PSA: Mass Effect 3 will be on steam when hell freezes over

[JTsyo]

Saves from ME2 on Steam should still carry over without an issue, right? I have a feeling EA just used the DLC issue to separate from steam to give an excuse. They had no issue with ME2 and DLC on Steam. Had their flagship games like BF3 and ME3 been on steam, it would probably outsell Origin by a large margin.

 

[Beev]

If I didn't have a console to play ME3 on I would flat out pirate it before I bought it, so they need to get over whatever little issue they're whining about.

 

[skace]

I don't care to argue this crap. But I will say one thing

<- does not have origin installed and has absolutely 0 origin games. I will not be playing ME3 anytime soon. I'm finally adult enough to vote with my dollars.

The sad part is that I won't even miss not playing ME3. Bioware is part of EA now, their quality has gone downhill incredibly quickly and even the commercial for ME3 sucked.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Well, I just decided to deal with it and play the game. While I'm warmly attached to Steam now, that certainly wasn't always the case.

While it's not the tool of the devil I expected it to be, Origin's main issue is that its a very immature platform. Feature-wise, it's sitting about where Steam was 5 years ago. The base functionality pretty much works, but it's missing things like gifting - nothing that will make your game unplayable.

It's almost certainly not going to become my preferred platform the way Steam has, but it's really not awful or evil enough to make me skip played Mass Effect 3. Whether or not Bioware will be able to make me wish I had skipped Mass Effect 3 is still up in the air though.

 

[alent1234]

i just went to steam and ME1 and 2 are still there

 

[darkewaffle]

Mass Effect 3 not being on Steam is the least of the issues with Mass Effect 3. Let's talk about having to buy Day One DLC, a dozen different versions of the game and 2 dozen or so different totally non-game related items in order to get all of the game.

I've accepted Origin as being a poorly handled version of Steam, which was pretty craptacular when it launched and still has its own share of problems. What I can't accept is EA/Bioware taking what will probably be an amazing experience and piecemealing it out to every soft drink maker and fast food joint they can get to answer the phone and offering up pieces of it to entice people to buy shitty food and drinks.

Those bastards, holding that gun to your head forcing you to buy that DLC.

And clearly the game just isn't the same if you don't have the two promo weapons and promo armor. I know not having all of the special rings really ruined DAO for everyone.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Well, if he's still concerned about the DLC, clearly he hasn't heard about the writing yet.

 

[JujuFish]

And that's probably why I may not get ME3 for 3-4 years, because that's how long it will take to get a good Origin sale.

I was able to get Mass Effect 2 + Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for $4.94 + tax back in Oct 2010 from Origin, through one of their sales + coupon.

 

[Barfo]

they pulled ME1 and ME2 from steam so I have to go through origin to play it on PC. /didn't buy it before they pulled it off steam...

Yup, I was going to post this.

As for Origin exclusives...nope sorry.

 

[dighn]

Well, if he's still concerned about the DLC, clearly he hasn't heard about the writing yet.

what about the writing?

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

For a non-spoiler example, at the end of the demo, remember when they stop, complete dead hovering in midair to have a discussion? Despite the apocalypse going on around them, and despite being the Reaper's #1 most wanted?

And then the reaper blows up a hovercar with random child in it for emotional effect, instead of shooting the amazingly dangerous man in his hovering ship, while he's standing in plain sight as to make sure all the need to ID him is a pair of binoculars?

By all reports, the entire game is absolutely filled with that kind of fridge logic.

 

[Via]

A couple of points:

EA is a money whore. They might say it'll "never" be on Steam to get as many people as possible to use origin, but after the first few weeks of initial sales rush they'll start to glance at the hundreds of thousands of sales they're losing by not being on Steam and begin to drool and tremble a little. Remember - Alan Wake was never coming to PC, no matter what (I know these situations aren't entirely comparable, I'm just talking about supposed "absolutes").

The other issue is steam "super sales". I've always assumed that software companies have to agree to allow their games to be occasionally be part of these sales, which are one of Steam's biggest draws, in order to have their games listed on Steam. I'm sure EA doesn't want ME3 to be a part of these sales (at least for a LONG time), and that's where the stalemate lies.

EA would like to "break" Valve's absolute hold over how games on Steam are handled, and is trying to use ME3 to do it. I'm thinking Valve is probably shrugging their shoulders and chuckling a bit.

 

[irishScott]

For a non-spoiler example, at the end of the demo, remember when they stop, complete dead hovering in midair to have a discussion? Despite the apocalypse going on around them, and despite being the Reaper's #1 most wanted?

And then the reaper blows up a hovercar with random child in it for emotional effect, instead of shooting the amazingly dangerous man in his hovering ship, while he's standing in plain sight as to make sure all the need to ID him is a pair of binoculars?

By all reports, the entire game is absolutely filled with that kind of fridge logic.

Every sci-fi series ever is filled with that kind of fridge logic. With the reapers it actually makes sense. To them, we're basically ants. If you're stomping ants scurrying around an ant hill, do you really care about the order?

 

[NikolaeVarius]

what about the writing?

How really really crappy the writing is.

Massive "objective of reapers" Spoilers

Spoiler

The objective of the Reapers is to kill organic life before organic life makes synthetic life(geth) that eventually kills themselves a.k.a organic life. They do this to cut out the middleman.

That's their motivation. There is nothing else to it. It's not even one of those I, Robot things where the reason is "Kill you all to prevent yourself from harming yourself"

Also the kid that dies at the beginning is the leader of the reapers and comes back in "ghost" form to tell you this at the end.

Incomprehensibly complicated indeed.

Also the series is a dream told by a grandfather to his kid. Every choice is basically him choosing a story and making it up as it goes along.

Also, most of the crew dies of starvation.

The more you think about it, the stupider it gets in your head.

 

[Stuka87]

By all reports, the entire game is absolutely filled with that kind of fridge logic.

Fridge logic? as in, refrigerator logic? Or do you perhaps mean fringe?

Oh, and I forgot to mention in my post above, since installing Origin 5 months ago, I have not had a single issue or outage related to it. It has actually been extremely solid. I have had steam outages in that time period. And steam takes ages to launch, and is constantly advertising games to me when I quit out of something. I have yet to have this with origin.

 

[Merad]

they pulled ME1 and ME2 from steam so I have to go through origin to play it on PC. /didn't buy it before they pulled it off steam...

Um....

http://store.steampowered.com/app/17460/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/24980/

 

[dighn]

How really really crappy the writing is.

Massive "objective of reapers" Spoilers

oh boy.

to be honest I wasn't really expecting much from it. ME is far from hard sci-fi so I'm not taking it too seriously. the kind of bad logic so far mentioned is present in a lot of sci-fi works (novels seems to be much better in this area though).

 

[NoSoup4You]

By all reports, the entire game is absolutely filled with that kind of fridge logic.

Not sure what you meant by "fridge" but I get your overall point, and the game absolutely will follow this path, unfortunately. The Reapers are savaging Earth, yet you have time to go dick around on the Citadel chatting with random people, you have time to buy useless chotchkies to decorate your Captains Quarters on the Normandy, you have time to do random stuff while people are dying at an obscene rate.

It's a bizarre backdrop for a video game, there is no way the game will manage to maintain enough sense of urgency to keep the story on Earth relevant.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Fridge logic? as in, refrigerator logic? Or do you perhaps mean fringe?

Oh, and I forgot to mention in my post above, since installing Origin 5 months ago, I have not had a single issue or outage related to it. It has actually been extremely solid. I have had steam outages in that time period. And steam takes ages to launch, and is constantly advertising games to me when I quit out of something. I have yet to have this with origin.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic

Fridge Logic - as in, it finally hits you how ludicrous it is when you go to get a snack.


Wish I could claim the same about origin. I'm encountering issues with it right now. It's not installing the game properly, so I can't even get the release date checker up.

 

[fixbsod]

Was this really a surprise? If BF3 is origin exclusive then well I figured all of EAs later titles would be origin exclusive. The real test will be if EA can keep these titles origin exclusive or if the platform is not truly viable and so they have to release to steam.

 

[irishScott]

Was this really a surprise? If BF3 is origin exclusive then well I figured all of EAs later titles would be origin exclusive. The real test will be if EA can keep these titles origin exclusive or if the platform is not truly viable and so they have to release to steam.

It is to some people. In every ME3 thread there are always several people going "GOLLY I CAN'T WAIT FOR IT TO BE CHEAP ON STEAM!".

 

[dighn]

Not sure what you meant by "fridge" but I get your overall point, and the game absolutely will follow this path, unfortunately. The Reapers are savaging Earth, yet you have time to go dick around on the Citadel chatting with random people, you have time to buy useless chotchkies to decorate your Captains Quarters on the Normandy, you have time to do random stuff while people are dying at an obscene rate.

It's a bizarre backdrop for a video game, there is no way the game will manage to maintain enough sense of urgency to keep the story on Earth relevant.

this is actually fairly common in RPGs. whether it's some ultra-advanced machine race laying waste to earth, or ancient evil awakening or a megalomaniac obtaining god-like powers, you always have time to leisurely rescue cats and solve neighborly disputes.

 

[irishScott]

this is actually fairly common in RPGs. whether it's some ultra-advanced machine race laying waste to earth, or ancient evil awakening or a megalomaniac obtaining god-like powers, you always have time to leisurely rescue cats and solve neighborly disputes.

Hell it defined ME1. ZOMG we've got catch Saren, if we don't move quick he'll disappear and a human colony is under Geth attack... but we've got about 15 little side favors to do for various people so we'll get to back to Saren and the Geth in... 6 days?

 

[stevty2889]

As long as Origin is a requirement for ME3, I will not buy it, period.

 

[Barfo]

EA is a money whore. They might say it'll "never" be on Steam to get as many people as possible to use origin, but after the first few weeks of initial sales rush they'll start to glance at the hundreds of thousands of sales they're losing by not being on Steam and begin to drool and tremble a little. Remember - Alan Wake was never coming to PC, no matter what (I know these situations aren't entirely comparable, I'm just talking about supposed "absolutes").

BF3 is 4 months old and still not on steam...