However, I think that the case is just the opposite; Bioware listens to us, and they listen to us too much. Have any of us stopped to think that the ending we got, the absense of a final boss fight, and several other unfavorable changes made to the Mass Effect series could be directly attributed to us?
Think about it: countless people complained about the Mako, trash loot system and bland planetside exploration in ME1. Lo and behold, all those things were taken out of ME2; They replaced the loot system with an upgrade system and took out planetside exploration altogether in favor of short, shoot-em up sidequests. They tried to introduce an improved version of the Mako and planetside exploration in the form of the Hammerhead, and people shot that down too. And wouldn't ya know, the Hammerhead makes no appearance in ME3. And now we are complaining that the series is too linear and action oriented and that it has abandoned its RPG roots. Haha.
Now we have the subject of the absence of a final boss in ME3. People are crying for Harbinger, wondering where he went and why he doesn't play a more important role in the game, and why we didn't fight him at the end of ME3. He is not anywhere to be found because people complained about him in ME2! They said he destroyed the sense of mysticism and awe in the Reapers, and his one liners became a joke among the community. Likewise, people complained about the Saren/Sovereign confrontation in ME1 and the Human Reaper Larva in ME2. There was so much negative feedback about all of this stuff.
So why the hell are we so surprised that we don't have a final boss fight in ME3?! Why are we wondering where Harbinger went? We ****ed and moaned about Harbinger in ME2 and the final boss fights of both games, so Bioware took them out. They listened to our feedback, and took the stuff out that we didn't like. Bottom line. They thought they were doing the right thing! and now here we are ripping them a new hole and whining because these things are absent. WE DID THIS TO OURSELVES.
This could even be said about the ending; perhaps they were sick and tired of responding to fans' complaints and making so many changes to their creation because of negative fan feedback that they just threw up their hands and said, "to hell with it, we're doing it our way, and they can just deal with it." If this is the case, the plan backfired, and it wasn't a good way to do things, but could you really blame them?
This is why I will have to agree with Ray's request for constructive criticism. Most of us simply freak out and throw out insults about content we don't like, or make fun of it, and trash talk Bioware. Think about what it must feel like as a developer to listen to that; to know that your fans hate the content that you spent countless hours developing for them. It probably feels like crap. So I could totally see them just scrapping those concepts in future titles to avoid the same kind of fan backlash in the future. It makes total sense. However, if we were to offer constructive criticism, citing the problems with said content and stating HOW THOSE THINGS CAN BE IMPROVED, things would be different. Maybe the series would have been more catered to our interests if we wouldn't be such whiny brats about everything.
Basically, my point is that we should stop pointing our fingers directly at Bioware and start thinking about how we, as fans, can offer feedback that is actually constructive and will attribute to improvement on a game/franchise rather than just further complicating or hindering it. We need to be aware that what we say DOES matter, that they DO listen to us, and we need to be careful what we ask for because we will probably end up getting it.
Modifié par Mordimor, 16 avril 2012 - 01:25 .
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