Per the blog post, Mass Effect development is now being led by series veterans including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley.
There are still some oldheads on ME5 at least.
As much as I enjoy to meme about Ship of Theseus and Bioware, and as much missing people like Gaider was definitely noticed in Veilguard.
There are plenty of games that took a franchise in a new direction and sometimes in better, GoW 2018 f.e.
Veilguard just had weird timing for it - in the middle of a storyline, and I felt a lot of the writing just didnât respect the player. At all.
It kind of boils down to - does the group making the game have a strong vision, good sense for design etc.
Or are they pulling together strings of Bioware mismanagement for 7 years in a rush effort to get a game out in few more.
2 Likes
Car broke down this week completely, AA couldnât do with it so they took it to a garage. Garage canât do anything with it so it needs to go to the an official manufacturer garage.
Already spent ÂŁ130 and nothing has even been done yet.
I think EA breathing down their necks to have it finished after years of scrapping and redoing it definitely didnât help. A few more years to let Veilguard cook would have done a lot (like adding a way to bring our previous choices in).
In the end, though, Iâm glad we got something that wrapped up the story. Itâs not perfect but I enjoyed my time with it.
1 Like
I donât think itâs that bad with gaming and layoffs.
We still got Warhorse Studios, CD Project Red, Larian, Obsidian and Cyanide studios. And multiple standalone great games like Helldivers, Marvel rivals etc that have come out recently.
While I personally didnât and donât intend to play veilguard, my GF very much liked it. Could it have been better according to her? Yes, but she still liked it. Good for her.
As for the layoffs, no doubt that the CEOâs and bad management are to blame for a good share when it comes to badly performing games. But the devs and dev teams also share some responsibility.
I am eternally reminded of the screenshots of the WoW devs during the aftermath of Blizzardâs scandal outright dismissing theorycrafters opinions or wanting them banned because they called some of their systems (e.g. korthia and shards) crap. Or the devs who called players wrong for not liking corruption or azerite armor as a mechanic.
Idiots as most arrogant managers are, I doubt any of them ever tell devs to make the game worse. Some of their decisions may lead to that, yes, but I doubt they ever say that.
There have for sure been some very questionable design choices and game dev work done to WoW and many other games over the years. I am glad some of the culprits like Steve Danuser are gone. Good riddance.
Sometimes your work just isnât good enough. Thatâs how it is.
1 Like
Whilst EA is no saint, and does have active tendencies to shoot itself in the foot, I find in the case of Bioware for the past what⌠10 years, EA has just become a scapegoat for fans.
Itâs the Danuser / Afrisiabi / whoever else of WoW, he did everything bad, or everything I donât like, etc.
This is as much on Bioware as it is on EA
Personally I was happier with no game than with this game, because it left a more of an open end for interpretations of Orlais and Ferelden, the places I loved. To me, Veilguard ruined the vibes of so many places, Tevinter, Nevarra. Antiva is dubious, I definitely preferred the way Zevran described it over what we got, but Iâve seen some theories where both can co-exist
Also giving warriors and rogues overtly magic abilities was just a choice.
1 Like
This yeah. I have seen the arrogance of individual WoW devs in particular, I am sure Bioware and whatever other studio also has them.
And the thing with arrogance is that it only ever works if your work is actually good. But if it is not. If you deliver a sub-par product, itâs only fair you are discontinued from working with those projects.
1 Like
For all the criticisms of Anthem that it rightfully deserves, it was an EA exec that got them onto any track whatsoever. Bioware were completely floundering with is direction and what to do with the game until they showed a vertical slice to an EA exec who said they liked the jump pack pseudo-iron man stuff, which was basically the only cool+good thing about Anthem.
On the other hand, EAâs push for live services is likely also the thing that killed both Anthem and doomed Veilguard soâŚwhoops lol
3 Likes
To be honest Lads if I was EA and gave Bioware 10 years and a big enough budget that they made 2 and a half games out of it Iâd also want at least one of those games to release so hundreds of millions doesnât just go down the drain for nothing.
Any and all info we have basically indicates the primary issue was just Bioware itself having no capacity or capability to manage its own internal affairs without going through 5 managers and directors for every shift Veilguard had over the years.
2 Likes
Corinne Busche got a game out. With minimal technical issues, with some impressive tech that weâve not seen in other games, like the long hair stuff.
Even if I donât agree with a lot of the aesthetic, narrative choices, which were likely deferred to specific leads anyways.
She did a damn good job for the mess that was Dragon Age 4 development cycle.
7 Likes
Yeah. Game devs are not victims always. Sometimes they just do a crap job.
1 Like
Good morning all. I hope everybody is doing well!
No peeves today. I slept a little and can now rest for weeks after that holiday.
1 Like
Oh yeah, Bioware horribly mismanaged it too. Itâs just a big mess throughout.
1 Like
I just hope Avowed isnât a steaming pile of 
. Donât do it to me Obsidian.
2 Likes
Everyone at every level of a company is expected to accomplish or exceed at the task that they were hired to perform, to provide satisfactory results.
This applies to managers as well, who are expected to manage their department in a fashion that causes the department to meet or exceed the expectations that upper management has regarding that department.
In order to maximise the efficiency of their department and to meet or exceed the expectations of upper management, the manager feels compelled to hire the most capable individuals that they can get their hands on.
As parents (particularly soon-to-be or recent mothers) are often perceived as less efficient workers due to the demands of parenthood, a manager is encouraged to hire someone else who doesnât suffer from that perceived impairment, as the manager is the one who will be penalised if their department underperforms.
As long as a company seeks to generate as much income as possible, it will always demand as much productivity and efficiency from its workers as it is legally allowed to, and it will not hire certain workers if it does not believe that those workers will meet its expectations.
Such is the nature of all efficiency-centric economic systems, including capitalism. As long as productivity remains king, companies are compelled to not hire people who they deem will be insufficiently efficient. Why hire someone if you donât think their work will be good enough?
I think it is a shame how Dragon Age seems to be going out. Back in the day, Origins was one of my favourite rpgâs, even if the gameplay itself was simple, because of the story. Because while the formula of âPerson is forced from their previous life, becomes the Chosen One to Save the Worldâ is old as time, people do seem to be coming back to that gladly. And Origins I will always remember for the grit of itâs setting, the choices you had to make ( even if I was a big softie and just couldnât find it in me to be evil), the darkspawn and undead actually looking terrifying.
Two and thee its been ages since I played and I still need to complete 3 , since I got lost in the open world stuff there and barely made it to Skyhold before stopping to play.
Veilguard from what I have heard and read just⌠doesnât seem to be that good, even if you discard all the criticism about woke and Taash etc. And I just think itâs a shame.
I guess I will wait until Veilguard ends up in sale to see if I will try it.
2 Likes
I know a lot of people who really enjoyed Veilguardâmyself includedâso itâs not some unanimous âthis game was terribleâ at least. Best thing to do is play for yourself and make your own mind up.
I found it to be one of the best RPGs Iâve played in recent years.
3 Likes
Itâs a solid 7-8/10 game, definitely worth getting on sale
5 Likes
Personally I just have too many games in the backlog that Iâm trying to work through, and Veilguard just wasnât compelling enough to me personally to jump the queue after a few hours with it.
Iâm still working through Last of Us 2, Yakuza 0 and Kingdom Come Deliverance.
But Veilguards time will come around eventually.
3 Likes
Well for one it is illegal to discriminate based on parenthood. Capitalistic systems are still subject to law.
And thwse people should know this. They canât feign ignorance.
And yet they still do it. I donât get it.