50 réponses à ce sujet

[cap and gown]

Grizzly46 wrote...

Mass Effect would however do well with a lot more exploration instead of the decorated corridors we have now, not to mention the constant recycling of interiors in especially ME1.

Skyrim's dungeons are just decorated corridors. MEs battlefields are the equivalent of Skyrim's dungeons, while traveling around the Milky Way in the Normandy is the equivalent of riding from one dungeon to the next on your horse. As I said earlier, ME1 and ME2 are already pretty much Open World games, with that "world" being the galaxy, and individual planets being the dungeons.

[huntrrz]

Maybe I missed it, but I'm surprised noone's mentioned "No Man's Sky" yet. They're developing a completely procedurally generated universe - which will also be persistent and support multiple players.

I hope they pull it off - and if they do, maybe Bioware can license their engine and use it to create an open-world ME experience.

[Seival]

Zakuspec089 wrote...

Mass Effect Openworld Sandbox?

The worst idea possible. Openworld sandbox games can't be really story-driven. They are "gameplay for the sake of gameplay games". Examples: EVE Online, Skyrim, Oblivion, etc... And I don't wanna one of Mass Effect games to add to that list.

[CptData]

Skyrim had a story ^^

[Zakuspec089]

I'm good with it as Spin-Off, eitehr ways Shepard story is done. In the new games I hope there's more open world and species customization, the last too felt too linear but it was fun though. I think they should follow from Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3 but update and add new features, new stories. A Openworld Game would be fun too.

[Guanxii]

Despite the feeling that it might possibly never happen ever since ME2 I've been wanting bigger explorable hubs. Omega DLC was such a obvious wasted opportunity for exploration and side-questing - again working within budget & time constraints.

Generally speaking I think it's not just a budget/time thing it's that the entire (design) approach of the Mass Effect trilogy was wrong-headed. Why bother keeping track of 1000s of plot-flags at great expense if the impact of doing so is less pronounced than if you'd just recoreded half a dozen that actually impacted the series in a meaningful way. They clearly were making it up as they were going along because If they had planned divergent paths ahead of time before begining development we would have seen some plot divergence/meaningful effect over the course of the series.

I understand about game-states and testing - I just think this overall approach to 'role-playing' wastes a load of extra time, money and effort for the ultimate results over the course of three games that could have been avoided with smarter design choices - freeing up resources so that they could be used more effectively - from exploration to actual honest to god role playing. BioWare negating 'choices' as much as possible at every opportunity does not help things.

Personally I'm done with biowares interpretation of 'RPG elements' and their illusion of choice even in dialogue trees. We should give it a rest about 'role playing'. The 'role playing' aspects of this franchise are terrible and are not where it's strengths are.

Edit: Mass Effect proved two thing to me: 1) that voiced player defined characters don't work in an RPG. 2) The greater the emphasis on narrative (writer control) the less opportunity there is for 'role playing' (player control). If the next game is even more 'linear' from a narrative perspective (eshewing defined player choices - perhaps) then there might be more opportunity to explore other more interesting aspects of this franchise with the budget like space exploration.

My ideal openworld Mass Effect game would be basically Assassin's Creed with Thane on Illium with playable skycars. The galaxy's most infamous assassin 'making the galaxy brighter one rich criminal a-hole at a time' in the backdrop of the most glamorous city (Nos Astra, Illium) in the galaxy. 

Modifié par Guanxii, 09 février 2014 - 03:37 .

[AlexMBrennan]

Something to keep in mind is that hubs (i.e. large areas you can return to at any point in the adventure) don't work with consoles since they have been stuck with circa 80s storage technology - if you want a hub area, you have to include a copy of it on every game disk... (This was the reason you have to recruit the ME2 henchmen in the given order)

Of course, if console developers had a single brain cell between them they'd realise that you can get a 1TB HDD for $50 which would easily provide the space to properly install all games.

Modifié par AlexMBrennan, 09 février 2014 - 03:05 .

[Guanxii]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

Something to keep in mind is that hubs (i.e. large areas you can return to at any point in the adventure) don't work with consoles since they have been stuck with circa 80s storage technology - if you want a hub area, you have to include a copy of it on every game disk... (This was the reason you have to recruit the ME2 henchmen in the given order)

Of course, if console developers had a single brain cell between them they'd realise that you can get a 1TB HDD for $50 which would easily provide the space to properly install all games.

No excuses now then on consoles with blu-ray drives, 500gb+ HDDs and external storage and 8GB of RAM. With the new console generation i'm cautiously optimistic that we might see more impressive [hub]world design from BioWare. 

Modifié par Guanxii, 09 février 2014 - 03:34 .

[tanisha__unknown]

It might work. The universe is rich enough.

However, Mass Effect has been a rather story and character driven game, exploration was there, but received quite a bit of criticism:

ME1 - the exact same three dungeons placed o randomly generated surface
ME2 - planet scanning and harvesting was much more boring and tedious than endless mountain mako climbing
ME3 - at least the planet scanning is less painful now

In my opinion, BW should stay close to their core businessand not try and leave open world sandbox games, which are great to explore, but lack immersive story lines and memorable characters to Bethesda.

[Grizzly46]

Seival wrote...

Zakuspec089 wrote...

Mass Effect Openworld Sandbox?

The worst idea possible. Openworld sandbox games can't be really story-driven. They are "gameplay for the sake of gameplay games". Examples: EVE Online, Skyrim, Oblivion, etc... And I don't wanna one of Mass Effect games to add to that list.

No, they can very well have stories; games that don't have a clear goal (slay the dragons/stop the reapers/whatever) is what makes real sandbox games like The Sims or SimCity where you pretty much set the goals yourself. But here (to use Skyrim as an example) the Dragonborn, which is pretty much the only thing that is set.

I don't think an open-world sandbox of Skyrim-type would necessarily be bad for a game like Mass Effect. But it would take away some semblance of time shortage and 'dire need'  if you could move around that freely - in Mass Effect you have a clear goal from the start and work your way towards it because you know those reapers are coming sooner or later. In Skyrim you don't have this pressure to finish things - you can kick your own heels around your own house for weeks if you want and no one comes and tells you you have to hurry up. In Mass Effect, you always have a pressure to finish and move on - which is emphazised by the fact that there isn't any room to just kick your heels around.

[AlexMBrennan]

I don't think an open-world sandbox of Skyrim-type would necessarily be bad for a game like Mass Effect. But it would take away some semblance of time shortage and 'dire need' if you could move around that freely - in Mass Effect you have a clear goal from the start and work your way towards it because you know those reapers are coming sooner or later. In Skyrim you don't have this pressure to finish things - you can kick your own heels around your own house for weeks if you want and no one comes and tells you you have to hurry up. In Mass Effect, you always have a pressure to finish and move on - which is emphazised by the fact that there isn't any room to just kick your heels around.

Too bad that simply isn't true - for example, once you are ready to attack the ran oh Reaper Shepard may decide to delay the assault, needlessly causing missions of preventable deaths, to save half a dozen crashed quarians.
The developers might have been aiming for what you described but if so they failed spectacularly.

[NM_Che56]

Take AC IV
Replace water with space
Replace Islands with planets (mini-sandboxes)
Replace Spanish and British soldiers with something Mass Effecty
Instead of being a pirate, be a scientist sent to investigate stuff and learn about unknown stuff.

Boom. My money will be thrown at the screen.

[Zakuspec089]

Good ideas and posts everyone. I think it could work a open-world Mass Effect spin off. It did be ton of fun with different locations, things to do and vehicles.

[78stonewobble]

I don't think the procedurally created areas are there yet...

It might work for a space sim or space RTS where there is somewhat of a limit to the amount of detail that is needed for flying around between planets and stars. What does that need? A generic background planet or star, a moon, a few generic asteroids, some gas clouds of random colour...

That gives a reasonable enough background for flying a ship around in.

...

But I don't think it will work if we bring it down to a personal scale. Imagine if all the places of all the races in the mass effect universe had reused the exact same elements just in a different order. It would be a bland non engaging universe if they weren't distinct from eachother.

Sure some lesser planets you want to explore could be generic, but that would once again be boring. Ie. sure you can place and combine habitation modules and radar dishes in an infinite amount of ways... but if it's the same habitaion module and radar dish every single time?

I haven't played skyrim, but I did play oblivion a lot. Quite a bit of effort went into making the cities distinct from eachother and the generic dungeons and oblivion gates were the boring part.

Not against an openworld mass effect game, it would be cool, but... it would be a shame if it lost too much of the immersion by becoming to bland.

I'd love to be able to explore the mass effect universe, but the places to explore needs to be interesting.

Otherwise it would be like an episode of star trek only based around the mapping mission of 368 asteroids, of which some were metallic, some were rocky, some were icy, all were cratered and of different sizes. With no borg invasion, no diplomatic negotiating, no romulan treachery, no klingon honour battles, no data learns to fartjoke, no ethical dilemmas (surely an android learning the lowest form of humour must be a reason for swift disassembly?)... Ie. none of the interesting things...

Exploration should have a point...

[katamuro]

78stonewobble wrote...

I don't think the procedurally created areas are there yet...

It might work for a space sim or space RTS where there is somewhat of a limit to the amount of detail that is needed for flying around between planets and stars. What does that need? A generic background planet or star, a moon, a few generic asteroids, some gas clouds of random colour...

That gives a reasonable enough background for flying a ship around in.

...

But I don't think it will work if we bring it down to a personal scale. Imagine if all the places of all the races in the mass effect universe had reused the exact same elements just in a different order. It would be a bland non engaging universe if they weren't distinct from eachother.

Sure some lesser planets you want to explore could be generic, but that would once again be boring. Ie. sure you can place and combine habitation modules and radar dishes in an infinite amount of ways... but if it's the same habitaion module and radar dish every single time?

I haven't played skyrim, but I did play oblivion a lot. Quite a bit of effort went into making the cities distinct from eachother and the generic dungeons and oblivion gates were the boring part.

Not against an openworld mass effect game, it would be cool, but... it would be a shame if it lost too much of the immersion by becoming to bland.

I'd love to be able to explore the mass effect universe, but the places to explore needs to be interesting.

Otherwise it would be like an episode of star trek only based around the mapping mission of 368 asteroids, of which some were metallic, some were rocky, some were icy, all were cratered and of different sizes. With no borg invasion, no diplomatic negotiating, no romulan treachery, no klingon honour battles, no data learns to fartjoke, no ethical dilemmas (surely an android learning the lowest form of humour must be a reason for swift disassembly?)... Ie. none of the interesting things...

Exploration should have a point...

I agree with you there sandbox just for its sake and randomly generated stuff is not really what mass effect needs. Especially considering our ideas of open world are very strongly shaped by the games that are right now "last gen" and so considering that with our current gen consoles are much more performance and large RAM friendly I would say we need a new look at what is "openworld". 

For mass effect the ideal solution would be having a similar setup it had in ME1-3 but with larger areas.

For example:
1) the exploration areas have to be larger than ME1 to facilite some kind of vehicle but only if it can be easily included into the overall story so no landing on planets shooting up stuff just for the sake of having one. Combine ME2 style planet missions with ME1 style where the same enemy could have several sites that require some overland travel between them. 
2)The main city hubs have to be at larger allowing for a bigger immersive city and not just a few levels with a few dozen npc. IT has to feel like a hub of life. Give us both human and alien cities. 
3)The space ship has to be more than just a bus driving you from one place to another. Possibly include either some kind of combat mini-game or tactical space combat. 

Considering it is being built on Frostbite 2 I dont doubt it can actually perform those functions and hopefully it will be developed for only the PS4/xboxone/PC crowd, the older consoles are not suitable for the next ME experience.

[Zakuspec089]

When some of you post it like your taking the fun out of Mass Effect. Mass Effect can have different spin-offs and games. Mass Effect 1 was the best game with story and exploration, I agree some of it was the same but it was better that what we got in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. Mass Effect should have exploration in it games, depending on what type of Mass Effect game it is. A Mass Effect Sand Box can have different worlds with ton of things to do, with technology and bigger space it's possible. They need to try it too, I know most RPG players are not into fun sandbox games.

[katamuro]

Zakuspec089 wrote...

When some of you post it like your taking the fun out of Mass Effect. Mass Effect can have different spin-offs and games. Mass Effect 1 was the best game with story and exploration, I agree some of it was the same but it was better that what we got in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. Mass Effect should have exploration in it games, depending on what type of Mass Effect game it is. A Mass Effect Sand Box can have different worlds with ton of things to do, with technology and bigger space it's possible. They need to try it too, I know most RPG players are not into fun sandbox games.

The problem with sandbox games is that if there is a strong plotline like in the ME games so far then if you can put off doing something until the last possible moment that can kinda break the flow of the game. For example in ME2 after the collectors abduct your crew you know that the faster you get there, more of your crew will survive. IT adds urgency to playing. To impose some kind of flow they could easily restrict some of the exploration areas until later when maybe you got an upgrade to your ships drive or fuel tanks so you can go further. Having a flow in the game is important when a story is concerned. 

[Zakuspec089]

A Mass Effect sandbox doesn't have to have a story you know put missions and side missions, light story that can be replayable with different species and things to do. I understand it would not work for a main games. Any from of more freedom is better than Linear for a Mass Effect game. The last two felt very Linear to me but was fun.

[78stonewobble]

Well to me the charm of the mass effect series has been it's quite decent story and how emotionally engaging they've been able to make it.

I'd think that wouldn't work quite so well in a truely openworld / sandbox game, since they can't "force" us to have this and that conversation that gives us that tidbit to that character and so on and so on. But maybe that's just me being narrowminded.

Note I rather like the x games from egosoft and they are allmost completely sandbox / openworld.

What I'm saying is that I have a hard time imagining a traditional mass effect game (with what they did well) ... working as a sandbox game.

As others have mentioned a spin off might be a better way to go

PS: I've been known to be wrong... I had a hard time believing mass effect multiplayer would be any good (and hoped that it would be coop for story), but I thoroughly enjoy that.

[Han Shot First]

CptData wrote...

Skyrim had a story ^^

While Skyrim had a story, I think his criticism is valid. With Bethesda games the world itself is the primary focus rather than the characters that populate it. They are much less character-driven than Bioware games, and as a result characters are much more dull and the story feels more like afterthought compared to the gameplay and stunning visuals.

Previously whenever developers set out to make an RPG they've had to choose between either a focus on the gameworld, or a focus on the characters that populate it. No one has yet successfully married the two, which is why a lot of people are skeptical of Bioware going with an open-world sandbox approach like Skyrim.

That being said both DA:I and the Witcher 3 are going with a partially open-world approach. Since both series are heavily character-driven, it will be interesting to see if they can pull off an open-world approach without sacrificing that focus on characters that made them popular with their respective fanbases.

[katamuro]

Han Shot First wrote...

CptData wrote...

Skyrim had a story ^^

While Skyrim had a story, I think his criticism is valid. With Bethesda games the world itself is the primary focus rather than the characters that populate it. They are much less character-driven than Bioware games, and as a result characters are much more dull and the story feels more like afterthought compared to the gameplay and stunning visuals.

Previously whenever developers set out to make an RPG they've had to choose between either a focus on the gameworld, or a focus on the characters that populate it. No one has yet successfully married the two, which is why a lot of people are skeptical of Bioware going with an open-world sandbox approach like Skyrim.

That being said both DA:I and the Witcher 3 are going with a partially open-world approach. Since both series are heavily character-driven, it will be interesting to see if they can pull off an open-world approach without sacrificing that focus on characters that made them popular with their respective fanbases.

that is the thing, with better hardware its possible to make larger "open world" type games even if its strongly driven by characters and story.

[78stonewobble]

katamuro wrote...

that is the thing, with better hardware its possible to make larger "open world" type games even if its strongly driven by characters and story.

Hardware isn't the only restriction though... They would need alot of story writers, artists and so on (or just a very long development time) to make a bigger game equally detailed everywhere.

[katamuro]

78stonewobble wrote...

katamuro wrote...

that is the thing, with better hardware its possible to make larger "open world" type games even if its strongly driven by characters and story.

Hardware isn't the only restriction though... They would need alot of story writers, artists and so on (or just a very long development time) to make a bigger game equally detailed everywhere.

I am not saying equally detailed. I meant that due to PS4/xbone better hardware the developers dont need to hold back as such anymore, more can be loaded at the same time, textures can become truly HD, bigger environments can be created. And since the game is built on a new engine and is supposed to be ME:Next then I expect it to be bigger than a game created on the basis of what is now a 7 year old design. 

[uzivatel]

ItsFreakinJesus wrote...
Why would that make a more expensive game?  Especially when non-essential locales can be procedurely generated with little to no effort?

Did people already forget about ME1 UNCs?

[78stonewobble]

katamuro wrote...

I am not saying equally detailed. I meant that due to PS4/xbone better hardware the developers dont need to hold back as such anymore, more can be loaded at the same time, textures can become truly HD, bigger environments can be created. And since the game is built on a new engine and is supposed to be ME:Next then I expect it to be bigger than a game created on the basis of what is now a 7 year old design. 

That might be so, but bigger isn't necessarily better.

I'd love to explore more of the me universe, but it needs to be worth exploring. Which means artists to make locales pretty and distinct, story writers to give me a reason to go there and programmers to tie it all together. 

Which is a limit on things just as much as the technical limits are.