While the gaming world is finally returning home from midnight launches to pop Mass Effect 3 into their systems and take on the Reapers once and for all, it seems fairly disappointing and mind-boggling technical issues are already starting to appear. Specifically, players on PC or Xbox 360 who attempt to import their custom characters first designed in the original Mass Effect are instructed to recreate their character’s face codes from scratch.
Unfortunately, the extensive levels of customization that were first given to fans with the original game in the series also mean that replicating said selections from memory – since the numerical face codes result in different faces in Mass Effect 3 – is a tall order. This issue seems to only be affecting hardcore fans who have stuck with the series from the beginning, so it goes without saying that this is an unpleasant surprise for what was expected to be a terrific launch night.
In a cruel twist, even players who started with Mass Effect 2 seem to be able to import both the choices and physical appearance they made into ME3. Provided, that is, that they’ve already removed any saves from the cloud. Fans who fall into the category affected have already taken to the official forums to ask how an oversight like this could have possibly gone unresolved, especially with so much time and money behind ending the trilogy on a high note.
At this point the official stance from developer BioWare seems to be to simply do what the game instructs: if you need to remake a face from scratch after two entire games, then that’s what you have to do. This is not the kind of support or advice that any gamer wants to hear, so hopefully the team will have a better explanation soon.
For those who are jumping into the series for the first time, or for those who picked the franchise up with the second installment (and its variety of DLC), this may seem like a cosmetic issue, and the resulting uproar more vain than legitimate. But in the minds of players who put their faith in the Mass Effect series from the very beginning, it’s hard to think of this as anything but a horrible sign that their fears have been somewhat founded.
The minds behind the game have spent the last year or more explaining why Mass Effect 3 would be bringing a ‘satisfying’ end to the trilogy, and claiming that their desire to bring more players into the franchise wouldn’t be affecting their dedication to loyal fans. At no point were fans made aware of this lack of imported save support, which is nothing short of baffling. Considering how many improvements and visual changes have been lauded, such a simple yet disappointing glitch only seems more odd.
Throwing fans such a curveball without any warning will certainly enrage many who felt that the series was straying from its roots, especially with the development team finding the time to craft close to $1000 worth of extra ME3 content, but we won’t jump to conspiracy theories or hyperbole just yet. And while the game will almost certainly prove to be one of the best of this year, having it start on the wrong foot for the most dedicated of fans is regrettable, and completely unnecessary.
There may be technical reasons for the glitches – like tweaking an imported face in ME2 as BioWare is claiming – but the complete lack of warning or discussion among fans certainly won’t be earning the developers any goodwill in the eyes of those affected. So while we await any fixes or actual explanations, it seems that fans will need to put their visual memory to the test, unless they want to erase the Shepard they’ve come to know and love for the past two games.
Update: BioWare has addresed the face importing issue on its forums. While no solution has been offered for Xbox 360 owners, a fan made tool may be able to help PC players.
“Hi everyone
We are aware that some players are having issues importing the faces of characters from Mass Effect 1 or Mass Effect 2 into Mass Effect 3. The issue is likely in how faces were detected when imported from Mass Effect 1 into Mass Effect 2, and we’re working on the best way to correct it for affected players.
As our teams work hard to address the importing of face codes we would like to call out a fan made tool that may be able to help PC users in the short term:
Have you encountered these issues yourself? Do you share our disappointment in the lack of support or communication, or think this is a small issue in the grand scheme of things?
Mass Effect 3 is available now for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. As is the day-one DLC ‘From Ashes.’
Follow me on Twitter @andrew_dyce.
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Source: BioWare
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I can see how this can be a huge problem for long time fans, but I won’t have this issue. I have used the default male Shepard since ME1, mainly because he looks like Matthew Fox
Thats a good man, Gotta love default Shepard.
I used default also, tried creating my own but he looked literally retarded and just as plain as the rest of the npc’s in the game. Every time he made a facial expression you’d think he was taking a dump. I said “f*** this” and took the default, unique look.
I have been a fan of the series since day one and when i popped the game into my xbox after downloading the DLC and setting up my kinect from the closet just to use the voice commands, I was very upset that I had to remake my Shepard. I love customizing the look to any character in any game to look like me to give it a more personal touch. I couldn’t believe that something so minuscule couldn’t be fixed early on in the development. I hope they fix this problem with a patch later on down the road. The game, besides that, is phenomenal. I look forward to playing the game to the fullest.
Ya know some how I just don’t think that the Face Import is going to be the last complaint fans have. I’m talking about the true Fans that were with them from E3 2006 and ME1. Or some of the other hard core fans who played ME2 and ME1 and love the series for the Depth of characters and Story. Not to mention the fact that many of us have made Shepard OUR OWN. The game/story has been very player driven and directed, when I Play ME MY Shepard is MINE I chose how he says things what he wants to know, the Whys, hows, ins and outs, I choose make my Shepard respond in the way I want him to.
I really think that this is going to be just the first of many issues Fans have with the ending to THEIR Shepard’s story.
this is so unfair! i wanted to end it all with my character, not hollywood shepard! for the love of keelah i hope they find a way to fix this problem!
This is becoming too much of a problem with big game devs letting very little things(yet annoying as eff!) get by for launch. hell…i can’t finish the main story in skyrim(cornered rat bug).
I wanted my bada$$ glowing scars for ME3…wow Bioware… way to screw over your hardcore ME fan-base. I’m pretty sure writing an algorithm to convert ME1 appearance to ME2 character ID codes wouldn’t have been difficult at all…probably just 100 lines of code or something? I doubt the gaming community would be outraged at having to wait an extra month or two if it meant they would receive a product of absolute bug/glitch-less perfection…..jesus tap-dancing christ……
Skyrim and Battlefield have/had some horrible glitches. From Skyrims “Markharth Bounty” glitch to Battlefields unplayable campaign, its ridiculous and it pisses me off.
Hopefully Mass Effect 3 goes smooth for me. I also had issues with AC: Revelations on PS3, couldn’t complete a mission because of an an invincible guard.
BF3 and Skyrim are on my PC btw.
I’m not entirely sure I understand this — the deficiency just relates to importing chracters’ faces, right? Choices come in fine, but the faces get mixed up? If that’s the case, then it’s a pretty minor issue if you ask me. Unless you meticulously crafted your original character to look like some real-life person or something, I don’t see what’s so hard about just remaking a reasonable facsimile of your character from memory… unless you’re unable to alter the face of an imported character, meaning you’d have to create an all-new character to get the right face. THAT would be immensely sucky, but otherwise, it seems like a fairly minor annoyance.
I didn’t craft my Shepards after real people. But the thing is, my Shepards aren’t pretty or handsome. They have flaws, and one of my Shepards looks like he was hit by a fracking train.
But I’ve grown to love that character’s appearance because it’s unique. When a company like BioWare makes a story and characters as well-crafted as they do, you fall in love with every aspect of it. You grow attached to characters or memories in the game. Sounds childish, maybe, but many RPG fans would agree with me completely.
Long story short, I want the character -I- made, with the decisions -I- made.
For someone who’s played through the entire story four (going on six) times, from four (going on six) different angles, I expected the import feature to work as flawlessly as it did in Mass Effect – Mass Effect 2. Because it hinges my entire experience with the Mass Effect franchise.
So I’m praying for a patch. Until then, Mass Effect 3 has to sit on a shelf on my headboard.
Shut up and enjoy the game its not that big of a deal. I for one have no problem with it. So stop being a whiny little B@#$%!
This, kids, is a wild “Troll”.
Angelo,
Comments like that make it seem okay for developers to get lazy with their games. We expected more and this was a problem hidden from fans who’ve followed the series.
I have to agree… I was thinking the same thing about how “oh all we have to do is recreate the face? I thought it was something serious” but the more we let these damn devs get away with, the more they’re gonna try to get away with. We start doing the whole DLC thing, next thing you know we have “launch day” DLC. Oh so you wanted to rent this game before buying it? Well you’re gonna have to pay for a “pass” to play it anyway. Oh you want to actually complete the game? Well the last 3 missions are available for download on XBL/PSN… Like I said we need to start slapping these guys in the face and let them know we’re not going to buy their sh!* until they get their acts together and start making games like they USED to…the way they’re SUPPOSED to be made.
Or you can use original Shepard, considering that his face is the only good looking one. That’s the only one i’ve ever used.
Lol exactly
Personally, all mine did is change the hair to blonde… Had default Femshep facial features. So, the game basically knew that I loved the Samus version of default femshep ^.^ Thank you Bioware for giving me the Shep I loved. This game has been freaking amazing! Haven’t even touched the multiplayer, and probably wont until I feel like it is necessary.
Its funny. BioWare gave a similar response to people claiming that SWTOR was having framerate problems.
Deal with it is basically what they said. Its not us its you.
BioWare is starting to become less and less relevant for me.
Seems like they care less about making a good game and more about cashing in on previous success.
SWTOR was made to capitalze off of the success of KOTOR
Dragon Age 2 was pretty dissapointing,
ME2 was good but it could have been way better.
Just saying, I think BioWare is losing their touch.
Unfortunately I think it make perfect sense and was 100% predictable.
Back when I imported my character from ME1 to ME2, I wanted to slightly change to color of her makeup and realized that I couldn’t do it.
I had to make it completely from scratch and tried to but just couldn’t exactly. The eyes I used back in ME1 weren’t available in ME2 so I just keep my old face and forgot about it. Now that I read this I think they redid the face generator in ME2 and somehow also leave the legacy code from the first game for import files. I guess they drop it in ME3 and so some faces from ME won’t cut anymore. Just a guess… But and educated guess from an IT pro.
I played with default Shep from the start. So this is an non issue for me. The no-cloud support thew me for a second, but It makes sense to me why it wouldn’t work for importing as cloud storage is fairly new and sometimes works a bit wonky. I was able to DL from the cloud and put my save on a USB drive to hop between the 360′s in my apt. Overall I am enthralled, and have no complaints so far. ME3 has been getting huge press, so of course haters gonna hate. “Its popular, so it sucks!” Derps. Bioware, your rock my socks.
yep! I’ll be usually default female shep and yep! Haters will hate that’s what they do best. Not saying anybody in particular but fans seem to always turn their back on franchises they help made popular. Since its “cool” it’s now lame for some reason. Happens in tech (Apple, soon it will be Android), celebs (all the time) games (COD, next will be BF, right now it’s ME) it’s ridiculous how people can be. I guess it’s just how most fans are.
Bioware just got lazy and lied about it to fans until they discovered it themselves. By the way, lie through omission is a lie. You know how long it took me to make a good looking shepard? A lot! Mostly because the face generator sucks but I made a good looking character and I don’t want to tweak it… AT ALL!
Hmm, maybe I should just tell gamestop I want my preorder money back and go get the damn game when someone brings it back used….ill sleep well at night knowing that I screwed you as hard as you screwed me…been a loyal fan of bioware since KOTOR and even understood your day one dlc and didnt mind…but this is kind of ridiculous…no doubt it will be great but maybe some heads up wouldve been nice…
“I’m not entirely sure I understand this — the deficiency just relates to importing chracters’ faces, right? Choices come in fine, but the faces get mixed up? If that’s the case, then it’s a pretty minor issue if you ask me. Unless you meticulously crafted your original character to look like some real-life person or something”
That’s just the thing. My custom Shep’s face was meticulously based on . . . my own. I hope it doesn’t make me sound vain, but putting something that so closely resembled my own face made me feel more immersed in the first two games than playing with the based-on-a-male-model default Shephard. And one of the most exciting things for me about playing ME2 was seeing how that face improved slightly with the second game’s graphics. And I ended up hitting on just the right settings that I can’t help dreading the pain of recreating it.
But the deeper issue is what other glitches could be waiting under the surface. ME2 on 360 and PC didn’t remember who Shephard had appointed to the council and assumed he’d taken the Renegade action against Conrad Verner. IF ME3 has this issue right out of the gate, what else could be potentially wrong? It just puts a damper on what’s looking to be an otherwise brilliant game.
Just a little tip for those of you who are frustrated- go back to ME2 and pretend to begin a new game. Choose your old Shepard’s file, then write down the custom face code.
Now plop in ME3, create a game with the same save file, and if needed just type in that same code. Should work flawlessly. It worked for the demo (I haven’t gone out to pick up my copy yet)
Hope this works!
Does this work for the 360 version of the game?
yes but it didn’t work with a ME1 face.
Using my custom face code in ME2 and I ended with a different character than my ME1. Should have said that in my previous post… sorry
As I feared, it looks like Bioware spent too much time and resources adding a multi-player element, while sacrificing some simple yet essential details that would make ME3 the best conclusion to one of the greatest SINGLE PLAYER games of our generation.
Extremely disappointing!!!
I expected there to be glitches. No game is EVER perfect. But the fact that a glitch happens before you even begin playing is completely rediculous. And Bioware’s repsonse to this problem is rude! They didn’t even attempt to placate fans by saying something like “This is an issue we are looking into and apologize for any inconvienice.”
That being said my FemShep looks fairly close to one I designed in ME1. There’s something that feels a little off (I think its the skin tone) but I can deal with it if I have to.
this news should be new to all, if player would of known that if you’d input your custom shep code from the demo that the appearance would change just slightly but not too much.
this would be a serious problem for those who are a) lazy to input your custom shep or b) used a mod code with gib. and MIGHT get some worse results.
Back when Mass Effect 2 was still new and fresh, I remember reading an article discussing character creation in the series. The author discussed how unsettling it was to watch someone else play the game with their own Shepherd. In short, every player has their own vision of who Commandrr Shelherd is and how or she looks, and to hear the voice come out of a different face, it is disconcerting.
That’s basically what it feels like playing now having to start building a new character. None of the story can be enjoyed because the player keeps thinking, “that’s not commander Shelherd.” It’s like watching the 3rd Matrix film after they had to replace the actress who played The Oracle…or the second Darren…or the second
Becky (sitcom replacements). It just doesn’t feel right anymore.
The Mummy: Dragon Emperor (whatever its called). Without Rachel Weiss as Eve, it ruined the movie for me.
That movie would’ve still been unwatchable if Rachel Weiss was nude in every scene…