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Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:36 am
by Damocles
tl;dr: there's a reason main characters look good in games, and a large part of it is story-based. Mass Effect's writers used to understand that... but I suppose they have new ones now that don't quite know what they're doing.
My guess is that its not actually a fault of the artists to have chosen those rather "unconventional" faces, but a dictation by some department leaders not to have
the preset female faces look pretty.
(whereas the default male Ryder looks handsome, and very similar to the actor portraying him)

The animation quality is a different topic. Here they seem to have a run into technical issues. .. Given that the face-animation of secondary characters dont look much better than on 10 year old Mass-Effect 1 characters.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:39 am
by Talvieno
Damocles wrote:My guess is that its not actually a fault of the artists to have chosen those rather "unconventional" faces, but a dictation by some department leaders not to have the preset female faces look pretty.
If that's true, then they did an outstanding job.

edit: The animation quality is more than fifteen years substandard. There's no excuse for that. Somebody dropped the ball.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:11 pm
by Silverware
Talvieno wrote:
Damocles wrote:My guess is that its not actually a fault of the artists to have chosen those rather "unconventional" faces, but a dictation by some department leaders not to have the preset female faces look pretty.
If that's true, then they did an outstanding job.

edit: The animation quality is more than fifteen years substandard. There's no excuse for that. Somebody dropped the ball.
xD

Look at HZD, there are plenty of non-pretty female characters there who are still perfectly modeled as humans, rather than the weird blob that Bioware has.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 3:32 pm
by JanB1
But seriously though, how did a rather small studio like "CD Project Red" make such gorgeous characters, and MEA just has these...absolutely garbage faces? They seriously look SO UGLY!

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 3:33 pm
by Mordakai
Damocles wrote: (whereas the default male Ryder looks handsome, and very similar to the actor portraying him)

He looks 16 with the sad scraggly beard to go with it.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 3:46 pm
by Talvieno
Just looked it up, and - you're right. He really does. I think someone was going for that in particular... but why?? :crazy:

edit:
Spoiler:      SHOW
The body size is out of proportion, too.Image

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 4:18 pm
by Mistycica
JanB1 wrote:a rather small studio like "CD Project Red"
Not to invalidate any other points, but:

Number of employees: 370

They might be relatively small, but they aren't a three-man indie band.



I also don't really buy into the 'intentionally sub-beautiful' talk. I think it's just honest incompetence, along with a 'tone down the god damn eyeliner' attempt at most. In some shots I can see real attractiveness in the default female protagonist, and it's only then killed by the horrific eyes and dodgy animation. It's not like either ME1 Shephard was a superstar either.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 4:28 pm
by Talvieno
Agreed on all points, Misty. Occasionally the female lead, from certain angles, before she starts moving, does look a bit attractive. ...Then the animations happen, or the camera switches to a different angle, or both.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 4:39 pm
by Zanteogo
Mistycica wrote: I also don't really buy into the 'intentionally sub-beautiful' talk. I think it's just honest incompetence, along with a 'tone down the god damn eyeliner' attempt at most. In some shots I can see real attractiveness in the default female protagonist, and it's only then killed by the horrific eyes and dodgy animation. It's not like either ME1 Shephard was a superstar either.
It might be partly incompetence, but there has been a push from certain groups to remove "traditionally beautiful" woman from media, including video games. It's part of the new gender identity politics that is taking over certain areas. It was quite heavy in Dragon Age Inquisition, perhaps they are brining it to the next level in MA:A?

Mind you, I liked DA:I, though I think the "real life gender politics" could have been toned down a bunch. I play games to escape real life stuff.

Edit: after reading my own post I fear I'm sounding like some crazy conservative nut job.. ;)
I'm actually liberal when it comes to most real life things, but have been drifting to a more "centred" view of the world as of late. I think in general injecting RL issues into games makes for poor games though.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 5:29 pm
by Silverware
Zanteogo wrote:It might be partly incompetence, but there has been a push from certain groups to remove "traditionally beautiful" woman from media, including video games. It's part of the new gender identity politics that is taking over certain areas. It was quite heavy in Dragon Age Inquisition, perhaps they are brining it to the next level in MA:A?

Mind you, I liked DA:I, though I think the "real life gender politics" could have been toned down a bunch. I play games to escape real life stuff.

Edit: after reading my own post I fear I'm sounding like some crazy conservative nut job.. ;)
I'm actually liberal when it comes to most real life things, but have been drifting to a more "centred" view of the world as of late. I think in general injecting RL issues into games makes for poor games though.
You don't come across like that.


Get your political message out of my mass murder simulator EA!
I don't care if characters are ugly or not, but it needs to be a part of their personality if they are or aren't.
Characters need to be aware of their lot in life, and act accordingly in the game.

People tend to forget that confidence is what puts one into the position of a protagonist in most cases.
People forget that confidence is the inverse of insecurity, and that ugly people are often more insecure, and thus less confident.
Less confident people are unlikely to be a protagonist.

Therefore protagonists, unless in unusual circumstances, are likely to be prettier. At least on average.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 5:41 pm
by Damocles
This weirdo Manveer Heir seemed to have left Bioware, at least thats good news.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:28 pm
by Talvieno
Silverware wrote:Therefore protagonists, unless in unusual circumstances, are likely to be prettier. At least on average.
Unusual circumstances like, say... the whole universe is populated by ugly people?

http://imgur.com/gallery/V05xt7j

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 10:08 pm
by Silverware
Talvieno wrote:
Silverware wrote:Therefore protagonists, unless in unusual circumstances, are likely to be prettier. At least on average.
Unusual circumstances like, say... the whole universe is populated by ugly people?

http://imgur.com/gallery/V05xt7j
Beauty is based on being better than the average, if the average was a whole lot lower, there would be a new beautiful.
And with the infinite worlds hypothesis then yes, that guy is the absolute pinnacle of human beauty in some universe, not ours, not any I know of, not even in random oblivion faces world, but somewhere he is.

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 3:44 am
by Damocles
Hm, apart from the visual topic, some excepts from the gamespot.com review regarding the writing and voice acting:
The vast majority of Andromeda's characters are just dull, and conversations rarely delve deeper than arduous "get to know you" small talk. No one yells or cries or expresses any measurable emotion at any point, even when they explicitly talk about their feelings, ..
As a Mass Effect game, Andromeda falls well short of the nuanced politics, morality, and storytelling of its predecessors. For me, the series has always been about compelling characters and harrowing choices, so to find such weak writing here is bitterly disappointing.
But the combat seems to be enjoyable. Question is, if that is the main focus of people playing a Mass Effect game.

In an little spot about the voice recording for Mass Effect, there was a shot of the dialog script for the VO engineer.
What I have wondered, is that the lines where just compacted into a list for this specific voice actor. (so out of context) And no emotional description was given.
How do they expect even the best voice actor to make it sound lively and in context then, if its just a bunch of atomic lines?

Re: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 5:56 am
by Dinosawer
Well.
Given what I enjoyed most about ME they apparently screwed up...
*crosses off to-buy list*