50128 réponses à ce sujet

[Hellfire257]

I have my own theories on why things were cut, but I'm reluctant to share them as they involve gaming platforms, and any criticism of the 3 platforms usually leads to all out war. But, I guess I trust you guys not to do that.

One thing that I noticed when downloading the Mass Effect series from Origin is the size of the installations:

ME1: 10.3GB
ME2: 12.7GB (DLC installed)
ME3: 10.8GB

Now add in the amount of content in each game along with presentation quality (textures, sounds, etc). Presentation quality has increased throughout the series (arguably stagnated at ME3). The downside of that is increased file size. Double the resolution of a texture from 1024x1024 to 2048x2048 and the file size is going increase proportionally.

In my opinion, ME1 had the most content and the worst graphics. ME2 had the middle ground (until you add in DLC, at which point it has almost the same amount of content as ME1). ME3 has the least content (excluding MP) and only marginally better graphics than ME2 (still horrible textures though.

What I am getting at here is that there is nearly always a trade off between quality and content when you are limited by space. Multi-platform development means that everything is limited by the least powerful platform, whatever that may be.

I'm not saying that consoles are responsible for the recent dark age in games development (because they are not!), I'm just saying that developers have to work within the limits of the hardware at their disposal.

Hopefully this hasn't offended anyone and wont spark WW3.

Modifié par Hellfire257, 14 mai 2012 - 10:55 .

[Dannycni]

^ Yea I probably would have brought them often for the same reasons you mentioned, I do think they would have had some great convos, maybe a bit of rivalry and competition at the start but as the game goes on they might come to respect one another like you said.

@Hellfire, I don't know all this technical stuff so it doesn't offend me But then again...I'm an idiot

Modifié par Dannycni, 14 mai 2012 - 10:45 .

[lil yonce]

DWH1982 wrote...

That probably would have made it too long. Someone on the Mass Effect team seems to have decided that we gamers lack the attention span needed for long, in depth conversations.

I personally liked the Citadel date, but it ended way to soon. My reaction was something along the lines of, "wait, that's it?" Would have liked the chance to talk to her more about what she had been doing, what I had been doing. Maybe even the chance to walk aorund the commons with her, maybe do some shoping or even take in a movie.

A paragraph being added to the Citadel date detailing their Horizon reactions woud've been perfect. When she started apologizing, I thought I'd get my chance to apologize too. They neeed to resolve what they started on Horizon. On Mars. With the Coup attempt. And they didn't do that. We didn't get a Cerberus talk. We didn't even get close to it.

What'd she'd been doing the past two years should've been covered at the hospital when Shepard asked her about her promotion. Kaidan tells you why he was promoted upfront and by who.

I don't like the way RPGs are moving. At least Bioware RPGs. In ME1, we had these in-depth conversations where you could get to learn a lot about the characters and even define Shepard. We also had these huge areas to explore, like when we visit the Citadel for the first time. Honest to God, it was exploring the Citadel in ME1 that got me hooked on Mass Effect. Before that, on Eden Prime, I was like, "eh, this is okay, maybe I'll just see where it goes."

Since ME1, it seems like the conversations have been getting smaller and the areas more limited. Less of a chance to learn about the characters you work with, less of a chance to define your own character, less of a chance to explore and have fun learning about the game world.

They had a strict dialogue budget this time around and that was a mega part of the problem. This just wasn't going to be the same game.

[lil yonce]

Hellfire257 wrote...

What I am getting at here is that there is nearly always a trade off between quality and content when you are limited by space. On PC, space isn't much of an issue when people are rocking an average of 500GB of total disk space with the more serious builds running into and well over the TBs. Disks are mostly a none-issue. On consoles however, it's a different story sadly. 

Hopefully this hasn't offended anyone and wont spark WW3.

But the PS3 uses Blu-ray and a standard 25GB disk. Space wouldn't be an issue for it. All ME2 content including all DLC fit on one disk.

It's not he PS3. *Looks at XBOX 360*

And the more videos I watch and articles I read - the dialogue budget was the real dealbreaker. They have so many characters and so many stars to pay they just couldn't handle more substantial conversation.

[BP93]

Youth4Ever wrote...

Hellfire257 wrote...

What I am getting at here is that there is nearly always a trade off between quality and content when you are limited by space. On PC, space isn't much of an issue when people are rocking an average of 500GB of total disk space with the more serious builds running into and well over the TBs. Disks are mostly a none-issue. On consoles however, it's a different story sadly. 

Hopefully this hasn't offended anyone and wont spark WW3.

But the PS3 uses Blu-ray and a standard 25GB disk. Space wouldn't be an issue for it. All ME2 content including all DLC fit on one disk.

It's not he PS3. *Looks at XBOX 360*

And the more videos I watch and articles I read - the dialogue budget was the real dealbreaker. They have so many characters and so many stars to pay they just couldn't handle more substantial conversation.

Yet, they still had the time/resources for Chobot's awful voice acting and character.

I love Mass Effect 3 in terms of gameplay for an RPG but it falls seriously short on the role playing aspect. Conversations are way too "automatic" and are nothing like ME1 and ME2. Personally, I think Bioware just ran out of time due to EA pushing them. Give them another year and I think a lot more of the character problems go away, but not all of them. The ME2 characters is kind of tricky. Everyone's saves were different in terms of the suicide mission and loyalty, I think Bioware kind of regretted that when making ME3, just far too many different scenarios to account for.

[Mr. Brainheart]

Youth4Ever wrote...

DWH1982 wrote...

That probably would have made it too long. Someone on the Mass Effect team seems to have decided that we gamers lack the attention span needed for long, in depth conversations.

I personally liked the Citadel date, but it ended way to soon. My reaction was something along the lines of, "wait, that's it?" Would have liked the chance to talk to her more about what she had been doing, what I had been doing. Maybe even the chance to walk aorund the commons with her, maybe do some shoping or even take in a movie.

A paragraph being added to the Citadel date detailing their Horizon reactions woud've been perfect. When she started apologizing, I thought I'd get my chance to apologize too. They neeed to resolve what they started on Horizon. On Mars. With the Coup attempt. And they didn't do that. We didn't get a Cerberus talk. We didn't even get close to it.

What'd she'd been doing the past two years should've been covered at the hospital when Shepard asked her about her promotion. Kaidan tells you why he was promoted upfront and by who.

I disagree on them not resolving there problems, it was done in an unclear(=not very good) fashion but if they talked long enough about something quantity wise I felt it was Cerberus in relation to Shepard, quality wise is a different story. I think my problem is that it isn't clear, I can't point to a moment and say, they resolved it! Even though at some point they clearly got over their problems. I think that was handled decently overall.

Btw I've reblogged the filling the gap dialogue I did a while ago, I'm willing to continue that. It'd give my 'canon' on how the talks we never had went, which might be a contribution to the project that hasn't gotten off the ground yet. (link: 
http://social.biowar...00/blog/213127/)

[Td1984]

DWH1982 wrote...

I hate to raise the issue - but instead of dumping James to bring Miranda on board, why not get rid of Traynor and/or Cortez, and put the extra effort into content for Miranda and Ash?

I like both of them, but, honestly... Miranda could probably have done the same job as Traynor. And Cortez, while a nice guy, just felt, well... out of place. I mean, in ME2, it was heavily implied that a VI flew the shuttle. In ME3, we have a pilot to do that? It just seemed odd.

I guess Cortez and Traynor were there for s/s romances. But an easy solution to that would be to make James available for male Shep and Miranda available to femShep. Honestly, I tend to think that they would have been more compelling characters to romance.

During the vidcom conversation on Earth, it's really easy to headcanon a s/s romance with Miranda. Granted, headcanon just isn't the same as actually seeing it, but that conversation (granted it's the same as it is with an un-romanced MShep) gives you that leeway if you want it. My second FShep Sarah, I headcanoned in ME2 as having a serious interest in Miranda, but not able to act on it. During her first playthrough, I'm going to give the Samantha romance a shot, but on subsequent playthroughs, just headcanon that she's with Miranda.

[lil yonce]

BP93 wrote...

I love Mass Effect 3 in terms of gameplay for an RPG but it falls seriously short on the role playing aspect. Conversations are way too "automatic" and are nothing like ME1 and ME2. Personally, I think Bioware just ran out of time due to EA pushing them. Give them another year and I think a lot more of the character problems go away, but not all of them. The ME2 characters is kind of tricky. Everyone's saves were different in terms of the suicide mission and loyalty, I think Bioware kind of regretted that when making ME3, just far too many different scenarios to account for.

I didn't like ME2. Had I been in charge of the new characters only Miranda, Thane, Mordian, Legion would've made it out of pre-production and their absense in the player's game would've had noticable impact.  No one esle is pertinent to ME3's main plot. They'd focus on greater manipulating fewer storylines tied to the main plot - not throw in about ten so-so missions.

ME2 had no real main storyline development because in a terrible move they tried to make it a character driven game. They changed the rules and then didn't follow up well with the ME2 characters in ME3.

The suicide mission would've been filled with well intentioned Cerberus operatives - ex Alliance Shepard would feel comfortable with in the mode of Jacob and maybe introduced ME3 Major Coats style.

Modifié par Youth4Ever, 14 mai 2012 - 11:24 .

[Dannycni]

^I'm sorry I disagree completely ME2 was one of the best games I ever played and I loved it for all the brilliant character interaction and how great those characters were

But back to Ash, this is the Ashley thread after all not the ME grievances one...unless it includes Ashley of course

Modifié par Dannycni, 14 mai 2012 - 11:18 .

[DWH1982]

Youth4Ever wrote...

They had a strict dialogue budget this time around and that was a mega part of the problem. This just wasn't going to be the same game.

Youth4Ever wrote...

And the more videos I watch and articles I read - the dialogue budget was the real dealbreaker. They have so many characters and so many stars to pay they just couldn't handle more substantial conversation.

If that's their problem, then my reaction is, "Oh, for pete's sake."

If you don't have the cash for dialouge, here's a thought: Use fewer big name actors.

Sadly, this is a problem that dates back to ME2. Don't get me wrong - I love the fact that we have Martin Sheen as TIM. But did we really need him to be TIM? Wouldn't it have been better to hire someone a little less expensive, to free up money so we could have more dialouge?

The same goes for the other big name actors who were brought in circa ME2. Nice to have them, but, I'm sorry - they're not really necessary. You can't have a good RPG with insufficient dialouge. To me, that means it's more important to be able to pay for the dialouge you need than to be able to say, "LOOK AT US AND ALL THE BIG NAMES WE HAVE IN OUR GAME!!!!!!"

The "just too many characters" problem is an issue as well, and another one that dates to ME2. As I said earlier - ME2 shouldn't have involved a suicide mission, and it should have involved the same squad from ME1, maybe with just two to three new squaddies. It would have avoided the problems that popped up with ME3. But, then I guess hindsight is perfect and all that...

[lil yonce]

Mr. Brainheart wrote...

I disagree on them not resolving there problems, it was done in an unclear(=not very good) fashion but if they talked long enough about something quantity wise I felt it was Cerberus in relation to Shepard, quality wise is a different story. I think my problem is that it isn't clear, I can't point to a moment and say, they resolved it! Even though at some point they clearly got over their problems. I think that was handled decently overall.

See IMO unclear=not resolved. it's just not a good enough "almost" for the end of a series. They don't talk about the things peripherally related to the Cerberus issue. The collector mission. I guess she knows about what happened at the Collector base. It's never established that she does know. His death and resurrection - that was cut. Since it wasn't talked about - that to me is not a resolution.

[lil yonce]

Dannycni wrote...

^I'm sorry I disagree completely ME2 was one of the best games I ever played and I loved it for all the brilliant character interaction and how great those characters were

But back to Ash, this is the Ashley thread after all not the ME grievances one...unless it includes Ashley of course

Except those characters go nowhere in ME3. They aren't critical to anything. And ME2 suffered from the lack of an actual main plot and it ultimately affected everthing and everyone in the series. I like a lot of the ME2 characters, but they shouldn't have been there.

[DWH1982]

Youth4Ever wrote...


See IMO unclear=not resolved. it's just not a good enough "almost" for the end of a series. They don't talk about the things peripherally related to the Cerberus issue. The collector mission. I guess she knows about what happened at the Collector base. It's never established that she does know. His death and resurrection - that was cut. Since it wasn't talked about - that to me is not a resolution.

Ash seems to know about the Collector base.

When you take her on the mission that has the embryo Reaper head, Shepard has some brief line about that mission (can't remember what he says) and she says something like, "Wish I could have been there."

[lil yonce]

DWH1982 wrote...

Ash seems to know about the Collector base.

When you take her on the mission that has the embryo Reaper head, Shepard has some brief line about that mission (can't remember what he says) and she says something like, "Wish I could have been there."

I thought that was only after she ask what it was though.

[lil yonce]

DWH1982 wrote...

If that's their problem, then my reaction is, "Oh, for pete's sake."

If you don't have the cash for dialouge, here's a thought: Use fewer big name actors.

Sadly, this is a problem that dates back to ME2. Don't get me wrong - I love the fact that we have Martin Sheen as TIM. But did we really need him to be TIM? Wouldn't it have been better to hire someone a little less expensive, to free up money so we could have more dialouge?

The same goes for the other big name actors who were brought in circa ME2. Nice to have them, but, I'm sorry - they're not really necessary. You can't have a good RPG with insufficient dialouge. To me, that means it's more important to be able to pay for the dialouge you need than to be able to say, "LOOK AT US AND ALL THE BIG NAMES WE HAVE IN OUR GAME!!!!!!"

The "just too many characters" problem is an issue as well, and another one that dates to ME2. As I said earlier - ME2 shouldn't have involved a suicide mission, and it should have involved the same squad from ME1, maybe with just two to three new squaddies. It would have avoided the problems that popped up with ME3. But, then I guess hindsight is perfect and all that...

I think this was their exact problem. They just didn't see it in ME2's production. Couldn't predict how it would turn into a character/VA cluster f*ck.

Modifié par Youth4Ever, 14 mai 2012 - 11:44 .

[Hellfire257]

Youth4Ever wrote...

But the PS3 uses Blu-ray and a standard 25GB disk. Space wouldn't be an issue for it. All ME2 content including all DLC fit on one disk.

It's not he PS3. *Looks at XBOX 360*

And the more videos I watch and articles I read - the dialogue budget was the real dealbreaker. They have so many characters and so many stars to pay they just couldn't handle more substantial conversation.

You're correct about the PS3. I own one but at the moment it is gathering dust and I don't know what to do with it .

So, why do I think ME3 turned out how it did?

1) Consumer behaviour

All too often have gamers been shafted by publishers and sometimes developers in this generation. I can't speak for our fellow gamers on the consoles, but from a PC stand point we've been stuck with DRM (Digital Rights Management) that restricts the paying customer. By attempting to combat piracy, developers have actually forced piracy to increase because their end product, which requires a constant internet connection, is actually an inferior product to the one the pirates are offering. 

In my opinon, the only way to combat piracy is to offer legitimate customers a better deal than the pirates. Let's take a look outside of the games industry here. The music industry suffers immensely because of piracy. The reason people pirate thier music is not only because it is free, but there is no benefit to actually paying for their music. Now let's add the marvellous thing called Spotify into the equation. For £10 a month, I get access to an enormous library of music on demand, streamed at 320kb/s which is almost audiophile quality, and have my offline playlists synced with up to 3 devices including my phone. Could I get the same thing with piracy? Sure, but it would be a helluva lot more awkward to set up. Spotify is relatively cheap and hassle free. What Spotify offers is a much better deal for the consumer than what the pirates offer. That is why Spotify thrives.

Now let's get back to the point. We have put up with crap DRM for far too long. Why? Because not enough people stood up to protest it. Looking forward, we're now seeing developers searching for alternative systems and in some cases, dropping DRM completely. In the case of Ubisoft, people were actually boycotting thier products because of the DRM issues (among other things too). Recently we saw Ubisoft announce that they are looking for a fairer solution. Why? Because the consumer made life difficult for them.

ME3 has loads of potential to be something amazing. What happened to it? It was simply ignored. Why was it ignored? Because EA thought they could get away with it. They thought that thier PR/hype could brush off any backlash and there would never be a united front against the garbage they shoved out of the front door. How wrong were they?

The endings debacle has attracted a fair amount of negative media attention and forced a lot of people away from EA and BioWare. There has been not one, but two (semi) united fronts against them - the Retake movement and Hold The Line. EA will not like to acknowledge it, but they caved when they announced the EC. They are still in damage control and attempting to make themselves look like the victims. I highly doubt they are offering the EC for free out of the goodness of thier own hearts. In short, EA thought they could get away with putting customer satisfaction a firm last. They didn't recieve the golden poo award for no reason.

We are partially responsible for the poor quality of games these days simply because we do not stand up for ourselves and actually buy into junk *cough* Call of Duty *cough*. Thankfully, I think that is beginning to change. 

2) Corporate behaviour

Very rarely will I buy anything from a mainstream publisher anymore. These big publishers only care about maximising profits and pleasing the shareholders. Contrast that to independent, small developers who actually care about their customers and you'll see what I mean. A lot of small Indy titles are a lot more fun and innovotive than anything put out by the big names in the last 5 years at least. On the PC market, Indy developers are making an absolute fortune and are now owning a respectable market share. 

Take a look at this for an example. The Humble Bundle has been running for a good while now and it really is an amazing offer. Pay what you want for some really fun and innovative titles. The amount of bundles they sell speaks for how well they are doing from it.

The developers of those products are not as limited by deadlines and budgets as the big publishers are and the quality of their work shows it. The games are smaller as a result of this and are less polished as some of the mainstream titles, however:

a) the developers respond to customer feedback;
fix problems;
c) care about their work.

At the end of the day, companies like EA are not concerned with those things and the quality of the finished product suffers for it. I think BioWare do care, but are shackled by EA into deadlines and budgets that are not worthy of the title in question. ME3 should have finished on a bang (okay, it did, but that's beside the point). It should have had as much content and variety to match the standards set by its predecessors. Did it? Not one bit. ME3 should have concluded one of the best franchises in the genre and catapulted it into the gaming history books. It failed. It offered a weak conclusion that had more holes than a piece of swiss cheese, it smelt as bad as swiss cheese, and it tasted as bad as swiss cheese. I think this is because of restrictive budgets and deadlines that killed any chance of ME3 doing the series any justice.

***

Those are the two major reasons why I believe ME3 failed to live up to expectations. Of course there are more, but that is for another discussion. 

Modifié par Hellfire257, 14 mai 2012 - 11:40 .

[DWH1982]

Hellfire257 wrote...

Take a look at this for an example. The Humble Bundle has been running for a good while now and it really is an amazing offer. Pay what you want for some really fun and innovative titles. The amount of bundles they sell speaks for how well they are doing from it.

Hmm... I'll have to take a look. Any other indy developers you'd suggest?

Also, because there's not enough Ash:

[lil yonce]

Hellfire257 wrote...
You're correct about the PS3. I own one but at the moment it is gathering dust and I don't know what to do with it .

Play Uncharted!

[snip]

ME3 should have concluded one of the best franchises in the genre and catapulted it into the gaming history books. It failed. It offered a weak conclusion that had more holes than a piece of swiss cheese, it smelt as bad as swiss cheese, and it tasted as bad as swiss cheese. I think this is because of restrictive budgets and deadlines that killed any chance of ME3 doing the series any justice.

I think ME3 suffered from poor planning and poor writing because of poor planning but think you're right about the vicious cycle killing gaming in general.

Modifié par Youth4Ever, 15 mai 2012 - 12:02 .

[DWH1982]

Youth4Ever wrote...

I thought that was only after she ask what it was though.

Oh. Well... honestly, I don't know. I've only played all the way through ME3 once at this point and can't remember.

I'll have to pay attention. Maybe she does have to ask about it. Which is pretty bad, if you ask me. You'd think Shepard would at least give her the logs and mission reports from ME2.

Modifié par DWH1982, 14 mai 2012 - 11:51 .

[Mr. Brainheart]

Youth4Ever wrote...

Mr. Brainheart wrote...

I disagree on them not resolving there problems, it was done in an unclear(=not very good) fashion but if they talked long enough about something quantity wise I felt it was Cerberus in relation to Shepard, quality wise is a different story. I think my problem is that it isn't clear, I can't point to a moment and say, they resolved it! Even though at some point they clearly got over their problems. I think that was handled decently overall.

See IMO unclear=not resolved. it's just not a good enough "almost" for the end of a series. They don't talk about the things peripherally related to the Cerberus issue. The collector mission. I guess she knows about what happened at the Collector base. It's never established that she does know. His death and resurrection - that was cut. Since it wasn't talked about - that to me is not a resolution.

Well I took her along to the Cerberus base and there Ashley states she's convinced of Shepard being the Shepard she knew. We see clear signs that they take no issue with eachother anymore, so there has been a resolve, there must've been, but we never got to witness it. I'd say you see the result of a resolve but not the resolve. His death and ressurection was largely cut, a much smaller/simpler but still similar conversation takes place in the Cerberus base

[lil yonce]

Mr. Brainheart wrote...

]Well I took her along to the Cerberus base and there Ashley states she's convinced of Shepard being the Shepard she knew. We see clear signs that they take no issue with eachother anymore, so there has been a resolve, there must've been, but we never got to witness it. I'd say you see the result of a resolve but not the resolve. His death and ressurection was largely cut, a much smaller/simpler but still similar conversation takes place in the Cerberus base

This is how it feels to me - Ashley is proven wrong about any possible Cerberus ties during the Coup attempt so she has to drop all hesitance and doubt towards Shepard and mistrust about the Cerberus mission. Really, just drop the issue entirely because she had a gun on him and convince herself it was just a smokescreen - and it shouldn't feel that way.

But this is just how it felt to me. It may not have felt that way to you.

Modifié par Youth4Ever, 15 mai 2012 - 12:12 .

[DWH1982]

I think she'd have trouble with getting back together with Shepard, let alone with having their "together time" before the Cerberus base assault, if their issues hadn't been resolved.

So, yeah, it was off screen, or that's what we have to tell ourselves. Which sucks.

Modifié par DWH1982, 15 mai 2012 - 12:04 .

[BP93]

www.fanfiction.net/s/7985673/10/The_Renewal

New chapter, though I feel kind of guilty posting this now since AMW hasn't been around the past couple of days.

[Hellfire257]

DWH1982 wrote...
Hmm... I'll have to take a look. Any other indy developers you'd suggest?

While not strictly indy, Magicka  ($12 ish) has been one of my favourite recent plays. It's not much on your own as it is designed for 4 player coop but it is a game that is hilarious and doesn't take itself too seriously.  I think I might have actually enjoyed it more than ME3!  It had a rocky launch but most if not all of the bugs are gone.

Frozen Synapse is also worth checking out. It you like a challenge then this is for you. 

@BP.

I have nothing to say that I haven't already said. Perfect!

I do have a question though, is the casket open or closed? 

referring to Anderson's open casket

I'm kind of glad it's a closed casket 

So that's one down, one to go.
Helm!? You know what I'm going to ask! 

Modifié par Hellfire257, 15 mai 2012 - 10:23 .

[iHorizons]

Besides Ashley; Traynor, Miranda, and Garrus are my favorites.