134 réponses à ce sujet

[Killroy]

It's no secret that BioWare's reputation has been on a downward trajectory. Dragon Age 2, while ambitious, was kind of a disaster thanks to EA rushing it out the door. ME3 was obviously a problem. And Inquisition was pretty much an empty box, devoid of quality content.

Now that gamers have access to multiple high-quality AAA RPGs this gen, with even more on the way, is it enough for BioWare to come to the table with a game that's just pretty good? Will enough consumers respond if BioWare puts out a game that isn't as good as their competitor's offerings? Will a 7/10 game salvage the Mass Effect franchise and keep BioWare on the radar of gamers? 

[iM3GTR]

I just hope it's not just a dumb action shooter, which would dampen my excitement and immersion. I don't want to feel like I'm watching a brainless blockbuster thriller.

What I do want is that it will have lots of RPing opportunities and some big diologue trees with investigate options and missions where you get to talk to people and where there is lots of world building. For example, I loved talking with all the scientists and Captain Ventralis on Noveria about what they do and their opinions on current events. Though a few Virmire and Collector base type missions will be vital in the climax of the game for some veriety.

Basically if the game is full of Noveria type missions and locations, I'm sold and I will love Bioware forever.

[Pasquale1234]

Mostly, it just needs to appeal to enough people to sell enough copies to make it worth EA's investment.

[DarkKnightHolmes]

It has to be 11/10, 9999 GOTY awards and loved by the entire gaming fanbase.

 

Otherwise, we'll get another billion threads of how Bioware has lost it and talking about how they should take note from [insert developer name].

[Tolgron]

It should always be a game developer's goal to make games that are better than their predecessors, whether through story, gameplay, technical achievement, or else through sheer commercial profit. Preferably all at once.

 

Myself I would be disappointed if Bioware settled with Mass Effect: Andromeda being merely adequate. The Mass Effect franchise is greatly loved and respected. Arguably it's the Star Wars or Star Trek of our generation, and as such has great emotional investment and passion from its fans. This warrants from Bioware significant investment in effort and passion, which I do not doubt they have. One thing I do hope we see a return of with this latest installment is a return to stronger storytelling and world building. I fear Mass Effect 2 and especially Mass Effect 3 placed far too much emphasis on action and didn't really think many of their plot lines through, which resulted in many confusing and redundant events in the game.

 

One big example was the death of Shepard in ME2 and the destruction of the Normandy. It ultimately served no narrative or gameplay purpose. Shepard was returned to life with no real side effects (being a cyborg zombie receives little reaction from anybody in-game, for example) and a new Normandy is given almost immediately on a silver platter after the completion of Cerberus's first mission, making its destruction rather pointless and the restoration of it feel unearned.

 

Ultimately ME2 was still a great game. Undoubtedly the strongest in the series. But if we're looking to make a game better than anything that's come before, weaknesses in story, gameplay and the integration of them such as that need to be avoided.

[iM3GTR]

It has to be 11/10, 9999 GOTY awards and loved by the entire gaming fanbase.

Otherwise, we'll get another billion threads of how Bioware has lost it and talking about how they should take note from [insert developer name].

You do realise that we'd still get that, anyway?

[Lady Artifice]

Reputation is an interesting thing. Games don't actually have to be lauded to sell well enough by a publisher's standard.

 

That said, I think it would take a masterpiece to turn things around in the eyes of the more jaded parts of this fanbase.

[Blueblood]

Even if it is just 'pretty good', it could still be good enough if it's DIFFERENT from all the AAA titles, and offers us what other big titles don't. Like big stoopid jellyfish. You don't see too many of them in video games.

As long as ME:A has some kind of freshness to it then it should hopefully be ok.

I just hope they've committed their resources wisely, and not made big areas to explore that aren't actually worth exploring when they could've committed those resources to more story and more detailed and rich albeit smaller environments, and SIDE QUESTS. And bigger, stoopider jellyfish.

[Ophir147]

No one with realistic expectations actually expects it to be any good.

 

The rest of the people subsist on disappointment.

[RoboticWater]

If we're talking about commercial success, then "pretty good" will always work for BioWare. "Pretty good" was apparently enough for DA:I, and I can't imagine Mass Effect doing much worse than that. Even if the gameplay situation is lukewarm, there will always be a market willing to purchase a BioWare game for its characters and production value. I don't think BioWare have let me down in that department quite yet.

 

I know there are plenty of people who say that "Witcher 3 has ruined Dragon Age for me," but I'd have to wonder if that would stop them from actually purchasing DA4, let alone a new Mass Effect. High production value, cinematic RPG aren't a dime a dozen, so unless there's some great sci-fi RPG coming out near ME:A, I doubt there'll be much competition for BIoWare. I'm starved as it is for a AAA epic sci-fi game, especially a AAA RPG space opera. I'll take what I can get.

 

As for actual quality though, I've always maintained that Mass Effect is bound to be a bit better than DA:I. I'm obviously biased towards shooters, but I think Mass Effect's core combat is simply more engaging than DA's. The Mako seems like it'll be fun to drive, so traversing empty landscapes should be more interesting than DA:I's languid stroll, and If I can play through 100s of waves of horde mode and still want to come back for more, then I think I could stand to go through a bunch of lame fetch quests. Admittedly, I wouldn't want Mass Effect to be another sack full of repetitive content, but I think the core mechanics make it inherently more difficult to mess up.

[Drakoriz]

even if ME A is the next standard for whatever. there will be million of post claiming that Witcher 3 is better, or Bioware did better on the past.

 

Is how internet work

 

Literally for me ME 1-3 had provide something not other game have give me from story to game play. So for me ME A need to be as good as ME1-3 was and i will be happy (even with the ending problem, ME3 still was good)

[nfi42]

For me,  a game that is better than the last 3 is enough (or specifically the last 2 DA's and ME3's ending).  It would be nice to see the quality of  Bioware games trending up.  Whether that is good enough for Bioware or the general consumer is something I can't answer.

 

What we absolutely don't need is a game hyped up by gaming journalists like DAI,  when it was only average.  Bioware/EA need to put the ending in the main story as well,  not the last DLC.

[rapscallioness]

Realistically, I actually expect the game to be pretty good. And pretty good is...good enough, I suppose. If that's your thing *haughtysniff*.

 

They do not need to achieve greatness. They just need to be a solid 3rd person shooter space sci-fi SP game. Personally, I'm not finding alot of space sci-fi SP. Seems like all that goes straight to MP style of engagement.

 

But I want more from BW. I want greatness from them. Not ni order to "salvage" anything, but rather just because I want greatness from them. I want powerful and compelling narrative. A game version of a "page turner" pulling me through the game. Granted, writing good story and presenting it well is very hard.  Regardless of the medium--it's hard. Greatness is a combo of hard, hard work; some talent; some timing; and some magic pixie dust sprinkled over the whole thing. The planets align...idk, it's something that happens for those that are prepared-a nudge over to the mythical "Greatness".

 

However, I don't want a technically superior, or "great" game that as no Heart. Those are the kind of games I consider "okay", "alright", "pretty good". The games that are nice to look at; combat is good and fun, yet....there is something missing. It is dead. A game that has no Soul, but has the technical and combat issues well sorted--that's a pretty good game. 

 

Greatness would be welcome. And as was mentioned more world building detail. I would like to see some serious work done on the lore. Make it richer with more depth and impact. I would like the lore to really draw me in.

 

More environmental detail in the world building. By that I mean... more "humanity" and personality in the hubs, or ships. I mean, you can have a nice clean set piece, but as soon as throw some organics in it, there's gonna be crap everywhere. There's gonna be a picture of Elvis stuck on somebody's wall. People are just like little walking crap-wagons. And everywhere they go, something in their wagon jostles about and falls out. 

 

Hmm, there was something else I wanted to say, but I forgot now.

[UpUpAway95]

Reputation is an interesting thing. Games don't actually have to be lauded to sell well enough by a publisher's standard.

 

That said, I think it would take a masterpiece to turn things around in the eyes of the more jaded parts of this fanbase.

 

I don't think that even a masterpiece will be able to turn things around in the eyes of the more jaded parts of this fanbase.  They'll just keep picking every little detail apart and slamming down anyone who dares utter a word of praise for it until... well, forever... just like they've done with all the previous Bioware games mentioned in the OPs posts.

 

Call me a pessimist.

 

Not to mention also that most people can't turn out their best work when they are being continually and brutally criticized from every imaginiable angle for anything and everything they've done in the past.

 

Regardless, I do hope they can pull a rabbit out of the hat.

[Furisco]

Mass Effect 3 wasn't a problem for me. It wasn't a perfect game, but i loved it and for me it's better than ME2. 

 

I don't care about Dragon Age and didn't played any of them.

 

I'm not worried and Andromeda will probably be a great game.

[slimgrin]

This isn't an annual release like Asscreed, where expectations are lowered, but they do have to make a very 'solid' game imo. Because they haven't done that since ME2. Under EA's helm, I see the franchise at risk. If this bombs, that could be it.  

[KaiserShep]

Reputation is an interesting thing. Games don't actually have to be lauded to sell well enough by a publisher's standard.
 
That said, I think it would take a masterpiece to turn things around in the eyes of the more jaded parts of this fanbase.

I'm afraid the more jaded part of the fanbase is forever lost.

[DEUGH Man]

I'd settle for not boring.

[Drakoriz]

This isn't an annual release like Asscreed, where expectations are lowered, but they do have to make a very 'solid' game imo. Because they haven't done that since ME2. Under EA's helm, I see the franchise at risk. If this bombs, that could be it.  

 

well that is a opinion, out side the ending ME 3 was a solid game with a good story and great characters.

[Lebanese Dude]

Two things matter:

 

1) I think it's amazing, which given it's a BioWare game makes it pretty likely because at worst they still have the best RPGs in the market.

 

2) Others purchase the game in enough quantities to make it a financial success to satisfy EA.

 

Other than that I couldn't give two shits what armchair critics think of the game, although you'll probably see me around the MEA forums around release when I activate my BioWare Defense Matrix.

[Furisco]

No one with realistic expectations actually expects it to be any good.

 

The rest of the people subsist on disappointment.

[PunchFaceReporter]

Im gonna play without any judgement. If the game is anything like their recent ones, sadly this will probs be me last Bioware game.

[Iakus]

Given Torment: Tides of Numenera will be out at roughly the same time, it will take more than a "pretty good" game to pull me away from it.

[The Hierophant]

It has to be 11/10, 9999 GOTY awards and loved by the entire gaming fanbase.

 

Otherwise, we'll get another billion threads of how Bioware has lost it and talking about how they should take note from [insert developer name].

Guilty.

[Paul E Dangerously]

I don't expect an masterpiece, but "solid" would be nice. I thought ME3 hit a nice spot in the gameplay - combining ME1's clunky-but-varied and ME2's dumb-but-fun.

 

It's the writing that's kicked Bioware in the backside a few times, at least personally. It feels a bit like they're less interested in telling a story and more worried about filling the checkboxes on the demographic list. Which there's nothing technically wrong with, but it's been done in such a heavy-handed, cringy, "this doesn't mesh at all" sort of way.