What I want from Mass Effect 4.

[N7_Shadow]

1. Bring back Classes along with their restrictions. If you want unlimited guns for all classes, you aren't helping the game. It needs replayability. For most people, Andromeda lacked that. Each class should force you to approach the game differently. What's the point of long distance biotics abilities if you also have a sniper rifle, or very powerful area of affect biotics or tech abilities, if you can use heavy weapons that do the same. Think of it like a Mage, Fighter, Cleric, Thief and Archer in any other RPG. What's the point if the mage can swing a 2 handed battle axe, use a bow and arrow, heal everyone, and pick every lock?

Leave the OP stuff to mods, after you've played the game 5 times.

2. Malleable traits for our squadmates. Allow us to choose different backstories, and use the character customizing tools to make them look like what we want. This way if somebody doesn't like pretty females, they don't have to have them, but if somebody likes that, they can also have what they like. In the same light, race, sexual orientation, and a bunch of other things could be chosen to not only allow people to tailor the experience to something they like, but also create reasons to replay the game, which allows more people to enjoy the game, replay the game and be excited about the game, which leads to MORE DLC and SEQUELS.

Andromeda sold well, but the analytics told the bean counters that too many didn't enjoy it, thus leading to DLC and Sequels being cancelled. Nobody wants a repeat of that, so change is needed. Allow for inclusivity without ramming it down people's throats. It's nothing more than an expansion of allowing us to customize our main character to look like ourselves, for those that's important to.

3. No modern real world political agendas. That's ruining games. Anyone not understanding that hasn't been paying attention. Say no to SBI.

4. Bring back Paragon/Renegade, but find a way to make less binary and restricting. In other words, we don't necessarily want to be restricted to using Paragon choices to get the best outcome 3/4 of the way through the game, just because that's what we've been choosing. Find a way to make more interesting in an RPG sense...really lean into the RPG side of the game. I know that's not easy, but I think it's a way to stand out among all the other amazing games coming our way, such as Squadron 42, Exodus, etc...

5. Can we have ships that don't just look good, but make actual sense, like Star Citizen ships? While iconic, the Mass Effect ships aren't actually correct, and our minds see this. For instance, the SR2 would have the elevator exiting the ship in front of the shuttle bay ramp. The Tempest exterior was way smaller than it would need to be to house the interior. The SR1 appeared to also be too small for it's interior.

6. Too late for ME4, but in the future, consider buying a license for StarEngine. It would open up the Mass Effect universe in a way we've never seen before. There would be significant initial costs, but assets created wouldn't go to waste, as they could still be used in future games. Thessia, for instance, could be used over and over.

7. Go big or go home on the voice/acting talent. Until Squadron 42, the Mass Effect held the title in this area, but SQ42 now has a cast that rivals the entirety of ME:OT. Watching some of the teaser clips, you can see how that makes a huge difference. Professional actors like Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson, Gary Oldman, Mark Strong, Henry Cavill, Andy Serkis, John Rhys Davies, Liam Cunningham, and Ben Mendelsohn, Jack Huston, Rhona Mitra, Sophie Wu, Gemma Whelan, etc., are going to make that the game of the year, this year or in 2025, depending on when it officially releases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBGgEPTuXeI

[Apocryphox]

I just want the same thing which made Mass Effect 1-3 so special. Very interesting characters, decent story which is told through 3 parts, high replay value thanks to an extremely large number of decisions which you can make.

That's why Andromeda was so extremely boring imo. The decisions wasn't fatal, most characters were boring and annoying and the story was completely outdated. Apart from all the other problems the game has or had.

What cool innovations i would like to see in Mass Effect 4 would be the aliens' own languages. It felt really weird that 90% of the aliens spoke human language. That killed the immersion a bit for me.

[N7_Shadow]

Originally posted by Apocryphox:

I just want the same thing which made Mass Effect 1-3 so special. Very interesting characters, decent story which is told through 3 parts, high replay value thanks to an extremely large number of decisions which you can make.

That's why Andromeda was so extremely boring imo. The decisions wasn't fatal, most characters were boring and annoying and the story was completely outdated. Apart from all the other problems the game has or had.

What cool innovations i would like to see in Mass Effect 4 would be the aliens' own languages. It felt really weird that 90% of the aliens spoke human language. That killed the immersion a bit for me.

Great post. I agree with all of it. So many things we can see so clearly with 20/20 hindsight.

How great would it have been had the Asari given the "English" language to Earthers, but many initially reject it, but they help cause it to become the international Business Language, which causes it to be universally known by the time Mass Effect starts.

The only problem with this is that the Humans were cut off from the rest of the galaxy. I wouldn't have done that. Anyway, English could have been the Asari language, so when they discover the Citadel first and start creating the Citadel Council, the other races are told to adopt it as the main Citadel language, like how it's the international business language on Earth. But that doesn't mean we could have the other races speaking to each other in their own language, at times.

[barzai]

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

Originally posted by Apocryphox:

I just want the same thing which made Mass Effect 1-3 so special. Very interesting characters, decent story which is told through 3 parts, high replay value thanks to an extremely large number of decisions which you can make.

That's why Andromeda was so extremely boring imo. The decisions wasn't fatal, most characters were boring and annoying and the story was completely outdated. Apart from all the other problems the game has or had.

What cool innovations i would like to see in Mass Effect 4 would be the aliens' own languages. It felt really weird that 90% of the aliens spoke human language. That killed the immersion a bit for me.

Great post. I agree with all of it. So many things we can see so clearly with 20/20 hindsight.

How great would it have been had the Asari given the "English" language to Earthers, but many initially reject it, but they help cause it to become the international Business Language, which causes it to be universally known by the time Mass Effect starts.

The only problem with this is that the Humans were cut off from the rest of the galaxy. I wouldn't have done that. Anyway, English could have been the Asari language, so when they discover the Citadel first and start creating the Citadel Council, the other races are told to adopt it as the main Citadel language, like how it's the international business language on Earth. But that doesn't mean we could have the other races speaking to each other in their own language, at times.

While I agree in principle with the language issue, I remember reading years ago an essay by a well-known SF author--Heinlein or Niven, I think--in which they said that you have to be careful about that, because if you have an alien say, "The place you seek is 45 spsxlsps away," you then have to translate their term into units that the reader can actually understand. Ditto pretty much anything else that's expressed in "alien."

So in game terms, you would wind up spending a bunch of time having to figure out what the purple guy with three eyes actually just said to you. And while that might feel more immersive at first, after a fairly short while I expect it would just be annoying.

[N7_Shadow]

Originally posted by barzai:

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

Great post. I agree with all of it. So many things we can see so clearly with 20/20 hindsight.

How great would it have been had the Asari given the "English" language to Earthers, but many initially reject it, but they help cause it to become the international Business Language, which causes it to be universally known by the time Mass Effect starts.

The only problem with this is that the Humans were cut off from the rest of the galaxy. I wouldn't have done that. Anyway, English could have been the Asari language, so when they discover the Citadel first and start creating the Citadel Council, the other races are told to adopt it as the main Citadel language, like how it's the international business language on Earth. But that doesn't mean we could have the other races speaking to each other in their own language, at times.

While I agree in principle with the language issue, I remember reading years ago an essay by a well-known SF author--Heinlein or Niven, I think--in which they said that you have to be careful about that, because if you have an alien say, "The place you seek is 45 spsxlsps away," you then have to translate their term into units that the reader can actually understand. Ditto pretty much anything else that's expressed in "alien."

So in game terms, you would wind up spending a bunch of time having to figure out what the purple guy with three eyes actually just said to you. And while that might feel more immersive at first, after a fairly short while I expect it would just be annoying.

I thought Star Trek handled it pretty well. They used subtitles, but honestly, even if you didn't know what they said, it wouldn't be that important, normally. But also, they had the aliens talking to each other very little, so you didn't have to spend too much time reading subtitles.

It actually adds to what they want you to feel, because normally the aliens were using their own language so they could convey something private, so by reading the subtitles, it made you feel like you were eavesdropping in on a private conversation that you aren't supposed to hear.

[barzai]

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

I thought Star Trek handled it pretty well. They used subtitles, but honestly, even if you didn't know what they said, it wouldn't be that important, normally. But also, they had the aliens talking to each other very little, so you didn't have to spend too much time reading subtitles.

It actually adds to what they want you to feel, because normally the aliens were using their own language so they could convey something private, so by reading the subtitles, it made you feel like you were eavesdropping in on a private conversation that you aren't supposed to hear.

Hm. This must have been in the successor series, which I mostly didn't watch, although I do remember a couple scenes in the movies where that did happen.

But I'm pretty familiar with the original series, and I have absolutely no memory of that ever happening in any of the 79 episodes. Feel free to jog my memory if I'm wrong.

[N7_Shadow]

Originally posted by barzai:

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

I thought Star Trek handled it pretty well. They used subtitles, but honestly, even if you didn't know what they said, it wouldn't be that important, normally. But also, they had the aliens talking to each other very little, so you didn't have to spend too much time reading subtitles.

It actually adds to what they want you to feel, because normally the aliens were using their own language so they could convey something private, so by reading the subtitles, it made you feel like you were eavesdropping in on a private conversation that you aren't supposed to hear.

Hm. This must have been in the successor series, which I mostly didn't watch, although I do remember a couple scenes in the movies where that did happen.

But I'm pretty familiar with the original series, and I have absolutely no memory of that ever happening in any of the 79 episodes. Feel free to jog my memory if I'm wrong.

You are correct. When I say Star Trek, I mean the entirety of Star Trek, not just the Original Series. The first Klingon ever spoken was in Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, and wasn't very detailed. Interestingly, the Klingon words for that movie were created by James Doohan, who played Scotty. But the actual Klingon language didn't begin to appear until Star Treck III, Leonard Nimoy who was directing the movie, wanted the Klingon language to have real structure and meaning.

Star Citizen is following in their footsteps. All of the Alien races in Star Citizen are going to have full blown languages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b6tWxM_d0o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSOETxLuUHo&list=PLVct2QDhDrB2lesFJP5jal5qf0shGIMjq&index=1

[barzai]

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

You are correct. When I say Star Trek, I mean the entirety of Star Trek, not just the Original Series. The first Klingon ever spoken was in Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, and wasn't very detailed. Interestingly, the Klingon words for that movie were created by James Doohan, who played Scotty. But the actual Klingon language didn't begin to appear until Star Treck III, Leonard Nimoy who was directing the movie, wanted the Klingon language to have real structure and meaning.

The full-blown version of Klingonee was developed and published by Michael Okuda. I'm fairly sure he was on it before the movies came out though.

But...yeah. I'm 65 years old, just old enough to have watched at least part of TOS in real time on NBC. And of course I watched TOS in syndication for literally decades after that. When I was in college in the mid to late 1970s, we played a game that was the TV equivalent of "Name That Tune!" Whoever was capable of identifying the episode first won. Sometimes it took a second or two: sometimes as much as 10-15 seconds.

And I've bought TOS in at least four different formats: VCR; the original DVD release where they shipped two episodes in one case; the complete DVD set they shipped in three clamshell cases; and finally the Blu-Ray "remastered" versions...which I hate and never watch.

So--hate me for it if you will--but for me TOS will always be "the One True Star Trek."

Just to be clear...my fellow Trekkers (not "Trekkies," please!) desperately wanted the movies and successor series to be good. But for the most part they weren't. The only movie that has any real staying power is #2, The Wrath of Khan. #4 ("Save The Whales!") wasn't too awful but--let's admit it--it was campy, unadulterated fan service. And it hasn't aged well, since all the pop culture references are tied to the era during which it was made.

And I cannot even begin to convey how much we anticipated TNG. My Lord...the first new episodes in TWO DECADES! But as much as I wanted to like it, I thought it was...weak. In particular, Picard struck me as a peacetime officer: a good manager, but not truly a leader of men. You've served in the uniformed Haze-Grey Navy, so I'll be interested in your own assessment.

And most of the other series were--in my eyes--similarly flawed. I could give you an entire page-long rant on my reaction to the first episode of DS9. In fact it wasn't until VOY that I thought the series had truly returned to its roots: ironic that the most Kirk-like skipper was a woman. I also thought ENT was OK, but then I watched it again a few years later and realized that the critics hadn't been wrong: it really was terrible.

All of which to say that any aspect of Star Trek that came in after TOS is suspect in my eyes, to say nothing of having mostly flown under my scope.

[N7_Shadow]

It's hard to disagree with your assessment. We are starving for good SciFi, but those who make it often have social and political agendas that they want to push, using the series. Then, you have writers who lean to heavily on certain crutches to create drama. Compare The Walking Dead, to The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was a master story teller. He did not need to use death as a crutch to create drama.

The Walking Dead died because it was too formulaic. Too ready and willing to kill off central characters right and left, and then had to lean into bringing side characters into the limelight, make them likeable and then killing them. That plus Rick constantly screwing up but everyone still followed him? Nah. Meanwhile, LotR only killed one central cast member...one of the original quest group.

As for Picard, he was OK, but I agree, he was more manager, statesman, and philosopher than an inspirational leader of men. I will also agree that Janeway was more of the tough talking leader type. This just shows that the agenda goes back a long time. Keep in mind that TNG went out of its way to show a man in a skirt multiple times in the first episode. It was cringe worthy in how blatant it was.

But having been haze gray and underway for a significant part of my life, I can tell you that many officers are actually more manager than inspirational leader. In fact, I would argue that it's more the norm. You often find that no matter where you are at, the inspirational leader is rarely the man at the top. More often than not, he's well down the chain. But not always.

This is why the cut scenes from Squadron 42 have me quite excited. The men come across as a Man's Man, more often than not. I'm also excited for Exodus, because the things I read, imply that the top guys there, who came from BioWare, demanded total creative freedom. I think you and I both know why that is, and it likely points to why they parted ways with BioWare, which has more and more embraced the agenda.

This is also why I worry that our hopes in Mass Effect 4 should be tempered with a lot of skepticism. And it's why I will not preorder it, and won't even buy it until I've heard from some people I trust. If it's got even the slightest smell of anything like SBI or any other similar company on it, I won't buy it, and will be totally done with the Franchise at that point, other than playing TOS with mods.

I am, however, also looking forward to Stellar Blade on PC. I don't own any consoles.

[barzai]

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

As for Picard, he was OK, but I agree, he was more manager, statesman, and philosopher than an inspirational leader of men. I will also agree that Janeway was more of the tough talking leader type. This just shows that the agenda goes back a long time. Keep in mind that TNG went out of its way to show a man in a skirt multiple times in the first episode. It was cringe worthy in how blatant it was.

But having been haze gray and underway for a significant part of my life, I can tell you that many officers are actually more manager than inspirational leader. In fact, I would argue that it's more the norm. You often find that no matter where you are at, the inspirational leader is rarely the man at the top. More often than not, he's well down the chain. But not always.

I think that's the nature of the environment. Even as a civilian I had something of an epiphany in that I finally got it through my head why, as you move up the food chain, "who you know" becomes more important than "what you know." It's not that "who you know" replaces "what you know": it's that the higher you go, the more the "what you know" is baked in the cake.

How does this relate to your observation? In wartime at least, only the competent survive to even be considered for higher rank. And when an aggressive, competent, successful officer is competing for promotion, every one else has all the same qualities.

In a peacetime environment...the equation changes. Now there's no real reward for being a drooling animal slavering on the enemy's doorstep: in fact, that sort of thing will more likely get you beached. The problem is, after a while the warfighters age out of the system, and all that's left is guys who never had to make their bones in the glory game.

When I started at NAVAIR in 1981, pretty much every officer at the O-4 level and up had the Vietnam War ribbons, often with multiple citations: including the ones that always choked me up...the ribbons awarded by a defunct government on behalf of an extinguished state. You know what I'm talking about!

By the time I left in 1996...no one was left who'd served over there except for a handful of flags. A very, very different environment, to be sure.

[Russell]

+1 on the original post. I think this largely sums up much of what many of us are looking for in ME4, but also not really expecting. Excellently written.

On TNG, there is no doubt that the first two seasons are awful. I've often recommended it to people, and also strongly recommend they simply skip them. The actors were all still finding themselves and their relations, but it really started rolling by the third season.

Among countless others, Tapestry is just such an incredibly inspirational and excellent episode. It's a flashback to a time when media and television could actually convey meaningful and deep lessons about life beyond the painfully trite modern repetitions of 'racism/sexism bad.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHoPLhpw2g4

It's impossible for me to ever have anything except glowing memories of TNG with episodes like that.

[Dork_Stalker_310]

1. Fully agree.

2. Not going to happened - and if it will happen, it will significantly decrease the writing potential and appeal of characters. Usually, when done by professionals, character designs are part of story-telling. Garrus having a scarred face in ME 2 isn't done just to make him look like a badass, but also to show the psychological wounds that he carries due to the death of his squad mates. Miranda is a super-woman, who was designed to be the best in everything she ever does - her looks reflect that. And so on.

Having characters be customizable in terms of personality won't create truly unique, pre-written interactions with them - might as well just add mercenaries with barely any story.

3. Real world political agendas are part of ME from the very start, though. In a way, Andromeda was way less political than it's predecessors.
>inb4 it's about aliens and space so it doesn't count

4. Agree with that.

5. From what I've seen Star Citizen ships are an amalgamation of everything Chris Roberts liked from other franchises, so...

6. How about they use Unreal Engine 5 or anything else outside of FrostBite and whatever Frankenstein's monster SC devs made?

My desire would be for them to improve level design - and if they'll go open world, actually do it right and fill it with interesting things. Also would really like them to add more different biomes and terrains, maybe underwater levels like in KotOR.

And please, for the love of all gods, PLEASE focus on the writing. Not even Garry Oldman or Cate Blanchett would be able to salvage poorly written characters, so do as many re-writes as possible, but Do. It. Right.

[Dork_Stalker_310]

Originally posted by Apocryphox:

What cool innovations i would like to see in Mass Effect 4 would be the aliens' own languages. It felt really weird that 90% of the aliens spoke human language. That killed the immersion a bit for me.

They actually explain it in-game - your omni-tool has a built-in translator (or it's some form of implant, I don't remember). Regardless, the lore reason why different races all speak English is - they don't. They speak their native languages, but they get translated for our protagonist to understand.

[N7_Shadow]

Originally posted by Dork_Stalker_310:

Originally posted by Apocryphox:

What cool innovations i would like to see in Mass Effect 4 would be the aliens' own languages. It felt really weird that 90% of the aliens spoke human language. That killed the immersion a bit for me.

They actually explain it in-game - your omni-tool has a built-in translator (or it's some form of implant, I don't remember). Regardless, the lore reason why different races all speak English is - they don't. They speak their native languages, but they get translated for our protagonist to understand.

Farscape had something like that. When the human protagonist ends up on the ship, he can't understand anything, but then the little droid injects him with some kind of nanobots that somehow in science fiction magic, translate everything for him. Kind of a cool concept.

[N7_Shadow]

Originally posted by Dork_Stalker_310:

2. Not going to happened - and if it will happen, it will significantly decrease the writing potential and appeal of characters. Usually, when done by professionals, character designs are part of story-telling. Garrus having a scarred face in ME 2 isn't done just to make him look like a badass, but also to show the psychological wounds that he carries due to the death of his squad mates. Miranda is a super-woman, who was designed to be the best in everything she ever does - her looks reflect that. And so on.

Having characters be customizable in terms of personality won't create truly unique, pre-written interactions with them - might as well just add mercenaries with barely any story.

I see your point. It could still be done, but it would also increase the amount of dialogue the game contains. That's not actually a bad thing, but I'm not sure BioWare or EA would be willing to do it. Think in terms of Steve Cortez. If you don't choose him as your shuttle pilot, you would not have all that dialogue with him. However, in his place, you could have two other choices. A female pilot with her own story to tell, and maybe another guy with a very different story to tell. Maybe the female pilot is a highly decorated pilot, who was also an instructor at one point. The other male could be some young punk that has an attitude problem. Yes, you would have different dialogue with each of them, but imagine the replay-ability.

Short of that, they can at least alter the things that cause people to dislike games. Sexual orientation. Race. Gender. These too, can add a lot of replayability. The people for whom it matters, can tailor the game to allow them to enjoy it more, while for those it doesn't matter, it just adds more to the replayability.

For instance, would it really change things much if you could make Miranda Lesbian? All that does it allow her to be the LI of the female Shepard. And would it matter if she's Black? I don't think so. For Cortez, it would be easy to simply have him simply talk about a wife, or husband, depending on what you choose for him. For me, I think it would have allowed a really fun bonding moment for John Shepard and a straight Steve Cortez, if instead of him hitting on Shepard, we see a Shepard's LI approaching and Cortez is 100% talking about her when he says "eye candy," which would allow Shepard to light heartedly tell him she's taken, by him, so he's going to have to find other eye candy.

For me, having been in the Navy, Cortez flirting with my straight Shepard, was kind of cringe, because having been on many ships and literally having 5 years at sea, we knew pretty much everything about everybody. Yes, we even knew who were gay. Like in my last squadron where a group of enlisted guys were known to be gay/bi, and they actually tried to recruit me to be in their group, when they misinterpreted something I said about my girlfriend. I just smiled and told them I was flattered, but would have to pass on the offer.

So for me, I was thinking it would have been better if Steve simply inquired about how things were going between John and who ever his LI was.

So again, these things could allow more people to enjoy the game by tailoring it to what they like. Every last thing wouldn't have to be malleable. Back to Miranda. No matter how you tailor her, she/he could still be a designer test tube baby. So that part of the story wouldn't have to be altered no matter how you tailor that character.

Originally posted by Dork_Stalker_310:

3. Real world political agendas are part of ME from the very start, though. In a way, Andromeda was way less political than it's predecessors.
>inb4 it's about aliens and space so it doesn't count

True, but I'm referring more to the SBI type stuff. We are never going to see a game succeed again unless they either stop catering to that, or allow for both sides of these issues to have their way. Stellar Blade would not be made with SBI's approval, yet it's going to be a very good seller. It's possibly one of the most anticipated titles on PC.

Originally posted by Dork_Stalker_310:

5. From what I've seen Star Citizen ships are an amalgamation of everything Chris Roberts liked from other franchises, so...

100% true. In fact, when only about a half dozen ships existed, Chris Roberts said that the Constellation was his take on the Millennium Falcon. Obviously not trying to totally rip off the MF, but just trying to make a similar type ship. When he talked about ship design, he often referenced Star Wars ships. He's never hidden the fact that he's a big fan of Star Wars.

Originally posted by Dork_Stalker_310:

6. How about they use Unreal Engine 5 or anything else outside of FrostBite and whatever Frankenstein's monster SC devs made?

Well, that's what we are getting, but I do think that StarEngine could make an absolutely amazing Mass Effect game also. REAL ships, REAL planets, Real Space Stations, etc... I don't know if you watched the two day CitizenCon presentation last October, but WOW, some seriously cool stuff in that engine now.

Originally posted by Dork_Stalker_310:

My desire would be for them to improve level design - and if they'll go open world, actually do it right and fill it with interesting things. Also would really like them to add more different biomes and terrains, maybe underwater levels like in KotOR.

100% agree. I am cool with it being more linear, or being very open world, but if they go open world, RDR2 set the bar high, and anything that doesn't come close, or exceed that, is going to feel dead in comparison. And I agree, more Biomes. That's also why I was kind of thinking of the StarEngine, because it would allow space walks, exploring dead space stations and ships that have no gravity, and planets or moons that are very hot, very cold, and have very different characteristics, such as tropical, desert, water worlds, and varying levels of gravity.

Originally posted by Dork_Stalker_310:

And please, for the love of all gods, PLEASE focus on the writing. Not even Garry Oldman or Cate Blanchett would be able to salvage poorly written characters, so do as many re-writes as possible, but Do. It. Right.

100%. In my opinion, the two go hand in hand. The writing definitely has to be there, but great actors bring that to life, as we see in that Star Citizen video. I could see a huge difference between ME:OT and Andromeda. ME:OT had a lot of great actors, and it showed.

[Dork_Stalker_310]

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

So again, these things could allow more people to enjoy the game by tailoring it to what they like. Every last thing wouldn't have to be malleable. Back to Miranda. No matter how you tailor her, she/he could still be a designer test tube baby. So that part of the story wouldn't have to be altered no matter how you tailor that character.

I get it now, you mean the DEI stuff.

I’m going to be honest with you, I think most people don’t care. Sure, there are few who will be upset by it, there will be few who would welcome it, but most people won’t care either way. Using Stellar Blade as an example, it’s probably going to be a success – and there will be a lot of grifters who would declare it a massive winning against woke left. But most people who’ll buy it aren’t going to buy it to stick it to the SBI or someone else, they are going to buy it because it’s a cool slasher with hot woman protagonist.
Culture war is mostly astroturfed anyway – games fail for very different reasons and “DEI agenda” is pretty low on the list.

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

When he talked about ship design, he often referenced Star Wars ships. He's never hidden the fact that he's a big fan of Star Wars.

Yeah, and Star Wars used WW 2 dogfighting as an inspiration for space battles – which is probably not how space battles would function. That’s what I mean, it’s still heavily stylized, just like Mass Effect.

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

Well, that's what we are getting, but I do think that StarEngine could make an absolutely amazing Mass Effect game also. REAL ships, REAL planets, Real Space Stations, etc... I don't know if you watched the two day CitizenCon presentation last October, but WOW, some seriously cool stuff in that engine now.

I’m pretty sure Unreal would be capable of doing it as well.
Again, gotta be honest, as of right now, virtues of StarEngine are very unclear to me. Sure, demos are very impressive – but they are just that, demos. The infamous sand worm was shown back in 2016, where is he now? Too busy filming Dune’s Messiah? The only thing we have is an eternal alpha Star Citizen and SQ42, which is around the corner for the last 8 years. Once we’ll get Squadron up and running, then we’ll see how it goes against other titles.

Originally posted by N7_Shadow:

100%. In my opinion, the two go hand in hand. The writing definitely has to be there, but great actors bring that to life, as we see in that Star Citizen video. I could see a huge difference between ME:OT and Andromeda. ME:OT had a lot of great actors, and it showed.

Absolutely, ME:OT had fantastic actors. The thing is, so did Andromeda. Clancy Brown, Natalie Dormer, Fryda Wolff, etc. – all very capable voice actors, who did a good job with what they were given. The problem wasn’t voice acting, it was writing and directing. You can have the best microscope in the world and use it as a hammer. That’s why the top priority must be writing, otherwise it’s all for naught.