Mass Effect 2 ditching elevators for ... load screens

by Ben Gilbert on Dec 6th 2009 9:00PM

Expanding upon statements from BioWare's Casey Hudson earlier this year, associate programmer Thomas Roy took to the developer's forums (requires login) recently to explain how Mass Effect 2 would be handling the promised lack of elevators (used in place of loading screens). As it turns out, rather than executing on BioWares's promise of "a completely new system" that's "part of the game experience," the studio will be implementing "loading screens and movies."

Though the game will still ask players to walk into an elevator, it will apparently cue up a loading screen that offers "interesting visuals and information." We'd like to point out that before Mr. Roy explains any of this, he says that the first game used elevators "so we [BioWare] didn't have to show boring loading screens" and they only made it into the second due to "a lot of complaints."

We're so broken up here -- on one hand, the developer is caving to the demands of the fans and critics. Score! On the other hand, Mr. Roy is telling us that loading screens are totally boring. If we demanded it, does that mean we're boring? Great, now we've got a total complex.

[Via Kotaku]

Mass Effect 2

Source

Tags: bioware, casey-hudson, ea, Electronic-Arts, elevator, forums, load-screens, mass-effect, mass-effect-2, Microsoft, pc, thomas-roy, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (121)

I kinda think I would prefer loading screens to the elevators, actually, if they have a large amount of loading screens. The news/conversations in the elevators were cool at first but they ran out pretty quickly.

That's... Why I said "If they have a large amount". You're kinda bad at reading.

You're kinda bad at making a point.

All I said was if there were a lot of different loading screens with various juicy nuggets of info on them, perhaps on the different races, planets, etc, enough where you'd rarely see the same one twice, it would be preferable to the elevators. While, yes, the elevators kept you in the game, it ran out of sound bytes quickly, leaving you to stare at the elevator walls as you waited to get wherever.

I'm not sure how anyone can disagree, but this is Joystiq.

Fuck that!
I want silly banter! I want mini story updates from radio/elevator announcers. I want Wrex to ask who would win fights. I want Ashleigh to insult the Quarians with Tali there.

Though if it does speed up transition time I suppose I can accept it more. I never found it to be any issue except for the impossibly slow elevator on the Normandy

Plus going up like 80 flights on an elevator in game makes you really feel like you are 3 people awkwardly standing in an elevator actually waiting to get to your destination. loading screens would take that away!

i never got why people bitched about it, it added to the story a bit and kept you in the game.

They should make the loading screen a picture of an elevator just out of spite ;D

I want a USB attachment that blasts my brain into a stupor so that by the time that first drop of drool hits my lap the loading is over and I am back to normal.

I agree, Tho they were far and few between I still rathered those moments, over a static image. Telling me that X+RT will bring up a combat option

Also, without the elevators when would I have an excuse for just spinning the camera around checking out Tali's and Ashley's ass?

Gonna have to say, I preferred the loading screens from KotOR over the elevators in ME. And DA's load times were pretty short, so I expect no less from ME2.

Well dragon age looked like a pile of donkey shit rubbed with camel puke and wasn't nearly as detailed as mass effect so of course it loaded quicker.

*sigh*

I guess you are entitled to your opinion.

No opinion about it. Don't know about the pc version, but I played the hell out of the 360 version and it's one ugly game. Very early current gen, sometimes even last gen graphics.

Gosh, tmac making gross exaggerations of a game he never gave a chance. Never thought I'd see the day.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/dragonageorigins

Wow, tmac. Your opinion is equivalent to itself.
Oh, and a lot of people disagree with you.
Now, you shall disappear *poof*

I beat the game with 3 different characters, so I think that qualifies as "giving it a chance". All I'm saying is it's not going to win any best graphics awards, even if it was the only game released this year.

Haven't played Dragon Age. However, I have a few close friends who are playing it and love it. Both say the graphics are dogshit, trees specifically. Just sayin'

Also, why link the metacritic score (why link it ever as "evidence" of good or bad) when I was talking about graphics? That has nothing to do with anything I said. If you want my opinion on the actual game I say it's a solid 75, even with the dogshit graphics.

I think being ported to the consoles probably hurt. The game looks a lot better on the PC. This was the one time I bought a multi-platform game for my 360, thinking "It's BioWare. It'll be the better version, because they have experience with the 360."

Oops.

Apart from the framerate issues, the PS3 version ended up being better...

Funny thing Darth, with Mass Effect, another studio ported the game to the PC whereas EA worked on the 360 version. With Dragon Age, EA developed it for the PC and another studio ported it to the consoles. Thanks EA for giving the PC some love, thanks also for no fucking DRM! : )

I'm stupid, replace "EA" in my previous comment with "Bioware".

Why did you buy a PC game on the 360?

No, seriously, virtually the entire internet told you not to buy it on consoles unless you were an absolute BioWare fanboy who had for some reason misplaced his video card.

Because right now, at college, I'm stuck on this netbook. It barely runs KotOR 1 and 2. There was no way in hell it was going to run DA.

Because I don't buy pc games, and please let's not go down that road I'm holding myself back as much as possible.

LOL tmac, I feel the same way about the consoles. Maybe I should stop having it used just as a DVD movie player by my dad. ; D

Come on, make up your mind, first you say you have a teeny bit of interest in PC gaming and then you say you don't.

Ok if you want to call me wanting to play only WoW and Diablo 3 an "interest" in pc games, then go ahead. I don't see a reason to spend hundreds more just to be able to get an extremely slight graphics upgrade on the multiplatform games.

There's far more negatives to pc gaming than the slightly better graphics can fix, even for a graphics whore like me.

I can't say I don't have any interest in console gaming. I wish some console exclusives would mosey on over to the PC for convenience of playing my games on a single, very versatile platform, mods, graphical upgrades, etc. I'm getting less time to play games now, I have more than enough on the PC as it is, such a huge backlog to go through...

Now I wonder how long it'll take to emulate 360/PS3 on the PC? Lucky the Wii is relatively simple hardware wise that it can already be emulated on the PC. ; )

Judging by the troubles they've had with PS2 emulation, I'd say the PS3 is a long way off. You'd need immensely powerful hardware to do that.

Oh yeah, I'm not counting on PS3/360 emulation anytime soon, I don't even think the Xbox has been emulated on the PC, I think barely.

If it is, some of the last titles will be Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2, due to their heavy utilization of the PS3's hardware.

I totally agree with tmac here. When a game from 2007, Mass Effect, looks way better than a brand new game from the same company, all I can think is that it's the work of BioWare's B-team.

Dragon Age is so ugly that it hurts to look at. That doesn't mean it's a bad game. The antiquated combat system and lack of a voiced protagonist makes it a bad game, but I digress.

Every time I look at the popsicle stick looking trees or the wonky movements of the character models, or the crappy MMO looking spell effects, I throw up all over myself. Anyone who says Dragon Age is a good looking game, should probably trade in that 360 or gaming PC for a hot new original Xbox - I hear all the games on that system look that good.

Okay, commence downvoting you silly, shitty game liking fools.

I passed early judgement on DA. Compared it to n64 even. A little harsh. The exterior enviros, which you see early on, are really bad. Such as after the origin story is done, the mountain views are a good example. And some character textures are lacking, but interiors are pretty decent. Still a great game, dialogue is deep, and character development is good. Level caps are a pet peev for me though. I like respawning enemies and a high cap.

I have no IDEA what you guys are talking about. I have 200 hours logged on the PC version, and its one of the best looking RPG's I've played this year. If your talking about xbox/PS3...haha.

Yeah, I don't know what the hell people are talking about. I didn't play the console version (because it was obviously a PC game), but Dragon Age on my 3 year old laptop looked better than any 360 RPG I've ever played

The loading screens should just be Wrex's tutorial videos on how to make sandwiches

That's easy, you take one blue assed alien and one pale ass girl, and in the middle there is Sheppard.

Sandwiches? You just described Sheppard's Pie!

I actually didn't mind the elevators.
Don't know why people bitched so much.

I feel the same way. I only recently completed the game, but I can recall people bitching all over the place about the elevators when it came out. I really didn't think they were a big deal.

Because they are boring people. :3

I LOVE Mass Effect (favorite game of this generation thus far, true story), but how can you call elevator rides boring in a game centered about 90% on managing dialog?

Same here.. I liked the news updates!

The problem would be solved if everyone did it ridge racer style and had little 8 bit mini games on load screens.

But honestly i don't see any problem with it.

People complain about the stupidest things in games. Metroid Prime didn't need multiplayer, Mass Effects elevators weren't that annoying, and toon Zelda didn't need to be shunned to handheld exclusives. Mirror's Edge 2 better not be 300+ hours.

I actually liked the elevators in Mass Effect. At first they offered some good dialog, and later they broke up the game long enough to force me to stretch my legs. Definitely didn't need the elevator on the Normandy though.

Completely agree.

PLUS, I would rather have an elevator scene than have what some other games do, i.e. game slow-down/choppy-ness while area loads, or even where it has mini loading screens then 30 seconds of re-rendering everything (granted I remember ME doing that a bit as well)

My sentiments exactly. The elevators gave way to fun music and interesting character building dialog. What will the loading screen offer me...nothing! I say bad call on that one.

I think the general sentiment was that it was really obvious it was a loading screen and that they were trying too hard to make it seem like it was not.

So instead of trying to be a fake something it's not, it's just going to be what it really is: a loading screen.

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Mass Effect 2 ditching elevators for ... load screens

Mass Effect 2

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