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As fun as being the hero in any traditional RPG is, I suppose. The writing is bad though -- it's never properly established what your motivations could be to just up and ignore orders to start helping the enemy for no reason at all, really early in the story. Because of how poorly this branch is set up, I didn't realize it was an option until I read about it in some forum. Once you get past that point, it fleshes out the different tiersmen groups more than the loyalist and anarchist paths, so it's not all bad.

^ I have no intention of playing the story until I can download and play with a Conrad Verner face.

Whether you are convinced by the marketing is a wholly different matter. Looks to me that, for the first time ever, you aren't, and it shows. The game may be bad alright (mediocre is the vibe I've been getting, personally), but it won't be as bad as the collective circle-jerk makes it out to be, that's simply not possible. It's rather amusing to watch, really. It's as if all these people suddenly forgot the frequently cringe-worthy dialogue of previous ME titles, the Shepard Rape Face meme and the fact that he literally limps his way through the whole of ME2 -- not to mention the really bad bugs and ****ty consolified UI that plagued previous installments. If I didn't know how the bandwagon mentality works, I'd be tempted to think that it's a directed thing. But hey, I'm not here to piss in your corn flakes. You want to hate on a game you haven't even played? Have at it.

Well, otherwise it's hard to justify that the wet behind the ears protagonist was given the responsibility for saving the world yadda yadda. They'd have to make you play as someone more seasoned like Shepard, which doesn't mesh well with the kind of juvenile power fantasy that is so common in games these days. I mean, inheriting the position because your pops kicked the bucket and there was no one else to promote isn't as bad as retconning admiral Hackett into a total moron for putting a kid in charge of things from the get-go.

So the game isn't even out yet but you can already assure us that it's a "bad, poorly made game" and "a new low point for Bioware"? Whew, it's a good thing that I heed the advice of internet randos with obvious chips on their shoulder. Thanks dude, you saved me some money.

Once my 10 hours were up, I was immediately and unceremoniously kicked to desktop with no in-game notification or warning. I was in the middle of an objective wave, too. Great timing, haha.

It is, but as I said, it's sort of weak. I have it maxed out and enemies aren't thrown back like they were anymore. Gone are the days of krogan running backands as well, at least with the currently available kits. The Origin Access service lets you try the game for 10 hours before the game drops next week. That's what people are playing. It's 3,99€/mo and you get 10% off of the final product too, so if you're looking at buying it early, it kinda pays for itself. Shame that I'm not really interested in any of the other games in the catalog...

Since plenty of people are playing this game but nobody seems to want to be the one to make the thread, I'll go ahead and take one for the team. Maybe then the Random News thread can be about something else now, screams the armchair moderator in me. I'll take Raithe's post as a basis as it's the one with the most substance so far. I've only played about 15 minutes of story myself. I already hate my dad and the fascist/communist/liberal/authoritarian axes along which the dialogue choices are written. WHERE ARE MY RENEGADE INTERRUPTS, BIOWARE? For some reason, I'm not getting any of the creepy vibes I did with the faces from the trailers, in the actual game. They look better than ME3, but the art style is different. Shrek-ified isn't actually a bad description. On the other hand, I've played ~5 hours of MP matches. Combat is much much better than ME3, from what I've seen. Faster, more focused on mobility, and the verticality element they've added to the levels is great. Controls seem more responsive and the cover system is much improved from ME2/ME3, being contextual and not as gamey. You can now "take cover" behind something and still take fire from the opposite direction if the angle of fire allows it, for example, but this also makes it harder to use "soft cover". The addition of different cooldowns for each power gives more flexibility, but I think individual powers are weaker now. For example Charge no longer ragdolls enemies if they are unprotected, no matter the rank. I don't really remember how it was back when ME3 dropped, but here I'm getting my ass handed to me in freaking Bronze, whereas I could solo Gold in ME3. I'm loving it. Come at me bros

How does this work? Does it log total played time or is it a continuous countdown once you download it regardless of whether you launch the game, or...? edit: nevermind. Shift + F1 brings up the overlay that tells you how much time you have left. Gonna see if I can get a few matches in, already hate my dad.

He no longer works at Bioware, fwiw...

It wouldn't be a very good scam if you could use leftover points that you could never spend before, to buy other products, I guess. I don't know who this John Walker person is, but here's a video some other guy I also don't know made in response to the points raised by the former. He does praise the combat which Walker himself rated as the high point of the game with a meh/10, so there's that. Bonus points for unwittingly showcasing the incredibly creepy looking face animations, and noting long ass load times (grr!).

It certainly did, just not heavily. The gun upgrade system existed in its form because of the microtransactions in MP. The game had total parity between single player and the multiplayer horde mode. They basically farmed out all of the combat to the MP team. It's why single player has no collectors, no mercenaries, no thugs, no Krogan, not even wildlife. It's only Reapers, Geth, and Cerberus in neatly organized armies. And not even any battlefields where two groups fight, because that wouldn't be in MP either. It seems like the only actual mechanics the single player team were responsible are the awful awful boss fights. The single player gun upgrade system is functionally the same as it was in ME2. You found guns and mods in predetermined places as you progressed through the story. The only change was that you used resources to upgrade a particular gun (I-X), instead of using said resources to research a flat bonus for an entire category after unlocking it in a mission. It worked nothing like the grabbags from MP. It's funny that you mention collectors, because there are collectors in MP. If they weren't in SP it's because you kinda killed them all back in ME2 so thematically they didn't fit. And in Platinum difficulty you fought against a hodgepodge of enemies from the 4 "factions", so... no. Assorted mercenaries would behave just as Cerberus reskins (Citadel) much like the Shadow Broker's troops were Eclipse/Blue Suns mooks with a paintjob in ME2, ho-hum. More enemy variety would have been nice, especially more mechs and creatures, but I don't see a lack thereof as being necessarily a consequence of the way the MP was designed.

To me it's more a matter of how they are implemented rather than if they exist at all. The microtransaction system in ME3 didn't affect the single player portion of the game in the slightest. While guns were assigned to a rarity tier in multiplayer for gambling packs, you acquired them in SP the old fashioned way: at certain points in the story. What worries me is that rarity for equipment is now a trait displayed in single player as well, which hints at some sort of loot randomisation (à la ME1) at best. At worst, pay to purchase random packs in single player. Once more, Bioware insists on the proprietary currency scam ("Andromeda Points") for in-game purchases, which combined with the above and their statement that there will be no season pass doesn't exactly inspire confidence with regards to their microtransaction model. This is EA, after all.

Companion damage in general is nerfed, so that they don't steal your thunder, I'd assume. The Incisor sniper rifle was bugged in ME2 and it didn't apply a damage penalty to companions, which combined with their pinpoint accuracy, meant that a Zaeed/Garrus team would wreck anything short of heavy mechs in seconds. It was pretty hilarious watching those two being as badass in game as they are in the story, but it kinda got old fast. On Hardcore and especially Insanity, the only saving grace of companions is their ability to instantly and perfectly deploy abilities to help with stripping protections, which literally every mook has. On Insanity, smart use of companion abilities to stagger and weaken mobs makes a huge difference. In that light, removing the ability to micromanage is bad, but I get the feeling that combat will be easier anyway. Edit: micromanaging companions is probably less important now that Shep's abilities no longer share a global cooldown.

https://youtu.be/d3q_Nd5arZM?t=210 The power wheel is gone, but now you have "weapon wheel" and "favorites". From the looks of it, you can't order your companions to use a specific power on a specific enemy anymore, but they will react in context (priming/detonating) if you mark a target. Personally I think this is full of fail -- BW have a great track record when it comes to programming ****ty AI, but we'll know for sure when it hits. Their rationale for these changes is, as usual, total bollocks.

Most clips popping up are third party-hosted though, not "official" BWEA stuff. They must have spent a fortune on marketing to keep have the "content" drip showing something almost every other day. Being a gameplay first guy, I'm fairly disappointed. The only MP hands-on some of these "journalists" did amounted to "wow, krogan can headbutt, and look, jetpacks! COOL". Maybe after PAX ends we'll see something more substantial.

Make Natural Selection Great Again!

Which one? The piece suggests the bill has been influenced by the wellness industry who, unlike employers, get unrestricted access to your test results, name and all. They also sell the data to third parties, which then profile you for targeted advertising. The most direct benefit to your employer is the ability to penalize you financially if for whatever reason you opt out. Indirect benefits would include less risk in hiring and promoting people with genetic predisposition to disease (for example, depression) which may lead to decreased productivity. Win-win for all involved... except you. I'm sure you have nothing to fear about genetic profiles being handed en masse to government agencies in "terrorism" or "national security risk" scenarios.

Seriously weird faces all over. I think the issue is that unlike in previous titles, the faces are actually capable of decent animation, but cutscene direction is only making sparing (and random) use of it, making it stand out more. It's my theory and I'm sticking to it. But who cares. We aren't talking about the total media blackout regarding the issue everyone is secretly thinking about: will there be a Jessica Chobot Naomi Kyle cameo?! The memes would make it all worthwhile, no matter how bad the game turns out.

MOAR ME:A hype So it looks like scanning for minerals is back, but instead of doing it from orbit, you do it from the Mako. I'm really not a fan of adopting the gamey rarity tiers from the ME3MP in Single Player. I just hope that doesn't mean the SP is a microtransaction ridden crapfest, but... it's EA.

The need to write a bigger check. That solves all land problems. It very well might. Problem is the costs are going to be passed off to those who can't pass them off to anyone else, i.e. you. So bye-bye cheap gas. You might have everything you need right next door, but if the cost of developing critical resource X is greater than what it costs to buy it from whoever or going there yourself and taking it off the dead hands of the locals, it just won't be done, because market forces forbid it. Hell, 1980's USSR had (some of?) the largest oil and gas reserves in the world, but due to free-falling oil market prices, outdated technology and development difficulties, the strongly resource export-oriented Soviet economy crashed. And they didn't have to deal with protesters and environmentalists, just plain old competition.

Cheap gas, in an economy wholly dependent on oil, is actually very good. That's what the "protecting our interests abroad" part in the US military readiness report WoD posted means. Otherwise a two war-capable military would make no sense -- unless you are the aggressor, you never need to fight more than one war simultaneously. Used to be wheat from Egypt, gold and silver from Bolivia and Mexico, etc. Now it's oil. If it weren't the US doing it, it would be someone else. Sucks for parents whose kids get blown to pieces by an IED and for homeless veterans crippled by PTSD, but hey, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

On the other hand, ME1-style ammunition/heat management is back in the form of moddable heatsinks. For only 200 elfroot! As for the controller-only previews, IIRC it was like that for previous games too, but I may be wrong. The ME games have always been rather console-centric anyway. Remember that they didn't even handle the ME1 port internally, they handed that to Demiurge.

Hmm. I would argue that in fact the first one is not relevant, considering that this is the Trump thread. From what I've read, the jobs market was already recovering before he took office. I seem to vaguely recall someone here predicting that this would happen a few months back. Enoch? Agiel? Bah, crap memory.

Heh, if anyone has been consistently faceplanting from incorrectly reading or interpreting their "metrics" it's Bioware (Austin). You'd think they'd be the first to want to take conclusions gleaned from big data with a grain of salt. DAI sold like hotcakes, received (critical) acclaim, but was equal parts loved and hated by players. I'm just hoping they have learned something from that, and aren't simply aiming for Mass Effect: Inquisition. Then again, lots of people would probably dig that, so perhaps not.