[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[OmniSkribe]

I didn't even realize Gil was gay my first play through. Just happened I felt like hitting the flirt dialogue this time around. Was like "oh, missed that." Lulz

Gil has a sidequest plotline where some guy was hitting him. Even without player interaction it's pretty obvious he is gay.

[May90]

Gil has a sidequest plotline where some guy was hitting him. Even without player interaction it's pretty obvious he is gay.

The biggest I got out of it is that he attracted other guys. His personal sexuality isn't really obvious from that, although there were hints that he may have had some kind of affair story with that guy before.

[Derah]

"Insulting SJW shit?"

Over one freaking NPC out of hundreds? An NPC who isn't a major character, whom you could ignore the entire game and not even notice?

Some people . . .

Not my words, just to be clear. I think as much as you that its bullshit. But from what I've gathered, its not just "one NPC" (I'm assuming you're talking about Hanley)

I ignore all the sjw critics. What character is the sjw character? Its a Bioware game after, if a demographic isn't covered in one game you better believe that it will be represented in the next. Complaining about "sjws" while playing a Bioware game is like complaining about guns while playing a COD game.

As someone stated above, its a combination of factors from what I've been able to gather. I mean, stupid people will grasp at straws when they want to scream there's a conspiracy going on.

So far the excuses I've seen for labeling Andromeda as "SJW Propaganda" range to:

1: Cora's hair. I have NEVER seen so many people scream so loudly, and bitch this incessantly over a character's hair. Personally, I didn't find it as cringe-inducing as Jack's hair-do in ME2.

2: Female characters being supposedly ugly. Again, no clue what they're talking about. They don't look like plastic barbie dolls in space anymore, but this doesn't mean they are in any way ugly. Lexi is sexy as fuck, so is Peebee, and Suvi, and countless others. Just because not every woman looks like a model, doesn't mean they're suddenly horrifying to look at (Except Addison. *shudder* She may look better after the patch, but she is still unnerving. I can't unsee her tired face.)

3: Apparently its a big deal when none of the default skins are white by default. The only white default is Scott. All the custom male presets, custom female presets, and the default female face, are of varying shades of brown. Even though the option to make their skin white is there, apparently not having them white by default is enough to bitch about SJW pandering conspiracies.

4: Any inclusion of non-straight characters. Now this is the biggest headscratcher I've stumbled upon, and the one that makes me wonder if any of these critics have played ANY bioware game in the last 10 years. Bioware has made a reputation as one of the most (if not THE most) inclusive company in the planet. Since KOTOR made its debut over a decade and a half ago, they've ALWAYS had a few non-straight characters among the cast. And much like in real life, these non-straight characters are a minority, with the overwhelming majority being straight. But no, the presence of even ONE gay or lesbian, or bi, or trans, among a cast of HUNDREDS, is enough to once again bring out the SJW-boogieman rant.


and lastly 5: something about overblatant feminism? I've heard this one a lot in so many reviews. For the life of me, I can't find even a hint of straman feminism in Andromeda, no matter how hard I look. Even in the most abstract interpretations of every line of dialog delivered. So......*shrug*

As you can see, at least they're creative with their excuses. They're all bullshit anyways, but they're creative, I'll admit that much.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, so forced, I almost feel raped by having to hear that Hanley used to have a different name! I think I'll go file a sexual assault complaint with the police now...

To play a little of the Devil's advocate here, I know a couple of transgender people IRL, and they both agreed that its an almost universal truth that no transgender person would EVER introduce themselves with their "dead name" (*) in front of a complete stranger they just met. Even if (or SPECIALLY if) that stranger is someone they respect a lot. The issue they had with Hanley was less about her reasons for coming to Andromeda, and more about the way she expressed she was transgender. They felt Krem was MUCH better handled in Inquisition, and his backstory was exposed in a natural way that didn't felt forced or awkward.

(*)Dead Name: The original name of a transgender person that was assigned to them at birth which they had prior to transitioning. This name is discarded during the process and their new name is adopted. Its generally considered very impolite to ask a transgender person what their dead name is unless there's significant trust between you. A trans person introducing themselves with their dead name first, is the equivalent of another transgender meeting you for the first time and out of the clear blue telling you "hey, I used to have a dick you know?"

[Zephyr Storm]

So I finally finished the campaign.

Overall, it was a pretty decent game that kept me entertained most of the way through. The game did start to stall and stutter toward the end, simply because of all the sidequesting I did which eventually started to burn me out. Typical filler content that was simply rinse and repeat for the most part that eventually started to get pretty "ho-hum". Same thing happened in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Seems to be par for the course for Bioware anymore unfortunately. The Witcher 3 REALLY spoiled me in terms of top notch quality side quests, so any game that can't maintain at least that level of quality for me anymore starts to get bland/boring (damn you CD Project Red! lol)

I did run into WAY too many bugs/glitches throughout my playthrough as well. Granted, most were minor or even funny at times, but the sheer amount of times they happened started to get kind of annoying considering this is SUPPOSE to be a polished AAA game. I even encountered several that forced me to shut the game down and/or reload prior saves due to them. Was very annoying, especially for a AAA from a AAA developer.

While I don't feel like the game deserves the massive amount of hate it's getting online right now (it's still a pretty decent game that I more than got my money's worth out of), it was still pretty sad to see the severe lack of QA this game had from a developer like Bioware. It was almost embarrassing at times. Is the entire game shit though? No, not by a long shot.

All in all, it was well worth the playthrough and the multiplayer will keep me entertained for a bit longer. Here's to hoping Bioware learns from the multitude of mistakes they made on this game and improve even more on the next one.

[May90]

To play a little of the Devil's advocate here, I know a couple of transgender people IRL, and they both agreed that its an almost universal truth that no transgender person would EVER introduce themselves with their "dead name" (*) in front of a complete stranger they just met. Even if (or SPECIALLY if) that stranger is someone they respect a lot. The issue they had with Hanley was less about her reasons for coming to Andromeda, and more about the way she expressed she was transgender. They felt Krem was MUCH better handled in Inquisition, and his backstory was exposed in a natural way that didn't felt forced or awkward.

(*)Dead Name: The original name of a transgender person that was assigned to them at birth which they had prior to transitioning. This name is discarded during the process and their new name is adopted. Its generally considered very impolite to ask a transgender person what their dead name is unless there's significant trust between you. A trans person introducing themselves with their dead name first, is the equivalent of another transgender meeting you for the first time and out of the clear blue telling you "hey, I used to have a dick you know?"

Oh, I know that well, I have trans friends. But there are a few differences:
1) This is another galaxy, at a completely different time. Many people's reasons to enlist were to cut off with their previous lives and start a new. It is obvious that people are going to talk about their past very differently, as they know that everyone has a lot of skeletons in the closet which are now irrelevant.
2) She doesn't tell you she is trans out of the blue, you ask her precisely about her reasons to go to Andromeda, and she mentions her name in the middle of the general explanation.
3) She was talking to the Pathfinder, supposedly the best the expedition has to offer. If she is going to open up with the details of her personal life to anyone, it is him/her.

But these things are secondary. The point is, criticizing the game for such a minor element, however outrageous, is like picking a 1000 pages long book, finding one imperfectly put phrase there and, based on that, saying that the author doesn't know how to write. It is very petty, more so than complaints back in 2007 that got all the way to the major TV companies about the "sex scene" in Mass Effect 1.

[Derah]

Oh, I know that well, I have trans friends. But there are a few differences:
1) This is another galaxy, at a completely different time. Many people's reasons to enlist were to cut off with their previous lives and start a new. It is obvious that people are going to talk about their past very differently, as they know that everyone has a lot of skeletons in the closet which are now irrelevant.
2) She doesn't tell you she is trans out of the blue, you ask her precisely about her reasons to go to Andromeda, and she mentions her name in the middle of the general explanation.
3) She was talking to the Pathfinder, supposedly the best the expedition has to offer. If she is going to open up with the details of her personal life to anyone, it is him/her.

I know that. All 3 points are true, but it doesn't change the fact that you hear her say her dead name before she even utters her actual name. That's considered poor taste by quite a lot of transgender players. Its considered poor taste in real life too.

But these things are secondary. The point is, criticizing the game for such a minor element, however outrageous, is like picking a 1000 pages long book, finding one imperfectly put phrase there and, based on that, saying that the author doesn't know how to write. It is very petty, more so than complaints back in 2007 that got all the way to the major TV companies about the "sex scene" in Mass Effect 1.

Now this I can agree with. I didn't like how Hanley was handled as a character, but she's such a microscopically small and insignificant NPC in the ass end of nowhere, that she's ultimately irrelevant, thus the loudness of my complaint is little more than a barely audible whisper, unlike some people that have dramatized this to pretty silly proportions.

But I still consider that Hanley WAS poorly handled, and am glad that they will address this issue (Though hopefully this wont be a BIG priority for them, the game has much more significant and important and far-reaching issues right now that need fixing first. Proper triage is a must.)

[frogger237]

2: Female characters being supposedly ugly. Again, no clue what they're talking about. They don't look like plastic barbie dolls in space anymore, but this doesn't mean they are in any way ugly. Lexi is sexy as fuck, so is Peebee, and Suvi, and countless others. Just because not every woman looks like a model, doesn't mean they're suddenly horrifying to look at (Except Addison. *shudder* She may look better after the patch, but she is still unnerving. I can't unsee her tired face.)

3: Apparently its a big deal when none of the default skins are white by default. The only white default is Scott. All the custom male presets, custom female presets, and the default female face, are of varying shades of brown. Even though the option to make their skin white is there, apparently not having them white by default is enough to bitch about SJW pandering conspiracies.

I think the problem with this and other stuff is all the problems Bioware and Andromeda has had like hiring the incredibly racist Manveer Heir and him working on the game, so people take the tons of bugs, "missing white people", poor animations and stuff and link it all together into a big SJW conspiracy, even tho its most likley just a bunch of coincidences and hiring subpar people with a rushed deadline thrown in from EA.

As for the female characters, I think its due to the shitty animations and the fact they have less weathered skin than say someone like Alec.

[PACOX]

Question about the last mission and epilogue:

Was the rest of your crew supposed to join you? I had Drack and Vetra in my squad but saw Liam and Peebee running around in the final room with me. Also Addison did the whole "360 head-twist" from the Exorcist during her last scene. Her entire neck twisted like a wash cloth and all. Tried to clip it but its the only time my game didn't clip the previous 15 min. All I was able to save were the 2 secs after Addison's demonic display...creepy.

If I knew people were twitter campaigning against ME:A, I would've complained about there only being 2 haircuts for black dudes. Both which are absolute trash btw.

[Deleted]

1: Cora's hair. I have NEVER seen so many people scream so loudly, and bitch this incessantly over a character's hair. Personally, I didn't find it as cringe-inducing as Jack's hair-do in ME2.

She IS using the Speak-to-manager hairstyle which may induce PTSD for someone who used to work in retail.

[May90]

I know that. All 3 points are true, but it doesn't change the fact that you hear her say her dead name before she even utters her actual name. That's considered poor taste by quite a lot of transgender players. Its considered poor taste in real life too.

Em, she says her actual name pretty much as soon as you first talk to her. It is through a few questions in a row that you get to her saying her past name. I don't see anything critical in it: maybe a bit unrealistic, but we are talking about a fictional universe with fictional characters. I'm pretty sure Liara also wouldn't call herself "pureblood" in real life as easily as she did in Mass Effect 1, but, well, this is a video game, we have shortened interaction with everyone: a few dialogues, and you are supposed to know as much about them as if they had been your best buddy for the last 2 years.

I guess it’s a matter of opinion, many do not consider poor character writing something “petty” to complain about. Do some people over react about it and feel offended intentionally by it just feel that their complaints are justified? Sure, totally, but that doesn’t mean the problem isn’t really there, despite over the top some may choose to express themselves, that character is still extremely poorly written. Should people be judging the rest of the entire game based on just that? Of course not, but some will try to, in a really foolish way, but does it even matter?

The character is "extremely poorly written" because of one word in an optional dialogue line? Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman.

[Kathandira]

So I finally finished the campaign.

Overall, it was a pretty decent game that kept me entertained most of the way through. The game did start to stall and stutter toward the end, simply because of all the sidequesting I did which eventually started to burn me out. Typical filler content that was simply rinse and repeat for the most part that eventually started to get pretty "ho-hum". Same thing happened in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Seems to be par for the course for Bioware anymore unfortunately. The Witcher 3 REALLY spoiled me in terms of top notch quality side quests, so any game that can't maintain at least that level of quality for me anymore starts to get bland/boring (damn you CD Project Red! lol)

I never thought i'd say it, but I too was burnt out by the side quests. I had to put the game down for a little bit because I was getting bored.

I agree with everything here except maybe the Dragon Age comparison. I felt like that game hit the limit of how many side quests I can bear. Any more than that, and we have Andromeda level of bland side questing.

I think to enjoy Andromeda most, you really need to just stick to the main story stuff and ignore the side quest stuff.

Unlike in other games, the side quests aren't offering you any unique loot, or unique crafting patterns. So really, it's all just flavor quests.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I never thought i'd say it, but I too was burnt out by the side quests. I had to put the game down for a little bit because I was getting bored.

I agree with everything here except maybe the Dragon Age comparison. I felt like that game hit the limit of how many side quests I can bear. Any more than that, and we have Andromeda level of bland side questing.

I think to enjoy Andromeda most, you really need to just stick to the main story stuff and ignore the side quest stuff.

Unlike in other games, the side quests aren't offering you any unique loot, or unique crafting patterns. So really, it's all just flavor quests.

I feel the problem is the side quests explode VERY quickly at one point in the game and then you pretty much sit on them for a LONG time. A lot of them are pretty long chains too that makes things confusing at times. Not always, not even most the time, but once in a while you wonder why isn't *this* what we are focusing on instead right? Sometimes the chains make you forget what you are doing.

I cannot say if this is the truth or not but I sense a lot of "holes" and "confusion" because DLCs are on the way (EA is going to shower you with them) and once all the DLCs are in and all the little bits get worked in and placed to "complete the game" it will end up making a lot more sense. Sadly. But that is how I feel.

[Kathandira]

I feel the problem is the side quests explode VERY quickly at one point in the game and then you pretty much sit on them for a LONG time. A lot of them are pretty long chains too that makes things confusing at times. Not always, not even most the time, but once in a while you wonder why isn't *this* what we are focusing on instead right? Sometimes the chains make you forget what you are doing.

I cannot say if this is the truth or not but I sense a lot of "holes" and "confusion" because DLCs are on the way (EA is going to shower you with them) and once all the DLCs are in and all the little bits get worked in and placed to "complete the game" it will end up making a lot more sense. Sadly. But that is how I feel.

LOL I hear you on "why isn't this more important?" feeling with some side quests.

There was the one where: There was a woman who brought a life threatening, massively contagious illness to Andromeda. You had to track her down and 'resolve' the issue. I personally thought this could have been a much bigger deal, and could really have played a much bigger part in the story.

[Mirishka]

LOL I hear you on "why isn't this more important?" feeling with some side quests.

There was the one where: There was a woman who brought a life threatening, massively contagious illness to Andromeda. You had to track her down and 'resolve' the issue. I personally thought this could have been a much bigger deal, and could really have played a much bigger part in the story.

I agree with this. They treated it with urgency in the quests themselves - especially when talking to Harry who made it sound really bad - but it definitely felt like a random/one-off thing. This was potentially an epidemic - or even a pandemic if the Angarans were infected.

[Kathandira]

I agree with this. They treated it with urgency in the quests themselves - especially when talking to Harry who made it sound really bad - but it definitely felt like a random/one-off thing. This was potentially an epidemic - or even a pandemic if the Angarans were infected.

I would have loved if information about it leaked to the Angaran, and they second guessed how much they have been welcoming the milky way races. We've all seen this questline play out in movies, it rarely goes well.

[Derah]

I think the problem with this and other stuff is all the problems Bioware and Andromeda has had like hiring the incredibly racist Manveer Heir and him working on the game, so people take the tons of bugs, "missing white people", poor animations and stuff and link it all together into a big SJW conspiracy, even tho its most likley just a bunch of coincidences and hiring subpar people with a rushed deadline thrown in from EA.

That's another thing that gets me. Using Manveer as some sort of scapegoat for everything that's wrong with the game, akin to the treatment given to Ghostcrawler during his time in the development team of wow.

People blame him for inserting racist ideas into the plot, even though he wasn't a writer, and was 100% unrelated to the writing in the game. People blame him for no default white skins, even though he wasn't a designer, and was 100% unrelated to the artistic design of the game. People blame him for a lot of things, but the dude was nothing more than a simple programmer. Not even a lead developer, but ONE programmer in a team of over 300 people. He wrote code. Nothing but numbers and letters.

Don't get me wrong, I think Manveer is quite the Hypocrite (his remarks ooze of "Its not racism to discriminate against the white man") and an asshole, but to finger him and him alone for every perceived fault in Andromeda is naive at best, flat out ignorant at worst.

[Mirishka]

That's another thing that gets me. Using Manveer as some sort of scapegoat for everything that's wrong with the game, akin to the treatment given to Ghostcrawler during his time in the development team of wow.

People blame him for inserting racist ideas into the plot, even though he wasn't a writer, and was 100% unrelated to the writing in the game. People blame him for no default white skins, even though he wasn't a designer, and was 100% unrelated to the artistic design of the game. People blame him for a lot of things, but the dude was nothing more than a simple programmer. Not even a lead developer, but ONE programmer in a team of over 300 people. He wrote code. Nothing but numbers and letters.

Don't get me wrong, I think Manveer is quite the Hypocrite (his remarks ooze of "Its not racism to discriminate against the white man") and an asshole, but to finger him and him alone for every perceived fault in Andromeda is naive at best, flat out ignorant at worst.

Very well said. He's definitely a douchebag, but to blame him for the issues ME:A has is beyond stupid.

[Teishou]

I never thought i'd say it, but I too was burnt out by the side quests. I had to put the game down for a little bit because I was getting bored.

I agree with everything here except maybe the Dragon Age comparison. I felt like that game hit the limit of how many side quests I can bear. Any more than that, and we have Andromeda level of bland side questing.

I think to enjoy Andromeda most, you really need to just stick to the main story stuff and ignore the side quest stuff.

Unlike in other games, the side quests aren't offering you any unique loot, or unique crafting patterns. So really, it's all just flavor quests.

After playing the shitstorm that was FFXV, I happily took to the random strange quests that popped up in MEA. For one: there weren't that many, at all. For two: they had SOME kind of meaning to them. For three: again, I reiterate, there just weren't that many, thank everything that's holy.

[Drakpower]

To those of you that have finished the game, I have a question: do we ever find out why the Salarian Ark had high levels of encryption on their computer systems? Was it because the Kett attacked them? That didn't seem likely to me.

These side quests though...feels like I finish one on Eos then get another quest that sends me right back. It's not wearing me out yet, because this is still my first play through, but it has shown me that sidequests are really not that important.

Also, was this a change: I defeated the Elaaden Architect and it barfed out a chest. It was still the same loot you normally find in one of these things, but I remember looting directly from the Architect itself.

[Kathandira]

After playing the shitstorm that was FFXV, I happily took to the random strange quests that popped up in MEA. For one: there weren't that many, at all. For two: they had SOME kind of meaning to them. For three: again, I reiterate, there just weren't that many, thank everything that's holy.

I'd have to count how many I still have in my "Tasks" but there are way too many for my liking.

But you are right about # 2 totally. They did have relevance to what was going on, so that was a plus.

- - - Updated - - -

To those of you that have finished the game, I have a question: do we ever find out why the Salarian Ark had high levels of encryption on their computer systems? Was it because the Kett attacked them? That didn't seem likely to me.

I don't know if it was ever clarified. But if I had a guess, it would be because the Salarians are very intelligent, and didn't want to allow the Kett to have any sensitive information.