Garrett Hawke
Member
it's more likely that was some kind of showreel or demo so it probably had animations that were specifically for those rigs, which might have changed for the final build.
that ryder looks a lot better, though.
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Former BioWare Emloyee Review of company sheds distuburing light on MEA's development
- Thread starter MasterMenace
- Start date
that ryder looks a lot better, though.
Oh god, ME is a 'dudebro' game now? lol, this place sometimes
I read through 4 reviews including this one and at least one confirmed this review, while the others read like they were written by people inside a clique. Not a good look.
RecRoulette
Member
Man, I wish Keighley was still doing Final Hours. This would be an interesting one.
That's a different discussion though.
Plus the various rather positive reviews, I wouldn't exactly break it down to some things on the surface. Nobody of us was part of the development or can actually tell us about the practices there.
When I found that piece of information, I posted it for one reason only.
It shows that alot of important figures have left the development, the reasons aren't exactly our buisness, but it paints a pretty good picture and COULD be part of the puzzle why the title didn't live up to the expecations of the fanbase.
Thanks OP, for taking what I found btw
iShouldGoPro
Member
thanks!
i didn't have a clue that video game dev offices would be like that.
always pictured a straight laced setting, i guess
Are you talking about the facial animation because everything else is exactly the same (animation wise)?
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret
Member
Yeah, when they said they made the jump to full on nudity in tweets I just rolled my eyes.
Ban Puncher
Member
Game isn't even out and people are already pointing fingers.
Never heard of glassdoor?
It's basically Yelp for employees reviewing their employers.
AlexFlame116
Member
I don't know. You tell me. I don't have a computer strong enough for this game.
Straight up looks like they shipped the wrong build of the game.
I don't think the 2016 version is out of the question compared to other modern games, especially considering how bad the final build version looks.
I have seen this term thrown a lot lately, but what is crunch?
Tenacious-D
Member
Code:
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/GHeXpfO.png[/IMG]Target render... from April 2016?
That doesn't sound right. The game should have been completely playable without blockers by that point.
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There's another review from 2015:
-High level of politics and nepotism, especially among the senior leadership
-Crunch lasts between 6 months to over a year
-Difficult to advance unless you are good friends with senior leads
Dictator93
Member
ctrl + f "grain of salt"
Do not forget GAF, this is glassdoor. But yes, this could explain some of the oddness of ME:A.
edit: FOOT IN MOUTH
Damn you and your sand, tuxfool!
Do not forget GAF, this is glassdoor. But yes, this could explain some of the oddness of ME:A.
edit: FOOT IN MOUTH
Damn you and your sand, tuxfool!
I do but I already bought it for the Pro so I was asking in general if anyone knew.
AlexFlame116
Member
Yeah I'm kind of on the same boat haha! I was okay with the romance scenes (well sometimes...) in the previous games but I'm not excited about full on nudity.
This is just my opinion though!
michaelius
Banned
Blaming this on internal conflict feels like blame shifting. Nothing about quality of MEA is surprising after DA2 and DA:I combined with new studio to farm well know IP approach of EA.
Jonneh3003
Banned
Someone at Bioware looked at what they had and said "yeah I think this needs to look more stiff and lifeless." I don't get it.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
It's literally all the same exact animation data. It seems like they changed the way faces work. And unfortunately never got around to dealing with the problems that caused.
Sure but already in 2015 this was posted to a lesser degreee soooo
Garrett Hawke
Member
oh no, i quite agree - but i was offering an explanation as to why it would look different now when they clearly had already done the work. if they changed rigs they probably had to re-do the facial animations.
LelouchZero
Member
This is really sad to hear about if it's true.
this is insane.
Like, this is a showcase to demonstrate internally progress in the game I believe
yet none of that quality is really in the retail version
Tenacious-D
Member
Crunch is overtime. Serious overtime. Like 90 hour work weeks. Sometimes unpaid, sometimes paid, but the toll is takes on developers is never worth it.
EA has a history with it.
The issue here is that I've read this kind of thing all over the place in glassdoor, and accounts written on there often have a highly subjective slant. It certainly isn't to discount what is being said, but neither the negative nor the positive reviews give a wholly accurate picture of what is going on in the studio.
AlexFlame116
Member
Yeah same here! I know that console graphics are usually lower than max PC graphics settings so you may have a point.
PshycoNinja
Member
Unfortunately, the two bolded are huge issues that permeate much of the industry. If a less than stellar co-worker is the best friend or some family memeber of your manager, keep your options open. No matter the difference in work ethic or results, you will get the boot before the friend or family member.
MasterMenace
Member
Oops, I don't know what I was writing. I re-editing my post. You're right, I meant the facial animation is much better.
Especially when he starts coughing.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The triple A industry in general has a history with it, it's something that gamers rarely acknowledge as something that devs deal with.
I would never 100% trust negative Glassdoor reviews. A lot of the time they come from bitter employees who were fired or laid off (rightfully or wrongfully, I have no way of knowing) and embellish or exaggerate things because they're coming from a place of frustration. Not saying there isn't truth to the review, but don't take it as gospel.
Soul of the Beast
Member
That is extremely disgusting, It can't be real.
benicillin
Banned
While it could explain some things, I've known people who left misleading Glassdoor reviews when I've known why they got fired. The fact that we have a thread about this at all kinda shows that people are looking for anything to criticize.
Say this was true, regarding the animation quality reduction -- why?
I'm trying to understand this from a development perspective. Maybe they had to animate by hand for each scene and it was too much work so it was scraped for a less expressive (the current) animation system that just animates based off dialogue? That's the only excuse I can think of for it. (I know little about game development, just trying to make a logical justification for the changes).
I'm trying to understand this from a development perspective. Maybe they had to animate by hand for each scene and it was too much work so it was scraped for a less expressive (the current) animation system that just animates based off dialogue? That's the only excuse I can think of for it. (I know little about game development, just trying to make a logical justification for the changes).
PIPs and 30 minute lunch are poor but hardly abnormal practrices
AlexFlame116
Member
Did you ever have experiences with that? You worked in the game industry before right? Or is that asking for personal info? I'm sorry if it is!
I'll be honest, I didn't know anything about crunch time until I started visiting this site. Sounds absolutely terrible.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
As soon as I read that tweet of them saying 3 teams worked on this "fantastic adventure" I knew the game was being made by 2 and were not going along well and a third had to enter the picture to try to salvage stuff as soon as EA started to force a release soon or we cut it here.
EA not showing absolutely nothing on various E3's was really telling.
Super sad about this, ive been in much smaller teams with conflicts of interests and they can make what it looks like what it could be a great game into a fucking mess.
And really sad about the devs working there that wanted to release a quality product but management fucked up with them.
Dragon Age Inquisition can be a game you dont like, heck i dont like it either, but its doesnt fall in the more basic aspects of what makes a game professionally well made, something Andormeda clearly lacks. This is more than directors not being up to snuff and making just a normal game isntead of a masterpiece. This is clearly troubled development.
Andromeda was just a prank against Edmonton.
Looks like engine issues. Game maybe couldn't run with all these bells and whistles, and they had to cut back because they ran out of time and budget to redo everything. The game really looks like it has a bunch of effects turned off. Female Ryder's face in some of the gifs going around looks like it has subsurface scattering turned off when it's meant to be on. I could very much be wrong about all of this as I'm no tech expert, but that's what this looks like to me.
Imagine your holding a bag of chrisps/chips. Take out a piece of the bag, that's the dev.
Your mouth is the studio.
Now eat it.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
Ehhhh. Glass door is an anonymous site.
While this could be true, threads like these based on one post and ignoring the other positive reviews of the place are disingenuous.
We need press sneak fuck on the case to actually confirm sources.
While this could be true, threads like these based on one post and ignoring the other positive reviews of the place are disingenuous.
We need press sneak fuck on the case to actually confirm sources.
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