The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development
For people interested, there is a follow up to the famous Kotaku article: https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428
Forum Discussion
@holger1405 wrote:
@EgoMania wrote:. It doesn't explain everything like the change in face for the Sara Ryder default upon release,
That is because it never happened, look at the Trailers from last year, the exact same Sara Ryder we saw in the Original release.
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.
"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..
@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.Well, there was this. 😛
@holger1405 wrote:
As for the picture, I saw it before, its either fake or an early design.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? 🙂
@Fred_vdp wrote:Well, there was this. 😛
Bwahaha I totally forget about that. But you're right, it happened before, so I stand corrected.
@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.
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 wrote:
You're really just pulling this thread off track now.
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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