Mass Effect 2 - No More Elevators

skavenhorde

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Kotaku reports that Bioware has officially dumped the elevators transition system in favor of loading screens. It seems that Bioware recieved a lot of grief over these infernal contraptions. Ray Muzyka said back in April that there would be a completely new system to handle transitions into other areas in Mass Effect 2 and now Thomas R. Roy said this:
The elevators were made in ME1 so we didn't have to show boring loading screens. However there were a lot of complaints, so we've gone back to loading screens and movies. We still have elevators in ME2, but you don't wait inside them. We'll cut to a loading screen instead. [emphasis added]
We've tried to make the loading screen more interesting this time by adding interesting visuals and information.
The elevator conversations had some funny moments, but hopefully people will enjoy this new system better than the old one!
More information.
 
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So people prefer to watch a loading screen, rather than hear their characters trade banter or hear a news bulletin talking about the repercussions of their actions?
 
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Well I am just now playing Mass effect, and some of those elevator rides ARE awfully, awfully long. The banter or radio blurbs in contrast are very short, if there is any. And you still get a "Loading" freeze on top of it. Not me favourite aspect of the game, tbh.
 
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I think they handled the loading "screen" admirably in Mass Effect - but I have to wonder why they weren't faster on my new rig. It's as if they "lock" the elevator ride to achieve a certain flow to the dialogue between NPCs - and in THAT case, I'd rather have the fastest loading without the ride.
 
Come to think of it, some of the load times in Dragon Age were INCREDIBLY bad - and I don't understand why. Particularly during certain of the fade sequences. Something was messed up about that.
 
The elevator conversations had some funny moments, but hopefully people will enjoy this new system better than the old one!

Am I reading into this too much, or are they implying that there will be no conversations between party members?
 
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So people prefer to watch a loading screen, rather than hear their characters trade banter or hear a news bulletin talking about the repercussions of their actions?

Without wishing to look thick, I for one hadn't picked up that it was an alternative to a loading screen so thought it was just a choice to have them take that long.
 
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Hmmm I think the problem is, that some don’t realize that its actual a loading screen, and don’t grasp why they spend so much time looking at it?
 
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@DArtagnan: Well, in ME the *only* random conversations between party members happened inside elevators, and they're saying these are gone. Of course, that doesn't mean they can't make party banter work like it did in NWN or KotOR, but… I dunno, the "it was fun, but…" gave me a bad feeling.

Anyway, I hope there will be more party banter in ME2 than in the first part.
 
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@DArtagnan: Well, in ME the *only* random conversations between party members happened inside elevators, and they're saying these are gone. Of course, that doesn't mean they can't make party banter work like it did in NWN or KotOR, but… I dunno, the "it was fun, but…" gave me a bad feeling.

Anyway, I hope there will be more party banter in ME2 than in the first part.

Well, I can't know obviously, but I'm pretty sure they'll find another way to have similar banter. At least, I don't see why not - as that's pretty much Bioware's main thing - the NPC interaction bits.
 
Yes DArtagnan, I suspect Dragon Age has some sort of memory leak or similar. Especially Orzammar tends to get very, very bad after you've reloaded it a few times, as if the entire zone was loaded into the memory, and then it keeps loading a fresh instance into the memory.

The reason I suspect a leak or double storing (etc etc) is due to the fact that a re-start of Dragon Age will solve the loading issues. When you get back in, it'll load super fast a few times, and then it gradually gets worse untill it takes 30-60 seconds per loading screen.

The worst example I have is when I moved from the arena in Orzammar to the Halls in the noble district (during the thief quest) - I spent a whooping 4 minutes, 1 of which was spent walking, 3 spent twiddling my thumbs.

Anyway, back on topic. I do feel that the elevator rides were a bit too long from time to time, but generally some sort of scene while loading is definetly preferable to a screen saying "Loading".
 
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I hadn´t realized that too until now. I think thats a compliment on the nonintrusive loading mechanism.
 
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While the elevator rides were a little tedious once you'd run out of banter (what it needed was more banter and radio/news messages!), I'd still vastly prefer it to a loading screen assuming the elevators weren't causing the loads to take 2-3x as long. If it wasn't, this is a ridiculous choice.

I've always wondered why they couldn't give us something in-character to do during loading screens. How nice would it have been to be able to twiddle with your inventory or character sheets in The Witcher, for example, during those long loads? And here Bioware does give us something in-character to do - or at least experience - and it gets dropped. *sigh*
 
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Replaying Mass effect on the pc (much better experience then on the Xbox i think). I like the elevators. It does make the game feel more open. I think removing them is a misstake.
 
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Hmmm I think the problem is, that some don’t realize that its actual a loading screen, and don’t grasp why they spend so much time looking at it?

Bingo! More than anything, people were complaining, "Why don't they have faster elevators in the future? They have faster-than-light travel, for crying out loud!!" etc. and not understanding that it was a load screen. They should have added a small blinking "Loading…" label in the corner and it would've been all okay. Not that the loading times were all that great, on Xbox 360 that is.

@DArtagnan: Well, in ME the *only* random conversations between party members happened inside elevators, and they're saying these are gone.

Oh, that's not true I don't think. There was some banter on planets after certain parts and missions, too, if I remember... a party member commenting on how you handled something, or about some character's background. Or am I imagining things?
 
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My problem with the elevators was their quest and hub design. I take a 10 minute (OK, hyperbole) ride from the ship down to the citadel, open the door and find an NPC who wants me to do a quest back at the ship.

And go through the elevator again? Give me a break.
 
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Oh, that's not true I don't think. There was some banter on planets after certain parts and missions, too, if I remember… a party member commenting on how you handled something, or about some character's background. Or am I imagining things?

Oh, yes, party members would chime in now and then, what I mean is the dialogues between *them*, the kind of random banter not related to any quest or event - those conversation only occured while riding an elevator, instead of being triggered while traveling somewhere.

@Dhruin: Yeah, that was pretty horrible.

Hm, I'm okay with loading screens if I don't have to watch them for too long, and even though the elevator rides were okay at first, they annoyed me later, for some reason. Was it perhaps that I couldn't move, the conversations were rare, and the announcements extremely repetitive?
 
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In my view elevators > loading screens for the same amount of time but either way is not a big deal.
 
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