Mass Effect Andromeda

[213374U]

Right. So we're at that stage where we compare dictionaries, huh? Yeah, these internet discussions of semantics are so enjoyable that the prospect of having MEA crash a few more times on me is starting to look appealing. I loved you bringing up a legal definition by the way, because everyone knows that the legalese lexicon is completely modern, intuitive and not misleading or confusing at all.

 

Make no mistake, it is a condemnation, for the reasons enunciated several times throughout the last two pages, by me and others. I suppose the sexual undertones of the word have taken a more metaphorical than literal sense, but if you find said undertones really so off-putting, the word kowtow fits the bill perfectly as well, without any such scandalous connotations.

Edited April 7, 2017 by 213374U

[Valmy]

 

Again, most characters are trite and cheap, but for some reason LGTB characters needs to be implemented properly or mob will knock on your door. Who cares about rest of ****ty written characters right? That is the issue. They ponder for vocal minority where there are much bigger problems affecting wider audience.

 

 

Sure. But it is not like many resources are needed to slightly change one line from one character right? I don't think efforts to correct the bigger problems, such as they are, were really affected much by this. Or at least I presume it was not.

[Amentep]

They did it originally with the way the subject is introduced (tokenism) and they made it worse by apologizing *only* to a subset of their customers (?) over what is by all accounts a trifling matter when a deluge of criticism over their writing has never before fazed BioWare, and while the game suffers from other very serious problems.

 

 

In light of your earlier post -

 

 

 

The point I'm making is that BioWare should not apologize, as is pretty much the standard in this industry when stuff goes sideways.

 

Is the problem that they apologized at all or is it that they didn't apologize to everyone?  This seems unclear based on your posts.

 

As someone playing the game, I didn't really feel they need to apologize to me, no more so than Obsidian or Bethesda do, for a buggy game.   Or Troika, the only developers whose game hit me with a truly game-stopping bug (where an item necessary to complete the main quest was destroyed in my inventory forcing me to relaunch the game as despite having about 20 saves, the bug was present in all of them). 

 

With respect to not apologizing for writing before, Bioware did apologize over the ending of ME3.  Not sure if you count that as part of the writing, but I would.  So for me at least they have been fazed by criticism of their writing before.

 

Right. So we're at that stage where we compare dictionaries, huh?

 

Given that we were talking at cross purposes regarding our respective use and understanding of the word it seemed appropriate.  You provided examples of your definition, I provided mine.  Now we understand our comments better with context, yes?

[Valmy]

 Or Troika, the only developers whose game hit me with a truly game-stopping bug (where an item necessary to complete the main quest was destroyed in my inventory forcing me to relaunch the game as despite having about 20 saves, the bug was present in all of them). 

 

It was Arcanum wasn't it?

[Amentep]

 

 Or Troika, the only developers whose game hit me with a truly game-stopping bug (where an item necessary to complete the main quest was destroyed in my inventory forcing me to relaunch the game as despite having about 20 saves, the bug was present in all of them). 

 

It was Arcanum wasn't it?

 

 

Yes, but I've gotten over it.

 

...really I have...

 

*sobs*

[213374U]

Is the problem that they apologized at all or is it that they didn't apologize to everyone?  This seems unclear based on your posts.

 

As someone playing the game, I didn't really feel they need to apologize to me, no more so than Obsidian or Bethesda do, for a buggy game.   Or Troika, the only developers whose game hit me with a truly game-stopping bug (where an item necessary to complete the main quest was destroyed in my inventory forcing me to relaunch the game as despite having about 20 saves, the bug was present in all of them).

 

 

The only problems I would actually consider worthy of the term are those of a technical nature. I encountered several of those, including one that is game-stopping, and one that I guestimate that results in, at minimum, a 20% chance of crashing in any given MP match. I wouldn't expect BioWare to issue an apology over this while they work their ass off on a fix. It would be nice, but that's just not how they roll.

 

With regards to the apology business, I find their way of handling these matters suspect, and at face value, humorous for the ineptitude. But I don't consider it a "problem". It's their rep, not mine (I don't have one), that is damaged when after shipping a faulty product and taking a beating, they decide to put on a PR show for purely political reasons. You may of course disagree that this is what they are doing, believe that the apology really is heartfelt, that a rewrite is warranted, and that their exploration of these issues is the most meaningful and thoughtful they are capable of. I'm going with my gut and just call virtue signalling. That is why I said that they shouldn't apologize.

 

And no, they did not apologize for the ending of ME3. They nuked the old board, but Dr. Muzyka's statement on the matter is still available for anyone to read. And that's the kind face of BioWare; Chris Priestly and Ninja Stalin were much less inclined to entertain any criticism on the old BSN. And as I explained, they actually doubled down on it in practice with the EC. 

 

Funny, too. Because the whole "we are listening to and will address your feedback" is exactly the same, word for word, PR bull that they are feeding us now... except when the issue is transgenderism, apparently.

[Amentep]

You are right, I misremembered Dr. Muzyka's statement as an apology but re-reading it, its clear he did not apologize for anything.

 

I do think the apology with respect to Hainly was for PR purposes; I don't disagree with you there.  Whether a re-write is warranted or not, I couldn't say.  I talked to Hainly Abrams in game and moved on without that dialogue effecting me positively or negatively - and I doubt any re-write would either.  So I'm not the audience who'd care, I guess.

 

I remember Chris Priestly and another moderator whose name escapes me getting (or giving, depending on your perspective, I guess) a lot of heat on my limited time on the old Bioware boards.  I heard complaints about some later mods too, but by that point I rarely went there.

[SadExchange]

I think this will be a solid, decent game in about 6 months, with patches and updated features.  Now, the wait till these bullet points of theirs are fulfilled so I can try it out.........................

[Valmy]

I think this will be a solid, decent game in about 6 months, with patches and updated features.  Now, the wait till these bullet points of theirs are fulfilled so I can try it out.........................

 

Yep. Even if the release had been bug-free it is still best to wait that long so all the DLC and expansions can be released and you can get the full experience.

[GhostofAnakin]

Andromeda seems to do wrong the one thing most BioWare games do well: companion interaction and sidequests.

 

In the previous ME games, you can fault a lot of things; main story, weird endings, flawed combat, boring planet scanning, etc.  But generally speaking, the companions you had aboard the Normandy usually had a lot of content.  Lots of dialogue, in-depth sidequests, etc.  The ones in Andromeda basically have nothing once you exhaust the first chat with them when you first meet them.

 

For as much as I didn't like DA:I, the one thing it continued was the tradition of solid/good companion content.  ME:A seems to have really dropped the ball.

[the_dog_days]

I felt that the squaddies had plenty to say but I just didn't care. Except for Kello, Vetra, and Drak, all the other shipmates didn't really work for me. Most of the time it was because of poor first impressions (PeeBee, Liam, and Suvi).

Edited April 8, 2017 by the_dog_days

[kirottu]

Bioware fixed the backwards gun scene.

 

Great job.

[Voices of Nerat]

Fun fact: Fryda Wolff(female Ryder's voice actress) was the sound designer on Fallout: New Vegas. 

[Gfted1]

Mass Effect update leaves pirates with rough facial animation.

[Malcador]

Mass Effect update leaves pirates with rough facial animation.

Well that is sensible. Now we see how fast CPY or some other group is

[GhostofAnakin]

Just finished the main story.  I was a bit underwhelmed.

 

Honestly, I can't really explain what it is.  But the first ME felt ... epic.  Flaws and all, it felt like you were part of a fun space opera saga.  This one just felt off.

 

Fun enough, but I can see why it scored relatively low in the reviews.

[the_dog_days]

Because SAM is the real hero and you're his caddie.

[Gfted1]

The MASSive Mass Effect: Andromeda writing contest.

[Orogun01]

The MASSive Mass Effect: Andromeda writing contest.

So if you write a fanfic about the game you get the game as a reward?

Edited April 12, 2017 by Orogun01

[GhostofAnakin]

The story might have been more interesting if they'd used some of the fanfic instead of what they went with. 

[Tel Aviv]

Just saw this posted on reddit:

 

 

[Malcador]

Ryder tracking him with his eyes at least works

[Amentep]

Worst visual glitch I've had was Habitat 7 & the Scourge not appearing on screen in the opening making it so the Captain, Alec Ryder, Cora and the PC were all talking in front of a black screen.

[the_dog_days]

Worst bug I had was during one leg of Jaal's quest where the game hard crashed to desktop and when I rebooted and reloaded I somehow loaded into an area that was created for a specific cut scene and wasn't meant to be playable or accessed by any other means besides activating the cut scene. I had to fast travel out and from then on the performance on my PC tanked.

[Amentep]

Worst regular bug I've encountered is the one that makes autosave files not load. I suspect this might be related to overlapping autosave triggers (I also experienced all three of the last autosaves being for the exact same "moment")

 

Did have a few other errors - one point the game did put the characters offscreen (but showed it anyhow) in the lead up to a Tempest Landing cutscene (but thankfully loaded the cutscene and then loaded the characters back into the environment properly). And at least once on Kadara after starting the outpost, the oupost didn't load so people were sitting in the air for a minutes until the buildings exteriors/layers finally popped in.

 

Biggest quest related bug I've had is one triggering the completion dialogue before I'd completed the quest making the quest uncompletable.