Mass Effect 3

[Fabricated]

Speaking of classes; are there any hints in the beta as to what Deus Ex Machina causes Shepard to bump his head and forget everything this time around?  I keep trying to download the demo on the PS3 but the kids interrupt it to watch Netflix.

space mudflation?

[kildorn]

Speaking of classes; are there any hints in the beta as to what Deus Ex Machina causes Shepard to bump his head and forget everything this time around?  I keep trying to download the demo on the PS3 but the kids interrupt it to watch Netflix.

He doesn't. I think I read you can still re-class just for playability reasons (meaning if you want to play through multiple times, you don't need to roll on up from ME1 with the class you want or whatnot), but you keep your level from ME2 on an import. They upped the level cap from 30 to 60, so they're happy to let you start off at 30ish.

And yes, Engineers are goddamned awesome at everything. Incinerate is such amazing bullshit in ME2 and 3, and if you target a guardian or an atlas with a drone summon, it will spin them around for you. Adepts get a huge boost from the new cooldown system and the ability to take any weapons. In ME2 they felt a bit like all they could really do is spam warp for damage. In 3 they get better singularity comboing with some of the evolutions, and in single player they get cluster grenades.

[kaid]

Not that I can see it seems like it picks up after the end of the last DLC where you blow up a mass relay and shepard was ordered back to earth till they decided if they needed to use her as a scape goat for intergalactic peace or not. So unless all the donuts and cheetos she eats while confined to base causes problems then no clue.

[tmp]

Hmm looks the whole "BioWare cancer" thing is only getting even more out of hand. http://kotaku.com/5886674/bioware-writer-describes-her-gaming-tastes-angry-gamers-call-her-a-cancer

on a brighter note

[Nevermore]

Hmm looks the whole "BioWare cancer" thing is only getting even more out of hand. http://kotaku.com/5886674/bioware-writer-describes-her-gaming-tastes-angry-gamers-call-her-a-cancer

I don't see anything wrong with what she said.  I certainly agree 150% with needing a compelling story to go with a game or I just can't get into it at all.

[Margalis]

The idea that a single mid-level writer is destroying Bioware is so dumb it hurts.

[Fabricated]

I doubt it's a single bad writer that's ruining Bioware, it's gamers having shitty taste and preferring bad games like the Call of Duty series. What publisher exec wouldn't want every game they make to be like CoD when it sells a gajillion copies to retarded gamers with bad taste?

_{It's you, you're Hitler!}

[Lantyssa]

I don't see anything wrong with what she said.  I certainly agree 150% with needing a compelling story to go with a game or I just can't get into it at all.

She didn't say anything wrong at all.  It's the people who either cannot read, didn't read what she originally wrote, or are just jerks that are doing things wrong.  Probably a lot of people who are mad at the world, too.

He snippy little tweet was great, too.  Not like she could do anything to soothe their feathers, so might as well fan the flames.

[Paelos]

Games should have a good story. The skipping the gameplay stuff wasn't exactly the best thing to say when you work in a gaming company. The gameplay is sort of the backbone of your whole company.

[Simond]

Well, it used to be.

[Khaldun]

It's so fucking simple it hurts: don't buy the games if you feel that strongly. By all means, write or communicate about what you like, and praise to the skies something that scratches your favorite itch, so that there's lots of information out there for future developers looking to match ideas to markets. The combination of entitled misogynist rage and inarticulate manchildism is a Mt. Everest of gamer-culture toxicity in this case.

Plus, there's a gigantic gulf between what the whiners are calling "gameplay" and what she's calling "story". If what people want in Bioware games are more branching stories, well, I'd agree, and I want those too. But that's not "gameplay as the opposite of story", it's a particular kind of narrative that's filtered through a particular kind of medium. I'd love to see Bioware's current products meet up with Skyrim and Minecraft and have some sex: the baby might be a stillborn mutant or it might be the Eighth Wonder of the Gaming World. But folks aren't helping any company to envision that product when they just whine in horribly abstract terms about "gameplay".

[HaemishM]

The idea that a single mid-level writer is destroying Bioware is so dumb it hurts.

Yeah, but... Interwebz. I think it's painfully obvious that the Internet gaming public is hardly a proper stage for intellectual discussion.

[Paelos]

Still, her comment shouldn't have been voiced to the public. She may be in charge of the writing, but you don't talk about how you want to skip parts of the game someone else is working on.

I mean what if the writer of a Michael Bay movie came out and said it would be great if we could just skip all the explosions for the important story aspects.

[caladein]

Games should have a good story. The skipping the gameplay stuff wasn't exactly the best thing to say when you work in a gaming company. The gameplay is sort of the backbone of your whole company.

You seem to be equating all gameplay with combat, which I don't think is the case with a Mass Effect title at all.  ME's defining mechanics aren't even on the shooting side, but on the story delivery side.  The dialogue wheel and interrupts and gaining affection are gameplay.

The same is true of Persona 3's life sim stuff.  (Which is an established game genre in its own right.)  And as someone that really liked that half of Persona 3 but wasn't able to finish it because the combat turned into a massive pain in the ass, I was able to sympathize with Ms. Helper's post.

[tazelbain]

I didn't get very far into Mass Effect before I wished it was movie instead a bad squad combat game with cut scenes.

[taolurker]

There's a new extended version of the trailer from a page ago... Slightly less ham-fisted, although basically the same but with extra exposition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBktyyaV9LY&feature=player_embedded

[tmp]

Yup it's similar to how DA2 trailer was released twice, with initial release skipping some scenes.

[Simond]

Hmm looks the whole "BioWare cancer" thing is only getting even more out of hand. http://kotaku.com/5886674/bioware-writer-describes-her-gaming-tastes-angry-gamers-call-her-a-cancer

Official Bioware response:

[Merusk]

It's so fucking simple it hurts: don't buy the games if you feel that strongly. By all means, write or communicate about what you like, and praise to the skies something that scratches your favorite itch, so that there's lots of information out there for future developers looking to match ideas to markets. The combination of entitled misogynist rage and inarticulate manchildism is a Mt. Everest of gamer-culture toxicity in this case.

Plus, there's a gigantic gulf between what the whiners are calling "gameplay" and what she's calling "story". If what people want in Bioware games are more branching stories, well, I'd agree, and I want those too. But that's not "gameplay as the opposite of story", it's a particular kind of narrative that's filtered through a particular kind of medium. I'd love to see Bioware's current products meet up with Skyrim and Minecraft and have some sex: the baby might be a stillborn mutant or it might be the Eighth Wonder of the Gaming World. But folks aren't helping any company to envision that product when they just whine in horribly abstract terms about "gameplay".

You're assuming those who are unhappy with the statement (and I didn't know it was false, I'll admit.) are for whatever reason buying games they dislike.  I'm certainly not going to buy them if they are all story and no gameplay.   That's not what I'm after.  

The discussion isn't all about misogyny and the usual internet cancer, either.  Some of you people defending Bioware in light of that rather than the game vs. movie which concerns some of us isn't adding to the discussion either.  How about we assume that those who disagree with the statement "we should be able to skip the game and just watch the story" aren't all he-man woman-haters, kay?  We're not. We're here, on this forum, discussing this exact quote, not shit-flinging on 4-chan.  How about we act like we know everyone else is an adult that would get banned for that bullshit.

What I've been doing, and what I've seen others doing is saying, "Hey, uh, I don't play games for the story.  It's a good thing to have but not the focus.  Expressing this attitude kind of makes me worried you're going to forget the 'Game' in your RPG."   Budgets are finite and gamers are unwilling to move beyond certain price ranges for experiences. This IS a zero-sum game.  If you focus more on writing something else has to give.  

[eldaec]

ME story, action, and RPG mechanics were pretty mediocre taken individually. The idea of a ME film, or for that matter a ME FPS makes me shudder. It only really works because they fit it all together.

Same goes for DA, SWTOR, or any other modern EA RPG.

[kildorn]

I don't feel like focusing on a non idiotic story rips the game out in a zero sum way.  By that logic including ANY story or plot lessens the gameplay.

I fully expect your writers to be more focused on the writing than the gameplay. That's kind of why they write. I would only be concerned if the core gameplay devs were saying "hey, gameplay sucks" or the writers were saying "you know what? story is a waste of time"

[HaemishM]

The writers saying "gameplay sucks, give me less" misses the point that the story provides context for the gameplay, whether that gameplay is shooting things in the face or picking which crew member to tap. You are not writing in a vaccum, you are writing to provide context for interaction. I'd say that more people played Mass Effect for the shooty bits in the context of the story than the did for the story without the shooty bits.

[Merusk]

I don't feel like focusing on a non idiotic story rips the game out in a zero sum way.  By that logic including ANY story or plot lessens the gameplay.

I fully expect your writers to be more focused on the writing than the gameplay. That's kind of why they write. I would only be concerned if the core gameplay devs were saying "hey, gameplay sucks" or the writers were saying "you know what? story is a waste of time"

Why is it all-or-nothing with you?  I didn't say rip the story out, I didn't say make it idiotic.  I said making it the focus is detrimental.

Your budget is for 30 people.  If your staff is 15 story writers, 10 people to do systems design & programming & the remaining 10 for management and art would that be a problem and focus too much on the story?  Yeah, probably would.

The writers saying "gameplay sucks, give me less" misses the point that the story provides context for the gameplay, whether that gameplay is shooting things in the face or picking which crew member to tap. You are not writing in a vaccum, you are writing to provide context for interaction. I'd say that more people played Mass Effect for the shooty bits in the context of the story than the did for the story without the shooty bits.

Exactly.

[tmp]

The writers saying "gameplay sucks, give me less" misses the point that the story provides context for the gameplay, whether that gameplay is shooting things in the face or picking which crew member to tap.

I don't think she misses that. Instead, she seems to say that someone who doesn't care about that gameplay the story sets context for ... should be given option to skip the bits they don't care about.

And it's rather sensible stance, because repeating "but that part is important" over and over isn't going to change the mind of someone who personally feels that no, it isn't. Just like telling people the same about the story bits isn't going to make them stop hitting esc through, if they couldn't care less.

[kildorn]

I don't feel like focusing on a non idiotic story rips the game out in a zero sum way.  By that logic including ANY story or plot lessens the gameplay.

I fully expect your writers to be more focused on the writing than the gameplay. That's kind of why they write. I would only be concerned if the core gameplay devs were saying "hey, gameplay sucks" or the writers were saying "you know what? story is a waste of time"

Why is it all-or-nothing with you?  I didn't say rip the story out, I didn't say make it idiotic.  I said making it the focus is detrimental.

Your budget is for 30 people.  If your staff is 15 story writers, 10 people to do systems design & programming & the remaining 10 for management and art would that be a problem and focus too much on the story?  Yeah, probably would.

The writers saying "gameplay sucks, give me less" misses the point that the story provides context for the gameplay, whether that gameplay is shooting things in the face or picking which crew member to tap. You are not writing in a vaccum, you are writing to provide context for interaction. I'd say that more people played Mass Effect for the shooty bits in the context of the story than the did for the story without the shooty bits.

Exactly.

You seem to be making it all or nothing. Writing isn't a huge cost for game development (voice acting on the other hand..), but I don't think firing a writer and hiring a dev instead will suddenly make the gameplay awesome-r. ME1's shooty bits sucked anywho, it was a really shit shooter with a kind of neat story and good character involvement. ME2 is when the shooting actually became fun. But.. I can totally see why people who enjoy story in games would consider the shooting parts to be an unfun slog. What exactly is ripping dev time away from gameplay to put a button in that says "next chatty bit, please"

The people who seem to be all-or-nothing about this are the folks who seem to desperately feel that if they give an inch on the idea that not everyone plays games just for the shooty bits suddenly every game will just be an interactive movie. They're proposing the idea of a skip button. Kind of like how we skip 15 minute cutscenes that we've seen dozens of times before. Or how we'd love to be able to skip the goddamned ME2 intro that takes 20 freaking minutes.

I like the shooty bits. But I see no compelling evidence that allowing some players to skip them would degrade the gameplay for me. At all. If anything, you should be railing against the usage of fully voiced games if your concern is budget for gameplay devs.

I'm just not seeing how having your writers focus on story and your devs focus on gameplay is somehow magic and a company cannot possibly do multiple things at once.

edit: just to be clear: is this actually a thing about Bioware? Have they had some succession of shittier and shittier gameplay with better writing? Because from ME1->2->3, you can see the gameplay just getting better and better. It's pretty obvious that whatever the writers are focusing on, it's not mauling the gameplay at all.

[tmp]

What exactly is ripping dev time away from gameplay to put a button in that says "next chatty bit, please"

Especially when that functionality tends to be something that gets coded anyway in the development (be it some /killallhostiles macro or other means of just blowing everything present up) for debugging purposes. It just doesn't get exposed directly to the player.

[jakonovski]

The trailers, they cause me pain. I'm half expecting ME3 to be a CoD-style rah-fest with nonsensical plot points. Scratch that, I'm fully expecting it.

[Ingmar]

I don't feel like focusing on a non idiotic story rips the game out in a zero sum way.  By that logic including ANY story or plot lessens the gameplay.

I fully expect your writers to be more focused on the writing than the gameplay. That's kind of why they write. I would only be concerned if the core gameplay devs were saying "hey, gameplay sucks" or the writers were saying "you know what? story is a waste of time"

Why is it all-or-nothing with you?  I didn't say rip the story out, I didn't say make it idiotic.  I said making it the focus is detrimental.

Because you're basically making it sound like it is all-or-nothing in the other direction.

I'd say that more people played Mass Effect for the shooty bits in the context of the story than the did for the story without the shooty bits.

But if the story part was more accessible, even more people might have played it in total, that's sort of the central point she's making.

[HaemishM]

The writers saying "gameplay sucks, give me less" misses the point that the story provides context for the gameplay, whether that gameplay is shooting things in the face or picking which crew member to tap.

I don't think she misses that. Instead, she seems to say that someone who doesn't care about that gameplay the story sets context for ... should be given option to skip the bits they don't care about.

Which again begs the question - why are you playing the game if you don't really give a shit about the gameplay? I can tell you now, it's a lot harder to make an FPS/3PS gameplay engine that doesn't suck than it is to make branching dialogue trees with cutscenes - which means it's less expensive to build a dating sim game than it is an FPS, or an Action RPG like Mass Effect. You could probably build 6 of them for the budget of 1 ME.

One of the main flaws of the ME series has also been one of its main selling points - it's a mixture of FPS/Action games with RPG's all in the context of a strong story. Mixing genre tropes like RPG with Shooters often creates a hybrid that while fun, does not stand alone as one or the other. The shooty bits of ME aren't strong enough to stand on their own without the character building aspects of RPG's and the context of the story and setting. Attempting to create a package that makes fans of ALL 3 different types of games means that all 3 parts will be less than a comparable product that focuses on 1 or 2 aspects. Now, in ME 1 and 2, the sum still created a strong game despite its flaws. Further watering down the whole experience by trying to cater to one specific gameplay means all aspects will get less than they should because there just isn't enough time and money to do all 3.

Do I think ME3 will still be good? Yes. I hope the biggest complaint I had with 2 (the level design) gets addressed and some of the other lesser elements get fixed. But making a "no-shooty" and "no branching dialogue trees" option feels like catering to an audience that doesn't need to be catered to.

[Rokal]

Games should have a good story. The skipping the gameplay stuff wasn't exactly the best thing to say when you work in a gaming company. The gameplay is sort of the backbone of your whole company.

Well, more importantly, if you don't like playing games are you really going to write a story that works well in a video game format? Bioware games are famous for giving players choices, or at least the appearance of choices, and allowing them to interact with the story that is being told. In Dragon Age 2 it felt like this wasn't one of the goals the game/story really strove for. They included narrative choices, sure, but it felt like a token gesture because people expected it in a Bioware game rather than something the writers embraced to make the game and story better. The choices you made didn't really matter and the game instead tried to tell as straight of a story as it could. If the Bioware writers for DA2 were annoyed that gameplay was required between bits of their story, it showed in the final product.

By contrast, Portal 2 is the best recent example of a game where the story and the gameplay really synced up. Whether you were working with Wheatly to escape the facility or bouncing around decades-old test chambers on moon juice, the story was told while you were playing rather than in slow-moving dialogue cut-scenes that felt completely removed from the rest of the game. Both the gameplay and the story were better for it.

[Ingmar]

Games should have a good story. The skipping the gameplay stuff wasn't exactly the best thing to say when you work in a gaming company. The gameplay is sort of the backbone of your whole company.

Well, more importantly, if you don't like playing games are you really going to write a story that works well in a video game format? Bioware games are famous for giving players choices, or at least the appearance of choices, and allowing them to interact with the story that is being told. In Dragon Age 2 it felt like this wasn't one of the goals the game/story really strove for.

The choices you make don't have to change the actual larger plot events of the game in order to matter. DA2 was never about what you apparently think it should have been about.

[tmp]

Which again begs the question - why are you playing the game if you don't really give a shit about the gameplay? I can tell you now, it's a lot harder to make an FPS/3PS gameplay engine that doesn't suck than it is to make branching dialogue trees with cutscenes - which means it's less expensive to build a dating sim game than it is an FPS, or an Action RPG like Mass Effect. You could probably build 6 of them for the budget of 1 ME.

Certainly, you can make over nine thousand Hatoful Boyfriends for the budget of one ME. But it doesn't mean i'll pass playing ME for its story --if it happens to have good story-- merely because there's other games with good stories, too. I don't make games, i play them.

So the answer to your question would be simple -- if i do give shit about the story, that's precisely the reason i'll play the game for. No matter what particular engine it uses to tell that story.

[Rokal]

The choices you make don't have to change the actual larger plot events of the game in order to matter. DA2 was never about what you apparently think it should have been about.

No, they don't have to. They should at least give the impression that they do or could if your goal is to make an interactive story (which has been the goal of pretty much every Bioware story). Especially if the game you are making is a direct sequel to a game that this was a major feature of. They didn't have to do this, and in fact they didn't, which is one of the major reasons DA2 was such a let down compared to DA1 or any other Bioware game. If one of the lead writers of your game thinks gameplay just gets in the way of story, it's not surprising that the story that results is very rigid. "Gameplay" gets in the way of your shitty story just like "choice" does if you're a Bioware writer in 2012.

[Ingmar]

They have significant impacts on your relationships with and the personal stories of the various companion characters, which is what DA2's focus always was.

[Rokal]

And the main story was, what, a minor detail on the side? You don't think that's a problem?