Forum Discussion
From the PC Gamer website
EA's Patrick Soderlund thinks Mass Effect Andromeda criticism was a little unfair
- mcsupersport8 years agoHero+
Lol, he is right, as the game is RIGHT now, it is well worth buying, and if they could have released it at this point instead of in the almost Beta stage that they did release it in, things could have been vastly better all around. It seems that all they really needed was a few more months to get the game into a better state, and fix a large number of issues before launch. I really would have rather had a 4 month launch delay, let it come out July or so, and have what we have now as the starting point to fixing bugs and issues. It seems someone somewhere had their head planted up someplace that made this impossible and thus basically sentenced the game to an early unwarranted grave.
Of course some of this is on youtubers and "review" sites harping on stuff making it seem WAY worse than it was, but it was also on EA for being foolish in how they handled the release and press around the game. I personally had minimal issues with the game, and was able to play it for hundreds of hours of enjoyment, making it well worth the money....but it stinks how everything went down, mainly because they didn't bother to finish the game before release....
- Anonymous8 years ago
Whether or not Mass Effect will be back is not the thing that has been eating away at me since reading 'the news' about ME:A.. it is how quickly and easily they chose to pretty much walk away from it and at the same time.. ram all the whizzbang stuff about 'Anthem' down our necks at the same time. One of the things i really notice about the early anthem video was that there is a large creature in it that looks almost identical to the 'fiend'.
I am in a sense grieving in a strange way, but not because of loss.. its different, i feel really let down by the whole drop it and F* it approach that i've seen happen now, and 5 months after release, i felt it had so much more potential.
When i put my faith into a product, i don't expect to see it assassinated by its own creator, there is too many good people really into mass effect to have had this happen and its really affected the way i now perceive the parent publisher too.
So its not the death of something that i grieve for, i think i just witnessed a murder.
- Anonymous8 years ago
Well the game is what, $35.00 US now. So having to beat it out of window mode and rebooting it to get sound to work three times a day. As of RIGHT now, OK.
For me the faces were not a big deal. That did not make the game unplayable. It's the crashing to desktop, window mode, sound loss, save data......made it unplayable. Players that paid full price on release and got ths, heck yea players were mad. And players told there friends not to buy it. Money lost....
Your right pushing the game back a few months is all that was needed. I thought the story was good. Lot of stuff hanging for DLC's that could have made money too. Grrr where is the ark....
- Fred_vdp8 years agoHero+
@OldHermod wrote:
From the PC Gamer website
EA's Patrick Soderlund thinks Mass Effect Andromeda criticism was a little unfair
I think the review scores are fair, but their content focused on the wrong aspects of the game. The facial animations became a meme before the game was out and were low hanging fruit for critics and other content creators. As a result the game's major flaws often got overlooked. I hope BioWare has learned the following lessons:
- Players still don't like fetch quests.
- Open world only works when the combat system is designed for it. The linear corridor missions were much more fun because they suit the combat system better. Same goes for Dragon Age.
- BioWare hasn't had good menu design for mouse and keyboard since Dragon Age II. Mass Effect Andromeda is by far the worst one. Press V to inspect your multiplayer squad? That's an odd hotkey. You just clicked something? Now suddenly V means 'kick player'. The inconsistency is very jarring. Also, the mouse wheel should scroll the view, not change your selection. Also, why does it take so long to load and unload things in the menu? Why is my entire squad the inventory menu for several seconds until the game finally figures out which characters to unload? The game is installed on an SSD, this shouldn't take this long.
- Speaking of SSDs, not everyone is playing on the PS4 or Xbox One and therefore doesn't have the game installed on a slow 5400 RPM hard drive. A fixed length for cinematics that mask loading screens is a horrible idea. Just start the level when it has finished loading. Dragon Age Inquisition had a great loading screen.
- 8 years ago
I mourned the Mass Effect Franchise when I played Andromeda. The Apple in this case, fell far from the tree, a little unripe and misshapen.
- EgoMania8 years agoSeasoned Ace
@OldHermod wrote:From the PC Gamer website
EA's Patrick Soderlund thinks Mass Effect Andromeda criticism was a little unfair
He's right. Some of the criticism was fair some of it was not. How social media took off with the facial expressions certainly was out of control.
But here's the thing. Leaving the game for what it is and moving on without supporting it any further...now that's more than a little unfair.
- Anonymous8 years ago
Well, take the sales figures for ME:A in units sold across all platforms and write the number down, the number you have in front of you would be the number of people who will be affected by the decision not to provide any further patches or support once you throw the toys out of the pram.
Among them some very loyal Mass Effect fans, and also just a lot of sci fi fans.
Many will have forgiven the facial animations quite a bit.. many just got on with the game and actually really enjoyed it.. despite some of the other far more game breaking progression bugs that were discovered, or issues that meant loading a save game from 10+ hours ago was the only way to solve.... then there was people who no matter what they tried couldn't play the game at all for weeks on end due to other technical issues.
For the loyal fans and people who loved the game though.. the news while not entirely unexpected, has left a very VERY bitter aftertaste and we can't help but feel that its like they floated the product to see if it sailed.. and if it did not, they just pretend it didn't happen, and deny all association with it.. after all, we've got a brand new ship being built in the ship yards, those stupid customers will buy that when we launch it in 2018.. won't they?