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Mass Effect: Andromeda - Some small updates (voice casting has started, combat, etc)

S

shinobi602

Member
Not a massive drop of details exactly but it's nice to see how things are progressing. Looking forward to that armor system.

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https://twitter.com/The1Wynn
https://twitter.com/GambleMike
 
GlamFM

GlamFM

Banned
Heard some stuff not too long ago that makes me SUPER confident in this game - and I was a sceptic after 3.

This game is gonna be huge.

Can not fucking wait.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
RE: armour

The (99% likely to be true) PAX leak from way back when noted that armour customisation was a focus, as Frostbite 3 gave them and the player more control over various asset tweaks and colourings compared to how the series was handled in ME3.
 
C

curb

Banned
I know it doesn't make any sense to have "familiar faces" but Mass Effect for me became very much about that cast. It's gonna be weird for me starting with a clean slate.
 
Harlock

Harlock

Member
One big thing about Mass Effect series was Earth relationship with other planets. Now, because how things ended in ME3, they gone to ignore Earth so this game can be chronologically neutral?
 
B

BossDarkseid

Member
Harlock said:
One big thing about Mass Effect series was Earth relationship with other planets. Now, because how things ended in ME3, they gone to ignore Earth so this game can be chronologically neutral?
Click to expand...

Well it's set in a different galaxy supposedly 100s of years after the Reaper war so....

Edit: Not sure about the time period actually but from the sounds of things it's definetley wayyyy post.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Harlock said:
One big thing about Mass Effect series was Earth relationship with other planets. Now, because how things ended in ME3, they gone to ignore Earth so this game can be chronologically neutral?
Click to expand...

Officially, all we know is the game is set in Andromeda, has no returning characters, and is "distant in time and space" from the trilogy.

Unofficially, based on grapevine, hints, and teases, the "ark" theory is likely. Wherein sometime during the trilogy an "ark" is sent from the Milky Way to Andromeda on a one way mission to colonise it. Ergo there will be no way to return to or contact the Milky Way, and the significant details of the trilogy will be left ambiguous.
 
V

Vincent Grayson

Member
Harlock said:
One big thing about Mass Effect series was Earth relationship with other planets. Now, because how things ended in ME3, they gone to ignore Earth so this game can be chronologically neutral?
Click to expand...

This game will have nothing to do with Earth or any ME characters of the past, as I understand it. Whole new galaxy, so it's an entirely fresh setting free from dealing with the fallout of ME3.
 
L

Lakitu

st5fu
My only worry for the game is that it's not just exploration with the Mako. I love that aspect but I don't want the entire game to be full of it.
 
Harlock

Harlock

Member
The ark thing can be very interesting if somehow we have connection with Earth along the game. Something like the later Asimov books trying to unify Foundation and Robots books.
 
B

BossDarkseid

Member
EatChildren said:
Officially, all we know is the game is set in Andromeda, has no returning characters, and is "distant in time and space" from the trilogy.

Unofficially, based on grapevine, hints, and teases, the "ark" theory is likely. Wherein sometime during the trilogy an "ark" is sent from the Milky Way to Andromeda on a one way mission to colonise it. Ergo there will be no way to return to or contact the Milky Way, and the significant details of the trilogy will be left ambiguous.
Click to expand...

I actually kinda like this idea, even if you'd have to pretend that someone did it and just didn't mention it, although there's a plausible explanation for it. A last hope for galactic civlization, hopefully somewhere beyond the Reapers reach.

However...didn't the Leviathans spread beyond the Milky Way or am I imagining things?
 
B

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
RexNovis said:
They just now are starting with voice casting?!? Guess this game is much further off than I thought...
Click to expand...

The game is still at least 14-15-16 months away(and that's without a delay), I'm pretty sure that doing voices is the least time consuming part of building a game completely from scratch like ME:A.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
BossDarkseid said:
I actually kinda like this idea, even if you'd have to pretend that someone did it and just didn't mention it, although there's a plausible explanation for it. A last hope for galactic civlization, hopefully somewhere beyond the Reapers reach.

However...didn't the Leviathans spread beyond the Milky Way or am I imagining things?
Click to expand...

Right, it's pretty much a best case scenario; abandon the baggage of the trilogy, give freedom to tell your own story and grow the lore/mechanics, but also not override the trilogy and player choices. A soft reboot.

And no, I don't think so. Leviathans were the first and spread throughout the Milky Way, and I think that's it.

RexNovis said:
They just now are starting with voice casting?!? Guess this game is much further off than I thought...
Click to expand...

Voice casting tends to come later in development when scripts are further along. You don't want your voice actors having to come in for years and rerecord new lines. You want as much material finished and ready to go from the onset. Can still build all your levels and shit without them.
 
L

Lakitu

st5fu
EatChildren said:
Voice casting tends to come later in development when scripts are further along. You don't want your voice actors having to come in for years and rerecord new lines. You want as much material finished and ready to go from the onset. Can still build all your levels and shit without them.
Click to expand...

Yeah I remember at GDC 2008 (?), they showcased Mass Effect 2 (which looked quite far a long at the time) with temporary voice acting.
 
P

Patryn

Member
Count me as one person who says fuck Earth.

Yes, humanity's political role in the galaxy was interesting in the beginning of the trilogy, but that quickly got subsumed by talking about how awesome humanity is and how much much genetically diverse or whatever we are.

Also, the Earth parts of ME3 were the worst parts of the game.

So, bring on Andromeda and let's leave Earth behind. Shit's boring.
 
D

Dragon1893

Member
I'm cautiously optimistic.
They learned a lot from the trilogy and have way better tech to work with this time.
Assuming they learned from their mistakes and handle this with the ambition the franchise deserves, it should be great.
 
E

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
Patryn said:
Count me as one person who says fuck Earth.

Yes, humanity's political role in the galaxy was interesting in the beginning of the trilogy, but that quickly got subsumed by talking about how awesome humanity is and how much much genetically diverse or whatever we are.

Also, the Earth parts of ME3 were the worst parts of the game.

So, bring on Andromeda and let's leave Earth behind. Shit's boring.
Click to expand...

While I agree Earth politics, as well as the "Humans are da best theme," was kind of boring I think they're missing out on a ton of opportunities by just completely jettisoning the Milky Way.

Reaper war and the destruction or disabling of most of the Mass Relay Network opens up a lot of interesting possibilities.

Setting a new game even just a couple decades after the conclusion of ME3 and we could be looking at a very different Galaxy that is struggling to recover from near annihilation. Push it out a bit further and make it so large sections of the galaxy were cut off from one another for many decades due to the MRS being unusable and you've got a perfect recipe for new factions and mini empires.

Add to that then the impetus to develop non-Mass Relay based FTL and you open up the ability to explore countless star systems and areas of the Milky Way never before accessible via Mass Relay. Only something like 1% of the galaxy was ever charted in ME. The possibility of unique races, cultures and empires existing right under our noses but we never had a clue about them because they were too far away for conventional FTL and had no access to a Mass Relay access is huge.

Imagine how crazy the Citadel races would be if whole colonies were cut off from one another for 50+ years and were completely oblivious to whether the Reapers were defeated or not. There's a lot they could play with in this scenario.
 
N

nocturnalis

Member
I never got why people always thought the series held humanity up to be so great. The reason they were number 1 by ME3 is because the other races were indecisive jerks who didn't even have contingency plans because they thought that they were so advanced that nothing would happen to them.
 
Z

zhixson

Member
I just hope it doesn't end on a massive cliffhanger and has a lot of self contained resolution that still allows for a larger story arc.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Enduin said:
While I agree Earth politics, as well as the "Humans are da best theme," was kind of boring I think they're missing out on a ton of opportunities by just completely jettisoning the Milky Way.
Click to expand...

I order to utilise the Milky Way as a post-trilogy setting (as much as I too would enjoy it) they'd need to select a canon, and in turn draw ire from fans, or run the high risk of developing undercooked content in an attempt to pander to all outcomes. Entire species could be wiped out, and organics could be merged with machines. Was never going to happen.
 
S

shinobi602

Member
EatChildren said:
I order to utilise the Milky Way as a post-trilogy setting (as much as I too would enjoy it) they'd need to select a canon, and in turn draw ire from fans, or run the high risk of developing undercooked content in an attempt to pander to all outcomes. Entire species could be wiped out, and organics could be merged with machines. Was never going to happen.
Click to expand...
It'd basically be a direct continuation of the trilogy, a literal Mass Effect 4. I think leaving it as ambiguous and 'up to the player' to come up with how it all ended as they did in order to start fresh was the best outcome they could have chosen.
 
M

Machina

Banned
That answer about familiar characters is pretty telling. This is very much hitting the reset button on Mass Effect, which I guess can only be a good thing.

Bring it on.
 
A

Akai__

Member
shinobi602 said:
It'd basically be a direct continuation of the trilogy, a literal Mass Effect 4. I think leaving it as ambiguous and 'up to the player' to come up with how it all ended as they did in order to start fresh was the best outcome they could have chosen.
Click to expand...

Not to mention that newcommers to the series don't need to neccessarily know what happened in the original trillogy if this is their 1st game.
 
P

Patryn

Member
Akai__ said:
Not to mention that newcommers to the series don't need to neccessarily know what happened in the original trillogy if this is their 1st game.
Click to expand...

Definitely. Mass Effect is a big series, but it's not as big a seller as many people think.
 
E

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
EatChildren said:
I order to utilise the Milky Way as a post-trilogy setting (as much as I too would enjoy it) they'd need to select a canon, and in turn draw ire from fans, or run the high risk of developing undercooked content in an attempt to pander to all outcomes. Entire species could be wiped out, and organics could be merged with machines. Was never going to happen.
Click to expand...

Meh, I find that to be silly reasoning, they fucked up big time with ME3's ending and they're too scared to do anything with it, let alone daring. Plus the new team understandably doesn't want to be saddled with that but all the same I find it be a weak move. Even then choosing a canon ending is something that wouldn't be a big deal in the first place, and could be mostly avoided with some creative writing.

Sure there would be a big outcry at first by a small number of people who don't understand how picking a canon ending to continue the series doesn't negate their choices, but who cares? Those people are self centered and small minded and will get mad about most anything. But it would fade relatively soon, especially once the game is released.

Secondly if they really want to appease fans and respect all the various endings and not ruffle anyone's feathers they could simply pull a Warp in the West and have all the endings happen. Pick the best of each ending and merge them into one. Geth live, EDI becomes organic/synthetic hybrid, Reapers die, Shepard is lost to the ether somewhere. Some shit like that.

Embracing the actual impact of such a monumental event like the Reaper War and possible destruction or disturbance of the Mass Relay System and then setting the game a few decades to close to a century into the future would allow them to gloss over many choices and outcomes already. They just don't have the balls to face and explore the disaster they created and outcomes that would result from it, which is a shame, cause it could have resulted in some really cool story telling and scenarios.
 
G

Gozer the Gozerian

Member
I'm really excited about the possibility the game might deal with you as a commander of this expedition coming into contact with new alien species for the first time and having sex with them.
 
R

Red Hood

Banned
I need to forget about this. Not having any voice acting done means it'll be quite a while before it releases, maybe even later than their fall 2016 release window. I'll see ME-GAF in 2017.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
Bisnic said:
The game is still at least 14-15-16 months away(and that's without a delay), I'm pretty sure that doing voices is the least time consuming part of building a game completely from scratch like ME:A.
Click to expand...

I'd imagine Mass Effect would have SO MUCH dialogue I can't imagine recording it wouldn't be a gargantuan time consuming ordeal. Maybe I'm wrong though.

EatChildren said:
Voice casting tends to come later in development when scripts are further along. You don't want your voice actors having to come in for years and rerecord new lines. You want as much material finished and ready to go from the onset. Can still build all your levels and shit without them.
Click to expand...

Oh? Fair enough. I always thought voice casting was done very early on with call backs and whatnot as needed. Whelp I stand corrected then. Happy to be wrong!
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Enduin said:
Meh, I find that to be silly reasoning, they fucked up big time with ME3's ending and they're too scared to do anything with it, let alone daring. Plus the new team understandably doesn't want to be saddled with that but all the same I find it be a weak move. Even then choosing a canon ending is something that wouldn't be a big deal in the first place, and could be mostly avoided with some creative writing.

Sure there would be a big outcry at first by a small number of people who don't understand how picking a canon ending to continue the series doesn't negate their choices, but who cares? Those people are self centered and small minded and will get mad about most anything. But it would fade relatively soon, especially once the game is released.

Secondly if they really want to appease fans and respect all the various endings and not ruffle anyone's feathers they could simply pull a Warp in the West and have all the endings happen. Pick the best of each ending and merge them into one. Geth live, EDI becomes organic/synthetic hybrid, Reapers die, Shepard is lost to the ether somewhere. Some shit like that.

Embracing the actual impact of such a monumental event like the Reaper War and possible destruction or disturbance of the Mass Relay System and then setting the game a few decades to close to a century into the future would allow them to gloss over many choices and outcomes already. They just don't have the balls to face and explore the disaster they created and outcomes that would result from it, which is a shame, cause it could have resulted in some really cool story telling and scenarios.
Click to expand...

This is all well and good but it relies on the good overwhelming the negative and still falls back on "this is what I want", which is what I want, but not indicative of what BioWare want or how they direct their series. From the sounds of things not picking a canon is of top priority. Call it lack of balls if you will, but they don't want to approach that. They don't want to canonise a ME3 ending, or create a merged variant, or address the endings in any canonical state while tethering themselves to the same universe. Obviously yes it would be the most ballsy approach, but adhering to and keeping canon vague seems to be a directive in forging this franchise. Not one they've been consistent with mind you, but nevertheless a focus.

And I really can't blame BioWare Montreal for wanting nothing to do with the trilogy. Shipping everyone off to a new galaxy is a bit lazy in the grand scheme of things. It's an easy reset button. But it gives them totally new framework to develop new stories, characters, and lore loosely strung together by remnants of the basics from the last.

From the sounds of things they're going for more of a Mass Effect 1 angle than a Mass Effect 4, making as much of the new content unfamiliar to even seasoned fans.
 
E

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
EatChildren said:
This is all well and good but it relies on the good overwhelming the negative and still falls back on "this is what I want", which is what I want, but not indicative of what BioWare want or how they direct their series. From the sounds of things not picking a canon is of top priority. Call it lack of balls if you will, but they don't want to approach that. They don't want to canonise a ME3 ending, or create a merged variant, or address the endings in any canonical state while tethering themselves to the same universe. Obviously yes it would be the most ballsy approach, but adhering to and keeping canon vague seems to be a directive in forging this franchise. Not one they've been consistent with mind you, but nevertheless a focus.

And I really can't blame BioWare Montreal for wanting nothing to do with the trilogy. Shipping everyone off to a new galaxy is a bit lazy in the grand scheme of things. It's an easy reset button. But it gives them totally new framework to develop new stories, characters, and lore loosely strung together by remnants of the basics from the last.

From the sounds of things they're going for more of a Mass Effect 1 angle than a Mass Effect 4, making as much of the new content unfamiliar to even seasoned fans.
Click to expand...

I think this is what bothers me the most. That from the outset they probably were just looking for the best story out that avoided the endings completely because the backlash was so fierce and they were so shook up by it, and they never even considered tackling or addressing ME3's endings head on. I felt like that whole debacle was a prime example of you break it you buy it. They turned the galaxy upside down, so they should find a way to piece it back together. I would get it if they tried and couldn't come to any satisfactory point to continue in the Milky Way post ME3, but odds are they never even tried. And that's what always pops into my head when I think about Andromeda. I'm super pumped for it and think it could be fantastic, but the way it materialized and how we got to there sits wrong with me.

The funniest thing to me is that by going to Andromeda they are actually completely ignoring everyone's choices in ME3, and the series as a whole. They're not simply picking a particular ending, or the best parts of each that work well together, they're literally throwing them aside and not even looking at them because they have zero bearing on anything. They're useless and irrelevant. Yet most people are totally happy with that. Bizarre.
 
P

Patryn

Member
Ralemont said:
So Vanguard will still be OP.

Good.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be shocked if the classes aren't totally different. Yes, we know Biotic Charge is still in the game, but do we even know if there's a class named Vanguard?

It strikes me as they have way too many people playing Soldier, and not enough playing Adept and Engineer, and they need to figure out a way to balance that a bit. Completely rethinking classes would help accomplish that.
 
R

Ralemont

not me
Enduin said:
The funniest thing to me is that by going to Andromeda they are actually completely ignoring everyone's choices in ME3, and the series as a whole. They're not simply picking a particular ending, or the best parts of each that work well together, they're literally throwing them aside and not even looking at them because they have zero bearing on anything. They're useless and irrelevant. Yet most people are totally happy with that. Bizarre.
Click to expand...

They aren't useless and irrelevant to the story of the trilogy, which I think is the point. Why is the trilogy invalidated because MEA has a new setting? The Milky Way will be still be on the path you set.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Enduin said:
The funniest thing to me is that by going to Andromeda they are actually completely ignoring everyone's choices in ME3, and the series as a whole. They're not simply picking a particular ending, or the best parts of each that work well together, they're literally throwing them aside and not even looking at them because they have zero bearing on anything. They're useless and irrelevant. Yet most people are totally happy with that. Bizarre.
Click to expand...

They have no bearing on anything because that arc is over. They're not making Mass Effect 4. It doesn't make them redundant as a whole, it just means they're redundant for this new arc. They're redundant either way: you pick a canon, and choices are redundant, because if they're not mine then why give a shit? They're useless and irrelevant if they're acknowledged and overruled. The only pure way to retain importance of the choices and acknowledge them is to make a game that caters for all variants, which is impossible. BioWare seems to come from the standpoint that all outcomes are equally valid and rather than make a significant percentage of them directly redundant for their fans they'd rather make them all vaguely redundant or valid depending on how you look at it. It's basically the lesser, if laziest, of two evils. So it's not hard to see why people are okay with that, when a cornerstone of the trilogy (in varying levels of success) was "your choices matter".
 
E

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
Ralemont said:
They aren't useless and irrelevant to the story of the trilogy, which I think is the point. Why is the trilogy invalidated because MEA has a new setting? The Milky Way will be still be on the path you set.
Click to expand...

I don't really care about it. My choices will always be mine, that's why I would be completely happy for them to pick a canon ending, even if it wasn't the one I chose. It has no bearing on what I did, that will always exist. I'm just saying it terms of taking into consideration the choices people made and everything one route actually requires them to think about the outcome of events and what players actually did in a thoughtful way in order to incorporate that into the next series and the other just leaves them in the corner because they took the convenient way out that circumvents them entirely.
 
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