Sgykah

I feel like I should make a constructive post:

The demo did its job for me: The gameplay was entertaining enough, the character progression was deep enough, and from what I've seen of the multiplayer, it'll be entertaining. Hopefully the story will be a lot of The Shadowbroker and very little Pinnacle Station. Encouragingly, the banter between Wrex, Liara, and Garrus was heartwarming.

@RsistncE

your post is to trolling what sarcasm is to wit.

@Branthog

What's wrong with signature files? Oh... wait... I just answered my own question.

@Tennmuerti

I'm gonna go ahead and apologize for my first response. Because of your curt responses to my post and the "facepalm" comment I mistook you for a troll and... you know... old habits (I'm getting soft in my old age, I never felt remorse before). Your points actually made me consider aspects of my stance. I kind of wish BioWare would go back to their roots, where, having a companion do things against their stance made them just get up and leave permanently. It really is weird to be able to force Anders into killing every mage you come across. I don't want to come off as an apologist, I really think there were problems with both DAII and ME2. But I have a feeling that Bioware cares...

At least this video addresses quite a few of my concerns with weapons:

http://youtu.be/4L8NOHSC9ww

@Hailinel said:

@Sgykah said:

@Tennmuerti

I think you've missed the point. But I bet you're good at that. Especially considering you said Anders went OOC... Really? You didn't notice the angsty mage thing the entire time you played? Did you miss that part entirely? Did Anders character baffle you the entire time you played the DAO expansion? Were you not listening to the side conversations when he was in your party? Honestly though, I'm not surprised that you would be confused considering your abilities with the english language... well, not so much language, but more simple logic.

I'd put more thought into this response, but really, you don't deserve it.

Ok, maybe a little bit of thought... did you miss the whole part between DAO and DAII where mages are treated like second class citizens? How about the part where not only was your father an apostate, but he was actually raising an apostate (at least one)?

Next time you face palm, can you do the internet a favor and hold two pins at eye position?

Anders becoming a church bomber was idiotic for two reasons:

1. You spend the game teaching him how the Chantry and templars aren''t just a bunch of assholes.

2. None of your interactions with Anders mean shit in the long run because the player has no affect on what he does. Where the original Dragon Age: Origins would have likely given the player some form of agency over the situation, Dragon Age II forces the player onto a path and little of what the player actually accomplishes means anything in the long run.

Excellent point. In case people haven't played DAII, I'm blocking the next stuff out, but it is a central part of my argument. My first counterargument is that I don't feel like Anders ever really bought what I said, he was too set in his ways. Admittedly, that's a weak argument, but it made the game more enjoyable because it took control away from me as a player. I couldn't game the system like I always get to do in video games, I couldn't get the happy ending I always want. In fact, a really good person ended up dying. The type of innocent death that you never want to be responsible for. I felt that this was a bold move and it is the second part of my argument. However, I could completely see the other angle: the writers wanted to write a particular story and they simply gave the player the illusion of choice without ever giving the player real choice.

I don't have a solid fact to back me up when I say the following: I don't think the writers for BioWare are lazy, I think they're pushing the envelope of video games. I know that they could just be lazy, and I'm getting more from the story than I should. That's not a bad thing for me as a video game player, but if BioWare has become lazy under EA, then it will show in the polish they put into future games; and in that case everyone loses. The only thing I have to say in defense of my position is they did the same thing to me in ME2 as far as forcing me to re-evaluate my position.

I got the evil ending in ME2 because I gave the base to The Illusive Man, assuming that he was really interested in getting the best for humanity. But the third novel made it clear that the Illusive Man is in the end just a man with his own petty needs, desires, and grudges.

In the end, I think only time will tell if BioWare has lost some of its magic. I don't think I've seen too much in the promotional material for ME3 to suggest they have, although like I've said before, some of their choices are suspect. Hopefully these choices won't affect the game drastically, but if they do, they'll end up in Activision category for me (a company I refuse to buy video games from).

@Death_Unicorn said:

@stryker1121 said:

@CaptainComedy said:

@Death_Unicorn said:

Am I the only one not super stoked about "Galactic Readiness?"

I have to go and play their other games which I have no interest in in order to get a better ending in the game I paid 60 dollars for? Even within the game, I have to play a mode I'm not that interested in to enhance my singleplayer experience?

The whole thing feels dirty.

Whaaaat? Dirty!? I really hope you don't believe the only way to get a better ending is to play these tie-ins. I thought it was an obvious unspoken truth that it would only help give you more points towards a better ending, points which you could also earn by just playing more of the game. There's no way the non-campaign things would be the only way to get the best ending. I figure it'd be like playing some Mass Effect 2 iOS game that rewarded you with, like,

armor for Mordin so he wouldn't bite it every time you played the ending. Took me 6 tries :(

It's not even an unspoken truth. BioWare came out (in reaction to fan rage regarding the Galaxy at War announcement) and specifically stated that you don't have to touch this Galactic Readiness whositz to get the best ending for the game.

See, the fact that most of the fanbase is up in arms about it shows its a shitty feature. Why support a shitty feature even if it's optional? They could have used that effort to better the story or something.

I think a big push for multiplayer in single player games is the fact that multiplayer, done well, can reduce the loss of revenue from second hand sales. That's why your single player games will continue to include multiplayer. Other options are compelling DLC (hasn't really panned out for anyone other than Rockstar), day one DLC/game passes, or what is rumored about the XBOX720. It's weird, but arguing that single player games shouldn't have multiplayer almost suggests that you're on microsoft's/developers' side on this one.

@Tennmuerti

I think you've missed the point. But I bet you're good at that. Especially considering you said Anders went OOC... Really? You didn't notice the angsty mage thing the entire time you played? Did you miss that part entirely? Did Anders character baffle you the entire time you played the DAO expansion? Were you not listening to the side conversations when he was in your party? Honestly though, I'm not surprised that you would be confused considering your abilities with the english language... well, not so much language, but more simple logic.

I'd put more thought into this response, but really, you don't deserve it.

Ok, maybe a little bit of thought... did you miss the whole part between DAO and DAII where mages are treated like second class citizens? How about the part where not only was your father an apostate, but he was actually raising an apostate (at least one)?

Next time you face palm, can you do the internet a favor and hold two pins at eye position?

@Dookysharpgun

You bring up some excellent points. I apologize for using inflammatory language (the h word); I'll blame it on my roots as a World of Warcraft forum troll.

I agree with many of your points about DAII. Pressing A over and over again was in fact silly and a pretty big annoyance of mine. Some of the character story lines were not as good as they could have been, and some of the quests were pointlessly painful (you have found X, return it to person with ! over their head; there are bad people in the town at night, kill them). But my argument is that the game was not a terrible game, but an enjoyable one. I still disagree about the difficulty setting: turning up the difficulty did more than make the enemies have more hit points, it turned on the types of things that should be on with any RPG (friendly fire from AoE spells for example), making the higher difficulty legitimately challenging. I continued to pause the game after every hit and every spell to see the AI's reaction and to plan out my next action, an important part of any BioWare RPG I play. In the end, despite minor disagreements, I think we can agree that DAII should not have been released by BioWare, they should be a better developer than that.

My angle is that it wasn't an abomination, but a warning of what could happen if we let it. And, if I understand your argument, you say that it wasn't a great game, but a warning of what could happen if we let it. I just want to stress that it wasn't as terrible as a lot of people make it out to be.

But I think we may disagree on ME2's story and its role at a fundamental level. I'm not bothered by the fact that the story of ME was not advanced in the sequel in a meaningful way, in fact I'm glad they didn't advance the overall story (I'll get to that later). Aside from the gameplay being fun, The story in ME2 was well contained and I cared about each of the characters presented. In addition to the memorable characters (the illusive man really is a fun and complex character) I think the best argument for the story being excellent is that I was struck by the result of my final decision in ME2. I spent a lot of time considering what I was going to do, I really did. When I saw the red planet, I realized I picked the evil choice, and I was fuming angry. This anger at the writers did not resolve until I read the third mass effect novel, and I realized why my decision was evil (not because of me, but because of those around me). This level of complexity is really rare in video games, and knowing that these are the writers putting the story together puts me at ease -- admittedly, I am a little worried for ME3, knowing that Karpyshin was not as involved in the writing. As far as the DLC, I think that Arrival is the best way to handle the biggest problem in trilogy video games. In a trilogy, the second story has a problem that is amplified in video games due to the production cycle. If the story is advanced too far, there will be a pretty high cliff-hanger; this will leave the consumer in a state of high agitation which cannot be sustained for a very long time. Essentially by the time the next game is released, the interest in the game as a whole will be mostly gone. By releasing the biggest connection between ME1 and ME3 as a DLC less than a year before 3, the developers have kept the game fresh in our minds. Aside from all of this, for me, the most exciting thing about BioWare games' stories is the depth in the characters; and ME2 had this in excess of any expectation I ever had. For this reason alone, I'm excited for ME3.

There are many things that did worry me about ME3's development, but following the way the developers responded to Deception, I feel at ease. I really am glad I have no idea who Chobot is, because I could see clearly how she would be a barrier to suspension of disbelief - I actually know the actress who did one of the voices in ME2 and it really harmed my suspension of disbelief. I was initially worried about the Co-op multiplayer, but having seen how it could be implemented and how other developers have done multiplayer well - AC:B, Bioshock 2 - I'm more than a little excited for the addition of multiplayer. I seriously have thought how some BioWare game could be significantly better if there were humans behind the actions of some of my companions; but you are absolutely right in that the demo will shed much needed light on BioWare's implementation.

I just want to take a second and comment on the depth of tactical choices in ME2. I know you didn't bring up anything about the gameplay in ME2, but I feel that it is something that has to be addressed in any serious discussion of ME2. A lot of people say that combat in ME2 was dumbed down, and I have to disagree. Compared to ME1, ME2 combat was significantly better, and it retained a lot of depth. Many misinterpret choice as depth, but this is not true. Having the choice of many armors and many guns is not the same as depth if there is a clear and obvious best choice in all of this variety; there were a lot of choices in the first game, but there was always the obviously better gun. In the second one, they simply said, here is the best gun, we know it, you know it, here you go. This shifted the depth from the sheer number of guns you had to sell when you went to a store, to the effect a gun has on your gameplay (shotgun vs assault rifle vs hand gun vs sniper rifle). More importantly, the differences between the guns within a type was more pronounced (one powerful shot, multiple little shots, more spread, less spread, etc). I personally even liked the power progression better: instead of making it so that you needed many levels so that you could make your powers better in small increments, they made each level more meaningful by giving you more of a leap over the previous level (maybe this could be refined a little more so that it reaches a happier medium - I didn't like being able to progress only at the end of a mission). And the variety of ammo was still there, except this time, you had to choose for the entire party whether you wanted to use one type of ammo or another; a very interesting shift in tactical gameplay (although I like having variety in ammo more).

We may agree, we may disagree, but I want to take this chance to thank you for a very stimulating discussion.

Ahh, one last thing about the iOS game: the video game market is changing. People are spending their entertainment dollars on smaller, more portable choices. I want my favorite publishers to play with this idea so that they can stay afloat, change with the market, and continue to make the games I enjoy. So no, the iOS game is also not the end of the world, they just need to make one for Android.

As a mass effect fan myself, we are starting to sound like star trek fans that are the butt of jokes on TV and every other media. It's a little sad. I understand that this is a different media, that we have ownership over our character because some of us have played the character the way that our ideal selves would handle situations, however, to look at the product in advance and to make judgements without information is... lazy on our part. Also, a lot of conclusions based on the most recent BioWare game (DAII), come off as hyperbole; I would go so far as calling the people who have commented negatively on ME3 based on DAII as insincere.

I really want to address DAII. The story was anything but weak. The re-use of environments was terrible and the combat on normal was too easy, I will admit so much. However, I have to repeat myself, the story was not weak. I played the game like I play any other: making decisions through my ideal self. The story shines because the event that defined the conclusion of the game had a very powerful effect (I really consider it up there with other stories based around character development -- the discovery of your identity in KOTOR, the revelation of the Nameless One's story is in Planescape: Torment, the scene with Sinclair in Bioshock). Just like those games, DAII was well written. As a narrative hook, the device of following your character through time instead of space worked well. I developed an understanding of the Hawke family and what drove them (how could my brother turn on me the way he did?), and more importantly, the main character had real bulk in that his future decisions were in line with his prior ones. BioWare for me has always been about their amazingly written characters, and Varrik was useless as a party member, but an integral part of my enjoyment of the game. I enjoyed the game enough to replay it from the exact opposite approach characterwise and I still enjoyed every step of the story. The story in DAII was fine for the medium.

I would also like to argue with people that say DAII's combat was dumbed down. On hard difficulty, the combination of powers from the different character archetypes added an absolutely necessary aspect of tactics that made the gameplay fun and exciting. There were times that I felt like I was in a well-formed group doing a flawless UBRS run for the first time (this was especially true with the Legacy expansion). The addition of better fighting animations made the game less bland, and added the important distinction of when to switch targets in order to do more damage with the 4th hit in a series. Furthermore, I actually liked the appearance of additional enemies because it meant that I had to manage my end-game spells and powers much better (a gameplay decision that was "hokey" when it comes to immersion). I like it because I was challenged by having to re-assess target priority mid-battle. The gameplay, as long as you didn't play it on "normal" had depth (I could be wrong, but I believe that when developers say "we want to make the game accessible," they mean "normal is the new easy because we don't want new players to feel like idiots with a major video-gaming mental deficit.")

But DAII was not perfect. It was a good game, and it would have received a lot of praise if it had been the product of anyone but BioWare. We have come to expect more from BioWare, and they did let us down with the lack of polish and repeated use of environments in DAII. However, it was not the affront to humanity people are making it out to be. It was rushed, it came out too soon after DAO, and it did not meet our expectations of a BioWare game. But the characters were still amazingly written and the story device worked well (if you disagree with me I ask you to do two things: (1)-play the game, put Varric and Merrill into your group and just listen to their bantor; it is on par with anything Minsc ever said (2)-assess how you felt after our mage friend did that thing; anger and a sense of betrayal in a video game means the writers touched you in the right spots).

I conclude with this: I doubt ME3 will be the terrible thing people are making it out to be. Hell, I doubt I'll be even close to disappointed (and my expectations are high). ME3 has not been rushed in the way that DAII was, they are working hard to make a game that even they will enjoy, and I know the writers are not hacks); this is evident in their response to ME:Deception. And to those complaining about the multiplayer, get your hands on the Syndicate demo and play it with a group of friends. If ME3's multiplayer is half of what Syndicate's co-op is, then the path to galactic readiness will be an enjoyable part of the game.