Mass Effect Andromeda II: Stay Strong and Clear!

[GungHo]

The developers and creatives can leave, but they can't take anything (including the names "Bioware" and "Mass Effect") with them.

People unionize over fair wages and unsafe workspaces not "we wanna make Mass Effect 5 and not Broshooter 15".

[Psyren]

People unionize over fair wages and unsafe workspaces not "we wanna make Mass Effect 5 and not Broshooter 15".

Not sure how unionizing comes into it. The posts I was responding to began with this:

Unlike, say, the ME3 ending controversy, this is an issue where it's clearly EA at fault, rather than Bioware. Bioware don't get to decide to make more DLC if EA rules that it's not financially viable, they presumably didn't get a choice about which studio with which to make the game and if EA starts closing down their studios and cannibalising their workforce, their only option is to leave EA's employ entirely.

The options there are "stay with EA" or "leave" - neither of which (apparently) allow them to make more Mass Effect, DLC or otherwise.

[Sholos]

A thought occurred to me just now. If the Arks are traveling at such ridiculous speed to the Andromeda galaxy, why put anyone in cryo at all? Shouldn't the trip be instantaneous for everyone, given time dilation?

[tonberrian]

A thought occurred to me just now. If the Arks are traveling at such ridiculous speed to the Andromeda galaxy, why put anyone in cryo at all? Shouldn't the trip be instantaneous for everyone, given time dilation?

Time Dilation only happens in relativistic physics. Going FTL is decidedly non-relativistic.

[warty goblin]

A thought occurred to me just now. If the Arks are traveling at such ridiculous speed to the Andromeda galaxy, why put anyone in cryo at all? Shouldn't the trip be instantaneous for everyone, given time dilation?

Time dilation means that the accelerating person experiences less time than the non-accelerating person. If it takes the people in the arks six hundred years to get to Andromeda, that's the amount of time they experience, not the amount of time that the people in the Milky Way experience. That's going to be on the order of hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

(If ME wasn't cheating and shooting people around faster than light. Once you start doing that pretty much any answer to the question "what date is it where we left?" is acceptable. Including yesterday. Which conveniently enough means that FTL literally happens according to the timetable of plot. )

[NeoVid]

I liked Andromeda about as much as I liked ME1, so I was looking forward to what was going to happen next. Damn.

I also feel bad for Bioware, but it's not like this was unexpected:

Spoiler

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[RCgothic]

Now that I've maxed out almost all my rare and uncommon cards (just 4 uncommon great remaining) the game is dropping me much more in the way of level IV consumables. On Monday I finally managed a solo gold extraction.

Just once more for Best of the Best!

[Calemyr]

I gotta admit I'm pretty much done with Bioware, and for once I think it's gonna stick and that's mainly because of the DLC thing. Bioware has pulled many last-minute saves with their DLCs in the past, which tend to take all the anger/disappointment I felt about the game and end it on a high note.

DA2 had Legacy and Mark of the Assassin, both of which brought the party to a new region with new maps and even brought back our missing sibling for a romp. By the time I was done with them, I was willing to forgive the original game's pathetic reuse of environments (particularly where it wasn't justified) and crippled character development, because the DLCs brought these traits in spades along with a lot of humor. Snarky, snarky humor.

Mass Effect 3 had Citadel, which focused on the fun, the adventure, and the exceptional characters the franchise had built. It was a love letter to all the good parts of the games, amped up to the nines and packaged as pure unadulterated awesome. I still hate the ending of the game, even with the extended cut, with a burning passion, but that's no longer what I think of when I play the game. I think of my entire crew standing on a catwalk, guns blazing downward at baddies, with Wrex laughing and yelling "This is why I love hanging with you guys!". I think of a deeply troubled Shepard musing on how they say the line "I should go". I think of Grunt cheerfully denying people access to the after party. And so one of games that has ticked me off the most in my history as a gamer (just ask Psyren, who jousted with me regularly in my rage) ends bringing a smile to my face when I think back on it.

Dragon Age Inquisition managed to counter the dreary combat and gameplay of the game with a story-rich chapter that not just tightens up some loose threads and shows some consequences, but actually gives the Inquisitor one thing Hawke and the Warden never got: closure.

MEA? Won't get that. All I will have to think back on is a decent but fairly lackluster game that was fun for a little while but ultimately not very satisfying, riddled with absurd bugs, cringe-worthy lines, and countless loose ends swinging in the breeze. And what's following this low note? A Destiny clone I have zero interest in. Which is a shame. For a very long time, the Bioware label alone was enough to interest me. "I don't know what Star Wars has to do with Bioware, but it'll probably be good." "A kung fu action game done by an RPG company? Strange, but Bioware has done more with less." DA2 was the first time they really disappointed me, but until now they always made their saving throws with great DLC. Now I have trouble caring enough to be disappointed.

[Psyren]

I've hung up my lance, friend, and agree. They've reversed their fortunes before with excellent DLC. Now, I have no plans to preorder Anthem and it will have to be stellar for me to even consider a purchase at all. Considering how entrenched my IRL friends are all planning to get into Destiny I don't expect that to change.

The worst part is that if Anthem fails, I just know that EA is going to give up, flush Bioware, focus on Battlefield and Madden and that will be the end of that.

[darksolitaire]

The worst part is that if Anthem fails, I just know that EA is going to give up, flush Bioware, focus on Battlefield and Madden and that will be the end of that.

I don't know. Anthem is set on fall 2018, and Dragon Age 4 is in pre-production. They might not axe Bioware if DA4 production is going well and they've already sunk resources on it.

[LibraryOgre]

Dear Origin:

Your policy of "We don't sell DLCs, we sell points that you can use to buy DLCs" is really ****ing annoying. If I have to go to a separate website, run by someone else, to figure out how to get DLCs, your system sucks varren ****.

Sincerely,
Everybody

[Sholos]

Dear Origin:

Your policy of "We don't sell DLCs, we sell points that you can use to buy DLCs" is really ****ing annoying. If I have to go to a separate website, run by someone else, to figure out how to get DLCs, your system sucks varren ****.

Sincerely,
Everybody

Ah, so that's how scale itch got onboard the ship...

[darksolitaire]

If you need to release your stuff outside your own digital distribution platform, you know it's bad. *Click* And yes, that's legit and works for DLC you own.

So, for the sake of discussion: remake/remaster of the original trilogy, yay or nay?

[LibraryOgre]

If you need to release your stuff outside your own digital distribution platform, you know it's bad. *Click* And yes, that's legit and works for DLC you own.

So, for the sake of discussion: remake/remaster of the original trilogy, yay or nay?

I think an ME:EE that ported the ME3 system onto ME would be interesting.

[Psyren]

Ah, so that's how scale itch got onboard the ship...

If you need to release your stuff outside your own digital distribution platform, you know it's bad. *Click* And yes, that's legit and works for DLC you own.

Nice!

So, for the sake of discussion: remake/remaster of the original trilogy, yay or nay?

ME1 pasted on the MEA engine with the revamped Mako handling controls would be interesting.

[Morty]

I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, experiencing the original story with game mechanics that don't make me weep tears of blood would have its charm. On the other hand... it feels like a bit of a cash-grab to revamp the original game after the newest one flopped. So I don't know.

Game mechanics and quests aside, when I see clips from ME1 somewhere, some of the dialogue feels very stilted.