Mass Effect: Andromeda - 'outsourced' facial animations

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@Techraptor Mass Effect: Andromeda is reported to have outsourced facial animations to other EA studios.

The news surrounding Mass Effect Andromeda continues, as a new report may have shed some light on the game's biggest shortcoming, it's animation.

According to a report by gaming historian Liam Robertson, BioWare apparently had all facial and character animations outsourced to other EA studios.

Robertson, who stated he spoke to several BioWare employees anonymously, noted that the company used new Cyberscan technology, which created digital scans of a person or object that is used to create 3-D models in-game. According to Robertson's sources, BioWare relied heavily on Cyberscan instead of using artists to sculpt faces internally, believing that Cyberscan would compensate for time for development.

The major problem that has arisen from this was the human character models and most alien characters were completely outsourced to other branches of EA. After initial scans were taken, they were shipped off to other studios. Robertson mentions one possible destination; EA Bucharest in Romania, although nothing is confirmed at this time.
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That new Cyberscan technology comes complete with a handy Guilt Deflector and the famous Excuse Generatortronic 2017. Do they at least assume the piss poor writing and the snore fest than some huge parts of the game are?
 
Aerth said:
That new Cyberscan technology comes complete with a handy Guilt Deflector and the famous Excuse Generatortronic 2017. Do they at least assume the piss poor writing and the snore fest than some huge parts of the game are?
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Junior Executive Bob "The guilt deflectors off the charts sir!"

Chief Executive 001 "Nonsense! Our Excuse Generatortronic will more than compensate...turn up the powaaaahhhh!"
 
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Could have been better those animations.
The game's still good.
 
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Same ea, same bullshit. eidos tried this same bullshit with the boss battles in Deus Ex HR. Yet, the outside contractor showed they did the exact thing eidos ordered.

In the past, ea would use this to blame and fire all the remaining bioware employees, even though it was ea who oversaw the production. Then the hostile overthrow of another company's (bioware) IPs would be complete. Thanks to riccitiello, you piece of crap. :poo:
 
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Aerth said:
That new Cyberscan technology comes complete with a handy Guilt Deflector and the famous Excuse Generatortronic 2017. Do they at least assume the piss poor writing and the snore fest than some huge parts of the game are?
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Bad writing relative to what? It's better than most BioWare stuff in recent years (DA2, DA3, ME2 and ME3). The companions in ME2 and 3 were better than the ones in MEA, but that's about it. There's no evidence of decline beyond that.

joxer said:
Could have been better those animations.
The game's still good.
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Yep.
 
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Maylander said:
Bad writing relative to what? It's better than most BioWare stuff in recent years (DA2, DA3, ME2 and ME3). The companions in ME2 and 3 were better than the ones in MEA, but that's about it. There's no evidence of decline beyond that.
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I prefer the ME:A companions, personally.

But I agree.

Obviously, it's all subjective. Also, a lot of people like to put down the writing based on a few youtube videos - and don't seem to have played the game much - if at all.
 
Bad writing per se. In itself. No Youtube.

I just had a conversation with the Commander of the Resistance. Guy does not trust me. He mentions a shield, I mention the AI and now we are friends because I am so Honest and so different of the Kettles or whatever and please join our expedition and stay Strong and Clear. The word IA makes you friends.

The Ketts are the most honest brand of Alien you can meet. Bastards, but honests. Certainly more than the PathFinder who is coming with 20.000 people to colonize that little place of the Galaxy.

Have you an example of good writing?
 
Aerth said:
Bad writing per se. In itself. No Youtube.

I just had a conversation with the Commander of the Resistance. Guy does not trust me. He mentions a shield, I mention the AI and now we are friends because I am so Honest and so different of the Kettles or whatever and please join our expedition and stay Strong and Clear. The word IA makes you friends.

The Ketts are the most honest brand of Alien you can meet. Bastards, but honests. Certainly more than the PathFinder who is coming with 20.000 people to colonize that little place of the Galaxy.

Have you an example of good writing?
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You mean writing that you like? I'm pretty sure you have a better chance of finding that than I do :)
 
From my understand, the people calling the writing bad falls in a few categories.

Some don't like the lighter tone and wanted something super serious, so each and every smart ass responses and wisecracks are bad writing to them. I don't understand why they all seems to only pick the casual responses and then complain about it afterward though.

Some don't understand references or metaphors/similes and label them as bad writing. I remember a Wizard of Oz reference in an early trailer being labelled as such for example.

Some didn't bother reading anything, asking anything to characters or listening to banter. This group sometimes makes me wonder if they even played the game though. Going by Aerth, they do seems to play the game but totally fail at understanding anything. You can only have that conversation with Efra after you did a mission for him to measure your level of "trust-ability" and sorry to tell you that, but you aren't friend with Efra just because you were honest there.
 
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The writing is incredibly cringy.

It's as if the game was written by a board of 16 overweight Vampire Diaries fan-fiction writers.
 
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These things are subjective. The only thing I have to say I find amusing is when people say they think the writing in ME2 and ME3 was good, but ME:A writing is bad.

To me, that's rather like saying you only started paying attention to the writing in ME:A - because the writing style really isn't all that different.

Then again, Bioware writing was never what I would consider very good.

But ME:A is somewhat less melodramatic and in-your-face than ME2 and ME3 - both of which felt more like B-grade Hollywood movies - where ME:A is a little more down-to-earth and isn't desperate to get a reaction for every sentence.

Also, I like that it's not afraid to be lighter and more playful in tone. Not that ME2 and ME3 weren't like that on occasion, that just wasn't the overall style.
 
PS animations and hair are the LEAST of this game's problems. Unless you're a hipster like Joxer *cough*
 
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To me, the biggest problem the game has would be emotionally invested and insecure gamers who feel the need to put it down because it was made by Bioware.

Beyond that, it suffers from having a slow and unspectacular begining - as well as a lot of critics who forgot they were playing Mass Effect and not Witcher 3 in space.
 
Got to hand it to EA sometimes. They are really doing their best to keep the idea that Bioware is a separate entity alive for marketing purposes. Even to the point that they willingly throw other divisions under the bus.
They know headlines will read "Bioware outsourced facial animations".... and not bother even getting to the "to other parts of their own company".
'Bioware' has been dead for several years now, to think otherwise is self delusion.
 
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Bioware "died" long before the EA take-over.

They started making console exclusives years before then.
 
NewDArt said:
Bioware "died" long before the EA take-over.

They started making console exclusives years before then.
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Yeah, KotOR in 2003 and Jade Empire in 2005 both had console releases way before the PC release. Something like 6 months delay for KotOR and 2 years for Jade Empire. Both were obviously designed with consoles in mind. EA didn't buy BioWare until late 2007. So when you also take into account the development time of those games, BioWare had been balls deep in consolization (and the resultant dumbing-down of their games) for well over half a decade before EA even entered the picture. It's pretty safe to say with EA now involved though, things will never get "better", only worse. Without them, you never know…
 
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