>Inscription#0003: "The Story of a Certain Space Opera"
>Initializing response...
Mass Effect is my all-time favourite video game series, let's get that out of the way. For me, it is THE video game series. For this reason, I will always be biased in its favour and I will defend it to the day of my alleged death. However, as every established aspiring video game employee, I am capable of critical thinking and I will attempt to use this informed ability to try and assess the impact BioWare has had on the industry with its games, mostly ME.
The condensed synopsis for the original Mass Effect trilogy follows like this: in the year 2183, Commander Shepard, a renowned space mariner with a substantial service record, gets assigned on the ship SSV Normandy for a routine artifact recovery mission that goes awry. The Commander is attacked by mobile AI army of geths led by Saren Arterius, a Spectre gone rogue. They are after the same object tasked to be retrieved by Shepard, an ancient beacon left behind by the Protheans, a now-extinct ancient race of space-farers only known to humanity by the ruins of their civilization and the ground-breaking technology discovered within them. Upon discovering the beacon, it gives Shepard a grotesque vision of machines eradicating organics and then deactivates. Saren received the same vision and turns out that he is trying to find the "Conduit", an object that serves as a key for the return of "Reapers", a race of ancient machines who periodically invade the galaxy to exterminate all organic life for unfathomable reasons and then fall back into dark space in wait for their next invasion. Shepard is given the permission to join the Spectres, an elite force with special concessions working directly for the highest authority in the galaxy. Now Shepard must not only bring Saren to justice, but also save the galaxy from imminent extinction. Shepard manages to gather a handful of allies during the trilogy and gets help from unexpected sources. Not many are trusting of Shepard's word of the Reapers returning, until it is too late.
The series is famous for granting the freedom of meaningful decision making for the player and how the choices affect the outcome of the story. The player can choose to have their Shepard be a heroic, kind leading figure, or make them a ruthless, "end justifies the means" type of anti-hero. Of course, you can mix the two. The third game in the original trilogy has four different types of endings, which further get divided into a few subcategories depending on how well the player has prepared for the climactic war. The endings differ from each other significantly and give the feeling of your choices actually mattering. Some characters and even a whole species might live or die depending on the player's decisions.
BioWare attempts to suck in the player mainly through the storytelling and characters, which obviously are their strong points. The first game's mechanics and gameplay are, to put it kindly, quite bad and they did receive a fair share of criticism when the game first came out. On the contrary, BioWare received praise for the narrative and character-building. The second game, Mass Effect 2, is widely considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time; the studio took fan feedback seriously and molded the game to be better gameplay-wise and added a whole lot of new, exciting characters who each have their individual personalities and backgrounds, strengths and weaknesses. Well, almost all of them. (coughJacobcough) Contrasting to the success of the first two games, it was a huge blow for the studio to receive a crushing reception for Mass Effect 3's ending, albeit it was for a good reason. Fans felt like the ending did not meet their expectations and that it was too vague, scraped together too quickly and that the decisions they had made through the series did not have an actual impact on the final outcome. They went so far as to put together an internet campaign that demanded a better ending for the game and it included a charity drive for Child's Play, an organization that donates toys and games for children's hospitals wordlwide. A single fan took it even further in the form of filing a complaint for Federal Trade Commission, saying BioWare did not fulfill its promise for the game. The claim was supported by Better Business Bureau, who claimed the studio gave false promises about their game. Co-founder and then-CEO Ray Muzyka addressed the controversy and promised fans that they will work on a better ending; a month after the game's initial release, BioWare announced a free expansion named "Extended Cut" that added more content and details for the ending, but did not replace it. It was released at the end of June the same year. The controversy has been one of the most noted ones in the history of video games and has incited conversation about how much consumers can influence decisions made in the game-making process.
This all happened because the Mass Effect series is so absorbing and immersive. It is just that good. BioWare makes good stories, good narratives, good characters and people love these things. They get swooped right into this new universe with its lore and futurescape, they want to be part of that. Personally, I have played through the original trilogy five times and am going through the sixth one as we speak. Every time I get to the ending of the third game, at some point, I will start crying. It's almost a rule for me. At that point, the story is still fresh in my mind and when it is all finally over, all the stress comes crashing down and I'm overwhelmed by emotions. The ending, in my humble opinion, is very emotional and it always marks the end of a certain era: an era which just so happens to be extremely important to me. BioWare knows how to make good games and they are one of the most prominent studios to take fan feedback into actual consideration; if you ask me, many other studios need to follow their example. Despite all this, it is essential to remember that BioWare is owned by EA, who is notorious for releasing unfinished games early and adding paid DLCs later to gather as much money as humanly possible. BioWare has suffered its part of this which is most prominent in the newest title in the series, Mass Effect: Andromeda. Upon release in the spring of 2017, the game was littered with strange gameplay and visual bugs as well as awkward facial animations and a general feeling of not living up to original trilogy's name. Several patches have been since released to fix the bugs and animation problems, but the hassle inevitably left a bad taste in the mouths of a large portion of fans. Many forget that this mostly isn't BioWare's fault but of EA's, who dictates the deadlines and release dates for the studios it owns. The initial release of Andromeda was set to be for the holidays of 2016, but was pushed to March of 2017, but evidently it wasn't nearly enough.
Not many know of this, but I was personally part of a certain kind of significant change made for the game; upon release, a character belonging to a new species called the angara, named Jaal Ama Darav, was introduced as a heterosexual love interest for the female version of the player character. Many expectant fans were disappointed that they could not attempt to romance him as a male player character after several positive hints and teases from BioWare. More salt for the wounds was added by the fact that the two other alien teammates were both bisexual choices and were female (although the other one belongs to a monogendered species called the asari, but every asari in the series presents as a female); some considered this to contribute to the sexist myth of "every woman is bi" and that it fetishized the characters. Many fans, including myself, took their disappointment to the social media and made several tweets about it, coining the hashtag "MakeJaalBi". On top of this, I sent them a direct email and appropriately brought forth my concerns and sadness caused by their decision. Several video game news sites published articles after picking up on the topic and one of my tweets was featured in several of them. I was almost overwhelmed by the sudden publicity laid on the subject but I was also extremely excited: I had done something that reached the eyes of online news publishers and perhaps even BioWare employees themselves. Eventually, it actually happened. A bit over two months after Andromeda's release, BioWare released a patch with the statement of having carefully considered feedback about the issue and deciding to make Jaal a bisexual character. They had consulted with members of the LGBT+ community both externally and internally within their own studio and came to the conclusion that it would make sense for Jaal to be also interested in the male player character, given how the people of his race perceive the fluidity of gender.
This was it. I had made my voice loud enough for it to reach the actual game makers and I, alongside other fans, had influenced a huge change in the game. It was such a meaningful day, or week, or month, for me.
I did that.
For one, BioWare has been a trendsetter with its rich storytelling and amazing characters. They've already influenced a few choice studios with their trademark dialogue options and story-affecting decision making, and I couldn't be more thankful. If anything, it is an encomium towards the studio and a realization for many that you can indeed make good video games even if you mix regular, active gameplay with a deep, meaningful, well-thought out story. Such games need to exist more, but it's always quality over quantity. If the stars align just right and I'll work my ass off, perhaps someday I will be out there, making these games. Wish me luck.
>Logging out...
Mass Effect is my all-time favourite video game series, let's get that out of the way. For me, it is THE video game series. For this reason, I will always be biased in its favour and I will defend it to the day of my alleged death. However, as every established aspiring video game employee, I am capable of critical thinking and I will attempt to use this informed ability to try and assess the impact BioWare has had on the industry with its games, mostly ME.
The condensed synopsis for the original Mass Effect trilogy follows like this: in the year 2183, Commander Shepard, a renowned space mariner with a substantial service record, gets assigned on the ship SSV Normandy for a routine artifact recovery mission that goes awry. The Commander is attacked by mobile AI army of geths led by Saren Arterius, a Spectre gone rogue. They are after the same object tasked to be retrieved by Shepard, an ancient beacon left behind by the Protheans, a now-extinct ancient race of space-farers only known to humanity by the ruins of their civilization and the ground-breaking technology discovered within them. Upon discovering the beacon, it gives Shepard a grotesque vision of machines eradicating organics and then deactivates. Saren received the same vision and turns out that he is trying to find the "Conduit", an object that serves as a key for the return of "Reapers", a race of ancient machines who periodically invade the galaxy to exterminate all organic life for unfathomable reasons and then fall back into dark space in wait for their next invasion. Shepard is given the permission to join the Spectres, an elite force with special concessions working directly for the highest authority in the galaxy. Now Shepard must not only bring Saren to justice, but also save the galaxy from imminent extinction. Shepard manages to gather a handful of allies during the trilogy and gets help from unexpected sources. Not many are trusting of Shepard's word of the Reapers returning, until it is too late.
The series is famous for granting the freedom of meaningful decision making for the player and how the choices affect the outcome of the story. The player can choose to have their Shepard be a heroic, kind leading figure, or make them a ruthless, "end justifies the means" type of anti-hero. Of course, you can mix the two. The third game in the original trilogy has four different types of endings, which further get divided into a few subcategories depending on how well the player has prepared for the climactic war. The endings differ from each other significantly and give the feeling of your choices actually mattering. Some characters and even a whole species might live or die depending on the player's decisions.
BioWare attempts to suck in the player mainly through the storytelling and characters, which obviously are their strong points. The first game's mechanics and gameplay are, to put it kindly, quite bad and they did receive a fair share of criticism when the game first came out. On the contrary, BioWare received praise for the narrative and character-building. The second game, Mass Effect 2, is widely considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time; the studio took fan feedback seriously and molded the game to be better gameplay-wise and added a whole lot of new, exciting characters who each have their individual personalities and backgrounds, strengths and weaknesses. Well, almost all of them. (coughJacobcough) Contrasting to the success of the first two games, it was a huge blow for the studio to receive a crushing reception for Mass Effect 3's ending, albeit it was for a good reason. Fans felt like the ending did not meet their expectations and that it was too vague, scraped together too quickly and that the decisions they had made through the series did not have an actual impact on the final outcome. They went so far as to put together an internet campaign that demanded a better ending for the game and it included a charity drive for Child's Play, an organization that donates toys and games for children's hospitals wordlwide. A single fan took it even further in the form of filing a complaint for Federal Trade Commission, saying BioWare did not fulfill its promise for the game. The claim was supported by Better Business Bureau, who claimed the studio gave false promises about their game. Co-founder and then-CEO Ray Muzyka addressed the controversy and promised fans that they will work on a better ending; a month after the game's initial release, BioWare announced a free expansion named "Extended Cut" that added more content and details for the ending, but did not replace it. It was released at the end of June the same year. The controversy has been one of the most noted ones in the history of video games and has incited conversation about how much consumers can influence decisions made in the game-making process.
This all happened because the Mass Effect series is so absorbing and immersive. It is just that good. BioWare makes good stories, good narratives, good characters and people love these things. They get swooped right into this new universe with its lore and futurescape, they want to be part of that. Personally, I have played through the original trilogy five times and am going through the sixth one as we speak. Every time I get to the ending of the third game, at some point, I will start crying. It's almost a rule for me. At that point, the story is still fresh in my mind and when it is all finally over, all the stress comes crashing down and I'm overwhelmed by emotions. The ending, in my humble opinion, is very emotional and it always marks the end of a certain era: an era which just so happens to be extremely important to me. BioWare knows how to make good games and they are one of the most prominent studios to take fan feedback into actual consideration; if you ask me, many other studios need to follow their example. Despite all this, it is essential to remember that BioWare is owned by EA, who is notorious for releasing unfinished games early and adding paid DLCs later to gather as much money as humanly possible. BioWare has suffered its part of this which is most prominent in the newest title in the series, Mass Effect: Andromeda. Upon release in the spring of 2017, the game was littered with strange gameplay and visual bugs as well as awkward facial animations and a general feeling of not living up to original trilogy's name. Several patches have been since released to fix the bugs and animation problems, but the hassle inevitably left a bad taste in the mouths of a large portion of fans. Many forget that this mostly isn't BioWare's fault but of EA's, who dictates the deadlines and release dates for the studios it owns. The initial release of Andromeda was set to be for the holidays of 2016, but was pushed to March of 2017, but evidently it wasn't nearly enough.
Not many know of this, but I was personally part of a certain kind of significant change made for the game; upon release, a character belonging to a new species called the angara, named Jaal Ama Darav, was introduced as a heterosexual love interest for the female version of the player character. Many expectant fans were disappointed that they could not attempt to romance him as a male player character after several positive hints and teases from BioWare. More salt for the wounds was added by the fact that the two other alien teammates were both bisexual choices and were female (although the other one belongs to a monogendered species called the asari, but every asari in the series presents as a female); some considered this to contribute to the sexist myth of "every woman is bi" and that it fetishized the characters. Many fans, including myself, took their disappointment to the social media and made several tweets about it, coining the hashtag "MakeJaalBi". On top of this, I sent them a direct email and appropriately brought forth my concerns and sadness caused by their decision. Several video game news sites published articles after picking up on the topic and one of my tweets was featured in several of them. I was almost overwhelmed by the sudden publicity laid on the subject but I was also extremely excited: I had done something that reached the eyes of online news publishers and perhaps even BioWare employees themselves. Eventually, it actually happened. A bit over two months after Andromeda's release, BioWare released a patch with the statement of having carefully considered feedback about the issue and deciding to make Jaal a bisexual character. They had consulted with members of the LGBT+ community both externally and internally within their own studio and came to the conclusion that it would make sense for Jaal to be also interested in the male player character, given how the people of his race perceive the fluidity of gender.
This was it. I had made my voice loud enough for it to reach the actual game makers and I, alongside other fans, had influenced a huge change in the game. It was such a meaningful day, or week, or month, for me.
I did that.
For one, BioWare has been a trendsetter with its rich storytelling and amazing characters. They've already influenced a few choice studios with their trademark dialogue options and story-affecting decision making, and I couldn't be more thankful. If anything, it is an encomium towards the studio and a realization for many that you can indeed make good video games even if you mix regular, active gameplay with a deep, meaningful, well-thought out story. Such games need to exist more, but it's always quality over quantity. If the stars align just right and I'll work my ass off, perhaps someday I will be out there, making these games. Wish me luck.
>Logging out...
It's super hard to make big companies change anything so good job with that. Might need to pick up Andromeda myself if I ever see it in a sale.
VastaaPoista