Mass Effect 2 teaser

[Ironside]

They seems to be reveal plenty of allies right now. Here's the new Asari ally, Samara.

[Monk]

Anyone seen anything new in the Tech skills? I always found them less interesting than biotics in ME.

Not that I've seen. They've been pretty quiet about everything except combat mechanics until very recently. Wouldn't be surprised if we saw something in the near future, however.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I think Mass Effect 2 will be close to perfecting the RPG genre. Mass Effect was a revolutionary leap forward, with its more dynamic dialog system, but it was obviously new and not taken to its full cinematic potential, shown by the relatively lack of animations when it came to the dialog as compared to the more refined sequel. I don't want to go on a limb here, but really, when we were nit picking the first one, what were the four big complaints:
1. Mako (enough said)
2. Inventory system
3. Combat
4. Same environments/buildings on every planet (for side quests)

Those four were essentially the only thing people said were holding Mass Effect 1 from being a true work of art (aside from the texture popping that was patched a bit I think). let's look at how they have been handled:

1. No more Mako, one of the first things they came out with.
2. Unknown but obviously will be worked upon due to being complained about a lot.
3. Has been the main focus of all the previews so far, showing the tremendous advancements they have made.
4. has been discussed a bit in one preview, shows massive improvement including a bit of additional planning involved in dropping down to a planet.

So not only has all four critical flaws been (according to the available evidence with an optimistic interpretation) solved, but they also manage to bring out the true potential of the dynamic dialog system to make the conversations more fluid, more life like then ever before, almost to the point of having 15 minute conversations act as an interactive movie.

If they keep up the superb writing and plot and not pull a Matrix Trilogy fail, as well as not have any implementation failures of any new additions they have put in, I think this could be something really special that all other RPG's will be compared to as the bar for greatness. Granted, were there other flaws you could point out? Absolutely, but those four were the big ones and they are the ones that have been worked on and shown to have had a lot of time put into them. When I heard January 25, I swore like a madman at my computer, now i realize that not pushing to hit a fall and/or christmas deadline might be the extra time for this game to become what Mass Effect flirted with. A repeat of KOTOR 2 with this game would be one of the biggest tragedies in gaming I could think of.

tl;dr I think mass Effect 2 has a very good chance of being everything that we saw Mass Effect 1 could have been.

[Zenicetus]

I think Mass Effect 2 will be close to perfecting the RPG genre. Mass Effect was a revolutionary leap forward, with its more dynamic dialog system, but it was obviously new and not taken to its full cinematic potential, shown by the relatively lack of animations when it came to the dialog as compared to the more refined sequel. I don't want to go on a limb here, but really, when we were nit picking the first one, what were the four big complaints:
1. Mako (enough said)
2. Inventory system
3. Combat
4. Same environments/buildings on every planet (for side quests)

Those four were essentially the only thing people said were holding Mass Effect 1 from being a true work of art (aside from the texture popping that was patched a bit I think).

I can think of one other major flaw that was discussed often:

5. Inconsequential "moral" choices for the player character.

You could play Shepard as an angel or a hard-@ss, but that "moral" choice was pretty lightweight compared to other games, and it had no real impact on the world except right at the ending sequence. The only consequential choices you had to make in the main game involved which companions would live or die, and that wasn't linked to the "moral" axis... it was just which party members you wanted to keep around, which ones you could afford to ditch. To me, a "classic RPG" has to give the player choices in character development that make an actual difference in the game world, and aren't just tacked on as salad dressing for a shooter.

Maybe there is more of this in the sequel, I don't know. I'm not surprised we're seeing so much eye candy combat featured in the previews, that's just marketing (like the awful previews they did for Dragon Age). I just hope the combat improvements are not the main focus of the new game.

[AggonyDuck]

I can think of one other major flaw that was discussed often:

5. Inconsequential "moral" choices for the player character.

You could play Shepard as an angel or a hard-@ss, but that "moral" choice was pretty lightweight compared to other games, and it had no real impact on the world except right at the ending sequence. The only consequential choices you had to make in the main game involved which companions would live or die, and that wasn't linked to the "moral" axis... it was just which party members you wanted to keep around, which ones you could afford to ditch. To me, a "classic RPG" has to give the player choices in character development that make an actual difference in the game world, and aren't just tacked on as salad dressing for a shooter.

Maybe there is more of this in the sequel, I don't know. I'm not surprised we're seeing so much eye candy combat featured in the previews, that's just marketing (like the awful previews they did for Dragon Age). I just hope the combat improvements are not the main focus of the new game.

Well I'm pretty certain that the choice regarding the Rachnid Queen will come back to haunt us in the sequels.

[Mailman653]

I let her live so she better not haunt me, if anything, I expect to have some Rachni allies at some point.

[Zenicetus]

True, the Rachnid Queen ending episode did have that weighty feeling of being an important decision that you didn't want to to screw up. That's half of what a great RPG should include. The missing half was any consequence in the rest of the game. Sure, there might be something in the sequel, and that would be interesting. But it's just a throwaway gimmick in the main game because you never see any result of that decision. They couldn't even bother to write in a brief news message for the elevator ride about a fresh Rachnid attack, or the Queen being observed fleeing to uncharted space.

(IMO) the Rachnid Queen episode was just "RPG Lite" salad dressing like the final Wrex sequence, or decisions about which party members are sacrificed. All heavy-seeming decisions on the front end, with no effect on the game world. Shepard could basically do no wrong, and make no bad decisions, even if he/she wanted to.

[Monk]

Well, looks like Bioware read some minds - Engineer class video has been released in the same style as the Biotic.

Thank god they did something to liven up Engineer, i found the sole-tech class from the original to be dull dull dull. Here, it looks like Engi is meant to be the pet/debuff class. Interesting stuff, but still not as cool as my Biotic juggling team!

[Scienter]

I'm really looking forward to this game! I played a Vanguard last time (I think that's what it was called) and still have my old save games. But, I might not use my old character since the new classes look interesting.

[TinCow]

I think Mass Effect 2 will be close to perfecting the RPG genre. Mass Effect was a revolutionary leap forward, with its more dynamic dialog system, but it was obviously new and not taken to its full cinematic potential, shown by the relatively lack of animations when it came to the dialog as compared to the more refined sequel. I don't want to go on a limb here, but really, when we were nit picking the first one, what were the four big complaints:
1. Mako (enough said)
2. Inventory system
3. Combat
4. Same environments/buildings on every planet (for side quests)

Those four were essentially the only thing people said were holding Mass Effect 1 from being a true work of art (aside from the texture popping that was patched a bit I think).

Revolutionary? Work of art? Did we play the same game? Of the stuff you listed above, combat, repetitive and boring side quests, and inventory is pretty much the entire game except for the main storyline. Mass Effect had an interesting universe and some decent writing, but it failed mightily in pretty much every other area. It was a perfect example of how console gaming has lowered standards across the board for RPGs. The only reason I am optimistic about ME2 is that Bioware turned DA:O into a pretty decent game and I expect some of the successful bits of DA to show up in ME2.

[al Roumi]

Well, looks like Bioware read some minds - Engineer class video has been released in the same style as the Biotic.

Thank god they did something to liven up Engineer, i found the sole-tech class from the original to be dull dull dull. Here, it looks like Engi is meant to be the pet/debuff class. Interesting stuff, but still not as cool as my Biotic juggling team!

It does look interesting. I'm sure I read on the Eng info screen at the start of the video that they can spawn droids... that would be cool, less so if they just mean that holographic orb.

Also, I'm worried that the video exclusively showed combat vs Geth. I never played an Eng or any tech talent char as one of my Shepards in ME. What put me off was that if you weren't fighting Geth, they weren't as powerful... This video does nothing to change the continuation of that perception.

[Monk]

Revolutionary? Work of art? Did we play the same game? Of the stuff you listed above, combat, repetitive and boring side quests, and inventory is pretty much the entire game except for the main storyline. Mass Effect had an interesting universe and some decent writing, but it failed mightily in pretty much every other area. It was a perfect example of how console gaming has lowered standards across the board for RPGs. The only reason I am optimistic about ME2 is that Bioware turned DA:O into a pretty decent game and I expect some of the successful bits of DA to show up in ME2.

Combat was stiff and the side-quests were terrible true. The inventory system was an absolute mess.. but name one Bioware game in the last 5 years that had a good one.

They really fail when it comes to menu navigation and inventory management. Even their latest (DA:O) had the terrible pitfall of imposing a very low limit on how much loot you could carry with the option to expand it. I know the idea of a bottomless bag isn't realistic, but I can't tell you how frustrating it is to pass up loot because my extremely limited space has been filled already.

As for ME being a work of art, I would have to agree with ACIN - although I dunno if I would go exactly as far. The game was an amazing ride and one I play to this day: the story, the universe, characterization and presentation are just jaw-dropping and blow anything else released since out of the water. I wouldn't say my standards are low, either as I played my fair share of console titles (and ripped many of them a new in the "what are you playing" topic). Though really if you say that you could not put up with the game's problems I can understand completely. It certainly suffers from its share, but I find the experience offered is enough incentive for me to put up with them.

Mass Effect remains the only game that, when my 360 died, i bought a second time for my PC and I can call it one of my all time favorite games without hesitation.

[frogbeastegg]

I want to see the soldier class video. I know that in many ways it was the most boring of the three classes, yet it was the one I found to be most fun to play. Possibly because you didn't have fancy powers to manipulate the situation, and instead needed to reply on terrain and teamwork. My cannon Shepard is a female paragon soldier.

It was a perfect example of how console gaming has lowered standards across the board for RPGs.

I rank ME alongside Planescape: Torment at the top of my RPG charts, and consider it to be the standout example on how to do some aspects of the genre.

It's my most replayed RPG - and post DOS era game - ever. 7 complete playthroughs, including a pair of runs which were done for no other reason than to experience the combat at the two highest difficulties.

ME and Planescape are a better couple than it might first appear. They excel at certain things and are flawed in others, and it happens that the flaws lie in areas I care less about and they excel in the ones I value most.

[TinCow]

I rank ME alongside Planescape: Torment at the top of my RPG charts, and consider it to be the standout example on how to do some aspects of the genre.

It's my most replayed RPG - and post DOS era game - ever. 7 complete playthroughs, including a pair of runs which were done for no other reason than to experience the combat at the two highest difficulties.

ME and Planescape are a better couple than it might first appear. They excel at certain things and are flawed in others, and it happens that the flaws lie in areas I care less about and they excel in the ones I value most.

Whacker would certainly burn me alive for agreeing with you, but I will... tentatively. Planescape had a brilliant plotline and incredible story with some of the worst (and buggiest) gameplay that has ever been made. To that level, I agree with the analogy.

One of my main problems with ME is also a huge problem with DA:O... meaningless choices. Both of these games pat themselves on the back for having many huge moral dilemmas, but they're all meaningless. No one really cares if you run around being a jerk... they'll follow you pretty much to the ends of the earth. DA:O is slightly better in this in that some actions will make party NPCs go hostile, but only if they're with you when you do them. ME treats the player with kid-gloves, and only allows you to make choices that won't prevent you from fulfilling you Ultimate Destiny to be Awesome. There are no consequences for your actions, just your own endorphins making you feel good or bad for being an angel or a bully.

Mass Effect also seemed to strike me as extremely linear. It was advertised as another sandbox RPG, but that wasn't remotely present. Being able to pick the order that you do the quests in does not make a game a sandbox game. Bouncing around on planets in a buggy picking up collection quest items also does not make a game a sandbox game. ME had as much open-ended gameplay as KOTOR and KOTOR2... essentially none.

So, what I was left with after I finished ME was a game billed as a dark, mature RPG with a huge sandbox world... and what I got was a storyline with meaningless moral dilemmas and a very one-track plot. Top it off with the horrid interface and uninspiring combat, and I was very underwhelmed.

That said, I do very much like Bioware's original IP products. I thought the Jade Empire world was superb, even if the game itself was not as good. Both ME and DA have equally interesting and well-developed worlds. I like the Bioware IPs a great deal and they are worth playing simply to see the universes they create. Bioware is essentially the Bizarro Bethsoft. Bethsoft makes games that are fun to explore but where the main storyline is relatively pathetic, while Bioware makes games that fall apart when you leave the main storyline.

I am about to do a second run-through of Mass Effect because I erased the saved game from my first time through and want to be able to import my character for the second. Maybe my opinion will change on round two.

[frogbeastegg]

So, what I was left with after I finished ME was a game billed as a dark, mature RPG with a huge sandbox world... and what I got was a storyline with meaningless moral dilemmas and a very one-track plot. Top it off with the horrid interface and uninspiring combat, and I was very underwhelmed.

I ignored the pre-release info, the reviews, and actually left the game sat on my shelf for nearly a year before I played it. Why? Because of Jade Empire.

I thought the Jade Empire world was superb, even if the game itself was not as good.

I hated Jade Empire. Everything about it. Completely. Tried to play it twice; the first time I dumped it after several hours, the second I dumped it midway through when someone confirmed my guesses as to what would happen in the rest of the game. It's by far the worst game Bioware have ever made, and one of the worst RPGs I have ever played. This game IMO fits many of your ME criticisms to a T.

I was expecting something in the tradition of KOTOR and I got a Bioware-by-numbers that was so much a rehash of their endlessly recycled trademarks that I was able to successfully predict the entire plot, character arcs and twists within the first 2 hours. Pasted all over this predictable line of rehashed, tired old predictability was paper thin mystic kung fu nonsense. Did I mention it was shallower than a puddle? That the combat was utterly, utterly rubbish, tedious, unbalanced, and bland? That the quest railroaded me from one predictable load of fetching to another? That there were hardly any side quests at all? That most of the party characters were clones of characters from earlier games with new models and names? And if there's any doubt left at all that I found it entirely, completely and fully predictable, let it be banished once and for all.

Jade Empire's better known as 'Bioware By Numbers: The Ultimate Rehash' in the privacy of my froggy little mind. Awful!

Neverwinter Nights combined with Jade Empire convinced me Bioware had lost it. If I hadn’t liked ME I’d have stopped following their work entirely.



One of the things I liked most about ME was the way it handled morality. It didn't really try to. In nearly every RPG which offers some kind of alignment choice you're going to be forced into the hero's role no matter how hard you try to be evil, no matter how illogical it is. ME replaced the usual banal and unrealistic 'Kill puppy and drink its blood/give puppy all of your money' options with choosing your tone. No matter what you do you're a hero, but will you be a polite hero with time for your fans, or one who focuses on getting the job done and never mind the bruised toes? Picking tone worked in a way which picking alignment never did. It's playing good cop/bad cop instead of angelic hero/destroyer of worlds. I was so disappointed when I found dragon age had wound the clock back to choosing a puppy's fate.

I didn't find ME's plot to be any more restrictive than that of most RPGS, past or present. At a push I shall grant that it made less of a pretence at player freedom than most, though pretence is indeed the right word when the destroyer of worlds goes to the same places and does the same overall actions as the angelic hero

[Krusader]

Engineer one seems cool. Although I have a feeling I might stick to a Soldier class first, before I'll attempt other classes in later playthroughs. Already playing five characters in Dragon Age: Origins. Pretty certain I'll give ME2 several playthroughs, especially since the dialogue and dialogue scenes seem much better made.

I do hope the interface will more PC-friendly in ME2 and especially that you can just tap Spacebar to pause instead of having to press it for the pause duration. But maybe that's just me.
And what annoyed me was that the boardable spaceships and most planetary mines & bases was identical with just a few crates & containers arranged differently.

[Scienter]

Revolutionary? Work of art? Did we play the same game? Of the stuff you listed above, combat, repetitive and boring side quests, and inventory is pretty much the entire game except for the main storyline. Mass Effect had an interesting universe and some decent writing, but it failed mightily in pretty much every other area. It was a perfect example of how console gaming has lowered standards across the board for RPGs. The only reason I am optimistic about ME2 is that Bioware turned DA:O into a pretty decent game and I expect some of the successful bits of DA to show up in ME2.

It was a fun game that could have been much, much better if they'd fleshed the story out some more and gotten rid of that awful Mako and its bad physics. After playing through Dragon Age and thinking back to the NPCs in Mass Effect, I really hope that the ME2 NPCs are fleshed out more. I really enjoyed the depth of some of the NPCs in Dragon Age and don't really feel like ME did enough with theirs.

[Scienter]

I hated Jade Empire. Everything about it. Completely. Tried to play it twice; the first time I dumped it after several hours, the second I dumped it midway through when someone confirmed my guesses as to what would happen in the rest of the game. It's by far the worst game Bioware have ever made, and one of the worst RPGs I have ever played. This game IMO fits many of your ME criticisms to a T.

I enjoyed Jade Empire the first time I played it, though not as much as KOTOR. After watching a kung fu movie, I really wanted to play it again, and found that it had no replayability, really.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Revolutionary? Work of art? Did we play the same game? Of the stuff you listed above, combat, repetitive and boring side quests, and inventory is pretty much the entire game except for the main storyline. Mass Effect had an interesting universe and some decent writing, but it failed mightily in pretty much every other area. It was a perfect example of how console gaming has lowered standards across the board for RPGs. The only reason I am optimistic about ME2 is that Bioware turned DA:O into a pretty decent game and I expect some of the successful bits of DA to show up in ME2.

I think you are being overly critical here (which is good for a lot of over hyped video games but there are a few things I disagree with you here):
1. The universe in my analysis was very refreshing, and interesting and the writing was superb. I didn't know what was mediocre about the either of the two. The fact that they had over 2+ hours of just info on the Mass Effect universe for you to read (and listen to with that awesome narrative voice), shows that they put in the effort that made it above mediocre.
2. Consoles have had no real impact that I have seen, on the quality of RPG's. I think the real impact consoles are having a negative impact on is first person shooters. Now that I would agree with completely, but RPG's? I just don't see what they are sacrificing there, the focus on an RPG is story which is not correlated at all to console/computer while in a FPS, the controls are crucial to get down and not be confusing which is affected by consoles.

One of my main problems with ME is also a huge problem with DA:O... meaningless choices. Both of these games pat themselves on the back for having many huge moral dilemmas, but they're all meaningless. No one really cares if you run around being a jerk... they'll follow you pretty much to the ends of the earth. DA:O is slightly better in this in that some actions will make party NPCs go hostile, but only if they're with you when you do them. ME treats the player with kid-gloves, and only allows you to make choices that won't prevent you from fulfilling you Ultimate Destiny to be Awesome. There are no consequences for your actions, just your own endorphins making you feel good or bad for being an angel or a bully.

Mass Effect also seemed to strike me as extremely linear. It was advertised as another sandbox RPG, but that wasn't remotely present. Being able to pick the order that you do the quests in does not make a game a sandbox game. Bouncing around on planets in a buggy picking up collection quest items also does not make a game a sandbox game. ME had as much open-ended gameplay as KOTOR and KOTOR2... essentially none.

So, what I was left with after I finished ME was a game billed as a dark, mature RPG with a huge sandbox world... and what I got was a storyline with meaningless moral dilemmas and a very one-track plot. Top it off with the horrid interface and uninspiring combat, and I was very underwhelmed.

That said, I do very much like Bioware's original IP products. I thought the Jade Empire world was superb, even if the game itself was not as good. Both ME and DA have equally interesting and well-developed worlds. I like the Bioware IPs a great deal and they are worth playing simply to see the universes they create. Bioware is essentially the Bizarro Bethsoft. Bethsoft makes games that are fun to explore but where the main storyline is relatively pathetic, while Bioware makes games that fall apart when you leave the main storyline.

I am about to do a second run-through of Mass Effect because I erased the saved game from my first time through and want to be able to import my character for the second. Maybe my opinion will change on round two.

Now I just don't get how you can say the game is full of meaningless choices and then at the end of your post acknowledge you need to do a second run through because your choices will have an impact in the sequel. How can killing Wrex be meaningless when the choice determines whether or not you will see him in the second and third game? How is the finale choice of who gets to be Earth's representative on the council meaningless when you will probably receive orders/talk to extensively from the person you picked throughout the second game?

I will grant you the somewhat linear aspect of the game, however I look at it in the greater context. This was the first game in a planned trilogy, they created an entire new dialog system and had to create an extensive intellectual property and the actual plot along with making the game. I think they put so much effort on the three things I just listed and then went for the bare bones minimum of what could be considered the "basics" of a traditional RPG. This is why I say I praise it so much, yes, revolutionary may have been too much although I was thinking of the dialog system when I typed that (it was so weird going back to Fallout 3 and the whole NPC staring-at-you-never-blinking-or-showing-above-the-minimum-in-emotional-expression and having to read entire lines of text that make up your responses) however, once the "basics" (inventory system, combat, less generic side quests) all are improved upon, you can't say that the game is in anyway majorly flawed or broken.

I see that you recognize that Bioware did a good job with Jade Empire's intellectual property and just made a flawed game around it, but why didn't you see the same for Mass Effect, I think the two are practically the same there in that aspect.

I ignored the pre-release info, the reviews, and actually left the game sat on my shelf for nearly a year before I played it. Why? Because of Jade Empire.


I hated Jade Empire. Everything about it. Completely. Tried to play it twice; the first time I dumped it after several hours, the second I dumped it midway through when someone confirmed my guesses as to what would happen in the rest of the game. It's by far the worst game Bioware have ever made, and one of the worst RPGs I have ever played. This game IMO fits many of your ME criticisms to a T.

I was expecting something in the tradition of KOTOR and I got a Bioware-by-numbers that was so much a rehash of their endlessly recycled trademarks that I was able to successfully predict the entire plot, character arcs and twists within the first 2 hours. Pasted all over this predictable line of rehashed, tired old predictability was paper thin mystic kung fu nonsense. Did I mention it was shallower than a puddle? That the combat was utterly, utterly rubbish, tedious, unbalanced, and bland? That the quest railroaded me from one predictable load of fetching to another? That there were hardly any side quests at all? That most of the party characters were clones of characters from earlier games with new models and names? And if there's any doubt left at all that I found it entirely, completely and fully predictable, let it be banished once and for all.

Jade Empire's better known as 'Bioware By Numbers: The Ultimate Rehash' in the privacy of my froggy little mind. Awful!

Neverwinter Nights combined with Jade Empire convinced me Bioware had lost it. If I hadn’t liked ME I’d have stopped following their work entirely.



One of the things I liked most about ME was the way it handled morality. It didn't really try to. In nearly every RPG which offers some kind of alignment choice you're going to be forced into the hero's role no matter how hard you try to be evil, no matter how illogical it is. ME replaced the usual banal and unrealistic 'Kill puppy and drink its blood/give puppy all of your money' options with choosing your tone. No matter what you do you're a hero, but will you be a polite hero with time for your fans, or one who focuses on getting the job done and never mind the bruised toes? Picking tone worked in a way which picking alignment never did. It's playing good cop/bad cop instead of angelic hero/destroyer of worlds. I was so disappointed when I found dragon age had wound the clock back to choosing a puppy's fate.

I didn't find ME's plot to be any more restrictive than that of most RPGS, past or present. At a push I shall grant that it made less of a pretence at player freedom than most, though pretence is indeed the right word when the destroyer of worlds goes to the same places and does the same overall actions as the angelic hero

I have to completely agree with the underlined text. However, I didn't find the actual universe and background of Jade Empire to be shallow, then again I only played it twice, (good then bad) and then never played it again, so maybe you are onto something there as well.

It was a fun game that could have been much, much better if they'd fleshed the story out some more and gotten rid of that awful Mako and its bad physics. After playing through Dragon Age and thinking back to the NPCs in Mass Effect, I really hope that the ME2 NPCs are fleshed out more. I really enjoyed the depth of some of the NPCs in Dragon Age and don't really feel like ME did enough with theirs.

How so? By NPC you mean the companions, or do you mean random people you meet in sidequests/along the main storyline?

[Scienter]

How so? By NPC you mean the companions, or do you mean random people you meet in sidequests/along the main storyline?

I meant the companions. I liked them, but feel like they lacked the depth of some of the Dragon Age companions. I played ME when it came out, so my memory of it might be a little fuzzy, but I recall not having as many dialogue options with the companions as were available in Dragon Age. Additionally, I liked it when my companions talked to each other a little when they were in my party, like in Dragon Age. I don't remember that happening in ME.

[al Roumi]

...when I typed that (it was so weird going back to Fallout 3 and the whole NPC staring-at-you-never-blinking-or-showing-above-the-minimum-in-emotional-expression and having to read entire lines of text that make up your responses)

And DA:O! At first i was wondering if it was bugging out that I couldn't hear my own character's voice! Especially after I'd just had to choose one.

Personaly I found ME much more immersive than DA:O, due mostly to the dialogue presentation, and I completely agree with mademoiselle Froggy that ME's take on "moral choices" was more appropriate to the plot lines than anything, imo since Baldur's Gate 2. If you were truly evil and selfish, you wouldn't give a damn about "saving the world", at very least you use the opportunity to further your own agenda -as in BG2.

I actually quite liked combat in ME, especially an hardcore (not too hard, but a challenge nonetheless) but then I made heavy use of biotics and am always interested in getting optimum character builds .

[TinCow]

I think you are being overly critical here (which is good for a lot of over hyped video games but there are a few things I disagree with you here):
1. The universe in my analysis was very refreshing, and interesting and the writing was superb. I didn't know what was mediocre about the either of the two. The fact that they had over 2+ hours of just info on the Mass Effect universe for you to read (and listen to with that awesome narrative voice), shows that they put in the effort that made it above mediocre.

I don't disagree with this at all. Like I said, the ME universe was superbly designed, and I think Bioware have done an an excellent job with creating the background worlds in all their original IP products.

2. Consoles have had no real impact that I have seen, on the quality of RPG's. I think the real impact consoles are having a negative impact on is first person shooters. Now that I would agree with completely, but RPG's? I just don't see what they are sacrificing there, the focus on an RPG is story which is not correlated at all to console/computer while in a FPS, the controls are crucial to get down and not be confusing which is affected by consoles.

The biggest problem consoles have caused is the switch from text to voice for dialogs. This shift was very heavily pushed on developers because text was considered undesirable by console gamers due to difficulties in reading large blocks on a television. As a result of this switch, the maximum amount of storyline, dialog, and backstory has been drastically reduced in almost every RPG. You need look no further than the disparity between Morrowind and Oblivion for your evidence. Morrowind had so much text it would make your eyes bleed, and as a result there was an extreme amount of detail about the world, the plot, and the NPCs, if you chose to explore it. By contrast, because Oblivion had to have every single line voice-acted, the writers were given a hard-cap of 40,000 words in the entire game. That resulted in truncated dialogs and extremely superficial background information on the world which was a major barrier to immersion.

Bioware have actually done a far better job at combating this recently than most RPG developers, thanks to their willingness to use detailed 'optional' text descriptions in their games. In ME, this was the database entries that were very rewarding if you took the time to read them. It DA:O, the Codex accomplished the same thing. However, ME still suffered from severely truncated dialog due to voice acting requirements... though I will say I was impressed with the variety of dialog available in DA:O. Bioware certainly seem to be learning a lot as time goes by, hence my optimism for ME2.

The other major problem caused by consoles is that the games have to be written for use with a gamepad. Gamepads are far more limited input mechanisms than the keyboard and mouse due to vastly fewer keys and more primitive methods of directional input. This significantly limits the system of special abilities and options a player is given during combat, as the gamepad does not allow a player to easily select from a large number of options on-the-fly. This has resulted in simpler combat which is often less challenging and less entertaining. ME has one of the worst combat system of any recent RPG, and that is directly related to this gamepad problem.

Again, I feel like DA:O shows that Bioware has learned from their mistakes in this area, as DA had very good combat despite the vastly simplified system. However, that's DA:O, not ME. We're talking about the merits of ME, which I simply do not think warrants the level of praise that is being heaped on it. ME was certainly a great commercial success for Bioware, but I think it's very wrong to call it revolutionary. ME was a nice improvement from the doldrums of RPG gaming that resulted after the immediate jump to console gaming with the XBOX/PS2 generation... but it was still several steps backwards from where RPGs were before devs started catering to the larger console market. DA:O is one of the first 'console' RPGs that has actually returned to the overall quality level that was consistent in PC RPGs until the early 2000s. Even so, it's taken about 6-7 years for the devs to claw their way back to where they used to be before the switch.

Now I just don't get how you can say the game is full of meaningless choices and then at the end of your post acknowledge you need to do a second run through because your choices will have an impact in the sequel. How can killing Wrex be meaningless when the choice determines whether or not you will see him in the second and third game? How is the finale choice of who gets to be Earth's representative on the council meaningless when you will probably receive orders/talk to extensively from the person you picked throughout the second game?

First, to be clear, I want to do a second run-through for character design purposes, not plot purposes. I guarantee you that imported characters will be better off than newly designed characters, just like they were in Baldur's Gate. In addition, saying that ME2 justifies the choices made in ME1 is silly. ME1 is its own game and must be judged by itself. If some of its flaws are later fixed by a sequel game, then the sequel game deserves the praise, not the original. If ME had been a commercial flop, you never would have seen a sequel and your meaningless moral dilemmas would have remained meaningless for all eternity. Judge ME on its own merits, not on the merits of ME2.

Second, you're talking about choices that are strictly confined to the main plot line. The moral dilemmas that you face in numerous side-quests or in the methods with which you accomplish most of the main storyline are irrelevant because they have no long-term consequences. No one really cares if you negotiate to get hostages released, or just go in guns blazing and get people killed. Your NPCs will happily slaughter anyone you point their guns at, regardless of their backstory. Essentially, the only meaningful choices you make are those which direct you towards the different endings, of which there are very, very few options. Nice guy/jerk and saved council/let it die. Not much of a selection.

Again, DA:O is a HUGE improvement here, because how you resolve (and whether you even complete) many of the side-quests impacts what kind of aid you get in the game and large portions of the ending itself. As far as I can tell, DA:O has about as many different endings as Fallout 2, and that's high praise. But, again, that's DA:O, not ME. ME was a stepping stone for Bioware from their lowest points, and it is still far better than what most console-catered RPGs have managed, but improvement doesn't qualify as revolutionary when it is improvement based on a serious decline. ME is inherently non-revolutionary, because it didn't do anything remotely new. DA:O has finally put Bioware back on parity with where they used to be... maybe ME2 truly will be an actual step forward into uncharted areas, but ME1 was still languishing in the console doldrums.

[frogbeastegg]

Weren't PC RPGs in heavy decline before the console crossovers began? That's certainly how I remember it. BGII was a high point in more than one way. Mid-tier brands like Fallout went dormant, independent titles all but vanished, new titles from the established RPG houses became fewer, big names in the genre went out of business or changed focus, and everyone was screaming about internet multiplayer and 3D everything being the future. It was the most depressing time of my PC gaming life.

I don't buy that unvoiced text went the way of the dodo because of the console market. Morrowind had an xbox version also and it was one of the xbox's best selling titles overall. Many of the mid to late PS2 era JRPGs had reams and reams of text and very little voice acting, and the older ones had no voice acting. The PS1 era JRPGs were often a badly translated book on a disc.

I blame it on the drive to be cinematic and grab the attention of the non-hardcore crowd, same as the relentless rush for more, bigger, better faster graphics, FMV and CGI cutscenes, and other gloss. "Over 1,000,000 lines of text!" doesn't have that same marketing ring as "Over 10,000 fully voiced lines, including [famous name here] as the narrator!"

ME has one of the worst combat system of any recent RPG, and that is directly related to this gamepad problem.

I liked ME's combat and found it by preferable to many recent RPGs, including (especially) all of Bethesda's offerings

I also loved KOTOR and many of the other games which must sit in your console doldrums, just as I like many of the old PC exclusives. Compared to the likes of Neverwinter Nights 1 they were far better singleplayer experiences

I suppose I'm a true RPG omnivore. I'll play and appreciate all types provided they offer a strong singleplayer.

I meant the companions. I liked them, but feel like they lacked the depth of some of the Dragon Age companions. I played ME when it came out, so my memory of it might be a little fuzzy, but I recall not having as many dialogue options with the companions as were available in Dragon Age. Additionally, I liked it when my companions talked to each other a little when they were in my party, like in Dragon Age. I don't remember that happening in ME.

You are correct. The party members only chatted with each other during the elevator sequences.

The ME bunch were more sketches than in-depth portraits I felt. Well presented, well voiced, given personality, granted a tightly designed personal story arc, and then not given much beyond that. There's nothing like the whimsical conversations about pigeons or socks that you can find in DA:O and other, older games. I've long suspected that the party members in KOTOR had more dialogue than those of ME. Those of DA:O must have 2-3 times as much.

[Zenicetus]

1. The universe in my analysis was very refreshing, and interesting and the writing was superb. I didn't know what was mediocre about the either of the two. The fact that they had over 2+ hours of just info on the Mass Effect universe for you to read (and listen to with that awesome narrative voice), shows that they put in the effort that made it above mediocre.

I don't disagree with this at all. Like I said, the ME universe was superbly designed, and I think Bioware have done an an excellent job with creating the background worlds in all their original IP products.

My $.02 opinion... I guess I'll be disagreeing with everyone here about the quality of the ME universe design. It was okay as a framework for the game, but original and superbly designed? I guess I've read too much science fiction in my life. To me, the ME universe was nothing more than just a mashup of classic TV and sci fi movie themes.

There is the Star Fleet concept from Trek, with the humans and dominant aliens forming a political alliance. Humans are rash upstarts; not as experienced as the ancient races who have been spacefaring forever, but they're full of spunk and drive. And of course the humans are the heroes of the story. Of all the aliens you see that might have been interesting party members, your actual combat party is composed of the aliens who look most like bipedal humans (with the possible exception of Wrex), so they're easier for a general audience to relate to. Robot servants have rebelled against their masters. Giant insects with a hive queen are a threat. An ancient evil that cleansed the galaxy in the past, is about to return.

These are all tired, tired tropes in science fiction. Bioware did a decent job of throwing it all together and making it stick, but there is nothing especially original or superbly designed in their conception of the future. They just used a bunch of least-common-denominator themes that a wide audience could easily relate to.

The same could be said for Dragon Age. Humans who dominate the story line? Check. Dwarves? Check. Elves? Check. The Holy Trinity of tank, mage, and healer with a rogue on the side? Check. An ancient evil from the past about to return and cause havoc? Check.

Bioware excels in solid execution for their games, not in designing original game worlds. Bioshock was a glorified shooter, and The Witcher had its own problems, but both games were far more original in concept and game world design (IMO).

[frogbeastegg]

To me, the ME universe was nothing more than just a mashup of classic TV and sci fi movie themes.

That's what Bioware say they were aiming for. That grainy overlay effect on the graphics is meant to mimic the lower quality of those old recordings.

Myself, I was just happy to see a different set of cliches in use after years of bad fantasy cliches and modern settings. Course, ME had its own version of the warehouse full of crates so perhaps it wasn't that much of a change.

The same could be said for Dragon Age. Humans who dominate the story line? Check. Dwarves? Check. Elves? Check. The Holy Trinity of tank, mage, and healer with a rogue on the side? Check. An ancient evil from the past about to return and cause havoc? Check.

Check indeed, and this time around Bioware claimed to be aiming for a different take on the typical fantasy setting. Disappointing.

Bioware excels in solid execution for their games, not in designing original game worlds.

I always think that Black Isle/Obsidian are the writers and Bioware the makers. On each game engine that they've shared Bioware have assembled the engine and put out a quality but quite standard in terms of plot and character game, and Black Isle/Obsidian have taken that engine to make a technically wobbly but excellently written and plotted game. If only the two would work completely and fully side by side on a project!

[TinCow]

Weren't PC RPGs in heavy decline before the console crossovers began? That's certainly how I remember it. BGII was a high point in more than one way. Mid-tier brands like Fallout went dormant, independent titles all but vanished, new titles from the established RPG houses became fewer, big names in the genre went out of business or changed focus, and everyone was screaming about internet multiplayer and 3D everything being the future. It was the most depressing time of my PC gaming life.

I don't remember any decline until after the consoles came out, though that does coincide somewhat with BG2. RPG gaming was strong throughout the 1990s. The early years had some of the best RPGs ever made, including Ultima VII, Betrayal at Krondor, and the best of the SSI gold box games (i.e. Pool of Radiance, the Krynn series). The Might and Magic series was going strong then too, peaking with Might and Magic VI in 1998. System Shock showed up in 1994. Personally, I consider the late 1990s to be the best years for all RPGs. 1996 was Daggerfall. 1997 was Fallout. 1998 was Baldur's Gate and Fallout 2 (and MM6). 1999 was PST and System Shock 2. 2000 was BG2.

The real console crossover began in 2000/2001, when the sixth generation (XBox, PS2, Dreamcast, Gamecube) came on the market. When those sales figures started coming in, a lot of game devs instantly started migrating in that direction. Morrowind's port to the XBox was in 2002, only 2 years after BG2. 2002 was also the year of NWN, which was the LAST Bioware title that wasn't available on the console. So, unless you want to consider the short period (about a year, 2001) between BG2 and Morrowind to be a slump, I don't see one.

Personally, I find the entire Aurora engine to be a slump for Bioware. KOTOR was good despite being on that engine, not because of it. The Aurora engine was inherently limiting and made games incredibly linear. Look at the list of games I made above, and you'll see that practically all of them had huge areas you could explore and gave a lot of freedom to go where you wanted and do what you wanted. That freedom is what made the games so interesting. The Ultima and (some of the) SSI gold box games are the perfect examples. They had very linear storylines, but you didn't have to spend all your times following those storylines, you could just go out and explore and that was a lot of the fun of it. In a way, GTA 3/4/etc. are far better RPGs than NWN/KOTOR/etc just because of their freedom.

Perhaps it was a divine confluence of bad decision making (see Ultima IX and every M&M after VI), a few buggy game releases (see Vampire: Bloodlines, TOEE), new flashy game engines that limited freedom (see Aurora), along with the push to consoles... but the RPG market took a nosedive after the sixth generation consoles were released in 2000/2001 and it's still struggling to recover almost 10 years later.

I don't buy that unvoiced text went the way of the dodo because of the console market. Morrowind had an xbox version also and it was one of the xbox's best selling titles overall. Many of the mid to late PS2 era JRPGs had reams and reams of text and very little voice acting, and the older ones had no voice acting. The PS1 era JRPGs were often a badly translated book on a disc.

I blame it on the drive to be cinematic and grab the attention of the non-hardcore crowd, same as the relentless rush for more, bigger, better faster graphics, FMV and CGI cutscenes, and other gloss. "Over 1,000,000 lines of text!" doesn't have that same marketing ring as "Over 10,000 fully voiced lines, including [famous name here] as the narrator!"

I'm sure that's part of it, but my friends at Bethsoft told me that they specifically switched from text to voice dialog to appeal better to the console market. Morrowind on the Xbox doesn't really count, because it wasn't designed to be a console game when it was created, so the peculiarities of the console market had no impact on it. Oblivion was the start of Bethsoft designing games specifically for consoles, with the PC version as an afterthought. Voice acting was like an arms race in the gaming industry after the sixth gen consoles came out. Once a few companies had done it, everyone had to do it or they looked really old and obsolete and it impacted their sales. So, they all adopted it even though the technical and financial limitations of doing it greatly impacted the quality of the games.

I also loved KOTOR and many of the other games which must sit in your console doldrums, just as I like many of the old PC exclusives. Compared to the likes of Neverwinter Nights 1 they were far better singleplayer experiences

Actually, I loved KOTOR. It's one of the few RPGs I played during that time that I really liked. It had all the flaws of the others, but Bioware did such a stupendously good job with the storyline that it was fun to play despite the flaws.

[Monk]

That's what Bioware say they were aiming for. That grainy overlay effect on the graphics is meant to mimic the lower quality of those old recordings.

L4D has that too.. but I cannot stand Film Grain effects in my games.

I understand their purpose from both a creative and technical standpoint (you can use film grain to hide jagged edges, for example) but I could never use it.

[frogbeastegg]

[cut out for length]

I remember a decline before the console shift because that's why I ended up picking up an xbox and KOTOR. I was that starved for RPGs I couldn't resist a cheap supermarket deal, and the PC release of the game was set months away. Back then I was cursing the xbox for stealing PC games in general, and particularly for stealing my RPG. When it comes to looking back across the RPGs I've played, there's a massive empty gap between Throne of Baal and KOTOR. Other than Morrowind the only game I can really think of which occupies it is the PC port of a (pretty good) PS2 launch era RPG named Summoner, made by Volition. The awful SP reports and a bad demo put me off NWN until the final expansion appeared. The gap between Baal and KOTOR's European release is nearly 3 years. After KOTOR games like Vampire: Bloodlines start appearing in my memory.

We're agreeing in a roundabout way about the adoption of full voice acting; someone had done it and then everyone else had to in order to keep up with the latest gloss. It was another of those irksome candy decisions which periodically inflict themselves on the industry. My point is that the changeover didn't come about because the console players didn't want to read; they had been reading similar amounts of text to PC gamers for years, and they'd been rating those games highly and buying them in high numbers. I believe things would have taken the same course without RPGs moving to consoles; once the bulk of dialogue is voiced any unvoiced dialogue is criticised, and voicework is expense so the number of lines must go down.

As far as the Aurora engine goes I can only sit here like this ->

GTA didn't have much freedom IMO. Yup, another statement which makes me want to use that creeping smiley to imply me sidling away epecting to have a boot thrown at me. GTA4 and series spin-off Bully gave you a choice between doing plot mission X to advance the pre-set story, or ignoring it to do a range of pre-set and pre-planned side missions. Eventually you needed to do some plot missions in order to unlock more side quests. Or you can ignore both types of missions and run around doing random things which don't have much impact.

Pen and paper RPGs are the only way you'd get anything I'd comfortably label freedom or actual roleplaying. In computer games it's always varying degrees of predefined choice.




Maybe the arena should get a 'state of RPGs' thread?

[a completely inoffensive name]

I will post a longer reply later, but I just want to say that if we are going to talk about the GTA series being better because of more freedom then we should replace GRA 3 and 4 with Vice City and (especially) San Andreas.

[TinCow]

I remember a decline before the console shift because that's why I ended up picking up an xbox and KOTOR. I was that starved for RPGs I couldn't resist a cheap supermarket deal, and the PC release of the game was set months away. Back then I was cursing the xbox for stealing PC games in general, and particularly for stealing my RPG. When it comes to looking back across the RPGs I've played, there's a massive empty gap between Throne of Baal and KOTOR. Other than Morrowind the only game I can really think of which occupies it is the PC port of a (pretty good) PS2 launch era RPG named Summoner, made by Volition. The awful SP reports and a bad demo put me off NWN until the final expansion appeared. The gap between Baal and KOTOR's European release is nearly 3 years. After KOTOR games like Vampire: Bloodlines start appearing in my memory.

My memory is foggy too. My short chronological list of games from that previous post was based on wikipedia info. I remembered all those games, but had no idea when they were released and had to look over what came out in the 1990s and early 2000s to even make my reply. One of the trends that is noticeable when looking at the 2000s list is that 2000 to 2002 also a massive increase in 'Action RPGs.' In 2000 we get both Diablo 2 and Icewind Dale, as well as System Shock 2 which still can't be properly categorized as either FPS or RPG. 2001 has the Diablo 2 expansion pack, Fallout Tactics, and the Icewind Dale expansion pack 2002 has Divine Divinity, Icewind Dale 2, and Dungeon Siege. That's a pretty big explosion in the Action RPG market, which shows some noticeable distraction from pure RPG development by some of the biggest names in RPG gaming: Black Isle and Interplay. It's certainly significant that Diablo 2 is considered by the world at large to be a RPG, when it's nothing of the sort.

Looking at that now, perhaps I was wrong to blame it all on consoles. Perhaps it was just a 'perfect storm' of a large number of factors hitting the RPG industry at exactly the same time, resulting in a major shift away from the classic gaming systems.

We're agreeing in a roundabout way about the adoption of full voice acting; someone had done it and then everyone else had to in order to keep up with the latest gloss. It was another of those irksome candy decisions which periodically inflict themselves on the industry. My point is that the changeover didn't come about because the console players didn't want to read; they had been reading similar amounts of text to PC gamers for years, and they'd been rating those games highly and buying them in high numbers. I believe things would have taken the same course without RPGs moving to consoles; once the bulk of dialogue is voiced any unvoiced dialogue is criticised, and voicework is expense so the number of lines must go down.

Possibly, though I do have a strong feeling that there was a shift in console gaming itself between the 5th and 6th generations. I have no facts or info of any kind to back up these statements, but I personally feel like the 5th generation of consoles was still part of PC gaming. When the N64 and PS1 were released, I think that most people who owned consoles also did a lot of PC gaming. Back then, I would have called the two industries as complimentary, not competitive. As the PS1 got older, its catalog of games started attracting a more adult audience than it had previously, and I feel like the PS1 in particular really broke open the console market to sections of the population who had never been gamers before. The flood gates then opened with the 6th generation, mainly with the PS2 and XBox, which started popping up in households all over the world that had never been interested in gaming before.

So, I feel like the console population itself shifted at that same time, towards a broader audience and away from the old core of gamers who were very similar to, if not the same group as, PC gamers. Again, I have nothing to back that up though, it's just my own ruminations on the matter.

GTA didn't have much freedom IMO. Yup, another statement which makes me want to use that creeping smiley to imply me sidling away epecting to have a boot thrown at me. GTA4 and series spin-off Bully gave you a choice between doing plot mission X to advance the pre-set story, or ignoring it to do a range of pre-set and pre-planned side missions. Eventually you needed to do some plot missions in order to unlock more side quests. Or you can ignore both types of missions and run around doing random things which don't have much impact.

To be clear, I don't consider the GTA series to be RPGs. I was simply making an observation on the 'exploration of the world' aspect of the series in comparison to classic RPG gaming. GTA is basically a third-person shooter with really large levels, some kind of middle step between the action RPG and the FPS. It's got a lot in common with games like STALKER and FarCry 2, actually. That's another discussion though...

Maybe the arena should get a 'state of RPGs' thread?

I've very much enjoyed this discussion, and I'd be willing to give it a go. I'm sure I can get Whacker to contribute a few rants on the matter as well. I actually feel like there's a lot of room for a directed discussions on several aspects of gaming: RPGs, FPS, Strategy, Consoles, etc. We should probably do one at a time, but it might be fun to do a planned series of threads which are part narrative, part debate, on general gaming trends and issues.