Welp. I accidentally spoiled myself as to what the day one DLC is thanks to Bioware fucking including it in their official statement. Seriously? Way to perpetuate the problem.

Anyway, I feel compelled to rant on this subject for a bit. I have some things to write about regarding my Cali plans but I'll save those for another post.

Bioware, I am massively disappointed in you. I stood up for you when Dragon Age 2 turned out to be a shitpile amongst most fans -- hell, I enjoyed it. I looked on warily when you (mostly EA, I guess) pushed the ME3 marketing machine into almost mind-bogglingly stupid realms. I continued to have faith in you as a developer even as legions of fans turned on you for screw-ups with other games.

But I really gotta know, why -- of all things -- did you make the Prothean squadmate a DLC character?

To preface this, I don't know how DLC is typically handled at a dev; I understand there may be nuances I'm not getting. Furthermore, I realize this is jumping to conclusions, and I may be surprised once I actually play the game -- I made negative assumptions about the multiplayer, too, and turned out to be wrong. I also preordered the CE weeks ago, so I'm going to get this content regardless. Finally, I understand, according to the statement, that the Prothean won't have a large impact on the story.

BUT THAT'S THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

I love the Mass Effect lore. Seriously, if it wasn't half as deep and compelling as it is, I probably would not have bothered with ME1 at all. Because that game was nothing if not seriously flawed in places. The Protheans are so goddamned important to the lore, it's downright insulting they're relegating "Prothy" to DLC. You know why?

• I always mourned the lack of character development afforded to Zaeed and Kasumi. It's bittersweet because I know that technical concerns are limiting what can be included in a DLC pack, yet I know I felt a deep twinge of disappointment when I went to talk to them and learn more about their characters, only to find that all they do is spit single lines of dialogue at me with no option for conversation.

• But even though this is disappointing (Justin and I were in fact talking about this yesterday, before I learned of the content of the leak -- he wished he could learn more about Zaeed, and I about Kasumi), it's not crucial to the story. These characters are two cool bits in the universe but not so important that when evidence of the latter was found in the code, people didn't go completely batshit. This, obviously, has not been the case with "Prothy". As someone else said (I forgot if it was on LJ or somewhere else), the mere existence of this character is a huge plot twist, a huge stinking SPOILER. This is because people have been wondering since ME1 what a Prothean looks like, and figured we'd never learn because they've been dead for 50k years, and suddenly woops there's an live one?

• I just...I can't understand why they would choose to sideline something so important to the universe. How was Prothy not written into the main game? I really can't wrap my head around it. According to the official statement a separate team worked on this DLC to get it finished while the main team prepared the game for launch. Okay, but why was Prothy shuffled off to the side like this in the first place? The fact that he's a Prothean means he should be front and center in the plot, especially since it takes place during the Reaper invasion! What the hell!

• This is a direct quote from their official statement: "The Prothean is optional content that is certainly designed to appeal to long-time fans, which is why he is part of the CE offering (the version many fans would be likely to purchase)" Really? Because yeah, all long-time fans will have the cash or even the desire to buy the CE.

As a fan deeply invested in the Mass Effect lore, I really don't like how this was handled at all. I find that by doing this, they disrespected a major part of their universe and story. And this isn't even taking into consideration that this super lore-crucial character is ONLY available in a new Collector's Edition, and that you have to pay an extra $10 to get him otherwise. WUT. Insult on top of injury, much? In general though I'm mostly annoyed about this for lore reasons.

Just...wow. For the first time, I'm actually disappointed in Bioware.

Oh and I should mention that regardless of this screw up I will love this game and play it to pieces. Mass Effect is probably my favorite game franchise of all time and I will set aside a few days to spend in front of my tv when ME3 launches. Still, very disappointed.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

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