Mass Effect 3 - Jeff Vogel Review

Hm, Star Wars goes ME3…

The ForceChild (the actual force, it was never an energy, always a child, noone ever heard of him before, but who cares?) steps out and tells Luke:

"Ok, for millenia we forced Sith and Jedi to fight to prevent millions of people from dieing, thus letting billions of people die. Now you can decide:

a) Kill all force users.
b) Enslave all force users.
c) Merge all people with ewoks."

Yes, Luke pressing a random button would have been a really great ending for Star Wars. Oh, did I mention that the Falcon's crew would lie on some beach and looking at a random sun while all of this happens?

Haha, fantastic! Post of the day, no doubt.
 
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Well, Jeff's games have always had good combat, dungeon design, and hidden trinkets. His writing is functional but not great by any means. So I suppose it's no surprise he'd see little wrong with ME3. No narrative cohesion? No problem. Gigantic plot holes? Who cares. Cliches and contrivances? What do they matter. Complete nonsense in relation to game lore and basic logic? Fine and dandy.

QFT.

I think what Jeff and a lot of the other passives out there don't get about our (my?) complaints is that everything they really like about Mass Effect was from Mass Effect 1, or at least written into the story at that time. The game had a few technical annoyances and some balance issues, but the story and the writing... the world creation he waxes about... that's not exactly "BioWare". That's two guys putting their hearts on the table for us. Then, like some wannabe network tv execs, the bosses came in and said, this is nice but it could be more efficient. Replace these mambypamby artists with our favorite people, they'll slap some tropes and deus ex machina in there and we'll make twice as much money. They did do one thing right, actually, and that's listen to feedback wrt improving (or at least smoothing the edges) the interface and gameplay each iteration. sorta like they do each year with madden. Get some good musicians, design a UI du jour, and make the animation/gameplay smoother. Also the voice acting is mostly awesome. But the writing and world? They pissed all over it. The ending was just icing on the cake, Hudson went rogue from what I heard, crazysauce.
 
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Actually….

Actually, It wasn't the ending so much as the truncated & missing game play outside of the main plot.


beep,… Beep,… BEEP.

"I've found something!"

Ploink…

Thunk…

"You've saved the Asari Commandos."​


Really?
 
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QFT.

everything they really like about Mass Effect was from Mass Effect 1, or at least written into the story at that time.

Judicious observation. At first glance, it looks exact. Would gain to be documented.
 
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Jeff Vogel establishes his authority with his obsessive play remark.

He must have played the last ME on lesser than medium difficult to claim that the gameplay was top notch.

Space representing several actions leads to some serious fluidity issues with the interpretation got wrong. I even think Bioware got aware of the issue as they removed the sliding to cover option provided by ME2.
 
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Actually, It wasn't the ending so much as the truncated & missing game play outside of the main plot.


beep,… Beep,… BEEP.

"I've found something!"

Ploink…

Thunk…

"You've saved the Asari Commandos."​


Really?

That is the way exceptional characters execute menial tasks.
 
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And please help me out here….

What is a production person? and what does he or she do? And why is it better to have 12 production person than just 1? Doesn't this mean that the production a game, say ME2 or ME3, risk being bounced from hand to hand and no one really has the responsibility for the product?


This is a brilliant question. I think it really goes to the heart of the new BioWare verses the old Bioware. I hadn't responded because I was hoping one of the members here experienced in the business would give some insight.

In the meantime, I spent some time reading about Video Game Producers on the web. Basically the Producer is responsible for seeing to it that the game comes in on time and on budget. So a good Producer keeps track of everyone's schedules and how much money they are spending. The Producer meets with all departments on a regular basis. When problems arise or are arising, the Producer jumps in and co-ordinates finding a solution by interfacing with various people working on different parts of the game. Many times the Producer will decide that certain planned things can't be included if the game is to stay on time and on budget.

The reference to "12 or 13 production people" means, I think, that BioWare is now very serious about having the game come in on time and on budget and puts "its money where its mouth is" as proof. I think they are saying that the BioWare game Producers have their own rather large staff to ensure that the project comes in on time and on budget. The individual staff personnel may have different titles like, "assistant producer", "programming coordinator", etc. but I think they would report to the Producer and function according to the directions of the Producer.

Perhaps someone else can add additional info.

BTW, I said your question was brilliant because quite often it is a matter of asking the right question that leads to a solution for a seemingly insurmountable problem. The right question can bring the problem into focus such that the previously unidentified solution to the problem seems almost trivial. In your case, your question goes to a very central point of the article on BioWare — the new BioWare relies heavily on increased production staffing. (I, for one, learned a lot looking into the specifics of your question.)

I'd love to hear more from a "hands on" point of view.

Regards.

__
 
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That is the way exceptional characters execute menial tasks.

ME3 is story driven game. Exceptional characters don't execute menial tasks. They get others to do it for them or it gets done it the background. Introducing a grind (menial tasks) isn't necessary unless you want to pad game play with a mini-game and as a mini-game, it sucked.
 
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Shepard is the exception among the exceptional characters: he executes menial tasks.

Even by exceptional characters standards, Shepard is exceptional. Could you think of a better character to deliver a sense of exceptionalism than commander Shepard?

Gaming life is very good for players who want to play exceptional characters. Thanks to Shepard.
 
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An additional point about changes in the Mass Effect series corresponding to the evolution of BioWare — back in the day, BioWare was heavily PC focused, whereas the current BioWare is heavily focused on the console market. A recent article in PCGamesN reported what the developer of Left for Dead discovered about differences between PC and Console gamers; L4D dev: when given the choice “PC gamers pick a sniper rifle, console players pick up a chainsaw.”.

The title more or less says it all. The LFD dev found that PC and Console gamers made identical game choices except for choice of weapon. The developer attributed the difference to “the fidelity of movement of the input device.” GameFront expanded a bit on this, explaining,

"PC controllers are a hell of a lot more precise, making ranged weapons better for mowing down zombies. Console controls are bit clunkier, favoring melee attacks over guns. A Chainsaw overcomes the lack of precision while delivering carnage handily, hence the difference." L4D Dev Hilariously Nails The Dif B/T Console And PC Gamers


I haven't touched a console in years, so I have to take GameFront's word for the difference. I did, however, find fighting in New-BioWare's DA2 to be less precise, even if faster, as compared to Old-BioWare's DA:O. I've also seen comments on ME3 from PC action oriented gamers that there's more overlap between ME3 weapons than in the past. I also wonder if we see less strategy choices due to this difference.

__
 
That is the way exceptional characters execute menial tasks.

Shepard is the exception among the exceptional characters: he executes menial tasks.

Even by exceptional characters standards, Shepard is exceptional. Could you think of a better character to deliver a sense of exceptionalism than commander Shepard?

Gaming life is very good for players who want to play exceptional characters. Thanks to Shepard.

I can see it now. BioWare's new ME3 DLC where you have to practice dental hygiene because healthy teeth and gums make for a healthy Shepard.

Paragon: Brush & floss
Neutral : Just Brush
Renegade: Late night ( and morning ) with Taco Bell.

It's a game. There were good parts and bad parts. Not surprising is the fact that the good parts for me are when you actually get to play the character Shepard making important, story changing, decisions. Not, for all intents and purposes, going out and collecting twenty Mulock heads to make some numeric abstraction of war readiness, and already a background element, bigger.
 
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I finshed Mass Effect 3 yesterday. I enjoyed the game as a shooter with some rpg-elements. The ending was … okay (I installed the extended version).

The Reapers were 1-dimensional designed as the ultimate mysterious threat to the galaxy. Not much info/background about the Reapers was told in ME 1,2,3.
So the artificial ending was kind of disconnected to the rest of the (much better fleshed out) stories in the ME universe. I prefer more scientific endings/explanations in a science fiction world :)

All in all ME 1-3 was a good ride. I hope we see more single player crpgs/shooters in the ME universe.
 
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All in all ME 1-3 was a good ride. I hope we see more single player crpgs/shooters in the ME universe.

The events leading up to The First Contact War would be cool.
 
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It's a game. There were good parts and bad parts. Not surprising is the fact that the good parts for me are when you actually get to play the character Shepard making important, story changing, decisions. Not, for all intents and purposes, going out and collecting twenty Mulock heads to make some numeric abstraction of war readiness, and already a background element, bigger.

Shepard is exceptional because he makes exceptional decisions. He is even more exceptional when he takes time to go on a treasure hunt for lesser people. Is it not exceptional when a guy like Shepard, with the fate of the galaxy in his hand, still care for unimportant people?

Players who want to play exceptional characters are served with ME. You wanted to play an exceptional character and by all dimensions, Shepard is exceptional.
 
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@ RPGFool - and others.

Thank you for kind answer, RPGFool, that's what I suspected it might be e.g. what the production people are doing. To me, it means they're basically in meetings all the time, but not getting much produced as a result of this as I see it.

I asked my question the way I did because as a teacher I have seen more and more middle men (or middle management) come in to try to control things, to try evaluate things, and to keep the budgets in line. And what you get is something very like this situation with Bioware; before a school had a principal, maybe a viceprincipal (a superintendent in the US, I think) and a secretary. And then one of the teachers were responsible for the books, one were responsible for the IT and so on and so forth. But not so today, most schools now an education manager, a head master, a principal, a viceprincipal, two or three department heads, and they all of course has to have their own secretary etc. etc. And no one can actullay tell where the responsibility lies for anything or how is responsible for what anymore....

To me, 1 or 2 production people are quite enough, it means that 1 person is responsible for deciding what to do and for making any decisions toward the production side of things. And maybe that 1 person could have an assistent, maybe two, at times, but no more than that.

Bioware proud themselves for not having had to fire people in its first 15-17 years of existence; I just had the thought that maybe, just maybe the 12-13 production people got this job, because the doctors /Ray and Greg/ didn't want to fire anyone after the merger with EA in 2007-2008.....

Another thought could be this: I agree that Bioware now seems to think that getting the game out on time e.g. on the announced release date is more important than anything else, especially so, since if they don't, their parent company, EA, loses money.....

And to me, somewhere along the line, Bioware seem to have forgotten that their vision is to 'tell the best stories in the world through the game medium' - not just make much much money.....
 
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Shepard is exceptional because he makes exceptional decisions. He is even more exceptional when he takes time to go on a treasure hunt for lesser people. Is it not exceptional when a guy like Shepard, with the fate of the galaxy in his hand, still care for unimportant people?

A few posts ago you called this mechanic "menial tasks". Not important enough for the character Shepard to care about hence it's minimization in the game. Now it's "still care for unimportant people" and important part of character development. Okay. Fine.

The character Shepard should have the opportunity to care for unimportant people thus making the character exceptional. But the mechanics of the game that attempt to convey this are boring, impersonal, and unimaginative. So back to my original point.

When this important part of the character development is truncate and reduced down to just to just…


beep,… Beep,… BEEP.

"I've found something!"

Ploink…

Thunk…

"You've saved the Asari Commandos."​


and repeated ad nauseum, lumped all in on a random loot table for finding a fuel stash or, as in my initial example, saving Asari Commandos ( i.e. helping the unimportant people ) it fails to create empathy for the character Shepard or the unimportant people. It then simply becomes a grind.
 
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i suspect that's dripping with sarcasm, jzeborg.

and “PC gamers pick a sniper rifle, console players pick up a chainsaw.”

...apparently the same holds true for their respective developers: wrt gameplay adjustments, pc devs opt for the sniper rifle, and console devs... ;)
 
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I shouldn't let it bother me qp. That said, I didn't bother loading ME3 to play the DLC. I simply just watched the new endings on YouTube.
 
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A few posts ago you called this mechanic "menial tasks". Not important enough for the character Shepard to care about hence it's minimization in the game. Now it's "still care for unimportant people" and important part of character development. Okay. Fine.

Not fine. I wrote menial task. And I wrote this is how exceptional characters execute menial tasks.
I did not write that there were not important enough for Shepard to care about.

The game offers you the opportunity to enhance Shepard's exceptionalism by giving you those menial tasks to execute, making Shepard even more exceptionalism, if possible.
The character Shepard should have the opportunity to care for unimportant people thus making the character exceptional. But the mechanics of the game that attempt to convey this are boring, impersonal, and unimaginative. So back to my original point.
Making Shepard extra exceptional. The rest is enough to make Shepard exceptional, handling the survival of a galaxy fits exceptional characters.

The mechanics of the game have to be boring, impersonal, unimaginative. If menial tasks had as much substance as glorifying tasks, if menial tasks were not menial, how to distinguish between the two?

And even more, if menial tasks were equivalent to glorifying tasks, how will you feel even more exceptional, you, the player who wants to play exceptional characters?
You'd just play an exceptional character dedicating time to glorifying tasks, missing the opportunity of being an exceptional character dedicating time to both glorifying and menial tasks, making you an exceptional characters among exceptional people.
 
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