BioWare Reflects on a Decade of Mass Effect

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Megalith

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BioWare is celebrating a decade of Mass Effect with a new video featuring developers who worked on the much-loved, now much-missed space franchise. Today is November 7, known to ME fans as N7 Day, BioWare's annual celebration of the series. This year is also the 10th anniversary of the original's launch back in 2007. Sadly, the future of Mass Effect is uncertain, at best.

On November 20, 2017, it will be a decade since the Mass Effect journey began. To celebrate #teN7, we're looking back at the inception of Mass Effect, its legacy, and how it all came together. Relationships were forged, uncharted worlds were explored, and galaxy-altering decisions were made. It’s been one hell of a ride.
 
Mass effect isn't a bad series, it just suffers from horrible story writers and a too narrow of a choice system.
The last one also suffered from sloppiness with the facial animations for an expensive gave to develop.
 
Liked (but not loved) the first one. Was meh on the second one. Never played the third. At best, a mediocre series, IMO. It *could* have been better had they maintained a consistent plot structure and made good on their promise that "your choices matter" when really they didn't in the end.
 
The story lost cohesion after Drew Karpyshyn was sent to work on The Old Republic.

With their other great writer, David Gaider now also gone, BioWare is dead.
 
The original trilogy was, overall, a pretty good story. Ending was "meh", but it was a good ride getting there. After the first couple of months, and several patches, Andromeda wasn't terrible anymore, but the scope was far too large to attempt to address all of it in a single game. Missing supporting factions and races, too many plot lines. If it were a TV series, it would be one that was cancelled at episode 8 of the first 12 episode season. It didn't resolve enough to make an effective cliffhanger.
 
NeoNemesis said:
The story lost cohesion after Drew Karpyshyn was sent to work on The Old Republic.

With their other great writer, David Gaider now also gone, BioWare is dead.
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And Jennifer Hepler. DA, DA:O, DA2, DA: I. Those three were the "golden trifecta" of Bioware writers -- all gone now. At least they've all gone on to quality non-Bioware projects.
 
I liked the first 2 a lot. The third one was weaker due to the game ending and politics. Hmm, I wonder if the decreased quality of the series had anything to do with being taken over by EA...
 
I enjoyed the trilogy, though I think it peaked with the first game, went down a lot with the second game (which was a straight-forward action game), and got a bit better again with the third game.

I got Andromeda for free, so I'll play it at some point. Glad that I've waited beyond the launch issues to play it.
 
For me the main plots felt decent, but deviating to side plots was always boring, unoriginal and piecemeal.
 
First 2 was great. I wanted more of those. The third was facepalm. And it's a shame they stopped making the games there. ;) Thanks EA, for screwing up another good thing!
 
harmattan said:
And Jennifer Hepler. DA, DA:O, DA2, DA: I. Those three were the "golden trifecta" of Bioware writers -- all gone now. At least they've all gone on to quality non-Bioware projects.
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You forgot the "/s."

EDIT: To expand on that, David Gaider was the lead writer in the Dragon Age series and deserves all of the credit. Hepler wrote some of the characters and quests as senior writer. She took over the reigns for Dragon Age II, and we all know how that turned out. She left Bioware during the development of Inquisition.
 
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I love the Mass Effect trilogy and still replay the games so I can relive all my glorious galaxy-spanning adventures. Andromeda was a disgrace in comparison.
 
NickJames said:
If if you call the difference between a 96 for Uncharted 2 and a 93 for Uncharted 4 being downhill.. sure I guess?
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We both know Uncharted 4 isn't a 93 game. It's an 80 or so. I didn't even finish it because it was so boring. I played Doom twice in a row instead.
 
I am left feeling nothing but emptiness for the legacy of mass effect unfortunately.
 
Mass Effect 1 and 2 are great. I did not like Mass Effect 3. I did find I like Andromeda though. I do agree with the problems with Andromeda and it was fun. A letdown that EA cut the knees of future updates and content. If you allow a game to be made you might as well continue support no matter the the hate received. I think EA should listen to feedback to improve the game and not just kill it off because a couple of people complained about SJW's.
 
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I've been playing DA III for the last few weeks and man it's such a shock it came from the same company. I'm not saying it's amazing or anything but I do at least keep wanting to go back and keep exploring. Got it free thru Origin Access too. Not so much for MEA and I paid full w/ DLC. Big regret there along with time I keep trying to put into going back to it.
 
lostin3d said:
I've been playing DA III for the last few weeks and man it's such a shock it came from the same company. I'm not saying it's amazing or anything but I do at least keep wanting to go back and keep exploring. Got it free thru Origin Access too. Not so much for MEA and I paid full w/ DLC. Big regret there along with time I keep trying to put into going back to it.
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Oh Andromeda.

I kept hoping at some point when I took the only two passable characters on my away mission (vetra, krogan), the ship in orbit would be boarded by xenomorphs and everyone else wiped out. And the Krogan would say "Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people".
 
Gigus Fire said:
Mass effect isn't a bad series, it just suffers from horrible story writers and a too narrow of a choice system.
The last one also suffered from sloppiness with the facial animations for an expensive gave to develop.
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Narrow choice system? You can start listing similar games that have wider choices. I'd love to play those.
 
lostin3d said:
I've been playing DA III for the last few weeks and man it's such a shock it came from the same company. I'm not saying it's amazing or anything but I do at least keep wanting to go back and keep exploring. Got it free thru Origin Access too. Not so much for MEA and I paid full w/ DLC. Big regret there along with time I keep trying to put into going back to it.
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DAIII is an MMO sold as single player campaign. I've never seen such a grindfest ever in my life. And I never again want to. I'm tired of all the bashing andromeda gets. It's not a bad game. In some regards it is better than DA:I. But if you start playing it with the mindset "I'm going to hate this" then you're going to hate it, and keep looking for things you can hate in it instead of things that are actually enjoyable.

I don't regret for a minute that I got andromeda as a pre-order. The only thing I regret is that we're not getting any SP DLC for it because everyone was busy flicking turd at it. It deserved some criticism, but man it was blown out of proportion.
 
M76 said:
DAIII is an MMO sold as single player campaign. I've never seen such a grindfest ever in my life. And I never again want to. I'm tired of all the bashing andromeda gets. It's not a bad game. In some regards it is better than DA:I.
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I agree with everything you said here. DA:I truly was a grindfest, and a disappointment after the brilliance of DA: O (even taking into account DA2, which was a disappointment, but not as bad a some make it out to be). ME: A is better than I expected, especially after playing the trial and being underwhelmed.
 
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M76 said:
DAIII is an MMO sold as single player campaign. I've never seen such a grindfest ever in my life. And I never again want to. I'm tired of all the bashing andromeda gets. It's not a bad game. In some regards it is better than DA:I. But if you start playing it with the mindset "I'm going to hate this" then you're going to hate it, and keep looking for things you can hate in it instead of things that are actually enjoyable.

I don't regret for a minute that I got andromeda as a pre-order. The only thing I regret is that we're not getting any SP DLC for it because everyone was busy flicking turd at it. It deserved some criticism, but man it was blown out of proportion.
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Definitely would have loved to get that quarian dlc. Also wish that edmonton would have gotten the project instead of anthem.
 
M76 said:
Narrow choice system? You can start listing similar games that have wider choices. I'd love to play those.
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kotor for one. Made by bioware. You can be a good or evil jedi with different endings. Can you do the same in mass effect? Good or bad Shepard leads to the same ending, just different colored beams of light.
 
Watching the video reminded me of how much I enjoyed playing all three games. The third was poorer than the first two, but enjoyed it all the same.
 
Pringle said:
(y)
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And why do you think sales were terrible? Cause and effect. You cite the effect, I went directly to the cause. During the whole trial week nothing else could be heard but how awful andromeda is and how the animations are completely broken, and other such nonsense. Based on the feedback I'd never have gotten the game. I only had it because it was already pre-ordered. And it turned out as I played it that almost all the criticism was a load of crap. And if I was ready to dismiss the game without seeing it as a hardcore ME fan, how many do you think actually did?
 
I loved ALL of them. In order of favorites I would have to go:

  1. Mass Effect
  2. Mass Effect 2
  3. Mass Effect Andromeda
  4. Mass Effect 3

Andromeda I thoroughly enjoyed and am really saddened it got shit on as hard as it did when it is a great game imo.
 
Litfod said:
They made a third one??
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Yeah and it wasn't that bad but they never gave the game an ending. The last thing I remember is fighting my way through the Citadel and then the next thing I knew the credits were rolling.
 
I was given the Trilogy from Bioware during that COD Black OPs 2 Disc Pressing screw up.
Disc 2 of Black Ops 2 had Mass Effect 2 on it.
Bioware made a post saying they would give you the Trilogy if you sent them photo of you holding the Black Ops 2 Disc 2.

I still haven't gotten around to trying any of the ME games out.

here is an article from back then,
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/14/mass-effect-accidentally-included-with-black-ops-2

I wonder if my messed up Hard Copy is worth anything now, lol.
 
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