General Discussion

I have just picked up Mass Effect for PC 2 days ago and I have played already 10 hours with it, and I come to the conclusions that I haven't had the same epic feeling since I have played Kotor. 

I would really love to see a company make MMO's that scales to the level of Mass Effects story telling, and "questing", and I feel Bioware has a potential to do it.

They have a history of creating awesome RPGs in space and in fantasy settings, and I hope their MMO based on a new IP will live up to their standards.

I would really like to see proper meaningful quests and story weaved into an MMO rather than just the fetch and deliver / kill X mobs, get  Y item quest.

It would be nice to have finally an MMO where your decisions during a quest would alter your path, your answers and actions would change the result of quest which could open up new paths and close down others and directly alter your whole destiny. I guess some of us would like to make choices in games that affects our characters long term and irreversible.

To scale up a single player experience like you have in Mass Effect to an MMO is indeed and epic task and it would probably take 5-6 years of development until it will be releasable in a good polished shape, however I think the company who will be able to do that will carve his name into the MMO history ( and generate piles of cash with it) and I think currently there is only developer out there who has the potential to do it is: Bioware.

What do you think? Can Bioware scale up their MMO to the level of Mass Effect experience?

yeah easy , just make it all instanced.

To be honest its not so much that can they do it, but can they stay consistent with it.  I mean i even have to admit the VanCleef quest line in wow has that same good feeling that you are doing something big and great and it all culminates into this great final battle; then its like they just stopped caring about quest content.  I would rather the game have one amazing big quest line that awards more xp  (or even like you get mini quest goals along the way the keep the xp comming in but fit into the overal mission).  But ya it always seem (AoC) that they do that at the beginning.  I mean i cant lie the nighttime AoC quest was the only part i enjoyed about the game, I loved the feeling that i was subverting a tyrant, manipulating a powerful sorceress and then the final showdown between me and the evil lord.  I would love to see the opposing side of things too where you choose to go turncoat on the resistance etc..   It would be tough but i think bioware has the story writing history to make a game where you feel like you effect things, that you feel you accomplish something important, and make a game where you actually care about the character (Why cant an npc you have helped saved and moved through the game world with die? that kind of stuff happens you know). Erm everyone knows the uncomfortable moment in FF7 when Aerith died and u realised you had tears running down ure face and you just felt sick and wanted nothing more at that moment to put ure big ass buster sword down the middle of sephiroths pretty lil face! Games are just shallow and they dont ever make enough of a story to pull a player in (which is what most MMO's seem to be built towards).

Unless your like EVE or UO where the general idea is a whole differnet world for you to make character in etc...they go for the story type setup and fail.  But one wall of text later i think if anyone has the talent and feel for an epic story line Bioware is the company...i just hope they dont pull their punches and water it down for the current standard in MMO's.

If Bioware makes their MMO more like KotOR or their earlier games and a LOT less like Mass Effect then it will be a big success.

It took me 22 hours to finish Mass effect. The missions were fun and detailed, but to have such captivating gameplay and deep personal story  in a game ment to be played for years is impossible. Imho Biowares strenght is in story driven rpgs but  MMORPGs are a whole different animal, their strenght is in social interaction, and It wouldn't suprise me one bit if they fail to deliver a hit mmorpg.

Yet I want to see them try, as long as they keep making these wonderful single player games as well.   

 I have no doubt that biowares mmo will have awesome quests storyline, but I dont play mmos for the "epic pve". If that was what i'm into I'd just stick to singleplayer games such as kotor/mass effect/oblivion. For me how good kotors mmo depends how how good the pvp is. Sure I will likely buy biowares mmo and likely play the first month for the storyline, but subcribe? Not unless theres fun endgame pvp. unfortunatly bioware is not experienced or focused on pvp so it seems unlikely. But a fanboi can still can hope since they are intelligent developers and hopefully they'll realise they need to make the pvp and combat fun, and are able to.

good luck bioware. remember to make it a mmorpg not a morpg.

Well, after finally getting Mass Effect for the PC, I can say I'm disappointed considering the hype from all the Xbox360 players. To me, it's just KotOR reskinned. And the buggy state the game was released in ( still no patches yet ), along with a ridiculous DRM scheme ( which surprisingly caused problems for noone but legitimate customers ), shows that EA is definitely calling the shots now, not Bioware.

Although the story is decent, it's just not grabbing me the way it should have by now. Hell, I exit the game and go a few days before I decide to fire it up again. Never had that happen with any other bioware game, usually I can't put it down.

As far as a Bioware mmo, I'm sadly uninterested at the moment. I've seen what's happened to every other EA mmo, and this will just be another in a list. Infogrames ( the idiots who call themselves Atari ) was and is a POS publisher, but they at least gave Bioware the room they needed to make quality. EA only cares about time and money, which is why the PC version of Mass Effect was shoved out early with apparently little real testing ( how the hell do you make a modern game that has compatibility issues with modern graphic cards?).

Mass Effect was way too linear for my taste. It was a great game however but I wouldn't call it epic. It was also very short. And simple.

However I agree that Bioware could probably make a great MMOG. Hell, maybe even an MMORPG - It's been a long time since I played one of those.

I'd rather see a Baldur's Gate 3 (singleplayer), though.

I don't want quests or a storylines (asides from a general backdrop and fluff canon) in my MMOs tbh.  I play them so I can make my own...

Originally posted by phantomax

Mass Effect was way too linear for my taste. It was a great game however but I wouldn't call it epic. It was also very short. And simple.

The problem is, you can make a challenging and complex game that can keep you fascinated for 30, or 50, or 100 hours. But that is not enough for a MMO. Here Bioware has to create something new if they want to be successful.