Mass Effect: Andromeda

And they seem to not understand that Assassin's Creed has its own issues in regards to pushing out a new installment every year.

Heck, it's why DA 2 and ME 3 are probably the most polarizing installments of their series: They had the smallest development time of their installments of 2 years and 1 year respectively. Meanwhile Dragon Age Organs and ME 1 had the longest.

I know that was just a typo, but considering the amount of gore your characters would be caked in after every battle, I think that "Dragon Age: Organs" is a pretty apt title too.

Yeah. Typo. My phone's auto correct tends to correct perfectly normal words for some reason.

I asked the mods about whether or not discussing the ending of Mass Effect 3 was still a banned topic, and this is what they had to say:

So, it looks like it's staying a banned topic for a while. You can see the thread I made on Ask The Tropers here.

edited 21st Aug '17 7:46:02 AM by dragonfire5000

Ehhh we had a pretty civil discussion about it a few months ago and it got left alone. People asked about it being banned, but the convo went back and forth, we discussed it, no bad blood, and then we moved on.

As for Andromeda.... I liked the game, but not doing a second playthrough of it. It had its share of flaws and the whole thing felt like a bit of a waste of potential and leaning too hard on the whole Bioware Chosen One template (The Pathfinder ends up being EVEN MORE of a deific figure than Shepard)

But it's sad it's been cut down like this. Look at No Man's Sky right now - there's a resurgence right there!

I'm doing another play through of Andromeda and it is sort of a pain if only because you'd really rather do anything than complete Voeld again if your me lol

My NG+ just hit Voeld again too!

This Is Gonna Suck.

Mass Effect Annihiliation, the novel that will resolve the quarian arc plot, is set for a June 26, 2018 release in the US, UK, and Canada, and August 28, 2018 in Australia

I'm guessing that the reason the last two novels are taking so long is that they are being rewritten to resolve Andromeda's loose threads.

Well, better than nothing, I suppose. Who's writing them?

Catherynne M. Valente is writing Annihilation. Huh. I might actually read it, in that case.

Still kinda crappy that a plot point in the game is being resolved in a novel that alot of people wouldn't know about. If they ever make a sequel, there's gonna be alot of confusion on why all these aliens are suddenly around.

Given the fallout from... All of Andromeda, I doubt a sequel is ever going to be a thing.

edited 26th Oct '17 7:40:45 PM by ultimatepheer

Of course, worse games have gotten sequels. It made a profit and got good reviews. No one's pretending it didn't have lots of problems, but they were problems caused by an inexperienced studio without enough time. They could easily have continued the series and redeemed the brand.

But no. Apparently there were too many negative memes.

I've said before and I'll say again: between the way they talk about their games, the efforts to try and ape other game styles, and their own tendency to Accentuate the Negative of every game's reception, I'm convinced that someone in charge of Bioware doesn't actually like Bioware games and is thus hyper-sensitive to any criticism that seems to confirm the pre-existing suspicion that Bioware's style is bad.

The general discourse with regards to Bioware games seems to be,

• Bioware: We, uh, we made a game.
• Fans: There's some flaws in this.
• Bioware: YOU HATE MY GAME. HEY GUYS, I TOLD YOU THEY'D HATE IT!!! CANCEL EVERYTHING!!! What's popular now? Skyrim? Destiny? Call of Duty? F*ck it, we make that now!

There's probably no coming back from that. Between the cancellation of Andromeda DLC and what we know about the upcoming Destiny clone, Anthem, I think Bioware's going to be going into the "good while it lasted" pile soon enough.

edited 26th Oct '17 10:51:12 PM by TobiasDrake

Yeah, EA pretty much follows the same pattern with every studio they assimilate. They didn't exactly buy Lucasarts or anything, Disney shuttered them, but Star Wars is pretty much only Battlefield now. But if EA can't sell another entry in the series every year the way they do with their sports titles, they don't want it. Which makes me far more curious why someone at EA keeps buying up all these niche genre companies in the first place.

edited 27th Oct '17 6:47:51 AM by Unsung

Some companies thrive exclusively on cannibalizing other companies. I used to work for one of those, so I've seen firsthand how that kind of economic dissonance works. "It's a rough economic year so we're closing three locations. BUT I'm happy to announce that we just purchased two more companies!"

I can't speak for EA, but my experience with those kinds of companies is that they also tend to be full of themselves and often enforce sub-standard policies on their staff. Things like every company having to use the same software even if they do completely different business functions and have entirely separate business needs. That software usually being some kind of chimera hybrid entity that is markedly inferior to what the individual companies that were purchased were using before.

"Today I bought a company that makes sporting goods, a company that makes shirts, and a company that makes beer. Tomorrow, they shut down everything and start operating under the exact same policies, procedures, and technologies, because every business is identical to every other business, right? Shit, I'm losing money, better buy more companies."

That's what megacorporations do. They are so thoroughly divorced from business sense that all they even know how to do anymore is standardize things that shouldn't be standardized. Often with a kind of obnoxious attitude. Back when I used to work for one of these entities, I described their attitude towards their acquired companies' practices and processes as, "Well, if you knew what you were doing, you wouldn't be for sale, would you?"

For at least the first few years, they just plain don't listen to a single goddamn word that the acquired company has to say. So far as they're concerned, this relationship goes one way: I own you, therefore you're a worthless incompetent moron who clearly doesn't know how to business like I do, so you're going to do everything I tell you and keep your stupid f*cking ideas to yourself.

And more often than not, this ultimately ends in the economic annihilation of the once-reasonably successful acquired entity. What used to be a company becomes a "brand", their offices get closed down, their workforce is laid off, and the megacorporation shrugs its shoulders and just starts over.

edited 26th Oct '17 11:07:53 PM by TobiasDrake

Make your money and get out, I suppose. I guess if anyone else even tried to make sports games anymore, EA would go out and crush them first.

It seems like EA's been trying to have Bioware make them a killer MMO all this time, with Inquisition and Andromeda just barely pulling back from the brink. Anthem basically *is* Destiny, right? Who knows, though. Maybe if Anthem works, EA'll let Bioware go back to making the kinds of games that made the company worth buying in the first place. But I have my doubts. Mike Laidlaw jumping ship seems like it might be a sign of things to come.

edited 27th Oct '17 3:01:06 AM by Unsung

I'm actually surprised that SWTOR has lasted as long as it has under EA. It's F2P and it's not super huge like they usually strive for and yet it still gets updates.

edited 27th Oct '17 12:43:00 AM by LordVatek

Yeah, when my guild left we didn't expect it to last past Eternal Empire. I assume the cartel market still makes them enough money to make it worthwhile.

A lot of these F 2 P MM Os are still chugging along with the whales they have and the characters they feel required to upkeep.

Star Trek Online is still chugging out and is apparently still profitable for the Devs. It helps that its the only remaining Canon source for the original timeline but yeah.

edited 27th Oct '17 1:06:15 AM by Memers

I don't want BW to die. :( What about my DA 4?!

Yeah, I'm not ready for DA to be over yet, either. Even more than Andromeda, Inquisition raised wayyyy more questions than it answered.

Eh, DA director already left during DA 4's development, so that is bad sign

I'm personally hoping that when Bioware dies, it motivates from other company to do same kind of games they did, but better. Because seriously, Bioware games often had same problems they never fixed in favor of trying to fix things people complained about on in internet

Well, Bioware already pretty much begat Obsidian, who've always had the superior narrative game even if their games were bugged to crap. Sure, their most recent games are all top-down isometric instead of third-person over-the-shoulder, but I can live with that. Their new models in Pillars II are a lot more detailed. That shows willing.

edited 27th Oct '17 6:40:40 AM by Unsung

Knowing EA's history (Reminded of Jim Sterling's "I Called It" on Visceral Game's recent closure), it's kinda hard not to see the writing on the wall and that Bioware's time is coming to a close.

I suspect we will get DA 4 first as by all accounts they are already working on it. Hopefully it won't be another Andromeda, and maybe it'll even delay what seems to be the inevitable fate of all things EA touches. But realistically, I wouldn't be surprised DA 4 might be Bioware's Swan Song.