Re: The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development

Personally I found ME2 to be the weakest of the trilogy in terms of content and playtime. The decision to go "linear" in design and the complete removal of exploration for me was a major detraction.

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@lexandro_Albion wrote:

Personally I found ME2 to be the weakest of the trilogy in terms of content and playtime. The decision to go "linear" in design and the complete removal of exploration for me was a major detraction.

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Agree that ME2 has one of the shorter playtime but the quality is there, the story telling the build up... It was the game that put ME and this genre on the map for me(I used to play only D&D hack and slash RPGs like baldurs gate/neverwinters night, elder scroll series).  I played ME much later so ME1 combat and graphics were dated.  ME3 was the best game for me minus the last 15mins or so.  So on my personal scale of Mass Effect games for me:  ME3 is first, ME2 second, MEA third, ME1 is the least enjoyable but can be excused as its made a decade ago and I respect it for being the first and the pioneer for such an awesome franchise.

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@lexandro_Albion wrote:

Personally I found ME2 to be the weakest of the trilogy in terms of content and playtime. The decision to go "linear" in design and the complete removal of exploration for me was a major detraction.

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I actually liked how this was handled in ME2. The planet anomalies that led to side missions were like an egg hunt. In contrast, ME3 gave you those on a platter. I also prefer it over ME1 where the bunkers/caves on uncharted planets were copy/pasted and MEA where the exploration led to mostly uninteresting fetch quests.

@VladVonCastein, and don't forget that ME2 had Miranda and Jack. I found them to be pretty much the most memorable and enjoyable characters in any of the ME Games.  Damn, now I need to replay ME2. ;-)

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@angrybunnie wrote:

@VladVonCastein, and don't forget that ME2 had Miranda and Jack. I found them to be pretty much the most memorable and enjoyable characters in any of the ME Games.  Damn, now I need to replay ME2. ;-)

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..Jack the badass * super biotic that found that she had something in Common with Shepard and banged him on the table in his Apartment after the citadel party...I miss Jack...

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@Psych0_Trauma wrote:

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@angrybunnie wrote:

@VladVonCastein, and don't forget that ME2 had Miranda and Jack. I found them to be pretty much the most memorable and enjoyable characters in any of the ME Games.  Damn, now I need to replay ME2. ;-)

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..Jack the badass * super biotic that found that she had something in Common with Shepard and banged him on the table in his Apartment after the citadel party...I miss Jack...

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I'm wondering why only Kotaku is releasing these stories and we aren't hearing any real collaboration from other sources. Everyone's quoting or directing you to them, but they aren't verifying it on their own. And things can be written very slanted. Especially if you are one of the people that feels slighted by some of the corporate changes.

I have to say that a lot of these big budget games have problems. Many of them leave horrible, unplayable games that aren't fun with incoherent stories.

Or games that never see the light of day.

We got a pretty good game anyways, which I think tells you something of itself.

It is an interesting read and if it's a true reflection of what happened it does explain a lot. It doesn't explain everything like the change in face for the Sara Ryder default upon release, but all in all it seems that there hasn't been a clear vision that was translated in to realistic work packages.

On the one hand you could say it's amazing what they accomplished all things considered but on the other hand you have to wonder how BioWare allowed this to go wrong as far as it did and particularly as long as it did. It just seems they didn't have a clear vision to begin with, just a collection of some cool ideas that were just thrown in a hat and shuffled around.

What surprised me most I guess is the situation with the Frostbite engine. It really does shed a light on how clunkcy the UI stuff is in DA:I and ME:A and why even DA:O which is ancient by now, still has a better UI set up. It just seems that with EA at the helm BioWare just goes from one unfinished engine to another. I mean BioWare were always somewhat sloppy with their coding and admittedly the games are very complex so some measure of tolerance should be allowed there, but seeing how Frostbite was really just not set up for RPG style games, of course it was going to be a nightmare.

But yeah, it's really a shame that Mass Effect as a whole got a big dent in its reputation from ME:A and it seems the resuts of the game do not reflect the work that has been put in. I do feel for the developers who worked hard and saw things fall apart around them as they tried to go along. I just really hope that when they get around to a sequel they really do some good lessons learned analysis because clearly if it had been lead properly this game would've been a legendary game and now it will be remembered as the horrid animation game. The game is better than that but it could and should've been better than what it was. I still enjoy the game as such and it is getting better with the patches, but it's still a game in need of stabilizing and some basic fixes are still waiting to be done (think of the many audio issues for example). 

I just hope that over time and with more improvements the game will be remembered more fondly than when it was released.

Right now I remmeber when EA bought Bioware and the fans where frightend ... And EA swear that they will never ever do something "bad" to Bioware and the fans don't have to overreact. Somehow .... 😞

@EgoMania

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@EgoMania wrote:

. It doesn't explain everything like the change in face for the Sara Ryder default upon release,

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That is because it never happened, look at the Trailers from last year, the exact same Sara Ryder we saw in the Original release.

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@EgoMania wrote:

What surprised me most I guess is the situation with the Frostbite engine. It really does shed a light on how clunkcy the UI stuff is in DA:I and ME:A and why even DA:O which is ancient by now, still has a better UI set up. It just seems that with EA at the helm BioWare just goes from one unfinished engine to another. I mean BioWare were always somewhat sloppy with their coding and admittedly the games are very complex so some measure of tolerance should be allowed there, but seeing how Frostbite was really just not set up for RPG style games, of course it was going to be a nightmare.

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I actually don't have a problem with the UI. As soon as you figured it out you can move very fast between content.

I also think the game is really beautiful overall, the only problem was the animation stuff, and that was mostly limited to the opening hours and also much exaggerated.

If you compare MEA tow other RPGs or games in general the animations are not as bad as they were made. There are a few blooper, sure, but overall it was not a big difference.

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@EgoMania wrote:

But yeah, it's really a shame that Mass Effect as a whole got a big dent in its reputation from ME:A and it seems the resuts of the game do not reflect the work that has been put in. I do feel for the developers who worked hard and saw things fall apart around them as they tried to go along. I just really hope that when they get around to a sequel they really do some good lessons learned analysis because clearly if it had been lead properly this game would've been a legendary game and now it will be remembered as the horrid animation game. The game is better than that but it could and should've been better than what it was. I still enjoy the game as such and it is getting better with the patches, but it's still a game in need of stabilizing and some basic fixes are still waiting to be done (think of the many audio issues for example). 

I just hope that over time and with more improvements the game will be remembered more fondly than when it was released.

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Well, internet "shitstorms" are overrated in the long run. Many people who participated never played the game and imoh there are also reasons that brought people to this discussion who didn't car about the game for a second, but only wanted to fuel the shitstorm.

As for the reputation, I didn't see many people who actually played the game rating it as awful. 
IMHO the real problems are different, and as many here said before me, that it could be really great game but is "only" a good one.  

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@holger1405 wrote:

@EgoMania

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@EgoMania wrote:

. It doesn't explain everything like the change in face for the Sara Ryder default upon release,

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That is because it never happened, look at the Trailers from last year, the exact same Sara Ryder we saw in the Original release.

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Only the 4k trailer from December last year had Sara in it. The rest was all Scott. The official Sara Ryder trailer didn't come till the release of the game.

And let's make one thing clear. Just because there was a trailer like that doesn't mean this never happened:

What it could explain however is why they reverted back to the one in the trailer. A damn shame really cause the left face is 10 times better.

Also, why does Scott Ryder look like his model and Sara doesn't? Who made that decision. As far as I'm concerned they put the wrong face in the trailer.

@EgoMania

"Only the 4k trailer from December last year had Sara in it. The rest was all Scott. The official Sara Ryder trailer didn't come till the release of the game."

No, the E3 trailer from 2016 also featured her, plus as you rightly said the official Sara trailer.

"And let's make one thing clear. Just because there was a trailer like that doesn't mean this never happened:"

Well, actually it means exactly that, a game company will not change the face of a main character after it was shown in several major announcements.
As for the picture, I saw it before, its either fake or an early design.

Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. My wife for example thinks that Scot is not attractive at all. 😉
Imho the Sara Ryder we have in the game is a completely fine looking Women, the default Femshep in ME1 and 2 is way less attractive then her. (And nobody cared about that back then.)

But the main point here is that this game allows you to create your own character, so if you don't like how Sara looks you can create your own Sara.

You're really just pulling this thread off track now.

This thread is about the development hell that ME:A apparently went through and I just said that it explains a lot although I can't blame the odd changes to Sara's face with that.

So that point still stands. Regardless of your personal views, I still fail to see a correlation between making Sara Ryder totally different from the model they used for her and why they made her face rather clownesque and cartoony which many people will see as ugly, especially since it's not the general look of the game. She is the odd one out and that's what makes it extra weird. But even then I cannot think of a reason why they would do that. Reading this article did give me lots of insights about many odd things in this game like the poor lighting and audio work, but the simple point still remains, I do  not see a reason there that explains what has become the poster version of Sara Ryder.

So my quest for answers continues!

pilloried..

Someone has a dictionary..

As for the article, read it start to finish.  Doesn't surprise me.  It is how the game feels really.  But I still enjoy playing it.

Just started replaying Mass Effect 1 and boy o boy.. what a clunky game that is, I remember when it came out thinking it was the best game ever.. but compared to ME:A.. it's a horrible mess.

And ME:A is a horrible mess...

ME:1 puzzles are awful.. the Mako.. haha.. physics omg. The starwars like combat.. wheres 99% of all shots miss your target.  Then there's the random crashes etc.

At least ME:A looks alot better.  Animation issues aside.

I'm glad the added the Nomad back to ME:A.. I missed it in ME 2 & 3.  Which I'll be replaying soon.

Overall.. I'd have really liked to see how ME:A would have turned out if it had had 5 years of work.  With 30 planets.. imagine that. 30 planets.. of adventures, exploration, other races.. huge stories.. instead we got 7 and 2 races..

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@holger1405 wrote:

Well, actually it means exactly that, a game company will not change the face of a main character after it was shown in several major announcements.

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Well, there was this. 😛

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@holger1405 wrote:

As for the picture, I saw it before, its either fake or an early design.

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It's not fake. It's from the launch release of the game before applying the day-one patch.

Though personally I prefer Sara the way she looks now. The comparison screenshot wasn't fair because of unflattering lighting.

Hi @Fred_vdp everything all right? 🙂

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@Fred_vdp wrote:

Well, there was this. 😛

Bwahaha I totally forget about that.  But you're right,  it happened before, so I stand corrected.

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@Fred_vdp wrote:

It's not fake. It's from the launch release of the game before applying the day-one patch.

Though personally I prefer Sara the way she looks now. The comparison screenshot wasn't fair because of unflattering lighting.

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I agree on the lighting point, and that the day-one patch was responsible for the change is the claim that is made, but back as I saw the picture first (around release) I could not find any confirmation for that. The release patch was applied to the game as it was first downloadable, so do you have any source for that?

The main point is still that the quality of this game does not depends on the look of the female main character. Especially because the game has a character creator, but I think we agree on that anyway. 😉  

@EgoMania

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@EgoMania wrote:

You're really just pulling this thread off track now.

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I see that differently, it is important to know if they really did make this decision or not. Especially in regards to the development processes.

Imho, and I said it in the post before, I don't think that the looks of the female main character is in anyway crucial for the quality of the game nor do I belief that there was any "Big Thinking" behind it. Or in other words, I don't believe that the problems in the development process had any influence on the look of Sara Ryder.

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@Rappeldrache wrote:

Right now I remmeber when EA bought Bioware and the fans where frightend ... And EA swear that they will never ever do something "bad" to Bioware and the fans don't have to overreact. Somehow .... 😞

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I remember that too! Big fuss all over the articles and forums about this transaction. Same as when Disney bought ILM/Lucasarts.

If it was me, i'd never sell it, LOL  but i guess it's hard to say No to $600 millions. 🤔