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Post by gabochido on Mar 12, 2012 12:58:18 GMT -5
It really pisses me off when people believe they have a sense of entitlement to free stuff and then start ranting and raving through the anonymity of the internet when they don't get what they want. It pisses me even more when they think they know how the industry works just because they play the games and read a few articles and start saying that companies are stupid because they're not giving them things for free.
I'm referring of course to the ridiculously low review that users (not critics) are giving Mass Effect 3 in metacritic. While some of the reasons to give it a less than perfect score are definitely valid, it just seems retarded to give this excellent game a score of 0 because of things like day one DLC, which is what a lot of the backlash is about. Mass Effect 3 is already a huge game with a huge, epic storyline. Some people might not like the story (specifically the endings) and/or the gameplay and I can respect that, but to say the game is less because they have the option to purchase additional content is just beyond foolishness.
Games of that quality does not get created for free; people and services need to get paid for the development and the money has to come from somewhere. However, not everyone needs all the content that was created so companies give consumers the option to purchase the base game at a base price and to expand their experience with more content. Why do people think that they are entitled to more for the same price just because the content happened to be available at the same time?
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Post by RockBass on Mar 12, 2012 14:44:36 GMT -5
I wish gamers would understand that DLC is something that begins being made after the game is finished, but way before it ships. Often it's something the teams do while they're waiting for certification processes, and things of that ilk. Thus, there was no way to have it in the initial build.
What is really crazy about this situation is the level of quality Bioware has devoted to Mass Effect DLC in the previous games. If there was ever a batch of DLC I would happily pay for, it's something for Mass Effect.
The entitlement of gamers is just mind boggling. And frustrating.
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Post by grumpyoldgamer on Mar 12, 2012 17:13:41 GMT -5
The entitlement of gamers is just mind boggling. And frustrating. Indeed. But then again, this entitlement thing is not unique to games and gamers. My wife has been working in her field of study for many years. She worked evenings, nights, weekends... crazy hours. And only now is she getting a position where she'll be working days. And she hears constantly of people, just out of school who are unwilling to do their time. Who only wants to work days, no weekends, with full benefits. Not to sound like a grumpy old man here, but people these days... they get everything and they still want more. We live in a gimme-gimme-gimme society, so you kinda have to expect it. It's a damn shame, but there's not much which can be done except to try to educate people properly. Anyway... So, speaking of backlash... how do you guys feel about the clamor of protest concerning the ending(s) of Mass Effect 3?
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Post by RockBass on Mar 13, 2012 9:23:25 GMT -5
I've tried to avoid too many spoilers about the ending, but I have heard people are disappointed by it. To be quite honest, I don't think there's any way the ending could have been well received.
Players are probably let down from the grand finish they had in their heads, coupled with the time spent speculating what it would be after ME2.
If I had to guess, the ending is probably a downer, but it makes sense because of the sheer amount of people/aliens that have died from the invasion. If they manage to beat back the Reapers, there's still going to be generations of problems from losing a vast majority of the population in the universe. But that seems realistic.
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Post by gabochido on Mar 13, 2012 10:22:39 GMT -5
I haven't seen the ending myself yet. I also imagine, from what people have said, it will be too short and not sum up stuff adequately. Perhaps it might be convoluted and unsatisfying, like I felt the Matrix films ended. I can't really comment on the quality of the ending, but, given that the rest of the game has, at least up to where I've seen, superb gameplay and an intricate story, even the worst ending would bring this game's score from a 9 or 10 to say a 7 or 8, not to 0, as the metacritics fans would imply. Here is a video that nicely explains exactly how I feel: m.ign.com/videos/2012/03/12/mass-effect-3-opinion-videoThe comments from people are definitely against the creator of the video though. Its a sad state of humanity when so many people think like that. And unfortunately, it will most probably cause companies to change for the worse.
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Post by gabochido on Mar 13, 2012 10:35:47 GMT -5
About the DLC thing. Its true that in this case and in all the other cases of all day one DLC that bioware has made, the content for it was not finished by the time the full game was sent to certification and so couldn't be included within the disk (the DLC is sent at a later time and takes less time to be certified and can be available at launch).
So in this case, its a technical situation that forces the company to sell the DLC separate but what if it wasn't? Does that mean that if a company creates a large amount of content, enough to fill two games, but with the plan to sell it in two separate games at the same time as part of an interesting marketing plan they cant do that? Why? What gives consumers the right to demand that all content available be given to them at the price they choose, specially luxury items like video games?
And people getting upset over the mere possibility of the DLC content being included in the disk!! I assume that most people are ignorant of the fact that GPUs and CPUs (and most electronic devices for that matter) work exactly in that way? Take a modern graphics card, they are sold in different models some faster and more expensive, some slower and cheaper, but did you know they all have exactly the same circuitry inside them? Its just that the clock speed is slower or some features are disabled. The more expensive ones are sold for much more than they should and the cheaper ones are sold for much less, but this way more cards can be sold because the people likely to spend more money on more power will do so at whatever the cost while the people less likely to spend money will end up spending it if there is a cheaper option. Its the way the market works and it woks out fine for both the consumers and producers.
Including the full product in a package but enabling and selling only a part of it is a perfectly good method of reducing inventory, production and other parts of the whole business process. At the end of the day, people get what they pay for.
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Post by gabochido on Mar 13, 2012 10:47:43 GMT -5
All this humdrum got my designer hamster spinning the wheel and I started thinking how Metacritic could pipe down people who just go in to troll games.
I think they could have a tier system for users that post user reviews: Untrusted users Trusted users Valued users.
The untrusted users would only be able to post "like" or "dislike" and a written review for any given game. The accumulated likes or dislikes from untrusted users would be hidden from view on the main page and only revealed after expanding a certain section. It would also be heavily labeled as "untrusted".
To go from untrusted to trusted, a user would have to review games for at least 5 calendar days. That is, submit a review (with a minimum written length) for a different game during 5 different days. This would stop people from just creating an account to troll any game as a trusted user.
Trusted users would also only be able to like/dislike a game, but the accumulated scores from trusted users would be shown directly on the main page.
To go from trusted to valued, a user would have to have to do another 5 days of reviews. This way only worthy reviewers would become "valued".
Valued users would be able to give a numeric score and the average of those would be used for the user reviews number.
I have some other ideas to improve this system even more, but that is the main idea, make users work to have their opinions count so that not just anyone can troll a game.
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Post by grumpyoldgamer on Mar 13, 2012 11:02:14 GMT -5
True. People try to explain situations with little knowledge of the actual work process and with their opinions reinforced with the internet-knows-best effect, come up with false conclusions. It's annoying.
On the 'ending' issue, here's one of the best post I've read about it - from the BioWare forums:
And I must say that I agree with pretty much everything here. I love Mass Effect, and I have the utmost respect for BioWare as a development studio and as a think tank. But I feel that the ending of the game and the ending of the trilogy wasn't handled with the same skill and finesse as the rest of the serie.
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Post by RockBass on Mar 13, 2012 12:17:00 GMT -5
And people getting upset over the mere possibility of the DLC content being included in the disk!! I assume that most people are ignorant of the fact that GPUs and CPUs (and most electronic devices for that matter) work exactly in that way? Take a modern graphics card, they are sold in different models some faster and more expensive, some slower and cheaper, but did you know they all have exactly the same circuitry inside them? Its just that the clock speed is slower or some features are disabled. The more expensive ones are sold for much more than they should and the cheaper ones are sold for much less, but this way more cards can be sold because the people likely to spend more money on more power will do so at whatever the cost while the people less likely to spend money will end up spending it if there is a cheaper option. Its the way the market works and it woks out fine for both the consumers and producers. Including the full product in a package but enabling and selling only a part of it is a perfectly good method of reducing inventory, production and other parts of the whole business process. At the end of the day, people get what they pay for. I like to look at it as buying a car. You may get the lower end model, but you can still see the cutouts in the dash where the high end features would go. I don't feel ripped off. Especially with fighting games, including the DLC on the disk really helps with online play. I may not have downloaded that new character, but at least you can play him against me as opposed to me having not downloaded the pack.
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Post by gabochido on Mar 13, 2012 12:44:23 GMT -5
Now that's a post!
I'm not sure what happened or where the writing decisions came from or why things were done that way but its clear that the writing is disappointing to a considerable percentage. I'm not sure what can be done about it at this point.
In terms of story, its finished work and if that's the writer's own vision then I have to respect it. Note that the lead writer for Mass 3 was not the one for Mass 1 and 2 (and I might point out both are big Magic players).
However, as a commercial product it may be possible to modify it in an attempt to please the crowds. Once the dust settles and posts like that one become clear to the people in charge of the project, they may try to find a way to improve things.
However, if "improving" things for the crowds means going against the vision of the artist, I don't think that would be right. Video games like these are not just a commercial product now-a-days, they include a lot of subjective and artistic content that the creators want to show. Not everyone may agree with this, but I think its true and I also think they, just as everyone else, need to be respected.
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Post by grumpyoldgamer on Mar 13, 2012 14:10:55 GMT -5
However, if improving things for the crowds means going against the vision of the artist, I don't think that would be right. Video games like these are not just a commercial product now-a-days, they include a lot of subjective and artistic content that the creators want to show. Not everyone may agree with this, but I think its true and I also think they, just as everyone else, need to be respected. True. But at the same time I feel that this issue raise an interesting question. We are used to linear storytelling. Books, comics, movies... they all follow a similar path of going from point A to point B. They are directed and limited by the creative vision of the author/writer/director. Video games offer the possibility of a different experience, one where the public is allowed to make decisions in regard to the actual outcome. Of course, not every games are like this, but Mass Effect was unique in that it tried to build a narrative where players decisions had an impact. This was one of the key element, if not THE key element, which made Mass Effect what it was. Removing this from the end part of the game, or limiting the actual impact of those decisions to a point where they are irrelevant, goes against a lot of what the serie set itself to be. And doing so feel like a step backward for the serie (and for games in general), taking it from a semi non-linear narrative to the old linear model used by other form of art or entertainment. And it's not like either narrative (linear and non-linear) couldn't be achieved at the same time. It was definitely possible for the writers and developers to move the story and the ME universe forward in a specific direction and allow the players to have the closure that they wanted... whatever what this may be. For many players, this final game was to be an emotional farewell to an old friend, and unfortunately, the linear nature of the ending sequence didn't allow them to experience that in the way they wanted. However, as a commercial product it may be possible to modify it in an attempt to please the crowds. Once the dust settles and posts like that one become clear to the people in charge of the project, they may try to find a way to improve things. In a sense I feel like BioWare/EA has to do something about this. It's getting too big not to ackowledge. We're not talking about a few people bitching about a new game. Gamers to that all the time, and it's always the same people doing so. This time, it feels different. Last time I looked, the petition at Change.Org has 25,000 signatures; the poll on the BioWare forums for a more elaborate ending was 90% positive from 35,000 votes! Many people I see talking about this on forums and boards are usually lurkers. They did not come out to insult or critique, they came out to voice their concerns and to let the people at BioWare know that they care - that they love the game, that they love the universe and that they want a finale that is as good as the games themselves were. The reaction that people are having to this is insane: players talking about feelings of loss and sadness because of the current ending. It's crazy that people feel like this about a game, and yet it's awesome. Sure the backlash is negative in itself, but when you think about it and you realize that players are reacting like this because they care... it's amazing. I hope that the people at BioWare realize that this is a great creative victory for them - knowing that their work has become so important to so many people, and no longer just a game but a great work of fiction. I hope that something good comes out of all this.
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Post by RockBass on Mar 16, 2012 9:24:35 GMT -5
The latest Giant Bombcast has some really interesting ideas about the whole Mass Effect 3 effect in the first 40 minutes of their show. Check it out for some interesting takes on the issues people have. www.giantbomb.com/podcast/
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Post by gabochido on Mar 27, 2012 11:17:14 GMT -5
Many of you have probably heard, but for those who haven't Bioware's Ray Muzyka has posted an answer to the Mass Effect 3 reactions. It sounds quite promising: blog.bioware.com/2012/03/21/4108/
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Post by gabochido on Mar 29, 2012 14:08:11 GMT -5
Can you believe a bunch of fans got together and are sending Bioware 400 cupcakes as protest against Mass Effect's ending? Perhaps we should do something like that with Wizards to get glimmerpost banned!
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Post by RockBass on Mar 29, 2012 17:40:35 GMT -5
Their first DLC should be multiplayer map packs. Then we can see some heads explode!
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