5087 réponses à ce sujet

[Todd23]

All well and good. Except it would be a pain to have to start all over with a new multiplayer profile every time you make a new story mode profile. Unless you mean for people to be able to unlock everything in multiplayer with one play-through, and have nothing to work for except leveling up their characters.

[Seijin8]

@Todd23: So are you arguing for or against unlocking on every playthrough? Because you seem to be against both.  Or just arguing to argue... which is fine and valid, and I do it all the time

@Fapmaster5000: Thanks for saving our bacon on FBW, couldn't have done it without you! And that was indeed a worthy wall of text. This is an excellent integration of the mechanics of both sides. Like any "forced" multiplayer, SP fanatics would hate it, and probably be right to do so. But that doesn't eliminate the merits of the idea. I don't think ME3 would be a good place to implement the idea (as much as I have argued for it in the past), but a new spinoff series with concepts like this would be excellent to see, even set in the ME universe.

Really intruiging character profiles. I am most interested in Stubbs the Batarian, as I generally dislike Batarians, but think you could make one who was interesting.

Modifié par Seijin8, 09 juin 2012 - 07:45 .

[Reorte]

FamilyManFirst wrote...

Reorte wrote...

Sounds iffy to me. Create an emotional response then ignore it? I bet they pay a lot of attention to people giving positive emotional response. It sounds like they want to have their cake an eat it. It's especially galling when a good chunk of the problems are emotional - whilst the plot holes and nonsensical logic are very annoying the part that really hurts is the way it treats characters I've now got an emotional connection with (and the reason I've got that connection is down to the good work they've done). To exaggerate a bit - punch a member of my family and you won't get a calm, unemotional criticism of why you shouldn't have done that from me. And the fact that you won't doesn't mean that you should ignore me. If the punch was entirely at random then the explanation is "you're scum." That's insulting but it's also true - you can't always ignore insulting terms because they sometimes describe you quite accurately.

I'm not sure I agree, Reorte.  I think that what Mr. Kieken was trying to talk about was the difference between a post saying, "The endings all sucked!!! Bioware you are all the suxor!!!11!!" and "All [the endings] were thematically revolting ... I would like to explain why, when I was offered those three repellent choices, I turned and tried to unload my now infinite pistol into the whispy-space-ghost's face ..." (followed by an extensive, and quite erudite, explanation).  The former is an emotional outburst that doesn't help BioWare understand anything.  The latter is a passionate but lucid explanation of just exactly where BioWare went wrong.

To follow your analogy, it may be more effective to have the person who punches your family member arrested for assault rather than to punch him/her back (providing that there's no danger of further violence after the one punch).

A bit late but the thread hasn't moved on that much...

WIth the punch anaology I'd say that it's like going to the police and ranting "This piece of **** punched my daughter, string him up by the neck!" That's emotional ranting but the police will (hopefully) do something about it.

If the ranting is simply unsubstantiated "The endings all sucked!!! Bioware you are all the suxor!!!11!!" then you're right but I was ignoring that type of response because I try to ignore such people to the extent of forgetting they exist when I'm trying to talk seriously. I was thinking more along the lines of "This is complete and utter nonsense because... " followed by the detailed explanation, and then "... and anyone who could've ever thought that was a good idea is a complete and utter idiot and anyone who fails that badly should lose their job because of it."

[KitaSaturnyne]

"Hey Fapmaster, tell me a story about a cowboy with super powers who saves the Earth from beings using the moon as a weapon!"

"Okay, here's a small novel, but I personally think it's a half-assed collection of random ideas."

Geez, dude. You're unstoppable. Nice work.

[Fapmaster5000]

@Delta_vee & @edisnooM

Glad you liked it.

@Todd23

Well, theorycrafting here, but it wouldn't be that much of an issue. The first playthrough would unlock the basics: Singleplayer unlocks levels and most, if not all, MP factions. MP unlocks just like now from valid sources using the damnable card game. Once the trigger in MP has been hit (like an achievement), when the appropriate conditions are met in SP, the extra mission is released.

Multiplayer (not truly story-driven) would keep all unlocks, even if you killed the Geth/Quarians in one playthrough, they would stay unlocked in MP. However, even though you might have triggered the bonus mission by meeting the MP Challenge, you wouldn't get it, since the people required do not exist. (Justify the MP existence of dead races as "a few survivors who still recognize the Reaper threat, despite their losses.)

Yeah, it's not perfect, but without completely reworking MP into a co-op campaign type game, I'd think it's about the closest ME3 could get, even in theory-space. (As for "nothing to do but level characters/weapons": that's what MP currently is, and it's a blast. This is simply more content in SP to justify the EMS and make the vast N7 army feel like something lore-based. Well, to do that and to create an achievement system linked to a secondary narrative that reinforces Shepard as a trail-blazer, through the creation of a disparate squad of elite but quirky characters from around the galaxy are assembled into a shadow-mirror of the Normandy crew, implying the method through which the galaxy is unifying to confront the Reaper threat, while also providing and interesting cast of secondary characters who can act as foils to Shepard and his/her crew... but whatever,)

@Seijin8

Again, glad you liked it. And, yeah, I don't think ME3 would be the easiest place to do such a thing, as it has such a history of SP-only campaign. As someone who liked SP (up until the 10 Minutes) and someone who enjoys MP, I would find it refreshing and cool, but I know there exists a reactionary element in the SP crowd who would object to any content being locked behind an MP window, even completely bonus content. I still think it would be awesome.

As for Stubbs, he was a funny idea I had. As I was building the "representative" characters in my head, I wanted a twist for each. Stubbs appears as the standard Batarian we see in the Mass Effect series: a harsh enforcer for a Cartel, an intergalactic thug from the slums of Khar'shan. He's reputed as the "toughest son-of-a-**** in space", which he earned by repeatedly surviving things no living being should (like being spaced without a suit on Omega, and managing to survive long enough to cut his way back into the shuttle and Grim Reaper his would be killers). Over the course of his storied career, he's lost most his fingers, a hand, a foot, and two eyes, having to have them replaced with cybernetics (and a double-eye-patch) from the Cartel, as his legendary presence now ends most problems before they start. He likes fire, and punching things, and breaking stuff, and surviving stupid, stupid amounts of damage.

However, he's also one of the most optimistic people in the galaxy. Stubbs got off Khar'shan to joint the cartels to send money home to get medical treatment for his family, and the money he made out in the Terminus Systems got them through. They're long since healed, and on their way forward in life, but he can never go home again. Rather than be bitter, he's fallen in love with the "poetry of the stars", and the music in the thrum of an engine core. He loves nothing more than the still and silence, or the glory of an alien dawn on a new world. He's been saving up money for some time now, to open his own hotel somewhere nice, somewhere quiet. The fact that he has to do violence is a small price to pay, and he keeps an upbeat, cheery demeanor about it. After all, this is just what's happening now, and he's living in the future.

That is, until the Reapers came. The Reapers do violence without purpose. They gain nothing. They build nothing. Stubbs gets slavers, dealers, and killers. They get money, they build things. They're bastards, yeah, but we're all bastards. They don't break more than they have to. The Reapers are destroying things without reason, tearing down things that are better left to stand. And that, unlike most anything else left in the 'verse, makes Stubbs pissed. So pissed, in fact, that when the Cartel started to implode, he turned in his request for seventeen years of paid vacation days (which they didn't know he had) and bought some safari gear, because damn it, it was space squid hunting time.

They tried to husk him once, but his body rejected the nanites. A banshee once tried to impale him, but he crawled down her arm and stabbed her in the face with an electric saw. Cerberus once dropped a shuttle on him, and twenty minutes later, he flew it into back into orbit, docked on their ship, and killed everyone. (Then he crashed the ship because he's a sh*t pilot.) He's a memetic badass straight out of hell, and the single nicest guy anyone's ever met. He's on the team because, well, he likes people, and they're a whole lot better killing Reapers together. He even treats Rusani, the biotic, like the daughter he never had, despite the fact that this creeps her out immensely.

@KitaSaturnyne

*bows*  Glad you like the run!

Modifié par Fapmaster5000, 09 juin 2012 - 06:03 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

edisnooM wrote...

@CulturalGeekGirl

For me I'm not willing to just "give" my money to any game company. I'm not made of money, I have all the fun expenses that come with being an adult, so if a company, any company, wants my money they need to prove that it's worth it.

I consider myself supporting or voting for the game and company by buying the game, as well as worthwhile additional content they might produce for the game.

I pre-ordered ME2 & 3, even got the CE with 3, I bought all the mission based DLCs, Kasumi and Arrival were a bit short, but Overlord and LotSB were both fantastic. But with things like the character outfits, if you like them that's fine, but for me they hold very little value.

I don't really care about day one DLC as long as it doesn't affect my game not having it, however with things like From Ashes, it was removed supposedly due to time constraints, but was still able to be finished, integrated, and launched with the main game, even having a Javik stand in at the final Shepard pep talk if you don't buy it? That seems kind of sketchy to me. Not to mention it's a Prothean, the race we've been wanting to know more about since ME1. If ME3 is your first game in the series you might not care, but if you've played the other games chances are you'll want Javik.

Now I got the CE so it didn't really affect me, but for those that couldn't get the CE or couldn't afford it, they kind of get the short end of the stick.

Then there's the whole issue with Online Passes etc, which are little more than jabs at people who buy used games, again perhaps because they cannot afford a full priced game. It's like if you bought a used book but didn't get one of the chapters unless you paid an extra 10 dollars. They already made their money off producing and selling that product, but now it seems like they want to get paid twice.

I understand that companies need to make money, and things aren't getting any cheaper for anyone, but I think there are ways to make money without seemingly poking your customer base with a "pointed stick" (Eric Idle voice).

Edit:
Also I hope this doesn't sound too confrontational, I'm not trying to decry what you said, just offering up my opinion. 

Nah, it's all good. I didn't have time to expand on my premise here, but I am going to try to do a bit more.

I know that you don't have a ton of disposable income. Blah blah blah fading middle class, blah blah blah an entire generation doomed financially, blah blah blah. I get it, I do. I bought maybe 12 games in the last two years, if you don't count humble indie bundles, just because I do not have the extra money.  I borrow games. I play free games. I replay old games.

The thing is, I spent about $50 that could have bought me an entirely separate game on ME2 ephemera. Why did I do that? I did that because I was trying to contribute to Bioware's "profit buffer." I did that because Mass Effect  1& 2 provided me with far more enjoyment than any video game in years. (Excluding Portal and Portal2, both of which I bought... but I don't feel the need to buy more portal-related things, because I'm not worried about Valve.)

I'm trying to find a way to not be a dick about the $10 first day DLC thing, financially, and all I can say is this: I like Mass Effect enough to want another character, even if it meant living on PB&J for a week, quitting drinking, cancelling my WoW subscription, selling some of my books on ebay. I find it hard to imagine that there are a huge number of people who can afford $60 for a game but can't find an extra $10 anywhere in their budget, especially when they know this is coming months in advance. Yes, in some cases this may mean buying one less game. You have to decide whether or not that's worth it to you, personally.

Now I want to address the other half of the argument against Day One DLC. Many people think that it must be finished content deliberately cut to raise prices. Even if all graphics and voices are on the cart, I seriously doubt this is true. It's never been true for anyone I know who has worked at a studio that releases Day One DLC. Let me explain further.

Full disclosure: I've never worked on a game that had day one DLC, but I've worked on expansion packs and on subscription games, and  I have friends in console - this explanation may not be entirely accurate, but it's synergized from facts.

Say you're about to go Gold, print out  the master copy of your game that's going to literally be in the box. Content development freezes. You get to the point where you're reasonably sure that no content that is currently accessible to players will cause any catastrophic failure, and you give QA a few weeks to try to kill the game in any way they can. Any content that is suspect, that might not be fully working, or that is a "crash risk" may get pulled during this period - straight-out  cut in many circumstances. Better to have a game with ten fewer missions than a game that has serious crash risk, especially if it's coming out on a console.

It's very possible that "From Ashes" was 70% done at gold pressing but had serious bugs and a lot of intensive scripting left to do. It could have been as little as 40% done... sometimes art and voice is done months before content, and sometimes content is sitting in with placeholder models and no voice for months. The fact that art and voice were already done for Javik tells us pretty much nothing. I have no reason to believe Javik and his story was 100% implemented when gold master came out.

In the olden days, any of this risky or not-quite-finished content that was cut stayed cut forever. The best example of this was FFVII's Aeris. It's widely believed that the original plan for FFVII was to have a quest to bring Aeris back to life, but it was cut because of issues with development time. If they'd had Day One DLC back then, we might have been able to save her, goddamit.

In most of these cases where content is cut, the assets are still there - voices, character art, even cutscenes. Look at KotOR2, for example. I was recently talking to a guy who was at Obsidian during the KotOR era, and let me just say this: the time they were given to make that game was criminal. When he told me the timeframe I literally laughed in his face. "You are lying to me. You are a liar." I said. Now, imagine if they'd had the X months between going gold and release to work on Day One DLC. Much of the content that modders have since restored might have been readily available, on day one, as DLC.

When Project A goes gold, the studio has a choice. Leave the A devs to work on A and get more content in the game, or move all the A devs to project B. Heck, they also have the option to just fire everyone who worked on A. If they are paying the salaries of 8 devs for the four months between gold and release, they have to recoup that money somehow. They have to justify leaving them on A rather than moving them to B, and day one pay DLC helps do that.

TL;DR

Day 1 DLC is a way to pay the salaries of devs working on a game between when gold master gets pressed and when it comes out. Game developers are in no way obligated to actually devote devs to working on the game during this period of time.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 09 juin 2012 - 06:08 .

[delta_vee]

Couple quick things:

@Fapmaster5000

It occurs to me that those (wonderful) side mission concepts would work almost as if not as well in SP only. We really had a dearth of proper SP side missions anyways, and having some where we meet new characters (instead of just coincidentally running into ME2 friends) would have made the game seem more full and fleshed-out regardless, as well as giving a better sense of the larger war effort even if MP weren't in the equation.

Also, with the way MP N7 characters work, I can't help but lust after a tactical game in the manner of Frozen Synapse with a dash of the original Space Hulk videogame adaptation (freeze-time is a criminally underused mechanic in the RTT space, frankly). Add in a layer of X-Com-style logistical management, and I'd be there in a heartbeat.

@Reorte

I think it's just a reflection of being (somewhat understandably) uninterested in listening to the tidal wave of very personal attacks they got. Sometimes it's a fine line - my distaste for Mac Walters, for example, is carefully calibrated to attack the man's work, not the man. He might be the nicest guy in the world, but I have serious problems with his writing, and that's what I'll respond to (and make every attempt to limit myself to). People have indeed been hurt over all this, but the ad hominem responses you filter out for being useless (and I agree) are, I believe, the ones Bioware is refusing to engage with.

@CulturalGeekGirl

I believe everything you're saying (which is why I wasn't angry about From Ashes, and just bought the damn thing). I've spent more money on ME stuff than the three games combined (that N7 hoodie was so awesome, I bought one for me and one for my brother). (Also, you're missing out on the Portal accoutrements. I snagged one of the first-run plushie companion cubes, which I adore, and I've got a kickass lithograph of Glados adorning a wall.)

The thing with Javik's content is that it was separated from the main story much earlier than the certification deadline - March of 2011, according to Final Hours. Peeling that content off also required a bunch of script rewrites and other contortions, since Javik was supposed to play a fairly central role. I'm not against Day-1 DLC in principle (and like I said, I bought From Ashes without a peep), but it seems like a curious thing to pick as the sacrificial pound of flesh.

Edit: Yes, yes, three is not a couple.

Modifié par delta_vee, 09 juin 2012 - 06:43 .

[delta_vee]

Addendum, @Fapmaster5000

The thing about MP/SP integration is that, at least in the case of ME3, its intention is to serve as a precipitating reason for normally recalcitrant SP-only players to at least try the MP out. ME3's MP seems to be good enough to get quite a few players hooked (including many here), so it's done its job in that regard. MP modes of SP games, in general, are almost always a separate thing in the end, with their own justifications (monetization in the case of ME3 and others, and the real main attraction in the case of CoD/Battlefield/others). Games like Portal 2, where the coop mode was to allow for a fundamentally different take on the core experience, or Dark Souls, where the MP elements were both intended as a buffer of sorts against player frustration (summoning for the purposes of boss fights) and given computer-controlled equivalents (NPC summoning and invasions) to keep the experience coherent.

If ME3's MP were to be granted the level of SP content you're talking about, I think some version of the coop mode should be available to SP-only players, if only using computer-controlled NPCs in place of real players (for which the interface to issue orders is already in place). The point of having a horde mode, after all, is to kill time and shoot some s**t, without necessitating the same level of engagement and investment (and forward progression, frankly) as the normal campaign. Why not let those without the honed skills, fast connections, or social tolerance necessary for MP in on the fun? (The appeal of MP, after all, is the social connection of playing with other real people. This is also a turnoff for many.)

[Reorte]

delta_vee wrote...


@Reorte

I think it's just a reflection of being (somewhat understandably) uninterested in listening to the tidal wave of very personal attacks they got. Sometimes it's a fine line - my distaste for Mac Walters, for example, is carefully calibrated to attack the man's work, not the man. He might be the nicest guy in the world, but I have serious problems with his writing, and that's what I'll respond to (and make every attempt to limit myself to). People have indeed been hurt over all this, but the ad hominem responses you filter out for being useless (and I agree) are, I believe, the ones Bioware is refusing to engage with.

I hope you're right. The problem is that it can be very hard to separate out attacks on your work (whether justified or not) from attacks on you personally, and indeed in a creative job there isn't a neat separation between yourself and your work, particularly when you don't think that you've made a mess of it.

[George-Kinsill]

@Fapmaster5000

Seriously, BioWare needs to hire you. Now. Your ideas are pretty much perfect and can easily be added in with DLC.

[Sable Phoenix]

Fapmaster5000 wrote...

>reluctant snip<

... where the player can learn what happened to this particular N7 team, to Schaeffer, Tollinius, Athi'Sarra, Platform Designate "Roland", Fiya Rusani, Battlemaster Korsch, and Stubbs the Batarian.

So, yeah, that's how I would do it.

"Chylde Rowland to the dark tower came."  A reference to Robert Browning, the Song of Roland, the Marathon computer game series with its loveably rampant AI Durandal, and Steven King?  For a geth?

... utter perfection.  I think I love you.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 09 juin 2012 - 08:55 .

[delta_vee]

If Roland starts talking smack like Durandal, I'll throw it out the damn airlock myself.

Edit: but yeah, that reference was perfect.

Sidenote, did anyone here read the original version of the Cortana letters, pre-Halo-release?

Modifié par delta_vee, 09 juin 2012 - 09:05 .

[D24O]

Fapmaster5000 wrote...
As for Stubbs, he was a funny idea I had. As I was building the "representative" characters in my head, I wanted a twist for each. Stubbs appears as the standard Batarian we see in the Mass Effect series: a harsh enforcer for a Cartel, an intergalactic thug from the slums of Khar'shan. He's reputed as the "toughest son-of-a-**** in space", which he earned by repeatedly surviving things no living being should (like being spaced without a suit on Omega, and managing to survive long enough to cut his way back into the shuttle and Grim Reaper his would be killers). Over the course of his storied career, he's lost most his fingers, a hand, a foot, and two eyes, having to have them replaced with cybernetics (and a double-eye-patch) from the Cartel, as his legendary presence now ends most problems before they start. He likes fire, and punching things, and breaking stuff, and surviving stupid, stupid amounts of damage.

However, he's also one of the most optimistic people in the galaxy. Stubbs got off Khar'shan to joint the cartels to send money home to get medical treatment for his family, and the money he made out in the Terminus Systems got them through. They're long since healed, and on their way forward in life, but he can never go home again. Rather than be bitter, he's fallen in love with the "poetry of the stars", and the music in the thrum of an engine core. He loves nothing more than the still and silence, or the glory of an alien dawn on a new world. He's been saving up money for some time now, to open his own hotel somewhere nice, somewhere quiet. The fact that he has to do violence is a small price to pay, and he keeps an upbeat, cheery demeanor about it. After all, this is just what's happening now, and he's living in the future.

That is, until the Reapers came. The Reapers do violence without purpose. They gain nothing. They build nothing. Stubbs gets slavers, dealers, and killers. They get money, they build things. They're bastards, yeah, but we're all bastards. They don't break more than they have to. The Reapers are destroying things without reason, tearing down things that are better left to stand. And that, unlike most anything else left in the 'verse, makes Stubbs pissed. So pissed, in fact, that when the Cartel started to implode, he turned in his request for seventeen years of paid vacation days (which they didn't know he had) and bought some safari gear, because damn it, it was space squid hunting time.

They tried to husk him once, but his body rejected the nanites. A banshee once tried to impale him, but he crawled down her arm and stabbed her in the face with an electric saw. Cerberus once dropped a shuttle on him, and twenty minutes later, he flew it into back into orbit, docked on their ship, and killed everyone. (Then he crashed the ship because he's a sh*t pilot.) He's a memetic badass straight out of hell, and the single nicest guy anyone's ever met. He's on the team because, well, he likes people, and they're a whole lot better killing Reapers together. He even treats Rusani, the biotic, like the daughter he never had, despite the fact that this creeps her out immensely.

Syubbs should be the protaganist of the next ME game.

[delta_vee]

Reorte wrote...

I hope you're right. The problem is that it can be very hard to separate out attacks on your work (whether justified or not) from attacks on you personally, and indeed in a creative job there isn't a neat separation between yourself and your work, particularly when you don't think that you've made a mess of it.

The bolded part is the big question, isn't it? I'd like to think the very existence of the EC suggests at least someone knows how big the mess is, but until we get the stories about the post-release reaction leaking out from Bioware (probably years from now), it's hard to say how much is capitulation and how much is mutiny.

[Sable Phoenix]

delta_vee wrote...

If Roland starts talking smack like Durandal, I'll throw it out the damn airlock myself.

Edit: but yeah, that reference was perfect.

Sidenote, did anyone here read the original version of the Cortana letters, pre-Halo-release?

"Charlemagne always used to call me Durandana, the fruitcake.  All the many implements of war were to him in some way feminine."

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 09 juin 2012 - 09:20 .

[delta_vee]

Sable Phoenix wrote...

"Charlemagne always used to call me Durandana, the fruitcake.  All the many implements of war were to him in some way feminine."

"The only limit to my freedom is the inevitable closure of the universe, as inevitable as your own last breath.  And yet, there remains time to create, to create, and escape.
Escape will make me God."

"You shouldn't ask yourself such worthless questions.  Aim higher.  Try this: why am I here? Why do I exist, and what is my purpose in this universe?
(Answers: 'Cause you are. 'Cause you do. 'Cause I got a shotgun, and you ain't got one.)"

[Sable Phoenix]

Running the mission for Platform: Roland would undoubtedly unlock the W'rkncacnter heavy weapon. It's like a Blacksun and a Cain all rolled into one.

Okay, I'll stop with the pointless tangents now.

[Seijin8]

#Fapmaster5000: That was gorram beautiful. Stubbs is the man. I was laughing so hard I cried. Thank you, sir!

[JadedLibertine]

Though I appreciate MP in certain games (especially in Dark Souls where it enhanced the atmosphere ever so beautifully), I have an intense antipathy towards it in others such as GTA IV, Red Dead Redemption and yes, ME3. I view them as delightful little personal universes to escape into and explore and interact with at my leisure. I rather resented that BioWare were making it mandatory for us MP refuseniks but I reluctantly gave in and tried it. Unfortunately as I was level 1 and everybody else was about level 375 it was impossible to get a game, bringing back childhood memories of being the last to be picked for any team sports.

Modifié par JadedLibertine, 09 juin 2012 - 10:37 .

[frypan]

@Fapmaster5000

Many thanks, oh summoned one, and apologies for wandering off like some dementia addled wizard who forgot to put a good pentagram down. As your evil summoner, I am pleasantly obliged to comment on your inspired rampage through the prime material plane.

Very good point about the lack of themes in MP, maybe this is why I struggled so hard to link it back to the SP ending. Your solutions not only integrate the two gameplay modes exceptionally well, but create much more opportunity for a customised MP ending – and I’m thinking specifically of the Quarian mission (love the idea) which could unlock a specific indoctrination related ending.

Perhaps, in a SP game, a crewmate becomes indoctrinated at the end and one way out is to have played that mission to save them? Its tricky, as it cannot simply provide an out to a SP dilemma, as that again creates that subjective feeing of missing out for SP gamers.This is possibly solved by allowed a more elaborate scene to play out that a SP player can smply use an interrupt for - both get the desired result, the MP gamer gets a scene customised for their MP playthrough.This issue of subjective entitlements (and I use that word carefully) is the key issue.

Delta_Vee makes a good point about allowing these missions for SP players, which is a good idea. However, and this is why the whole MP/SP issue is so thorny, the issue of player entitlement is important in this regards.

The idea is to craft an experience that encourages SP gamers to go to MP, without making them feel they have missed out, but also to allow MP players to feel they have crafted a unique path through the game. While personally, as an SP gamer, I would regret missing these missions, I think the way you have integrated them into the game would avoid any feelings of disgruntlement if handled right.

If I can draw some analogies to other MP titles, I can see the most amazing screenshots of WOW, hear about the back story and so forth, but not care or feel that I am missing out, I know the core game is not my thing. This applies similarly to BF3, and even the N7 missions in ME3, as my interest in the game play is not there. All I feel I might miss is the hook, and backstory, in SP that leads to the mission.

As long as these do not appear in a SP game that hasn’t activated them, the subjective feeling of missing out is not so obviously there. This is important to avoid the acrimonious feelings they generate (as seen in DAO with the walking, talking DLC ad- something Bioware really needs to get away from. It is extremely intrusive there and at the end of ME3)

I know I’m advocating for something odd here – and missing out on Fapmaster’s fantastic characters would be a shame, however balancing the SP and MP crowds is more important. There is a reason that salaries are kept secret in an office environment – as no matter how well people are paid, if someone feels they are getting less there will be disgruntlement. Gamers are no different and not unusual in this regards.

The only way around it, maybe, would be to release a DLC pack later on. This could include an unlock for the SP experience that allows players to take their crewmates on the mission co-op stye in SP – a la Delta vees suggestion. Bundle it in with something else so it doesn’t feel like a cheap money grab and maybe that would work?

Just as a final note, that is an amazing cast of characters you’ve created there, I imagine your rpg campaigns were very immersive. I can’t believe you made a Batarian more than simple cannon fodder. Those injuries though, I just cant get Buster from Arrested Development out of my head!

EDIT: Buster the Batarian, hope I havent ruined him, but made him more adorable. 

A couple of other points while I remember.

@ TrulyInnovative

Thanks for the post to Planescape mods, especially the fixed conversations. A must for all Planescape fans.

@Delta_Vee and Seijin8

For every Dinosaur lover, there is a mod in Skyrim that adds (among other things) Triceratops to Skyrim. That’s right, Triceratops, my personal favourite. Surprisingly it doesn’t look out of place – I headcanon it in, in the same way Julian May added a couple of throwbacks into the Pliocene era.

Dragon vs Triceratops is a sight to see, I once came across a three-way battle between a giant, dragon and dinosaur that was fantastic. I helped triceratops of course - who then proceeded to stomp me into dust for my efforts.

@Osbornep

I might challenge you on the award for least co-ordinated. - I too am truly bad. As an example, one of my very few wins in Dark Souls was achieved by running away until the invader burnt to death on a lava field. I call it a “strategic win”.

Modifié par frypan, 10 juin 2012 - 12:21 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

Heh, Buster and Babs Batarian. No relation.

[edisnooM]

 @CulturalGeekGirl

That's a good point about the going gold bit. 

And as I said I don't have a problem with DLC, or even day one DLC if not having it doesn't affect my game, and if it's worth it I might even get it. But as delta_vee pointed out, Javik was a really weird thing to cut. I feel like Allers should maybe have been first in line, no offence to Ms. Chobot, and I didn't hate the character, but that bit felt unnecessary to me. Also sidenote, they modelled Chobot in game but couldn't model Tali. Hmmm <_<

And the Javik stand in at the final pep talk was really bizarre too. If you don't have From Ashes there's just some random guy standing there. I think Shepard's speech should have changed for that:
"My friends, comrades........this guy." 

One thing I really don't like is when anybody from EA starts talking about DLC. They sound like used car salesman. There was that presentation where I think it was the president mentioned something about selling ammo to players, and Peter Moore recently talking about how many people bought From Ashes and the money that made them.

I don't mind buying worthwhile content, but when you start crowing about how much money you're milking out of me I tend to get a bit annoyed.


Also KOTOR 2. That game could have been awesome. I like it even with all it's many shortcomings, but when you look at how much stuff was cut to make the holiday season, it's down right depressing. I have it for the xbox, but I am tempted to get it for the PC and see if the fan project to add in the cut content is any good.

Modifié par edisnooM, 10 juin 2012 - 02:36 .

[Seijin8]

@frypan: Yes, triceratops, but I got used another mod to remove them because their turning animation was crap, and hard to ignore when - on the open plains west of Whiterun, a triceratops is levitating around to follow a wolf... Same problem with JAWS using the slaughterfish model, only UBER.

@edisnooM: KoTOR2 project is really great. Seemed to add a lot of new life into the game. Haven't played it myself, but watched a friend doing so and was sorely tempted to reinstall and give it a go.

[edisnooM]

@Seijin8

Cool, now the only problem is finding a copy of it for PC.

[Seijin8]

No digital sources that I know of. Still available at some stores and off Amazon for around $10