Mass Effect: Andromeda

[bmg]

Who exactly is this referring to??

 

[Phlorge]

Who exactly is this referring to??

you can check a few pages back. basically a cosplay artist had on her profile that she was the lead animator at bioware and everybody was shitting on her and them.

 

[Blade-Runner]

Damage control.

So someone is lying, either her or EA. My bet is EA given the PR spin put out after people took notice of the crap facial animations following the first major trailer release. She claims to have taken over in June 2016, so the problems are likely to have predated her involvement. Still, the fact that such an inexperienced person got promoted to the lead position doesn't say much for Bioware's overall project management.

 

[jiminator]

she is not a creative director or anything. she probably did exactly what she was told to do. I see the issue with mass effect series is that it does not represent someones single coherent vision. in other words it looks like a design by committee, where talent from the first games moved on and you get stuck with the B team. The B team then comes up with lots of "wouldn't it be cool" - shit ideas, and that is why the series collapsed starting in the second then in the third game.

example, "wouldn't it be cool if he dies... ME2" "wouldn't it be cool if there was a babylon 5 plot twist...ME3"

The second game was good despite that but the change IMO was unnecessary

 

[Tup3x]

she is not a creative director or anything. she probably did exactly what she was told to do. I see the issue with mass effect series is that it does not represent someones single coherent vision. in other words it looks like a design by committee, where talent from the first games moved on and you get stuck with the B team. The B team then comes up with lots of "wouldn't it be cool" - shit ideas, and that is why the series collapsed starting in the second then in the third game.

example, "wouldn't it be cool if he dies... ME2" "wouldn't it be cool if there was a babylon 5 plot twist...ME3"

The second game was good despite that but the change IMO was unnecessary

That's actually probably it. Although I think in the original trilogy was clearly impacted by Casey Hudson's vision. Mass Effect Andromeda though... I have no idea. In something like Squadron 42 it would be easy to say: Chris Roberts'.

 

[polydiol]

its 2017 and people still dont understand that the internet never forgets. This also confirms that Bioware is fully aware of the problems and the internet backlash. I'd love to hear how their meetings are going to proceed on monday.

 

[Frraksurred]

its 2017 and people still dont understand that the internet never forgets. This also confirms that Bioware is fully aware of the problems and the internet backlash. I'd love to hear how their meetings are going to proceed on monday.

It will be business as usual until the first 2 weeks of sales figures are in. They're not going to spend a bunch of money regardless, but it might get some attention if this whole thing affects projected sales.

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

The statement from Bioware seems like PR fluff rather than a straight up apology for the misunderstanding from their own employee for putting possibly false information OR that the facial composition & animation was not properly managed but that they would get right on fixing it. I'm not seeing any of that, so as an open minded fan of many things Bioware, I'm very disappointed in them.

 

[Frraksurred]

Good Lord the Salarian makes this scene work:

Spoiler: Clip

 

[M76]

she is not a creative director or anything. she probably did exactly what she was told to do. I see the issue with mass effect series is that it does not represent someones single coherent vision. in other words it looks like a design by committee, where talent from the first games moved on and you get stuck with the B team. The B team then comes up with lots of "wouldn't it be cool" - shit ideas, and that is why the series collapsed starting in the second then in the third game.

example, "wouldn't it be cool if he dies... ME2" "wouldn't it be cool if there was a babylon 5 plot twist...ME3"

The second game was good despite that but the change IMO was unnecessary

Bullshit, the second game is the best in the series, and the lead writer only departed well after they started working on ME3. Besides noone major dies in ME2, so I don't know what are you on about.

 

[MahoganySoapbox]

Besides noone major dies in ME2, so I don't know what are you on about.

Ending mission? I remember the first time I played through it and found myself panicking a bit to make the right decisions and save all of the crew.

 

[Comixbooks]

So would you still get this game tomorrow?

 

[M76]

Ending mission? I remember the first time I played through it and found myself panicking a bit to make the right decisions and save all of the crew.

What do you mean? If your squad is loyal and every ship enhancement is purchased then it's only down to choosing the right people for the tasks, and noone will die. Plus you have to start the mission right after the abduction to save the rest of the crew.

 

[Q-BZ]

So would you still get this game tomorrow?

Sure. My preorder is preloaded and I'm ready to kick ass.

For all this angst and controversy about cutscenes and character animations, I have yet to any real complaints about the actual game itself.

In fact I get the idea the game itself is a pretty damned good ME game and is going to deliver the goods where it ultimately counts when I swim through all the haze and smoke.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

I'm still left with a question: when your teammates are downed in single player, how do you get them back up outside of causing a game load like boarding your ship or fast traveling on the planet below?

 

[Dan_D]

I'm still left with a question: when your teammates are downed in single player, how do you get them back up outside of causing a game load like boarding your ship or fast traveling on the planet below?

I think I had to revive a squad mate once and nothing like that happened.

 

[Dan_D]

Bullshit, the second game is the best in the series, and the lead writer only departed well after they started working on ME3. Besides noone major dies in ME2, so I don't know what are you on about.

Everyone major except Liara can die in Mass Effect 2. I do agree it was the best game in the series. ME3 had a serious shot at it until the last hour or so of the game.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

I think I had to revive a squad mate once and nothing like that happened.

As I finished the single player content, their corpses, now only marked by icons, followed me around, and even talked to people during scripted events. Really no idea.

Also, how did you apply the BF1 SLI profile? It's been so long since I've tinkered at that level...

 

[Dan_D]

As I finished the single player content, their corpses, now only marked by icons, followed me around, and even talked to people during scripted events. Really no idea.

Also, how did you apply the BF1 SLI profile? It's been so long since I've tinkered at that level...

You have to use NVIDIA Inspector to do it. At least, that's the only way I know how to do it.

 

[Derangel]

Everyone major except Liara can die in Mass Effect 2. I do agree it was the best game in the series. ME3 had a serious shot at it until the last hour or so of the game.

I disagree about ME3. While it's the best playing game of the trilogy I feel it has by far the worst writing of the three. Outside of some character moments the writing was abysmal. The ending is about the same "quality" as the entire Cerberus storyline. And I hate what they did with Udena. Udena is a massive dick but I never bought him being a traitor, the game never sold it or justified it. I never bought TIM's storyline either, it felt completely out of place with what he was doing in 2 and them making him a half-assed version of Saren just killed his character completely.

 

[jiminator]

Bullshit, the second game is the best in the series, and the lead writer only departed well after they started working on ME3. Besides noone major dies in ME2, so I don't know what are you on about.

The beginning shepard being brought back to life in two years thingy

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

Brace yourselves...

Spoiler

Spoiler: Bwahahaha

 

[Derangel]

Brace yourselves...

Spoiler

Spoiler: Bwahahaha

LOL!

Spoiler

The writing for the romance is like someone trying to mimic Joss Whedon writing and failing miserably. Makes Ryder look like a teenager with their first real crush. The response to it is absolutely perfect though.

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

LOL!

Spoiler

The writing for the romance is like someone trying to mimic Joss Whedon writing and failing miserably. Makes Ryder look like a teenager with their first real crush. The response to it is absolutely perfect though.

Spoiler

A few people at NeoGAF have likened it to being a teeny bopper CW show, which is nowhere close to the adult writing level of the original trilogy. I'm DEFINITELY cancelling my preorder once it releases on Origin. No way I'm going to play an awkward teen drama with the most horrid animations & fish faces in what was supposed to be an epic sci-fi space opera.

 

[M76]

Everyone major except Liara can die in Mass Effect 2. I do agree it was the best game in the series. ME3 had a serious shot at it until the last hour or so of the game.

Can die. it's up to player choice. I thought choices that make a difference are a good thing.

 

[Mad Maxx]

Wow, even ZeroHedge, which is the furthest thing from anything involved with gaming, trashed MEA.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...bigoted-designer-and-fugly-females-lead-cance

I still have it downloaded and will give it a fair shot before passing final judgment. Maybe my now severely dampened enthusiasm will serve well as I no longer expect or even hope for a spectacular game.

 

[M76]

So would you still get this game tomorrow?

I already purchased the game, so I have no choice. But if I had known about the animations and character generator issue I probably wouldn't have. But I made a choice, and overall I'm still cautiously optimistic about the game. Will see how much the animation affects the actual experience. I'm just playing ME3 and now that I'm specifically looking for it I see a lot of weird facial expressions in that too, but nowhere near the level of what I expect from Andromeda.

 

[M76]

The beginning shepard being brought back to life in two years thingy

That's your biggest problem with the game? I haven't even considered that as an issue ever. You can accept giant machines that wipe out advanced civiliziations, but you can't get past that?

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Wow, even ZeroHedge, which is the furthest thing from anything involved with gaming, trashed MEA.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...bigoted-designer-and-fugly-females-lead-cance

I still have it downloaded and will give it a fair shot before passing final judgment. Maybe my now severely dampened enthusiasm will serve well as I no longer expect or even hope for a spectacular game.

It's an alt-right fake news website akin to Breitbart.
My time spent on T_D and KiA tells me they already hate this game because of Manveer and other "SJW" stuff going on at Bioware lately.

When you look at all the people who hate the following:
* EA
* ME3's ending
* DA:I
* Manveer
* Bioware's social justice agenda (re: All women are beautiful, we must promote diversity, etc)

There's not a lot of people left who want ME:A to succeed. To them, ME:A's failure will send a message to Bioware, anti-GamerGaters / SJW's, and AAA gaming studios in general that activism won't be tolerated in gaming. Mix that crowd into the anti-EA / anti-AAA studio crowd. These are all people who were going to treat ME:A as a failure regardless of how good it ended up being.

They obviously can't say "Andromeda is a shitty game because of Manveer", it doesn't make sense. A racist person can still make good video games. So instead they don't focus on political/social agendas, and spread memes like the shoddy animations and pretend like they actually cared about the game in the first place.

There's an article about it and some decent comments on /r/games from yesterday.

Is ME:A a good game? Don't ask the internet because most of them want you to hate it from the start.

 

[Dan_D]

Sure. My preorder is preloaded and I'm ready to kick ass.

For all this angst and controversy about cutscenes and character animations, I have yet to any real complaints about the actual game itself.

In fact I get the idea the game itself is a pretty damned good ME game and is going to deliver the goods where it ultimately counts when I swim through all the haze and smoke.

This is the main point I've been trying to get across. I don't like the SJW libtard bullshit either. I'm glad BioWare is getting called out on it but I'm going to play the game. If you see me coming in and bitching about it, it will be because the game actually sucks. I couldn't care less about the SJW shit unless it really makes the game bad. So far the women are ugly, but that probably won't make or break it for me. The animations are bad, but I've only played a small part of the game so I'm going to keep reserving judgement on it until I'm already through it. If the game is so fucking bad that I won't ever play it agian, I'll bitch on some forums and I will be extra cautious about pre-ordering or buying any future installments in the series. This is assuming of course that another one gets made after this likely fiasco.

Keep in mind BioWare Austin is in Austin. The SJW bullshit is what you'll always get hiring locals over there. It's a college town filled with stupid, idealistic college kids who know nothing about the real world. They haven't done shit or experienced shit. Their view of society and the world is narrow to say the least. Austin is a liberal pit and the taint of Texas for a reason.

 

[Mad Maxx]

It's an alt-right fake news website akin to Breitbart.
My time spent on T_D and KiA tells me they already hate this game because of Manveer and other "SJW" stuff going on at Bioware lately.

When you look at all the people who hate the following:
* EA
* ME3's ending
* DA:I
* Manveer
* Bioware's social justice agenda (re: All women are beautiful, we must promote diversity, etc)

There's not a lot of people left who want ME:A to succeed. To them, ME:A's failure will send a message to Bioware, anti-GamerGaters / SJW's, and AAA gaming studios in general that activism won't be tolerated in gaming. Mix that crowd into the anti-EA / anti-AAA studio crowd.

These are people who were already going to treat ME:A as a failure regardless of how good it ended up being. The meme-magic facial animation bugs is like cocaine to them.

Fake news is in the eye of the beholder.

I want MEA to succeed. If it's a commercial failure, we get no more MEAnything. Not what I want to see.

 

[bmg]

Wow, even ZeroHedge, which is the furthest thing from anything involved with gaming, trashed MEA.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...bigoted-designer-and-fugly-females-lead-cance

I still have it downloaded and will give it a fair shot before passing final judgment. Maybe my now severely dampened enthusiasm will serve well as I no longer expect or even hope for a spectacular game.

One can try to dismiss this by saying the site is "alt-right", but the article actually seems to be pretty accurate imho.

 

[MahoganySoapbox]

What do you mean? If your squad is loyal and every ship enhancement is purchased then it's only down to choosing the right people for the tasks, and noone will die. Plus you have to start the mission right after the abduction to save the rest of the crew.

I didn't know all of that at the time, but I had already boosted everyone's loyalty and managed to save everyone. I didn't know the requirements right after the game came out and try to avoid the guides until I've beaten a game and go back for a second play.

 

[Dan_D]

Fake news is in the eye of the beholder.

I want MEA to succeed. If it's a commercial failure, we get no more MEAnything. Not what I want to see.

If I could have my way this is what would happen:

Mass Effect Andromeda becomes relatively successful. Successful enough for EA to go ahead with future installments of the series. However, the complaints about dialog, animations and other quality issues or political nonsense gets noticed by the right people at EAoWare. Again I want the game to be successful enough for future installments to be made but I hope that the lost sales result in major changes over at BioWare. I want the SJW idiocy squashed as it no place in gaming as far as I'm concerned. I don't mind subtle and intelligent political commentary in the medium so much but what we are seeing with ME:A is anything but that.

 

[Mad Maxx]

^^ Word!

 

[bmg]

If I could have my way this is what would happen:

Mass Effect Andromeda becomes relatively successful. Successful enough for EA to go ahead with future installments of the series. However, the complaints about dialog, animations and other quality issues or political nonsense gets noticed by the right people at EAoWare. Again I want the game to be successful enough for future installments to be made but I hope that the lost sales result in major changes over at BioWare. I want the SJW idiocy squashed as it no place in gaming as far as I'm concerned. I don't mind subtle and intelligent political commentary in the medium so much but what we are seeing with ME:A is anything but that.

Well said Dan.

I got enough enjoyment from the Trial that I'd like to keep playing ME:A, I've always loved Mass Effect. On the other hand I really don't know how to let Bioware/EA know how much they screwed up the things mentioned by Dan without voting with my wallet. The fact that the racist a-hole is still employed and apparently embraced by Bioware/EA isn't a good sign that they recognize they're screwing up. If they'd done anything about the racist Senior Dev a few months ago, I'd re-preorder the game, but it seems like they're fully on board with his attitudes and have no interest in changing...in fact those of us who don't embrace his and the SJW view of things are likely considered by them as being the ones who are screwed up.

 

[Derangel]

If I could have my way this is what would happen:

Mass Effect Andromeda becomes relatively successful. Successful enough for EA to go ahead with future installments of the series. However, the complaints about dialog, animations and other quality issues or political nonsense gets noticed by the right people at EAoWare. Again I want the game to be successful enough for future installments to be made but I hope that the lost sales result in major changes over at BioWare. I want the SJW idiocy squashed as it no place in gaming as far as I'm concerned. I don't mind subtle and intelligent political commentary in the medium so much but what we are seeing with ME:A is anything but that.

Definitely that. Diversity is all well and good and it is something that AAA games could use more of, but not in the way it's being forced and shoved down people's throats by the SJW fools and anything to follows their line of thinking. I thought that original trilogy did a really good job having a diverse but well written and realistic cast across the games. For the most part even the lesbian and gay characters were handled well and their storylines played out well. Especially compared to the "everyone is bi and wants to fuck Hawke" bullshit in DA2 and Bioware virtue signaling with DA: I.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

You have to use NVIDIA Inspector to do it. At least, that's the only way I know how to do it.

I made that work, and also noticed that I was running at 1080p; jumping to 1440p before turning on the BF1 profile put me in the twenties, and got rid of some of the really rough aliasing I was seeing. The profile which I assume did other optimizations in addition to enabling SLI was good for 70FPS+, which is more than playable.

 

[diableri]

The animation is bad and enough of the characters look out of place that's it's distracting from the conversations and brings a really good experience down. I don't care who's fault it is or why; that's just excuses. It comes down to poor decisions were made in style and approval. The responsible parties should have career repercussions regardless. Gameplay and settings are good. Hope they fix the shit they did wrong this time in the hopefully future installments of this IP.

Have no stake in the distracting politico/cultural shenanigans. It's unfortunate to see them come up as it gets in the way of not having this kind of mistake come up again.

 

[RanceJustice]

First of all right now I don't think the majority of the discussion regarding Andromeda and its issues has anything to do with "SJW" (and honestly, no matter what side you come down upon on the behaviors associated with "SJW" types could we PLEASE dispense with that namesake? Social Justice and those who fight for it shouldn't be encumbered with association to those discussed here especially when we already have a long standing word for it going back at least to the 90s - " (excessive) political correctness". So lets move it to "PC" not "SJW" - I know that in a computing forum the abbrevation is a bit less clear than anywhere else, but political correctness shows that this is not a new "movement" in any way and provides historical context for despite a resurgence, it will likely retract/fade away to some degree in time just as it did before ). Lets also remember that a lot o "liberals" (in this case meaning socially and/or economically Left-favoring) object to the "political correctness police", so there's no need to create conflict by claiming that it is a "liberal" issue when not all liberals are PC Police in the same way that not all conservatives are ignorant racists.

The problems demonstrated with Andromeda are technical (or perhaps business driven) in nature , so there's no point to cause needless inflammatory rhetoric that really doesn't contribute to the discussion at the moment. The only tenuous link I've seen is the idea is regarding that one particular facial animator and frankly, its a poor one. Criticize her work in and of itself, that's fine. However, if you're going to bring her appearance or hobbies into it, then you're part of the problem; I admit I'm disappointed to see some of the insinuation that just because she's pretty or her hobby as cosplayer it is somehow related to her being (apparently?) bad at her job. That's no more right than it is for someone to claim evidence of some issue with one of us because "They're one of those anti-social neckbeards with water tubes in the computer to make it go fast! " or some such. It just muddies the point and even pragmatically provides more reason for people to think the criticisms of the game or the animation isn't based on it and of itself when they can point to people taking personal potshots at a female developer for how she looks and her hobbies; its not helpful. Oh and furthermore, lets stop focusing on Manveer. Unless there's evidence he did something in particular regarding Andromeda, as repugnant as his behavior has been in the past, you can't impugn every decision as connected to an entire company, especially one as large as Bioware much less EA, for having an asshat working there. Focusing on him in this Andromeda discussion is not helpful either and again makes it appear this is a personal, political greivence not a reasonable criticism of Andromeda's issues.

Finally, can we please stop with all of this "tears" nonsense. It doesn't matter to me if its "Trumper Tears", "White Tears", or "Libtard Tears", but I find it reprehensible that so many people are willing to put up with ANYTHING (in many cases, policies that often are against their best interest) simply because it makes "The Other" object, feeding off their response. While its natural (though its worth trying to keep things under control and be mature) to be satisfied pushing for agendas in which you agree and when things are going your way, there's a difference when it crosses over into specifically just being malicious to the point the agenda itself, or rationale for action, isn't based on sound judgement but instead an immature ideology of "Anything to fuck those guys over" or "anything they hate must be good"; an element that has exploded into the forefront among certain groups especially in the past year or so.

Its all well and good to discuss Andromeda or Bioware titles, but its worth considering that not everything needs to be seen through "SJW hating goggles". For instance the DA2 "Hawkesexual" issue doesn't have to be the work of finger-tenting "SJWs" scheming "Now we can push our agenda that everyone should be, or in fact is, pansexual! Those players won't even realize they're being indoctrinated until they realize their same-sex urges burst forth ! BWA HA HA HAHA". Instead it is more rationally a lazy design technique meant to give the player freedom of choice, without thought of the cost to the viability of NPC characterization. While I won't dispute that there have been some directly PC-related issues at Bioware, lets try not to look at everything through such a lens lest our criticisms lose credibility with many who should be listening.