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[Jaron Oberyn]

 We saw the article about the job posting on Bioware looking for a multiplayer programmer to work on the Mass Effect franchise. Many RPG fans here got pretty angry once they heard it, although the Shooter fans seem to be anticipating it. 

Bioware has made some pretty good RPG's. They are the best in the business. But it seems that after EA acquired them, their standard has hit an instant downfall. This is evident in the differences of Mass Effect 1 and 2. Mass Effect 2 abandoned the RPG elements and focused the game to be mainly a Shooter and appeal to Shooter fans. They also watered down the game to make it stand alone, to get more new consumers. If this doesn't have EA written all over it, then I don't know what does. 

Now with the multiplayer job posting, coupled with the announcement by EA that something far reaching for Mass Effect will be released early 2011, It is not hard to speculate about what could be coming. PC gamers already found fragments of code for Coop in Mass Effect 2, along with splitscreen.



This seems like more and more evidence of EA's negative influence over Bioware. Now it looks like Mass Effect will be going Coop/Multiplayer. 

If it weren't for the fact that Bioware is sacrificing the RPG elements for the sake of appeasing Shooter fans, I wouldn't care. But I'm just wondering how much of an RPG Mass Effect 3 will even be. The decisions we made in the first game don't seem to really have much of an impact since they want all of the games of the trilogy to be standalone titles. How does that even make sense? What sense does it make to jump into the second or final act of the trilogy? The only reason I could see behind it is that they don't want to lose out on any sales of the game for people who didn't get the first 2. Again, EA's influence over Bioware. 

Mass Effect 2 had almost no RPG elements at all. In fact, one of the biggest things that pointed towards that was that 50% of the dialogue Shepard said throughout the game was automatic dialogue. Meaning you didn't even get to choose what he said. That was a different implementation in contrast to the first game, where EVERYTHING you shepard said, you chose. Except for the few lines before Illos, you chose everything Shepard said. In Mass 2, this is not the case. And when you choose some of the dialogue options, Shepard just goes on to have full conversation with the NPC from one choice. Example, the store endorsements. 

This type of watering down of the RPG elements is, to be frank, annoying. I'm not going to lie, I hate EA. They have a bad reputation for rushing/ruining games. They milk a franchise until it's dry. All they care about is the money, and that's not something I've seen reflected in Bioware until EA bought them out. 

Now theres a chance that Mass Effect 3 may return to the first game's RPG roots. But I'm not holding my breath.
But If they implement a coop feature/and or multiplayer feature, I for one will not even give it a second look. Because it'd be quite obvious that they're not trying to focus on the story like they should, but are focusing on appeasing a new fan base which = more money for EA. I hope that they don't add coop or multiplayer for Mass Effect, or at least for the Trilogy. But I wouldn't be surprised if Bioware would do it now. This is not the company they used to be. Bioware has seriously dropped their standards, and they need to either put their foot down to EA or break off, because they're going to lose a lot of fans.

Just look at DA:2. Not even 2 years and the second game is coming out. But it seems to be like EA's LoTR games in terms of combat/gameplay for what I've seen. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are EA's new cash cows. It's a shame that they're going to ruin these franchises that had so much potential. 

My question is, If Bioware adds multiplayer/coop to Mass 2 or 3, would that be the last blow for you? Would you boycott the company in hopes of their return to the original RPG roots? Do you agree that Mass Effect 2 has little to no RPG elements in contrast to Mass Effect 1? Are you worried about the gameplay or RPG elements in Mass 3?

Discuss?


-Polite

Modifié par PoliteAssasin, 19 juillet 2010 - 02:49 .

[Anezay]

If it's still fun, who cares? It's a game.

[Jaron Oberyn]

So if your decisions in the first and second game don't impact the third game, who cares?

You must be one of the Shooter fans.

So why not make Mass Effect Kart? Hey if it's fun....

-Polite

Modifié par PoliteAssasin, 19 juillet 2010 - 12:35 .

[Spartas Husky]

Duno.. if the story is coop, not likely. But if they waste resoruces and time on multiplayer....duno, hard choice, but most likely not buy Bioware games from same team.

[Cris Shepard]

Im with ya brother.. RPG > mindless shooter

[DOYOURLABS]

I'm still buying ME3 just to finish my trilogy, unless this "far reaching" announcement is EA saying "Screw the universe. WE ARE COD NOW LULZ. Everyone loves multiplayer, story is boring". After ME3, I probably won't buy anything if it was obvious everything is going down hill. I won't make any decisions until I see facts.

[M1tt3ns]

Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and BG2 were mutliplayer ( I leave out NWN, because it was a multiplayer game with singleplayer, not a singleplayer game with multiplayer). It didn't ruin any of them. I think it would be a lot of fun to let a friend control one of your squad-mates in combat.

I will say though that I strongly disagree with ME2 being dumbed down. One thing that made those other games unspoiled by multi-player is that it was an OPTION. those games were still singleplayer RPGs first and foremost, you could just bring a friend along for the ride with you.

I hated the new Paragon/Renegade system, I hated the lack of inventory and I hated the completely static 'pop and shoot' combat in Mass Effect 2. Hopefully they'll change.

Modifié par M1tt3ns, 19 juillet 2010 - 01:08 .

[mjkjets]

If ME goes multiplayer, we may also have to worry about EA's online pass. EA has only used it for sports games thus far, but down the road, things could change. EA may also shutdown their servers for the game only a year or two after release. Both these possibilities worry me the most.

[SSV Enterprise]

PoliteAssasin wrote...

My question is, If Bioware adds multiplayer/coop to Mass 2 or 3, would that be the last blow for you? Would you boycott the company in hopes of their return to the original RPG roots?

No.  The addition of a multiplayer mode or co-op does not necessitate that the RPG gameplay and story elements will be watered down or removed.

Do you agree that Mass Effect 2 has little to no RPG elements in contrast to Mass Effect 1?

Less?  Yes, and in a good way.  (No more annoyingly tedious and pointless inventory management).  Little to no RPG elements?  Nope, especially on the story side.

Are you worried about the gameplay or RPG elements in Mass 3?

Nah.  We know no details about ME3- we don't even know for sure that this multiplayer job posting is related to ME3.  I won't even consider worrying until details about the actual game start coming out.

Modifié par SSV Enterprise, 19 juillet 2010 - 02:00 .

[CMD-Shep]

Multi-player is NOT MANDATORY!!!!! Almost every game the comes out now has an MP component, but it is only an option. Why do some people assume that if MP comes to ME, it will be the only way to play? Gears of War has a strong CO-OP campaign and yet the game is totally playable in a single player mode. I just don't get all the angst...

[Zinoviy]

The lack of faith in BioWare and its developers is disappointing considering their track record. You'd think by now they would have earned some real loyalty.



ME2 isn't a bad game, and it's nothing close to a game like Battlefield, CS, or Call of Duty. Every post I see regarding this topic makes ME2 out to be like Counter-Strike, when that's simply not true.



Your post also has a lot of speculation that you present as fact, such as "50% of all dialogue is automatic...", where did you even get that stat? Did you count every voice-acted line in the game that involves Shepard then count how many of those lines you're able to respond to?



You also seem to take issue with things that are not relevant to you, an example being if someone wanted to jump into the series in the second or third game. How does BioWare making the game stand-alone take away from your decisions that you made in the first and second? Are you trying to say you'd like to see more effect from those choices present in the second/third games? If you are, that's a separate issue/argument, and a very valid one at that. In ME2 if you didn't import a character the game automatically filled in some of the events for you like Wrex and the council being dead, etc. How are you hurt by new players getting default events set for them while *your* choices carry over?



I am all for discussion about this topic because I really love the ME series and I personally don't want to see this game become another CoD or CS, but the discussion needs to stay grounded on planet earth and within bounds of reason.

[wizardryforever]

I wonder just where people get the idea that ME2 isn't an RPG just because it doesn't have lots of cumbersome menus and character screens.  Everything RPG related that was in ME1 is also in ME2, it is just simplified to allow the player to spend less time fiddling with their inventory (it IS still there) and more time playing the game itself.

I also wonder why people think that good RPGs and multiplayer are mutually exclusive.  As previously mentioned, Bioware has made other singleplayer games with multiplayer and it didn't do a damn thing to the quality of the game.  Many hardcore RPGers hail Baldur's Gate 2 as the best game ever made, and yet, it had multiplayer.  Just having multiplayer doesn't mean that the singleplayer game will suck, or that the story will be diluted.  If they spend too much time developing multiplayer, then it might make the release date a bit later, but that's all really.  In my experience, Bioware hasn't made a game that wasn't awesome.

I fail to see why people think that a boycott will do anything to a company this size.  It would take a very sizable portion of the demographic to make any kind of real difference with a boycott.  Especially over something so trivial.  More likely, the people that claim they will "boycott" Bioware will end up buying the game anyway.

So no, I won't boycott Bioware over multiplayer.

[Spartas Husky]

ME1... earned my Loyalty.



ME2, made the loyalty shaky.



Loyalty means we will all preorder the game.... but ME2 made me have to be the devil's advocate in any news, or ideas they make public to make sure they dont water down ME any more.....



Their record on making a good game...is good.



But comparing ME1 and 2 the track also is leading somewhere where RPG has very little to do with the game. I am afraid it might end up a Gears of War 3 idea or something....where RPG is only for the "looks".

[SSV Enterprise]

The player "choosing" everything Shepard said in ME1 was an illusion. Many times in ME1 you were given two or three conversation "options" that led to saying the exact same thing, no real choice at all. I think it's better that BioWare did not try to hide this in ME2, allowing scenes to have better flow and doing camera shifts that wouldn't work with a false conversation option every other sentence.

[Carsomyr]

I personally saw nothing but improvements in the ME2 system. No endless fiddling with inventory for negligible gains, less levelling up allowing us to focus on actually playing the game instead of playing with stats. In any case, I highly doubt they'd mess with the winning formula that has been the dialogue-driven single player game. I like how you other "Shooter fans" as if it's a binary group opposed to "RPG fans". Silly distinction.


I barely noticed an increase in non-player chosen dialogue in ME2, and I'm sensitive to that kind of stuff I feel. That 50% figure just came from nowhere. I was actually paying attention in the game to how often Shepard said something I didn't choose/endorse and I can think of barely any instances.

I'm amazed you're talking about a 'final straw', as if Bioware has wronged you so many times? To my mind they've played just about every move right so far, especially with regards to the ME series. I don't see how a multiplayer mode would work at all, but I also don't have a problem with it existing. Why would I? Why would anyone?

Modifié par Carsomyr, 19 juillet 2010 - 02:07 .

[mattahraw]

EA had nothing to do with ME2 being "more of a shooter" at all.



The game is the way it is because that's the way the devs wanted it. If you don't like it, that's your right... But don't go all conspiracy theorist, please.

[eternalnightmare13]

I've played plenty of games that have solo and multiplayer. Simply ''boycotting'' because it has multiplayer is stupid.

[derLoko]

I don't care much if there's MP or not, as long as it's good.

But I'd rather have a ME MMO later then MP in ME3...

[hamtyl07]

so what your saying is that because they want to add a CO-OP feature that would ruin the game?

I for one would find a CO-OP feature to be entertianing yes i will admit that i am a big shooter fan but that does influence me on what game i buy or else i would of bnever bought ME1 and played that through twice. Sure EA has thier heafds up their asses every once in while ui mean look at BF2 but that does not mean a multiplayer or CO-OP aspect would ruin 2 or 3. I personally like how ME1 and 2 have turnned out and i would not change a thing in 2 or 1. 
 
To boycott something like a CO-OP or MP feature is straight up idiotic, they like any game developer just want to try something new, and i dont blame them.

Modifié par hamtyl07, 19 juillet 2010 - 02:20 .

[Zinoviy]

Spartas Husky wrote...

ME1... earned my Loyalty.

ME2, made the loyalty shaky.

Loyalty means we will all preorder the game.... but ME2 made me have to be the devil's advocate in any news, or ideas they make public to make sure they dont water down ME any more.....

Their record on making a good game...is good.

But comparing ME1 and 2 the track also is leading somewhere where RPG has very little to do with the game. I am afraid it might end up a Gears of War 3 idea or something....where RPG is only for the "looks".

No, I'd hope loyalty means people wouldn't go crazy over pure speculation and these supposed negative correlations between the vague, but popular, catch phrases around here: "RPG elements" and "shooter elements".

Modifié par Zinoviy, 19 juillet 2010 - 02:22 .

[Anezay]

The only real problem with multiplayer that I can see is that bullet time is kind of important for soldiers, infiltrators, and some vanguards. The whole pausing the game with shift to assess the battlefield and choose abilities thing would have to go out the window, as well. I don't doubt it can be done, and done well, but the combat would be impossible to transfer intact. Although, I'm sure all of the vanguards would give my own infiltrator ass nightmares.

PoliteAssasin wrote...

So if your decisions in the first and second game don't impact the third game, who cares?

You must be one of the Shooter fans.

So why not make Mass Effect Kart? Hey if it's fun....

-Polite

Hey, now, that wasn't my point at all. I was saying that if multiplayer doesn't reduce the experience, there should be no problem with it. If none of your decisions made it to ME3, the first two would be kind of pointless, no?
Also, since when are shooter fans and rpg fans mutualy exclusive groups? I prefered the level up system of ME1, and the inventory system of ME2. Contunually switching out guns because you got the new "VII" model to replace your old "VI" was not a high point of the first game. The guns didn't feel different enough for it to really matter, they were just slightly better than the last one.

[Carsomyr]

A bit short-sighted, worm-burner. I doubt any sane game development studio today would consider a co-op game that worked like that. More likely there'd be a co-op "mission" mode with little or no dialogue (or else get ready for all the seasoned players to know it off by heart and skip straight through it every time) where you'd play through a mission with 1-3 others.



If they want to add a multiplayer mode, why not. Chances are it won't work, but hey, it could also be fun. It's probably not a good idea, of course, but getting all PoliteAssassin about it (as it's now known) is just ridiculous.