How did the Witcher series succeed where Mass Effect failed?

It had a good stories, characters and more memorable things than just being a shitty space "romance simulator". Its baffles my mind how people actually think ME was anything more than mediocre console shooter.

Because Fantasy > Sci-Fi in every single case.

how are the books anyway?
I just ordered them and they should arrive on friday, did I fuck up?

This.

Because BioWare got shafted by EA for starters, turning ME2 into a much more generic game. Another problem with ME was the good boy/bad boy approach to dialogue and choices. Instead of sticking to the renegade and paragon choices they went further into good and evil choices. Witcher of course flourishes with choices that aren't as clear cut and easy as Mass Effect's.

First one is solid because of the short story approach.

better writers with a more mature sensibility. Nothing to do with RPG elements. Even though TW2 had a consolized UI the writing received an upgrade and was far less fanfictionish compared to TW1. The choice and consequence is great too, you actually need 2 playthroughs to experience 100% of the game.

oh yeah and FYI Mass Effect 2 is by far the best in the series and it's not even a contest.

No, dragons and magic is cringe

even mass effect 3 is better than game of thrones

The combat system might not be perfect but I gotta say they did give a shit about world building, storytelling (there are still some issues but that would be nitpicking) enough to reel me in on the books.

[SPOILER]fingers crossed for CP2077[/SPOILER]

Why does SLAV MAGIC make westoids seethe so much?

>How did a series with good writing and design succeed where a series with terrible writing and design by a mediocre studio failed
It is a mystery, user.

The Mass Effect series achieved more than The Witcher ever will, even if it did crash and burn at the end.

Marketing + writers who actually love what they're doing.

The Mass effect series I'm pretty sure sold more copies than the Witcher. Also it's better reviewed.

ME1>>>>>Witcher 1
ME2>>>>>>>>>>>>Witcher 2
Witcher 3>>>>>>>>>>>>ME3

>The Mass Effect series achieved
Mass Effect didn't achieve anything though and I say this as someone with over 1500h in the entire trilogy.

Witcher was and will always be the better series of games, Mass Effect is for 15 year olds and gamer girls.

Mass Effect redefined the genre as we know it. The future games will be known as pre-Mass Effect and post-Mass Effect. Without Mass Effect there would never have been a Witcher 2 or 3, it was that influential. And hell Witcher 1 was just a glorified mod for Neverwinter Nights.

They both had Soulful first games with fantastic atmosphere but that were rough around the edges.

No they didn't just get up one morning and decide to spend 9,000 USD to license Andrzej Sapkowski's books because they liked them so much, they saw an opportunity for profit and they took it. The 'wierd'ness is due to them being shit programmers.

>better reviewed

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Mass Effect spawned looter shooters and popularized dialogue choices and RPG mechanics in games. Witcher encouraged devs to make more shitty empty open worlds.

>Mass Effect redefined the genre as we know it
???

There's literally nothing Mass Effect-like on the market today because nobody cares. Besides, it was an extremely generic world made up of old tropes without much anything new.

>Mass Effect spawned looter shooters and popularized dialogue choices and RPG mechanics in games.

>As of July 5, 2014, the Mass Effect series had sold a total of 14 million units
>The Witcher Series Has Sold Over 40 Million Copies
OH NO NO NO

>ME is better reviewed
lol no
Just count the number of GOTY awards for TW3

>There's literally nothing Mass Effect-like
Borderlands is basically a co-op parody of Mass Effect. Destiny. Mount & Blade borrows some of its game mechanics. Deus Ex HR took inspiration from it. Meanwhile Witcher inspired.. Assassin's Creed. Fantastic legacy you have there.

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Is this a troll?

Witcher 1, a humble "nwn mod" mogged Mass Effect and oblivion during that time of decline, it had much more game. Mass Effect 1 and 2 were impressive cinematic experiences and sure they're classics in their own right for a reason but did they actually have a positive influence on anything aside from the cinematic presentation and camera angles? Main examples that come to mind are Alpha Protocol, Nu-Deus Ex (both better games than mass effect) and SWTOR but they're fairly loose infuences. How did Mass Effect influence Witcher 2 for example? The combat takes much more influence from Demon Souls and the heavy c&c is an evolution from TW1. People complained that the time that Witcher 1 had too much choice, TW2 goes all out with that. Mass Effect never comes even close, not really.

>Mass Effect spawned looter shooters
No it didn't and even if it is that a good thing? Is there a single good one out there?

>popularized dialogue choices
Not at all but thanks to the presentation it did convince a lot of people on the power of voiced protagonists in these type of games

>RPG mechanics in games
it popularized the streamlining of RPG mechanics and showed you can get away with removing fluff and and not losing too much nuance in action rpgs

>Witcher encouraged devs to make more shitty empty open worlds.
TW3 is the only open world game in the series and funnily enough it's one of the only good open world games in existence

This will never not be funny.

>it popularized the streamlining of RPG mechanics
As opposed to what RPG elements of Witcher?
>funnily enough it's one of the only good open world games in existence
lmfao riding to question marks on a map is now 'one of the only good open world games in existence'?
>The combat takes much more influence from Demon Souls
They clearly did not succeed kek

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>There's literally nothing Mass Effect-like on the market today because nobody cares.
That's because all games have loaned so much from ME.

Witcher 2 was in development hell and would've been cancelled dozens of times, but every single time the devs pointed to ME and said "look, we can do this, trust us".

Neither of those two statements are true.

Based Casey, still at it ten years later.

>That's because all games have loaned so much from ME.
The only mechanic I can think of that ME introduced is the conversation pie and everybody despises it

tw2 and tw3 are very different

It got better with every game instead of worse

Very different brands of shit are still shit

Look you can be a hater, that's your prerogative, but Mass Effect changed how games are made.

They weren’t owned by fucking EA and they never made a big deal of the import mechanic so people didn’t care that most of your choices don’t carry over in any real way. Also they actually gave you a variety of endings unlike Bioware being so retarded as to force all the endings to be miserable. Geralt can get a happy ending, bittersweet, or an hero. There’s a good variety.

It really didn't, the Bioware brand of RPG is almost dead now actually

Not while CDPR is still trying (and failing) to rip it off with Cyberpunk.

Because the 3rd entry is the best rather than the middle one in Mass Effect

ME peaked in the first game

"Mediocre" is a conflation. The two short story collections that kick off the series are pretty good and clever.
The five novels that follow kind of suck. There's no shortage of readable fantasy fiction and they're on the bottom tier of this category.

No, Mass Effect 1 was a dumbed down consolized shooter when it came out a decade ago. The difference is 2 does it better instead of failing at it.

ME2 does nothing better than the first game

3 does the consolized shooter thing best all three and it's still the weakest of the trilogy.
Shooty-shooty is better. It's not good but it's better.

Wow Mass Effect 1 is pretty overrated around here.

Succeeded in making pseuds think it was deep so normies thought they were clever by playing it

I find the shooting more fun and satisfying in the first game

Short stories tend to be really good, with a few in particular being excellent. The books themselves vary wildly in quality, even within a singular novel, but I’d say they get worse as they go on.

concession accepted zoomie

literally just managed expectations better through smart marketing.

>ME2 does nothing better than the first game
Better consequences, better final mission, better art style, better inventory, better dialogue, better space home customization, better squad.
The only thing it really does worse is the story, but ME1 story was dogshit already and 3 never payed off so I don't care.