118 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Random Jerkface wrote...

Choices hardly feel like choices if you don't have to weigh up their long term value or even understand the question being posed to you

Which is exactly what the ending was. We were given three answers to a question manufactured at the last minute, and little context or information. We can hardly weigh the pros and cons of any of the choices, because outside of the red killswitch, we have absolutely no idea what they bloody do. If we don't know what the consequences are (and are given nothing to infer...delicious speculations), it ceases to be choice.

Huh. Blue might be a little ambiguous (controlled to do what, exactly?), but red and green are exactly what they're said to be.

[Humanoid_Typhoon]

Omega Torsk wrote...

Artemis_Entrari wrote...

prazision wrote...

The Rachni thing is the only one that's 100% unforgivable. "Oh you killed all the Rachni? Well uh... hm. How about... okay, the Reapers MADE MORE RACHNI! How? Space magic? I guess? Who cares check out this boss cutscene with Grunt!"

In one of their tweets or answers to an interview, a Dev explained that away with a pretty lame excuse.  Something about not wanting players to miss out on a mission based on a decision they made in a previous game.  Well duh!  That's the point of Choice & Consequence.  It would have been better if that's EXACTLY what happened.  You killed the Rachni Queen?  She doesn't appear in ME3, and you don't get that mission.

Also, no Ravagers... I think a lot of people would've been fine with that. Lol

everyone ever would kill the queen lol

[Artemis_Entrari]

Humanoid_Typhoon wrote...

Omega Torsk wrote...

Artemis_Entrari wrote...

prazision wrote...

The Rachni thing is the only one that's 100% unforgivable. "Oh you killed all the Rachni? Well uh... hm. How about... okay, the Reapers MADE MORE RACHNI! How? Space magic? I guess? Who cares check out this boss cutscene with Grunt!"

In one of their tweets or answers to an interview, a Dev explained that away with a pretty lame excuse.  Something about not wanting players to miss out on a mission based on a decision they made in a previous game.  Well duh!  That's the point of Choice & Consequence.  It would have been better if that's EXACTLY what happened.  You killed the Rachni Queen?  She doesn't appear in ME3, and you don't get that mission.

Also, no Ravagers... I think a lot of people would've been fine with that. Lol

everyone ever would kill the queen lol

What ...?

[Cainne Chapel]

well wastelander it did better at launch than ME2 and ME1 did. But you have to remember the ME series is not, nor would it ever be COD numbers or anything, but so far as much, ME3 has done quite well, given ME2 and ME1's numbers.

The true measure is to see its Long term numbers, after a few months. and then compare.

But i wouldnt also be surprised to see ME2's numbers jump when ME3 came out, etc.

[AlanC9]

Artemis_Entrari wrote...

prazision wrote...

The Rachni thing is the only one that's 100% unforgivable. "Oh you killed all the Rachni? Well uh... hm. How about... okay, the Reapers MADE MORE RACHNI! How? Space magic? I guess? Who cares check out this boss cutscene with Grunt!"

In one of their tweets or answers to an interview, a Dev explained that away with a pretty lame excuse.  Something about not wanting players to miss out on a mission based on a decision they made in a previous game.  Well duh!  That's the point of Choice & Consequence.  It would have been better if that's EXACTLY what happened.  You killed the Rachni Queen?  She doesn't appear in ME3, and you don't get that mission.

Bio's never believed in that design philosophy. They don't even like doing multiple quest paths much. One of the devs -- probably Gaider, since he's often too honest about stuff -- once said that they don't think it's a good design approach to lock out content since most players don't play the games more than once. I believe Patrick Weekes got into a discussion of this issue on Twitter this week too. Which is why the consensus over at RPGCodex is that Bio's a bad RPG developer and always has been.

Artemis, you've been around for a while, IIRC. Is this really any different from what Bio's always done? I don't see it.

[Cainne Chapel]

No C9 it isn't.

People have to remember the amount of people who replay a game more than even twice is VERY small.

although, I, have played through ME1 and 2 more than 12+ times each (30+ times in ME2's case) occupy probably not even .000000001% of the people who have played the games either.

I understand their design philosophy though and honestly it doesnt bother me as long as I enjoy their games.

[CARL_DF90]

There is no real philosophy behind screw-ups and Bioware definitely did that. I was a very avid defender of Bioware right up until the release of ME3. The reasons are numerous so I'll spare everyone here a wall of text. Point is, they are not showing ANY amount of humility in these half-baked excuses that most half-way intelligent people could see through. It's really disappointing.

[2seater]

eh... I'm just waiting a year or two to stumble on a Kotaku story about the BW team admitting they didn't have time.

[CARL_DF90]

I only see that happening with a former employee being anonymous to prevent being blacklisted in the industry. It does happen to people who are deemed too "talkative".

[SalsaDMA]

Humanoid_Typhoon wrote...

Omega Torsk wrote...

Artemis_Entrari wrote...

prazision wrote...

The Rachni thing is the only one that's 100% unforgivable. "Oh you killed all the Rachni? Well uh... hm. How about... okay, the Reapers MADE MORE RACHNI! How? Space magic? I guess? Who cares check out this boss cutscene with Grunt!"

In one of their tweets or answers to an interview, a Dev explained that away with a pretty lame excuse.  Something about not wanting players to miss out on a mission based on a decision they made in a previous game.  Well duh!  That's the point of Choice & Consequence.  It would have been better if that's EXACTLY what happened.  You killed the Rachni Queen?  She doesn't appear in ME3, and you don't get that mission.

Also, no Ravagers... I think a lot of people would've been fine with that. Lol

everyone ever would kill the queen lol

when I first heard about the ME3 rachnii husks, I had thought it would be a weighed consequence.

Kill the queen and don't need to fight rachnii husks. Don't kill the queen and even though the difficulty might increase in certain fights due to the presence of rachnii husks, she would still give you a benefit overall, since she would supply you would alot of troops for the final space and ground battle. In other words, higher difficulty for higher reward. I even seem to recall the devs hinting at something in this line without saying it directly in interviews.

Alas. It was not to be, and Bioware dropped the ball on this one as well...

[SalsaDMA]

AlanC9 wrote...

Artemis_Entrari wrote...

prazision wrote...

The Rachni thing is the only one that's 100% unforgivable. "Oh you killed all the Rachni? Well uh... hm. How about... okay, the Reapers MADE MORE RACHNI! How? Space magic? I guess? Who cares check out this boss cutscene with Grunt!"

In one of their tweets or answers to an interview, a Dev explained that away with a pretty lame excuse.  Something about not wanting players to miss out on a mission based on a decision they made in a previous game.  Well duh!  That's the point of Choice & Consequence.  It would have been better if that's EXACTLY what happened.  You killed the Rachni Queen?  She doesn't appear in ME3, and you don't get that mission.

Bio's never believed in that design philosophy. They don't even like doing multiple quest paths much. One of the devs -- probably Gaider, since he's often too honest about stuff -- once said that they don't think it's a good design approach to lock out content since most players don't play the games more than once. I believe Patrick Weekes got into a discussion of this issue on Twitter this week too. Which is why the consensus over at RPGCodex is that Bio's a bad RPG developer and always has been.

Artemis, you've been around for a while, IIRC. Is this really any different from what Bio's always done? I don't see it.

Funny thing is, though, that in DA:O you HAD these cases of choices and consequences. Not in everything, mind you, but in various variations here and there throughout the game. First time was even right after you had created your character, where the starting area and what you experienced there depended entirely upon your choice of race and background.

At one point, I even ended up killing some of my companions in DA:O just to experience one of the branches in the game (desecrating the ash of some saint, I seem to recall, which caused the companions I had taken along to go apenuts on my character).

Comparing these things to what you get from ME by now, and it seems like it's totally different design philosophies guiding the games. Bioware DID create DA:O, so I think they were on the right track back then, but 'fell to the dark side'...

[spirosz]

Cainne Chapel wrote...

I still dont get where people say "rushed" and now "annual release".

ME3 had the exact same amount of dev time as ME2 did, and it DIDN'T have to do a whole gameplay overhaul either.

The story wasn't unfinished in the least, the ending was just sub par. Up UNTIL the ending I thought the story was very well done and while I do wish there was MORE. I'm not complaining either.

ME2 could of used a bit more time, any game that comes out could. If they don't have a certain time frame to hit, then they'll need to know when to "finish" per say. Now, with the arguments about ME3 being rushed, it clearly was. Sure, you can say it had the same development time as ME2, but look at how that turned out for ME3 itself - stock photos, more frame rate cuts and bugs compared to both the previous games, sidelining of certain characters, the ENDING, lol. You can argue that this is all subjective, which is true, but there are some things I believe that can't be ignored. Also, I believe it was stated that ME2 had a much smoother development time compared to ME3. Again, it's cool if you don't agree, I just believe that they had a much larger plan for what ME3 would/could of been, but it couldn't of happened with the way they're recently releasing games every 1 and a half years.

What else would of been cut if they decided to come out in their earlier release date?

[SalsaDMA]

spiros9110 wrote...

What else would of been cut if they decided to come out in their earlier release date?

The end?

Maybe that would have been a good thing

[Cainne Chapel]

spiros9110 wrote...

Cainne Chapel wrote...

I still dont get where people say "rushed" and now "annual release".

ME3 had the exact same amount of dev time as ME2 did, and it DIDN'T have to do a whole gameplay overhaul either.

The story wasn't unfinished in the least, the ending was just sub par. Up UNTIL the ending I thought the story was very well done and while I do wish there was MORE. I'm not complaining either.

ME2 could of used a bit more time, any game that comes out could. If they don't have a certain time frame to hit, then they'll need to know when to "finish" per say. Now, with the arguments about ME3 being rushed, it clearly was. Sure, you can say it had the same development time as ME2, but look at how that turned out for ME3 itself - stock photos, more frame rate cuts and bugs compared to both the previous games, sidelining of certain characters, the ENDING, lol. You can argue that this is all subjective, which is true, but there are some things I believe that can't be ignored. Also, I believe it was stated that ME2 had a much smoother development time compared to ME3. Again, it's cool if you don't agree, I just believe that they had a much larger plan for what ME3 would/could of been, but it couldn't of happened with the way they're recently releasing games every 1 and a half years.

What else would of been cut if they decided to come out in their earlier release date?

But thats the thing though, it IS subjective.  There was a time when ME2 was even considered horrible next to ME1.

That said, One stock photo doesn't strike me as rushed (or two as it were), i didn't have very many bugs in ME3, but the ones I did were also present in ME2 and I suffered MUCH more in ME1.  But then thats personally speaking. Sidelining of certain characters was also present to a degree in ME2 as well, but then there weren't as MANY to sideline in ME1 as there were in ME2.

If you look back there were a LOT of things that got cut from ME2 or changed due to dev time, even the ending mission was supposed to play out differently as was originally planned but was changed due to time constraints.  Really they could of made ME2 AND 3 larger, but as you say the same could be said for all games.  

Now is that to say it was perfect? No, but then I dont strive for perfection in video games because it never happens, but could they have done better? Of course.

Still I enjoyed ME3 thoroughly (even more so I dare say than 1 and 2) as I got to see a lot of threads tied up.  But I would have liked at least an ending that at LEAST let me see what the consequences of some of my decisions were and what happened to, at the very least, my crew.  As it is I would say my biggest complaint with the ending is lack of closure in BW speak as we got next to none.

[CARL_DF90]

Read this awesome thread here:

http://social.biowar...ndex/11435886/1

Another great that sums the problems up perfectly.

[Ravennus]

Their PR department alone, should have seen this coming a loooong way off.

"So, guys, we know you've been working hard on the game and some of you have even been tasked with promoting it in various ways... but we need to ask... are you going to deliver on what you're promising?  We're going to have a giant headache if you don't, so be honest and we can start the damage control now."

Honestly, it's their job to check this stuff.
Interviews, blog posts, twitter, facebook, advertisements, behind-the-scene documentarys, forums, FAQs, and even the bloody game box descriptions should have been combed to make sure that they didn't put put themselves into a bad situation and potentially lose the trust of their customers.

Of course, that didn't happen, and so we have a complete disconnect between what was promised/implied.... and what we actually recieved.
In some case, it could be considered subjective... like the ending.
In other cases, there is clearly a provable difference between what was specifically promised and what was delivered (the SP only EMS issue being a perfect example)


No matter how 'creatively occupied' certain members of the development team were, that they couldn't see this coming... the PR department should have.
Instead, the company went into full lockdown mode and has handled the situation very poorly.


I know that a lot of people point fingers at Bioware developers, but we should really focus on whoever has been running the show since the backlash began.  It's honestly turned into a PR nightmare, and whoever is handling this has only made things much worse for EA and Bioware.

[LegionMan]

 I am...curious as to how much playtesting BW did.  If only they had ValvE's committment to game quality...(without the hats)

[CARL_DF90]

6-3-12

That is what ME3's release date SHOULD have been. *sighs* If only it played out that way.

[Loaderini]

detbasketball13 wrote...

 How did they not?

When you release a clearly unfinished game (story wise) how did they not expect this controversy.

Why did they scrap the original ending along with the large amount of cuts to the current story.

So what if the og ending was leaked, Its not like im going to look up the ending on the internet before I play the game.

it was not a decision that was made by the company as a whole, but a decision that was made by 2 people

[Get Magna Carter]

I think they wanted a controversial ending. They just underestimated the scale of the backlash

[Robhuzz]

CARL_DF90 wrote...

6-3-12

That is what ME3's release date SHOULD have been. *sighs* If only it played out that way.

More like 06-03-13

European date notation.

 I am...curious as to how much playtesting BW did.  If only they had ValvE's committment to game quality...(without the hats) 

Many of the devs at BioWare probably do. Only EA's commitment to making as much money as possible takes priority over BioWare's commitment to making good games.

Modifié par Robhuzz, 07 mai 2012 - 11:01 .

[DaJe]

SalsaDMA wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Artemis_Entrari wrote...

prazision wrote...

The Rachni thing is the only one that's 100% unforgivable. "Oh you killed all the Rachni? Well uh... hm. How about... okay, the Reapers MADE MORE RACHNI! How? Space magic? I guess? Who cares check out this boss cutscene with Grunt!"

In one of their tweets or answers to an interview, a Dev explained that away with a pretty lame excuse.  Something about not wanting players to miss out on a mission based on a decision they made in a previous game.  Well duh!  That's the point of Choice & Consequence.  It would have been better if that's EXACTLY what happened.  You killed the Rachni Queen?  She doesn't appear in ME3, and you don't get that mission.

Bio's never believed in that design philosophy. They don't even like doing multiple quest paths much. One of the devs -- probably Gaider, since he's often too honest about stuff -- once said that they don't think it's a good design approach to lock out content since most players don't play the games more than once. I believe Patrick Weekes got into a discussion of this issue on Twitter this week too. Which is why the consensus over at RPGCodex is that Bio's a bad RPG developer and always has been.

Artemis, you've been around for a while, IIRC. Is this really any different from what Bio's always done? I don't see it.

Funny thing is, though, that in DA:O you HAD these cases of choices and consequences. Not in everything, mind you, but in various variations here and there throughout the game. First time was even right after you had created your character, where the starting area and what you experienced there depended entirely upon your choice of race and background.

At one point, I even ended up killing some of my companions in DA:O just to experience one of the branches in the game (desecrating the ash of some saint, I seem to recall, which caused the companions I had taken along to go apenuts on my character).

Comparing these things to what you get from ME by now, and it seems like it's totally different design philosophies guiding the games. Bioware DID create DA:O, so I think they were on the right track back then, but 'fell to the dark side'...

It might sound harsh but that Bioware doesn't exist anymore. If the lead designer of such a highly aclaimed game, which brought back a dead genre (huge market niche) leaves, then that is not a good sign. Many others left too.
Also let's not forget that the lead designer was replaced by someone who was much more talkative and over the top in his marketing presence it reall shows how priorities have changed. Marketing>Game.

The Bioware name prevails to cash in on fals expectations from past qualities (not to say there arn't new qualities), but looking back the company has gone through a change in the industry that is quite unique.

If anyone would have told me 7 years ago that Bioware will make shooters and a Generals sequel I'd declare them insane.

Modifié par DaJe, 07 mai 2012 - 11:15 .

[ToaOrka]

My guess? They were drunk on EA money and didn't give a crap about the franchise anymore.