Mass Effect 3 campaign modes leaked
An accidental leak of the Mass Effect 3 beta over the weekend revealed three campaign modes, emphasizing action, story, or both. BioWare says these features are still early and will receive "considerable iteration and refinement" before the March release.
The Mass Effect 3 beta was accidentally leaked to those taking part in the Microsoft dashboard preview over the weekend. Though the game was quickly pulled from the service, the all-seeing eyes of the Internet was quick on the draw to learn new campaign mode details.
The biggest revelation are the campaign modes, preset options that accentuate different parts of the game experience. "Action Mode" sets conversation to automatic replies and attunes the game to normal difficulty. "Story Mode" sets manual replies and minimal combat difficulty. "RPG Mode" is the one most Mass Effect fans are used to, setting manual replies and normal difficulty. You can alter the conversation and difficulty settings individually yourself as well.
The leaks are compiled on NeoGAF, full of blurry screenshots and transcriptions.
BioWare has given a response (via Eurogamer) to the leak, reminding fans that this version of the game is a far cry from the final version due in March.
"One feature that was present in this early build is a set of game play modes that are in development," said producer Jesse Houston. "We want to stress that these features are still in the early stages of development and will receive considerable iteration and refinement. These modes are designed to give players an even finer degree of control over their game experience than ever before. Whether it be someone who finds the combat difficult but wants to experience the amazing story, someone who wants to focus on the action and combat game play, or fans who want the rich, story-driven RPG Mass Effect experience they’ve come to love - Mass Effect 3 will support all of these options. We'll have more info in the days ahead!"
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replySteve Watts posted a new article, Mass Effect 3 campaign modes leaked.
An accidental leak of the Mass Effect 3 beta over the weekend revealed three campaign modes, emphasizing action, story, or both. BioWare says these features are still early and will receive "considerable iteration and refinement" before the March release.-
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automatic replies... yeah that's not a slippery slope. "Oh we decided to cut out 4,000 lines of dialogue because it would have been boring for people playing Action mode."
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* D R A G O N A G E II ' D *
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Eesh.
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Hey everyone, let's completely overreact.
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This sounds like an interesting concept. It could be an interesting way to provide a deeper shooter experience for those who just want to play a shooter while keeping the RPG roots. It reminds me of the auto assists in racing games. You make the game more approachable without gutting the deeper more complex RPG roots. I will be interested to see if/how this feature evolves.
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That's what I was going to say as well.
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the problem is, why would a dudebro bother buying the third in a trilogy? If they didn't like the first two why the hell would they bother playing the third, no matter how dumbed down it is? It's a waste of resources and time. EA needs to refocus on the type of people who bought the first two and played through them.
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It may not be in their best interest. They could fail to interest the dude bros anyway while turning off their rpg audience and their fans. It may end up selling less because if it, tarnish their reputation and reduce further future Bioware sales after this and DA2. Is that worth trying to get some of the dude bros who were not interested in the first place? How are the dude bros going to even know this new mode exists in this game? Are they really keeping up on MA3 news? Are they expected to hear it from their RPG friends who are likely bad mouthing the game over the feature?
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So you're saying they should shoot for fewer and fewer sales on each sequel? That's asinine.
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Are they going to announce it will or has adversely effected the product?
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How is it that most sequels for big games always sell more than their previous counterparts then?
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One thing done exceptionally well or 20 things done half-assedly... it's not complicated. Trying to "broaden" the game's audience is a silly argument.
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Defining a default response to each dialog option is not "20 things done half-assedly".
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That's a really good idea. Allow people to enjoy the parts of the game they like.
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I get what you're saying and I agree with some of it. However, I think you're coming to a conclusion that isn't necessary warranted. The vast majority of games with story cutscenes and dialog allow you to just press Start to skip the scene and get back to the gameplay. The only reason Mass Effect doesn't let you do this is because you need to respond and such. So I see this change as really just giving gamers back the same option that has been there for most games: the ability to skip the stuff they don't want to watch.
Now, certain fears are somewhat warranted, like the fact that they may put less dev time on the story if they think the majority of players will play on action mode. I don't think that will be the case here (it won't be for that reason, at least), but I can accept that fear as rational.
Are you against the feature that some Nintendo games have been adding, where the player can choose to skip the current level and go to the next one? I think it's genius; it allows someone to play the parts of the game they like without having to play the parts they don't like.-
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That's exactly my point: they don't have to watch the GoW3 story because they can press start to skip it.
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I just don't think designating one of the dialog options as "default" is a slippery slope. Action mode really is nothing more than that.
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For one thing if it turns out that the action mode is most popular then next game the smart business move would be to just make an action game. That is a slope that would be slippery.
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That's a pretty ridiculous fear because they can already know what is more popular using focus tests. If you're worried about them switching to developing the next Call of Duty then okay fine I guess, but Action Mode being the catalyst for that worry is really, really silly.
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How do you focus test a mode in your game if it doesn't exist?
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That's like saying "how do you focus test your game if it's not finished?"
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It's actually nothing like that. When we focus test things we do it for things that are IN THE GAME. Yes we watch them, speak to them, and have them fill out a form about their experience that we can then use to possibly determine if something not in the game would be good to add but typically you are getting feedback or observing them use systems in the unfinished game.
Usually we also SCREEN the people ahead of time so we try not to get a race car sim guy unless we want that so I imagine that they normally try to get people who like action games and RPGs. It's possible based on their feedback they would decide their next game should be entirely an action game but I don't see it going down like that with the people they probably get for a focus test. I think when they focus test THIS game they are trying to improve this shipping game and not worrying about focus test feedback in regards to their next project.
However AFTER the game ships if they can capture stats on what mode most people select they would likely use that to inform the design for their next project. Stats like that have much higher accuracy because it is based on how people actually play the game, not how they play when a developer is looking over their shoulder, on camera, or behind a two way mirror. I have seen people say they liked something when clearly they did not just because they didn't want to be a douche to the developer, I guess. Hell I have done that way way back in the day. People lie all the time too, like when they say what kinds of games they play. They say they are a hardcore shooter player and come in and can hardly use standard FPS controls.
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I agree with you. The story sequences of Mass Effect are content, not filler. If anything, much of the other content in this series has been filler; the character interaction sequences offer most of these games' unique content.
It's akin to the discussions that have been had recently about Apple products after Jobs' death - make something awesome and unique and tell people "hey, come on over here and check this out, it's pretty cool". Consumer choice is obviously an important aspect of our consumption economy, but it's not the Holy Grail. Sometimes all choice does is water things down or make the choices indistinguishable & meaningless.
I remember reading about a test conducted a few years ago where two tables were set up in a public area to sample/sell different flavors of jelly. One table had over 20 flavors, whereas the other had just 5 or 6. Overwhelmingly, the results of the test were that although the 20+ flavor table had many more people stop to taste, they had far fewer actual sales than the table with just a handful of flavors.
Make something unique, make something good. Make us want it because you've been selective about how you make it and present it.
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sorry, but mass effect 2 sort of did this indirectly and was one of the best games ever
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lol if you think that game is exempt from criticism you haven't been around here too long
great game - also one of the best ever! - but worthy of loads of criticism -
To me, calling HL2 the best game ever is certainly hyperbole. It's a great, great game, which I've played through twice, and it's remarkable how well it stands the test of time. That being said, it comes nowhere close to ME2 when talking atmosphere or technical merits. Not that it's easy to compare the two directly.
Besides the point, anyway. ME2 is truly and honestly my favorite SP game, ever. I've played through it 3 times now in the relatively short time that it's been out. I love scifi, the action in ME2 pretty much nails it for my tastes and while I've never been a huge RPG fan, the light elements it has just finish the deal. That is not hyperbole, I was just answering your question. Not one of the best, the best.-
Is it really fair to compare two games that come out six years apart on their technical merits? For what it's worth, Half-Life 2 was a much greater technical accomplishment at the time. I also think the atmosphere is much better than Mass Effect 2. Just compare Ravenholm to some of the dull, lifeless, completely non-interactive levels in ME2. Did I mention the waist-high conveniently placed crates everywhere?
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It's not a split of focus. You could add this feature on top of Mass Effect 1 or 2 retroactively without changing a thing and in very little time. The only dev resources needed are deciding what the "default" response to each dialog option is.
"Story mode" is literally nothing more than setting the difficulty to the lowest option. For the most part it's just different labels for difficulty selection, with the one added feature of automatic dialog responses.
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Until ME4 when they look at the metrics and see ohh 64% of the people chose Action so we don't need to bother with the story.
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I don't understand why someone would look at this that way. Are you saying that the games would be the same experience without the RPG elements, that the exploration, dialogue and equipment management gave absolutely nothing to the games? Of course you are not, that'd be silly. They're there to serve a purpose, they're a part of the whole just like the action is. Just because it's an action/RPG hydrid doesn't mean the RPG elements are there just for show. If the games were all action, I certainly as hell would not consider them the best SP experiences to date.
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No the equipment management does not add anything. Its poorly done and got in the way for me in both ME1 and ME2. Dialog does not an RPG make, and their choices in the game are the super stereotypical pure evil or pure good. I would have been fine with one or the other personally. Beyond that what exploration? Driving around on barren plants in the first game or exploring the same 10-15 repourposed levels (or the even more amazing scan the spinning sphere game?). I only had fun in those games with the main story, and I did so because of the production values, setting, and action. I love RPGs but in this case the RPG elements just get in the way.
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What you're saying here is that you don't like the RPG elements in the game. Fine. But even if so, many others did and do. This alone makes them about more than the ability to say "hey guys were are an RPG". It's an action game with RPG element, and those elements for me are of much more value than just justification for the use of those three letters.
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i don't see why this means that any less attention was paid to the RPG elements. seems they made some default settings for players who want to fast track to play a different way without changing the core functionality of the game for someone who wants all the options.
if more people buy and play it, that makes future games have more money to be built.-
Well, the RPG elements were mostly utilized in upgrading your character for combat situations, and you'd earn different amounts of XP for various conversational and story related choices too. Everything was tied together in the first game, less so in the second, now it might really feel like two unconnected games smashed together? I have no idea what to expect.
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The more I read, the more I worry that the final product is going to be a heap of overdesigned shit.
Trying to cram a ton of new features in? Features that seem quite pointless given the last 2 games approach? Yeah the final product is gonna suffer...no doubt.
Feel free to condemn me as a naysayer, but I've said it once and I'll say it again...after Dragon Age 2, Bioware burned a LOT of credibility, where once Bioware was beyond reproach, now it's a matter of "wait and see/for the review".
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Yeah, litereally the only thing that's new is having default dialog options, and an option that just uses the default every time.
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Not at all. Tons of RPGs don't offer dialog choices.
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Rage over more options = lol
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I remember BioWare saying that this iteration will have more RPG stuff than ME2. So this means that people can enjoy the RPG aspects and others can enjoy playing it in a different fashion.
It's like you can have your cake and eat it too. -
It's just mind blowing that people would choose to bitch and rage over something like this before even trying it out. If you actually read the article, all that "action mode" does for you is make the dialogue flow quicker, by choosing your replies - I'd personally guess on some general "good or bad boy" choice. Neither of the previous two games were ever "deep" role playing games, and I don't see why one would expect this one to be either. Mass Effect is about an epic story and action, and I don't see how these modes take away from that in the least. How is Action mode any different from someone playing the game by clicking the first dialogue choice that happens to be under their mouse, because they just don't care about the RPG aspects? Just choose the RPG mode if you want it to be like the previous iterations. Stop worrying about what other people want or enjoy.
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If they don't care about the RPG aspects, why are the RPG aspects there then? Why have dozens of hours of dialogue been recorded, quests been designed and equipment management and character development been implemented? Would the game be the same experience without them, if it started out with shooting and was nothing but shooting? Just as many of the top moments I've had in ME games have been "RPG moments" as they have been action ones, and I see no reason here to doubt why that wouldn't be the case for ME3 as well. Why do you insist on classifying a game "as an RPG or NOT as an RPG"? All ME games have been something in between, why would you expect anything different?
There is NOTHING that has been stated here that would indicate that you can't play the game just like the previous ones. All that's been said is that there is an option for people to skip making their own dialogue choices if they are not interested in doing so, and just follow the story. To me it reads like you're jumping to conclusions to have something to bitch about.-
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And where exactly was it stated again that people wouldn't see it? A person playing through the game will see one dialogue option per choice, be it in story mode, action mode or dialogue mode. Was it stated that the choices made by the action mode will always be the same? No. Did you really read the article?
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Uhh... How about randomizing the nature of the character at the start, you know... good guy, bad guy, neutral guy? Or how about asking the player this? And still letting the player make the big decisions? Why on earth would you assume that the choices made would always be the same, there's absolutely no basis for that.
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I really don't get your point here. ME games have always been about the story and the action. The announcement here doesn't change it in any way. All it does is automate some dialogue choices for those who don't care about making them for themselves, and opt for a faster, more cinematic presentation.
If they wanted to make a straight out shooter, then I'm willing to bet that that's what they'd be making. Judging on the news ME3 so far, they're just not. Had the news been "dialogue and story removed from ME3", I'd be fucking pissed as well. But that's not what I read.-
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You do realize they already have those stats. They had them in the first game, and they had them after the second game. They released stats showing most people choose the default male and went soldier. They still include all the other character classes. They still add an option to play as a female.
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ME2 was already 80% straight up shooter anyway. From what I've read of the leaked story, not a single decision you made makes a difference in the story at all.
