The excellent TUN had a decent video of Andromeda speculation based on the leaked info and the indications we have of the plot in Andromeda
Perhaps even worth a thread in Gaming.
Perhaps even worth a thread in Gaming.
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The Mass Effect Community Thread
- Thread starter shinobi602
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I'd just wait the 12 days for the official thing.
True, the video isn't that long either. The point is really good though, i.e. that the whole 'universal menacing threat that will end all civilization' can get tiring and I really hope that Andromeda doesn't have to raise the stakes on a galaxy-wide level.
The premise of having outside races (Ryder & Co.) exploring other planets and colonize other spaces because of fear of extinction is such an interesting premise in itself that it's not required to do the whole "gloom and doom alien species" from ME1-3 (and Dragon Age for that matter).
Heckler456
Banned
I know I could probably wait less than two weeks and get my answer, but does anyone know or remember how Bioware usually handles the book releases? I hope we get at least one week with the book before the actual game comes out, because I do kind of want to read it before playing it. I see that the first mass effect book seems to have come out months before the eventual release of the first game, and the same seems to count for Last Flight, so I'm hoping that we'll be getting the book somewhere around January?
BrassDragon
Member
Wait, what? Did I miss something? Did any leak suggest there's another galactic threat to deal with? Or is that just TUN musing out loud?
Heckler456
Banned
The leak did mention something called "the remant" who seem to be positioned as such.
I remember hearing the same. I wouldn't be surprised if this trilogy mirrors the first with the council races taking on the role humanity held in ME1.
BrassDragon
Member
Ah, right - I just assumed that was just what it says on the tin, something worth fighting over by different factions, didn't make the leap to something threatening.
Heckler456
Banned
Just read through the "leaks again, and the remnants weren't specified as "galaxy-wide threat", but it did say this: Players will lead the fight against a deadly indigenous race bent on stopping us."
So it does seems as if there will be that kind of threat. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
So it does seems as if there will be that kind of threat. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
shinobi602
Member
Next month gun b gud.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
We finally get confirmation of the Mass Effect Remastered trilogy.
Oh...and Andromeda blow out too!
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
shinobi just told me mass effect has been cancelled
im...im sorry guys
im...im sorry guys
Nostremitus
Member
shinobi just told me mass effect has been cancelled
im...im sorry guys
Retroactively. So expect to start forgetting the games you've already played as well...
dr_rus
Member
shinobi just told me mass effect has been cancelled
im...im sorry guys
The worst thing is that after that E3 showing I can totally see this as being true.
With the game being mostly done, what would be the point?
cartographer
Member
The game doesn't exist because they didn't have a blowout at E3. E3 E3 E3.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
To be honest, those DAI and NMS features / similarities from the very last footage does not inspire any confidence in Andromeda.
DeadlyParasite
Member
Just little over a week left....
[Heavy Volus breathing intensifies]
[Heavy Volus breathing intensifies]
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
The tech video? What NMS similarities?
The press and hold to scan maybe? But even Metroid Prime had that, and that game is the GOAT.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Metroid Prime was literally the example I was thinking of lol. I mean, the game is obviously going to have some holdovers from Inquisition, because I just think that'll be templated from BioWare's design structure (hopefully not a lot though). But none of that is evident in the footage shown so far, especially not the tech video.
Scanning seems like a logical real-time implementation of lore exposition for a series that leverages so much backstory and narrative exploration. I loved doing it in Metroid Prime, as a means of exploring the worldbuilding of strange planets. Mass Effect is a perfect fit, Andromeda doubly so since everything is supposed to be fresh.
I do feel like No Man's Sky is going to have poisoned the well for a few of MEA's mechanics, undoubtedly.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Probably. I guess I feel Inquisition would do more damage. I don't see much of a crossover between NMS and Mass Effect.
As long as they don't borrow too heavily from DA:!, I'm good. The last remaining concern, by FAR, is the existence of the "remnant" as a plot device. It's almost shocking that they would re use a plot mechanic that was just in the last trilogy with the Protheans. Why talk so loudly about getting away to a new galaxy with a fresh setting and story when you do that? It's almost like they were given a development template for the plot and told they can't work outside it. I understand that's sometimes how it is with AAA development, but it's a really conservative decision.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Actually, what's interesting about the Protheans is that they were a massive subversion of the "advanced alien precursors" trope; they were a little more advanced (beacons), but they were NOT the precursors everyone assumed them to be. That role went to the Reapers.
It remains to be seen how they're going to play the Remnants. I don't know if I'd say I have faith, but I'm open to the possibility it's going to be cool.
It remains to be seen how they're going to play the Remnants. I don't know if I'd say I have faith, but I'm open to the possibility it's going to be cool.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Well it was mixed, the Protheans studied and possibly interfered with the development of council species and they did leave caches of technology around which people found. They were a fair bit more advanced, not just in communications but also energy weapons (being used as standard infantry weapons), shielding and stasis tech (the field Liara was trapped in, the pods that could store people in stasis for tens of thousands of years like Javik) and so on. That last team of scientists also managed to crack the secret to how Mass Effect Relays worked and build a miniature one of their own, the fact that they were even able to do that seems to put them a fair bit beyond where the council species were in ME2/3.
The real subversion wasn't that the Precursors themselves had Precursors, but that they were a hegemonic Roman Empire type deal, rather than enlightened pacifists.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Yeah this, and it's one of my favourite revelations in the third game. I love that it was a big "fuck you" to the trope of a romanticised, utopian precursor species.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
I don't know if you can call it a tech video, it's more like a very small preview of what to expect from the final game in terms of the shown mechanics and stuff.
Obviously you can't tell how good the game will be by just looking at this video, but you can at least tell where they're going with it with all this exploration and stuff which is very simmilar to DAI (except scanning stuff, obviously). And look, I'm one of the very few people who liked Mako and planet exploration in the very first game. Sure, the planets were empty as fuck with the same buildings, quests and stuff, but it's this feeling of planet exploration, the atmosphere, amazing views and the uniqueness of it all was HUGE. We haven't seen anything like that in any other game before, not to mentrion that ME was the very first big budget Sci-Fi RPG.
Now, my personal fear is that all this exploration will be the same as in DAI / NMS with huge and empty open areas with absolutely zero interesting stuff to do and experience, not to mention memorable, unique and interesting quests / characters, cool and scripted situations, events etc. Oh and let's not forget damage sponge enemies, a shit ton of crafting, loot, inventory management and other boring shit which you simply can't ingnore if you wan't to finish the game or get good at it. I'm sure some of this stuff (if not all) will be in this game and it will ruin it no matter how good the story and characters can be.
I REALLY hope I'm wrong.
Well, it's Sci-Fi and I guess you can't make something without some kind of an end of the world / universe plot unless it's something more local. I think the Star Trek is the perfect example of what this first game in the new troligy must be all about - exploration, adventures, personal stories, memorable and unique local conflicts, slow bould-up for the main plot with lore exploration and stuff like that.
I mean, they can't just tell us right away that there's this race / faction that threatens the universe and you must stop it cuz... well, it's boring as fuck like the plot in Diablo games with the zero build-up, uncovering and stuff like that which is a lot more interesting, cuz it allow you to slowly lear about something which later on will become more important. And for the love of god, they must abandon this shit with the "chosen one" hero who can save the universe, cuz it's fucking stupid and boring at best.
Most of this wasn't a problem with Inquisition though- its main problem was a lack of consistency in the quality of the narrative in their sidequests and the design of the sidequests. But the worlds and areas themselves were largely solid, and even great in Descent and Hakkon where the quest narrative and design issues were largely resolved. You were never even really forced to craft/loot/manage inventory to finish the game either tbh.
I honestly hope ME:A does try to learn from Inquisition when it comes to party weapons and armor design, and crafting.
shinobi602
Member
So basically you don't want RPG elements in your...action RPG game?
Most of your fears are assumptions based off of nothing from what I'm seeing. So you're afraid the new Mass Effect game will have zero interesting stuff to do, no cool missions or characters, etc. Based off...what exactly? That doesn't sound reasonable.
Poodlestrike
Banned
In practical terms, though, they really weren't that much more advanced; energy infantry weapons are cool, but in reality they weren't actually significantly more effective, so it's sort of a mixed bag? They were precursors in the sense that they came before, but not in the high-technology way.
I agree that making them space assholes was a fun subversion as well, though.
Aside from an unsubtle like of a Gameinformer cover tease tweet, nothing currently.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
Oh, really? To me and a ton of other people it was a huge problem, not to mention MMO elemets all over the place.
Well, first of all, Mass Effect is not a traditional RPG (SWKOTOR for example), it's more of a action game with basic RPG elements in terms of character development (they've tried to change that a little bit in ME3 but it is still very basic RPG elements when compared to something like Dragon Age: Origins), it's more of an RPG only in terms of role playing. You play as Shepard, making choises along the way and shaping your own unique character and story throughout the course of 3 games - this is what ME must be all about as an RPG game and there's absolutely no need for crafting, a shit ton of loot and other boring shit and busy work.
Now, I think that resource gathering is... well, inevitable, cuz you starting to explore new galaxy with not a huge ammount of recources and you must replenish to simply survie and to keep doin' whatcha doin', but there must be machinery available like rovers or something which can also explore planets for you, gather resources, information about the planet and stuff like that. Resource gathering must be present in the game only as a survival element for the ship and it's crew to live and function (fuel, resources for life support and other systems) but not as a survival elements like in recent survival games with timers, bars and annoying as hell shit like that. Food, water, medical supplies and stuff like that you can buy on space stations like ones in 10-15 hours - really no that huge of a problem.
And I know, ME takes place in distant future and you've more easy ways to do something like gathering resources, but you fucking can't do everything by yourself like in god awful Inquisition in which you've the whole organisation and people to do this stuff for you cuz it's teir job, not yours (but you're doing it anyway cuz no one else can do it as efficent and as fast as you, you even cheat to make your useless advisers to work much faster) as an leader of organization, cuz you've better and more important things to do than gather flowers, rocks, minerals, complete shitty MMO fetch quest a stuff like that. Is CEO of any company (for example) doing low level job for low level employees? Fuck no! Why? Because it's not his job to do low level stuff like wash floors, windows, copy documents, deliver some stuff etc., no, he has more important things to do. So, ME is an RPG and not farming or service delivery simulator, and you as a leader of the ship and representative of the human race have more important things to do than busy work of the low level stuff. Now, I'm not saying that you you must sit in your chair, get fat and do nothing, but you must not do low level stuff which simply boring, dull, nowhere near as interesting as the story stuff and everything related to it and quests. This stuff is wasting a lot of your time for nothing.
Let's say you've a rovers on multiple planets (which you've explored already using Mako and completed missions on them) and they're collecting information or gathering resources for you over time, in this case you can just fly by, collect everything that was gathered and return to more important stuff. Or you can make 10 or 15 people from your stuff stay on a planet, form a small colony and gather information and resources for you, and later you can fly by and pick them up along with resources and do the same on the next planet. It's not that hard to do and implement really, but they must not be slow as fuck and collect only 10-20 rocks or minerals in 1-3 hours or something like in Inquisition cuz it's fucking stupid, time wasting and only makes you do everything by yourself cuz you do it faster and more efficent which is not acceptable!
Also, there must be (imo) no expirience gain for killing, scanning and gathering stuff, expirience must be earned only for compleating quests and missions to illiminate time wasting elements such as killing a shit ton of mobs, scanning stuff and other shit if you do not want to waste your time on all this and simply want to ignore it. Crafting is also useless and time wasting mechanic which also involves boring inventory management and gathering stuff. They should make something like in Dead Space series and what I mean by that is you can find schematics for weapons and armor here and there to costumize your character, get the schematics for completing missions and quests to make role playing more important than anything else. As for upgrading weapons and armor, same stuff - find schematics and simply build stuff in your ship on a engineering deck without gathering anything. And to make it not as simple, they can just make you wait a day or so while engineers doing their job and making new stuff for you.
What else.... hmm.... OH! It's a fucking Sci-Fi game which takes place in space and galaxy full solar systems, stars, planets, ship battle remans, abandon stations and stuff goddamin it, there's absolutely must be a fair amount of missions (not space battles or something like in recent Battlefront game which is very basic and really not that inteteresting, plus it's not easy to implement and make something more complex and it's not necessary really) and space exploration that takes place in Zero-G and open space! This must be in the game, period! No excuses! How can you make a space RPG and not have Zero- G stuff in it? It's like Star Wars without space battles for Christ's sake. Just look at the opening stuff in Dead Space 3 (or even some stuff in Zero-G in Dead Space 2), it's not that hard to do even for X360 / PS3 with an extremely outdated hardware and it was a lot more interesting than any of the ground stuff you do in the game and absolutely everyone liked this stuff. Now, just think about this guys, only one DLC in the entire first ME trilogy (Lair of the Shadow Broker) had at least someting similar to Zero-G or open space which is freaking insane!
Oh, my fears is based on DAI and recent trends in gaming - quantity over quality, crafting, loot, busy work over interesting, memorable and more meaningful stuff, survival elements and a shit ton of resource gathering. All of this stuff (but I'm sure i've forgot about something) has only one purpose - waste your time on a borung and dull shit and make you think that the game has a ton of content, when in reality it's not true at all. Sometimes even the story stuff is shit like in Mad Max for example, so there's absolutely no reason to buy this game unless you want to waste a lot of your time just to make a bad ass car. There's plenty of games with the stuff like this which is ruining them and only make them worse, remove it and the game sundenly becomes a lot better than it was before. Look at the Division, Ubisoft recently released a patch to eliminate bullet sponge problem and other stuff, what does that tell you? It's an indication that modern games has a shit ton of useless and unnecessary mechanics which only makes them worse tedious, dull etc. Even though Ubisoft did a good thing, It is still a very sad thing to see that they didn't understad that all the shit they fixed should not be in the game at the first place and a lot of people wasted a shit ton of their time in the process of doing all this shit.
All I'm trying to say is that ME is better that all this and must not contain unnecessary mechanics, busy work, boring, dull, tedious and time wasting stuff, but it will (nowadays you must please everyone even if it means that you're making the game worse in some aspects in the process), I'm sure of it, but I really hope I'm wrong. To be honest, I've zero faith in BioWare after DA2 and DAI (and after ME3's ending to an extent) and I've plenty of reasons to be extremely sceptical when it comes to the stuff and games they make. And can you honestly blame me for this?
P.S. I'm sorry for bad english in some places, I'll try to fix that later and I hope you guys still understand what I'm trying to say here.
No, I mean you're factually wrong about these being problems with Inquisition. Crafting for example was never necessary to beat the game let alone progress. Same goes for resource gathering. Frankly the only thing needed to progress would have been the main mission in each area, and closing a few rifts on the way iirc. The games weakness was the shallow side-quests writing and their generally same-y design and objectives.
Sounds like you want Gears of War in space with dialogue choices. I'd bail out now if I were you since that's not what you're going to get- and it's certainly not what the series should or will be.
Your view of what Mass Effect should be/is and my view could not be more different.
I'm really not sure I'd be a fan of the game you describe.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
For you, probably, but not for everyone else.
Oh really? It was simply useless and unnecessary (and also tedious and boring busy work). To be good at this game and to make boring as shit combat as easy as possible (did I mentioned that even on easy you can't kill enemies fast enough?), you need to craft and upgrade armor and weapons, and to do that you need to gather shit, and gathering shit leads to a shit ton of wasted time and tedious inventory management.
Oh and lets not forget that some of the missions had a recomended character level, so if your character even 2-3 levels below the recommended level for the mission (or just in free roam) and if you didn't cared about upgrading weapons / armor and crafting better stuff... well, you simply fucked, cuz it's hard to fight enemies (takes forever and incredibly boring to kill btw with this stupid and tedious MMO combat system) which 2-3 level above your character level and it is almost impossible to kill huge beasts such as dragons, cuz they've a shit ton of HP and you need a shit ton of time and resources to beat them, and if you have unlimited time, you absolutely don't have unlimited resources, so if you run out of resources you can't beat the dragon or any other huge and overpowered enemies. Uh... DAI is simply not fun to play, not it the slightest and there's no way around it, it's a fact, and this is a reallly HUGE problem for a lot of people, believe it or not.
You've forgot to mention useless Inqusition and advisors, mobile game elements and timers, a shit ton of busy work, huge and empty maps with absolute zero interesting and memorable events (it doesn't matter how good they look), MMO elements, incredibly awful MMO-ish combat system and overall structure. DAI is an offline MMO game with single player stuff and not traditional single player RPG such as DAO, which is by a billion miles better in every ragard (except maybe combat and outdated visuals) and it is an undeniable fact.
Oh god, no! I want good old ME game at it's core with as little DAI / modern games infliuence, trends and mechanics as possible (zero is perfect), with an extra things added and expanded / fixed / tweaked which I've mentioned above.
Well, you just don't quite understand what I need. It's not like I know as a game dev, heh, but at least I know exactly what needs to be done to make new game much better ME game for me and maybe for someone else too in terms of role play and Sci-Fi elements. Anyway, 7th is not far away, I do hope they'll show enough of the game to make if not all, but at least most of my fears to disappear, but I'll be extremely sceptical till the end no matter what cuz I've every right to be.
Again, none of this existed in the game was being necessary or recommended for completion, you're factually wrong about this.
competing the key quest in each area is enough to level up, again, you're factually wrong about the game here.
the game you're describing doesn't exist and I get the sense a lot of the complaints you're levying about inquisition are largely memes found online. What you describe doesn't exist.
you don't know what you need is what I'm talking away from those so far tbh.
Edit: it doesn't take longer than... a few minutes to solo a dragon with strong rogue build either iirc. Do you want the game to hold your hand? There's really no need to do any of the shit you're describing the beat the game, I know this having beaten it several times over 300+ hours. I personally go balls-deep into crafting because it's a great RPG mechanic, or did you hate it in New Vegas too?
Honestly, for Inquisition being underleveled was never my problem. I was almost always 4-5 levels above the recommended, and a couple times approaching 10 levels above recommended.
It's not that you described that badly, it's just what you described is not anything I'm interested in.
But, as you say, we'll see in a few days.
It's not that you described that badly, it's just what you described is not anything I'm interested in.
But, as you say, we'll see in a few days.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
Can you be more specific please? I really want to know what you don't like and why, well, if it's not too much trouble for you
diaspora, I'm sorry, but your opinion in regards to DAI worth absolutely nothing to me. i've seen a lot people like you, they'll defend this piece of shit no matter what you tell them so if you'll excuse me, I've better things to do.
P.S. 300+ hours in DAI... damn, I feel sorry for you man, I really do.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Goddamn, douche chills in here.
Anyway, I'm reasonably confident that they won't look at the criticisms of DAI and go "hmm, yes, we should double down on the stuff everybody hates." So there's that.
I'd also say that while I appreciate the streamlining that went into ME2 and 3, taking it all the way to "Gears with dialogue options" would be a mistake, even if the ME1 hardliners will tell you that the series is already there.
Anyway, I'm reasonably confident that they won't look at the criticisms of DAI and go "hmm, yes, we should double down on the stuff everybody hates." So there's that.
I'd also say that while I appreciate the streamlining that went into ME2 and 3, taking it all the way to "Gears with dialogue options" would be a mistake, even if the ME1 hardliners will tell you that the series is already there.
Sure, and ME3 already started moving in the opposite direction with the weapon and modding system balanced against carry-weight and cooldowns, no? Inquisition's armor and armor build system isn't that far removed as is.
shinobi602
Member
I was going to comment but I think we just have very different ideas on what Mass Effect should be.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Yup. People give ME3 a lot of shit, some of it deserved, but mechanically it's got some real interesting depth to it in terms of tradeoffs due to the weight system and the way the skill tree is laid out. I'd love to see both return.
The Artisan
Member
I'm rockin a Walkin Dead shirt, but on top I got my N7 hoodie on at work today
Happy Halloween, MEGAF
Happy Halloween, MEGAF
I think if anything is guaranteed to come back it's at least the skill tree, and ideally more fleshed out to accommodate a more open world, the same way DAI added stuff like Fade-Step and extra moves conducive for an open environment. I'm interested to see if they'll add obstacles or design areas that can utilize special abilities of a particular class, like an adept using singularity to clear rubble blockage.
I'm bringing mine to Portugal for N7 day.
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