I really would like to read a post-mortem of this game's PR campaign. We've got another stupid blunder with the Carnifexgate just 10 days from release. Was Bioware rushed? Didn't they QA whatever they were releasing? They spent so long teasing the blowout and thirsting the fanbase and it completely blew up in their faces. How the hell do you manage that.
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The Mass Effect Community Thread
- Thread starter shinobi602
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DeadlyParasite
Member
Was a pic by one of the devs at the multiplayer PAX East booth. I'm sure a bunch of people just messed around with the colour sliders for fun.
In fairness, this is all the result of their bullshit marketing campaign. They just don't know how to sell their products.
Galaxies at War should have went as a solo game after Mass Effect 3, but they didn't pull the trigger on it and got almost completely overshadowed by Warframe. The only thing that stopped Warframe until now is the devs insistence on the F2P approach, which requires all sorts of grinding activities you can only cut through with money. The addiction level is there, but the fun one?... not so much.
Getting Galaxies at War its own show would have kept the MP, the greatest thing coming out of ME 3, as the "face" of the brand. Leaving it inside the game meant the quality of the ending permanently kept the conversation about Mass Effect on that dumbass red/green/blue bullshit, where your crew nopes out of the fucking galaxy leaving you behind like an asshole.
Inquisition was dealt, IMO, with a great campaign and the reason it fell short was the fixed enemy experience levels and the lukewarm ending. The game's main strength is in its cast, its dialogues, the mystical quality of the locations, and the absolute extensive attention to detail in terms of interior/production design. All things which are very different to convey in a review or a forum post. It also didn't help that the combat, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC, was ruined by fixed experience levels and horrible multiplayer design: waved based but mixed with mini-raid tactics in the last wave. The mini-raid tactics made it impossible for new players to learn gradually the intricacies of the fighting system, and left newcomers completely squashed by the MP "difficulty".
The problem with fixed experience levels is that it works with games where exploration is the main goal, like in Bethesda games, but Inquisition being an hybrid between say a Skyrim approach and a Witcher 3 approach, made it so that there wasn't enough content and enough challenge on a single zone to deliver a real pay-off in term of either exploration or combat.
Inquisition in its definitive edition form is one of the greatest rpgs ever made, but of course who cares to review it now?
I suppose Bioware didn't see Inquisition as a success, which it totally is, and somehow scrapped the honest, direct marketing approach of giving people full demos and/or full betas to made up their minds for the usual "let's trick them because we are smarter".
Their "idea" for Andromeda's marketing campaign was fucked from the start because they didn't understand what made Fallout 4 campaign successful: that to control the conversation in this age of media, where the last word is in the hands of people who talk more and louder not in the ones who make the most compelling or sensible argument, you need to throw the first punch, and the second, and the third, and so on and so on. Fallout 4 hit its fans and the non-believers with a full, real time video that covered EVERYTHING, pretty massive in terms of length: no matter what aspect of the game "haters" would attack, fans would have all sorts of exhaust valves to pump out the negative aspects and keep pushing the hype-train forward.
And look at Destiny: the idea of a weekly editorial seem so stupid at the time, but in the end they brainwashed almost everybody into "not an MMO", "no raid matchmaking", "necessary nerf", and so on just because they kept talking over anyone who would make a point of exposing the real design of the game, which is keep people dealing with F2P tactics while making money off both retail game/DLCs and micro-transactions. People would address the contradictions in the game's design and the game's economy and all they did was keep repeating the same thing over and over, over and over, over and over. And we can clearly see who won that fight.
Is there anybody here who would take the side of Bioware and tell me that teasing people for five years, pay that off with an almost strictly tech-demo at VGA, while blasting out the fantastic footage we are seeing from PAX right now, a week before release, was the right thing to do for the sake of this game' success?
AWizardDidIt
Member
When you have a section of the internet that is devoted to manufacturing drama then there's nothing to do. Minor visual bugs that don't get caught unless you have a group of no-lifes who rapidly frame-step through an hour and a half of video to find a bug really don't matter to my own personal hype.
Oh come on.
I can understand wanting to be positive and all, and it not affecting your view personally, but at this stage I think we can all at least admit that the pr and videos for this game have been messed up to say the least. We've had numerous errors and glitches - normally a single error in a video is a topic of conversation, but for this game they happen every time. Either the game itself is buggy as fuck, or EA / Bioware need to get a new PR company because basic, dumb errors like this happening repeatedly don't help a game.
I could be wrong but... Dragon Age didn't have similar issues- not to this degree anyway.
Yep, that's my point. One is understandable, but I can't think of a single big name game that's had this many silly, unnecessary issues with its PR and advertising. And I don't think having a go at the people noticing these things helps - its 2017 and we're on the internet, everything gets taken to pieces and analaysed to hell and back.
It just seems oddly slapdash.
(Personally doesn't bother me that much concerned to Ryder's face. I still think it just looks like a generic human male face, and doesn't stand out like Shepherd did at all (nor looks as good as his).
It just seems oddly slapdash.
(Personally doesn't bother me that much concerned to Ryder's face. I still think it just looks like a generic human male face, and doesn't stand out like Shepherd did at all (nor looks as good as his).
AWizardDidIt
Member
In over an hour of PAX gameplay, the worst bug was in a third of a second of animation a gun was maybe backwards in a cutscene. That's hardly "buggy as fuck" or a poor showing. It was something that I didn't see any mention of until this morning after the internet had a chance to comb over every frame of the video for something to complain about.
I'd agree the marketing wasn't the greatest... there was too little lead up and then handing off those early videos to IGN to do was clearly a bad idea. But I'm still not convinced of this argument that some shifty animations is supposed to ruin my enjoyment of the game or say much about Bioware as a company.
prag16
Banned
This. Not saying these little oddities don't exist, or that the marketing was great. But everything has been so overblown. Some people are genuinely concerned. Some people are concern trolls. Some people are harboring schadenfreude with regard to Bioware and their fans for various reasons.
Call me crazy, but I strongly suspect that 95%+ of the controversy is limited strictly to internet/gaf hardcore types; extreme enthusiasts and keyboard warriors, a group that will scratch their heads and act surprised and offended when the game is generally praised by the general public, scores 90 on metacritic, and sells very well.
DeadlyParasite
Member
There's an alternate version of the launch trailer with fem-ryder coming out soon for those interested according to twitter.
The 3rd party assets thing strikes me as really unnecessary. They have great artists working on the series, the art books have all been great.
prag16
Banned
Spoiler from yesterday's trailer:
If it's a like for like trailer, this should definitely confirm the sibling capture angle as a plot point, and erase the small chance they switched player characters for only that scene in yesterday's trailer.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Yeah, the marketing for this game has been poor. Using footage with bugs in it? What?
Awesome! I really liked it when they did trailers for FemShep and Male Shepard too.
shinobi602
Member
Which 3rd party assets? That Liara model is from the Citadel DLC.
Tali's photo.
shinobi602
Member
It's a stock photo. They're specifically made for that sort of thing. I don't think the reveal should've been handled the way it was but there was nothing nefarious about it.
I dunno what you're referring to but I've never said there was anything nefarious about it, only that these things come up with ME and not DA and I find it curious as to why.
As I've said before, I love ME2 and consider it the best of the trilogy, and think it's storyline is fine on its own and as a follow up to ME1. It just completely falls apart and makes fuck all sense when taken with Me3s storyline. ME3s storyline really doesn't feel like what they ever int need the final chapter to be like.
And Shepherd isn't in prison at the start of ME3 if you don't do arrival.
And arrival shows the reapers coming and you stop them. That's the point of it. You don't delay them, the dlc is about blowing up the backdrop relay. It makes absolutely no sense when put into the context of ME3. ME3 actually makes more sense *without* arrival - the standing end to ME2 has Harbringer saying 'there is another way' and a shot of the reaper fleet moving in in the galaxy. That fits exactly with what happens in arrival.
And Shepherd isn't in prison at the start of ME3 if you don't do arrival.
And arrival shows the reapers coming and you stop them. That's the point of it. You don't delay them, the dlc is about blowing up the backdrop relay. It makes absolutely no sense when put into the context of ME3. ME3 actually makes more sense *without* arrival - the standing end to ME2 has Harbringer saying 'there is another way' and a shot of the reaper fleet moving in in the galaxy. That fits exactly with what happens in arrival.
Doesn't Harbinger straight up tell Shepard that they're still coming even if the relay is destroyed and that their Arrival is just delayed?
edit:
Yeah it definitely says that he's only delayed the inevitable.
Yes but that was happening anyway. It's a very weird bit of dlc - Shepherd commits mass murder on a vast scale, for basically no difference. There's no change between playing through Arrival or not. It adds absolutely nothing to the background universe, lore or storyline. I mean, it's engaging gameplay and decent enough so worth playing, but if it didn't exist literally nothing would be different.
prag16
Banned
At all? Not even as DLC?
Speaking of DLC, at this point I wonder what the DLC strategy will be. We know nothing outside a few things about their multiplayer plans. We know there's no season pass, but I'm wondering how much and what type of other content is forthcoming. I guess I'll set my expectation at how things were done for the past couple games... a few arguably somewhat overpriced missions, and a handful of other cheap cosmetic type things.
DeadlyParasite
Member
You can bet they'll peddle some out in DLC packs after launch like they did with Mass Effect 2 and 3.
Really dumb. I'm sure the excuse is probably that they couldn't wireframe armour or other clothes without clipping or some nonsense.
AWizardDidIt
Member
That last set piece where you're running to the shuttle on the surface of that asteroid as it flies into the Mass Relay is pretty alright. Also Harbinger has a cool voice when you talk to him? Oh and you get to see Admiral Hackett in person for the first time.
Those are the nicest things I can say about Arrival. It's unnecessary from a story perspective and a bit too long. I also don't like how it's a Shep solo adventure without the crew.
Those are the nicest things I can say about Arrival. It's unnecessary from a story perspective and a bit too long. I also don't like how it's a Shep solo adventure without the crew.
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
If I had to guess, I'd say a new 'exploration world' that's tangentially connected to the main story, but can be played for some added benefit.
Something akin to Omega, but on a DA:I scale, I'd imagine.
Maybe another squadmate down the line, though that seems less likely here given how much dialogue and such they've said they added to make the companion banter keep going. I don't see another Kasumi being as likely, and if they had a Javik-like character (that's actually integrated into the plot) they'd have likely mentioned it by now.
Another possibility is a
new Remnant vault that leads to a new weapon or two
Huh, I was starting to suspect this based on the footage / art pages we've seen of Liam and Cora. Pretty disappointing. Cora's red/black variant was great.
Damn, thats really disappointing. All the talk about customization and then they give your squad mates just that one outfit...
LegalEagleMike
Member
Was hoping they would do outfits similar to Inquisition.
shinobi602
Member
Yea sorry, I was looking at someone else's post.
Officer.Sanchez
Member
What? you can't change their weapons?
SliChillax
Member
Why do all these weird bugs have to appear on my favorite franchise ffs
Cross-Section
Member
That kinda blows, but then I remember how much of a pain it was to play the gear game with companions in DA:I (especially when factoring in crafting), so now I'm kind of back to neutral.
Retrofluxed
Member
Where is this info from? I haven't heard anything about that. Talk about a massive and unexpected change from the previous games.
Edit: Just found it. Wow... How the hell does their damage scale? Can we at least upgrade their default weapon and/or mod it in the loadout screen?
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Retrofluxed
Member
Now see, fuck animation quirks, silly faces and backwards guns, this info is disappointing. I'm going to try to withhold judgement until I see first hand how they'll handle damage scaling with this change. I'd wager the AI's damage is based on level and not their actual weapon.
Guess we're stuck with Peebee's stupid belly-out outfit unless we fork over more money.
Ugh, that's going to drive me nuts every time I see it...
George Oscar Bluth II
Banned
shinobi602
Member
There will be, but not at launch.
How much?
Officer.Sanchez
Member
"No, they do their own thing."
They do their own thing.... Wow what a great answer.
So squadmates are glorified power detonators now? (They've always been glorified bonus powers but still).
ME1 system wasn't perfect but I loved how much control you had over your squadmates. Armor, weapons, items. ME2 was a step back, ME3 a step forward.
I expected them to incorporate and refine ME1 and ME3 systems...
They're going to use the same boring Avenger for the rest of the game and just scale the damage?
hoo boy, if the game has no alternate armor/outfits for squad members without paying for DLC that won't look great
Inquisition had armor DLC but you could still equip a wide variety of armors and weapons to part members while maintaining a unique look/feel for the characters
hopefully the ME:A 10 hour demo on thursday eases my concerns =\
Inquisition had armor DLC but you could still equip a wide variety of armors and weapons to part members while maintaining a unique look/feel for the characters
hopefully the ME:A 10 hour demo on thursday eases my concerns =\
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