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[Jarmel]

Harvester with case of bad skin day.

Pretty much Collectors Round 2.

 

[Exploratory]

Are there Turians?

All I care about.

The "they left earlier than the reapers" thing is a cop-out.

How is it a cop out? They wanted to explore the Andromeda galaxy so they launched a ship before people even the reapers existed. It's a smart way to preserve people's choices and start a new story.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Most of this sounds really good. I hope they pull it off.



I just hope they give numerical values or at least a code system, which was notably absent from. DA3.

Agreed, would be cool to be able to share that kind of stuff easily.

 

[mcdomination]

So it's basically no longer an RPG?

I would like to hear your definition of an RPG.

 

[Trup1aya]

I'm sold already

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

No more Paragon/Renegade system
-They want more nuance and subtlety and giving the player more opportunity to express themselves
-You can agree or disagree with someone without being punished or cornered into a paragon or renegade choice
-Dialogue option tones: heart, head, professional and casual.
-These don't affect you or sway a meter one way or another, rather they allow you freedom without worrying about unintended consequences
-"Narrative actions" (previously "interrupts) return but rather than giving a "red"=bad or "blue"=good choice, it can say "shoot", leaving more ambiguity to your choice

YES.

 

[renegade_dewitt]

-Emphasis that relationships don't just culminate in a sex scene, but rather characters can just want to get in the sack, while others are interested in long term relationships and others still aren't interested at all. Bioware wanted to capture more "shooting bottles with Garrus" moments in the game, of which there are plenty

I loved that part of ME3. God, best scene and moment in the entire franchise. How the relationship with Garrus culminated in a simple game of shooting the bottle. So simply done, but masterful in its execution.

Thank god they realized that aspect and honed in on it. Hyped!

 

[kai3345]

Kind of lame that they aren't making the sibling a full blown squad member.

 

[John Kowalski]

Winglets are an actual feature of many real aircraft.

Winglets, lol. Perfect name.

Hope some Geth managed to get inside the arks, would be sad not to see them anymore.

Holy shit didn't even notice this was a new thread.

 

[Ralemont]

How is it a cop out? They wanted to explore the Andromeda galaxy so they launched a ship before people even the reapers existed. It's a smart way to preserve people's choices and start a new story.

I think they mean it's a cop-out because it's an extreme coincidence that they leave literally the year before the Reaper invasion for reasons unrelated to avoiding the Reaper invasion.

Having said that I'm willing to let it slide because I'm excited for the new setting and knew they'd have to rely on some coincidence/contrivance to get us to Andromeda.

 

[Frozenprince]

I think it's a fair cop-out since they don't need to worry about the final decision impacting this game, which is especially important for those playing on consoles unable to transfer their decisions.

I just dislike the notion that there are all these races deal with a similar "galactic level threat" in a completely different galaxy while at the SAME TIME there are people fighting reapers in the Milky Way. Plus it's pretty contrived that "oh yeah Shepard was doing his thing and the Reapers are ALMOST there but we're leaving because Science!"

 

[Sou Da]

YES.

-"Narrative actions" (previously "interrupts) return but rather than giving a "red"=bad or "blue"=good choice, it can say "shoot", leaving more ambiguity to your choice

Thank fucking god, I hated the lack of information in the interrupts.

 

[LuuKyK]

Btw, I am liking all these new info. Its almost making up for that underwhelming cinematic trailer. Thanks for taking the time to write this down shinobi.

I just hope they give numerical values or at least a code system, which was notably absent from. DA3.

Indeed. I also hope they fixed the hair options. DA:I had such awful hair and they all looked weirdly glossy. Ugh.

 

[RoboticWater]

Actually, DA:I was supposed to have something more to it in terms of the zone progression that did get cut for memory reasons. Stuff like building up your own bases and fortresses, and dealing with various problems that arise from that. Would have contributed greatly to the sense of progression if you could have seen, say, the Hinterlands change as your fort exerts its influence on the area.

I feel like that was just a pipe dream to begin with. Given the scale of Inquisition already, I find it hard to believe that BioWare (or indeed, any developer) could have ever pulled that off memory limitations or no. That's just a lot of stuff to put on top of a AAA RPG.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

So it's basically no longer an RPG?

.... how do you get that out of that feature list?

 

[Poodlestrike]

YES.

YESSSS

I wonder, though, does that mean the death of mechanical persuade gates? Not sure how I feel about that, tbh.

Or, it could mean that they're moving the limitations on that sort of thing to previous choices ("I saved your nephew character X, pls trust me") or class-based stuff (need X level of specialization in tech to defuse this situation) which would be great.

I feel like that was just a pipe dream to begin with. Given the scale of Inquisition already, I find it hard to believe that BioWare (or indeed, any developer) could have ever pulled that off memory limitations or no. That's just a lot of stuff to put on top of a AAA RPG.

Be that as it may, it was the plan, and it did ultimately get cut because of the need to have the game work on last-gen systems. Maybe they woulda pulled it off, maybe not, but it was the intention.

 

[Trace]

I just dislike the notion that there are all these races deal with a similar "galactic level threat" in a completely different galaxy while at the SAME TIME there are people fighting reapers in the Milky Way. Plus it's pretty contrived that "oh yeah Shepard was doing his thing and the Reapers are ALMOST there but we're leaving because Science!"

This is set 600 years after the Reaper threat ended.

 

[Tekomandor]

Yeah, how insane from my part to comment about something that existed in the previous games! Unnecessary attitude from your part, really.

Going by responses I received, I guess ME:Andromeda will now be step child of The Witcher and Shadowrun or something. /jk

I have no problem with you commenting on it, I have a problem with absurd 'not an RPG anymore!!11!' statements. Shifting from defined classes to a point buy, role based system isn't exactly the death of all and any RPG elements.

 

[AAK]

Ctr+F Turian

"0 results"

(╯°︵°）╯ ┻━┻

 

[Frozenprince]

So as far as I'm reading is it "Tone : Dialogue" or "Tone/Dialogue" because picking your intonation and then picking your dialogue choice is the natural evolution of the system and if that's not what it is then I'm gonna be bummed out.

 

[Lime]

Ctr+F Turian

"0 results"

(╯°︵°）╯ ┻━┻

They're in as confirmed by one of the lead designers

 

[Mediking]

I SAID DAY ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[LookAtMeGo]

It all sounds great to me. Count me in.

 

[Baroquemantic]

YES.

I loved that part of ME3. God, best scene and moment in the entire franchise. How the relationship with Garrus culminated in a simple game of shooting the bottle. So simply done, but masterful in its execution.

Thank god they realized that aspect and honed in on it. Hyped!

Music to my ears. Even more excited now.

 

[Frozenprince]

They're in as confirmed by one of the lead designers

I just hope it's more than "here's one and a codex entry" like, they need to be major players just like the Salarians and Asari.

 

[KKRT00]

People complaining about lack of pausing? People really played Mass Effect 2 and beyond with use of pause? Why? You didnt need.
I used paused in ME 1, but really rarely, you just didnt have too, at least on PC.

 

[TheXbox]

RIP Paragon/Renegade meters, you will not be missed.

Good stuff. If only their marketing evoked the excitement shinobi's bullet point list does.

 

[Poodlestrike]

So as far as I'm reading is it "Tone : Dialogue" or "Tone/Dialogue" because picking your intonation and then picking your dialogue choice is the natural evolution of the system and if that's not what it is then I'm gonna be bummed out.

Sadly, I think it's more like DA:I's system, where tone and dialogue are mixed. Can't really expect them to record every line multiple times for that, though it would be cool to always have a "like that, but sarcastically" option.

 

[inky]

The conversation with Sovereign is better written than anything that takes place in 2 or 3, the series never managed to reach that height ever again, in fact the series actually ended up retconning Sovereign's excellent dialogue in the sequels.

I know it's a controversial opinion, but I find the combat of ME1 while unquestionably jank as fuck, to be more interesting than any of the encounters in 2/3. Playing a shitty gears of war clone is not exactly what got me interested in the series, I might agree with you if there wasn't SO much of the same repetitive combat it in 2/3, to the point where level design became exclusively linear, funneling you through hour long sub-par TPS levels until you can get to the next piece of story. I feel like an encounter in ME1 could play out in many different ways depending on your choices, I remember outsmarting my enemies and getting myself out of tricky situations, where in 2/3 I just remember one infinite loop of take cover, shoot repeat ad nausieum, and the abilities didn't really change that, the game still played the exact same as a different class.

It's worth mentioning, I've replayed ME1 3 times, twice on 360 and once on PC years later, and I would definitely say it wasn't until I played it with a mouse and keyboard where I actually found myself thoroughly enjoying the combat, which blew me away at the time, as I always thought (like most of you) that ME1's combat was irredeemable trash, to find myself enjoying it was pretty surreal, I even ended up doing a lot of the combat-heavy side quests purely for the fun of it. Having every ability on a hotkey definitely felt like it was the intended way to play it, to the point where I'm shocked I even beat it in the first place, the way it plays on a controller feels terrible and stifles improvisation.

I agree with you. I've played and finished ME1 on PC on Insanity difficulty about half a dozen times and the gameplay is fine. People are too used to how every other shooter works that anything they find different is immediately bad. Managing overheating is easy if you know what you are doing, but shooting not the primary means of damage, especially with the more biotic or tech oriented classes. Combat in 2 and 3 is way more simplistic and repetitive, and the exact same rotations to take down barriers, armor, shields, life in awfully designed corridors. People are just to used to run/stop and pop shooting, but ME 1 is more about team composition, attacking in volleys (thanks pause) and managing individual cooldowns, something the shooters people are used to don't do.

And writing wise, ME2 focused too much on character development (at the expense of a main stor) that of course comparatively character interactions and character-specific stories were better, but that doesn't make the characters themselves better. Or the writing. How many of those stories relied on the teammate having daddy issues to present conflict? Too many. Was Jacob more interesting than even Ashley or Kaidan in the first game because he got more lines and a specific mission? No he wasn't.

Mass Effect 1 is still in the standard in many ways and it has nothing to do with rose tinted glasses nonsense.

 

[Aztechnology]

Wasn't ME3's model wildly successful for them? They'll probably take the same tack.

Oh it was successful yea, but you know what makes even more money theoretically. Adding paid DLC on top.

I mean I would argue that the more players you have hooked and buying the packs the better. But it's clear that's the direcion EA is headed lately. BF1 for instance is great, but it would have been far better imo to have all multiplayer expacs free and sell battle packs. Instead they are going paid DLC map packs etc, and very likely are going to start selling battle packs before too long too.

 

[RoboticWater]

So as far as I'm reading is it "Tone : Dialogue" or "Tone/Dialogue" because picking your intonation and then picking your dialogue choice is the natural evolution of the system and if that's not what it is then I'm gonna be bummed out.

I think it's more likely that Mass Effect is just adopting Dragon Age's dialog system, where each choice clearly represents a specific tone. I think a tone:choice mix 'n match system would be more thoroughly discussed. It would certainly be deserving of more than one vague bullet.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

Weren't the Reapers an intergalactic entity or was that changed with the ME3 space-whales DLC thing? I assumed that they set up their Citadel/Mass Relay trap in every galaxy and they spent their time hopping from one to the next.

On that note, by what technology are we doing our intra-galactic travelling? Without Mass Relay technology we don't really have a way to go from system to system do we?

Enough nitpicking on lore though, my main concern is that it ends up being Inquisition style content. Hopefully they can deliver on the execution.

 

[Killthee]

Just me or does planet system sound like scaled up DAI zones?

It does sound similar. The whole super boss thing reminds me of the dragons roaming some zones in DAI.

 

[Sou Da]

People are just to used to run/stop and pop shooting, but ME 1 is more about team composition, attacking in volleys (thanks pause) and managing individual cooldowns, something the shooters people are used to don't do.

Then if anything this information makes the game closer to ME1 in the combat area.

 

[Schlorgan]

I'm not sure about the class system being gone. Sounds less RPG focused.

Sounds like this game:

 

[Poodlestrike]

Weren't the Reapers an intergalactic entity or was that changed with the ME3 space-whales DLC thing? I assumed that they set up their Citadel/Mass Relay trap in every galaxy and they spent their time hopping from one to the next.

On that note, by what technology are we doing our intra-galactic travelling? Without Mass Relay technology we don't really have a way to go from system to system do we?

Enough nitpicking on lore though, my main concern is that it ends up being Inquisition style content. Hopefully they can deliver on the execution.

Nope, just one.

You can go system-to-system without a Relay, so long as the systems are close. The game takes place in a single (large) star cluster.

 

[Ovek]

And preordered...

 

[sol740]

Hopefully we'll be able to scan planets, and send probes, the highlight of the whole series.

 

[Frozenprince]

Sadly, I think it's more like DA:I's system, where tone and dialogue are mixed. Can't really expect them to record every line multiple times for that, though it would be cool to always have a "like that, but sarcastically" option.

Disappointing, not entirely unexpected, but disappointing. It's a new franchise in essence, now would be the time to revolutionize the way game dialogue worked by introducing the next step of the dialogue wheel.

Ah well. Can always hope for it.

 

[Sou Da]

I I think a tone:choice mix 'n match system would be more thoroughly discussed. It would certainly be deserving of more than one vague bullet.

That also sounds extremely expensive for a VA based game, but we'll see.

 

[Tekomandor]

On that note, by what technology are we doing our intra-galactic travelling? Without Mass Relay technology we don't really have a way to go from system to system do we?

You know, this has always baffled me. How did people play the previous three games and not notice that they were moving between systems without Mass Relays, or the whole escaping into FTL thing?

Presumably, they'll move between systems with conventional Mass Effect based FTL. Like you have for the past three games.

 

[Lime]

Any idea who will be doing the soundtrack?

 

[Jarmel]

Any idea who will be doing the soundtrack?

I think it's Hulick again. Wall is gone.

 

[Sou Da]

Disappointing, not entirely unexpected, but disappointing. It's a new franchise in essence, now would be the time to revolutionize the way game dialogue worked by introducing the next step of the dialogue wheel.

Ah well. Can always hope for it.

That would entail getting two VA's to say almost every line multiple ways and then getting the other VAs to have branching reactions to each tone/dialogue combo.

Insanely expensive.

 

[Phamit]

Oh it was successful yea, but you know what makes even more money theoretically. Adding paid DLC on top.

I mean I would argue that the more players you have hooked and buying the packs the better. But it's clear that's the direcion EA is headed lately. BF1 for instance is great, but it would have been far better imo to have all multiplayer expacs free and sell battle packs. Instead they are going paid DLC map packs etc, and very likely are going to start selling battle packs before too long too.

Inquisition had the same model as ME3, with optional Packs and free dlc. And it released in the same year as BF4, so EA is using different models for different games, so it's not unlikely ME:A going to the same monetization for the multiplayer as ME3 and DA:I

 

[Brawndo Addict]

Nope, just one.

You can go system-to-system without a Relay, so long as the systems are close. The game takes place in a single (large) star cluster.

Oh awesome. I mistakenly read it as you just start in a single large cluster rather than the game taking place there exclusively. That was one thing I never liked about the series, the galaxy always ended up feeling really small. Nice to see something more self-contained and with room to grow.

 

[Adry9]

WOW. After reading all that looks like Bioware got more things right than I though they would, can't believe they haven't talked about all this publicly.

 

[jmizzal]

Cool might pick it up day 1 depending on whats coming out around the same time

 

[jdstorm]

ME1 has the worst characters by far. Garrus isn't even Garrus until ME2.

Come on now. , Garrus, Tali, Wrex and Liara are all useful and interesting.

Mass effect 2 has obnoxious human space princess Miranda, Edgelord Jack, karth/Kaiden clone Jacob, Shitty Asari Monk lady, generic merc Zaeed.

Only Mordin and Thane really live up to the Alien companions frok the first. Grunt is ok. Probably in the Ashley/Kaiden tier

 

[Frozenprince]

That would entail getting two VA's to say almost every line multiple ways and then getting the other VAs to have branching reactions to each tone/dialogue combo.

Insanely expensive.

Yeah, but it's the only way forward for the system, otherwise the one we have is just the universal standard forever.