Dying harddrives I think are the most paralyzing event in development. This has been the best week.
No, my Mass Effect Andromeda build is not taking up 4.5 _PETA_bytes of space. Go home harddrive, you're drunk
I'm starting my xcom2 game and using the rest of the MEA core leadership team as cannon fodder. Mwaha. Except @MrJoelMac. He's somehow lucky
Gameplay designers Ben and Andrew attempt to answer an impossible question: what is fun? https://youtu.be/9dV-fdxDFy4
LIIIIIIIIIIKKKEEE!!! 
It's strange to work in a job where I can say, "We just need dead people over here" and no one thinks it's weird.
Must be some interesting conversations that happen at Bioware. 
Corpses: CONFIRMED
Better than nothing right?
What kind of corpses though? Eh? "People" = humans? Generalizing for a certain alien race?
This is what happens to me when I don't have enough info. 
What kind of corpses though? Eh? "People" = humans? Generalizing for a certain alien race?
This is what happens to me when I don't have enough info.
Being that we're in a foreign galaxy, I would assume probably both. They're shooting at us, we're shooting at them. Ya know, the usual.
I think the big word for MEA will be 'open'. Open open open. Play how you want, go where you want, do the things you want.
Yeah. Grind meaningless sidequests where you want. Find husband's ring wherever you want. Kill random enemies wherever you want in any order!
Yeah. Grind meaningless sidequests where you want. Find husband's ring wherever you want. Kill random enemies wherever you want in any order!
Just so long as it's not required to advance the story....
Yeah. Grind meaningless sidequests where you want. Find husband's ring wherever you want. Kill random enemies wherever you want in any order!
Just so long as it's not required to advance the story....
I want to say something: a game cannot punish you if you want to do everything, and some open world games do just that. If you want to get 100% done, prepare yourself for hours and hours of tedious stuff. Of course, not everything must be awesome, hell, not even short games manage that, but it also doesn't mean the developer should put bad quests and just say "you don't have to do them if you don't want to". It's hard to say that a content that would make a game better if it wasn't there is a good choice.
I just think of those few little side/fetch quests in ME1 and how they were utterly meaningless for five years, and then they came together in glorious fashion in one encounter on the refugee docks in ME3, with Conrad Verner. Not saying that every fetch/side quest will be valuable in the long run, but sometimes they are totally worth it.
I want this, but for more than 'sometimes'. And I will admit that I found even many of the most 'pointless' ME3 sidequests more interesting than more of the DAI ones (even in terms of how they contribute to the setting and events).
ME3 was kind of a special case because all those little quests contributed to the war effort in some way. You could go back to the comm room on the Normandy and read a little blurb about it, and I liked that.I want this, but for more than 'sometimes'. And I will admit that I found even many of the most 'pointless' ME3 sidequests more interesting than more of the DAI ones (even in terms of how they contribute to the setting and events).
ME3 was kind of a special case because all those little quests contributed to the war effort in some way. You could go back to the comm room on the Normandy and read a little blurb about it, and I liked that.
DA:I's quests could have worked better if I could have gone back to camp and assigned them to the scouts: "Harding, while you're out there turning mages and templars into pincushions, I need you to keep an eye out for some supply caches. Mark their locations and report back to so-and-so when you've found all five." And then the next time I'm in camp, Harding would approach and say, "mission accomplished." ...delegation is the thing, heh.
+1 if this means we would encounter Harding on the way.
@mel_f_lem @joshstiksma @JasonTBarlow also thank you Joe whoever you are because this image just made my day.
ME3 was kind of a special case because all those little quests contributed to the war effort in some way. You could go back to the comm room on the Normandy and read a little blurb about it, and I liked that.
DA:I's quests could have worked better if I could have gone back to camp and assigned them to the scouts: "Harding, while you're out there turning mages and templars into pincushions, I need you to keep an eye out for some supply caches. Mark their locations and report back to so-and-so when you've found all five." And then the next time I'm in camp, Harding would approach and say, "mission accomplished." ...delegation is the thing, heh.
Í think you are right because Power was a less well-defined idea than War Assets. Both have a problem in how they're not really explained... I mean, what IS "1 War Asset"? How is this calculated and how much equals one dead Sovereign? Power is just... something. I can't decipher it. It's just an abstract score to symbolize how much power you have... really it's just a currency, they might as well have called it "Magic Money! Money that makes things happen!"
But yeah, the way they at least categorized war assets and made codex-like entries for all of them made it seem a little bit less arbitrary. I still had sort of an empty feeling after each non-plot mission because I didn't have a sense of what War Assets really was or how it worked. I kept going to the console expecting to find some kind of hidden interaction I had overlooked. "How do I use this thing??" I thought. Really, EMS was little more than a high-score and from the second I saw how it was turning all choices into points I already felt like the promise of "your choices matter" was just that: A highscore and little more. Thankfully multiple playthroughs proved me wrong to some extent but still. Was the EMS system even made so each war asset entry had a varible that could've worked like a squadmate in a suicide mission like in ME2? I didn't really feel like it did but I haven't datamined it.
Í think you are right because Power was a less well-defined idea than War Assets. Both have a problem in how they're not really explained... I mean, what IS "1 War Asset"? How is this calculated and how much equals one dead Sovereign? Power is just... something. I can't decipher it. It's just an abstract score to symbolize how much power you have... really it's just a currency, they might as well have called it "Magic Money! Money that makes things happen!"
But yeah, the way they at least categorized war assets and made codex-like entries for all of them made it seem a little bit less arbitrary. I still had sort of an empty feeling after each non-plot mission because I didn't have a sense of what War Assets really was or how it worked. I kept going to the console expecting to find some kind of hidden interaction I had overlooked. "How do I use this thing??" I thought. Really, EMS was little more than a high-score and from the second I saw how it was turning all choices into points I already felt like the promise of "your choices matter" was just that: A highscore and little more. Thankfully multiple playthroughs proved me wrong to some extent but still. Was the EMS system even made so each war asset entry had a varible that could've worked like a squadmate in a suicide mission like in ME2? I didn't really feel like it did but I haven't datamined it.
Right, and this might be a little abstract to you, but what is power? Is power the ability to sleep with anyone? No, that comes with practice. Is power the ability to influence nations? No, the ability to tell the truth will matter more. So, what is power? The same goes with war assets. America, the mightiest nation, got its ass handed to us by a bunch of rice farmers in southeast Asia. Same war. Different kind.
EDIT : Damn, XCom 2 really has me thinking about guerrilla warfare. If you haven't been chased down by an alien spaceship, I wouldn't recommend it. I took out like 44/50 with 4 wounded, 4 killed, about 100 playthroughs of the same battle just to save one person who finally had achieved a nickname. It was brutal.
Right, and this might be a little abstract to you, but what is power? Is power the ability to sleep with anyone? No, that comes with practice. Is power the ability to influence nations? No, the ability to tell the truth will matter more. So, what is power? The same goes with war assets. America, the mightiest nation, got its ass handed to us by a bunch of rice farmers in southeast Asia. Same war. Different kind.
Power is influence, whether it be intelligence, military might, and/or political and economic connections.
Um...the United States won almost every if not every battle of the Vietnam War.
Power is influence, whether it be intelligence, military might, and/or political and economic connections.
Um...the United States won 100% of the battles during the Vietnam War. The only reason the US lost was because they withdrew, but it wasn't because of the Vietnamese.
Wow. That's all I can say is wow. Oh yah, and read a history book. I don't really care which one, just one.
Wow. That's all I can say is wow. Oh yah, and read a history book. I don't really care which one, just one.
I have. At the end of the war, North Vietnam was forced to the negotiating table due to a variety of factors, from the United States accelerating their war efforts rather than fighting a limited war and pressure from their communist allies to cease hostilities. A ceasefire was reached at the Paris Peace Accords, and the withdrawal of American forces began. When the ceasefire was broken by North Vietnam a couple years later, America deemed continued warfare inadvisable for a variety of factors, resulting in North Vietnam winning the war.
I have. At the end of the war, North Vietnam was forced to the negotiating table due to a variety of factors, from the United States accelerating their war efforts rather than fighting a limited war and pressure from their communist allies to cease hostilities. A ceasefire was reached, and the withdrawal of American forces began.
Look, I don't wanna turn this into the Vietnam place to talk, so let's just say that you're 100% correct and leave it at that. Even if you're maybe, maybe, 50% correct.
ME3 was kind of a special case because all those little quests contributed to the war effort in some way. You could go back to the comm room on the Normandy and read a little blurb about it, and I liked that.
Yeah, I liked that as well. It made much more sense than the side quests in ME1 or ME2, which felt out of place considering the gravity of the situation in the main quest, like "Saren is looking for the Conduit to bring the Reapers back, but finding this missing person is more important" or "The Collectors are abducting millions of people, but stopping the actions of some crime syndicates come first". Though ME2 at least allowed players to do the side quests after the main quest, making it flow better.
All of the side content in ME3 was good except the missions where you had to scan planets. I didn't mind picking up an advanced medigel formula while on an N7 mission (which I consider essential game play along with former squad missions) but flying all the way to Gei Hinnom (sp?) to scan for a prothean sphere (or whatever it was) wasn't fun. It also would have been better if all those pick-up missions had cut sequences like Bilal Osoba's dogtags instead of just the creepy eavesdropping.
I don't mind tons of extra (relatively meaningless) content if it's structured in a way that you what the meat and potatoes is and what is just fluff. I think keeping missions in separate sections of the mission log is a good idea but make it more complex than "main mission/sidequest". Have them set out in some sort of priority system so you have:
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