Yeah...
Multiple sources:
Link
Link
Link
Seriously Bioware, this kind of feels like a "GIEV US UR MUNNY!" type of move. They're a company like any other, but... really?
So, if I want all the DLC from Mass Effect 3 I'll have to buy a whole bunch of expensive figurines.
Yay.
[Edited by Monkey007, 1/23/2012 3:03:12 PM]
This will only be for the real fans, the DLC you will get from figurines will only be usable in Multiplayer Events. So won't affect the single player game.
Just multiplayer, huh? That's somewhat of a relief, even though I'll be playing MP too.
Well, Bioware is still one of the better devs, and I really do like them and their games. I actually didn't HATE Dragonage 2 after playing it for a while, I just wasn't a huge fan of it either. 50-50, so to speak.
And I'm sure ME3 will be great, I didn't make a huge blog spam for no reason.
I agree. DA2 was not the terrible game people make it out to be, however I only played it once, before I got tired. =[ However I have yet to play the DLCs so that would be fun.
Looking forward to ME3 Demo though! Thats going to be so much fun!
Right now i am trying to beat ME2 with all different romance options or lack there of. So yeah, that's gonna take me a while, since I get bored really quickly.
ME3 will be fully enjoyable without DLC, DLC is just to enhance the life of a game by opening it up more.
Don't know why Bioware has been getting flack from people, they are a business, although they want their customers to have fun as much as they can they still have to make money.
For teaming up with EA they chose a publisher that offers results, you are not going to team up with a publisher with no track record or results all because they are cheaper, in the software world that is a huge gamble that has only seen a small group of new publisher thrive. That later turned into a partnership of sorts.
EA never made their money in PC gaming initially, they have been around for a longer time than people realise, they were EVA in some countries but EOA in the UK their home base (in Wales). They were bought out by the now EA, but most of their staff and key people stayed on, so essentially was just a new boss but the company is still the same. Their main capital had to be from MULE and Pinball Construction Set, not to forget the huge selling PGA Tour Golf on the Megadrive and other formats.
Bioware was only really bought out recently by EA in 2007, for 22 years Bioware set the standard in western style RPG games, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights etc. The Star Wars titles really caught EA's eye though.
They had to sell, they had a great offer which in turn opened up new doors, I doubt we would have seen Mass Effect if they opposed the deal, or Dragon Age.
Both companies have made good business decisions, and the only one poor mistake made has to have been Dragon Age 2 which many didn't like because it broke off from the style of DA:O. But blame that on the casual gamer clans rather than Bioware who complained that things were too hard for them.
Since DA2 they have seen their mistake, and have made ME3 a kick ass game true to its roots with higher difficulty (yes its hard on easy, Insanity is just.... has no words to describe it).
So it is a bit strange that some people on the net invent some stories to try and give their complaints validity, but in the end no matter what they do it will never be enough for those people who are not going to support the company financially or by other means.
As for $60 you can buy the key for $40 from gamecards.eu so nobody needs to quibble about the price. The game manual will come with the key once registered on Origin.
[Edited by DABhand, 2/3/2012 5:43:23 PM]
Yeah, because the Amiga and Commodore weren't PCs, were they?
I won't nitpick, I'm just sayin'. Don't talk out your ass without the appropriate receptacles, as... Okay, I probably just made that one up, because I can't think of anyone who has ever said that. But the point is: EA was tremendously successful with their initial run of publishing PC games, and didn't even start with consoles until the late 80s-early 90s.
As for BioWare "picking" EA, they were merging with Pandemic - a studio founded by people who had taken a dislike to Activision. It was really a matter of who was offering the most money to get the nicest titles, most likely. As for Mass Effect and Dragon Age never seeing the light of day without EA - ME was published under Microsoft Game Studios as the first of a planned trilogy for 360, and was quite successful - it's likely it would've been ported to PC afterwards regardless of whether or not EA came into the picture. And Dragon Age had been in development since before 2004, so I highly doubt anyone at BW would've just let it die, either.
And as for "one poor mistake," YMMV. EA catches plenty of flak on a daily basis from a large number of people, both within the industry and from gamers. I myself won't bother going into how many mistakes I think EA's made, but I will say again that, to me, Bioware and EA's union have done wrong by driving both DA and ME to more actionized sequels. I could stand ME2 being a cover shooter, it still had Mass Effect in there. But Mass Effect 3 offering a game mode for people who want to play Mass Effect without the story bits getting in the way of the shooty bits?
Ugh. Shameless catering to every audience with a franchise that really should not attempt to appeal to the shoot-from-cover fans in the first place. There's a dozen other things I could rag on, but I won't. I'll play the game to finish the story, and I'll probably punch a hole or ten through a wall every time I get annoyed by something - especially if it's something like Ashley's hair change.
HOW CAN IT BE THAT LONG!? IT'S AGAINST REGULATIONS! SHE'S A MARINE, NOT A PAGEANT CONTESTANT!
DAB, by any chance does (or was) your job with EA have anything to do with PR? If not, you should definitely look in to it.
It makes so much sense now! His avatar, his posts in this thread - he's one of them!
ME3 will be fully enjoyable without DLC, DLC is just to enhance the life of a game by opening it up more.
Don't know why Bioware has been getting flack from people, they are a business, although they want their customers to have fun as much as they can they still have to make money.
For teaming up with EA they chose a publisher that offers results, you are not going to team up with a publisher with no track record or results all because they are cheaper, in the software world that is a huge gamble that has only seen a small group of new publisher thrive. That later turned into a partnership of sorts.
EA never made their money in PC gaming initially, they have been around for a longer time than people realise, they were EVA in some countries but EOA in the UK their home base (in Wales). They were bought out by the now EA, but most of their staff and key people stayed on, so essentially was just a new boss but the company is still the same. Their main capital had to be from MULE and Pinball Construction Set, not to forget the huge selling PGA Tour Golf on the Megadrive and other formats.
Bioware was only really bought out recently by EA in 2007, for 22 years Bioware set the standard in western style RPG games, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights etc. The Star Wars titles really caught EA's eye though.
They had to sell, they had a great offer which in turn opened up new doors, I doubt we would have seen Mass Effect if they opposed the deal, or Dragon Age.
Both companies have made good business decisions, and the only one poor mistake made has to have been Dragon Age 2 which many didn't like because it broke off from the style of DA:O. But blame that on the casual gamer clans rather than Bioware who complained that things were too hard for them.
Since DA2 they have seen their mistake, and have made ME3 a kick ass game true to its roots with higher difficulty (yes its hard on easy, Insanity is just.... has no words to describe it).
So it is a bit strange that some people on the net invent some stories to try and give their complaints validity, but in the end no matter what they do it will never be enough for those people who are not going to support the company financially or by other means.
As for $60 you can buy the key for $40 from gamecards.eu so nobody needs to quibble about the price. The game manual will come with the key once registered on Origin.
[Edited by DABhand, 2/3/2012 5:43:23 PM]
Yeah, because the Amiga and Commodore weren't PCs, were they?
I won't nitpick, I'm just sayin'. Don't talk out your ass without the appropriate receptacles, as... Okay, I probably just made that one up, because I can't think of anyone who has ever said that. But the point is: EA was tremendously successful with their initial run of publishing PC games, and didn't even start with consoles until the late 80s-early 90s.
As for BioWare "picking" EA, they were merging with Pandemic - a studio founded by people who had taken a dislike to Activision. It was really a matter of who was offering the most money to get the nicest titles, most likely. As for Mass Effect and Dragon Age never seeing the light of day without EA - ME was published under Microsoft Game Studios as the first of a planned trilogy for 360, and was quite successful - it's likely it would've been ported to PC afterwards regardless of whether or not EA came into the picture. And Dragon Age had been in development since before 2004, so I highly doubt anyone at BW would've just let it die, either.
And as for "one poor mistake," YMMV. EA catches plenty of flak on a daily basis from a large number of people, both within the industry and from gamers. I myself won't bother going into how many mistakes I think EA's made, but I will say again that, to me, Bioware and EA's union have done wrong by driving both DA and ME to more actionized sequels. I could stand ME2 being a cover shooter, it still had Mass Effect in there. But Mass Effect 3 offering a game mode for people who want to play Mass Effect without the story bits getting in the way of the shooty bits?
Ugh. Shameless catering to every audience with a franchise that really should not attempt to appeal to the shoot-from-cover fans in the first place. There's a dozen other things I could rag on, but I won't. I'll play the game to finish the story, and I'll probably punch a hole or ten through a wall every time I get annoyed by something - especially if it's something like Ashley's hair change.
HOW CAN IT BE THAT LONG!? IT'S AGAINST REGULATIONS! SHE'S A MARINE, NOT A PAGEANT CONTESTANT!
DAB, by any chance does (or was) your job with EA have anything to do with PR? If not, you should definitely look in to it.
It makes so much sense now! His avatar, his posts in this thread - he's one of them!
Actually, I believe, with the alliance being mainly space-based, that they would follow traditional Naval regulations. Under those regulations women can grow their hair long, but it has to be kept tight and tidy when on duty, as it is in ME1/2 (I forget how long her hair is, but it's in a tight fashion).
Now, if you'd have mentioned her hair style - which is loose and so against regulations - then I wouldn't have felt the need to be annoying and nitpick.
As for everything else: spot on. In my opinion EA just keep making mistake after mistake, but they stay in business because they've bought out and incorporated a lot of competitors in the past, and bought up and slapped their logo on some major names in more recent years (ala BioWare). If they just stuck to EA Games, they'd be bankrupt within a few years. But that's just my informed opinion I suppose.
As an off-topic side note, this post brings my post count up to 880, which is the exact same number of unread emails in my inbox right now.
[Edited by Skyheart, 2/12/2012 4:57:11 PM]
Actually, I believe, with the alliance being mainly space-based, that they would follow traditional Naval regulations. Under those regulations women can grow their hair long, but it has to be kept tight and tidy when on duty, as it is in ME1/2 (I forget how long her hair is, but it's in a tight fashion).
Now, if you'd have mentioned her hair style - which is loose and so against regulations - then I wouldn't have felt the need to be annoying and nitpick.
As for everything else: spot on. In my opinion EA just keep making mistake after mistake, but they stay in business because they've bought out and incorporated a lot of competitors in the past, and bought up and slapped their logo on some major names in more recent years (ala BioWare). If they just stuck to EA Games, they'd be bankrupt within a few years. But that's just my informed opinion I suppose.
As an off-topic side note, this post brings my post count up to 880, which is the exact same number of unread emails in my inbox right now.
Partially correct on the Alliance, but she's a Marine - since space combat is basically "big gun, boarding action, big gun, missile, boarding action, boarding action, boarding action," the Alliance Navy and Marines are tightly interwoven. The Marines are technically a branch of the Navy, but they are still very much separate services, as Marines focus exclusively on infantry/ground combat.
Honestly? I'm pretty sure she's gonna go straight back to being a racist so that as you ally with the other races, she defrosts and becomes sympathetic again.