Mass Effect 3 Suffers Massive User Backlash

An eGamer journalist discusses the massive backlash from users towards BioWare giant, Mass Effect 3.

[portugamer]

I think I will copy past my link, to a comment I just made, which replies to all the haters.

http://n4g.com/news/954957/...

[MagicAccent]

Stupid, stupid comment. You're not seeing the real issue at all.

I suggest 'you' go back and play CoD with the people you so passionately slander, because you're just as much of a sheep as they are.

[portugamer]

i'm happy 4 other stupids agreed with me, otherwise, i would feel so bad and stupid, with my stupid comment, i would be forced to become a cod player :)

thanks

[nveenio]

I think that people are misunderstanding the content. It's not required to complete the game effectively. If they hadn't added it, you'd never know you were missing anything. So the issue is the presentation of the content. It's presented as "Want the full experience?" When it should be presented as "Want more?"

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Please save your comment... we don't need the link. We know the argument you are making...heard it before...still not buying it.

Mass Effects core gameplay is around collecting a crew of people to go out and fight the bad guys. It is a CORE mechanic / principle to the game. EA/Bioware decided DAY 1 that in order to get the full ME3 experience that they had created BEFORE it had released to retail ..it would cost EVERYONE between $10 to $20 ...or more depending on which uber edition you bought to get this content to make the game complete as of day 1. Its a shit move...this DLC should have been in the game or at min. part of the EA pass.

I understand DLC happens...I don't mind paying for DLC made after a game has shipped. But don't you dare sell me a new game for $60 only to tell me DAY F'ing one that its not actually the whole game and in order for you to have the whole game that is available day one you need to give us an extra $10.

[ilovemyps3]

people have been paying for a game that haven't evolved since day one, using the same shitty engine, WHEN they have billions $ cash, thanks to that game, they could pay and build a new engine in 2 months, using 500 people. but no, lets milk all those "put name here", and give them new maps, every year, they will be happy. call of duty, they call it.

HERE, no problem paying, paying, paying, for dlc, for playing online(thanks microsoft and gold sub-screew-scription every year), there's absolutely no problem here.

but about me3, ok, it's not 100% correct, but even with those extra 10$, you get 10 times more and better content than most full price games can give, but people stop sleeping and living because of that. tssss, it's sad.

@portgamer, you're 5000% right.

[MagicAccent]

You go to the store and buy a packet of chocolate cookies, but when you open the pack, there are only plain cookies inside. The chocolate is an extra dollar to buy.

First day DLCs are chocolate cookies, where the chocolate costs extra. It may sound silly, but that's because it is.

[honkyjesus]

You are the hater.

[RNTody]

@Danteh
I mentioned in the article that this kind of thing usually isn't taken seriously. However, when something like this happens to a big game, users are generally trying to send a message. It happened to Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops, and I can't call it entirely unfounded.

For me, I like to siphon through the trolling and truth. I ignore user "scores", but I read what they write, because while Mass Effect 3 is obviously not a 2 out of 10 or anything as drastic as many of the users make it out to be, it can be of importance to see what it is that users are actually complaining about with the game. No game should be free from criticism in my opinion, and it's important to actually take note of what is being said, and then go off to see for yourself how true or false it is :)

That's just my opinion. I take it all with a grain of salt, but I take note of what is being said. When I go off to play Mass Effect 3 myself, I will get my own opinion of it. But I am raising awareness because I'm very interested to see why it is that users have such an issue with Mass Effect 3 when the previous two games were extremely well received with them. It couldn't have just been because of day one DLC.

[ljh217]

I just find it interesting that only the high profile games suffer such negative backlash. With MW3/Blackops it's because there wasn't enough change. With Mass Effect it seems to be the opposite, there was too much change?

I loved Mass Effect 2, and if people played it then how can they not expect Mass Effect 3 to move in a similar direction. It sold more than Mass Effect 1 and got better critic scores (ME1 - 91 average and ME2 - 96 average), which is all that matters to EA/Bioware. Anyone thinking that Mass Effect 3 was going to play more similar to Mass Effect 1 was just kidding themselves.

I have to wait till thursday/friday to play ME3 (I live in the UK), so I'm not going to jump the gun and say I love it without experiencing it. However, I too am curious as to see if any of the backlash has a valid reason behind it (with MW/BO it certainly did) but having absolutely loved the last two games and reading some reviews (not just looking at the scores) I feel like I'm in for a treat when my copy arrives.

[Heartnet]

The fact its high profile is why people do it cause more people are playing the game...

a low profile game may barely touch half a million in sales so there are less people to complain but with the games that sell loads and have a huge fanbase they will complain when something is amiss

[honkyjesus]

You are saying there is no way someone could rate the game as a 2, though. For some people playing it, it was.

[isa_scout]

People need to grow up. If you want to send the developers a message do it on the forums, send Bioware an email, or write a letter stating your disdain for the direction they have taken.EVERY big franchise does this, sure Skyrim didn't have day one DLC, but after almost 70 hours into the game crippling bugs and glitches prevented me from playing it on my ps3. Hell even Uncharted 3 did the whole fortune hunter thing which is exactly like COD Elite. Dont like the game? Simple dont play it, but dont lie and review a game you've never even picked up. Bioware doesn't owe anyone anything. They created the franchise and they can do with it whatever they want. I for one cant wait to pick my copy up later today.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I agree and disagree. Certainly child like responses and name calling will get people nowhere... but public displays of outrage and voting with your dollars will do far more than a note to the developer. I am sure Bioware is wishing they hadn't done the DLC the way they did. The amount of headache this is causing them probably isn't worth it. So hopefully they will learn a lesson on how to better manage this in the future.

[00]

SPIOLER ALERT
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Apparently the whole story is told from some old man (kind of creepy when you thing about it).
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END SPOILER.

[BraveToaster]

So why are people disagreeing with this? It's true...

[00]

Denial phase

[Rupee]

Why the fuck would you even post this?!?! Thanks...

[Gamer-Z]

I haven't played the game yet but im a big fan of the ME1 and thought ME2 did a good job even though they removed and streamlined a lot of the RPG elements but it looks like ME3 is really catering to COD crowd this time. Hopefully it isn't as bad as the user reviews are saying, i guess ill find out when i play the game today.

[Mikefizzled]

It won't, it will be a fantastic game but people think they are funny to purposefully troll games for the decisions of publishers and developers. They are clearly wasting their time as metacritic user score is a terribly inaccurate mess of 10s and 0s and literally no in between.

[BraveToaster]

Don't worry, I'm sure the developers will post 10/10 reviews on there soon enough.

[Chuk5]

Going to metacritic for respectable user reviews? While you're at it, go to youtube for insightful comments on the gay community.

[JonnyBigBoss]

Action > words. Download the game like me.

[Mikefizzled]

Well done!
Further the problem major publishers like EA have by illegally downloading the game forcing them to put prices up for everyone else. Thanks for your support to the gaming community. Hope you dont get caught :P

[BraveToaster]

"forcing them to put prices up for everyone else."
No. They do that because they know you will pay the higher price.

[Pana]

It's a massive step up from ME2 and there is finally a story with direction again such as in ME1. Yet 'fans' are slamming it. Gamers, if you could even call them that, can't tell when a good game hits them in the face. SWTOR was mediocre, DA2 was terrible in comparison to DA:O, but when you have ME3 make ME2s combat and RPG elements look like they were designed by a child, you will find that the user scores on metacritic are a lovely example of democracy falling flat on its face.

[RNTody]

I haven't played Mass Effect 3 yet so I can't yet comment on the effectiveness of its RPG elements.

However, I do wonder where this "absolute developer power" mentality amongst gamers comes from. Yes, whiners can be seriously annoying, but I believe it's a two way street. Game developers would be nothing without us, and we would be worse off without them. WE made Mass Effect famous. WE want it to be the best that it can be. This is the final game in the trilogy, it's perfectly reasonable to have high expectations for it I think.

Users have a right to complain when the first two games in the series were amazing, but the third has things that they don't like. Die-hard fans are entitled to something, I believe. Admittedly, many if not most of the user reviews are trolls, BUT if you actually read what some of the complaints amongst the more decent written reviews are, you will find that there is possible validity in them. I ignore the user "scores", because of course they're extremely unrealistic and stupid, but the content can be valid. Things that could be led to believe are actually wrong with the game. This is useful to me because when I play the game I will compare my experience to theirs.

The best opinion to trust is your own. But seeing endless lists of 90-100 scores for Mass Effect 3 doesn't help me form an opinion, because it was pretty obvious that the game would be rated in that field.

Basically, I want the final game to be epic, and better than both that came before it. I think that's pretty fair. For the users (on metacritic) who actually played the game and are not trolling, they have a right to complain about a product they bought, or have been enthusiastically supporting for years.

I do agree with you though that often quality is completely misjudged. For me, I'm a massive fan of Knights of the Old Republic, it's definitely one of my favourite ever RPGs. That, and Neverwinter Nights, are the games that first got me loving Bioware. That love only grew with Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins, but sadly since Mass Effect 2 and especially Dragon Age 2, I have basically become much less of a fan. I'm not hugely enthusiastic towards their games anymore.
Mass Effect 2 because it took away many elements I personally enjoyed in the original game, and simplified gameplay. I still really enjoyed and loved it, especially for the story, but that's how I felt. I completely agree with you Pana, Dragon Age 2 was just a horrid game for me, and probably one of the worst RPGs I've played in the last decade. I'm not even exaggerating. Among my list of issues were the pathetic party system, generic characters, horrific copy and pasted environments, brain dead combat that started out really fun but became tedious and immensely boring after millions of repetitive enemies, massively repetitive gameplay, limited character creation elements, robotic conversation wheel, completely uninteresting story, long loads and inferiority to Dragon Age: Origins in almost every way.

Since then I've sort of just been mixed about how I feel towards BioWare. I'm looking forward to Mass Effect 3 to complete my Shepard's story, but I will admit to being a bit cautious. It's for this reason that I can at least understand why users are upset.

The user scores are pointless, but some of the things they say in their reviews are/can be valid.

[Rupee]

F**k them all. I'm going to play the game and have a good time.

[Run_bare]

hahaha.. I am my own critic, so far I like the story and hopefully this will give it a good ending. I do have issue with the first day DLC, but that's another story.