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Yeah now that I think about it ME1 was just another pretty generic big budget voice acted RPG with real time shooter combat set in its own fully fleshed out original IP and designed from the ground up to be the first in a series predicated on your choices carrying through. There must have been 6 or 7 other like it that came out that year.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:46
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exquisite tea posted:The coolest permutations in ME3 come out of decisions that like, 5% of people probably ever willingly make. It's so backwards. This is true. It's kind of ironic that importing a "perfect" playthrough results in one of the most staid ME3 outcomes.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:47
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If people are playing through the Mass Effect series for the first time, don't let weird obsessive nerds convince you to not play the third game.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:48
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Re: Kai Leng, any excuse to post this again. Re: The Nexus and Arks What bugs me a little about this is when I heard the original pitch for this game I thought the arks were going to be shoestring budget skunkworks desperation plays bashed together when it became clear the Reapers were a real threat. Remember how the Destiny Ascension was the biggest, baddest rear end ship in the entire galaxy and the entire Asari race only ever produced a single one of them? And now we have the Nexus coming in out of nowhere as maybe the most significant piece of construction undertaken outside of the Crucible in addition to massive individual race ark ships. I can deal with it never being mentioned because they didn't know they were making another sequel in a different Galaxy, it just seems on the surface like ME:A is already making mistakes with the background detail and that doesn't bode well to me.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:49
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[lmao, some kid sitting, weeping with joy as he clicks on a featureless rock and plays a QTE in order to collect a resource collection mini-game sidequest:] this is wildly original
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Dec 3, 2016 15:51
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CottonWolf posted:This is true. It's kind of ironic that importing a "perfect" playthrough results in one of the most staid ME3 outcomes. I think the first two games are sort of to blame for making it so easy, comparatively speaking, to save as many people as possible, or to not offer compelling enough reasons NOT to save them. ME3 actually put a lot of thought into how situations would play out if certain characters were alive or dead and in many cases the "dead" status is way more interesting.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:53
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exquisite tea posted:I think the first two games are sort of to blame for making it so easy, comparatively speaking, to save as many people as possible, or to not offer compelling enough reasons NOT to save them. ME3 actually put a lot of thought into how situations would play out if certain characters were alive or dead and in many cases the "dead" status is way more interesting. Without the existence of this forum, a lot more people would have gone into ME3 with multiple characters dead.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:54
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NmareBfly posted:What bugs me a little about this is when I heard the original pitch for this game I thought the arks were going to be shoestring budget skunkworks desperation plays bashed together when it became clear the Reapers were a real threat. Remember how the Destiny Ascension was the biggest, baddest rear end ship in the entire galaxy and the entire Asari race only ever produced a single one of them? And now we have the Nexus coming in out of nowhere as maybe the most significant piece of construction undertaken outside of the Crucible in addition to massive individual race ark ships. I'm willing to accept that maybe the council/private backers started a secret colonisation project after the end of ME1, given the attack on the citadel. At that point you're going to pour massive resources into it, as if you're going to bother building a massive colony ship, there's no point halfarsing it and having everyone die halfway there. I mean, I expect the justification for the project will be explained in game, but it's not prima facie unbelievable.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:55
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NmareBfly posted:
Yeah but *mac Walters voice from the left channel and Casey Hudson voice from the right* reaper tech
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Dec 3, 2016 15:55
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Dan Didio posted:[lmao, some kid sitting, weeping with joy as he clicks on a featureless rock and plays a QTE in order to collect a resource collection mini-game sidequest:] this is wildly original That kid got really upset in ME2 when there weren't three different lockpicking skills to allocate points into.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:56
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exquisite tea posted:I think the first two games are sort of to blame for making it so easy, comparatively speaking, to save as many people as possible, or to not offer compelling enough reasons NOT to save them. ME3 actually put a lot of thought into how situations would play out if certain characters were alive or dead and in many cases the "dead" status is way more interesting. The fact that it's possible to save everyone in the suicide mission is a design choice I do not understand to this day.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:56
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aegof posted:That kid got really upset in ME2 when there weren't three different lockpicking skills to allocate points into. It's impossible to develop a fully realized character if you can't immediately identify him as having 12 in Assault Rifles and six more DPS on his gun than the other, identical gun.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:56
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CottonWolf posted:The fact that it's possible to save everyone in the suicide mission is a choice I do not understand to this day. People literally got upset that the game 'tricked' them into killing off fan favourite characters like thane and jacob, so they would have lost their minds if it was actually impossible to keep them all alive.
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Dec 3, 2016 15:57
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CottonWolf posted:I'm willing to accept that maybe the council/private backers started a secret colonisation project after the end of ME1, given the attack on the citadel. At that point you're going to pour massive resources into it, as if you're going to bother building a massive colony ship, there's no point halfarsing it and having everyone die halfway there. I mean, I expect the justification for the project will be explained in game, but it's not prima facie unbelievable. I guess it's not that it's unbelievable, it's that it doesn't hit the tone I thought and wanted them to be going for. I guess it's my fault for making assumptions, but telling a story about a group of barely-together refugees fleeing a galactic apocalypse in the equivalent of life rafts just felt more compelling to me than this whole Nexus thing. Also there's the fact that what we've seen of the project is the in-universe equivalent of propaganda films and maybe the actual thing is way shittier than they let on? We'll see I guess. I'm gonna play this either way because it's a sci-fi RPG, I'm just now more worried than I was.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:00
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CottonWolf posted:The fact that it's possible to save everyone in the suicide mission is a design choice I do not understand to this day. I don't necessarily object to the fact that it's possible to save everyone in ME2, but that the way most people survive is just "play more of the game." It'd be nicer if Bioware came down more definitively on all the loyalty missions so that you couldn't, for example, choose to spare Sidonis and gain Garrus' loyalty at the same time. Or spare that biotic dude and gain Jack's loyalty. Little things like that would have made the final balancing act a lot more difficult depending on your morality.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:00
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CottonWolf posted:To give a counter opinion, I think that ME1's the best game in the series, but that ME2 as a whole is bad. They removed all the RPG bits that I liked replaced it with mediocre shooter gameplay, went all in with 'humans are special' and it had no real overarching plot that drove the story, it was just a series of vignettes. The suicide mission was fantastic, but it didn't retroactively justify the rest of the game. ME3 was a mess in the story department, but at least the combat was genuinely fun and a massive improvement over ME2, and they brought some of the RPG bits back in. I'd like to point out sean10mm's post on this very page which I think hits the nail on the head regarding the "traditional" (read: outdated turbonerd junk) RPG elements of ME1. What even IS an RPG man? sean10mm posted:What I find funny is people thinking ME1 was more of a RPG than ME2. It had more of the window dressing of an RPG, but it didn't actually work well and didn't affect the gameplay noticably.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:00
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I don't think anyone on the council, or at Bioware, thought we would have to flee the galaxy until, oh, some time into ME3 so I'm not sure how the timeline works
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Dec 3, 2016 16:03
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CottonWolf posted:I'm willing to accept that maybe the council/private backers started a secret colonisation project after the end of ME1, given the attack on the citadel. At that point you're going to pour massive resources into it, as if you're going to bother building a massive colony ship, there's no point halfarsing it and having everyone die halfway there. I mean, I expect the justification for the project will be explained in game, but it's not prima facie unbelievable. Yeah but why would you send them to another galaxy on a, what, six-hundred year journey? Even if they get there, it's going to be about a thousand years before you know it has been successful. More pressing is the fact that they will be travelling through dark space, the place where Shepard said the Reapers were occupying. If you accept that he was right about them existing and that Sovereign was one, so maybe we need a contingency, why would you risk sending that contingency into the beast's lair? Why would you not put all those resources into building ships? Weapons? The Arks and the Nexus are kind of huge.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:04
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It's almost as if the franchise should have probably ended in 2012 and everybody is out of ideas and has no initiative except to remake the entire first game over again with slightly different names for everything.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:05
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How many RPGs had realtime shooter combat before ME1? RPGs had a lot of weird conventions and the ME games blew through a lot of them, maybe not all of them right away but that doesn't mean ME1 wasn't groundbreaking, jfc.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:06
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While I really enjoyed the mass effect series, and I am sure I will really really enjoy this one, it's pretty telling how they had to move the series to the Andromeda galaxy because of ME3's awful ending. Literally almost killed the franchise for themselves. Hopefully they at least parody Red Green Blue at some point in Andromeda.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:07
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exquisite tea posted:It's almost as if the franchise should have probably ended in 2012 and everybody is out of ideas and has no initiative except to remake the entire first game over again with slightly different names for everything. You seem really upset about this game that we know very little about.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:07
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Yeah, it really is difficult to overstate just how important ME1 was both to the RPG genre and to modern video games in general. You'd be hard pressed to find a modern big budget game with any sort of dialogue or roleplaying focus that doesn't take some inspiration from concepts introduced in Mass Effect. Like, look at it in the context of its time. The big deal western RPGs that had been released recently before it were Neverwinter Nights 2, in 2006, and Jade Empire, in 2005. These were both essentially games on the Baldur's Gate model with some 3D graphics and voice-over slapped in, and neither of them were very good or managed to achieve success as anything other than niche titles. Before that it was Knights of the Old Republic II in 2004, now a cult hit, but at the time a massive, buggy mess that failed to live up to its predecessor's commercial success. Dragon Age: Origins wouldn't come along until 2009. Mass Effect re-imagined the western RPG dramatically. Instead of playing a dirt farmer who slowly became a demi-god after their village was destroyed/spaceship was attacked, you were playing an accomplished military officer in command of a high-tech vessel, and the game actually honoured this premise. Instead of being a blank slate whose personality you imagined, Shepard had a voice, a history, and a specific background you customised before gameplay started. Complex facial and model animation played a part in conversations and cutscenes - something we make fun of now when Bioware re-uses their old, canned stuff, but which was insane as a thing in an RPG at the time. Like, there's a scene in Mass Effect where you're approaching the Citadel, and Ashley and Shepard are peering out of the window to look at the Citadel fleet's flagship, and their bodies are actually leaning on stuff and their faces are emoting rather than them just being in ash_stand_1 hero_stand_1 while their lips wobble around to say dialogue. Now, this scene looks unremarkable and even a little dated. Back then, it was god drat wild. There's so much other stuff too. But I think it is important to remember just how much of a ground breaker the first Mass Effect game was.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:10
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Milky Moor posted:Yeah but why would you send them to another galaxy on a, what, six-hundred year journey? Even if they get there, it's going to be about a thousand years before you know it has been successful. Because Bioware hosed up huge with ME3 and loving nuked their prize IP that they had spent years investing in and building and now they are scrambling to shoehorn in a new game with all their existing assets to appease EA and make the dollars. The development history of MEA so far is.........not promising.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:10
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Ein Sexmonster posted:You seem really upset about this game that we know very little about. The little we know is not promising.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:11
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There have been RPGs with real-time action and shooter mechanics since the 1980s.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:12
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exquisite tea posted:The little we know is not promising.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:13
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NmareBfly posted:Re: Kai Leng, any excuse to post this again. My gosh that's bad writing, it's so awkward. Are all the ME novels like that?
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Dec 3, 2016 16:15
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I haven't read them but by all accounts, most are serviceable sci-fi schlock, while Mass Effect: Deception (the one featured there) is a sort of fever dream reminiscent of the goofiest parts of the Star Wars EU that blatantly ignores canon, features many ridiculous incidents, and is written like that throughout. In fact, that's probably one of the better passages, style-wise. It's really grim stuff.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:17
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psyman posted:I'd like to point out sean10mm's post on this very page which I think hits the nail on the head regarding the "traditional" (read: outdated turbonerd junk) RPG elements of ME1. What even IS an RPG man? I mean ultimately it represented the deemphasising of the statistical aspects of ME and replacing them with a shooter system which I didn't think was particularly well implemented, and in order to do that, they removed a lot of interesting lore stuff (heat sinks, real weapon modding, real changes to the practical logic of biotics, addition of global cooldowns), which I think hurt the game. It changed it from a "pure" RPG in the traditional CRPG tradition to more of an action RPG, and like it or not, it was a fundamental change to the underlying game. I'm not going to defend the 3 lockpicking skills or anything, but it's more than just positive streamlining. A Buff Gay Dude posted:I don't think anyone on the council, or at Bioware, thought we would have to flee the galaxy until, oh, some time into ME3 so I'm not sure how the timeline works Yeah, but people certainly realised that poo poo was up. Cerberus start all their projects, it's not insane to think that other people thought there was a threat worth worrying about. Milky Moor posted:Yeah but why would you send them to another galaxy on a, what, six-hundred year journey? Even if they get there, it's going to be about a thousand years before you know it has been successful. Again depends on who's running the project, whether it's private financiers or the government. I mean, I'm perfectly willing to accept that there's a high chance that the story in ME:A will also be an illogical mess, but I've not seen anything yet that confirms that. I'm definitely not going to preorder the game, but I'm reasonably positive it'll have a warm reception, and if it does, I'll buy it.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:18
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Ein Sexmonster posted:The core gameplay seems very intact. Minimum standard for a sequel achieved, I guess? And to build on what Android Blues said, there was also a ton of variety. You had your humans, sure, but all the various aliens were kind of astounding. Sure, half of them didn't move or do anything except stand there and talk, but coming off KOTOR where the aliens had maybe two sound files that looped endlessly (that you are definitely hearing in your head as I say that) and were all your typical Star Wars fare, well...
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Dec 3, 2016 16:18
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Were global cooldowns a lore aspect.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:20
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Milky Moor posted:Minimum standard for a sequel achieved, I guess?
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Dec 3, 2016 16:20
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Pattonesque posted:There is no consensus opinion on ME3 There absolutely is a consensus opinion on ME3, and the consensus is the ending is god awful. This is a game with an ending so bad wikipedia has an entry on how bad it is. This is a game with an ending so bad it's ending being bad is a meme. This is a game with an ending so bad that in the weeks following the game's release the loving bean counters at EA paid money to patch the game for a reworked ending in a desperate attempt to stop the non-stop flood of criticism (they failed). Like if some one is reading this who hasn't played the game and is wondering "can it really be that bad?" I'm telling you Mass Effect 3 is a game where the "unlock-able good ending" involves you putting glowing green circuit boards on everyone in the galaxy followed by your ship's pilot crash landing the ship in a metaphorical Eden and then going off to gently caress his real doll. There are people out there who will defend ME3's ending. There are also people out there who will defend literally eating poo poo.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:22
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psyman posted:My gosh that's bad writing, it's so awkward. Are all the ME novels like that? Android Blues posted:I haven't read them but by all accounts, most are serviceable sci-fi schlock, while Mass Effect: Deception (the one featured there) is a sort of fever dream reminiscent of the goofiest parts of the Star Wars EU that blatantly ignores canon, features many ridiculous incidents, and is written like that throughout. Yeah Mass Effect: Deception was the ME3 of books. Or maybe ME3 was the Mass Effect: Deception of RPGs.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:22
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Having full VO was always a sideways step/balancing act and game dialogue sytems and dialogue in general would probably be better if game developers had ever understood that.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:22
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psyman posted:My gosh that's bad writing, it's so awkward. Are all the ME novels like that? The others aren't great and really struggle to hit good or average. But Deception is by far the worst. Overall, they are not worth reading. CottonWolf posted:I mean ultimately it represented the deemphasising of the statistical aspects of ME and replacing them with a shooter system which I didn't think was particularly well implemented, and in order to do that, they removed a lot of interesting lore stuff (heat sinks, real weapon modding, real changes to the practical logic of biotics, addition of global cooldowns), which I think hurt the game. It changed it from a "pure" RPG in the traditional CRPG tradition to more of an action RPG, and like it or not, it was a fundamental change to the underlying game. I'm not going to defend the 3 lockpicking skills or anything, but it's more than just positive streamlining. I kind of agree with this. I do think that ME2 did make the gameplay much more fun but ME1 has this amazing sense of being in the future and felt very consistent about its rules. ME2 started making biotics into space magic as opposed to limited gravity stuff where the two most amazing things were warp and barrier.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:22
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Dan Didio posted:Were global cooldowns a lore aspect. I'm pretty sure in the fiction that there were almost no cooldowns. And certainly not global ones. There's no reason someone who specialises in tech and biotics, can't use a tech skill directly after a biotic skills. It's a weird addition for balance.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:22
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Dan Didio posted:There have been RPGs with real-time action and shooter mechanics since the 1980s. 
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Dec 3, 2016 16:22
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Biotics is latin for space magic.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:24
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