[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[zealo]

Didn't SWTOR remove it the same-sex romance options?

SWTOR has a situation where the class/gender options that have more than one option available to them at all is a minority, the fact catering to straight people at first were a priority isn't that strange given statistics about the matter.

Also, SWTOR now has same-sex romance per the last 3 expansions released.

[hellhamster]

After seeing the latest ME4 trailer I wonder if we're not going backwards in time, because those facial expressions look like it's 2012 to the point they completely ruin any immersion. Companies like CD Projekt Red are probably laughing their asses off.

I'm 85% certain Andromeda will be for the Mass Effect series what Inquisition was for the Dragon Age series, a hot steaming pile of crap.

Let's hope the gameplay and the Mako will be decently implemented at least. Because so far it doesn't look good. But hey, at least it's graphically adequately colored.

[Poppincaps]

After seeing the latest ME4 trailer I wonder if we're not going backwards in time, because those facial expressions look like it's 2012 to the point they completely ruin any immersion. Companies like CD Projekt Red are probably laughing their asses off.

I'm 85% certain Andromeda will be for the Mass Effect series what Inquisition was for the Dragon Age series, a hot steaming pile of crap.

Let's hope the gameplay and the Mako will be decently implemented at least. Because so far it doesn't look good. But hey, at least it's graphically adequately colored.

I don't know what you're talking about. Inquisition was miles better than DA 2. Also CD Projekt Red has some pretty wonky facial animations on their generic NPCs as well.

[hellhamster]

I don't know what you're talking about. Inquisition was miles better than DA 2. Also CD Projekt Red has some pretty wonky facial animations on their generic NPCs as well.

It might have been better than DA 2, but it felt completely plastic and soulless to me. And I don't know which NPCs you're talking about, but Witcher 3 had the best facial expressions I've ever seen in a computerized medium.

[I Push Buttons]

Tempest, eh?

Not quite the Normandy as far as originality goes, Tempest feels a little generic, but it could be worse.
I wish it'd have something to do with previous exploration boats.

What does this even mean? What does a non-generic spaceship look like?

[Belize]

What does this even mean? What does a non-generic spaceship look like?

I mean the name Tempest feels generic, especially for an exploration ship.
Wasn't there a weapon in the game called Tempest already. SMG?

[Elim Garak]

After seeing the latest ME4 trailer I wonder if we're not going backwards in time, because those facial expressions look like it's 2012 to the point they completely ruin any immersion. Companies like CD Projekt Red are probably laughing their asses off.

I'm replaying Witcher 3 right now, and I'm pretty sure they are not laughing if anything they are hard at work trying to improve their facial animations.

[hellhamster]

I'm replaying Witcher 3 right now, and I'm pretty sure they are not laughing if anything they are hard at work trying to improve their facial animations.

Yeah, can't wait for Cyberpunk 2077.



It's been 4 years since that teaser, but I have very high expectations.

[Poppincaps]

It might have been better than DA 2, but it felt completely plastic and soulless to me. And I don't know which NPCs you're talking about, but Witcher 3 had the best facial expressions I've ever seen in a computerized medium.

First of all, I said generic NPCs. You picked a pretty important character to showcase. If I want to be even more nitpicky, you chose a still image to show on animations? What? I can pose a character's face in a very expressive manner in Zbrush. Doesn't mean I know shit about facial animations.

I would say that The Witcher 3 has the best animations of any Open World RPG. But when you compare it to games like Uncharted 4 or The Last of Us, it gets completely blown out of the water. Which makes sense because Naughty Dog only has to animate 1 conversation path (at least in The Last of Us) for maybe 30 characters or so. Whereas The Witcher 3 has to do multiple conversation paths for hundreds of characters. So it's entirely understandable and justified why The Witcher 3's facial animation isn't as good, but that still doesn't take away the fact that it isn't as good.

The fact is that Open World RPGs will always have janky animations at points. There's just too many options and characters to make them all equally good 100% of the time. Unless you do Mo-Cap for all of the characters but I imagine that'd be hella expensive and probably really time consuming.

[Nuba]

Didn't SWTOR remove it the same-sex romance options?

they made the begining of swtor straight-only, people complained the shit out of it so the next options in the campaign were bi.
I still totally wanted to bang vette on my female sith tho :/

[hellhamster]

First of all, I said generic NPCs. You picked a pretty important character to showcase. If I want to be even more nitpicky, you chose a still image to show on animations? What? I can pose a character's face in a very expressive manner in Zbrush. Doesn't mean I know shit about facial animations.

I would say that The Witcher 3 has the best animations of any Open World RPG. But when you compare it to games like Uncharted 4 or The Last of Us, it gets completely blown out of the water. Which makes sense because Naughty Dog only has to animate 1 conversation path (at least in The Last of Us) for maybe 30 characters or so. Whereas The Witcher 3 has to do multiple conversation paths for hundreds of characters. So it's entirely understandable and justified why The Witcher 3's facial animation isn't as good, but that still doesn't take away the fact that it isn't as good.

The fact is that Open World RPGs will always have janky animations at points. There's just too many options and characters to make them all equally good 100% of the time. Unless you do Mo-Cap for all of the characters but I imagine that'd be hella expensive and probably really time consuming.

I never had any issue with Witcher's side characters, maybe you played it on XBOne or something, but why are we talking about that? I just used another big world rpg's facial expressions to compare them with ME4's shown in the trailer (by main characters by the way).

Frankly, even ME2 had far better facial expressions.

[Dezerte]

It is a mystery to me, especially with EA backing BioWare how poor the facial animations have been. I mean, those things are even more important in a game like Mass Effect where you spend a lot of time chatting people up. It could give much in the way of immersion if the people we talked to in these games felt more "human".

Inquisition was of course a step-up graphically, and the character editor did allow for some fairly substantial facial sculpting (although the hair department was very lacking). But then there was the 30 FPS limit in cut-scenes that further reduced the quality of animations (hopefully this does not make a comeback in Andromeda), and perhaps this was one reason why they didn't do more work on facial animations.

[Lahis]

So I'm replaying the original trilogy as Renegade FemShep and man Jennifer Hale as VA is AMAZING. Total cold badass bitch. Does anyone know if she's the VA for the female Ryder? I always play Male on my first playthrough(I essentially make myself)but I may end up going Female first if FemRyder is Jennifer Hale again.

Jennifer Hale wouldn't make sense. Her voice is too recognizeable, and for Mass Effect, she is Shepard.

[May90]

I want Jo Wyatt to voice the female protagonist! Yes, she is Hawke and Ciri, but... Her voice is soooooooooooo good.

Would be nice if, like in DAI, they let us choose from multiple voice actor options.

[Witchblade77]

I want Jo Wyatt to voice the female protagonist! Yes, she is Hawke and Ciri, but... Her voice is soooooooooooo good.

Would be nice if, like in DAI, they let us choose from multiple voice actor options.

she is also fem agent in SWTOR. and let me tell you... between these 3 games, i was a mess O_O

[Matt0193]

I want Jo Wyatt to voice the female protagonist! Yes, she is Hawke and Ciri, but... Her voice is soooooooooooo good.

Would be nice if, like in DAI, they let us choose from multiple voice actor options.

Hopefully. The Female American voice was atrocious while the English voice (Traynor, yeeey) was great.

[Deleted]

I would bet money on it that its gonna be a huge disappointment, like DA3. I will do the same thing as I did with DA3: Got the Game cheap from HongKong and will refund it after playing a few Hours if it sucks like DA3. Thanks to Origin you can play up to 24hrs and get a Refund.

[hellhamster]

Lmao DA:I was the only good game in the series. So yes hopefully ME:A is the DA:I of the series.

I respect your opinion although it's pretty contrarian.

[I Push Buttons]

I respect your opinion although it's pretty contrarian.

How so?

DA:I was an overwhelming success?

EA said it had the best launch of any Bioware title ever, the NPD said it had 5 million retail sales, a Bioware rep added to that saying a significant portion of the game's sales were digital and thus not even tracked by the NPD. Then on top of that it received solid reviews and multiple game of the year awards (including GotY at the 2014 Game Awards).

By what metric was the game bad, a failure, etc., other than your apparently very flawed opinion?

[zealo]

You know, If you're using words like nigger or sexual slurs casually while trying to make a point about whether a characters inclusion is a token one or not, you're not exactly giving off the impression your own judgement on the matter is a rational one.

I agree quotas are bad and so is token inclusions just for brownie points, but chances are you'd see it as pandering even if the character had a point to being there besides their sexuality or skin colour with that mindset.