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The Mass Effect Community Thread |OT2|

Someone on reddit brought up a good point on a certain end-game spoiler:
The Quarian Ark has a pathfinder but does it also have its own SAM? What kind of interesting conflicts would that pose for a race that has a muddled and disastrous history with AI? Could it be that the warning you receive from the Quarian Ark at the end of the game be a warning that they messed with the SAM and it backfired into something horrible? If so it just confirms that they're one of the densest races in the Mass Effect universe and never learn from their mistakes.

Whatever post-release DLC they do for that ought to be a real doozy. Looking forward to it.
 

Renekton

Member
Also, I made BroRyder and my sister black, and the game made our dad black but our mom white. But, genetics can work out like that sometimes so I don't want to really harp on it as a bug (even though it probably is).
That is very true to RL. Darker skin is genetically far more dominant than white.
 

Lexxon

Member
Had an interesting bug yesterday. Came back from doing
The kett base on Voeld with the Moshae
and went to talk to Drack. He was in this weird crouched position, and when the camera zoomed in on his "face", I just got a shot of his helmet. Convo ends, and there are TWO DRACKS. One still crouched, one hovering over the counter as intended. Both could be talked to, when I talked to the non-glitched one, the glitched one started trying to go to the counter too, clipping and getting stuck...

Reloaded and all was well.

I wouldn't mind two Dracks though.

I'm about 25-30 hours in, taking my time going back to Eos now. Enjoying myself a lot. Thinking about taking the day off of the game today to wait for the patch, the inventory limit is pretty annoying, and I'm pretty sure I'm missing a lot of conversation due to the interrupts, so I'd rather not do much more major story stuffs.
 

AyzOn

Neo Member
Someone on reddit brought up a good point on a certain end-game spoiler:
The Quarian Ark has a pathfinder but does it also have its own SAM? What kind of interesting conflicts would that pose for a race that has a muddled and disastrous history with AI? Could it be that the warning you receive from the Quarian Ark at the end of the game be a warning that they messed with the SAM and it backfired into something horrible? If so it just confirms that they're one of the densest races in the Mass Effect universe and never learn from their mistakes.

Whatever post-release DLC they do for that ought to be a real doozy. Looking forward to it.

Am I the only one who could only shake his head at being told that it exists?
Why is it kept secret at all, it feels like extreme fan service and I really dislike the way they told you "oh btw, that super important thing exists and you were one of the most important persons in the cluster but we didnt think you should know"
 
Am I the only one who could only shake his head at being told that it exists?
Why is it kept secret at all, it feels like extreme fan service and I really dislike the way they told you "oh btw, that super important thing exists and you were one of the most important persons in the cluster but we didnt think you should know"
Tann tells you about the Quarian ark way back when you first reach the Nexus if you ask him about it.
 

prag16

Banned
Tann tells you about the Quarian ark way back when you first reach the Nexus if you ask him about it.

This. And I believe it may have shown up in one other conversation as well, early on. It's not a secret; it just isn't that important to the Pathfinders at the moment since it got delayed, and wasn't expected to have arrived yet when the other Pathfinders are initially out doing their thing.
 
Got stuck in a hell loop last night where if I as much as approached the docking bay on the Nexus the game would lock up and crash. Reloaded, traveled around, did all sorts of stuff to try and get through it, broke every time. Ended up having to bounce to an earlier save file and retrace everything.

But really, that's the only major bug that's hit my game. It was frustrating, but I've dealt with worse in other games.
 

diaspora

Member
Am I the only one who could only shake his head at being told that it exists?
Why is it kept secret at all, it feels like extreme fan service and I really dislike the way they told you "oh btw, that super important thing exists and you were one of the most important persons in the cluster but we didnt think you should know"

It was never a secret, they tell you it was arriving late at almost the beginning of the game >.>
 

Rodhull

Member
Not linking to it but the Polygon article comparing the game to early access because they're releasing updates is pretty peak Kuchera.
 

Nekrono

Member
Am I the only one who could only shake his head at being told that it exists?
Why is it kept secret at all, it feels like extreme fan service and I really dislike the way they told you "oh btw, that super important thing exists and you were one of the most important persons in the cluster but we didnt think you should know"

Right at the beginning when you get to the Nexus they mention to you that the Quarian ark had a delay due to the special arrangements that the Quarian species need I think.

I believe that they were carrying other species like Hanar, Elcor, etc and had to arrange for them as well but don't quote me on that since I'm really not sure.
 

diaspora

Member
Right at the beginning when you get to the Nexus they mention to you that the Quarian ark had a delay due to the special arrangements that the Quarian species need I think.

I believe that they were carrying other species like Hanar, Elcor, etc and had to arrange for them as well but don't quote me on that since I'm really not sure.
You're correct
 
Right at the beginning when you get to the Nexus they mention to you that the Quarian ark had a delay due to the special arrangements that the Quarian species need I think.

I believe that they were carrying other species like Hanar, Elcor, etc and had to arrange for them as well but don't quote me on that since I'm really not sure.

I really hope whatever DLC has the Quarian Ark showing up coincides with a Volus Adept for multiplayer so I can be a biotic god.
 

prag16

Banned
God damn, I think I've said it before but this game could really use some kind of UI scaling. It's damn hard to read anything ~9' away from a 42" screen (PC version).
 

Vamphuntr

Member
Yeah. It does look a lot like Ashley. I totally understand why they backed off that design.

They could keep Andromeda as a setting, but move to a new Cluster and attempt to do the First Contact stuff right this time.

I'm just wondering how it would work. SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE GAME
Apparently the Kett go to each cluster and "exalt" everyone into kett so Heleus was their next logical target. Would be pretty bizarre to travel to another close cluster with no kett considering they've been doing this for a thousand year.
 

Killzig

Member
Got stuck in a hell loop last night where if I as much as approached the docking bay on the Nexus the game would lock up and crash. Reloaded, traveled around, did all sorts of stuff to try and get through it, broke every time. Ended up having to bounce to an earlier save file and retrace everything.

But really, that's the only major bug that's hit my game. It was frustrating, but I've dealt with worse in other games.

That docking bay crash happens when you've been pursuing the side quests while holding off on the main missions. Particularly Cora's side quest does something to the docking bay's ambient NPCs and I guess they never intended for that to happen before a certain other thing
Salarian Ark arrival
. If you just press forward with the main content you'll be fine.
 

diaspora

Member
BioWare faces made in an open-world Frostbite RPG:

tumblr_nz304jOzGd1thihlmo2_500.gif

tumblr_nz304jOzGd1thihlmo3_500.gif

tumblr_nz304jOzGd1thihlmo4_500.gif

tumblr_nz304jOzGd1thihlmo5_500.gif
 
That docking bay crash happens when you've been pursuing the side quests while holding off on the main missions. Particularly Cora's side quest does something to the docking bay's ambient NPCs and I guess they never intended for that to happen before a certain other thing
Salarian Ark arrival
. If you just press forward with the main content you'll be fine.

Nah, it was something else. Besides, I couldn't 'push through it' because I couldn't get back to the Tempest, and it wouldn't let me fast travel to the Tempest, so I was essentially trapped on the Nexus.

After loading a much earlier save file, I went and pretty much retraced my steps for everything, and then when I got back to THAT point in time, everything worked as intended.

It was during the Contagion questline, and what I noticed after my reset is that there was a comment from the Doc saying to head down to the docking bay for some reason or another, and I DIDN'T get that comment on my first time. So I think the quest itself bugged out.
 

AyzOn

Neo Member
Right at the beginning when you get to the Nexus they mention to you that the Quarian ark had a delay due to the special arrangements that the Quarian species need I think.

I believe that they were carrying other species like Hanar, Elcor, etc and had to arrange for them as well but don't quote me on that since I'm really not sure.

Okay, I must have missed/forgotten that then, soooorry
 
God damn, I think I've said it before but this game could really use some kind of UI scaling. It's damn hard to read anything ~9' away from a 42" screen (PC version).
People have complained about that on Twitter, so they know about that. No idea if they'll fix it or when.
 

diaspora

Member
So how is this game? I wanna post here instead of gaming, cause, you know.

They made a really good game then added a bunch of unnecessary pain points for no reason- e.g. the flying animations, and SAM never shutting the hell up. Still liked it enough to put in 100 hours though.
 
They made a really good game then added a bunch of unnecessary pain points for no reason- e.g. the flying animations, and SAM never shutting the hell up. Still liked it enough to put in 100 hours though.

You can skip the planet animations now? I though that was listed in the 1.05 patch.
 

Mindlog

Member
They made a really good game then added a bunch of unnecessary pain points for no reason- e.g. the flying animations, and SAM never shutting the hell up. Still liked it enough to put in 100 hours though.
I'm still OK with the jump screens. Doesn't quite nail it, but I appreciate what they were going for and that agrees with me. SAM, holy hell. Trying to mine could get really annoying. I wonder if someone actually played (side-quest broad strokes)
that mission on Voeld through the dig site.
Every 10 feet SAM? Really?

I can't rate Andromeda yet. It falls short of where it wants to be, but so did Mass Effect 1. Lots of problems, but lots of fun and promise.

Even though the games states it time and again it's not really about exploration. Many elements have largely been scouted out ahead of you and you're just going in on cleanup duty.

Wild speculation for the future of the series.
We need a few truly unexplored (by the new Helius coop) areas. Only barren or ruins without quest elements every 10 meters.
Scourge obviously looks like barbed wire directly in the path of something coming from the Milky Way. Would be kind of neat to see a massive Reaper fleet fight its way through it and head off into Andromeda never interacting with Helius species other than destroying anything that tries to slow it down. Leave it open ended for a game or two.
Had like a dozen more odds and ends, but that's for when a conclusive review is ready.

There is a trophy where you have to do 20 of something. I was very thorough and have no idea how I missed any. Going to have fun trying different profiles after beating the game to clean up trophies. Finished 22 XP shy of level 60. Never used a different profile other than Infiltrator - Weapon Bonuses, Cloak, Flamer, and Energy Drain because that was a very flexible build and the Black Widow sounds awesome. Going to go crazy with new stuff. First on the list is a max DPS Hurricane profile.
 

diaspora

Member
I'm still OK with the jump screens. Doesn't quite nail it, but I appreciate what they were going for and that agrees with me. SAM, holy hell. Trying to mine could get really annoying. I wonder if someone actually played (side-quest broad strokes)
that mission on Voeld through the dig site.
Every 10 feet SAM? Really?

I can't rate Andromeda yet. It falls short of where it wants to be, but so did Mass Effect 1. Lots of problems, but lots of fun and promise.

Even though the games states it time and again it's not really about exploration. Many elements have largely been scouted out ahead of you and you're just going in on cleanup duty.

Wild speculation for the future of the series.
We need a few truly unexplored (by the new Helius coop) areas. Only barren or ruins without quest elements every 10 meters.
Scourge obviously looks like barbed wire directly in the path of something coming from the Milky Way. Would be kind of neat to see a massive Reaper fleet fight its way through it and head off into Andromeda never interacting with Helius species other than destroying anything that tries to slow it down. Leave it open ended for a game or two.
Had like a dozen more odds and ends, but that's for when a conclusive review is ready.

There is a trophy where you have to do 20 of something. I was very thorough and have no idea how I missed any. Going to have fun trying different profiles after beating the game to clean up trophies. Finished 22 XP shy of level 60. Never used a different profile other than Infiltrator - Weapon Bonuses, Cloak, Flamer, and Energy Drain because that was a very flexible build and the Black Widow sounds awesome. Going to go crazy with new stuff. First on the list is a max DPS Hurricane profile.
  1. This... this sounds like the worst possible option tied with Kai Leng secretly aboard the Hyperion.
  2. It isn't a fence blocking the milky way, its purpose is illustrated in the game as
    being designed to target the Remnant/Jardaan
 

Mindlog

Member
  1. This... this sounds like the worst possible option tied with Kai Leng secretly aboard the Hyperion.
  2. It isn't a fence blocking the milky way, its purpose is illustrated in the game as
    being designed to target the Remnant/Jardaan
You took off the spoiler. Don't do that yet.
It targets tech. We have no idea why yet. It's literally the same exact thing they did with 'the beneffactor.'
 

diaspora

Member
You took off the spoiler. Don't do that yet.
It targets tech. We have no idea why yet. It's literally the same exact thing they did with 'the beneffactor.'

It's not a spoiler, it's explicitly stated in the game that the
scourge was made to target Remnants/Jardaan.
What's left open is by who.
 
You're not going to find wide berths of nearby unexplored/untouched space next to Heleus in the next game because
the Kett Empire is supposedly massive with at least a dozen vassal races serving under them that can't be exalted or have exchanged something in return for servitude. The Archon's forces were merely a scout expeditionary detachment which implies that they can't be too far away in relative terms.

I largely expect the plot of the next game (or even the final story dlc that bridges the two)
to be a scout mission by the Initiative to determine the exact extent of the Kett Empire and what other factions we'll be sharing the Andromeda Galaxy with. Possibly with an underlying narrative of rallying more established allies against them since the Angarans and Initiative combined aren't much of a threat at the moment.

And of course you still have the greater mysteries of
the Jaardan and whoever they were fighting against. Could both races still be alive in some capacity?
Guess we'll find out.

I think the fact that there's so many unanswered questions about a variety of things makes the prospect of future games much more exciting than the trilogy because everything was pretty much laid out for you by the end of Mass Effect 1 whereas here it could go in any number of untold directions. I love it.
 

diaspora

Member
You're not going to find wide berths of nearby unexplored/untouched space next to Heleus in the next game because
the Kett Empire is supposedly massive with at least a dozen vassal races serving under them that can't be exalted or have exchanged something in return for servitude. The Archon's forces were merely a scout expeditionary detachment which implies that they can't be too far away in relative terms.

I largely expect the plot of the next game (or even the final story dlc that bridges the two)
to be a scout mission by the Initiative to determine the exact extent of the Kett Empire and what other factions we'll be sharing the Andromeda Galaxy with. Possibly with an underlying narrative of rallying more established allies against them since the Angarans and Initiative combined aren't much of a threat at the moment.

And of course you still have the greater mysteries of
the Jaardan and whoever they were fighting against. Could both races still be alive in some capacity?
Guess we'll find out.

I think the fact that there's so many unanswered questions about a variety of things makes the prospect of future games much more exciting than the trilogy because everything was pretty much laid out for you by the end of Mass Effect 1 whereas here it could go in any number of untold directions. I love it.

On this, we can agree.
 

Mindlog

Member
It's not a spoiler, it's explicitly stated in the game that the
scourge was made to target Remnants/Jardaan.
I know exactly what you are talking about. It was explicitly stated that the reason the AI was funded was an expedition to Andromeda.
The real reason it was so well funded was because the benefactor was in a hurry to get them out before the Reapers arrived. Similarly while we know the Scourge targeted Remnant ships we don't know the reason it did.
You're not going to find wide berths of nearby unexplored/untouched space next to Heleus in the next game because
I actually had that as a concern earlier and whether or not the way they were described Bioware had written themselves into a corner.
Will there be enough fringe species to threaten the Kett with a new council or are they going to introduce a bigger threat.
 

diaspora

Member
I know exactly what you are talking about. It was explicitly stated that the reason the AI was funded was an expedition to Andromeda.
The real reason it was so well funded was because the benefactor was in a hurry to get them out before the Reapers arrived. Similarly while we know the Scourge targeted Remnant ships we don't know the reason it did.

Those are two separate things. There's literally 0 links between Reapers and the scourge in the game while the purpose of the scourge itself is explicitly stated.
 

Mindlog

Member
I'm saying that the reapers have little to no place in this story.
You should have led with that.

They're the only reason the AI launched when it did. I would be very surprised if we don't see more Milky Way influence in the future. The story beats are fairly predictable. Pre-launch I have a post somewhere that speculated all of the major plot points in 'Ryder Family Secret' short of Alec himself being the AI creator.
 

diaspora

Member
You should have led with that.

They're the only reason the AI launched when it did. I would be very surprised if we don't see more Milky Way influence in the future. The story beats are fairly predictable. Pre-launch I have a post somewhere that speculated all of the major plot points in 'Ryder Family Secret' short of Alec himself being the AI creator.
Fear of the Reapers are why
the benefactor funded Jien
but theres nothing to show the Reapers themselves playing a part in the story.
 
The most you're ever going to hear about them again is when
Ryder decides the time is right to reveal that information to either the leadership or the population. Hell, he/she might keep that information to themselves to the end of their days and it might never get out.
At best you'll get
a minor plotline about a small group of people who try to go back the same way we got to Andromeda but you'll never hear from them again. Everyone else is already entrenched and starting their new lives in a new galaxy and will probably come to terms that everyone they left behind is likely dead.

And as for the Benefactor and her/his impact on the story I imagine the conclusion of that story arc will amount to just a greater understanding of the trilogy characters/events and nothing more. The Andromeda series will still remain separated from that conflict.
 

diaspora

Member
The most you're ever going to hear about them again is when
Ryder decides the time is right to reveal that information to either the leadership or the population. Hell, he/she might keep that information to themselves to the end of their days and it might never get out.
At best you'll get
a minor plotline about a small group of people who try to go back the same way we got to Andromeda but you'll never hear from them again. Everyone else is already entrenched and starting their new lives in a new galaxy and will probably come to terms that everyone they left behind is likely dead.

And as for the Benefactor and her/his impact on the story I imagine the conclusion of that story arc will amount to just a greater understanding of the trilogy characters/events and nothing more. The Andromeda series will still remain separated from that conflict.
I can see it being a Nexus quest rather than a priority op.
 

Mindlog

Member
And as for the Benefactor and her/his impact on the story I imagine the conclusion of that story arc will amount to just a greater understanding of the trilogy characters/events and nothing more. The Andromeda series will still remain separated from that conflict.
I can buy the entire benefactor plot as being their conclusion to the old story. That could be why it was included. On the other hand I also see them doing something very obvious with the creators of the Scourge and the benefactor.

Andromeda and Mass Effect in general has made extensive use of partial information. The EU material dives head first into straight retcon as well.
 
It's all moot anyway at the moment, if there is a DLC that addresses the
benefactor
it won't be for quite a while.

Someone pointed out on reddit that the official release date for the book "
The Lost Ark
" is sometime in early july, since they deliberately moved the first books release date to match Andromeda's launch I don't think it's far-reaching to say that the
Quarian Ark
DLC will land around then as well.
 

Mindlog

Member
That definitely feels like the first DLC we'll get. Will also be around the time I expect the first free muiltiplayer expansion.
The entire
benefactor
storyline including the memory quest line is optional.
Just like UNC: Missing Marines.
 

deafmedal

Member
That definitely feels like the first DLC we'll get. Will also be around the time I expect the first free muiltiplayer expansion.

I hope we will still get big mp expansions, in a pop up it stated that there will be new content every week and that's been true so far. But yeah, if there is a big one I reckon it will contain
Quarian stuffs, maybe even my beloved reegar, as the first/only? story DLC will surely be the Quarian ark
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
Do people seriously expect the
Quarian Ark
to be DLC?

I mean they have to build
Frostbite models for Quarians, Drells, Hanars, Elcors & Volus.
That seems way too much for a single DLC when they couldn't even bother making different Asari faces, but maybe it's just me.
 

deafmedal

Member
I guess you could be right, didn't really think of it that way, but what else could they do? I don't see them venturing into another cluster yet and I really hope it isn't
the inevitable conflict with Archon's n.2, save that for when we venture toward their territory.
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
I guess you could be right, didn't really think of it that way, but what else could they do? I don't see them venturing into another cluster yet and I really hope it isn't
the inevitable conflict with Archon's n.2, save that for when we venture toward their territory.

They could do it the easy way and have only
Quarians being alive. Everyone else died because reasons
. I seriously hope not.
 

deafmedal

Member
Oh hell no
, that would suck. I want vorcha and volus and maybe even batarian in mp, but I understand if we only got volus and quarian. Maybe they were already working on the models and now just need to work on levels and such.
Time will tell.
 
Do people seriously expect the
Quarian Ark
to be DLC?

I mean they have to build
Frostbite models for Quarians, Drells, Hanars, Elcors & Volus.
That seems way too much for a single DLC when they couldn't even bother making different Asari faces, but maybe it's just me.

I won't presume to know anything about how difficult the process actually is but looking at it realistically
the only ones you really have to animate mouths for would be the Drell. The Elcor, Volus, Hanar, and Quarians all are either in suits or have no "mouths" per-se. The Hanar really only need one model based on the one in the trilogy (unless they plan to break from trilogy tradition and give them varying jelly skin colours and height) and the Elcor/Volus just merely have different coloured suits/clothing (or the occasional Cigar like that Elcor on Omega).
It's an interesting challenge but not one I think is necessarily hard to overcome.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
DLC production generally errs on the side of conservative and yeah, the implied species roster for assumed DLC is actually pretty substantial even if they seriously limit how much effort they put into said species. Especially since some can be borderline props.

It's doable, but yeah. I dunno.
 
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