Wrath of Dagon

I have a hard time taking your posts very seriously, since you don't give any reasons for your statements, and neither does Nightshape for that matter. Yes, every game has flaws, even KOTOR, so what? I'm telling you why ME is a bad game, and has some flaws is not enough of a reason. And which flaws does KOTOR have exactly that are similar to ME? You never say, just make general and ambiguous statements. So far as bias, where's my bias coming from? From disagreeing with your opinion? I can tell you my opinions are very objective. I thought KOTOR was great, Jade Empire was a noticeable step down in quality, and ME was a complete disaster as an RPG, and I can give you reasons for each of those statements. Where's the bias in that?

All weapons are horrible, WP is used mostly for lighting and smoke screens.

We like it, worked for us for over 200 years.

I think it gets better though, at least get to the third level. It always stays a bit generic, true, but I did enjoy the combat.

Yes, and they have a Teddy Bear spell also, stay away from this.

Well, the DLC they released is apparently just another Uncharted World, and none of the other promised DLC materialized so far, so it looks to me like things are still rotten in Denmark. Thus I'm not terribly optimistic about ME2.

No, the point of the thread was to bash the level design. Of course level design is pretty central to the quality of the rest of the game. It's true that most of everything else in the game is bad also, so I suppose I could've opened a separate thread to bash each of the other aspects, but that's hardly worth doing, and it's level design that's in the news right now. Also I don't know how attentively you've being lurking, but I've made what I consider some important points about good level design, as far as having a central theme and so on, and a developer even made his own comments on some of that, so my purpose was not to express hostility but have a discussion about good game design, which is a subject that interests me.

No, they didn't go overboard. The problem was once they came up with all that, all they did was write it down in the Codex, instead of implementing it into gameplay, story, level design, etc. I want to play a game, not read a fake encyclopedia. Edit: Also it takes a lot longer than 50,000 years to evolve from a bug to a space travelling civilization.

The next episode is "Empire Strikes Back", followed by "Return of the Protheans"

It says it was a supply truck, not an ambulance. You can't assume everything that's hit is hit intentionally, or that all witnesses are truthful. There're thousands of shells flying around in Gaza, some will go off course, some are targeted by mistake. "Fog of War" means something.

So we're posting fake news now?

From the second link I posted. I guess now is a good time to post what went wrong on the Citadel:

@Kaftan So your theory is the Uncharted Worlds were added so that the rest of the crappy game looks good by comparison?

I actually like the game alot, it ranks as one of my favourite. My point is more, don't hammer a level designer for something outside of his control, and his job description, it's kinda like saying it's the rendering programmers fault because an orginal art asset is crap ya know? The citadel isn't a major quest area until the end of the game, it's more a tutorial area with a slow story introduction. You're entitled to your opinion, I think you're wrong and Mass Effect is infact a really good game, but ya know that's all well and good I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. Fact is... If anything it does suffer from bad art direction. Bioware is likely to suffer more and more now that it's part of EA. I'm not hammering the level designer, I'm hammering the game. I don't know who did what and why, all I know is the final product. And yes, if you look at Maria's post about what constitutes level design, all of that is badly done in ME. As far as you liking the game a lot, so what, some people like to be whipped, what does that prove? You haven't given any real reasons so far why you like the game, while I explained why I don't like it.

Well, it's someone's fault since they're all supposed to work together. And yes, I'm aware of all the excuses why the game turned out the way that it did, but that hardly changes the outcome.

Your previous sentence answers your question, it's sucks as an area for quests. Everything should be used to reinforce the theme, the gameplay, the level design, and the artwork. I would consider art design to be part of the level design, and again it's crucial that different elements work together and reinforce each other. On the Citadel, everything is kind of pointless. Fitting within the story is a minimum requirement, and clever technical solutions is not something the player really cares about, not that slow elevators seem particularly clever to me.

Can you please name one very clever thing about the Citadel? Edit: IMO, great level design needs a theme. One of the problems with ME levels none really had a strong and sustained theme.

Well, Telos station is one of the weakest areas in K2, so yes, it's somewhat reminiscent of that, although even Telos had a lot more going on. The problem with the Citadel it's just bland, empty, there are no real points of interest, and it looks like a mall instead of a galactic capital build by an ancient race. The other story planets are small, linear, and generally very repetitive, with nothing interesting to see. As far as shooter gameplay, there are no features in the level design to make combat interesting. It's a bit hard to explain, but if you played great shooters like Half Life 2 or Return to Castle Wolfenstein you should be able to see what I mean. Also some levels have a lot of pointless empy areas, and doors, lots and lots of doors you have to keep going through. As for Uncharted Worlds, yes they're optional, but so poorly and amateurishly done it's an insult to the player. I didn't think a respected developer like Bioware would have the nerve to copy and paste the same awful area 35 times, only changing the rock color and crate locations!

They can always split it off if it's a problem, they already split this thread once.

I wouldn't be able to find it now, but yes she said they wouldn't let her be a scout because she's a woman. She did say she was in actual combat though, and it didn't sound like it was by accident.

That's what I used to think, but there was a woman on a forum who said she was a sniper in the Marines.

How about some actual frigging purpose for the thing, instead of pure filler? If you want good level design in a similar situation, look at Taris in KOTOR or Peragus in K2.

Yes, and their quests were from a random text generator.

@Gorgon I'm not sure what your post has to do with mine, and in answer to another question, there must be hundreds of photos in that thread, I don't think they're all fake.

No, I meant exactly level design, although the art design was also awful. Who knew the alien future looks like garages and strip malls? All games use copy and paste to some extent. While Halo was particularly guilty of that on some levels, it mixed things up enough so it was still entertaining. It also had some great levels, some open, some restricted, allowing both the player and the enemy multiple approaches. And the Citadel wasn't just clean, there was literally nothing there. Like I said, you'd have more fun walking through a mall.