Thread: You excited about ME3 yet? If so, read this. If not yet, read this.

Ah, so even less leveling and management! I'd still buy it.

well say lv40, no issues, 10 more than current, considering we'd be importing, probably max lev me 2 characters.

So in other words we're not getting ME3, we're getting Borderlands - Star Wars edition.....or perhaps Mass Crysis 3.

Originally Posted by Stefan

I don't think BW will try and change mass effect like they did with dragon age. In fact that fact that da2's sales has pretty much bombed will stop any such ideas for a while. For those who don't know da2 only sold better than dao in the first week( most likely due to preorders generated by dao) from week 2 dao outsells it by some margin and by week 8 dao is still going strong by da2 doesn't register.

Back to the delay, I am not worried it gives me time to see the 16 endings for witcher 2.

I tihnk what bioware is doing is to "consolidate" their efforts into a kind of generic platform to simply tweak every year. Exactly like Fifa/Madden/NHL [Classic EA approach]. They can then simply change the setting between Sci-fi or Fantasy and have two games per year with minimal effort in terms of tech/engine.

However while i think this "generic platform" is clearly derived from Mass Effect 2, i won't be surprised if it was trimmed and streamlined into a pretty stale,mundane and cheap use of resources. So much so that the end result is a rather forgettable game with 1 dungeon and 1 town that is more linear than a mario brothers platformer.

Regardless the concept [to consolidate the two franchises] is most likely economical and would make sense IF the same people who play Mass Effect also play Dragon Age [and vice versa]. Chances are the Mass Effect crowd are more of the FPS types and the Dragon Age crowd is the RPGers..quite a different bunch of people with different requirements. I personally think a squad based FPS works much better than a squad based action-RPG (hacknslash) . Now a turned based squad based RPG...different story.

Somewhere is an interview with one of the Bioware guys and he himself admitted that the "amount of re-use of resources" was one of the biggest negative feedback they received on Dragon Age 2, i bet they did it with Mass Effect 3 and are now adding more unique stuff instead of simply re-using the same instance over and over.

Levelling? Management? I loved ME2 because I wasn't forced to do all that shit.

Full Auto mode all the way, just played it for the story and loved every moment of it.

Originally Posted by Kekataag

That is why EA must not be involved with any game... EVER! They do not care about the fun factor in the game, they just want to get it out to the highest possible group of gamers. If it sucks, tough shit you already paid for it we won. Look at the abortion that is C&C 4, every single sport title from EA and pretty much everything else EA spewed out in the last couple of years.

And yeah you're right diabolus. EA allready stated that they want to create more Mass Effect games after the story ends with ME3. I see a lot of crappy SP games which focuses just on MP.

EA is the Anti-Midas... Everything they touch, turns into crap.

Absolute rubbish.

EA of old might have been like that, but as it stands EA is responsible for bringing us some of the best games this generation.

EA has gone from being the Anti-Christ, to being Jesus himself.


If anyone has gone the wrong way round, it would be Ubisoft who were once small and reputable, and now simply pump out one shoddy title after another.

yeah, few slips, but ea remains the teh ultimot ebil! for people.

i still think that was just investor speak. ME3 i don't think will be bad. it'll be great and Bware will have learnt from their mistakes

Originally Posted by SauRoN

Absolute rubbish.

EA of old might have been like that, but as it stands EA is responsible for bringing us some of the best games this generation.

EA has gone from being the Anti-Christ, to being Jesus himself.


If anyone has gone the wrong way round, it would be Ubisoft who were once small and reputable, and now simply pump out one shoddy title after another.

Looking at the Assassin's Creed franchise, i'd also say dissing Ubisoft is rubbish. Likewise if you look at Activision and CoD. So there's no point to made with the publisher as whole. You have to look at how games changed while they were under EA and when they weren't to see the problem. EA is great at ensuring games come out regularly, they are NOT good at ensuring these games are of worth "subscribing" to every year, especially not ones that you can't simple put through the meat grinder every year. RPGs are not the types of games you pull a FIFA/NFS/Madden/Tiger Woods Golf business model on and that is what Bioware is doing here . When i hear Bioware say things like "making games more mainstream" or "reaching a larger audience" , what do you think they mean? It means they're making generic games that can be released regularly.

EA is a huge publisher, some of their franchises are great and we get a good game every year [emphasis on "every year" ] . However, simply "streamlining" a deep and complex game into a "simple & mainstream" iterative game to be released every year is clearly something coming from a corporate Agenda [either EA or Bioware themselves] . We don't see Blizzard or Bethesda do this. Imagine if we saw a 30 hour Diablo or Elder Scrolls every year with some generic story and a bunch of side quests? It sounds good now, but by the time the 3rd sequel hits the franchise will be going into Guitar Hero/Tomb Raider territory. Sure they pushed out almost 7 titles in those franchises, but i can guarantee you most players only remember the first and 2nd games, the rest are all "meh" .

Put another way, some games can be rehashed every year , some shouldn't be. I think a sports title like FIFA [and even Need for Speed] it is easy, players buy it for the latest teams,rosters,cars and tracks and iterative improvements to gameplay. An RPG does not work like that, you simply can't smack some generic story on there and tweak the gameplay....players don't fall for that nonsense...not for very long.

Originally Posted by diabolus

Looking at the Assassin's Creed franchise, i'd also say dissing Ubisoft is rubbish. Likewise if you look at Activision and CoD. So there's no point to made with the publisher as whole. You have to look at how games changed while they were under EA and when they weren't to see the problem. EA is great at ensuring games come out regularly, they are NOT good at ensuring these games are of worth "subscribing" to every year, especially not ones that you can't simple put through the meat grinder every year. RPGs are not the types of games you pull a FIFA/NFS/Madden/Tiger Woods Golf business model on and that is what Bioware is doing here . When i hear Bioware say things like "making games more mainstream" or "reaching a larger audience" , what do you think they mean? It means they're making generic games that can be released regularly.

EA is a huge publisher, some of their franchises are great and we get a good game every year [emphasis on "every year" ] . However, simply "streamlining" a deep and complex game into a "simple & mainstream" iterative game to be released every year is clearly something coming from a corporate Agenda [either EA or Bioware themselves] . We don't see Blizzard or Bethesda do this. Imagine if we saw a 30 hour Diablo or Elder Scrolls every year with some generic story and a bunch of side quests? It sounds good now, but by the time the 3rd sequel hits the franchise will be going into Guitar Hero/Tomb Raider territory. Sure they pushed out almost 7 titles in those franchises, but i can guarantee you most players only remember the first and 2nd games, the rest are all "meh" .

Put another way, some games can be rehashed every year , some shouldn't be. I think a sports title like FIFA [and even Need for Speed] it is easy, players buy it for the latest teams,rosters,cars and tracks and iterative improvements to gameplay. An RPG does not work like that, you simply can't smack some generic story on there and tweak the gameplay....players don't fall for that nonsense...not for very long.

Assassin's Creed is a actually a prime example of Ubisoft behaving like the EA cash cow of old.

The games were released back to back, and then with a bullshit Brotherhood side quest, not to mention all the other platforms that they are cashing in on.

But yes it is silly to rate the publisher as a whole, I was simply stating that of the lot EA is most certainly not the supreme evil they once were.

Ubisoft and Activision far outclass them now.

Originally Posted by SauRoN

Assassin's Creed is a actually a prime example of Ubisoft behaving like the EA cash cow of old.

The games were released back to back, and then with a bullshit Brotherhood side quest, not to mention all the other platforms that they are cashing in on.

But yes it is silly to rate the publisher as a whole, I was simply stating that of the lot EA is most certainly not the supreme evil they once were.

Ubisoft and Activision far outclass them now.

Well indeed, Ubisoft is seemingly releasing yet another Assassin's Creed end of the year. This is probably exactly what Bioware wants to achieve, so Ubisoft is ahead of EA here. Ubisoft is doing it "right" though....they are not gutting their games to do this.

Assassin's Creed was not "dumbed" down to achieve this regular schedule , we are not "losing" gameplay/complexity/content in the process. Assassin's Creed got one heck of a "world" and engine, i mean compare that to Dragon Age 2, seriously. I'm simply talking the size, the scope and the technology . Dragon Age 2 is not only tiny and heavily instanced, but nowhere is there anything where i stopped in awe at the graphics or story or gameplay (bioware "streamlined" everything into "less") . Now look at Assassin's Creed, sure they re-use assets all over the game , but geez at least it looks good! [and at least it's not as blatantly obvious]

So yes, while clearly Ubisoft/EA/Activision has to make money, at least Ubisoft's "milking" of the AC franchise does not leave me with a feeling i'm getting "less" than before. AC2: Brotherhood is -more- than AC2 , not less. If they can do that every 6 months, why not?

I got no problem if Bioware can pull off a kind of mainstream release that is brilliant and they can build on it every 6 months with another "episodic" type of game, but this is not what i've seen happen. Every iteration of a Bioware game was LESS (less content, less story, less gameplay, less customization, less less less)