[Seboist]

God the Reapers were beyond stupid in ME3 with their not wanting to blast the Normandy when it's hovering for an eternity in the intro, not going after the citadel until the end, sending one ground reaper at a time against Shepard and not trying to attack the crucible project throughout the game. Hell, they leave Sur'Kesh alone while the Cerberus Sith Empire raids it like nothing.

[M4xw0lf]

In my opinion Bioware dropped the ball when they first decided that in ME3 the reapers would have started their attack on the galaxy - in ME1 and 2 it became quite clear that this needed to be prevented or it would be certain doom for all races and systems. Everything stupid that happens in ME3 is a direct consequence of this absurd decision.

[Mv.c9]

When Witcher 3 comes, EA will probably go bankrupt! Seeing how CDPR has clean practices it will eventually weaken EA in a long run.

I mean a vampire cant live without sucking blood. and seeing how EA is a greedy bloodsucking economy vampire, he is soon to perish.

[Pangaea]

Or he'll suck the blood of its competitor.

Doesn't matter if EA keep pumping out shit titles. You get far with gazonkions of marketing, and the games still sell - a lot. EA are doing quite fine and won't change. Neither will BioWare - not for the better anyway.

[slimgrin]

gryphonosiris said:

Loved the game play and the story, however, ever since 2 I've been put off by how small the enviromental arenas are compared to ME1 with the massive Presidium of the Citadel. It's felt like the series has gotten more and more contained in smaller areas and along more linear paths in said areas. And Example would be Noveria in ME1, when you are actually at peak 17 you even have a hub area there that lets you choose what you encounter and sub missions within the main mission.

I also would have loved an option to tell the Reapers to blow it out of their exhaust port, and to use that ultimate armada of mine to throw Turians, Asari, Geth, Krogan, Batarian and human warships at them to prove that their way is wrong. I built the armada to destroy me some Reapers, and by the Goddess I wish we could put it to use. ›››

This. Areas like the Citadel and Noveria in ME1 were awesome. I hate what they've done with the level design in ME3.

@M4xw0lf: good observation. The mission should have been preventing the invasion, not allowing it to reach full scale and then fending off a near invincible enemy. The more I think about how many wrong turns they took in the story dept...jesus it's depressing. What could have been.

[Mv.c9]

Pangaea said:

Or he'll suck the blood of its competitor.

Doesn't matter if EA keep pumping out shit titles. You get far with gazonkions of marketing, and the games still sell - a lot. EA are doing quite fine and won't change. Neither will BioWare - not for the better anyway. ›››

http://www.gamesindu...ding-to-pachter

( •_•)
Well i guess...
( •_•)>⌐■-■
They finally got sucked.
(⌐■_■)
YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

[Pangaea]

gryphonosiris said:

ever since 2 I've been put off by how small the enviromental arenas are compared to ME1 with the massive Presidium of the Citadel. It's felt like the series has gotten more and more contained in smaller areas and along more linear paths in said areas. And Example would be Noveria in ME1, when you are actually at peak 17 you even have a hub area there that lets you choose what you encounter and sub missions within the main mission. ›››

This, every day this.

ME3 has gotten so much steaming pooh thrown on it due to the ending, but I was deeply disappointed by ME2 as well, and don't see a great difference between ME2 and ME3 actually.

In ME1 we had real choice. We could go where we wanted and do what we wanted, more or less. The areas were bigger, and despite the horrendous control it was great fun to drive around exploring with the Mako.

Enter ME2 and we are restrained to walking around in corridors. Heck, even the Citadel is turned into a long row of corridors with shops and ads all over the bloody place. What happened to the lovely scenery of the ME1 Citadel? It's like they decided to turn it into a mall. Would have liked it greatly expanded instead of reduced to a few shops. I wanted to go up to those hills with water and whatnot, see the people living there outside of the various districts.

The main missions had many sub-missions too, and outcomes would vary (at least slightly) depending on how you did them and in what sequence. Then enter ME2, and everything is turned into a firefight in corridors.

[M4xw0lf]

I imagine that somewhere early in the making of ME3 there was a scene similar to this at bioware: Important EA Producer guy to leading game designer: "Son, what is your concept for the ending of the Mass Effect Trilogy?"
Game Designer: "Well, the Normandy sets out to explore the galaxy for prothean relics, to search for a possibility to avert the impending reaper invasion. It's all very much research, science fiction, lore and deep dialogue."
Important EA Producer guy: "Right, what we'll do is: let the reapers invade the galaxy! let them wreak havoc on earth! Show the players burning cities, burning national landmarks - never liked the big ben anyway! I see little children and fields of sunflowers, all gone in seconds, really emotionally touching, like! Players don't want to think too much about what they are doing, let there be a huge gun to blow the thingies to shreds! and invent some mysterious esoteric twist to top things off! That'll be all, son."
Game designer blanches "But..."
Producer: "Get to work, my little cash cow!"

[Pangaea]

Bioware probably suggested that from the start to be honest. Bioware chose to go after the shooters segment a long time ago, and the games we see now are a result of that decision. I just don't buy the notion there is this great discrepancy between Bioware and EA, and that if EA were gone Bioware would magically go back to making great games again.

It's kind of a good cop/bad cop routine, but they both want the same.

[gregski]

How BioWare wrote gay Mass Effect 3 romances: http://www.eurogamer...fect-3-romances

[Seboist]

gregski said:

How BioWare wrote gay Mass Effect 3 romances: http://www.eurogamer...fect-3-romances

Quote

"Nevertheless, I'm a straight white male - pretty much the living embodiment of the Patriarchy - and I really wanted to avoid writing something that people saw and went, 'That's a straight guy writing lesbians for other straight guys to look at.'"

By predictably making Traynor a lipstick lesbian and providing a racy shower "sex" scene for guys to oogle. Sure fooled me there Weekes.

[voodoojon]

Mass Effect 3 was awesome up until the last 10mins, it was so poorly done and it felt like a very slap dash ending. There was no affect of choices, no closure and it opened up so many plot holes amongst other things, I have a feeling that this was intentional tbh, with a paid for DLC coming later to finalise the game, which on the one hand would be incredible writing(especially if the indoc theory is true), but on the other is a dasterdly backhand way of squeezing a few more pennies out of the paying customer.


What was more suprising was the quality of the writing compared to say the rest of the franchise.

[Corylea]

Bumping this thread, since people are discussing ME3 in the General Discussion section.

Have at it!

[Mister Mida]

ME3 is a dead horse. Everyone with a brain knows the writing staff can't write themselves out of the paper bag which they wrote themselves in with ME2.

[Pangaea]

Well put.

I really liked ME, and was so sad to see what they did to the game series in ME2, and then made it even worse with ME3, quite an achievement in itself.

People still bought it though, so I doubt we'll see a much different approach in the future from the Evil Arts team.

[slimgrin]

Mister Mida said:

ME3 is a dead horse. Everyone with a brain knows the writing staff can't write themselves out of the paper bag which they wrote themselves in with ME2. ›››

Go on the BSN...man the devs are spiteful. They blame the fans, off handedly of course, but they always blame the fans in some capacity. I wonder if toiling in EA's iron grip has left them fatigued. Ray and Greg jumped ship for a reason, and I suspect it's only a matter of time before the ship sinks.

[dragonbird]

slimgrin said:

Go on the BSN...man the devs are spiteful. They blame the fans, off handedly of course, but they always blame the fans in some capacity. I wonder if toiling in EA's iron grip has left them fatigued. Ray and Greg jumped ship for a reason, and I suspect it's only a matter of time before the ship sinks. ›››

It must have left the devs fatigued, or worse. They're just ordinary people, and most of them are blameless for what happened - it's the management and the senior people who are responsible. It's maybe hard, but they should just stay away from the forums.

[Seboist]

slimgrin said:

Go on the BSN...man the devs are spiteful. They blame the fans, off handedly of course, but they always blame the fans in some capacity. I wonder if toiling in EA's iron grip has left them fatigued. Ray and Greg jumped ship for a reason, and I suspect it's only a matter of time before the ship sinks. ›››

That's a certainty, two of the "Bioware" brand studios (Victory and Mythic) removed BW from their name.

[Costin Moroianu]

slimgrin said:

Go on the BSN...man the devs are spiteful. They blame the fans, off handedly of course, but they always blame the fans in some capacity. I wonder if toiling in EA's iron grip has left them fatigued. Ray and Greg jumped ship for a reason, and I suspect it's only a matter of time before the ship sinks.

Why must everyone blame EA for Bioware's shit? I am sorry but is EA writing the story? No, it's Bioware and the wonderful team of writers there with their imbecilic one liners like "Illegal Action" on Omega.

To me personally blaming EA just ignores the fact that Bioware is ultimately responsible and the doctors who were in favor of rushed games, which is about the only thing you can really blame EA for, were the ones mainly responsible for this turn of direction.

Also rushed games are not necessarily bad, case in point Awakening which was better then DA:O on a story level despite the glaring bugs.

Quote

It must have left the devs fatigued, or worse. They're just ordinary people, and most of them are blameless for what happened - it's the management and the senior people who are responsible. It's maybe hard, but they should just stay away from the forums.

I would disagree that the devs are entirely blameless, certainly some are but NONE of the writers get's any sympathy from me, they wrote the crap in their games. As for other teams. Well the Art team of Bioware doesn't get any sympathy from me either, you can blame these guys for the stupidity of the qunari design ( I am supposed to believes an army which does not use armor almost conquered Thedas? ) just so they look cool and that's just one example ( besides the overall look of DA 2 )

[dragonbird]

Costin Moroianu said:

I would disagree that the devs are entirely blameless, certainly some are but NONE of the writers get's any sympathy from me, they wrote the crap in their games. As for other teams. Well the Art team of Bioware doesn't get any sympathy from me either, you can blame these guys for the stupidity of the qunari design ( I am supposed to believes an army which does not use armor almost conquered Thedas? ) just so they look cool and that's just one example ( besides the overall look of DA 2 ) ›››

The individual developers, including lower-grade writers, do what they're told by the senior people. That's the way that companies work. There were also indications at one point after the ME3 debacle went public that those senior people were NOT interested in input from "the team", and that it was a top-down management/design style.

In that kind of working environment, you do what you're told, or you resign. Some obviously did resign, but the rest? People still need to earn a living.

There're things that I do blame the junior staff for, including unprofessional comments in BSN, but the games themselves are the fault of the senior designers and the management.