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And Bioware Montreal is officially no more

 

Not really surprising but hopefully there will be no layoffs as they get rolled into Motive, whatever that is.

I'm pretty sure it was leaked just before Andromeda released that BioWare Montreal was actually EA Montreal; a support studio they loan out to the 'real' studios. They're now getting loaned out to another EA studio working on a Star Wars game.

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And Bioware Montreal is officially no more

 

Not really surprising but hopefully there will be no layoffs as they get rolled into Motive, whatever that is.

I really hope this means that their employees will split up to different independent studios and make new non-rpg ip's.

Just what do you think you're doing?! You dare to come between me and my prey? Is it a habit of yours to scurry about, getting in the way and causing bother?

 

What are you still bothering me for? I'm a Knight. I'm not interested in your childish games. I need my rest.

 

Begone! Lest I draw my nail...

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looks kinda intriguing, and sounds good too.  wouldn't mind if poe2 went for a brian mccreary inspired soundtrack. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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Montreal was Andromeda so I'm not surprised they were merged out of existence... They were always a support studio. Seems like EA sent both them and the IP to die for one last cash grab before starting a new era of IPs.

 

Now that they have Star Wars, ME would have been unwelcome competition.

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There should be more than enough room for Mass Effect and Star Wars though. EA has had the SW license for quite a while now and they've produced Battlefront and... nothing else? A Mass Effect game every 3-4 years ought to be able to slot into any gaps in the schedule for the sort of action/ adventure/ lite rpg and exploration genre, especially since it should only be a competitor to certain SW games rather than all of them. In any case, companies don't release crap products and run studios/ IPs into the ground for the lulz- and EA gave Bioware: Montreal 5 years to get it right and they couldn't. That's plenty of time.

 

They definitely need to put some distance between Andromeda and any further releases though, and Bioware doesn't have any spare teams at the moment anyway. They will come back to Mass Effect at some point though, I'd bet on it.

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EA is the Star Wars studio now and they have limited resources. ME is an aging ip that has stagnated for 2 major releases now, they'll want to get new IPs of their own up and running, not just hitch themselves to the licensing gigs. Plus I can't imagine the employees get much passion retreading so much old ground with the ME formula.

 

Will ME comeback? Sure, but not for a while, and I really don't think it needs to come back. In it's absence EA will find other cows, and other studios will corner the space fantasy while doing it better. Ubisoft might strike gold with BG&E2.

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They definitely need to put some distance between Andromeda and any further releases though, and Bioware doesn't have any spare teams at the moment anyway. They will come back to Mass Effect at some point though, I'd bet on it.

 

Casey Hudson has returned to Bioware so it is very possible that we see something as good as the original Mass Effect trilogy someday.

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EA is the Star Wars studio now and they have limited resources. ME is an aging ip that has stagnated for 2 major releases now,

 

ME3 sold very well, and its MP did well too. Some people were very shouty about the ending, but that was only some people- and they played it to the end so can't have hated the game too much.

 

Andromeda is the problem; late and a poorly run project, not well received from the beginning and while initial sales were OK it's already had a permanent 50% price cut for some time (here at least), always a sign that sales fell straight off a cliff. The closest parallel would be to Dragon Age II (albeit that problem involved too little dev time); give it a few years and it will be back as DA now is.

 

EA ain't the SW studio by any reasonable measure if they've only made one (+ one phone game it seems) SW game in 4 years and the license is only for ten years. There are only a few other known titles awaiting release as well- BF2 and EA Motive's Jedi's Creed game may both release in the next year but the second is probably 18 months off and Respawn's title will take even longer. EA is what it has been for the past decade or so: The Sims, EA Sports plus some ancillary stuff of varying success and importance.

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Plus, biower likely have their hands full with DA4 and Totally Not A Destiny Clone, which seems to be their attempt at jumping on the "games as a service" bandwagon. SWTOR refuses to die as well, which I suppose keeps Austin somewhat busy. So I doubt we'll see another ME game for a long time, if ever.

 

In hindsight, it almost looks like someone made the decision to bury the IP on purpose, absurd as that idea is.

- When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

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They had plenty of time and enough staff though, neither of which would be provided if EA was trying to tank the IP deliberately. Game was poorly handled, but everything I've seen suggests it was poor oversight and bad immediate management that was the ultimate problem rather than stuff EA could directly influence like budget and time. I'd also have to say that I heard the same thing said about DAI, especially with the Bioware old timers who left at the end of that project, and that IP definitely isn't dead.

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's another ME game in maybe five years time, it's more flexible than Star Wars since they don't have to run everything past Disney/ LucasArts plus it can't disappear off in six years time as the SW licence may. Something like alternating titles with Dragon Age seems a likely approach.

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I mostly agree with Zor on Andromeda. I don't believe EA was intentionally trying to sabotage the game especially after they delayed it once and publicly said they'd delay it again if the studio asked. Why it released in the state it did I can't say. Did EA go EA? Did the studio say it was ready? Find out next week as BioWare Montreal... oh, wait.

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They had plenty of time and enough staff though, neither of which would be provided if EA was trying to tank the IP deliberately. Game was poorly handled, but everything I've seen suggests it was poor oversight and bad immediate management that was the ultimate problem rather than stuff EA could directly influence like budget and time. I'd also have to say that I heard the same thing said about DAI, especially with the Bioware old timers who left at the end of that project, and that IP definitely isn't dead.

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's another ME game in maybe five years time, it's more flexible than Star Wars since they don't have to run everything past Disney/ LucasArts plus it can't disappear off in six years time as the SW licence may. Something like alternating titles with Dragon Age seems a likely approach.

 

Yeah, I don't think anyone actually said, "hey, let's shoot ourselves in the foot".

 

However, MEA already had the difficult task of regaining lost goodwill with the fans following the whole ME3 endings/EC brouhaha. They chose to take the franchise in a substantially different direction, and to completely sidestep the problematic RGB endings. To make things worse, they handed the project to an unproven studio, and put the chief architect of the ME3 debacle at the helm. And to top it off, they went ahead with the march release when the game clearly needed at least 3-6 months more. Don't even get me started on the MP.

 

It makes no sense for anyone involved to intentionally try to destroy the IP. In retrospect, however, I can't think of many opportunities for them to drop the ball, which they didn't take. If it was intentional, the result wouldn't be much different.

 

Will we see another ME? Depends on whether biower survives long enough, I think. If they manage to produce another bomb like MEA, I'd say outlook not so good.

- When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

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However, MEA already had the difficult task of regaining lost goodwill with the fans following the whole ME3 endings/EC brouhaha. They chose to take the franchise in a substantially different direction, and to completely sidestep the problematic RGB endings. To make things worse, they handed the project to an unproven studio, and put the chief architect of the ME3 debacle at the helm. And to top it off, they went ahead with the march release when the game clearly needed at least 3-6 months more. Don't even get me started on the MP.

 

It makes no sense for anyone involved to intentionally try to destroy the IP. In retrospect, however, I can't think of many opportunities for them to drop the ball, which they didn't take. If it was intentional, the result wouldn't be much different.

 

Will we see another ME? Depends on whether biower survives long enough, I think. If they manage to produce another bomb like MEA, I'd say outlook not so good.

 

 

As above, EA did offer more time. I haven't played MEA so can't judge for myself, but I've got the distinct impression that the game needed more than 6 months worth of reworking anyway. I can't really criticise them for not picking an RGB ending to be canon either, whatever they did there would be a potential disaster with Deus Ex: IW perhaps the case study of complete failure to please anyone.

 

The ultimate problem is that if Bioware Montreal stuffed up around 60 months of development you can't really rely on them fixing that with an extra 6 months. Things like the animations should not have been in the state they were after 5 years so you'd have to either hire a bunch of new animators which costs and is risky, co-opt Dragon Age/ DICE/ other Frostbite animators from other studios which hurts their projects or hope that the ones you already have get competent. In the end EA did the best they could (for themselves at least) from a bad situation.

 

Perhaps they should have outright cancelled it, but the impressions I get is that it isn't technically unplayable nor unplayable due to being awful, it's just kind of... mediocre.

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Looks pretty sweet:

 

https://youtu.be/GzZmZSpXLUY

Very much looking forward to this game.
Hell yeah! E3 was awesome this year and it was shown at E3, I'll never forget Miyamoto with the creator of Rayman. What a combo! :D

Just what do you think you're doing?! You dare to come between me and my prey? Is it a habit of yours to scurry about, getting in the way and causing bother?

 

What are you still bothering me for? I'm a Knight. I'm not interested in your childish games. I need my rest.

 

Begone! Lest I draw my nail...

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I'd buy a Switch for that game. :S

 

 

I think I might do that. I was going to go for a PS4 Pro upgrade but with games such as Splatoon 2, Mario: Odyssey and Mario+Rabbids around, I'll probably have a lot more fun with the Switch. No More Heroes 3 will come out someday for the Switch and when it does, I'll go crazy. 

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I'd buy a Switch for that game. :S

 

 

I think I might do that. I was going to go for a PS4 Pro upgrade but with games such as Splatoon 2, Mario: Odyssey and Mario+Rabbids around, I'll probably have a lot more fun with the Switch. No More Heroes 3 will come out someday for the Switch and when it does, I'll go crazy. 

 

I won't skip on ps4 upgrade, but i might buy a cheaper monitor. :D There's a dell, that has 4k on HDMI 2.0 but is otherwise a 1080 panel  :lol:  And it's got HDR 1!!  :w00t:  NOt 10. :grin: :grin: :wowey:

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1.13 killed off Ja2.

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Dear PS4 and Switch owners....REJOICE!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd buy a Switch for that game. :S

 

 

I think I might do that. I was going to go for a PS4 Pro upgrade but with games such as Splatoon 2, Mario: Odyssey and Mario+Rabbids around, I'll probably have a lot more fun with the Switch. No More Heroes 3 will come out someday for the Switch and when it does, I'll go crazy. 

 

I won't skip on ps4 upgrade, but i might buy a cheaper monitor. :D There's a dell, that has 4k on HDMI 2.0 but is otherwise a 1080 panel  :lol:  And it's got HDR 1!!  :w00t:  NOt 10. :grin: :grin: :wowey:

 

 

Hehehe, been there, done that. :geek:  Back in the days when I didn't have enough money for a full hd tv, I used a HDMI to DVI converter and attached the PS3 to a 22" TFT LG Monitor and boy was the screen quality good for some reason. The cool thing about the PS3 was that you could choose to set the audio to component, then all you needed was a male RCA to female adapter. I used to connect them to a logitech speaker with a sub-woofer and it worked like a champ.

 

Workaround tactics can be a lot of fun. :grin:  

There used to be a signature here, a really cool one...and now it's gone.  

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An anime themed Fallout lmao

 

It will probably be pretty good actually.

Just what do you think you're doing?! You dare to come between me and my prey? Is it a habit of yours to scurry about, getting in the way and causing bother?

 

What are you still bothering me for? I'm a Knight. I'm not interested in your childish games. I need my rest.

 

Begone! Lest I draw my nail...

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