I just completed my first run through Diablo III on Normal difficulty, and I've got to say I definitely enjoyed it. Having been playing the Diablo games since I was about twelve years old, the game certainly doesn't disappoint on the gameplay front. The action, as always in Diablo, is front and center, and is ramped up even beyond my expectations. In Diablo II, released over a decade ago, players were killing hordes of zombies, demons, and cows (it's a long story) in style with fancy spells and weapon attacks, but this time things become even more explosive with Diablo III being rendered in 3D, allowing for an actual physics engine.
The physics engine itself is mostly aesthetic, since the game still plays in a top-down view like the previous games and very few actual gameplay mechanics use it, but it makes the game seem that much more fun every time you manage to smash a statue, or a wooden scaffold collapses because you shot it, or an entire column collapses in a ruin. I remember at one point laughing hysterically as one monster's head went flying across the screen after my friends and I caused what can only be described as a cataclysmic level of destruction with our powers.
Speaking of friends (and an obligatory shout-out to some of my guild mates from WoW who joined me), the game's multiplayer, the feature that made the first two games take off as online co-op hits, is still as fun as ever. I would even argue it's more fun now, as with Battle.net's features the game now has achievements and the ability to set your game so that only friends can join. You can also now jump into a friend's game with a push of a button after logging in, making casual multiplayer that much easier. And now there is an auction house where players can bid or buy items from other players for either in-game gold or real world cash.
That said, there are a few issues with the online service. For one thing, the game is now permanently online as a system of DRM and a way to protect the auction economy. This means that you literally cannot play the game, even single player, without an internet connection. Also, your ability to play is entirely dependent on being connected to Battle.net's servers, which means that if those servers go down, for whatever reason, you are unable to play the game, even alone, which happened numerous times throughout this first week after release, resulting in a lot of fan protesting. Finally, this also means that your play is at Blizzard's discretion. If you are banned by Blizzard, you will not be able to play the game, regardless of how much money you may have paid for it. While Blizzard has maintained relatively positive service in the past and not abused their ability to discontinue service for customers, it gives them a LOT of potential for abuse that I am not sure is a good thing to want to see in more titles.
As to the real money auction house, it still has not been fully implemented, so I can't say yet what impact that will have on the game. For the most part, I didn't actually participate in the auction house, as I never had enough gold to afford anything being sold, nor did anyone buy anything I attempted to sell. The economy is relatively unnecessary in a game so full of randomly generated loot, so you can certainly get by without using it, but so far the economy still seems to be unstable in its infancy. With people being able to buy and sell for real world cash, it does not seem entirely unreasonable that some people may attempt to buy their way to the top at the highest difficulties, but it is still possible to enjoy Normal, Nightmare and Hard mode just fine without ever touching the auction house.
The game has five classes, which for the first time can be either male or female, and are fully voiced. And when I say fully-voiced, I don't mean just the one-liners from Diablo 1 and 2. They now carry on full conversations with other characters. Throughout the game, you acquire hireling characters, a "scoundrel", a "templar" and an "enchantress", who each have their own dialogue and customization options for their abilities, but they only join you in combat in single player games. There are also two crafters that follow you on your quest and set up in town, a blacksmith and a jeweller, each with their own personalities, and you can pay gold to level them up and make new items.
As for character abilities, Diablo III does away with Diablo II's "skill trees" in favor of a system capable of much more flexibility while still limiting characters from being "masters of everything". You start out at level 1 with one ability assigned for your left mouse button, and as you level you gain more ability slots, new abilities, and "runes" for your abilities. You get up to 6 skill slots, and each ability continues to unlock new runes up until the maximum level. The runes alter the abilities in sometimes dramatic ways, allowing for an old ability to take on an entirely new function in your skill set. This means that there are seemingly limitless combinations of abilities and runes that play very differently, and it becomes almost an art in determining the best combinations, which makes for a lot of strategic fun. Also, your character's abilities can be changed at any time without cost, though, unless you're in town, there will be a short cooldown until they are useable, so it is best not to do it in the middle of a warzone.
And finally, on the story front, I generally liked the story of the game. Blizzard has previously stated that this essentially brings the story arc begun in the first game to a close, and it certainly doesn't disappoint on that front. Admittedly, the writing is somewhat predictable, but that's nothing new. The story has always taken a bit of a backseat to the action anyway, but the story in this game does not disappoint, and the voice acting is significantly better than some in the previous games, including the always wonderful Jennifer Hale playing one of the key characters. The drama is increased, even taking some somewhat shocking turns, but not in ways that are detrimental to its enjoyment. In fact, some of the startling events in the game definitely serve to increase the tension in important ways.
So, I can definitely say I've enjoyed the game, and intend to continue to enjoy it. However, I still hold some serious reservations about the DRM, as I think there's a slippery slope to go along it, and it while I don't expect anything terrible to come from Diablo III, I would not like to see the "always online" feature being added to most single-player games. There is just too much potential to abuse that level of control, and I think Blizzard is starting to run into the first signs of a rebellion against that sort of feature. Also, I wouldn't recommend the game if you are looking for a stimulating story. The story is not the major selling point of the game, and unless you really enjoy hack-and-slash gameplay, you will find yourself disinterested. That said, it's also not a bad story in spite of being a bit predictable and sometimes shallow.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
Advance Recon: The Secret World
Over the weekend, I had the chance to take part in the open beta for FunCom's upcoming MMO, The Secret World. Since recent events have led me to become extremely mistrusting of game developers and especially video game critics, I've decided that I should write reviews of my own, since clearly so many have a sincere lack of ability to provide what their customers are looking for. Since The Secret World was my most recent play, I've decided to start here.
Technically, since the game hasn't been released yet, this is really more of a "preview" than a "review", but it's still with a critical eye that I will be writing about it, so make of it what you will. The beta weekend provided only a small portion of the game, only worth a few hours of play time, but considering it was only one small part of just one of the areas in the game, "a few hours" is still quite a lot to get out of that.
Right from the get-go, I noticed some issues with connecting to the servers, but that may well have been since I was trying to connect shortly after the beta servers went live and the amount of log-in traffic was a bit too much to handle. I did not notice any major problems connecting later in the day, after the initial rush had died down.
Probably the first thing I noticed once I was in the game was that my framerate was terrible. Not "impossible to play" terrible, but bad enough that I felt it was worth reducing the video settings to an amazingly low level in order to feel comfortable playing it, and my system is not that old. This was particularly interesting because, even at max settings, the graphics were not all that great. Not that the graphics were terrible, mind you, but they certainly didn't seem like they warranted that level of slow-down on my system. I actually had to reduce the resolution of the game, which is something I almost never have to do.
Once I got the game running at a comfortable pace, I was able to create a character and jump in. The beta weekend was restricted to allowing only characters of the Templar society, so that took one of the major options for character creation off the table to begin with. The full release of the game is supposed to have three secret societies that your character can be a member of: the "holier-than-thou" demon hunter Templars, the elitist conspirator Illuminati, and the Asian criminal syndicate Dragon. I am not clear how the different societies impact gameplay. It certainly appeared that at least part of the storyline throughout the game was impacted by being a member of the Templars, but I can't yet identify if being a member of one organization prohibits you from participating in activities with members of other organizations the way Alliance and Horde characters can't cooperate with each other in World of Warcraft.
Speaking of storylines, let's get to my favorite subject in video games: story! As far as story goes, the game does appear to have a major story arc that players play through. I didn't get very far in it, so I can't say much about what the story actually is about, but the player character does not get any dialogue, so don't expect to be playing a fully voice-acted character like in Star Wars: The Old Republic. That said, there are cutscenes where non-player characters talk to you and give quests. The voice acting isn't bad, but it's certainly nothing to write home to your mother about.
Since I can't say much about the story itself, I can at least provide some information about the setting. The game is set in the modern day, and players take the role of humans who have, for some odd reason (seriously, don't ask if you don't want a head full of bee-flavored nightmare fuel) have been inducted into the "Secret World" - yes, they really do call it that in character - and are able to use magic as well as see things that most people either can't see or are simply too disbelieving to admit. These people are often invited to join secret societies that operate toward their own ends. The Templars, based in London, UK, are the descendants of the Knights Templar of the middle ages and are hellbent on destroying monsters and demons, even at the cost of their own righteousness. The Illuminati are a conspiratorial organization who manipulate events toward their own ends and control entire nations from their headquarters in New York, NY, and Dragon are a chaotic organization based in Seoul, South Korea, that are seemingly devoted to the purpose of Chaos itself.
Naturally, the atmosphere begins to form in your mind from these descriptions, showing themes of secret conspiracies, mysteries and Lovecraftian cosmic horror. The fact that so many of these things seem clear can make the Secret World seem a little cliché, but FunCom handled this very much the way Joss Whedon would: by not only making it obvious, but having fun with it too. The meat of the gameplay areas available to players in the beta was in a town called "Kingsmouth" in New England. Just that name probably causes a few people to guess where I'm going with this, and in case that is you, you are absolutely right. The streets in the town have names like Lovecraft Lane, Dunwich Road and Arkham Avenue. Shops have names like "Flagg's Pharmacy", a name that will definitely be recognizable to fans of Stephen King (who, I suspect, also inspired the name of the town itself). All of these little touches will be fun to look out for for those players who enjoy looking for Easter eggs.
From a gameplay perspective, the atmosphere even makes for interesting and creative questing. Most MMOs provide quests in which you have to kill so many of a certain type of monster or collect items from such-and-such location. There are plenty of those types of missions in The Secret World as well, but there is an entirely new type of mission that I've never seen in an MMO: investigation missions. These are missions where absolutely NONE of the work is done for you, not even telling you where to go. No markers are placed on your map, and you are only given indirect hints and clues as to where to go and what to do. For the first time in years while playing an MMO, I actually had to use critical thinking to finish these quests, and it was FUN. Real life facts and information even become useful, which makes it especially nice that there is an actual web browser built into the game client that defaults to Google. I spent hours trying to figure out one of the clues, and practically cheered when the solution finally dawned on me. It reminded me, in many ways, of some older action-adventure horror games like Silent Hill and the earlier Resident Evil games.
As to character customization, well, this is where the game has some major hiccups. When I created my character, there were extremely few clothing options available to choose from. I suspect there will likely be more clothing items that can be purchased in-game (and possibly with real money) to help customize your appearance more to your liking, but it seemed extremely limited at character creation, though it's possible the choices were simply cut down for this limited beta. In fact, one of the oddest things was that the lightest possible skin-tone I could get for my character was incredibly dark (think "Indian with a mild tan" dark), even in comparison to non-player characters throughout the game. I am not sure if this was a problem with the game, or if I just couldn't figure out how to make it lighter.
When it comes to combat abilities, though, customization becomes a whole different game. This game has no class system or levels whatsoever, meaning you are free to play your character however you like. You are given two weapon slots, and a number of abilities that require those weapons, meaning you will be restricted to only two ability "trees" to determine your function in combat, but each type is surprisingly flexible. By fighting in combat or completing missions, you earn experience, which earns your character Anima Points (AP) and Skill Points (SP). AP are then spent on abilities in the ability wheel to determine what combat functions you can have, while SP are spent in your skills to improve your efficiency in certain things.
For the abilities, you get two sets of seven slots to "equip" your abilities: one set of seven to equip activatable abilities, and another set of seven to equip passive abilities. Other than that restriction, you are free to equip whatever abilities you like. There are three categories of weapons - ranged, melee and magic - on the ability wheel, which are then subdivided into three different types of those weapons. What makes this interesting is that each and every weapon type has different abilities, and can be customized to do... well, just about anything you need them to do. I was surprised to find that even my double-pistol wielding 60's Bond-girl parody character had healing abilities with her guns. Equipment, much like most other MMO's, improves your character's efficiency in certain things, like attack power, health or healing, so depending on what equipment your character uses and what skills they have focused on, it seems as though you can manage to build a character to fill just about any role in a group with almost any type of weapon combination.
While it is interesting to explore the different options available to characters, it is important to note that all this freedom definitely can come at the cost of being extremely complicated. While the game is relatively easy to learn early on, activities designed with a group of players in mind might become very complicated to someone who does not have much experiencing min-maxing their character's abilities in MMOs, especially when it comes to endgame activities. It's unclear what the endgame looks like in The Secret World, but we could safely assume it has something to do with grouping up for increasingly hard challenges to earn better equipment, and anyone that hasn't absolutely mastered their abilities will probably fall behind, and I would suspect they may suffer admonishment from other players. In other words, I have a feeling this will be a game that will be hard if it is your first MMO, although learning it shouldn't be too hard if you want to invest the effort.
Altogether, I give the game, or the small bit I experienced of it, 4 out of 5 stars. It's got some flaws, but altogether it is an enjoyable and refreshing change of pace from the usual MMO fare.
Technically, since the game hasn't been released yet, this is really more of a "preview" than a "review", but it's still with a critical eye that I will be writing about it, so make of it what you will. The beta weekend provided only a small portion of the game, only worth a few hours of play time, but considering it was only one small part of just one of the areas in the game, "a few hours" is still quite a lot to get out of that.
Right from the get-go, I noticed some issues with connecting to the servers, but that may well have been since I was trying to connect shortly after the beta servers went live and the amount of log-in traffic was a bit too much to handle. I did not notice any major problems connecting later in the day, after the initial rush had died down.
Probably the first thing I noticed once I was in the game was that my framerate was terrible. Not "impossible to play" terrible, but bad enough that I felt it was worth reducing the video settings to an amazingly low level in order to feel comfortable playing it, and my system is not that old. This was particularly interesting because, even at max settings, the graphics were not all that great. Not that the graphics were terrible, mind you, but they certainly didn't seem like they warranted that level of slow-down on my system. I actually had to reduce the resolution of the game, which is something I almost never have to do.
Once I got the game running at a comfortable pace, I was able to create a character and jump in. The beta weekend was restricted to allowing only characters of the Templar society, so that took one of the major options for character creation off the table to begin with. The full release of the game is supposed to have three secret societies that your character can be a member of: the "holier-than-thou" demon hunter Templars, the elitist conspirator Illuminati, and the Asian criminal syndicate Dragon. I am not clear how the different societies impact gameplay. It certainly appeared that at least part of the storyline throughout the game was impacted by being a member of the Templars, but I can't yet identify if being a member of one organization prohibits you from participating in activities with members of other organizations the way Alliance and Horde characters can't cooperate with each other in World of Warcraft.
Speaking of storylines, let's get to my favorite subject in video games: story! As far as story goes, the game does appear to have a major story arc that players play through. I didn't get very far in it, so I can't say much about what the story actually is about, but the player character does not get any dialogue, so don't expect to be playing a fully voice-acted character like in Star Wars: The Old Republic. That said, there are cutscenes where non-player characters talk to you and give quests. The voice acting isn't bad, but it's certainly nothing to write home to your mother about.
Since I can't say much about the story itself, I can at least provide some information about the setting. The game is set in the modern day, and players take the role of humans who have, for some odd reason (seriously, don't ask if you don't want a head full of bee-flavored nightmare fuel) have been inducted into the "Secret World" - yes, they really do call it that in character - and are able to use magic as well as see things that most people either can't see or are simply too disbelieving to admit. These people are often invited to join secret societies that operate toward their own ends. The Templars, based in London, UK, are the descendants of the Knights Templar of the middle ages and are hellbent on destroying monsters and demons, even at the cost of their own righteousness. The Illuminati are a conspiratorial organization who manipulate events toward their own ends and control entire nations from their headquarters in New York, NY, and Dragon are a chaotic organization based in Seoul, South Korea, that are seemingly devoted to the purpose of Chaos itself.
Naturally, the atmosphere begins to form in your mind from these descriptions, showing themes of secret conspiracies, mysteries and Lovecraftian cosmic horror. The fact that so many of these things seem clear can make the Secret World seem a little cliché, but FunCom handled this very much the way Joss Whedon would: by not only making it obvious, but having fun with it too. The meat of the gameplay areas available to players in the beta was in a town called "Kingsmouth" in New England. Just that name probably causes a few people to guess where I'm going with this, and in case that is you, you are absolutely right. The streets in the town have names like Lovecraft Lane, Dunwich Road and Arkham Avenue. Shops have names like "Flagg's Pharmacy", a name that will definitely be recognizable to fans of Stephen King (who, I suspect, also inspired the name of the town itself). All of these little touches will be fun to look out for for those players who enjoy looking for Easter eggs.
From a gameplay perspective, the atmosphere even makes for interesting and creative questing. Most MMOs provide quests in which you have to kill so many of a certain type of monster or collect items from such-and-such location. There are plenty of those types of missions in The Secret World as well, but there is an entirely new type of mission that I've never seen in an MMO: investigation missions. These are missions where absolutely NONE of the work is done for you, not even telling you where to go. No markers are placed on your map, and you are only given indirect hints and clues as to where to go and what to do. For the first time in years while playing an MMO, I actually had to use critical thinking to finish these quests, and it was FUN. Real life facts and information even become useful, which makes it especially nice that there is an actual web browser built into the game client that defaults to Google. I spent hours trying to figure out one of the clues, and practically cheered when the solution finally dawned on me. It reminded me, in many ways, of some older action-adventure horror games like Silent Hill and the earlier Resident Evil games.
As to character customization, well, this is where the game has some major hiccups. When I created my character, there were extremely few clothing options available to choose from. I suspect there will likely be more clothing items that can be purchased in-game (and possibly with real money) to help customize your appearance more to your liking, but it seemed extremely limited at character creation, though it's possible the choices were simply cut down for this limited beta. In fact, one of the oddest things was that the lightest possible skin-tone I could get for my character was incredibly dark (think "Indian with a mild tan" dark), even in comparison to non-player characters throughout the game. I am not sure if this was a problem with the game, or if I just couldn't figure out how to make it lighter.
When it comes to combat abilities, though, customization becomes a whole different game. This game has no class system or levels whatsoever, meaning you are free to play your character however you like. You are given two weapon slots, and a number of abilities that require those weapons, meaning you will be restricted to only two ability "trees" to determine your function in combat, but each type is surprisingly flexible. By fighting in combat or completing missions, you earn experience, which earns your character Anima Points (AP) and Skill Points (SP). AP are then spent on abilities in the ability wheel to determine what combat functions you can have, while SP are spent in your skills to improve your efficiency in certain things.
For the abilities, you get two sets of seven slots to "equip" your abilities: one set of seven to equip activatable abilities, and another set of seven to equip passive abilities. Other than that restriction, you are free to equip whatever abilities you like. There are three categories of weapons - ranged, melee and magic - on the ability wheel, which are then subdivided into three different types of those weapons. What makes this interesting is that each and every weapon type has different abilities, and can be customized to do... well, just about anything you need them to do. I was surprised to find that even my double-pistol wielding 60's Bond-girl parody character had healing abilities with her guns. Equipment, much like most other MMO's, improves your character's efficiency in certain things, like attack power, health or healing, so depending on what equipment your character uses and what skills they have focused on, it seems as though you can manage to build a character to fill just about any role in a group with almost any type of weapon combination.
While it is interesting to explore the different options available to characters, it is important to note that all this freedom definitely can come at the cost of being extremely complicated. While the game is relatively easy to learn early on, activities designed with a group of players in mind might become very complicated to someone who does not have much experiencing min-maxing their character's abilities in MMOs, especially when it comes to endgame activities. It's unclear what the endgame looks like in The Secret World, but we could safely assume it has something to do with grouping up for increasingly hard challenges to earn better equipment, and anyone that hasn't absolutely mastered their abilities will probably fall behind, and I would suspect they may suffer admonishment from other players. In other words, I have a feeling this will be a game that will be hard if it is your first MMO, although learning it shouldn't be too hard if you want to invest the effort.
Altogether, I give the game, or the small bit I experienced of it, 4 out of 5 stars. It's got some flaws, but altogether it is an enjoyable and refreshing change of pace from the usual MMO fare.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Can Gamers Make A Difference?
I am becoming increasingly frustrated with developers lately. I recently saw a video of Paul Barnett, Senior Creative Director for EA BioWare's Mythic division, in which he basically states that, unless you are a game designer, you don't have a right to complain about games. To be honest, I only managed to watch the first five minutes or so of the roughly one-hour long video, but I had heard enough. He continues to deride his audience as being idiots, and like the utter morons he describes them to be the audience actually seems to LIKE it.
This is one problem with gamers today: for all of the amazing things we can do, and even have done, gamers frequently turn off their brains when the time comes for critical thought. When it comes time to think if things can be better, gamers frequently just respond with "it could be worse." We tend to be working stiffs instead of academics when it comes to games. It's always about what button to push at the right time and never a question of why push that button to begin with. But why is that?
Most gamers, like myself, have no drive to create games. We don't enjoy the process. I, for one, would rather live in a world without video games than live my life typing out C-script. We can be incredibly passionate about the games we play, but incredibly passive when it comes to assessing whether or not we're getting what we pay for. I, for example, have taken a lot of crap from game companies that annoyed me, even bothered me, but still kept on enjoying the games they made because, well, if they didn't make them, they wouldn't exist to enjoy at all. However, even I have my limits.
As long as I can manage to enjoy a game, I will usually have no problem with paying money for it. That is, after all, the heart of the concept of capitalism: if something is desirable, then people will pay money for it. But what happens when the game developer/publisher crosses "the line", that event horizon of pleasure at which the product stops being fun and starts being a chore? Well, you get things like what is going on between BioWare and the fans of Mass Effect.
To explain, the main reason Mass Effect's fans have been so riled up over the extremely disappointing ending of Mass Effect 3 is a number of reasons, perhaps least of all being the actual "ending" itself, though I have honestly become reluctant to call it even that. Another big reason fans have been so upset is because of things that were said before the game was released. The game's director, Casey Hudson, made statements, even within WEEKS of the release date, about the ending that turned out to be objectively untrue, and while statements made by a developer generally cannot be considered "false advertising", some of the statements made on the game's promotional website can. To cap this all off, the criticisms of the ending were met with some of the worst public relations response in recent memory, much of which amounted to implying to the fans they were just too stupid to understand the ending. This is where I really draw the line.
It is one thing to claim "artistic integrity" for something you have created. It is a whole different scenario to throw it all back into your customers' faces as an insult. While I personally hold the view that games can be art, I am also of the opinion that business remains business. I have paid hundreds of dollars to BioWare and EA for the Mass Effect series alone. For someone like myself, that is a lot of money. Regardless of their reasons for releasing the game in the state of apparent incompleteness that it has, I am not fond of being treated like an idiot, and I have discovered I am not alone.
Lots of fans got together and found that not only were they not the only people who felt let down, but that, in fact, they were the majority. A large majority. That's an enormous amount of upset customers who were led to believe they were buying something very different from what they got. And for the first time that I've ever seen, they began to organize.
When I was first introduced to holdtheline.com, I was impressed. The website has an incredible, professional look; it functions very well; and the people I spoke with on their forums were delightfully kind, thoughtful and outspoken individuals one would not normally expect from the stereotypes of gamers we see in the media. What's more, many of them not only were upset about the outcome with Mass Effect 3 but also shared many of my views on how the industry has been shredding us, the consumers that are its lifeblood, for every red cent it can squeeze out of us. And, before I knew it, I found myself swept into joining the team working on the newsletter.
I am extremely optimistic about this movement. For now, it is extremely focused on Mass Effect 3, and to some extent on BioWare, but many among us have expressed interest in broadening out and becoming a group more focused on consumer advocacy for video games. HTL may well be a force for crafting the future for video games, and I think that, if it can, it would be a much brighter future. So, for now, I will hold the line, and I hope that perhaps some of you who might read this will too.
This is one problem with gamers today: for all of the amazing things we can do, and even have done, gamers frequently turn off their brains when the time comes for critical thought. When it comes time to think if things can be better, gamers frequently just respond with "it could be worse." We tend to be working stiffs instead of academics when it comes to games. It's always about what button to push at the right time and never a question of why push that button to begin with. But why is that?
Most gamers, like myself, have no drive to create games. We don't enjoy the process. I, for one, would rather live in a world without video games than live my life typing out C-script. We can be incredibly passionate about the games we play, but incredibly passive when it comes to assessing whether or not we're getting what we pay for. I, for example, have taken a lot of crap from game companies that annoyed me, even bothered me, but still kept on enjoying the games they made because, well, if they didn't make them, they wouldn't exist to enjoy at all. However, even I have my limits.
As long as I can manage to enjoy a game, I will usually have no problem with paying money for it. That is, after all, the heart of the concept of capitalism: if something is desirable, then people will pay money for it. But what happens when the game developer/publisher crosses "the line", that event horizon of pleasure at which the product stops being fun and starts being a chore? Well, you get things like what is going on between BioWare and the fans of Mass Effect.
To explain, the main reason Mass Effect's fans have been so riled up over the extremely disappointing ending of Mass Effect 3 is a number of reasons, perhaps least of all being the actual "ending" itself, though I have honestly become reluctant to call it even that. Another big reason fans have been so upset is because of things that were said before the game was released. The game's director, Casey Hudson, made statements, even within WEEKS of the release date, about the ending that turned out to be objectively untrue, and while statements made by a developer generally cannot be considered "false advertising", some of the statements made on the game's promotional website can. To cap this all off, the criticisms of the ending were met with some of the worst public relations response in recent memory, much of which amounted to implying to the fans they were just too stupid to understand the ending. This is where I really draw the line.
It is one thing to claim "artistic integrity" for something you have created. It is a whole different scenario to throw it all back into your customers' faces as an insult. While I personally hold the view that games can be art, I am also of the opinion that business remains business. I have paid hundreds of dollars to BioWare and EA for the Mass Effect series alone. For someone like myself, that is a lot of money. Regardless of their reasons for releasing the game in the state of apparent incompleteness that it has, I am not fond of being treated like an idiot, and I have discovered I am not alone.
Lots of fans got together and found that not only were they not the only people who felt let down, but that, in fact, they were the majority. A large majority. That's an enormous amount of upset customers who were led to believe they were buying something very different from what they got. And for the first time that I've ever seen, they began to organize.
When I was first introduced to holdtheline.com, I was impressed. The website has an incredible, professional look; it functions very well; and the people I spoke with on their forums were delightfully kind, thoughtful and outspoken individuals one would not normally expect from the stereotypes of gamers we see in the media. What's more, many of them not only were upset about the outcome with Mass Effect 3 but also shared many of my views on how the industry has been shredding us, the consumers that are its lifeblood, for every red cent it can squeeze out of us. And, before I knew it, I found myself swept into joining the team working on the newsletter.
I am extremely optimistic about this movement. For now, it is extremely focused on Mass Effect 3, and to some extent on BioWare, but many among us have expressed interest in broadening out and becoming a group more focused on consumer advocacy for video games. HTL may well be a force for crafting the future for video games, and I think that, if it can, it would be a much brighter future. So, for now, I will hold the line, and I hope that perhaps some of you who might read this will too.
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