Mass Effect Andromeda: Shitstorm Edition - RIP Biowear

[OtterParty]

And that in turn was apparently the result of the original development team spinning their wheels and experimenting with stupidly infeasible ideas for three years, and a new team having to hastily put everything together in a relatively short timeframe. Which I'm 99.99% certain was nothing to do with the development leads all being white guys, no matter what Manveer seems to think.

didnt the original dev team get yoinked away by professional franchise killer mac walters to work on his retarded always-online open world mmorpg instead because if theyre responsible for the bulk of the delay and wasted time then i cant wait to watch anthem tank and die like the tortanic

 

[_blank_]

Andromeda dev chalks up some of the game's problems to a lack of diversity

Oh hai, Manveer Heir. Guess it was time for you to crawl out of your hole and try and harvest pity points for winter, huh?

But you know what? He's partially right, but I'm not talking about the humans. Sure you got the Angara, which essentially look like the offspring of Turians and the Easter Rabbit, and the Kett, the main enemy faction which look like... the offspring of Turians and monkeys. Turians be fucking errybody. Other than that, other than various alien animals to shoot, there aren't any alien races you meet (except maybe remnants, but that's kind of pushing it).

So how about other races? Do you run into any Quarians, Batatrians, Geth, Hanar, Volus, Elcor, and/or Vorcha? None? None of them? You're bitching about not having enough brown people and yet you threw all these alien races and cultures out the window?

Oh yeah, the Andromeda plot says, "Oh, well, other races are on different arks and-" bitch, you meet an Asari in the first 5 minutes of the game. You broke your own bullshit reasoning right at the get-go.

No, what I think your problem is, outside of the game being a dumpster fire to play on Day One, is the fact that you stripped out 80% of what made Mass Effect interesting, just so you and your dev team could make "Super Science Space Love Shack." Good job, Manny. Enjoy being an indie dev, don't be too salty if no one supports your Kickstarter, whenever you get around to doing that.

 

[Aquinas]

did you mean garrus because you obviously meant garrus

Garrus is great too, but no, for me, legion is where my dick belongs

 

[Doug_Hitzel]

Oh hai, Manveer Heir. Guess it was time for you to crawl out of your hole and try and harvest pity points for winter, huh?

But you know what? He's partially right, but I'm not talking about the humans. Sure you got the Angara, which essentially look like the offspring of Turians and the Easter Rabbit, and the Kett, the main enemy faction which look like... the offspring of Turians and monkeys. Turians be fucking errybody. Other than that, other than various alien animals to shoot, there aren't any alien races you meet (except maybe remnants, but that's kind of pushing it).

So how about other races? Do you run into any Quarians, Batatrians, Geth, Hanar, Volus, Elcor, and/or Vorcha? None? None of them? You're bitching about not having enough brown people and yet you threw all these alien races and cultures out the window?

Oh yeah, the Andromeda plot says, "Oh, well, other races are on different arks and-" bitch, you meet an Asari in the first 5 minutes of the game. You broke your own bullshit reasoning right at the get-go.

No, what I think your problem is, outside of the game being a dumpster fire to play on Day One, is the fact that you stripped out 80% of what made Mass Effect interesting, just so you and your dev team could make "Super Science Space Love Shack." Good job, Manny. Enjoy being an indie dev, don't be too salty if no one supports your Kickstarter, whenever you get around to doing that.

The Angara were clearly based on Knuckles the Echidna.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

Andromeda dev chalks up some of the game's problems to a lack of diversity

Manveer's 'brown ass ' got 'talked to' for the mere act of 'speaking up?' I get the feeling the exchanges went a little something like this:

Manveer: Okay, so we need a mission where you fly to Space Israel so you can rape the Space Jews and their Jesus Drone puppets into submission.

Management: That's stupid.

Manveer: Fuck you! My shitty ass is being oppressed!

 

[Vault Boy]

Manveer's 'brown ass ' got 'talked to' for the mere act of 'speaking up?' I get the feeling the exchanges went a little something like this:

Manveer: Okay, so we need a mission where you fly to Space Israel so you can rape the Space Jews and their Jesus Drone puppets into submission.

Management: That's stupid.

Manveer: Fuck you! My shitty ass is being oppressed!

I'd imagine that he was a pill for the rest of the developers, going by all those racist tweets he was making.

Again, even though I thought the game was alright, he really should've been fired for that shit.

 

[OtterParty]

Manveer's 'brown ass ' got 'talked to' for the mere act of 'speaking up?' I get the feeling the exchanges went a little something like this:

Manveer: Okay, so we need a mission where you fly to Space Israel so you can rape the Space Jews and their Jesus Drone puppets into submission.

Management: That's stupid.

Manveer: Fuck you! My shitty ass is being oppressed!

alternatively

Management: if u could stop tardraging on twitter for 5 seconds and actually try to save the game thatd be great

Manveer: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE OPPRESSION WHITESPLAINING REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

[Secret Asshole]

I'd imagine that he was a pill for the rest of the developers, going by all those racist tweets he was making.

Again, even though I thought the game was alright, he really should've been fired for that shit.

The plans for laying off the studio were probably already in the works. So technically he was fired, they just didn't do it immediately. But still, its like 'IT WASNT DIVERSE ENOUGH' is fucking laughable. Diversity doesn't sell shit. Only fucking morons believe that.

 

[Ruin]

Making Sarah Rider have downs doesn't count as diversity?

 

[Vault Boy]

The plans for laying off the studio were probably already in the works. So technically he was fired, they just didn't do it immediately. But still, its like 'IT WASNT DIVERSE ENOUGH' is fucking laughable. Diversity doesn't sell shit. Only fucking morons believe that.

You're right, a "lack" of diversity wasn't the problem, it was some really crappy management. Given that the game was helmed by a relatively inexperienced team working with an engine that they never worked on before, you'd think that the project leads would've tried to make a "safe" sequel from the start instead of trying to make a stupidly ambitious idea work for most of the development.

Seriously, had they made the game like it ended up being from the beginning, I can guarantee that it would've been a more polished and focused experience. I think that Andromeda's development can at least servee a cautionary tale for any other developer.

 

[Secret Asshole]

You're right, a "lack" of diversity wasn't the problem, it was some really crappy management. Given that the game was helmed by a relatively inexperienced team working with an engine that they never worked on before, you'd think that the project leads would've tried to make a "safe" sequel from the start instead of trying to make a stupidly ambitious idea work for most of the development.

Seriously, had they made the game like it ended up being from the beginning, I can guarantee that it would've been a more polished and focused experience. I think that Andromeda's development can at least servee a cautionary tale for any other developer.

To be fair, an inexperienced studio shouldn't even be allowed to touch a main franchise like ME. They were given it in the first place because EA felt it was a dead franchise, it was doomed to fail from the start. After 3, you basically had to re-boot the franchise and rebuild goodwill that you lost with fans. You can't have a studio with little to no AAA experience helm that. You can make them do parts, like the multi-player and shit like that, but for the entire thing? Fuck no, that just reeks of stupidity. Its just too big of a job, and too much money is at stake. But look at EA, 4 million wasn't enough and they killed off Dead Space and then Visceral.

That's not to say an inexperienced team could have pulled it off, but it would have required intense hand-holding and oversight to not even be worth it to do. So why did EA do it? Simple, they wanted to do it cheap and felt ME was a lost property. In the end, this is really EA's fault. They'd rather try to build a new franchise (Anthem, looks like shit) rather than salvage a much loved one. Its so fucking stupid in my opinion, since building a new franchise requires you to trust the publisher with what they've done with old ones. And the way EA has treated its franchises, why the fuck would you ever trust them to invest time into one, besides Battlefield?

 

[OtterParty]

To be fair, an inexperienced studio shouldn't even be allowed to touch a main franchise like ME. They were given it in the first place because EA felt it was a dead franchise, it was doomed to fail from the start. After 3, you basically had to re-boot the franchise and rebuild goodwill that you lost with fans. You can't have a studio with little to no AAA experience helm that. You can make them do parts, like the multi-player and shit like that, but for the entire thing? Fuck no, that just reeks of stupidity. Its just too big of a job, and too much money is at stake. But look at EA, 4 million wasn't enough and they killed off Dead Space and then Visceral.

is there any truth to the claim that they weren't the original dev team for the project, and Mac Walters poached those guys to work on Anthem instead?

 

[HarryHowler]

is there any truth to the claim that they weren't the original dev team for the project, and Mac Walters poached those guys to work on Anthem instead?

From what I've heard it actually seems to have been the other way around; the original developers spent three years fucking around and getting nothing done, eventually resulting in Bioware's management shitcanning them and sending Walters to Montreal to head up a replacement team who would get the job done.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

From what I've heard it actually seems to have been the other way around; the original developers spent three years fucking around and getting nothing done, eventually resulting in Bioware's management shitcanning them and sending Walters to Montreal to head up a replacement team who would get the job done.

The problem was they were trying to do something a little different and kind of cool. Namely the randomly generated planet spaces which would've been fun to explore as it would've been different for most players but central "dungeons" of buildings etc would've been in roughly the same places on the maps.

They couldn't integrate it at all unfortunately.

 

[FataBataRang]

The problem was they were trying to do something a little different and kind of cool. Namely the randomly generated planet spaces which would've been fun to explore as it would've been different for most players but central "dungeons" of buildings etc would've been in roughly the same places on the maps.

They couldn't integrate it at all unfortunately.

Ideas are cheap. Most people can come up with good enough ideas if they give a shit. What counts is the experience and talent necessary to implement them.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

Ideas are cheap. Most people can come up with good enough ideas if they give a shit. What counts is the experience and talent necessary to implement them.

Proceedural generation has been around for ages though. It surprises me they couldn't get this to work right. Just lock in a cell or two around the set up so it doesn't look retarded and BOOM. Done.

Minecraft can do procedural worlds with shit scattered through them. So why couldn't a AAA studio?

 

[FataBataRang]

Proceedural generation has been around for ages though.

Procedural generation isn't an instant "make this game good" button. It is great for getting huge maps quickly of course, but you still need a very good algorithm if you want to generate anything halfway decent, and even then, you'll never get anything quite as good as what a skilled human level designer could make.

 

[Medicated]

is there any truth to the claim that they weren't the original dev team for the project, and Mac Walters poached those guys to work on Anthem instead?

That sounds like a horrible rumor, having the guy that was the main writer on ME3 choosing who's on the team? That's a DOA

 

[HarryHowler]

Procedural generation isn't an instant "make this game good" button. It is great for getting huge maps quickly of course, but you still need a very good algorithm if you want to generate anything halfway decent, and even then, you'll never get anything quite as good as what a skilled human level designer could make.

Bioware might have been able to make use of the technique, if they'd designed the core game in much the same way as the prior titles, and then used procedural generation to whip up another few dozen or so planets where you could collect resources, kill mercs for experience and undertake the odd side-mission, which actually wouldn't be all that far removed from how they did Mass Effect 1.

From the sounds of it, the original development team put the cart before the horse by trying to come up with a No Man's Sky-style galaxy full of explorable planets, then somehow grafting the usual Mass Effect experience onto that.

 

[Malt Liquor]

That sounds like a horrible rumor, having the guy that was the main writer on ME3 choosing who's on the team? That's a DOA

something something muh cronyism something something