Videogames: The Sequeling

[Rhom]

3 minutes ago, Fez said:

Agreed. And, in spite of fully understanding that Bioware is an empty shell of what it once was (except that the lead writer for Dragon Age 4 is the one great original trilogy Mass Effect writer still with the company), I'm still very curious what the next Mass effect ends up being. That short teaser trailer suggests it is a direct sequel, but whether it's 5 days after the end of ME3 or 500 years after ME3 I couldn't say. Though either way I don't know how they square a sequel with the different ME3 endings, unless they just canonize one of them.

I've said for years that ME1 has significant flaws that too many of its fans overlook. That said, Andromeda's flaws extend beyond the similar issues that you identify. The biggest one being that it did a really bad job at telling the story it had; I remember being legitimately angry (which I almost never am with video games) at how poorly it presented a first contact scenario. Also, in a story- and character-driven game I think visual bugs are usually much more problematic than gameplay bugs, because they can ruin the emotional and plot beats that are pretty much the reason the game exists. And, at release, ME:A was riddled with visual bugs. It wasn't just the faces either, I had all sorts of problems with characters not showing up in cutscenes at all and sliding all over the floor

Also, ME:A came out 10 years of ME1, so it shouldn't have picked back up flaws that the series had rid itself of in ME2 and ME3. 

I do agree that Bioware should've given ME:A a sequel and see what happens, but Bioware was (and maybe still is) incredibly poorly managed and I think they just didn't have an available development team they could trust with it. Also, after poor reception of ME3's ending and all of ME:A, it probably was for the best to let the franchise cool for a few years. Now the legendary edition is out, to rekindle good will towards the franchise and in interest in a new game, and hopefully it won't be too many years until the next game is out too.

My biggest problem with Andromeda was essentially the same as I had with DA:I.  They both suffered from wanting to be big for big's sake.  Throw on top of that the fact that I had zero interest in DA:I's combat and it took a series I loved and made it very "meh."  At the very least, Andromeda had enjoyable gameplay.

[Corvinus85]

For me the best ending to ME3 that would make for a compelling sequel is the red ending, the destruction of the mass relays. This would leave star systems somewhat isolated, and a storyline about trying to tie the galaxy together again could be a big part of the game's narrative.

[Rhom]

16 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

For me the best ending to ME3 that would make for a compelling sequel is the red ending, the destruction of the mass relays. This would leave star systems somewhat isolated, and a storyline about trying to tie the galaxy together again could be a big part of the game's narrative.

The story of the original trilogy is told.

I think they made the right decision to go to Andromeda.  As @Fez noted, they certainly stumbled with the story; but it also neatly cleaned up any issues surrounding making a canon ending.  I still think the right move would be to go on with ME:A2 but clean it up.

I cringe any time I see someone pining away in a Mass Effect community about going backwards and doing something like the First Contact War.  

I do think that given what we've seen, they will attempt to tie the two stories together.  I just hope that Shep is allowed to rest.  His story is told.

[Corvinus85]

15 minutes ago, Rhom said:

 

I do think that given what we've seen, they will attempt to tie the two stories together.  I just hope that Shep is allowed to rest.  His story is told.

Pretty sure the teaser we got hinted at Shep maybe coming back in some way.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

My biggest problem with Andromeda was essentially the same as I had with DA:I.  They both suffered from wanting to be big for big's sake.  Throw on top of that the fact that I had zero interest in DA:I's combat and it took a series I loved and made it very "meh."  At the very least, Andromeda had enjoyable gameplay.

In general I agree. Except I thought DA:I did a better job in crafting interesting region-specific narratives for many of the open world areas. Although famously not for the very first one, which too many people spent far too long in because the game did a bad job explaining what was important and what was filler. Also, most of the DA:I companions were well-written and interesting I thought.

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

For me the best ending to ME3 that would make for a compelling sequel is the red ending, the destruction of the mass relays. This would leave star systems somewhat isolated, and a storyline about trying to tie the galaxy together again could be a big part of the game's narrative.

Agreed. And if they do pick a canon ending I think it will be red, since IIRC that's the one the vast majority of players picked. I suspect they'll try to just gloss over it though, especially since that conflicts with the original nonsense idea that the green ending was the good one.

49 minutes ago, Rhom said:

The story of the original trilogy is told.

I think they made the right decision to go to Andromeda.  As @Fez noted, they certainly stumbled with the story; but it also neatly cleaned up any issues surrounding making a canon ending.  I still think the right move would be to go on with ME:A2 but clean it up.

I cringe any time I see someone pining away in a Mass Effect community about going backwards and doing something like the First Contact War.  

I do think that given what we've seen, they will attempt to tie the two stories together.  I just hope that Shep is allowed to rest.  His story is told.

A prequel would terrible, but fortunately that isn't the direction they're going in. I think the concept of ME:A was a solid one, and if it had been done correctly would've been a great way to keep the franchise going without having to address the fallout of the ME3 ending. 

From what I've gathered, there will be at least some connection in the new game to ME:A, but whether it's a proper sequel to both it and the trilogy or just a few throwaway mentions or something in between, who can say? Although, since ME:A takes place 634 years after the trilogy, for the next game to be an actual sequel to ME:A it would need to be in the pretty far future. And we have no idea when it's taking place, except that Liara would seem to be in it, but that could be anywhere from 0 to 900-ish years. Though she likely wouldn't live long enough for anyone from ME:A to get back to the Milky Way, because that would mean living to around almost 1,400 years. Krogan can live that long, but the line for Asari has always been that it's roughly 1,000 year lifespan.

32 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Pretty sure the teaser we got hinted at Shep maybe coming back in some way.

Well, maybe. The teaser could also just be showing that Liara remembers Shep. The only things we know are that she's alive, at least one Reaper is dead, there's at least one Salarian and one Krogan alive, and there's a lot of debris in space still (which maybe suggests its not too long after the original trilogy).

Personally, I wouldn't mind a Final Fantasy X-2 style plot, where Liara is the main character now and she wants to bring Shepard back and that's a big subplot while she gets caught up in some overarching story. Although that would probably only work for people who like the Shep/Liara romance. Also, Liara is a pretty defined character and Bioware has never been that prescriptive in who the main character is; DA2's Hawke was the closest they got, but even they had some flexibility still.

 

[Werthead]

Quote

Krogan can live that long, but the line for Asari has always been that it's roughly 1,000 year lifespan.

Unless there's some cryogenics involved.

I think the main problem is that Mass Effect's story is done and dusted, and stretching the universe beyond that original story was a bad idea. They should have left it as is and moved on. With Dragon Age they have the excuse that the original story is actually still not complete, but it was so thrown off-course by the EA takeover, Dragon Age II being made under such harsh conditions and most of the original design team quitting that I'm not sure the original narrative is even vaguely salvageable at this point.

[Fez]

16 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Unless there's some cryogenics involved.

I think the main problem is that Mass Effect's story is done and dusted, and stretching the universe beyond that original story was a bad idea. They should have left it as is and moved on. With Dragon Age they have the excuse that the original story is actually still not complete, but it was so thrown off-course by the EA takeover, Dragon Age II being made under such harsh conditions and most of the original design team quitting that I'm not sure the original narrative is even vaguely salvageable at this point.

If the writing was good, I think the Mass Effect universe is plenty well developed enough to tell stories beyond the Reapers. They would necessarily be smaller in scope, but that's fine. There have been series that have successfully made that kind of adjustment after the original story was done, like God of War.

The problem was, they completely screwed up the start of their new story, and so to regain fan interest and goodwill it seems like they're going for the nostalgia play by connecting back to the original story. We'll see how that works out. If the game's good, I'll happily play it. But I'd have preferred ME:A being an excellent game and the start of a new story series within in the universe.

As for Dragon Age, I think it was always impossible for the original narrative to work because they kept abandoning their game protagonists in favor of new ones. All of DA2 was to setup Hawke becoming the head of a new Inquisition, which goes nowhere and thanks to DA:I Hawke now can't play an important role in future events because they might be dead. And the Warden has such an insane number of player-controlled variables that I can't imagine they'll ever show up again either. 

Also, I don't even know what is the central narrative of Dragon Age. Was there even supposed to be one, or was the idea that there's this world and lots of different stories happen there?

[Werthead]

4 minutes ago, Fez said:

Also, I don't even know what is the central narrative of Dragon Age. Was there even supposed to be one, or was the idea that there's this world and lots of different stories happen there?

There was a bigger idea in play. Dragon Age: Origins was supposed to be followed up by an equally-large (if not larger), epic sequel that would build on the first game. But EA bought BioWare halfway through development, were horrified at the budget and time spent on the game, mandated a console port of DA:O (which was not supposed to have one, as it was originally only for the PC Master Race, but to be fair that was a crazy decision given that was at the absolute nadir of modern PC gaming's popularity) and then mandated a "quickie" sequel to be made in nine months on a tiny budget which they'd combine through creative accounting into DA:O's budget, so it'd look like they'd make a lot more money. They also wanted it done on the more console-friendly Mass Effect 2 engine (well, the ME fork of the Unreal Engine they were using) rather than reiterating DA:O's custom engine, which didn't work as well on console. A few of the original team said fuck off and left, and whatever the original plan for the series was, was abruptly yanked off in a completely different direction.

[Fez]

23 minutes ago, Werthead said:

A few of the original team said fuck off and left, and whatever the original plan for the series was, was abruptly yanked off in a completely different direction.

I can't even tell who the big bad was supposed to be, based off DA:O. The Darkspawn? Tevinter? The Qun? The Maker? Any of them seem viable.

[briantw]

My main problem with Inquisition is that you’re the leader of this powerful organization but you’re still expected to pick your own fucking flowers for potions.  The fate of the world is at stake.  Maybe send a dude who isn’t the chosen one to do the busy work.  

[IlyaP]

13 hours ago, Werthead said:

This is the third complete playthrough I've done, so I know about the problems with the ending. It's not really that bad.

I salute your ability to not take umbrage with it. I'd have preferred to just...have an ending. As it's a prequel, it has to set up what's later established in the first two games, so I'd have been fine with a game that just took a stance and had an idea of what it wanted to do.

[IlyaP]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

I can't even tell who the big bad was supposed to be, based off DA:O. The Darkspawn? Tevinter? The Qun? The Maker? Any of them seem viable.

In Dragon Age 2? Or in the series in general?

[Fez]

39 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

In Dragon Age 2? Or in the series in general?

The series in general. Each game certainly has their own defined big bad, but they've all been pretty distinct from each other. At this point I guess the elf wolf god is maybe the big bad, but he had nothing to do with the first two games at all.

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

The series in general. Each game certainly has their own defined big bad, but they've all been pretty distinct from each other. At this point I guess the elf wolf god is maybe the big bad, but he had nothing to do with the first two games at all.

The lore in Origins sets him up pretty well, and lets the storytellers show how his origins and actions were distorted or misunderstood. There's a lot of potential room there to play with myth and historic distortions and ideology. Exodus (as DA2 was originally intended to be called) was a pivot away from that. Though as @Werthead suggested, following on from DA:O, one plan had been to release an expansion that ended up being retooled or reused in some manner in DA:I. 

My suspicion of looking for an overarcing Big Bad is probably not the best route to take. Rather, based on what I have read in interviews, and from my own suspicions as someone who's read all the novels and comics, it's more like an evolving world with ideological rifts and a few major historic mysteries (such as the nature of the Dread Wolf, the Vale, the Black City, etc.), with overlapping secondary characters between tales/games. 

It's, erm, an inter-connected transmedia project, I guess, to use marketing lingo.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I picked up Maneater during the steam sale and it is pretty fun I must say. 

A tale of revenge I guess.

[IlyaP]

At this very moment, down Disco Elysium: The Final Cut and Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance are being downloaded. 

More as the story develops.

[The Winged Shadow]

New Total War Warhammer 2 dino dlc AND a Rimworld dlc. I am so hard right now

[Werthead]

9 hours ago, IlyaP said:

I salute your ability to not take umbrage with it. I'd have preferred to just...have an ending. As it's a prequel, it has to set up what's later established in the first two games, so I'd have been fine with a game that just took a stance and had an idea of what it wanted to do.

It did have an ending, which was explaining why the relatively widespread use of augmentations in HR had collapsed by the time of DE1, and it did that reasonably well. And of course the underrated Mankind Divided picked up on that and continued that storyline. Mankind Divided is much more guilty of not really having an ending, since it was supposed to be the start of a new trilogy that never continued. 

[Poobah]

16 hours ago, Fez said:

Agreed. And if they do pick a canon ending I think it will be red, since IIRC that's the one the vast majority of players picked. I suspect they'll try to just gloss over it though, especially since that conflicts with the original nonsense idea that the green ending was the good one.

I never understood the love for the red ending aside from the little "shep lives" easter egg. Picking it totally invalidates the whole of the Geth-Legion-Quarian and Edi plotlines about the development of sapient synthetic life and figuring out how it can live together alongside organic life. Nah just throw it all in the bin, kill um all.

I mean all the endings are a steaming pile of shit on a summer's day, and the little ghost boy can fuck all the way off so it kinda is what it is but yeah

[Centrist Simon Steele]

21 hours ago, Rhom said:

I just finished Mass Effect 1 on the LE.  Been several years since I played.  Honestly, it makes any criticism of Andromeda piss me off even more.  Everyone says the squadmates aren't developed in ME:A... playing ME1 reminds me that there is almost no development in any of the original squad.  You learn a little bit about Liara's mom.  You learn that Garrus was a cop who wanted to push the limits a little bit.  Tali was on a pilgrimage and her daddy was a big shot.  Wrecks got probably the most real development with the family armor bit, but even that was minimal compared to Dracks in ME:A.  Every single one of the squadmates in ME:A had superior backstories for an initial entry.  It wasn't until ME2 and 3 that those squadmates developed any real personality. 

There were bugs in ME:A?  Well I can't tell you how many times I got stuck in a wall while playing the Re-Master of a game released 14 years ago.

And of course the exploration part of Andromeda was basically what they wanted to do in ME but were limited by available tech.

Decisions didn't matter in ME:A?  What decisions made any real difference in ME1?  I saved the Rachni Queen.  I saved the Council.  I recommended Anderson.  None of that has any effect inside of the first game.  There were plenty of things in Andromeda that could ahve been the same.  What to do with the AI you encounter?  Who did you put on the council at the end of the game?  What kind of colony did you first establish?  Did you save the Salarians or the Krogan?

Just wish the game had been given room to breathe and get a chance for a real sequel.  Think it could have been looked back on much more favorably.

 

I upset some ME fans on Steam by posting that ME 1 is a terrible, terrible slog and not a good game.

In my opinion, it's not that your crew isn't well developed in Andromeda, it's that they're poorly written--and really, it's Ryder who is insufferable. They all have complex character dynamics feuling, them that doesn't make them good characters! It's hard too, though, when you're comparing Drx to Grunt and Wrex, or Pee Bee to Liara (and I don't like Liara, I always found her annoying), or SAM to Edi, or Jaal to Javik (or Legion or Thane). ME2, specifically, really hit a peak in terms of good characterization and awesome sci fi bad assery. You know? I didn't even mention Tali or Garrus!