Mass Effect Andromeda: To Boldly Go

[Olinser]

Is that the one in an ice cave? The other two glyphs should be out above, outside the ice cave.



End-game spoilers:

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The Scourge doesn't get cleared at all. It's probably going to be one of the focuses of the next games, and due to the (apparent) method of creation, is probably limited to the Heleus cluster.

With the general reception of Andromeda, I'd frankly be pretty surprised if there IS a next game. If another Mass Effect game gets made I'd put pretty heavy odds on it being set back in the Milky Way and avoiding all association with Andromeda.

I would be utterly shocked if EA allowed this studio to make an Andromeda 2.

[Zevox]

With the general reception of Andromeda, I'd frankly be pretty surprised if there IS a next game. If another Mass Effect game gets made I'd put pretty heavy odds on it being set back in the Milky Way and avoiding all association with Andromeda.

I would be utterly shocked if EA allowed this studio to make an Andromeda 2.

Maybe I've been missing something since I'm not reading spoilers, but I haven't gotten the impression that the reception has been remotely that bad. More critical than Bioware typically gets, yes, but not even on par with the backlash against 3's ending, much less enough to potentially kill a big franchise.

[NeoVid]

With the general reception of Andromeda, I'd frankly be pretty surprised if there IS a next game. If another Mass Effect game gets made I'd put pretty heavy odds on it being set back in the Milky Way and avoiding all association with Andromeda.

I would be utterly shocked if EA allowed this studio to make an Andromeda 2.

It doesn't matter how much people complain about a game, how much money it made matters. See also: Fallout 4.

[tonberrian]

Andromeda's biggest failing is that it's mediocre, and that's never been enough to kill major franchises.

[Olinser]

Maybe I've been missing something since I'm not reading spoilers, but I haven't gotten the impression that the reception has been remotely that bad. More critical than Bioware typically gets, yes, but not even on par with the backlash against 3's ending, much less enough to potentially kill a big franchise.

They were the #1 seller in week 1, sure, but they didn't have any big-name competition (Horizon is a PS4 exclusive which significantly cuts its sales ceiling) but total sales were significantly lower than both Mass Effect 2 and 3, have dropped off extremely steeply in week 2 - never a good sign - and multiple retailers are already selling the game at a 15-25% discount - which is almost unheard of for a new release this early, and a major red flag that the demand is nowhere near what they were anticipating.

And that's not even talking about the largely negative reviews of the game.

All of that points to something major having to change for another entry to get made. Given the extremely large budget they had for this game and that its pretty clear the expectations were NOT met, it's not hard to connect the dots and think that EA will cut their losses with Andromeda and go back to the main Mass Effect universe.

[Morty]

Even if Andromeda were to crash and burn, the window for stories in the original Mass Effect universe is pretty small. Unless they make a game without humans.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I gotta agree. The impression I got from reviews wasn't that Andromeda wasn't terrible, not even bad. Just "okay," and not GREAT! And there's tons of "okay" games out there that have gotten sequels.

I personally think Andromeda's stellar, but I liked all of Mass Effect's stuff. Basically all I wanted from Andromeda was "More Mass Effect, please!" And that's exactly what I got. Is it perfect? Heck no, and I never expected it to be. But I feel I got my money's worth, even if there's still a lot of garbage BioWare needs to fix in the future regarding representation and writing.

And like Morty said, they can't really go back to the Milky Way without the baggage from the original trilogy making it a storytelling minefield.

[Olinser]

I gotta agree. The impression I got from reviews wasn't that Andromeda wasn't terrible, not even bad. Just "okay," and not GREAT! And there's tons of "okay" games out there that have gotten sequels.

I personally think Andromeda's stellar, but I liked all of Mass Effect's stuff. Basically all I wanted from Andromeda was "More Mass Effect, please!" And that's exactly what I got. Is it perfect? Heck no, and I never expected it to be. But I feel I got my money's worth, even if there's still a lot of garbage BioWare needs to fix in the future regarding representation and writing.

And like Morty said, they can't really go back to the Milky Way without the baggage from the original trilogy making it a storytelling minefield.

You kidding? Milky way would be incredibly easy. You'd just have to jump pretty far past or future (Sheperd is definitely done, I'll agree).

Most likely, and probably best story setting, would be set some period of time (couple hundred years, probably) after the Reapers, with new technology finally allowing them to explore the stars again, and re-discovering how all of the various species homeworlds handled the destruction of the Mass Relays and how it affected their culture, then add a couple new races that have technologically evolved, discovered their own space travel, and carved out their own empires in the interim.

Alternately, you could go to the past when humans were first venturing out and contacting the other species for the first time, making first contact with the major Mass Effect species, the first Human-Turian conflict, etc. There's plenty of past to explore before the Reapers ever showed up (or heck, go back further and not even have humans at all).

[tonberrian]

There's nothing wrong with Andromeda that a setting change will fix. Bad writing is bad writing, whether it's in the Milky Way or in Andromeda. Same with animation.

[Douglas]

Most likely, and probably best story setting, would be set some period of time (couple hundred years, probably) after the Reapers, with new technology finally allowing them to explore the stars again, and re-discovering how all of the various species homeworlds handled the destruction of the Mass Relays and how it affected their culture, then add a couple new races that have technologically evolved, discovered their own space travel, and carved out their own empires in the interim.

Doing that would be tricky without defining a canon ending. The scenario you described would fit only with Destroy. If you pick either Control or Synthesis the Reapers repair the mass relays and give everyone a big helping hand.

[Psyren]

Big news coming April 4th apparently.

With the general reception of Andromeda, I'd frankly be pretty surprised if there IS a next game. If another Mass Effect game gets made I'd put pretty heavy odds on it being set back in the Milky Way and avoiding all association with Andromeda.

Err, no, it wasn't nearly bad enough for that (especially financially.) What they might do is pull back from the open world stuff a tad, and go for a more directed narrative a la ME1/DAO, but not shutter the whole franchise.

I would be utterly shocked if EA allowed this studio to make an Andromeda 2.

This one is a little less outlandish, but still unlikely, since a brand new studio would be just as much of a gamble.

You kidding? Milky way would be incredibly easy. You'd just have to jump pretty far past or future (Sheperd is definitely done, I'll agree).

Most likely, and probably best story setting, would be set some period of time (couple hundred years, probably) after the Reapers, with new technology finally allowing them to explore the stars again, and re-discovering how all of the various species homeworlds handled the destruction of the Mass Relays and how it affected their culture, then add a couple new races that have technologically evolved, discovered their own space travel, and carved out their own empires in the interim.

Alternately, you could go to the past when humans were first venturing out and contacting the other species for the first time, making first contact with the major Mass Effect species, the first Human-Turian conflict, etc. There's plenty of past to explore before the Reapers ever showed up (or heck, go back further and not even have humans at all).

I'm not expecting Milky Way any time soon. That wound is barely healed.

[Zevox]

What they might do is pull back from the open world stuff a tad, and go for a more directed narrative a la ME1/DAO, but not shutter the whole franchise.

*crosses fingers*

[Olinser]

Big news coming April 4th apparently.



Err, no, it wasn't nearly bad enough for that (especially financially.) What they might do is pull back from the open world stuff a tad, and go for a more directed narrative a la ME1/DAO, but not shutter the whole franchise.



This one is a little less outlandish, but still unlikely, since a brand new studio would be just as much of a gamble.



I'm not expecting Milky Way any time soon. That wound is barely healed.

This was already, effectively, a brand new studio. This was Bioware Montreal, who had never actually been the primary studio for a game before.

That's why I said 'different studio', which probably means you're going to see this get sent back to Bioware Edmonton. Whether that would actually increase quality is up for debate, but it would allow them to create the public PERCEPTION that they're doing it to increase quality.

EDIT - and I already said it was #1 on the charts. #1 doesn't mean much - what matters is total sales relative to its budget, not its rank on a chart. Especially a chart that is only UK sales. Week 1 sales it is behind both Mass Effect 2 and 3 and dropping significantly already.

[Inarius]

The problem with a lot of the sales figures is they only look at physical sales of the game without looking at the digital sales. That combined with the fact the deluxe edition was only digital makes the numbers potentially misleading.

[Olinser]

The problem with a lot of the sales figures is they only look at physical sales of the game without looking at the digital sales. That combined with the fact the deluxe edition was only digital makes the numbers potentially misleading.

True, but its not that difficult for people to get rough estimates through various means. But I agree, a lot of companies don't officially release their digital numbers, so getting OFFICIAL numbers of digital downloads can be tricky.

[5ColouredWalker]

Andromeda's biggest failing is that it's mediocre, and that's never been enough to kill major franchises.

This.
If this was the first in a series by a developer, I'd be stoked.
But, ME:A, From Bioware.... It's just sad, but not in the way I can point to a few things and say 'executive meddling condemn EA instead.'

[Psyren]

what matters is total sales relative to its budget, not its rank on a chart.

Obviously. But none of us have those data points, only guesswork and supposition. The fact is that it outsold ME1 and that got a sequel, so rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated, is all I'm saying.

[Dienekes]

Guys, Dragon Age 2 didn't kill Dragon Age and I believe DA2 sold only around half the copies of DAO, and on a whole the DA franchise has made Bioware and EA a lot less money than Mass Effect.

At most, I can see the director being fired and someone new brought on, placing more of a focus on graphics than anything else. Probably a streamlining of menu's as well.

If we're very, very lucky, they'll also place more of a focus on the story, which I've heard is varying degrees of lackluster. But, because most of the outrage is over the poor graphics, they will probably focus on that.

[5ColouredWalker]

Animation, yes, Graphics, no.


Finally built a Soned (Decided to wait until level 30 for the 5/Top of the tree), and by god I have so much ammo with it despite the Vintage Heat Sink. That said, it's charge time is attrocious, so much so that I'm thinking of dropping it anyway... Which is a shame.

Also, I've decided that Seeking Plasma + Shotgun is the perfect combination. At short range, the slow travel time means nothing, at long range the seeking property makes the shotgun usable if you ever decide to finish the clip before switching weapons. Additionally, the scattering of the shots makes them harder to dodge.
And by being seeking you do all the damage, not a fraction based on how many fragments hit.

[Rodin]

The overall impression I've been getting is that they tried to make the game too big. This left everything a touch unfinished, and leaves an overall feeling of sloppiness.

The animations are bad because they got something that was "good enough" and moved on to trying to actually finish the game, not realizing what a big deal it would be.
Many sidequests are generic filler because they had to do something to fill all that space, and didn't have time to put really engaging stuff in.
The bad interface and weird bugs and glitches all over the place comes down to not enough time spent playtesting, as well as not enough time to actually fix the stuff said playtesting finds. The Elder Scrolls games have always suffered similarly.
The plot doesn't have as good an excuse, but I can definitely see it not getting as much focus when the actual meat of the game is "big open world".


Sometimes, less really is more. I just wish it's a lesson that developers would learn.

[Inarius]

The overall impression I've been getting is that they tried to make the game too big. This left everything a touch unfinished, and leaves an overall feeling of sloppiness.

This is pretty much my take away from it, but despite the lack of polish it's still a fun game to me.

[Calemyr]

Comparing it to Dragon Age 2, Andromeda is a masterpiece. The gameplay is fun,the scenery is drop-dead gorgeous, the story and characters are okay, and the bugs, dialogue, and animation are minor to moderate annoyances. If it were anyone but Bioware, this would probably be considered a pretty solid game. Bioware, however, is facing a huge uphill climb already after frustrations from DA2, DAI, and ME3's ending which, when combined with the high standards they used to have, leaves the game falling far short of the expected mark and graded by a fanbase too weary of the company's crap to give it any good will. Add in the whole female aesthetic issue, and it gets worse. It doesn't help that the graphical bugs and shortfalls can get comically ridiculous, so it's been ridiculed relentlessly instead of getting any positive press. Add in the happy few Bioware employees too stupid to realize they shouldn't espouse their personal politics while wearing the company logo, and you've got a perfect storm where this game got ablated to its core. Which sucks. The game isn't bad, it just isn't excellent and... well... to use ME's own parlance, Bioware/EA had already primed the audience and then the lackluster game detonated a devastating combo.

Outside of a fairly large number of crashes and freezes (I'm averaging one every 8 hours, about), I've been enjoying the game.

[Anteros]

The animations are bad because they got something that was "good enough" and moved on to trying to actually finish the game, not realizing what a big deal it would be.

I mean, they had to know on some level that the animations and faces would get a back-lash. A lot of this stuff genuinely looks worse than the original Mass Effect from a decade ago. I can't imagine a whole AAA studio is that out of touch with reality to not realize what they were releasing was not ok.

I legitimately don't understand the people who are saying the animations and faces aren't that bad. It is atrocious. This type of thing doesn't even normally bother me in a game, but for this game it completely breaks my immersion constantly.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Welp... I'm stuck. Liam's loyalty mission is bugged out for me and I can't extract, the last non-auto save is several hours prior. Hopefully the next patch will fix it so I don't have to backtrack that far.

[5ColouredWalker]

Did anyone see Liam's push up seen, and think 'You have no idea how to do push ups?'
It's probably not bad animation so much as the person doing the animating not having a clue, but jesus. The guy is a soldier, and he does them worse than I did when I was 12.

[Psyren]

A couple of the animations stand out for me as being extra bad (Addison and default Sara Ryder) but for the most part, I think it's much ado about little. Addison being the source of that "my face is tired" meme doesn't help.

Does anyone know how we learned Shelesh so quickly? Did they explain it somewhere in the game and I missed it? We went from only being able to understand the Angaran patrol's laughter to full-blown conversations seemingly in moments. I know it's probably the Translator Microbes but how did they get calibrated so quickly? Wouldn't we have needed examples of their language to work from?

[tonberrian]

I'm pretty sure it's just translator microbes. We learned the Kett language similarly fast once SAM came online. I think there was a codex entry in the first game about translation, let's see if I can find it.

Edit: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Cod...g_Down_the_Sky

So basically, SAM is magic. Nothing new there.

[Beleriphon]

I'm playing through the game, and sure there's some goofy dialogue. Honestly most of it from Ryder, but I kind of expect that from a kid that's trying hard to be awesome like his dad.

As for animation issues, they aren't that bad. In fact the vast majority of problems I haven't even noticed. The worst and most annoying thing in the game is getting from planet to planet and system to system with an unskippable animation.

[Morty]

The controversy over animations feels... ludicrously overblown. Like, yes, they didn't polish them properly and it shows. Sometimes I just look at the screen, and the character hardly moves, aside from their mouth. It is jarring. But looking at the debate over it, you'd think people grow an extra head in the middle of a conversation.

I've been having far more issues with the UI than the animations. And the writing is... not bad, but the characters just don't really click with me like they usually do. I think it's likely that the disproportionate hate comes from a combination of hype, wariness over previous games and having a bone to pick with BioWare over something all meeting a game that's just not great.

Does anyone know how we learned Shelesh so quickly? Did they explain it somewhere in the game and I missed it? We went from only being able to understand the Angaran patrol's laughter to full-blown conversations seemingly in moments. I know it's probably the Translator Microbes but how did they get calibrated so quickly? Wouldn't we have needed examples of their language to work from?

I was wondering the same thing. When you first meet the Angara, you can't understand them, but by the time you reach the leadership, you can. It feels like there's a middle stage that got cut. I don't mind, really, because while the trials and tribulations of a language barrier with an alien species is fascinating linguistically, it wouldn't work super well in a video game. But it is strange.

[Yana]

Time for the latest "bug" to rear its head. It seems that if you delete old save files while the game itself is running, you render yourself unable to save the game.

There goes my progress on Kadara.