If you read me starting a post off with "the closest they ever got to being" interesting means I thought it was an example of an epic lore twist Bioware had planned all along, and not an unsupported side idea that is, in and of itself, pretty indicative of how shallow the lore surrounding the Asari is, that's on you.
Lilbro, I read your whole post and I replied to the whole post not half of the first sentence. I refuted that retarded horseshit being interesting and also your fanfiction about the heckin left hand not knowing the right hand, by saying that it's clearly a gag about drunk dudes making up shit and not some abandoned isolated soylore theory.
Mass Effect was created as a trilogy. They were already working on ME2 before the first one was out. Microsoft at one point was close to securing all three games exclusively. Microsoft actually published the first game themselves. In the end when the first game became popular EA got way more involved with the series and brought in new teams of writers and designers. They took the games multi-platform, emphasized shooting mechanics and less RPG elements, and even introduced multiplayer modes (as well as extensive DLC and MTX).
I doubt there were any grandiose plans, other than the most basic outline for the sequels, and even if they were, they got quickly mangled after the release of the first game.
It's pretty well known that EA became way more involved in the franchise after the success of the first game.
It's more like a reboot. With a tangential story to the first and third games. Second game is more of a shooter than RPG as well.
They repeated the same thing with the Dragon Age series.
It all really went downhill in ME2. From streamlining the gameplay, the awful start of the game and a main story that was pretty much meaningless in the grand schema of things. I still like the game but its easily the worst in the trilogy.
I think you’re actually right. I remember reading that EA forced BioWare to do that for Mass Effect 2 because they were afraid they would lose out on sales from people who didn’t play Mass Effect 1. There’s some post somewhere on I think it was the old BioWare forms from one of the devs crying about it.
I don't think they forced Bioware to do that. At the time, ME1 was still a Xbox exclusive. If I remember correctly, they added an interactive comic at the beginning of ME2 to allow people to make the choices that they would have done in ME1.
This is true. My first ME game was 2 on the PS3 (had played 1 on a friend's 360 though). From what I remember Bioware was not explicitly trying to appeal to the COD/Gears audience, but they were making their games more action-forward in hopes they'd entice some people of that persuasion. I seem to remember reading that in GamesRadar back when it was good.
That was Dean Takahashi's fault, actually. He complained about not being able to hit anything with his guns in his ME1 review and later admitted he never bothered leveling up any of his skills at all.
I meant that I seem to recall an interview on GamesRadar suggested it was the case. But I did not know that, and it's hilarious.
Well, both can be true. Dean Takahashi never realized he was playing an RPG, not a shooter, and BioWare never realized he was just a dumbass and decided to make their games more shooter to be more accessible.
Maybe if more devs had spent time of forums we'd be a in a different world. Maybe they (developers) were truly caught off guard when social media came about and they were able to truly connect with their audience, and it was not the audience they expected or wanted.
They will never listen to the audience that's why they hire community managers, to pretend to have a discussion.
I hope it's fake. I want EA to hire actual writers to make a good Mass Effect game.
