Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Is Confirmed

JRK87

.... goodness gracious.

(1) Notice how long it took for ME2 to come out, and how short it would've taken for ME3 to come out. Notice that DA2 was rushed (at least story-wise).

This implies that they had ideas for ME3's story IN TANDEM with ME2. In all likelihood, they envisioned it as a trilogy from the beginning.

I'm basically saying that the single-player campaign has been down-pat from the beginning. Level design, story-boarding, experience breakdown (which BioWare has to do since they NEVER make a RPG with random battles and respawnable mobs -- haven't since KOTOR at least), etc. etc., all that is done RELATIVELY quickly after the initial overview design (like script-writing and such as I mentioned before).

(2) What makes a game lengthy to make (esp. one on this scale) is

(a) voice acting
(b) MAKING & post-processing the effects, but the making part is largely done (this is a THREEQUEL after all).
(c) Human resource management
(d) Physical resource management (i.e. funding and equipment)
(e) BUG TESTING <-- last thing done, probably doing that now
(f) Graphical design (also largely done, the hard part is the conceptual design part, NOT the technical stuff).
(g). Technological improvement
(h). Gameplay creation (for an original), and adjustment (for sequels). This is done first, and the game's almost in gold phase (by December it should be).
(i) Optimization

When you add in multiplayer, you have to do the following (all of which can take a long time, because they require better optimization techniques)

(a) netcoding
(b) alpha and closed beta-testing (bug testing!! Open betas are more for gameplay suggestions and balancing)
(c) map and mode creation
(d) Gameplay creation. I'm sure BioWare could come up with something halfway decent so last-minute, and if it ISN'T last-minute, then WTF ARE YOU ALL COMPLAINING ABOUT? They probably devoted MUCH of their time to this and Kinect integration and quality assurance (and the 1000 variables being carried over and all the variation of single player this entails, and this is the easiest part of all the tasks I just mentioned that they would've had to spend most of their time on, seeing as how THIS is what BioWare is known for: choices in games affect how they play out).

Seeing as how no one on the BioWare core team has extensive technical multiplayer experience, I would assume they would've had to hire new staff. Seeing as how human resources are THE biggest cost of ANY company or production (besides acquisition of million-dollar supplies for R & D for example), and companies don't like to "create new jobs" unless they have the money (i.e. bottom line profit) to do so, and seeing as how ME made HUGE profits for BioWare (actually, for EA, sorry BioWare!), they likely DID hire new staff to code the multiplayer part.

The only thing really affected here is the quality of the optimization phase/task.

(3) So, why "announce" it now? (This has yet to be verified by myself).

(a) They'd knew you guys would have a cow. That would UNDERHYPE the game and hurt promotion and therefore, sales.

(b). Seeing point (2) above, they probably had a hard time technically implementing it, and if it might've been too difficult at this stage in the game, they might've axed it for ME3 and put it in for an ME MMO (which by the way, has been long-rumoured this year).

(c). Actually, mentioning the ME MMO, I think they axed that and incorporated that into ME3 last-minute.

(4). Fable II and III. Play them. Co-op in that game was fantastic. Players were ephemeral spheres that didn't really affect your campaign, just the meta-game, and you could join up with one (at least locally in Fable II) and have a tag along for your adventure.

Mass Effect trilogy practically BEGS for Co-op. What do I mean by that? I mean it is like having Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian NOT get married and have babies. The two are both dumb and pretty and rich, therefore, socially and biologically perfect matches for each other.

(5). Pinnacle Station DLC or something to that effect for sure would be AWESOME multiplayer gameplay. Any type of horde/firefight/"zombie" type thing for gameplay would be awesome in Mass Effect (they are awesome in any game, and I hate zombies, lol). And ME has their own version of zombies.

(6). Going back a bit, I mentioned mapping out experience gains and such. When you've exhausted every area of a BioWare game, there's nothing left to do besides finish the story and replay it. There's nothing after ME3, at least for Sheppard. I my ultra-powerful characters to at least have "dungeons" to raid like in a true RPG, something they barely did for Dragon Age 2.

Therefore, not putting in at least SOME sort of variable replayability (and no, replaying a campaign differently doesn't count as much) would be a huge travesty towards the longevity of Mass Effect.

They made the right choice, you guys just don't have the je-ne-sais-quois to see it, & maybe u know nothing technical too.