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[motorised mallard]

Tinfoil hat mode : On

They are going to turn the IP into a mp only shooter, aren't they?

Tinfoil hat mode : Off


Funny enough, I was warming up to the idea of checking this out at some point, as in when it goes for something like 10-20 €. But if the GB stream is any indication of the overall quality, I'm going to skip it for good, counting sand would be better use of my time in that case. This would have been somewhat acceptable before 2010 but now? No way.

And this is from someone who was burned by ending of ME3 very badly, meaning that if I had any physical stuff, I would probably have broken them and / or thrown them to the garbage bin. Yes, I was seriously that angry / disappointed back then.

 

[Toxi]

I mean it sucks if you are the "B Team" but the fact is sometimes they are indeed lesser or a worse developer.

The Dark Souls 2 team is not a lesser or worse developer.

 

[Makareu]

Someone added appropriate music:
https://twitter.com/Pepipopa/status/842436629746839552

That's incredible. Feels good to be genuinely laughing while reading a thread for a change.

 

[True Fire]

If Andromeda comes out and is a step down from franchise norms, then this "B Team" is indeed a lesser developer.

I'm so tired of B Team deflection tbh. This game is 100% reflective on Bioware as a whole, as was Inquisition and Mass Effect 3.

 

[Obliterator]

The Dark Souls 2 team is not a lesser or worse developer.

I'm not saying they are.

I'm saying sometimes secondary teams are factually worse than main teams and there is nothing wrong with stating as much.

We don't need to go out of our way to make everyone feel good all the time. If a team out there makes a worse product there is nothing whatsoever wrong with addressing that.

I'm so tired of B Team deflection tbh. This game is 100% reflective on Bioware as a whole, as was Inquisition and Mass Effect 3.

Those are both well liked games considered high quality by the masses, so sounds about right.

 

[Teeth]

Can't have been just darkening them? There is also extra dimensionality and shininess that I can't quite make out in the original.

Makes her look SO much more alive, though.

You darken the tops of the irises more than the bottom because they are inset into the eyeball and the top rim casts an internal shadow. I also added two white dots for glare.
M A G I C .

Here's another example:

You can do it with literally all of the characters in the game.

 

[SmackAttack]

Going through this thread, I go back and forth between laughing and being taken aback. How are these animations and facial expressions so bad and off? Sure it's not been one of Bioware's strongest points but damn some of this is just plain bad. ME 3 burned me in many way and I'm definitely not buying this at full price but I gotta say at least I should have a good laugh when I give this a try.

 

[Lime]

Is that supposed to be a good thing?

No, but it's still people involved from previous games.

Mac Walters is a huge red flag tough.

 

[Septimius]

You darken the tops of the irises more than the bottom because they are inset into the eyeball and the top rim casts an internal shadow. I also added two white dots for glare.
M A G I C .

Here's another example:

You can do it with literally all of the characters in the game.

She still looks psychopathic, but at least she looks human.

 

[Omega Kirby]

How did they drop the ball so much on this.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

You darken the tops of the irises more than the bottom because they are inset into the eyeball and the top rim casts an internal shadow. I also added two white dots for glare.
M A G I C .

Here's another example:

You can do it with literally all of the characters in the game.

Dosn't work as well in this case.

Still is a big improvement.

 

[Archtreyz]

Everyone excited for Andromeda stand and be counted

I'm even more excited after seeing this thread.

 

[Heshinsi]

I mean, I appreciate the fact the game character dosn't have a really attractive face like the model is based on. Is a bit of fresh air in gaming, just like Alloy.

Obviously is still animates like shit, with dead eyes, but the actual model looks fine to me.

Aloy actually looks like her model, and people that keep saying that she's "average" looking, must be surrounded by super models or something. Sarah Ryder on the other hand has clear modeling issues. In fact, all the presets for fem Ryder look off.

 

[Krathoon]

The silliness of the animation makes me want to buy it more.

 

[meerak]

....yeah

I am normally way into forgiveness.. but..

Why?

Why does it look like this?

 

[panty]

Mass Effect Andromeda - AAA Gaming Experience

Such a fucking mess

 

[13ruce]

Was Dragon Age Inquisition this bad? I don't remember anymore.

 

[Lime]

How did they drop the ball so much on this.

Bad project management, new studio, new engine.

The so-called insiders here on GAF doing damage control when people were leaving the project, when marketing was weird and non-existent, when major bugs were present in the trailer,when they said that the hair would be better than DA:I, etc. My trust in their critical ability is completely broken. They are completely blind to what game development is and what constitutes a functional video game experience. It's cool though, I guess I just live in a different world than them.

 

[Teeth]

Was Dragon Age Inquisition this bad? I don't remember anymore.

No. Inquisition was occasionally/often wooden, but characters generally looked quite good.

 

[Metroidvania]

Mass Effect Andromeda - AAA Gaming Experience

Such a fucking mess

I lost it @ the 'Swiggity Swooty', lol.

 

[Davide]

Who thought that these looked acceptable?

Even the models look a lot more cartoony than in the original three games.

 

[Muffin1611]

as I understand it:

Andromeda: C team

DA4: B team

New IP: A team

B team is working on Dragon Age. This is basically interns.

Who exactly is the B team?

As I understand it, there's BW Edmonton, who work on the new IP, Montreal who work on Andromeda and Austin who work on SWTOR.

Didn't notice anything about DA4 development, that's why I'm asking.

 

[Deleted member 30609]

Jesus. That's... embarrassing. What happened.

 

[Obliterator]

Was Dragon Age Inquisition this bad? I don't remember anymore.

No way. Inquisition biggest problem was that sometimes it looked a bit stiff but it wasn't near as weird / goofy as some of this stuff is

 

[Skux]

The hair looks awful. Weird polygonal clumps that make faces look cartoonish.

In a world of AC Unity and Horizon, AAA can do much better.

 

[gamerMan]

The Horizon comparisons don't even make any sense. Horizon had moments where the lip syncing didn't match up with the lip movements. If that was all the problems Andromeda had, no sane person would be making a fuss. Except, Andromeda has characters who show nothing in regards to emotion, the facial animations and the eyes look dead, the walking animations are laughable, and there are some very suspect writing throughout. That's not even getting to the random and weird bugs and glitches, and the general lack of polish in comparison.

So yeah, going from Horizon to Andromeda, makes all of the latter game's issues stick out immensely.

I don't think it's that bad. I agree going from something like Horizon to Mass Effect, the flaws in the animation are pretty apparent. It's robotic and stiff. Were these animations mocapped or hand done? Horizon seems so polished in comparison. Are people willing to forgive it because it is Mass Effect?

 

[IAmAnAgnostic]

Yeesh. So much for progress.

I said before that even ME 1 faces were better by a large margin but people said I was being ridiculously hyperbolic. But anyone who checks can see that it is true.

 

[Lime]

Jesus. That's... embarrassing. What happened.

New studio, new engine, bad project management probably. Silence and lack of transparency resulting in this sudden reveal of how rough the game is.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Aloy actually looks like her model, and people that keep saying that she's "average" looking, must be surrounded by super models or something. Sarah Ryder on the other hand has clear modeling issues. In fact, all the presets for fem Ryder look off.

Sorry, I didn't mean they aren't "attractive", just that their faces don't really fit the standard beauty canon in games (in fiction, but most commonly in games).

Obviously Alloy model is much better, but I appreciate what they were trying with female Ryder and I like the end result.

 

[Obliterator]

Who exactly is the B team?

As I understand it, there's BW Edmonton, who work on the new IP, Montreal who work on Andromeda and Austin who work on SWTOR.

Didn't notice anything about DA4 development, that's why I'm asking.

As I understand it for most of this team this is their first time shipping a large scale AAA game totally on their own. There are some series vets on it but for the most part the most they've done in the past is some ME DLC. And that's certainly starting to show

 

[Lime]

Edmonton has a second group working on Dragon Age. The guys making Mass Effect are basically the DLC squad flung into making a Mass Effect game with presumably no guidance on how to do so.

They had Mac Walters as the creative director, that's all the guidance you need.

No wonder the lead writer, the senior editor, and senior development director left a year ago and no wonder the game ended up looking like this.

 

[Beth Cyra]

This is all just an echo chamber video.

Real fans will be happy.

What the hell is "real fans"?

ME 2 was in my top 3 games of last Gen, and ME3 while having issues was one I enjoyed.

ME A has been my number 1 most hyped game since it's reveal and everything about what has come out has me completely hype deflated and if I don't love it, it won't make me any less of a real fan.

now if this was said in jest I will say flat out I'm an idiot and missed the sarcasm

 

[Yekshemesh]

Good god the MP looks horrible right?

I might buy ME:A just for the multiplayer alone.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

They had Mac Walters as the creative director, that's all the guidance you need.

No wonder the lead writer, the senior editor, and senior development director left a year ago.

I didn't know that (or I totally forgot), but that's never a good sign.

 

[Guy.brush]

All those clips of facial animation falling flat or basically failing seems to indicate that they might have gone with an "audio-only" solve for their facial animations.
That means they recorded audio lines in a booth and these get batched through a software that generates facial animation from the .wav files as the only source.
e.g. Face FX.
https://www.facefx.com/
Not saying it was that piece of software though, dunno how good that is normally!
But an audio only solve is always inferior to real performance capture (if done right).

The sheer amount of lines and the branching they have in the game probably made going for real performance capture too frightening of a workload with the looming deadline?
With performance capture you have to have your actors with a headrig with camera(s) attached and marked up. Those markers get tracked and then translated into the facial performance in the game. This process is not really automatic and needs handholding often times which is expensive but also gives accurate translation of performance if done well.

 

[Fragment]

Is that supposed to be a good thing?

Manveer Heir is the game designer on ME:A and he is a well known and open racist posting pictures of himself drinking out of a cup with the writing "white tears" among other things.

The other guy seems to be getting all the blame for the ending in ME3

While browsing Manveer's twitter I came across this little gem he posted December 26, 2015:

I guess he used that as the inspiration for facial modeling in the game ending up with the toot toot faces.

But seriously with all the cries of racism and SJW bs that people have said has been plaguing the studio for some time now doesn't explain this shitstorm.

It's obvious the people that made ME:A just gave no fucks. They completely ignored established Lore, didn't bother writing a good story, terrible character designs including lackluster bad guys that even though are to be found in a different galaxy don't seem like fresh or different enemies than what we have seen previously.

All theses screenshots just prove how little anyone at EA/Bioware cared and none of them bothered to make an actual effort.

I was hoping for something great from ME:A.. but son I am disappoint.

 

[blurrygil]

OMG CRYING

 

[Lime]

I didn't know that (or I totally forgot), but that's never a good sign.

Lead writer Schlerf
Senior editor Harris
Senior development director Wynn

left around last the beginning of 2016

But may just be coincidence and usual industry turnover

 

[Deleted member 30609]

New studio, new engine, bad project management probably. Silence and lack of transparency resulting in this sudden reveal of how rough the game is.

I'm bummed for everyone on the team. There's no way anyone wanted to ship it like this.

 

[Iva Demilcol]

I'm not saying they are.

I'm saying sometimes secondary teams are factually worse than main teams and there is nothing wrong with stating as much.

We don't need to go out of our way to make everyone feel good all the time. If a team out there makes a worse product there is nothing whatsoever wrong with addressing that.




Those are both well liked games considered high quality by the masses, so sounds about right.

The thing is, in the case of DSII, for example, the same guys that worked as artists in DS one worked in DS II, Bloodborne and DSIII. You can even see their names in the credits from many games before that. When one person is available to work on something he would form part of the development of one game and move to another project when his work is done there.

That's exactly what happened with DSII. Miyazaki wasn't available for DSII, so they gave Tomohiro Shibuya the chance to direct DSII, he had experience with Monster Hunter so he was the best candidate. He fucked up and another director had to take over the project (Yui Tanimura) and had to make everything he could so the game would release on time; that's why the animations and hitboxes have problems: they just didn't have the time to polish the game, it doesn't mean they couldn't polish it because they were a lesser team; because when they had more time they could release the old crowns trilogy, Artorias of the Abyss and DSIII.

I've even seen people comment that even the artwork behind DSII is poorer than DS one's because they had to outsource art assets. In reality they've done that for all souls games, including DS one.

But in the end, the people who play the games just make their mind on how awful is the work of "B teams". Just to give you an idea of how petty are some people: before it was announced that Yui Tanimura was working on DSIII, if you googled his name the first result was a rumour saying he was fired because his work with DSII was terrible.

 

[ironcreed]

This is all just an echo chamber video.
Real fans will be happy.

Well, I am a 'real fan' who has been there since day one of the first game back in 2007. Yes, I am still very much excited, but to see such an avalanche of awful before the game even releases has to give one pause. I mean, some of this stuff cannot be glossed over it's so bad. Which is why a real fan would actually be concerned.

 

[Filben]

This can't be who they modeled the character after, it can't be.

They already defaced Jessica Chobot in ME3 to fearsome degrees, making her not identifiable at all. BioWare's pretty good at it and I'm not suprised at all.

Apart from that, even the in-game model for fem Ryder looks kind of cute. If they would only fix those expressions... 2017, GODDAMMIT. 2017!!!

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

I'm bummed for everyone on the team. There's no way anyone wanted to ship it like this.

Is truly a shame. Because the actual gameplay looks decent enough.

Lead writer Schlerf
Senior editor Harris
Senior development director Wynn

left around last the beginning of 2016

But may just be coincidence and usual industry turnover

Sure, but also looking at the result, they may have been related to some serious development issues.

(I guess in the case of Schlerf, the game script may have been already finished a long time ago)

 

[aygomyownroad]

Sorry but these gifs are laughable.

The facial animations look worse than the original trilogy.

It may be a great game, I haven't played it but these animations are very jarring

 

[Krabboss]

Manveer Heir is the game designer on ME:A and he is a well known and open racist posting pictures of himself drinking out of a cup with the writing "white tears" on it and in the past has given us such profound statements such as all white men should die..

The other guy seems to be getting all the blame for the ending in ME3

While browsing Manveer's twitter I came across this little gem he posted December 26, 2015:

I guess he used that as the inspiration for facial modeling in the game ending up with the toot toot faces.

But seriously with all the cries of racism and SJW bs that people have said has been plaguing the studio for some time now doesn't explain this shitstorm.

It's obvious the people that made ME:A just gave no fucks. They completely ignored established Lore, didn't bother writing a good story, terrible character designs including lackluster bad guys that even though are to be found in a different galaxy don't seem like fresh or different enemies than what we have seen previously.

All theses screenshots just prove how little anyone at EA/Bioware cared and none of them bothered to make an actual effort.

I was hoping for something great from ME:A.. but son I am disappoint.

This post is worse than anything I've seen from ME:A, at least.

 

[butman]

Mass Effect Andromeda - AAA Gaming Experience

Such a fucking mess

Its incredible the low quality of everything. This is an insult to the players and above all to their fanbase.
I hope this video reaches a lot of people before thinking about buying this atrocity.

What does Bioware think we are? Stupid?

 

[54-46!]

Real fans will be happy.

"Real fans" have really low standards.

 

[Armaros]

This is all just an echo chamber video.

Real fans will be happy.

NoTrueScotsFan

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I might buy ME:A just for the multiplayer alone.

No reason to be desperate. Plenty of good MP games out there.

 

[Mesoian]

How did they drop the ball so much on this.

They wanted to get out this fiscal year.

::SHRUG::