Mass Effect 3 will arrive later than expected

[Losonti Tokash]

A lot of that stuff they're supposed to be improving in ME3. They're tweaking the mining (keepin the general concept but not making it a scrolling circle simulator), adding more customization to equipment (different parts you can add on, not just tech upgrades), some kind of vehicle that they'll be combining the stuff they learned from the Mako and Hammerhead.

Also, planets in ME1 were not fine, they were randomly generated heightmaps which is why the terrain was such bullshit and made no sense.

Hopefully, they'll take a page from Dragon Age 2 and have a lot more party banter. Whatever faults that game had, it's probably some of the best characterization Bioware's done (except for Anders, who got totally ruined) and while squad members in ME2 had plenty of comments on whatever was going on, they barely interacted with each other.

[Losonti Tokash]

Also, apparently DICE is working with Bioware to improve the combat mechanics.

[Starglider]

Also, planets in ME1 were not fine, they were randomly generated heightmaps which is why the terrain was such bullshit and made no sense.

This isn't an inherent problem with the technology. Many of games have quite effective procedural terrain e.g. Fuel. The terrain in my game is made at runtime by a fractal generator I built from scratch in a couple of weeks, and I think it works pretty well. The problem with Mass Effect 1 was that the landscape programmer was incompetent, i.e. no trees, no roads, no weathering effects etc. The only vegitation was in the hand-made environments (Virmire, Ilos). I agree with Stofsk that even with the horrible flaws, ME1 benefited from the pacing and sense of space that the desolate areas added; the lab on Noveria really felt remote and abandoned because you had to drive through icy wastes to get to it. ME2 seems to take place entirely on (very pretty) movie sets.

and while squad members in ME2 had plenty of comments on whatever was going on, they barely interacted with each other.

Agree, although it's hard to maintain as the roster grows (the number of possible interactions grows quadratically).

[Vendetta]

They eliminated the variations on armor as well for no reason at all. There wasn't nearly as much dress up as there should have been in ME2.

Trouble is that the "variations" in armour in Mass Effect weren't really very varied. There were a very few armours with special properties (protection from hazard environments in the Survivor/Explorer armours, and slight health regeneration in the Phoenix armour), but mostly the differences were infinitessimal changes in a couple of numbers which only had a noticable effect at extreme ends of the scales.

And all the visual difference was was recolouring and slight retexturing.

You can actually probably get more visual variation out of the Mass Effect 2 armours since you can set your own colour schemes and change individual components.

The same applied to weapons.

People complain that the equipment system of Mass Effect was removed, but it's just about the best example of how not to do equipment in an RPG that there has ever been.

[Losonti Tokash]

Right, I'm not saying procedural content is necessarily bad. It's like you said, whoever was responsible for those maps was just lazy.

As for the banter, it's not so complicated (relatively). You'll probably still just have 2 squadmates at a time, so that reduces the load a bit. It's also very unlikely that you'll have anything approaching the 14(!) total party members in ME3. Even with the tons of different combinations possible in DA2, you had most of them covered at least once, some of which even involved every member of the party (including Hawke), and would change course depending on who was in the party or how a related event happened. If the team of insane lepers that created DA2 can pull that off, then Bioware's flagship team ought to be able to do it, especially considering that most of their work is going to be nothing but content creation (the engine is done and used in the PS3 version of ME2 already, no major overhauls like between 1 and 2, etc).

[Lord Relvenous]

When asked about the delay, EA boss John Riccitiello said, "Essentially, step by step, [BioWare is] adjusting some of the gameplay mechanics and some of the features that you'll see at E3 that can put this into a genre equivalent of shooter-meets-RPG, and essentially address a far larger market opportunity than Mass Effect 1 did and Mass Effect 2 began to approach."

This worries me. A lot. Mass Effect is already ridiculously popular. This just makes me think they're gonna try to cram shit in to get in on some perceived money train and muddy the game design. I hope I'm wrong.

After reading more, I'm a little less leery, but still...

[Highlord Laan]

When asked about the delay, EA boss John Riccitiello said, "Essentially, step by step, [BioWare is] adjusting some of the gameplay mechanics and some of the features that you'll see at E3 that can put this into a genre equivalent of shooter-meets-RPG, and essentially address a far larger market opportunity than Mass Effect 1 did and Mass Effect 2 began to approach."

This worries me. A lot. Mass Effect is already ridiculously popular. This just makes me think they're gonna try to cram shit in to get in on some perceived money train and muddy the game design. I hope I'm wrong.

After reading more, I'm a little less leery, but still...

I'm expecting more of the "mash A for AWESOME" bullshit, ear fucked storyline and "customization" we saw in DA2. It's been made blatantly apparent which direction Bioware is going with it's games, and it's not the road to improvement. As they are now, they may as well just come out into the open with it and start tacking Black Ops on the end of their titles.

[White Haven]

Y'know what I find really funny? Until recently, I didn't even understand the 'A for Awesome' ranting you lot get on about. Why? Because the DA2 PC interface isn't crap and doesn't require mashing.

[Highlord Laan]

Y'know what I find really funny? Until recently, I didn't even understand the 'A for Awesome' ranting you lot get on about. Why? Because the DA2 PC interface isn't crap and doesn't require mashing.

The downside there being that DA2 is meant to being played on a cheeto-dust encrusted Xbox in between Black Ops matches, and it shows when attempting to play it on PC.

[White Haven]

Eh? Perfectly fine performance and interface as far as I noticed. Care to justify that?

[Lord Relvenous]

When asked about the delay, EA boss John Riccitiello said, "Essentially, step by step, [BioWare is] adjusting some of the gameplay mechanics and some of the features that you'll see at E3 that can put this into a genre equivalent of shooter-meets-RPG, and essentially address a far larger market opportunity than Mass Effect 1 did and Mass Effect 2 began to approach."

This worries me. A lot. Mass Effect is already ridiculously popular. This just makes me think they're gonna try to cram shit in to get in on some perceived money train and muddy the game design. I hope I'm wrong.

After reading more, I'm a little less leery, but still...

I'm expecting more of the "mash A for AWESOME" bullshit, ear fucked storyline and "customization" we saw in DA2. It's been made blatantly apparent which direction Bioware is going with it's games, and it's not the road to improvement. As they are now, they may as well just come out into the open with it and start tacking Black Ops on the end of their titles.

Has DA2 had any dip in sales from the first? Hopefully if it has they'll get the point. I do not want a DA2 style ME3.

[Highlord Laan]

Has DA2 had any dip in sales from the first? Hopefully if it has they'll get the point. I do not want a DA2 style ME3.

DA2's sales pitched down so hard EA started packaging ME2 with it for free in an attempt to boost sales.

[Lord Relvenous]

Has DA2 had any dip in sales from the first? Hopefully if it has they'll get the point. I do not want a DA2 style ME3.

DA2's sales pitched down so hard EA started packaging ME2 with it for free in an attempt to boost sales.

Awesome. That might just make them think hard about why it failed. If EA has any brains* they'll realize dramatically changing an already successful franchise is just stupid.

*Big if, I know.

[Losonti Tokash]

Here's a comparison of DA1 and 2 sales. Bear in mind DA1 was released in the lead up to Christmas.

It's been made blatantly apparent which direction Bioware is going with it's games, and it's not the road to improvement.

You realize that they're totally different dev teams, right? That even if you can't recognize the improvements DA2 made over the original (it has some severe issues, but by and large I consider it the superior game), those people have fuck all to do with the Mass Effect series. The massive jump in quality between ME1 and 2 ought to clue you in that maybe they have some vague idea what they're doing.

[Stofsk]

Los can you explain that graph? Because it looks like DA:O completely dominates DA2 in sales, but I might be reading it wrong because I don't know if that's your point or not. Specifically what is the x axis measuring? The y axis seems to be measuring and comparing the sales between both games?

[White Haven]

I think the x axis is measuring days from launch, but whoever made that graph is a goddamned idiot and needs to learn to properly label things.

[Losonti Tokash]

X-axis is measuring weeks after launch. I didn't look too hard for a graph with PC sales because I was pressed for time but if someone else wants to find/make one that'd be good.

[Stofsk]

Hey Los, what's the source for that graph anyway?

[White Haven]

Okay, roughly what I figured, just off by what measure of time it was tracking. In other words, a typical Mediocre Sequel crash. Huuuge launch sales from the name, followed by a smoking crater as disappointment propagates.