Mass Effect 3 Demo

[Stark]

How does the galactic war stuff work, Los?

And dude, Fable 2 is TOTALLY coop. What isn't cooperative about it? You can quest together and everything.

[Losonti Tokash]

I'm not sure how the metagame itself works. There a few different endings depending on what assets you have (rather than just the numbers available) but all I've really seen are design documents, not the GAW stuff in action. There are a lot of mutually exclusive things like Virmire where a major character might die to secure a major asset, though hopefully not presented in a silly manner. There's plenty of options where the paragon option in previous games comes back to bite you in the ass, too, so various renegade actions are not invariably "lol you killed a future ally." A couple of the binary solutions do have an option where you get the best of both options, but they seem to require some specific things to be set in place by the previous games, including a couple people who have to be alive.

Edit' there's also been a hidden "trust" variable for the Virmire survivor, depending on how you've treated them throughout the series.

[Havok]

Yeah, that may be the dumbest thing in this thread. Fable2 & 3 are so annoyingly co-op that I had to turn the feature back off.

[Stark]

Do you know if it's 'move tokens around map' or is hidden behind dialogs? I'm curious how it'll be presented to the player and how obviously numbers-based it will be. I'd prefer it (lol not that I'll ever play the game) if it was a narrative thing that didn't say SEND STRENGTH 75 CHAR TO PLANET Z FOR 27% CHANCE OF SPACEBUX.

[Aaron MkII]

If it doesn't have a flunky pushing pins around a map, 3/10.

[Losonti Tokash]

The numbers themselves are supposed to pretty transparent, it should say Total Military Strength, Readiness, and Effective Military Strength. But the numbers are affected by narrative stuff, it's not like AssCreed where you would send 4 dudes to Tuchanka for 99% chance of making a reaper feel bad.

[TheFeniX]

And dude, Fable 2 is TOTALLY coop. What isn't cooperative about it? You can quest together and everything.

I should reiterate: they promised us complete side-by-side co-op basically letting us level and play the game together with our own characters, then letting us take that all back with us to our SP game. What we got was the ability to enter someone else's games as a generic sidekick, break their camera angles, and fuck up any and all cutscenes/dialog in their game, making their gaming experience miserable, then transfer back the XP to our PC, not any completed quests. Sure, co-op: unbelievably annoying and broken co-op, which the lead dev defended (IIRC) by claiming "true co-op might make the content trivial" which is about as stupid an answer as you can get.

I'm done with SP games and I'm not paying $50-60 bucks to enjoy 10% of a game. I'd rather play GoW or Halo and enjoy 100% of the game with friends.

[Stark]

Its a shame that the coop wasn't more integrated with that, then; I guess the fatties would have complained that they were 'missing out' on 'content' by not having friends/skills/a spine. Especially with the insertion/extraction stuff, if you had access to the galactic metagame in coops itself that'd be pretty cool.

Sorry dude, 'coop' is a simple concept. If it isn't competitive, its probably cooperative. All the expectations you hang around that are your own. ME3's multi is a solid coop experience; I hate it because I hate the stupid magic spells shit Bioware can't move away from and the retarded magic cards, but as a coop shooter its fine. It could arguably emphasise teamwork more (there are few ways one player can directly help another or earn points in a support role) but that doesn't make it 'uncooperative' or 'competitive'.

[Losonti Tokash]

I really just get the feeling this is an attempt to introduce a large group of fatty nerds to the concept of playing with other human beings. Reading ME threads and reactions has shown a lot of these people have literally never played an online shooter before and have changed their minds on it turning the game into the Blops they're all terrified of.

Bioware already said they plan on more retail spinoffs (not just the facebook or iphone games) so hopefully they'll take some lessons from this and put in some multi functionality to future SP campaigns and refine their horde mode. If they steal Mindjack's multiplayer that'd be even better. :V

[Stark]

Honestly, I'd buy an ME-themed multi game built around some war somewhere. The coop game is just crying out for some meta structure (especially if the team can accept more dangerous 'missions'/levels/enemies to get better rewards) and it'd mitigate somewhat the rapid rise to the end of a character's development.

Then again it also cries out for being able to sell/trade magic cards. :V

[TheFeniX]

All the expectations you hang around that are your own.

No. The term "co-op" has always had a specific idea in mind going back to Contra and old side-scroller beat-em-ups: you play the game side-by-side with a buddy. Not some side-quest, not some canned missions, the game (what you paid money for). I don't believe you or anyone else hears "co-op" and thinks "Horde Mode." If you honestly do, I think you have your head up your ass. You think Duke Nukem 3d, Doom2, Timesplitters, Halo, World at War, or even Jedi Power Battles. Since the success of Halo, developers have been trying to push in crap so they can slap a co-op label on a game. Blesinki (as a guy who never liked co-op) admitted this directly in an old interview citing both the success of Halo and the Invasion game-type of UT2k3 for why he wanted co-op in GoW.

Publishers/Developers know what people think when they hear "co-op" (they think "Holy shit, I can play the whole game with a buddy!") and do shit like this to get attention and sales. So play the semantics game all you want. But labeling a game which is 95% Single-player as "co-op" is dishonest. I got burned on this with MW2. Luckily the ol' lady is a fan, so she got my money's worth out of it. Bioware had the hype-machine going in numerous interviews about game changing co-op and about how hard it was to balance content around it. Which, of course, turned out to be a steaming load. So if anything, thanks for letting me know ahead of time.

[Losonti Tokash]

That's a lot of words to just say "nuh uh, only the gametype I like to play counts."

[Stark]

In Fable 2 you play the game side-by-side with a buddy. In ME3 multi, you play the game side-by-side with several buddies. In Syndicate multi, you play the game side-by-side with some buddies. In Shank 2 multi, you play the game side-by-side with buddies. In horde mode, you play the game side-by-side with your buddies to complete team objectives for mutual reward and progress - ie, cooperation. Who's playing semantics now, fatty?

Your attempt to define 'coop' as 'exactly the same as the single player game only with buddies' is your problem. Hate to say it, games are stripping out campaign coops because it's too hard, so you better get used to disappointment, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Bioware who have NEVER claimed ME3 would have campaign multi and which a cursory evaluation of the genre and developer would suggest it was EXTREMELY UNLIKELY.

Or you could grow up and play all the games coming out in the next month that have fucking awesome coops to play with your friends.

Your call. The Syndicate and ME3 demos are really kick-ass coops. Maybe you should try them before you dismiss them for not meeting whatever narrow definition of 'real coops' you have. Its even free; you have literally no excuse.

PS Stark hates everything am I rite?

[Losonti Tokash]

Seriously, dude. If you have an xbox Aaron and I will play it with you. You don't even need a gold account to play multi in the demo, at least until the game launches.

[Havok]

I wanna play ME Co-Ops!

[Stark]

Step One - don't ignore everyone all day and watch shitty tv shows on netflix. :v

[TheFeniX]

In Fable 2 you play the game side-by-side with a buddy. In ME3 multi, you play the game side-by-side with several buddies. In Syndicate multi, you play the game side-by-side with some buddies. In Shank 2 multi, you play the game side-by-side with buddies. In horde mode, you play the game side-by-side with your buddies to complete team objectives for mutual reward and progress - ie, cooperation. Who's playing semantics now, fatty?

they think "Holy shit, I can play the whole game with a buddy!"

Congratulations: you're a retard.

Next time, I'll make sure to say "Co-op Campaign where the focus is on playing a single-player campaign with 2 or more people (and not hilariously broken), thus making co-op content a majority of the game, like co-op is done by good developer, so this random guy on an Internet forum doesn't throw a tantrum" so I can laugh harder at your idiocy.

Hate to say it, games are stripping out campaign coops because it's too hard, so you better get used to disappointment, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Bioware who have NEVER claimed ME3 would have campaign multi and which a cursory evaluation of the genre and developer would suggest it was EXTREMELY UNLIKELY.

You mean shitty games/developers are stripping out co-op content and/or making MP gametypes and calling them "co-op." This would apply to Bioware except I'm paying $15 a month to play Co-op KOTOR3 right now. You belong on the SWTOR forum for the hilarious "b-b-b-b-but programming is haaaard" argument. And you're really only proving my point: if this is what co-op is becoming, you can have it. I'll stick with the actual decent co-op games.

Or you could grow up and play all the games coming out in the next month that have fucking awesome coops to play with your friends.

Hey dipshit, my post wasn't about those other games. It's about ME3 having a multiplayer gametype I'm not interested in, one that I feel is dishonest to call "co-op," and that my friends likely won't want to buy because their finances are limited and they won't play the SP anyway. I'm sorry you're all bent out of shape that the MP system you described doesn't appeal to me. I'll be sure to bring up your grievances at the next fatty convention.

PS Stark hates everything am I rite?

Nah, I'm sure you're at least a year out of your "terrible twos." Though, it's cute how highly you think of yourself. Ok, I'm off to play SWTOR, you know, that co-op game that doesn't exist because it's impossible to do....

[Stark]

So you're an ignorant, narrow-minded pipe-dreamer who is throwing a hissy because a game that was never going to have something doesn't have it after nobody ever said it would.

Thanks for posting. Calling games like Syndicate and ME3 not 'decent coop games' is a fucking riot, and comparing a fucking MMO to a shooter is precious in the extreme. Try judging games based on entertainment provided rather than bullet points covered, and you'll have more fun.

Just to educate you, developers consider story coop in shooters hard because controlling multiple players such that the scripted shit happens properly and that the difficulty is pitched right takes time. This is explicitly why (for example) Fall of Cybertron won't have story coops like the first game did. You can strawman this into threads on another forum about a different issue in a different game all you want, but that's the way it is and stamping your foot just makes you look like an idiot - especially accusing others of being OMG YOU SO MADDDDDDD when everyone in this thread is laughing at you personally for being a fat nerd.

[PeZook]

You know, the entire strategy by the Reapers is terrible and retarded.

What would stop them from hopping across the relays to the Citadel with their ENTIRE FLEET (which can basically spank everybody if concentrated in one spot) and just do what Sovereign tried to do, and then proceed as before, by shutting down the relay network and leisurely massacring everybody piecemeal?

Why the hell did they even park themselves at Earth, giving everybody else time to get their shit together, instead of leaving a couple reapers to blow up any attempts at reconstruction, and hopping around to wipe out navies of all the other superpowers before starting their little human barbecue?

One Reaper did a real number on the citadel fleet ; Five hundred would make any attempt at defence completely futile.

[Gaidin]

Assuming they don't have Sovereign's logs of the battle(so to speak), all they can figure out is Sovereign destroyed the Citadel Fleet piecemeal, but got wrecked by the Alliance Fifth Fleet. Not knowing anything about the battle with Saren, I'd be tempted to at least send a task force to screw with Earth. But then, I'm an armchair general so...grain of salt.

[PeZook]

Wrecking Earth is sensible, but once you've wiped out their fleets, they can do fuck all. So keep concentrated, wipe out everybody's space navies (they should roughly know who the big movers and shakers are) and THEN proceed to leisurely harvest everybody at your own pace.

That's one approach if you assume they'd rather not risk the Citadel, instead of parking at Earth and letting people prepare a defence/counterattack.

[Gaidin]

As well, if my theory is remotely accurate, them arriving at the idea of wrecking earth's fleets and letting the rest come to them in a counterattack because they know they can handle them is sensible anyway.

[Anacronian]

Wrecking Earth is sensible, but once you've wiped out their fleets, they can do fuck all. So keep concentrated, wipe out everybody's space navies (they should roughly know who the big movers and shakers are) and THEN proceed to leisurely harvest everybody at your own pace. Spoiler

Which is exactly what they do.

That's one approach if you assume they'd rather not risk the Citadel, instead of parking at Earth and letting people prepare a defence/counterattack.

Spoiler

Citadel is closed and not obeying reapers commands (like ME 1)

[Gaidin]

Spoiler

If the reapers really wanted the Citadel first, they could take it. I'm not sure they can jump directly to it anymore, but with it not responding and if there's a big enough fleet there, it's at least a neutral fixture in the battle that will probably be damaged. With it so central to their strategy they can't afford that. I'd say this is the first time in a long time that the Reapers will have something resembling a stand-up war with the races of the galaxy instead of just cutting them off and mopping them up.

Well done Prothean scientists, iirc.

[PeZook]

Hmm. I kinda assumed since they land significant numbers of Reapers on the surface, they're gonna stay a while. They should be able to hold Earth down with just a couple of their superdreadnaughts in orbit, blasting anything to tries to get back up into orbit, then move the bulk of their force to fuck the Turians, then anyone else who thinks about resisting.

Maybe that's what they do and Shepples has to actually race against time. That would be neat.