Number Six wrote:I'm going to sound like a grumpy old fart, but I don't care. I remember a time when games came out and if you wanted it, you paid for it... and you got a complete game. If it had bugs, you'd eventually get a patch, but overall your game was complete. There wasn't extra content buried on the discs in hidden code so the developers could give you the reach-around and charge you five or ten bucks to unlock new outfits or an extra NPC companion or some dopey, tacked on side quests. No. When and if the developers were good and ready, they'd release an expansion pack. Expansions were brimming with extra goodies to extend the life of your game. True, they could cost from upwards of $20, but it was so worth it for an extra 10, 20, 30+ hours of game time. You actually got bang for your buck.
Meh. Games change. Times change.
I remember when expansions were considered cash grabs, for not being full sequels. And I remember some hate aimed at BioWare back in the day for not really ending Baldur's Gate until the expansion. (1 or 2... I forget...) Ditto Blizzard for Diablo II.
Before that, I remembered when patches were rare and if something was broken in a game you just had to work around it. Especially when games were on cartridges or prior to ready access to the internet. I had games I physically could not continue playing because of glitches.
I always respect game designers and companies that release a working product day one instead of dumping a broken P.O.S. on the market knowing the can patch it into acceptability. I was playing ME3 on launch day without a single glitch or lengthy patching, and I loved that.
I'm much happier now knowing if a sub-level wasn't finished or a zone wasn't 100% game companies aren't forced to release something sub-par or delay, but can instead release that as content after. Look at Knights of the Old Republic 2, which has a
terrible ending and huge plot problems and very little resolution at all, not just because they were expecting a third game, but because it was pushed out the door. I would have killed for some DLC fixing that mess.
Number Six wrote:Apologists will say DLC is how game companies make money nowadays... pirating is killing their business, second-hand selling of games is killing their business, blah blah blah. I understand the big companies like EA are trying to run businesses here. They aren't out to be our friends, they're trying to make money. But it REALLY gets under my skin when the empty suits running the show hatch up underhanded, insidious business practices (invasive DRM, online passes, Origin nonsense, buying out smaller studios and sacking anyone with an inkling of creativity while running said studio's marquee franchises into the ground, day one DLC, withholding games from Steam so they can have ultimate control over DLC, etc, etc) and then hide behind 'artistic integrity' when PAYING CUSTOMERS have the audacity to complain. It's a joke. Whatever happened to the customer is always right?
Well, EA are dicks and do mandate DLC for their games because of the higher profit margin. I dislike that. But I appreciate quality DLC opposed to cosmetic crap which most games settle on.
As for the "artistic integrity" bit, I respect that a whole heck of a lot more than other reasons for crappy endings: i.e. ran out of time and money. ME and BioWare is one of the few video game companies I'll accept "artistic integrity" as a line, because they really do seem to view it as an art. The work did have thematic overtones. It wasn't shallow mindless splat, so I'll accept a smarter more science fiction ending. And it was. The three options reverberated as sci-fi tropes and the series as a whole has been a love letter to speculative fiction of the past.
Number Six wrote:Jester of the FoS wrote:AND the company plans to try and fix the problem. Cool. How many other companies would be that understanding? They've more than earned my trust and patience. They're also releasing it for free. Hundreds on man-hours of work by well-paid professionals. They could have charged. The fans would have happily paid. But it's free!
No. They're not fixing the problems at all. The problem is, the ending is stupid. It violates canon established by their own writers in all three games. (See
http://kotaku.com/5898743/mass-effect-3 ... ed-players for more). You could steer the Normandy through the plot holes and the nonsensical pretentious doggerel.
It's only the tiniest of canon derivations. It's something most people won't ever notice as it involves reading one of the Codex. And not even the primary codex with the speech, but the secondary written codex. And it's so easy to explain away the explosions not being that deadly through any amount of technobabble. It's no big deal, and is really splitting hairs to get more upset over the ending.
Number Six wrote:EA is doing the least they could possibly do in this situation -- giving us more of the same, believing that because it's 'free', nobody will have a right to complain. Instead of changing the ending, instead of giving us multiple endings as they promised, they're going out of their way to further 'explain' their lame, tacked on ending to us. Patting the children on the head dismissively and then shooing them away. No wonder EA 'won' the worst company in America award.
It's not EA. EA has nothing to do with it. At all.
EA is just the owner publisher. They sign the cheques and collect the extra profits and are the boss' boss to the folk at BioWare, who are the people involved in the ending. They're really the only ones involved, and as long as they keep making money and following the guidelines handed down by EA (such as DLC and official sequels as they sell, which was the problem with DragonAge 2) then BioWare can manage themselves.
when I saw that people considered it crashed in a "jungle planet" I mean, I was sure it was just "Southern Africa" on Earth. Why would people assume it was a "jungle planet"? I didn't go all this way to say earth to have normandy crash elsewhere! There is no indication whatsoever that this place is something different than good ol' earth.