you've ever played a video game before.

I can deal with that. Especially if the ass pull is about the Reapers. I've been preparing myself for a deus ex machina regarding the Reapers since day 1. My bigger concern is characters. I won't be happy if they pull a "Anders and Zevran are totally alive and well in DA2 even though you WATCHED THEM DIE in the last game."

@Clinkz: Again, though, the only reason I can think of to play through is to experience different ways the story can play out.

So I'll continue my "I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALALALALALALA" approach to Mass Effect 3, that I've had since it was announced.

I'm beginning to think that maybe this leak was good. Then we wouldn't all be so let down when the game finally does come out... because we will already know how terribly they handled the story.