169 réponses à ce sujet

[Grundle47]

I agree with Heri that a year of support for a MP experience is not that out of the ordinary. However, to have the content continually added for free is a different story. Gears of War/CoD etc. love to release map packs and charge for them. BW has not asked for a dime (and no, I don't count having the option to pay for packs).

With that said, is this the best model for a MP game? No, probably not. Is it leading to some issues when it comes to support? Yep, I'd bet it does. However, does it split the player-base along lines of who does and doesn't have the DLC? Nope. Does it allow new players to jump into the game without having to shell out an extra $20-30 just to have the same options as everyone else? yep.

There are inherent positives and negatives to this system of free content that they've went with. Obviously this system was more of an inherited thing brought about by being a "tacked on" MP to a traditionally SP game.

While I understand frustrations with the negatives I don't think anything has warranted a real emotional response either way. BW has done a fine job with the MP. They continue to support it for free. If they ask for more money from me for content my expectations for the overall experience would go up. Until then I don't see any reason to get angry at the state of the game. Voice your concerns, but there's nothing here that actually calls for getting our panties in a twist....or for fanboy zealotry in the other direction, I suppose.

[metaempiricist]

Heri wrote...

adrest4 wrote...

I bow to your greater knowledge of MP games - this has been my first MP so you're right to suspect my knowledge of dev support has been mostly SP based. To be honest ME3 MP has been well applauded by so many, I don't see the problem with taking pleasure from that. There is too much of a culture of entitlement and cynicism in the gamer community sometimes. 

I have the feeling that this game is the first MP game for a lot of people, which is part of the problem - a lack of perspective. Certainly supporting a single-player game with free new content for a year is a rare thing (it's normally either paid DLCs or just bug fix patches). But multiplayer games - if the company that made the game wants the community to actually last - absolutely *must* have long-term support. Look at any of Blizzard's multiplayer games for how this can be done (though Blizzard itself certainly gets its share of hate).

I personally don't feel entitled to much of anything when it comes to ME3 MP - I just want the game to actually work properly and not be riddled with a million bugs. As far as I'm concerned, this game doesn't need new content (actually kinda even feel like there are too many classes right now). What it needs is for all the bugs to be worked out and for it to actually be balanced properly. But I don't see too many signs that BW is interested in doing this - look at the last patch, $40,000 to fix ONE bug? I don't think I've ever seen a single missile glitcher in all my time playing on the PC. Whereas I do run into a large number of other serious bugs on a daily basis.

Anyway, I'm just frustrated with this game and will actually be looking forward to the day that EA's server for it go offline. I love the Mass Effect universe, and I was super excited about getting a MP game set in that universe. The fact that I still play the game in spite of all its glaring flaws shows how good of a game it could've been had it been coded properly (talking probably one of the best MP games in the last 10 years) and not just thrown together at the last minute as an add-on to the single player experience.

You think the only thing in the last patch was the missle glitch thing? Maybe this is YOUR first MP game huh? Go check out all the info from the data mined in that patch. You will see that there are so many more things within that that are needed data for next dlc<_<

[Patrak]

Robbiesan wrote...

gratitude folks. goes a long way. (some of you obviously know that)

Well said, dear sir. Well said. I concur.

[metaempiricist]

randomfoo wrote...

Bleachrude wrote...

Mp-Ryan, that's because most MP gams are PC only...It costs Valve nothing to update a game anytime they find a bug...

Sony and MS charge EA/Bioware 40k for each patch....We've had 5 patches for each console I believe, the first patch both Sony and MS give for free...which means that Bioware/EA has had to spend $320K

(Anyone want to double check my math...pretty sure I'm right though).

That's not paying the actual people doing the testing/coding..that's just pure money they had to give Sony/MS.

In the future I hope Bioware takes advantage of free PC updates to shake out the bugs in their patches. It took like what, 3 patches and 6 months to finally fix the ULM bug? Almost every time the community was able to determine that it was still not working almost immediately.

I'd guess that part why this didn't happen might have to do w/ architectural decisions (people playing with diferent versions, DLC don't seem to be able to talk to each other) that well, hopefully that's different next time. Having a beta program to get realworld telemetry/testing would probably help too and I'm sure lots of BSNer would jupm at the chance.

It also seems like there was a lot of legacy/hairy code being passed around different teams w/ lots of code archaelogy going on to fix various damage/interaction bugs - that's the only reasonable explanation I can imagine of at least to why some things that seem like they should have been super straight forward ended up being so tricky to fix...

While I'm very appreciative of the continued support and content that's been offered, and like others that are still playing it a year later, I've been pleasantly surprised and impressed by all that the team has done,  it seems like it the reception/longevity could have been even better if the devs were able to have been more aggressive in ironing out a lot of the more serious issues earlier (remember, it took 6mo for 1.04 to come up, which fixed the Vanguard and many other lag/net issues; in between that time, dev participation in the forums was few and far between (probably mostly due to the SP response, admittedly...).

funny how people think it is "free pc updating" nothing is free and it doesn't just happen by itself. You need to pay people for their time and energy and expertice. So yeah maybe cheaper but this is a port to pc FROM console and the console fanbase dwarfs the pc one. So like it or not we need to wait for all platforms.

[The_Fantasm]

Morugatu wrote...

The game is fun but full of ****ty writing, bad programming, mostly worseless patches, buggy AI, boring maps, static loading screens/menus , unbalanced enemies, etc.

The only three reasons I play it is its ME themed, online, and has a variety of characters. Beyond that just about everything about this game is a joke and I hope bioware are truly ashamed of how fast their games depreciate in value these days. It speaks volumes when Skyrim came out months before and costs almost three times as much.

The NWN model is what they should have stuck with and for one refuse to waste 60 bucks on another of their games when it'll be practically free in year. Hell I pay as much for games they made a decade or more ago as I can for ME3. Also the lack of DLC packed into reboxed ME or DA games along with the ME3 store setup just disgusts me.

would you like some cheese with that whine? Seriously, shut the hell up and leave if you have nothing worthwhile to say.

[Werdnuh]

Heri wrote...

You don't own this message board, so you can take your bossy attitude elsewhere. If you don't like people ****ing about the game, then don't read threads where people are doing so. Easy enough?

You don't own this message board, so you can take your bossy attitude elsewhere. If you don't like people telling you to go whine about the game somewhere else, then don't read threads where people are doing so. Easy enough?

(and for the record, I don't fawn over this game. I just don't think it's cool that you were rude and was calling you out on that. I have been playing MP games for 15 or so years now, and this game is not nearly as bad as you are painting it to be.)

Modifié par Werdnuh, 09 février 2013 - 06:34 .

[Haloburner]

EA: "The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Game companies rise, evolve, advance, and at the apex of their glory, they are extinguised. Bioware is not the first. By utilizing our funding, game companies develop along paths we desire. They exist becauuse we allow it, and will end because we demand it."

[Auras_Mendalla]

I am not one to get into a sniping war, and respectfully I must admit I don't play THIS game on PC, so I can't speak to some of those issues. I will point out that hacking has been and will continue to be ubiquitous for PC games; in other words, every game gets hacked to some degree that is out of the developer's immediate control.

As for some of the other non-platform specific issues, such as missle glitching and biotic charge misfiring, I agree that they're problems and would like them to be addressed, and indeed they've patched and repatched the missle glitch. Some people insist on cheating and keep finding backdoors. At this point you can't say they haven't seriously tried to fix that particular bug, and the banhammer doesn't stop new people from doing it. Is it gamebreaking? I don't think so. If it was gamebreaking, then neither I nor anyone else here would continue to play. Frustrating? Yes.

What I'm trying to express here is that I know there are problems, you know it too, and certainly so does BioWare. That doesn't mean we should rake them over the coals. We can politely ask "Hey guys, this is still happening, any word on a fix?". I know it gets irritating to have some issues linger like this, and I've cursed at my screen more than a few times when a biotic charge didn't line up properly or an ops pack doesn't save me from dying. But I adjust my play style accordingly, and continue to have fun. It's honestly made me a better player and now I'm getting into wall of text land, sheesh...

[HorriblePlajer]

Haloburner wrote...

EA: "The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Game companies rise, evolve, advance, and at the apex of their glory, they are extinguised. Bioware is not the first. By utilizing our funding, game companies develop along paths we desire. They exist becauuse we allow it, and will end because we demand it."

And apperantly the BW does not have Shepard. we are fracked.

[Mendelevosa]

Distilled Poison wrote...

Bryan Johnson wrote...

Let's be frank for a moment here, most games do not get support for a year. Who knows when we will be done.

Most games also don't launch with the number of bugs ME3 did.

Come on, let's not start this again.

[Mendelevosa]

Someone does not believe in the existence and validity of OneTrueShot.

Modifié par Mendelevosa, 09 février 2013 - 08:10 .

[Clearly Balkan]

Bad trolling OP.

[Auras_Mendalla]

Mendelevosa wrote...

Distilled Poison wrote...

Bryan Johnson wrote...

Let's be frank for a moment here, most games do not get support for a year. Who knows when we will be done.

Most games also don't launch with the number of bugs ME3 did.

Come on, let's not start this again.

Agreed

[nicethugbert]

Steppdaddy2 wrote...

Everyone's a critic.

This game has more value than any game on the market.

Great job Bioware.

I'm not sure of that.  We have Far Cry 3, CS:GO, BF3, Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and others now.  It's only natural that a game be superceeded over time.  The question is, how fast?  It seems like the gaming industry expects a game to thrive for about a year before it becomes a zombie or bargain bin dweller.

All  things hardware and related will naturally progress over time across the industry no matter the length of game life cycles.  But, I'm not so sure that such short game life cycles do not hurt games in other ways.  It seems to make it more difficult to obtain a game as a more complete package or more feature rich.

I think the only way that the current major game companies would possibly ever consider it feasable to deliver more complete or feature rich games would be to have a gaming platform that they could share among a lot of their games.  But I don't see game companies thinking that broadly across all their games.  The industry is mostly divided into developers and publishers which seems to discourage such unfied thinking.

EA is going to make all it's games use Frostbite 2.  But that is just a start at best.

[Cassandra Saturn]

now, now boys.. don't pick fights with Bryan and other posters.
if this continues, this thread will be locked.
as for favor of Bryan, please, do not cause trouble to him or the thread fights.

[Ninja Stan]

This is a reminder to please keep the thread on-topic and to play nice with one another. Thank you.

[AndanteInBlue]

I have to wonder if it is necessary to keep PC and console platforms "on the same patch". It's clear PC support is not where it could be, because of the console patch certification process. But need it be so? Could the two processes not be uncoupled?

[painforest]

lol @ "menpower"

[MP-Ryan]

AndanteInBlue wrote...

I have to wonder if it is necessary to keep PC and console platforms "on the same patch". It's clear PC support is not where it could be, because of the console patch certification process. But need it be so? Could the two processes not be uncoupled?

I asked that very question of two of the BioWare staff.  While they said it was an interesting idea, they commented that maintaining separate codebases could be a nightmare.

That said, I fail to understand why they don't use PC as a beta-testing platform for patches.  Release the PC patch a month ahead of the consoles, allow two weeks for testing and codebase changes, then send the console patches for certification...

...I guess there are business decisions behind it, but it is bloody frustrating how many bugs either make it through patches or get newly created in a patch.

[joker_jack]

nicethugbert wrote...

Steppdaddy2 wrote...

Everyone's a critic.

This game has more value than any game on the market.

Great job Bioware.

I'm not sure of that.  We have Far Cry 3, CS:GO, BF3, Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, and others now.  It's only natural that a game be superceeded over time.  The question is, how fast?  It seems like the gaming industry expects a game to thrive for about a year before it becomes a zombie or bargain bin dweller.

All  things hardware and related will naturally progress over time across the industry no matter the length of game life cycles.  But, I'm not so sure that such short game life cycles do not hurt games in other ways.  It seems to make it more difficult to obtain a game as a more complete package or more feature rich.

I think the only way that the current major game companies would possibly ever consider it feasable to deliver more complete or feature rich games would be to have a gaming platform that they could share among a lot of their games.  But I don't see game companies thinking that broadly across all their games.  The industry is mostly divided into developers and publishers which seems to discourage such unfied thinking.

EA is going to make all it's games use Frostbite 2.  But that is just a start at best.

Not only this, but now you have a trend in the industry in which you have to have a AAA title or you'll be sunk kind of attitude. Saddly the downfall of THQ has gone on to reenforce this mode of thinking. That was more a case of making bad games and poor business decisions. 

Another thing I've hated seeing is the yearly cycle of rehashed sequals (ie; the CoD effect). Great series like mass effect do well, but are over shadowed by crap like CoD. I know it's cliche to mention it by now, however it a huge reality of the movement in gameing culture. So much of the new and younger fanbase are a collective of idiots and fools. Anytime there is a game with a legit story, it will suck in thier eyes. Not to mention alot of this audience doen't have the attention span for a 20+ hour gaming experience. This circles us back to another factor in the year long longevity of a game.

When you look at it this way, you kinda of have to be suprised that a game like mass effect exists and has such a broad fanbase. The multiplayer itself in 3 is a bit of something special. We have classes that couldn't hope to exist in any other universe. I've seen a muiltiplayer that has gotten caster classes work as well as a vanilla soldier class. 

Hopefully mass effect continues to be the great rpg it always has been and if another mp is included that BW keeps it from being CoD in space, as the saying goes.

[Trav-O]

There has been a huge amount of free content on MP, and given everyone a chance to play against Collectors again, fought as their favorite alien, upped the ante and made some pretty cool N7 earth variants for the 'humans r boring' naysayers. The extra maps. I would not have expected as much packed into this as what we have gotten. Don't be a hater.

[Cassandra Saturn]

yes Ryan, it happens in such way that they cannot predict the outcome of what kinds of patches for PC. each computer is diffrent.

[The fool you should have eaten]

Heri wrote...

Werdnuh wrote...

@Heri - if you are so mad at the game why are you wasting your time here instead of just not playing it?

You are on the official Bioware forums, we are going to be an echo chamber to the positive elements of the developer and the game. We are here because we love the Mass Effect multiplayer, regardless of bugs. And you are here literally wasting your time shouting about how mad the bugs make you, when the obvious majority of us just don't care. We are aware of the bugs, we know they are there, but we also understand that they are not going to be fixed. And as a rule we are okay with that.

Yeah, I wish that some of the bugs didn't exist, they are legitimately frustrating. But I also recognize that there is not going to be a rewrite of the game at a base-level, and as a result, most of these bugs are here for the duration. This game is basically a beta for the Mass Effect 4 multiplayer, and considering that, I have no complaints.

If you have a problem with that, go preach about it somewhere else, and stop being a jackass to our QA guy. I really don't care that you don't like the game, but I do care that you are being rude to someone who is just doing his job.

Who said the purpose of message boards like this is to fawn over the developer? You've got a right to lavish praise on BW all day, and others have the right to lodge complaints about what they feel are problems with the game. Personally, I think your apathetic attitude is exactly the reason why developers don't fix their games. Look at the ending to ME3 - you think BW would've made the extended cut if there hadn't been an uproar from the playerbase?

You don't own this message board, so you can take your bossy attitude elsewhere. If you don't like people ****ing about the game, then don't read threads where people are doing so. Easy enough?

I thought that you might have missed this.  Be civil, and people might just listen to you.

I have been so pleasantly surprised about how this MP turned out.  I feared that it would be terrible, when in reality, it has kept me from completing more than one SP playthrough by occupying the past year of my gaming experience.  The only issue that I have ever had with EA is when I try to host, which almost always causes me to DC.  The solution?  Don't host.

Modifié par The fool you should have eaten, 09 février 2013 - 08:35 .

[randomfoo]

Heri wrote...
Let's see, bugs that I'd consider game-breaking:

I think most people would agree that you're conception of "game breaking" is laughably wrong.  A game breaking bug - BREAKS the game. That would be a crasher, or a certain class of major bugs that prevent progress of the game.  I would say the only things that currently qualify as game-breaking would be the PS3 Collector hard crash, the intermittent ME3 Auth Server issues, and the the intermittent Drone Objective/Inaccessible enemy issues (which prevents match progression).

- Biotic charge periodically not working even though you have an enemy targeted (if you're playing a HV this is usually followed by your death, and yes it can happen when you're hosting)

Yes, this is annoying for off-host and lagged Vanguards. Does this break the game? Not by any reasonable definition of the term. This is not a major problem if you're not playing w/ a host halfway around the world. (Yes, it'd be nice to be able to tell before joining)

- Bullets not actually firing when you've got a non-low ping (usually takes me 8 clicks to actually empty a Piranha's clip)

There are lots of lag-based bugs - some of it could probably be designed better, and some of it happens because you can't filter/see hosts by ping in the matchmaking, but this is a problem w/ pretty much all UDP-based MP games w/ bad ping.  This falls somewhere between Working as Intended and Deal With It.

- Hitting an ops pack and dying, and having the ops pack used up anyway

Annoying, it'd be nice if they designed the Ops Pack (and other health-related actions) to respect your client values w/in a certain (potentially ping-based) window, but again, game-breaking? "You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means."

- Rubberbanding when you've got a high ping

Yeah, being an HPB sucks, doesn't it? See above.

- Getting DC'ed from a game means you lose all credits and consumables used

Working as Intended.  If you didn't lose your creds/consumables, it'd be abused (which you rail against later.)

- Terrible matchmaking system where if I don't periodically do something like entering the store or looking at the leaderboards, it'll sit on the "looking for match" screen for ages and never actually find anything

Matchmaking could be improved and even thought it's a RFE, I would put that as a bug as it exacerbates all the network-based issues. This is the first I've heard that looking at leaderboards changes anything. I suspect that's placebo.  Still, hasn't stopped me from playing.

- Missile glitching

This is gamebreaking, and they've been trying to fix it. That being said, glitching is a simple fact of life for any MP game (even those w/o RMT or progression).  That's not a bug, that's just a result of making something that people want to play. The glitching has been positively tame compared to any of the other MP shooters I've played (PVE not PVP), so again, I'm not seeing your point.

- Lots of game hacking on the PC

See above.

Well anyway, I'll stop there because I could come up with a list a mile long. This is without a doubt the BUGGIEST multiplayer game I've ever played, and it shows how tacked-on it was and not thoroughly thought out.

Here's the list I've recently compiled of all the known bugs.  Most all of them are minor and wouldn't even be noticed by most players. Some of them cancel out w/ the bugs in players' favor.

Yeah, it'd be nice if some of the more annoying ones were fixed, but at the same time, as someone who's played from the beginning, I just think that anyone that imagines the remaining bugs to be anywhere close to the demo/release just has no perspective at all.

The problem that most MP games have isn't that they're buggy, it's that they're not fun. They may be buggier games, but no one's discovered them because no one plays them. Support/content is also a function of popularity and profitability.  By that rubric, the ME3MP team has done a fantastic job and made such a huge improvement from release, which is why the people that have stuck by MP appreciate how far it's come.

IMO, anyone who's ranting or raving (discussion is one thing, hyperbole is another) is either lacking in maturity or perspective. Or should get over it, stop playing and leave the community be.