ME is dead for the foreseeable future, perhaps permanently, with DA4 being faaaar out on the horizon, so they want to get rid of all their non-Anthem stuff.
My hope is that they return to Mass Effect after Anthem (probably) bombs. Andromeda was poorly received, but I don't think it's turned people off to the franchise. Get it back in the hands of the varsity squad, and make a new game that's a continuation of the original trilogy. I dunno, set it a couple decades after the end of ME3 and just bite the bullet and pick an ending as canon. Preferably synthesis, but control would be neat too for the chance to run into space-god Shep.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
Oh man, I would have been all over that Iron Bull bust for $5. I'm going to have to keep an eye on the Mordin statue see if that drops any further.
EDIT: Glad I bought the Mass Effect sound track vinyls, sort of. There was serious buyers remorse at the time but now that the store is closing I feel a little better.
Bomb may be a strong term, but I feel like it probably wont meet EA's sales expectations. Not after Battlefront II. Though, EA has stated they've learned their lesson from BF2's reception, and plan to do better on future titles like Anthem. So maybe that mixed with Bungie's bungling of Destiny 2 will work out in Anthem's favor.
I'm normally "Yeah, whatever just tell me when I can preorder it" when it comes to BioWare, but I'm not even paying Anthem any attention.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
Though, EA has stated they've learned their lesson from BF2's reception, and plan to do better on future titles like Anthem.
:tell_me_more:
The response has pretty much been "I'll believe it when I see it" from just about everybody too. I imagine Anthem's initial sales aren't going to be amazing, but hopefully if it is good and bullshit free, the sales pick up once reviews and word of mouth spread.
But that's a big IF on EA not screwing it up.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
Though, EA has stated they've learned their lesson from BF2's reception, and plan to do better on future titles like Anthem.
:tell_me_more:
The response has pretty much been "I'll believe it when I see it" from just about everybody too. I imagine Anthem's initial sales aren't going to be amazing, but hopefully if it is good and bullshit free, the sales pick up once reviews and word of mouth spread.
But that's a big IF on EA not screwing it up.
Given Anthem has been in development for a LONG time, with quite a bit of manpower, EA's going to want a return on their hefty investment. Just being a modest success isn't going to cut it.
Then again from what I hear there's significant player burnout toward the Destiny series, so maybe Anthem will manage to show up at the right time?
I'll say this for Anthem, one mediocre game (ME:A) out of all the amazing ones Bioware has put out, earns them my trust still. They have a lot of things going for them especially delaying it till next year. That can be huge, imagine if SWTOR came out and had all the improvements that came out over the following year built in. Or with ME:A, another year would have helped a ton with all the bugs and glitches that colored peoples opinions when it came out.
They also have the benefit of having time to look at their model and how it aligns with the current mood. If they were planning on a BF2 model, they can now tweak it. There are plenty of write ups around Destiny 2's failings that they can use as reference as well.
SWTOR for all it's failings is still one of my favorite MMO's because of the story elements. If Casey is true to his word that Anthem will have that level of personal story telling in it, Bioware can count me in.
I can't believe someone though making SWTOR was a good idea.
I think it's worked out fine from EA's perspective.
Did it? Didn't it cost a huge amount of money to make? Even if it eventually did turn a profit, was it a good allocation of those resources?
Yeah, it's not just "did we turn $5 million into $6 million?" You have to account for the opportunity cost of having all that investment sunk there instead of something else. If that $5 million could have instead gone into making, for example, 3 non-MMO KOTOR sequels for a projected $7 million dollar profit, then they actually lost $1 million.
I loved parts of ME:Andromeda like the battles with the Giant Robot Shai Halud's and much of the mechanics Some of the dialog was good and some was cringey, the plot was all over the place in quality but overall I really liked it and was sad there was no DLC. I adored the last Dragon Age even after I swore I'd never play Dragon age if it wasn't top down isometric.
I have zero plans to get Anthem. That says alot from me. It will have to get majorly good reviews to consider it. This is the opinion of most of my group of gamer friends. My relatively low sample size says initial sales will be meh. I hope they do well but I can't get excited about this game.
Okay, so the Ryder henley is already sold out, so no stashed backups of that, boo. @Orca, how is Cora's hoody holding up? Size feels comfortable and all (think you got a XL to translate to men's small)?
Glad I ordered two N7 hoodies in that brief moment they were in stock.
I can't believe someone though making SWTOR was a good idea.
In theory it was a great idea. With EA's resources at their disposal, the Star Wars IP basically being a license to print money, and Dragon Soul releasing a month earlier and being a fucking joke of a raid, Bioware was in a perfect position to steal the MMO market - and they had an entire year to do it, with Blizzard having the hubris of doing absolutely nothing with the game for almost an entire year after Dragon Soul before Mists of Pandaria finally came out. (granted most of this they couldn't have known at the start of development, it did coincide this way by launch)
Instead they made what I see as the mistake of focusing on a "cinematic leveling experience" for the pre-launch development life of the game. While it was a neat idea for the initial leveling period, I guarantee that it ended up costing development time that sacrificed other important things as a moddable ui(I can tell you there's no small shortage of WoW players who would call this a war crime), a substantial end game and regular content updates that consisted of more than a couple of bosses in a raid arena. To name a few. (it took them over two years after launch to implement free form space combat - unacceptable)
I loved parts of ME:Andromeda like the battles with the Giant Robot Shai Halud's and much of the mechanics Some of the dialog was good and some was cringey, the plot was all over the place in quality but overall I really liked it and was sad there was no DLC. I adored the last Dragon Age even after I swore I'd never play Dragon age if it wasn't top down isometric.
I have zero plans to get Anthem. That says alot from me. It will have to get majorly good reviews to consider it. This is the opinion of most of my group of gamer friends. My relatively low sample size says initial sales will be meh. I hope they do well but I can't get excited about this game.
Eh most of my gaming friends are interested in it. I wouldn't say they're excited for it but the ones that saw the trailer have basically said "Yeah, that looks like it could be cool"
Only real complaints I've heard were about not enough info being out about it and especially how annoying "actors portray fake real people playing the game" type trailers are.
Instead they made what I see as the mistake of focusing on a "cinematic leveling experience" for the pre-launch development life of the game. While it was a neat idea for the initial leveling period, I guarantee that it ended up costing development time that sacrificed other important things...
Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s difficult to fault Bioware for focusing on what was arguably their biggest strength.
Plus, this is just hard in general, and Bioware didn’t have the previous experience to accurately estimate how much work it would take. Blizzard and Arenanet have been doing MMOs for what, like a decade and a half now? And they STILL have a hard time doing post-launch content drops in a timely manner and keeping players busy between expansions. Heart of Thorns was underwhelming at launch and Warlords’ city management mini-game backfired when players stopped engaging with each other.
Instead they made what I see as the mistake of focusing on a "cinematic leveling experience" for the pre-launch development life of the game. While it was a neat idea for the initial leveling period, I guarantee that it ended up costing development time that sacrificed other important things...
Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s difficult to fault Bioware for focusing on what was arguably their biggest strength.
Plus, this is just hard in general, and Bioware didn’t have the previous experience to accurately estimate how much work it would take. Blizzard and Arenanet have been doing MMOs for what, like a decade and a half now? And they STILL have a hard time doing post-launch content drops in a timely manner and keeping players busy between expansions. Heart of Thorns was underwhelming at launch and Warlords’ city management mini-game backfired when players stopped engaging with each other.
I can. Long-term customer retention is the name of the game for an MMO, and looking at the years WoW has been in existence by that point along with all of the other MMOs that have died in its wake(e.g. Warhammer Online) should have given them ample study material to determine what WoW was doing correctly that was keeping people subscribing, and what the failures were doing wrong - in particular that one of the big killers of WoW competitors outside of unstable launches has been leaving no endgame for the customers to continue playing once their initial leveling experience is over, especially when you're asking them to pay you $15 a month to continue playing. Deciding to go the route they did despite this - even if it is their strength - was the incorrect decision and they should have known it would be. Especially when going with a subscription model depends on convincing WoW players that after the 30 day trial they should either pay for two subscriptions or cancel their WoW subscription in favor of your game, a herculean prospect in itself.
I'm unclear how tying the story and multiplayer gameplay together will work, given the example of SWTOR, where you'll have people yelling to spacebar through the story parts that are important, when story is your core competency. Then you have the flashpoints, which will tell you your story, but completely out of sequence if you're just queuing for whatever, the way most people will.
We'll see what they produce. But they've set themselves a tough target to hit.
I think Destiny 2 actually got the formula pretty close to where Bioware will be aiming. The main story-driven missions have NPCs yelling over the radio and set pieces that drive the more exciting parts of the story without need for anyone to stop shooting things and sit around. They dump everyone into Skyhold a town between missions and let them run around and talk to NPCs and have cutscenes independently. Side quests are in various open world zones, again with heavy use of radio communication for story. Finally, every main story mission is locked out until the previous one is completed. Destiny 2's main missions are linear, but it'd also work with a tree of missions.
It's not very different from the structure Bioware used for Inquisition and Andromeda, with a defined break between the gameplay areas and the conversation areas.
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I mean, it was because of the voice acting that SWTOR is the only MMO I've ever seriously been into. And I did play endgame as well. But it was still a poorly thought out plan. Maybe I never would have seen the agent story if they had done KOTOR 3, though, so I suppose I should be grateful for their bad decisions.
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
I'm unclear how tying the story and multiplayer gameplay together will work, given the example of SWTOR, where you'll have people yelling to spacebar through the story parts that are important, when story is your core competency. Then you have the flashpoints, which will tell you your story, but completely out of sequence if you're just queuing for whatever, the way most people will.
We'll see what they produce. But they've set themselves a tough target to hit.
I think Destiny 2 actually got the formula pretty close to where Bioware will be aiming. The main story-driven missions have NPCs yelling over the radio and set pieces that drive the more exciting parts of the story without need for anyone to stop shooting things and sit around. They dump everyone into Skyhold a town between missions and let them run around and talk to NPCs and have cutscenes independently. Side quests are in various open world zones, again with heavy use of radio communication for story. Finally, every main story mission is locked out until the previous one is completed. Destiny 2's main missions are linear, but it'd also work with a tree of missions.
It's not very different from the structure Bioware used for Inquisition and Andromeda, with a defined break between the gameplay areas and the conversation areas.
I have to be honest here I thought you were talking about The Division until I went back and reread it.
I'm unclear how tying the story and multiplayer gameplay together will work, given the example of SWTOR, where you'll have people yelling to spacebar through the story parts that are important, when story is your core competency. Then you have the flashpoints, which will tell you your story, but completely out of sequence if you're just queuing for whatever, the way most people will.
We'll see what they produce. But they've set themselves a tough target to hit.
I think Destiny 2 actually got the formula pretty close to where Bioware will be aiming. The main story-driven missions have NPCs yelling over the radio and set pieces that drive the more exciting parts of the story without need for anyone to stop shooting things and sit around. They dump everyone into Skyhold a town between missions and let them run around and talk to NPCs and have cutscenes independently. Side quests are in various open world zones, again with heavy use of radio communication for story. Finally, every main story mission is locked out until the previous one is completed. Destiny 2's main missions are linear, but it'd also work with a tree of missions.
It's not very different from the structure Bioware used for Inquisition and Andromeda, with a defined break between the gameplay areas and the conversation areas.
The crazy thing is, a lot of people are bitching about Destiny 2 due to disappointing expansions, insane microtransactions and a relative lack of post-game content.
It's the post-game content that's really going to be the challenge for Anthem. Bioware's great at story, but what do you do when you've burned through that in a game designed to keep you playing endlessly?
I really dig the idea of Anthem, and I love everything I've seen about it so far.
One thing going in their favor from my (niche) perspective is that I've enjoyed every game Bioware has put out more than the one before it, with the singular exception of Inquisition (which I still liked despite the MC and combat being notable steps back from DA2).
Even without that, though, Anthem looks really cool to me. I liked the idea of Destiny, but they managed to flub both games in different ways, and I'm much more interested in a third-person take.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
I really dig the idea of Anthem, and I love everything I've seen about it so far.
One thing going in their favor from my (niche) perspective is that I've enjoyed every game Bioware has put out more than the one before it, with the singular exception of Inquisition (which I still liked despite the MC and combat being notable steps back from DA2).
Even without that, though, Anthem looks really cool to me. I liked the idea of Destiny, but they managed to flub both games in different ways, and I'm much more interested in a third-person take.
I'm a huge fan of Warframe, and the fact Bioware is making a third person shooter game with multiple robot suits with special abilities like it is pretty exciting to me. Warframes F2P model is pretry good too, so if they just keep onerous microtransactions out of it I'll be pretty happy
+1
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
What sold me on Anthem is the Iron Man simulation idea.
In the demo the guy picks an Iron Man suit, climbs in, and just flies off in a massive world. Sees shit happening and decides if he wants to get involved. Flies underwater, comes out and fights some guys and gets joined by someone in a Hulkbustersuit. Then they go on a merry rampage.
I get that other games do the ‘third person shooter MMO’ already like Destiny 2 and Warframe, and Warframe is also really good at it. But they’re pulling different heart strings. None of them let me be Iron Man.
So I really hope they sort out the issues with the genre and don’t pollute it with loot boxes because I want to be Iron Man in a good game.
For me it'll come down to lessons learned. When SWTOR came out you could argue Bioware was in over it's head. They had really only done single player type games with a heavy story focus, and it showed. The best parts of SWTOR in the beginning were based around the story. Since then they've done a ton of improvements to the game, they've released a bunch of expansions, and they released Mass Effect 3 with one of the best MP experiences I've had the pleasure to play.
So the question is, can they take all the experience they now have and produce a good MMO like game at launch? They should have a much better handle on netcode and network stability, they should know how to make short fun online combat experiences, you could argue they have a better handle on end game content, and they've always been good with story. In theory all the pieces are there, we'll see if they can execute on them.
Origin ID\ Steam ID: Warder45
+3
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
I'm trying to buy like $100 worth of hoodies from the BioWare store but when I get to the shipping part of the transaction I'm getting some sort of error that says "Sorry, no quotes are available for this order at this time"
I can't believe someone though making SWTOR was a good idea.
The thing is
if they just did a KOTOR 3 they'd have done so well.
Maybe, but the whole idea behind SWTOR was to generate recurring income. Same reason even the story driven games these days slap on microtransactions/multiplayer with lootboxes. EA was looking for a continuous revenue stream that a stand alone game wouldn't have provided.
I'm trying to buy like $100 worth of hoodies from the BioWare store but when I get to the shipping part of the transaction I'm getting some sort of error that says "Sorry, no quotes are available for this order at this time"
I AM A SAD WAT TO DO
Same thing. It doesn't like my Canadian address. The bioware store has always been a huge annoyance, despite my willingness to give them money. Canadian company selling in USD and stuff shipping from the US. Has always sort of rubbed me the wrong way.
Posts
My hope is that they return to Mass Effect after Anthem (probably) bombs. Andromeda was poorly received, but I don't think it's turned people off to the franchise. Get it back in the hands of the varsity squad, and make a new game that's a continuation of the original trilogy. I dunno, set it a couple decades after the end of ME3 and just bite the bullet and pick an ending as canon. Preferably synthesis, but control would be neat too for the chance to run into space-god Shep.
EDIT: Glad I bought the Mass Effect sound track vinyls, sort of. There was serious buyers remorse at the time but now that the store is closing I feel a little better.
Origin: theRealElMucho
I'm normally "Yeah, whatever just tell me when I can preorder it" when it comes to BioWare, but I'm not even paying Anthem any attention.
:tell_me_more:
I think it's worked out fine from EA's perspective.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
The response has pretty much been "I'll believe it when I see it" from just about everybody too. I imagine Anthem's initial sales aren't going to be amazing, but hopefully if it is good and bullshit free, the sales pick up once reviews and word of mouth spread.
But that's a big IF on EA not screwing it up.
Given Anthem has been in development for a LONG time, with quite a bit of manpower, EA's going to want a return on their hefty investment. Just being a modest success isn't going to cut it.
Then again from what I hear there's significant player burnout toward the Destiny series, so maybe Anthem will manage to show up at the right time?
EDIT: Re-reading it, it seems like it's kind of a politically nice way of saying, "What the F went on here while I was away."
They also have the benefit of having time to look at their model and how it aligns with the current mood. If they were planning on a BF2 model, they can now tweak it. There are plenty of write ups around Destiny 2's failings that they can use as reference as well.
SWTOR for all it's failings is still one of my favorite MMO's because of the story elements. If Casey is true to his word that Anthem will have that level of personal story telling in it, Bioware can count me in.
Did it? Didn't it cost a huge amount of money to make? Even if it eventually did turn a profit, was it a good allocation of those resources?
Yeah, it's not just "did we turn $5 million into $6 million?" You have to account for the opportunity cost of having all that investment sunk there instead of something else. If that $5 million could have instead gone into making, for example, 3 non-MMO KOTOR sequels for a projected $7 million dollar profit, then they actually lost $1 million.
(those numbers are all made up)
I have zero plans to get Anthem. That says alot from me. It will have to get majorly good reviews to consider it. This is the opinion of most of my group of gamer friends. My relatively low sample size says initial sales will be meh. I hope they do well but I can't get excited about this game.
Glad I ordered two N7 hoodies in that brief moment they were in stock.
In theory it was a great idea. With EA's resources at their disposal, the Star Wars IP basically being a license to print money, and Dragon Soul releasing a month earlier and being a fucking joke of a raid, Bioware was in a perfect position to steal the MMO market - and they had an entire year to do it, with Blizzard having the hubris of doing absolutely nothing with the game for almost an entire year after Dragon Soul before Mists of Pandaria finally came out. (granted most of this they couldn't have known at the start of development, it did coincide this way by launch)
Instead they made what I see as the mistake of focusing on a "cinematic leveling experience" for the pre-launch development life of the game. While it was a neat idea for the initial leveling period, I guarantee that it ended up costing development time that sacrificed other important things as a moddable ui(I can tell you there's no small shortage of WoW players who would call this a war crime), a substantial end game and regular content updates that consisted of more than a couple of bosses in a raid arena. To name a few. (it took them over two years after launch to implement free form space combat - unacceptable)
Eh most of my gaming friends are interested in it. I wouldn't say they're excited for it but the ones that saw the trailer have basically said "Yeah, that looks like it could be cool"
Only real complaints I've heard were about not enough info being out about it and especially how annoying "actors portray fake real people playing the game" type trailers are.
Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s difficult to fault Bioware for focusing on what was arguably their biggest strength.
Plus, this is just hard in general, and Bioware didn’t have the previous experience to accurately estimate how much work it would take. Blizzard and Arenanet have been doing MMOs for what, like a decade and a half now? And they STILL have a hard time doing post-launch content drops in a timely manner and keeping players busy between expansions. Heart of Thorns was underwhelming at launch and Warlords’ city management mini-game backfired when players stopped engaging with each other.
Destiny gameplay meets Titanfall aesthetics
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I can. Long-term customer retention is the name of the game for an MMO, and looking at the years WoW has been in existence by that point along with all of the other MMOs that have died in its wake(e.g. Warhammer Online) should have given them ample study material to determine what WoW was doing correctly that was keeping people subscribing, and what the failures were doing wrong - in particular that one of the big killers of WoW competitors outside of unstable launches has been leaving no endgame for the customers to continue playing once their initial leveling experience is over, especially when you're asking them to pay you $15 a month to continue playing. Deciding to go the route they did despite this - even if it is their strength - was the incorrect decision and they should have known it would be. Especially when going with a subscription model depends on convincing WoW players that after the 30 day trial they should either pay for two subscriptions or cancel their WoW subscription in favor of your game, a herculean prospect in itself.
I think Destiny 2 actually got the formula pretty close to where Bioware will be aiming. The main story-driven missions have NPCs yelling over the radio and set pieces that drive the more exciting parts of the story without need for anyone to stop shooting things and sit around. They dump everyone into Skyhold a town between missions and let them run around and talk to NPCs and have cutscenes independently. Side quests are in various open world zones, again with heavy use of radio communication for story. Finally, every main story mission is locked out until the previous one is completed. Destiny 2's main missions are linear, but it'd also work with a tree of missions.
It's not very different from the structure Bioware used for Inquisition and Andromeda, with a defined break between the gameplay areas and the conversation areas.
On my sleeve, let the runway start
I have to be honest here I thought you were talking about The Division until I went back and reread it.
The thing is
if they just did a KOTOR 3 they'd have done so well.
The crazy thing is, a lot of people are bitching about Destiny 2 due to disappointing expansions, insane microtransactions and a relative lack of post-game content.
It's the post-game content that's really going to be the challenge for Anthem. Bioware's great at story, but what do you do when you've burned through that in a game designed to keep you playing endlessly?
One thing going in their favor from my (niche) perspective is that I've enjoyed every game Bioware has put out more than the one before it, with the singular exception of Inquisition (which I still liked despite the MC and combat being notable steps back from DA2).
Even without that, though, Anthem looks really cool to me. I liked the idea of Destiny, but they managed to flub both games in different ways, and I'm much more interested in a third-person take.
I'm a huge fan of Warframe, and the fact Bioware is making a third person shooter game with multiple robot suits with special abilities like it is pretty exciting to me. Warframes F2P model is pretry good too, so if they just keep onerous microtransactions out of it I'll be pretty happy
In the demo the guy picks an Iron Man suit, climbs in, and just flies off in a massive world. Sees shit happening and decides if he wants to get involved. Flies underwater, comes out and fights some guys and gets joined by someone in a Hulkbuster suit. Then they go on a merry rampage.
I get that other games do the ‘third person shooter MMO’ already like Destiny 2 and Warframe, and Warframe is also really good at it. But they’re pulling different heart strings. None of them let me be Iron Man.
So I really hope they sort out the issues with the genre and don’t pollute it with loot boxes because I want to be Iron Man in a good game.
So the question is, can they take all the experience they now have and produce a good MMO like game at launch? They should have a much better handle on netcode and network stability, they should know how to make short fun online combat experiences, you could argue they have a better handle on end game content, and they've always been good with story. In theory all the pieces are there, we'll see if they can execute on them.
I AM A SAD WAT TO DO
Maybe, but the whole idea behind SWTOR was to generate recurring income. Same reason even the story driven games these days slap on microtransactions/multiplayer with lootboxes. EA was looking for a continuous revenue stream that a stand alone game wouldn't have provided.
Same thing. It doesn't like my Canadian address. The bioware store has always been a huge annoyance, despite my willingness to give them money. Canadian company selling in USD and stuff shipping from the US. Has always sort of rubbed me the wrong way.
Origin: theRealElMucho
Yeah, I got in just under the line, apparently.