How EA can get people to care about Mass Effect again

Most players probably don’t know that Mass Effect 3’s latest single-player content pack, Omega, is out because they don't care about the franchise anymore. And EA should do something about it.

[Lifeequals42]

I'm through with Mass Effect....

[deletingthis34675334]

I am through with BioWare anything, period. Not happy with the direction they are going. They abandoned their loyal fans that made them successful and pander their games to the MTV crowd all for a little extra cash. Sad company is sad.

[shempo]

bash EA not bioware,they r the one telling bioware what to do,how and when.

[dedicatedtogamers]

Bioware's last two great games were Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 1. ME2 was good but simple compared to ME1, DA2 was crap, ME3 was a Hollywood shoot-fest, The Old Republic was (predictably) a huge flop...

The problem is, Bioware simply stopped respecting its fanbase, and we all know why that is (hint: it has to do with who bought them).

[shempo]

again the problem is EA not bioware
they r the one that tell bioware what to do.

[dedicatedtogamers]

@ shempo

But the majority of Bioware's founders and upper management have all left the company. The Old Republic MMO has pretty much gutted the Bioware we once knew and loved, and you can BET that EA took Knights of the Old Republic III and told Bioware to make it an MMO, based on all of the voice acting that was done.

[Christopher]

Gotta agree. I'm through with Mass Effect. Not to say I might not pick up a ME game if it was based on playing someone more like Thane or Kai Leng in a less shooter mode, but it won't be because it's an ME game. It'll be because I think the gameplay is nice.

Their 'management' decisions have left me very underwhelmed. Both ME and DA.

But, it does look like a lot of the effort in narration and storytelling has made its way into their SWtOR team. Too bad they're not making standalone RPGs anymore.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Battlefield, Madden and Fifa among others are still successful.

But Yeah, its amazing how EA's killing there own franchises. Fuse which is a new IP? (Sorry Insomniac) Dragon Age, DeadSpace, ME (sadly) MOH (a huge disappointment) Nobody cares about Army Of 2.

I was begging for Jade Empire 2 but they might mess that up to...

Mirrors 2 edge may God be with you.

[otherZinc]

1. EA needs to Fire Itself.

2. Find a way to bring Commander Shepard back!

[Kamikaze135]

By not having a single ounce of input. Give Bioware a deadline, fund it, and let them do their own thing.

[Christopher]

One of the problems is that DA2 came out the way it did because they gave them a ridiculous deadline. They need to be lenient and respectful of the process with a deadline.

[ravinash]

It's a bit like taking the goose and squeezing it to get the next golden egg out.

Opps...killed the goose!

[NYC_Gamer]

EA should let Bioware create an rpg instead of some mainstream third person shooter

[CalvinKlein]

Make it on next gen consoles and bring back all the RPG stuff with the improved shooting.

Mostly let me land on planets and stuff and then drive somewhere, get out and kill stuff indoors and then get back into the car and drive around again like in Mass effect 1.

[showtimefolks]

by creating future ME games to have the RPG elements of the 1st ME game and action and story telling of the 2nd ME game IMO

i didn't hate ME3 ending because it is what the developers originally planned, its some of our complaining which is why th good doctors at EA left. Gamers these days complain about every little thing and start petitions and talk about boycotting future releases. now someone please explain this to me an added 10 minutes of cut scene did what for the ending? they basically kept the originally only explained why that was the ending.

IMO developers should never let the fans influence their choices because most of us are good with what they make its only a small percentage of gamers that will start all kind of crap. developers should get feedback from gamers but end of the day should do what they think is right

[Sovereign59]

The ending was not what the developers originally planned because an ending was never set in stone. Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer for Mass Effect 1 and he left Bioware halfway through the development of Mass Effect 2. It shows. Had he stayed and continued to work on the franchise I believe 3 would have had a much different ending, a preferable one to the nightmare of a conclusion Casey Hudson and Mac Walters threw together on their own and then did not allow the rest of the writing team to peer review.

As I've stated before, here is my advice to Bioware:

1. Cease all work on a future Mass Effect game
2. Pour all resources and energy into building a time machine
3. Travel back to the halfway point of ME2's development
4. Somehow convince Drew Karpyshyn to stay on the Mass Effect 2 team, also, make choices from the first game have more of an impact in the second
5. Manage to keep Karpyshyn on board through Mass Effect 3, also, make choices from the second game have more of an impact in the third
6. Probably the most important step. Do not allow Casey Hudson and Mac Walters to write the ending alone and then not have it peer reviewed by the rest of the team

As long as the current ending is considered canon, I do not care to purchase any new media dealing with this franchise. This is not easy for me to say as Mass Effect 1 is probably my favorite story in a video game this decade. I played the Leviathan DLC when that came out and it was like the vanilla game all over again. I had a pretty good time right up until the last 15 minutes. It further trivialized the Reapers and somehow made the ending of the trilogy seem worse.
I will not be downloading the Omega DLC. I can't even take the plot of it seriously. The Reapers are attacking our worlds, my Shepard does not have time to help Aria reclaim her wretched hive of scum and villainy from Cerberus while all organic life is being purged from the galaxy in the meantime. Does this not seem trivial to anyone else?
I'm also done with the multiplayer. I got all excited to fight the Collectors when that free DLC came out and then it was just such an unrewarding and painful experience. Maybe I'll play it again someday when they're done nerfing every weapon into oblivion.
I really am sorry that the ending of Mass Effect 3 and the direction Bioware has taken has left me so bitter.

[aliengmr]

1. That was NOT the originally planned ending.

2. The "RPG" elements were taken out to play to a larger audience. That's publisher influence.

3. Petitions and boycotting never amount to anything in 99% of cases. Fan feedback is largely ignored in the industry. But its not all bad, you could say fan feedback, in a very twisted way, helped give us Half-Life 2.

4. The "good doctors" did not leave because fans hurt their feeling. One of them left for personal reasons and the other left because he eyed the top spot at EA and it wasn't going to happen. Fans had nothing to do with it.

5. If Bioware really thought the ending worked as is they would have kept it that way. But really, it doesn't take a literary professor to see the glaring flaws of the ending. Hell, you have a good chunk of the fans whom, like the author, refusing to believe it was real.

There is a difference between liking/disliking parts of a story and a story being functionally broken. ME3 was a largely broken narrative wearing lots of make-up. It really just came down to time and the lack any thought put into the overall narrative.

[SageHonor]

" ts some of our complaining which is why th good doctors at EA left. "

Not true at all. The doctors themselves even disproved this

[showtimefolks]

well you can't expect them to say we left because of that but i am sure it had something to do with it. these guys are rich they sold bioware for a lot of money so in a way this was their passion. so when people started to question that maybe it tarnished their hopes/dreams a little bit

while we complained about the endings a lot of people made it way too personal by taking cheap shots at bioware

[aliengmr]

@showtimefolks

No it really didn't. Some troll article tried to say that a few months back, but in the very same article it explained the reasons.

The hopes and dreams of one of them (I forget which) was tarnished, by not being able to run EA.

Further more, they quit BioWare long before they actually left. They had almost no involvement with ME3.

[Megaton]

Stop trying to be Gears.

[shempo]

they r better third person shooters than gears trust me and with a STORY.

uncharted 2 is one of them

[SnakeCQC]

GIVE ME DRAGON AGE ORIGINS 2!

[Hufandpuf]

and people praised ME3 when it came out...

[animegamingnerd]

only critics did for something

[Hufandpuf]

That's my point. I should've put sarcasm after my comment.

[KMCROC54]

Sell it back to MS & walk away.

[dirthurts]

I wasn't going to play ME3, but then it was 12 bucks on sale...
Now it's in line, but others have priority.

[Jek_Porkins]

I didn't realize people stopped caring about the game? I loved the series and even though part 3 had some controversy, the entire game was a masterpiece, I originally thought you were indoctrinated and that is why it ended the way it did.

I'll buy into another Mass Effect game for sure, I'm not one of the gamers that complains about every little thing this generation. Those are the true reasons this generation hasn't been that great, the games have been wonderful, the complainers and whiners have been overbearing and annoying to say the least.

[aliengmr]

"I originally thought you were indoctrinated and that is why it ended the way it did."

According to BW you were to take that ending at face value. It took FAN-FICTION for people to emotionally accept that ending.

You like it, great, that's fine, I won't try to convince you to hate it. But while you're sitting up there, looking down at the complainers, consider the fact that in order to make sense of the ending, you had to make up your own.

[Jek_Porkins]

I come from a day and age of video games where the endings were a dream, like Mario 2, or a misspelled text ending like Ghost Busters. I was just thankful to be able to have an amazing hobby like playing video games.

I'm still as thankful as ever, I never feel like I'm owed something. Movies often leave ending up to interpretation as well, I thought it was clear, the expanded ending further confirmed my thoughts.

As for the complainers, just take a look at what people complain about this gen, you'll see how bad its gotten.

[ForgottenProphecy]

They could make Bioware write at least a decent ending. The one they have now is so bad, I pretend it never happened.

[ninjahunter]

Im not through with mass effect, im just not convinced i should buy it.

[ALLWRONG]

Can never get it back, EA has ruined it for good.

[mananimal]

Bioware is DEAD, RIP.

The EA Reaper has struck again.

I never ever purchase anything Published by EA, period.

EA has ZERO!!! chance at convincing me of anything, my mind has been made up about EA since they snubbed The Sega Dreamcast back in the late 90's to 2000's gaming era.
Nothing has changed & nothing ever will change with EA. Everything they touch they Destroy!, simple.

Can a leopard change his spots? , Lol, they are who they are.

If I told you gamers the TRUTH, the WHY's behind all the decisions this Generation with Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Valve with Steam, & all Publishers, the whole Casual gaming movement, the longer generational cycle, the watering down of Core Gamer franchises, DRM, etc etc......,you wldnt believe it anyhow, you would reject the TRUTH, i wont bother. lol

[Mythicninja]

Please tell me, I'm listening

[KingMe42]

Simple.

Tell EA to take a hick and never return. Many publishers still have some fans but EA is what scares most people off.