Mass Alex Should Post At Least Twice A Week

It's been a month (four episodes) and Alex has barely scratched the surface of the first Mass Effect game. If he's really going to play through 2 and 3, and possibly others, they're going to need to start posting a couple times a week, at least. At this rate, he's not going to finished 3 until 2025. I'm quite enjoying the series, so far, since I haven't played the first game for probably 10 years but have very fond memories of it (excluding the Mako and load times).

What do you guys think?

I think this can be mitigated by just uploading longer episodes, which they may be doing. I noticed the latest episode being the longest one yet. I agree that it's going to be a long endeavor but I don't think it's within their schedule to post more than once a week unless its specifically an Endurance Run. Plus posting on multiple days could get in the way of other weekly features they do, like Unprofessional Fridays and the like.

Once he gets out of the initial barrage of info dump stuff that we've already seen the bulk of I think things will move along at a pretty reasonable pace.

The first Mass Effect is not a terribly long game anyway, everyone had these same fears with Beast in the East and that ended up being totally reasonable and with a much longer game.

No, it's fine as it is.

I'm happy with the current pace, it's pretty close to how I used to play Mass Effect.

I can always go for more mass alex,but my opinion is whatever makes them happy, I don't want them to feel pressured or burned out at any point!

These episodes are already an hour and a half long or more. That's a hell of a time to sit still and watch someone else play a video game, I'd really rather not see Mass Alex grow to three or four hours long every episode or something.

Posting on multiple days could be a challenge for several possible reasons. It's possible that Vinny and/or Abby don't have time to edit two of these long-ass episodes a week. It could be that posting on multiple days would conflict with some other show. Posting on multiple days might also overpower other content available on the site. Or perhaps Alex only wants to play this game for one session a week to avoid burnout.

Anyway, unless Alex goes for a completionist run, I don't think this series will wind up being that long. Every time I played through Mass Effect in the late 2000's/early 2010's, my playthroughs wound up being between ten and twenty hours long. I've seen some playtimes that are around sixty hours and I have no idea how anyone got that much content out of this game, short of driving around in the Mako looking for every last thing they can find or reading everything in the codex.

I mean, I'd prefer one episode each day, but that's not quite possible. Just let 'em do it as they see fit.

In general I'd agree that they could try and find ways to accelerate the delivery pace of some of their content . Not a must, but it wouldn't hurt ( unless it does... What do I know.) But for Mass Alex they are doing 2 hours per episode, which might be a good solution.

Twice a week might result on two 1 hour episodes judging by how they usually schedule things. Given how long it takes to do a mission, it might be too disruptive.

More is not always better. Some of us remember the ER format fondly, but we gotta remember that some of the episodes ended up feeling frustrating on their end and ours. Unexpected long conversations would make them sweat for time, they would feel like they need to ignore key mechanics to keep things moving and we'd get a lot of sequences having to stop abruptly.

I think they thought about it well.

Yeah, I was definitely more of a completionist when I played Mass Effect games. I wanted to read every codec, talk to every NPC and squad mate possible and exhaust all dialog options. I was probably one of those people who put 60+ hours into the first Mass Effect. Since they're skipping much of the flavor text, it will definitely be a shorter time to complete. I'm just enjoying this series more than anything else one the site right now. I put it on my 2nd monitor while I'm working, so a 2 hour+ runtime doesn't bother me at all.

...for the love of God, everyone just give Alex some room to breathe with this feature.

As someone who played to completion multiple times, a total playthrough is about 35-40 hours. And that's everything.

Beast in the East was exponentially longer than Mass Effect 1 and they consistently stuck to a once a week schedule, despite pretty common requests for more. I would not hold my breath for that.

While I certainly would not complain if there was more episodes a week, I don't see any issue with their current rate of release.

I wouldn´t say no if they started doing it, but I´m also fine with the 1 hour 40 minutes to 2 hour episodes they´ve been doing so far. It moves at a good tempo for me.

Though compared to something like Metal Gear I´m not as familiar with this series, so it´s not like I´m waiting with bated breath for them to reach certain parts of the story. I get that others might want a higher tempo for reasons like that.

Once a week is totally fine. They have other stuff to do, and I'm in no hurry to see this feature end.

@htr10: Came here to say this exact thing. Mass Effect 1 isn't a super long game. If you do the main story and a few extra things, you'll probably be done in 25-30 hours. Wouldn't be surprised if Alex enjoys his time with the sequel a hell of a lot more, and we may get some longer episodes then.

If he did 2 hours a week, he can finish all three main games in roughly under a year if he wanted to.

2 per week would be welcome, but I’m not against the current pace.

It really should be 2 episodes a week in my opinion. Having to re-learn the mechanics every week is a bit much to watch, and I agree that completing the whole trilogy + at least some of the dlc would take a very long time. (which I'm sure having a guaranteed series of content for a long stretch of time is part of the appeal to them, but even with 2 it'll take a long time.)

But whatever they end up deciding is okay, it's of course their site and I'd hate for them to stop having fun with what they're doing.

His pace feels fine to me. The games are old at this point, so it's not as though they're trying to hit some deadline. I'll be quite content if this feature runs for a few months, takes a break while they do something else, then does the same for 2 and 3. Plus ultimately as long as Vinny and Alex are happy with the pace they're moving at, I'm happy with it as well. Sure, in the initial period I naturally want as much of the new thing as possible, but roughly 2-3 hours feels like an amount I can realistically keep up with week-on-week for a longer period. Yakuza 0 was a longer game than any of the 3 MEs and they finished that in quite a reasonable timeframe.

As others have suggested, the way Alex is playing the game right now, I don't see this taking extremely long. There won't be any extensive planet exploration and he'll probably miss some of the side quests. I don't see Alex making repeated rounds on the Citadel to scoop up all side content. He already missed a bunch the first time through. Granted, he will find some of it when he comes back, but still... When they missed that second shack with survivors on Eden Prime, the completionist in me had already let go.

One episode a week is fine in my opinion, especially if it's two hours long. This isn't going to take longer than some of the other series they've done. And they're going to take breaks between entries regardless, so it was always going to be a long one.

One ep a week is fine but near the end once you hit the last planet there isn't a clear stopping point momentum wise. Might have to do longer episodes.

My ideal for them would be for Vinny to give Alex a walk-through of cool side quests as there is a lot of filler that you can ignore like planetary exploration and the like and go straight to the cool small stories. Mass Effect 1 isn't too long and Alex is getting used to the systems and 2007-ness.

I'm glad to see that after all this time, even the most innocent of requests is bombarded by the mega fans holding hands and stomping out any and all that dare challenge the status quo.

I'd like to see it increased to at least twice a week. It's my favorite current content, and I hope Vinny guides him to do the best side content.

@likeassur: Everyone in this thread has been super polite. There was no stomping on the OP. Just people expressing their opinions. Which is what the OP asked for.

Yeah who are these mega fans you refer to and where are they stomping?

This is hilarious: When Exquisite Corps aired with circa hour long episodes, people demanded those to be doubled, so they aimed Mass Alex to be roughly twice that, per week...and people want them to double that!

One episode per week is fine. They can be a little bit longer if there's a natural conclusion after 2,5 hours or so. But I have enough of a hard time trying to keep up to date with all the GB content as it is, so I don't really crave for more.

It would be cool, but it will never happen.

I would love two episodes per week, personally.

I'm okay with the current schedule. I barely have the energy after work, and I can dedicate a day out of my week to watching this while binging on a game for the rest of it. Gonna 100% Burnout Paradise Remastered, dammit, and I'd rather do it ASAP to get to the other games in my back catalog. haha

If I had more free time I would totally agree with you but I only recently got the newesr episode and that's only because this series shot up in priority compared to their other stuff. Also even if they finish the first game quickly they will probably take a break before jumping into 2.

I think two episodes a week would be a great tempo, but we cannot ask of them more than they're already doing. I assume the editing and such are time-consuming as it is for the one a week we already get.

And honestly, it would be just so I don't have to wait a whole week to get the next episode. My wife has actually started watching the show with me and she's never shown any interest in playing/watching the games before. She seems to be treating it as a rough TV show with gameplay parts.

If they wanted to split them into two parts that equal the current length and released them across the week i'd be ok with it.

I love the series, but I dont know if I could keep up with four hours a week.

Honestly my only problem with the series at this point is that both Alex and Vinny have not noticed that there is a second tab in the journal that lists the active side quests. I'm worried they're going to miss out on some of the more interesting side quests they have already picked up because they won't look to see what system they need to go to and forget about them.

Otherwise, if the episodes remain in the 2 hour range I'm fine with one a week. These are not terribly long games, even if doing everything.

I'll be here, in 2034, for the Mass Effect 3 ending

i'll take a 3 hour long episode a week. I'd love for someone like dan or abby to join in as well though eventhough alex and vinny are great nonetheless.

I think Alex should play the game at a natural pace that will allow him to enjoy and appreciate it, rather than force himself to go at a faster pace for the amusement of other people or to hit some arbitrary deadline. This means some weeks there will be longer videos than others. That's ultimately how the best content is made and what will be most enjoyable to watch.

It probably takes a while to edit these things so i guess once a week, with a 2 hour length is just fine.