MASS EFFECT : ANDROMEDA

Mario · 22 Mar 2017 at 09:28

mismatched said:
I had pre-ordered with cdkeys but as they seemed a bit slow at sending the key out and I had a day off today I bought directly from Origin.

Got mine yesterday morning

Amraam · 22 Mar 2017 at 10:18

Mario said:
Got mine yesterday morning

13 more hours for me. It's all a joke anyways. Been playing the trial since Sunday, and had the full game (plus a patch or 2!) installed then also. So why am I being stopped from playing it? I guess it's done to stop everyone spamming the servers all at the same time but it's still frustrating...

CHokKA · 22 Mar 2017 at 10:47

robmol said:
Completely agree, it has its problems but the amount of hate this game is getting seems a bit OTT. The combat is super fun and challenging on insanity difficulty, I'm really enjoying that. It can be a bit clunky at times but so was Witcher 3 at release and that's my all time favourite game

B1gbeard said:
It's weird what people base their purchasing decisions on. If the facial animations absolutely ruin a game like this for you I still can't understand that but fine. It effects your immersion. There really isn't much else to dislike about the game though. The writing is not as good as probably only a handful of other games but it's fine, the graphics are mostly lovely and the combat fast paced and exciting. Even the AI of the Drell seems pretty good (on insanity the heavy's do a great job of charging your position to either force you back or die). It is different from the Mass Effect Trilogy in that it's more open and with that open worldness comes the trappings of the genre. The game itself though is great.

I guess it's just the net but when you look around forums, I wonder how many of the people who say "I was going to get it but..." were actually going to get it. I guess seeing as it's called Mass Effect it was always going to get a rough ride regardless.

It isn't just the net though. This is a AAA title that follows on from one of the biggest franchises in gaming history, and it shouldn't be having facial animation or character movement issues. Bioware have always been a leader in the cinematic experience for their games. They have put a strong focus on the character interaction using the spoken word and not just subtitles (look at SWTOR for the best example) and for this to be wrong so close to launch, on a title that costs over £50 retail, is to be quite blunt, insulting. If you're both happy to buy the game when clearly the developers haven't put much care into one of the main aspects of the game, then so be it. But I don't think you should judge others for their holding back because of it. Sure, some jump on the bandwagon and blow things out of proportion but many of us wanted to see a new Mass Effect do the franchise justice, and Andromeda just seems like a huge step backwards. But they know people will buy it on the strength of the name alone and so don't feel under pressure to actually do something about the issues. This is the problem with the gaming industry these days. People will still buy something when it hasn't been made right. For some reason, because it can eventually be patched, it's excused. It really shouldn't be. EA and Bioware should have got it right from the start.

Amraam · 22 Mar 2017 at 10:53

CHokKA said:
It isn't just the net though. This is a AAA title that follows on from one of the biggest franchises in gaming history, and it shouldn't be having facial animation or character movement issues. Bioware have always been a leader in the cinematic experience for their games. They have put a strong focus on the character interaction using the spoken word and not just subtitles (look at SWTOR for the best example) and for this to be wrong so close to launch, on a title that costs over £50 retail, is to be quite blunt, insulting. If you're both happy to buy the game when clearly the developers haven't put much care into one of the main aspects of the game, then so be it. But I don't think you should judge others for their holding back because of it. Sure, some jump on the bandwagon and blow things out of proportion but many of us wanted to see a new Mass Effect do the franchise justice, and Andromeda just seems like a huge step backwards. But they know people will buy it on the strength of the name alone and so don't feel under pressure to actually do something about the issues. This is the problem with the gaming industry these days. People will still buy something when it hasn't been made right. For some reason, because it can eventually be patched, it's excused. It really shouldn't be. EA and Bioware should have got it right from the start.

How much of it is truly BW's fault I wonder? Is it laziness on their part, or is EA saying tough get it out finished or not?

CHokKA · 22 Mar 2017 at 11:12

Amraam said:
How much of it is truly BW's fault I wonder? Is it laziness on their part, or is EA saying tough get it out finished or not?

Well Bioware are certainly big enough to have enough clout to back themselves if they know things aren't polished. They should be able to tell EA to get lost and wait if necessary. To be honest, they're both responsible though. There's no way that during testing, nobody at Bioware raised the issue with how silly and unnatural some of the conversations look. Even the original Mass Effect had better facial and movement animations and that was developed 10 years ago.

Amraam · 22 Mar 2017 at 11:55

CHokKA said:
Well Bioware are certainly big enough to have enough clout to back themselves if they know things aren't polished. They should be able to tell EA to get lost and wait if necessary. To be honest, they're both responsible though. There's no way that during testing, nobody at Bioware raised the issue with how silly and unnatural some of the conversations look. Even the original Mass Effect had better facial and movement animations and that was developed 10 years ago.

Maybe now that they're in bed with EA and the money's rolling in, they simply no longer care. I hope that's not true. I'm still hopefully they release a patch. Even if it's 6 months for them to fine tune them all the animations, but I'm highly doubtful.

Winky_The_Winking_Turtle · 22 Mar 2017 at 15:13

'Bioware' as we know it (rather, we used to know it pre-ME2 essentially) no longer exists. All the creative staff fled (inc. the founders of the company and the creator of ME) that sinking ship a long time ago since being acquired and slowly dissolved be EA (all eventually leading up to the ME3 ending debacle). They've done it countless time; Maxis, Pandemic, Westwood, LucasArts, this list goes on. What does having 'Bioware' on the box even mean anymore, because 'Bioware' Montreal made Andromeda (their first game) ...

Read this: https://m.gamebreakingnews.net/2007/10/ea-buying-biowarepandemic-for-860m/ Gives you an insight behind EA's motives. Bioware's owners did not sell out, it was a hostile takeover from a trojan horse from within EA. How people actually support this ...

B1gbeard · 22 Mar 2017 at 17:22

CHokKA said:
It isn't just the net though. This is a AAA title that follows on from one of the biggest franchises in gaming history, and it shouldn't be having facial animation or character movement issues. Bioware have always been a leader in the cinematic experience for their games. They have put a strong focus on the character interaction using the spoken word and not just subtitles (look at SWTOR for the best example) and for this to be wrong so close to launch, on a title that costs over £50 retail, is to be quite blunt, insulting. If you're both happy to buy the game when clearly the developers haven't put much care into one of the main aspects of the game, then so be it. But I don't think you should judge others for their holding back because of it. Sure, some jump on the bandwagon and blow things out of proportion but many of us wanted to see a new Mass Effect do the franchise justice, and Andromeda just seems like a huge step backwards. But they know people will buy it on the strength of the name alone and so don't feel under pressure to actually do something about the issues. This is the problem with the gaming industry these days. People will still buy something when it hasn't been made right. For some reason, because it can eventually be patched, it's excused. It really shouldn't be. EA and Bioware should have got it right from the start.

I don't feel like I am playing a game where the developers didn't care though. So the facial animations are not state of the art, they are also not really terrible imho. They are what they are for whatever reason. For me it doesn't make the game bad or one to avoid. It's like the ending of Mass Effect 3 all over again, completely blown out of proportion.

Deciding not to buy it to stick it to the man just means I don't get to experience a game I will really enjoy. 10 hours of the trial showed it's well worth 50 quid for me. I guess I just don't understand why anyone would not play a game they might really enjoy because of some facial animations. It's not even as though it's all of them.

MoodyB · 22 Mar 2017 at 19:01

CHokKA said:
Well Bioware are certainly big enough to have enough clout to back themselves if they know things aren't polished. They should be able to tell EA to get lost and wait if necessary. To be honest, they're both responsible though. There's no way that during testing, nobody at Bioware raised the issue with how silly and unnatural some of the conversations look. Even the original Mass Effect had better facial and movement animations and that was developed 10 years ago.

This video is apparently from a 2014 alpha build. The male face looks more natural & the facial animation is much better ( probably facial capture ) :

There's another video around comparing this scene to the one that's in the final game & the male face is hardly animated now from what it shows.

So they did have much better facial models & animations at some point, but they were then downgraded due to time / disk space / engine switch / budget...? Take your pick. Only Bioware knows why.

Mario · 23 Mar 2017 at 00:07

http://blog.bioware.com/2017/03/21/mass-effect-andromeda-patch-1-04-early-access-patch-notes/

a66as · 23 Mar 2017 at 00:45

Bought this today and installed it but havn't had a chance to play it, is the story even half as good as the trilogy? (i know it wont match it ofcourse)

Radox-0 · 23 Mar 2017 at 02:02

a66as said:
Bought this today and installed it but havn't had a chance to play it, is the story even half as good as the trilogy? (i know it wont match it ofcourse)

Its completely diffrent so hard to compare. IMO at the moment its decent enough, but imagine once you peel away at the layers it will get engrossing as you dive in. Is a huge game with lots to do, plus I am addicted to multiplayer at the moment

Westie · 23 Mar 2017 at 02:16

really enjoying this unlocked earlier and been on it for 14 hours.. dont care about bad animations and voice acting it soon goes after 8+ hours into the story.. having fun exploring and trying loads of different builds and guns.. gameplay is good fun with combos etc enjoying the story and some of the chars u meet later on seem decent..

off work all till monday so gonna sink some hours into and some multiplayer!

stooeh · 23 Mar 2017 at 07:32

Just played for 6hrs and really enjoying it. Gone with the classic charge/nova combo - any other good ones out there?

Rifte · 23 Mar 2017 at 08:23

Guys whats the cheapest way to pick this up?

VincentHanna · 23 Mar 2017 at 08:35

I cancelled my £32 pre-order with CD-keys and will just continue playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild for now until it's in a better state a few months down the line.

There's only so much they can patch though, they can't fix a bad script as easily as a few dodgy animations.

Once BOTW is done I also have loads of other games I can start/finish on steam or PS4 Pro.

snips86x · 23 Mar 2017 at 08:42

I'm really enjoying this game. Started last night with a Korean VPN and played an hour this morning. I do have a few issues with the game though...

1) When you first get to the Tempest Bridge, there's a hologram which looks terribly pixelated
2) Same for the omni-tool, it looks horiffic
3) Resource scanning is naff...you can investigate a planet but there's no way to know if the planet has resources you can obtain. I'm assuming that the fact there are no "areas of interest" if you discover a planet there's no resources

I can see why people complained about the animation but it's not all that bad. It looks a little funny but hey, it's a great game so far

Glanza · 23 Mar 2017 at 08:51

Today is going to be long at work, looking forward to starting this tonight.

Radox-0 · 23 Mar 2017 at 09:42

snips86x said:
I'm really enjoying this game. Started last night with a Korean VPN and played an hour this morning. I do have a few issues with the game though...

1) When you first get to the Tempest Bridge, there's a hologram which looks terribly pixelated
2) Same for the omni-tool, it looks horiffic
3) Resource scanning is naff...you can investigate a planet but there's no way to know if the planet has resources you can obtain. I'm assuming that the fact there are no "areas of interest" if you discover a planet there's no resources

I can see why people complained about the animation but it's not all that bad. It looks a little funny but hey, it's a great game so far

Yup the resource scanning tripped me up aswell, not great how they did it. As soon as your start scanning a planet, if it does not come up with the orange arrow to the unknown location / resource, then there is nothing on that planet. That Unknown Anomaly notification means there is one within that whole solar system your scanning remains. Also, you can scan the solar system itself and not just the highlighted planets. Easily determined if after scanning all the planets you still have some % completion remaining.

Yeah Omni tool is straight up disgusting.

Still loving it so far, multiplayer kept me going till far too late

snips86x · 23 Mar 2017 at 09:52

I've not tried multiplayer yet.

Regarding your comment on scanning the system, that would make finding resources easier than wasting time scanning planets, assuming you would get an anomaly indication on the planets which have a point to of interest. I can see how that would work better than scanning the planets individually.

Also, I had to start the game again due to the way the characters are generated. I selected 'Female' but didn't realise than when you go to customise the character, it doesn't keep the default appearance so loosing the female Ryder character. My first looked like she'd been hit in the face with something rather heavy lol

****MASS EFFECT : ANDROMEDA****

MASS EFFECT : ANDROMEDA