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The Mass Effect Community Thread

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diaspora

Member
I love the Reapers, I wish we could explore more about them. Where do they hibernate every 50,000 years? Do they have their own planet? What about the Leviathans? Sure there must be some that escaped to Andromeda maybe, who knows?

  1. they reside in dark space
  2. probably not, what would be the point?
  3. What about the leviathans? Reapers knew they existed and hunted them.
  4. Not necessarily. There's no reason to believe it's the case other than "could be done"
There's nothing left to explore after the Leviathan DLC. They live in dark space and fuck up milky way civilization every 50000 years because of a shitty logic error. Their creators fucked off and hid in an ocean because they knew there was no coming back.
 

Nodnol

Member
I hope I never hear about anything related to the reapers ever again.

It's definitely time the series moved forward. They wrote themselves into a corner with the Reapers, which ended in THAT ending.

The only reason I brought them up in relation to Andromeda is other races who could have fled them.
 

diaspora

Member
It's definitely time the series moved forward. They wrote themselves into a corner with the Reapers, which ended in THAT ending.

The only reason I brought them up in relation to Andromeda is other races who could have fled them.

They can technically go in that direction but personally I would rather the subject was never raised ever again.
 

diaspora

Member
Well what if we go in Andromeda and find out that


Cerberus was behind them after all

ii8uvy2uu4ckrk4bvr.gif
 

prag16

Banned
Can lead down the path where crafting is only way to obtain good armor and weapons => gathering is made mandatory farming, not everyone likes that.

Yeah I tend to agree. I think a game that struck the right balance between crafting being worthwhile without every really becoming annoying was The Last of Us.

It'll also be interesting how they're balancing things if the ME1 style ammo setup is possible. I'd have to imagine they nerfed the shit out of it so as not to break the game (e.g. you won't get anything CLOSE to level 10 or even like 7 spectre gear with regard ot the effectiveness of these weapons).
 

prag16

Banned
It's definitely time the series moved forward. They wrote themselves into a corner with the Reapers, which ended in THAT ending.

The only reason I brought them up in relation to Andromeda is other races who could have fled them.

I'm still half thinking that fleeing the reapers had something to do with this expedition even if not publicly? I mean maybe not... the planning possibly had to start long before Sovereign showed up. But without that, this whole expedition seems kind of odd.. one way trip into the unknown taken on by hundreds of thousands of beings potentially?

The marketing having such focus on a "new home"; they've been belaboring that in such a way that it almost sounds like the old home is gone. Which only makes sense if it's a Reaper contingency plan.

I guess we'll see how they explain things in-game. If it ultimately turns out that they're 100% just exploring, period, that seems a little iffy. But I guess whatever it takes to escape the baggage of the trilogy..
 
What do we know about the MP? Is it just going to be a horde mode or will they set it up like destiny strike's? Where you do a mission with a boss at the end.

Wasn't it like that is inquisition? sort of like a mission with bosses? Never played it

ME3 MP was more of a horde mode rather than a dungeon dive/Strike. There were a variety of per-round objectives, like grabbing and returning objects, escorting a drone, killing high-value (read: randomly selected) enemies, and a couple others that escape me at the moment. It worked extremely well, and if what we get in Andromeda is essentially a visual upgrade with new maps, enemies, characters, weapons, and an improved interface, I would be entirely happy. I suppose a Strike esque mode on top of it, (maybe as a rotating high-difficulty playlist) might be welcome, but the core here is horde, and that's where I'd prefer it stay.

What's the chances of us getting like a character creator video or a fat ass vidoc that's like 20 minutes? All before launch?

Can't fucking wait guys!!

Does anyone have any info on this?

I'd say it's likely. IGN is doing a blowout (do they still do IGN First?) next month.
 

Nodnol

Member
I'm still half thinking that fleeing the reapers had something to do with this expedition even if not publicly? I mean maybe not... the planning possibly had to start long before Sovereign showed up. But without that, this whole expedition seems kind of odd.. one way trip into the unknown taken on by hundreds of thousands of beings potentially?

The marketing having such focus on a "new home"; they've been belaboring that in such a way that it almost sounds like the old home is gone. Which only makes sense if it's a Reaper contingency plan.

I guess we'll see how they explain things in-game. If it ultimately turns out that they're 100% just exploring, period, that seems a little iffy. But I guess whatever it takes to escape the baggage of the trilogy..

I admitted earlier I was ignorant, so maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression the core game takes place 600 years after the events of ME3...but they set off before the Reaper assault.

I figured it was a humanity-led contingency plan. If the Reapers are going to harvest the galaxy...then give the species a chance in a different galaxy entirely.
 

SliChillax

Member
  1. they reside in dark space
  2. probably not, what would be the point?
  3. What about the leviathans? Reapers knew they existed and hunted them.
  4. Not necessarily. There's no reason to believe it's the case other than "could be done"
There's nothing left to explore after the Leviathan DLC. They live in dark space and fuck up milky way civilization every 50000 years because of a shitty logic error. Their creators fucked off and hid in an ocean because they knew there was no coming back.

Well I hope they can come up with another interesting threat. A baddie who's just bad for the sake of having an enemy isn't what I'm looking for. I want a new threat, maybe they can revisit the whole dark energy thing that they didn't use for the main trilogy? Who knows.
 
Since I'm still a noob I cant make my own thread.

anyways its just a theory I have and possibly has been discussed to death here and elsewhere buuuuuut.....

What if the main enemies of this saga later down the line (a few games in) is the Milky Way races? like the Nexus is actually a mass relay turns out! (that or they just arrive on a faster more advanced ship) Arriving unexpectedly and are so much more advanced, the 600+ years allows for creative story telling which will allow for them to explain the 3 major endings of the original trilogy etc. with reaper tech and a somewhat unified galaxy behind them.

Thoughts?
 
I admitted earlier I was ignorant, so maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression the core game takes place 600 years after the events of ME3...but they set off before the Reaper assault.

I figured it was a humanity-led contingency plan. If the Reapers are going to harvest the galaxy...then give the species a chance in a different galaxy entirely.

Officially debunked, which was kind of surprising to me; I'd figure that people who believed Shepard would be investing and involved with this sort of thing, even if the Council wasn't, but iirc nobody in the project has any idea about the Reapers.

Since I'm still a noob I cant make my own thread.

anyways its just a theory I have and possibly has been discussed to death here and elsewhere buuuuuut.....

What if the main enemies of this saga later down the line (a few games in) is the Milky Way races? like the Nexus is actually a mass relay turns out! (that or they just arrive on a faster more advanced ship) Arriving unexpectedly and are so much more advanced, the 600+ years allows for creative story telling which will allow for them to explain the 3 major endings of the original trilogy etc. with reaper tech and a somewhat unified galaxy behind them.

Thoughts?

Naw. The whole point of setting it in Andromeda is to divorce it from the ME3 endings, which were too divergent and controversial. It's a cool idea, but no way it'd happen.
 

prag16

Banned
Officially debunked, which was kind of surprising to me; I'd figure that people who believed Shepard would be investing and involved with this sort of thing, even if the Council wasn't, but iirc nobody in the project has any idea about the Reapers.
Escaping the reapers as the reasoning makes so much sense. If I had to guess though they may have figured the time frame wasn't long enough for the insane amount of planning, construction, preparation, etc. But they probably could have handwaved that if they wanted to.

So that leads us to believe that the reapers won't even be so much as mentioned in passing in this game. 100% clean break for better or for worse (probably for better).
 
Escaping the reapers as the reasoning makes so much sense. If I had to guess though they may have figured the time frame wasn't long enough for the insane amount of planning, construction, preparation, etc. But they probably could have handwaved that if they wanted to.

They could have suggested that after the attack on the citadel, the plan was put in motion by the council. But they already went full-moron with the story and the council literally believes their own dumb story about how Sovereign was a geth ship. Prior to ME3 you could have assumed that the council was stonewalling Shepard in ME2 because he or she was working with Cerberus, but they were actually working on secret plans the whole time.
 

diaspora

Member
Escaping from the reapers makes little sense when the entire Turian Hierarchy, Asari Republics, Council governance, and most of humanity didn't see it as being even real until like the week of the attack. TBH it makes more sense as a SpaceX type program since Shepard understandably had little to no credibility in most of the entire Trilogy. Guy initially came to the council trying to oust one of their black ops operatives and assert that they were going to be invaded by a race of million-year old machines because of a vision he/she had. Then in the next game he goes to work for Humanity's ISIS.
 

DevilDog

Member
They could have suggested that after the attack on the citadel, the plan was put in motion by the council. But they already went full-moron with the story and the council literally believes their own dumb story about how Sovereign was a geth ship. Prior to ME3 you could have assumed that the council was stonewalling Shepard in ME2 because he or she was working with Cerberus, but they were actually working on secret plans the whole time.

A plan so secret there's ads everywhere and even TIM's daughter on board.
 
Escaping from the reapers makes little sense when the entire Turian Hierarchy, Asari Republics, Council governance, and most of humanity didn't see it as being even real until like the week of the attack. TBH it makes more sense as a SpaceX type program since Shepard understandably had little to no credibility in most of the entire Trilogy. Guy initially came to the council trying to oust one of their black ops operatives and assert that they were going to be invaded by a race of million-year old machines because of a vision he/she had. Then in the next game he goes to work for Humanity's ISIS.

That change needed to be made in ME3. At the end of ME1 Shepard was 100% vindicated when Sovereign attacked, and the council was all on board with him or her. The problem was that in ME2, they decided to go the full denial route even though it made no sense. Denying it publicly made sense, but they should have been privately preparing. Like, there's this giant starship of completely bizarre and unknown design that looks nothing like Geth technology, which is orders of magnitude more advanced in every way. Nothing like it is ever seen again. The Turians even reverse engineered the main guns and miniaturized them inside of 18 months... but they don't ask questions like "why don't all geth ships use Thanix gun technology if we can now mass produce it effortlessly and its a major upgrade?" The answer is because bad writing.
 

diaspora

Member
That change needed to be made in ME3. At the end of ME1 Shepard was 100% vindicated when Sovereign attacked, and the council was all on board with him or her. The problem was that in ME2, they decided to go the full denial route even though it made no sense. Denying it publicly made sense, but they should have been privately preparing. Like, there's this giant starship of completely bizarre and unknown design that looks nothing like Geth technology, which is orders of magnitude more advanced in every way. Nothing like it is ever seen again. The Turians even reverse engineered the main guns and miniaturized them inside of 18 months... but they don't ask questions like "why don't all geth ships use Thanix gun technology if we can now mass produce it effortlessly and its a major upgrade?" The answer is because bad writing.
I wouldn't even say that Shepard was vindicated at the end of ME1. In the end the assault was still one ship, the idea that Sovereign was a part of an ancient race of sentient machines currently living at the edge of dark space waiting to wipe them all out with the ability to control minds was still unproven. Shit, that's one of the things that bothered me most about ME1, Shepard offers the council basically nothing for most if not all of the game leading to the end and has the audacity to act outraged.
 

Corsick

Member
I hope bad writing doesn't follow us in Andromeda.

Does Bioware even care? I assume they know, right?

I assume it will be either inoffensively boring/cliche or a comical calamity of missteps. When they start writing better, I'll start raising my expectations. I have the game pre-ordered by the way, so I'm a horrible enabler in the end.
 
I wouldn't even say that Shepard was vindicated at the end of ME1. In the end the assault was still one ship, the idea that Sovereign was a part of an ancient race of sentient machines currently living at the edge of dark space waiting to wipe them all out with the ability to control minds was still unproven. Shit, that's one of the things that bothered me most about ME1, Shepard offers the council basically nothing for most if not all of the game leading to the end and has the audacity to act outraged.

The worst of it isn't ending related, it's the opening scenes when you're first trying to persuade the council of your visions. I was desperately trying to find an option that wouldn't make me sound like a raving lunatic, but Shepard didn't oblige.
 

diaspora

Member
The worst of it isn't ending related, it's the opening scenes when you're first trying to persuade the council of your visions. I was desperately trying to find an option that wouldn't make me sound like a raving lunatic, but Shepard didn't oblige.

TBH, the worst of it is... most of it. That sticks out the most in how Shepard seemed like such an absolute loon but the whole game of chasing Saren and the "conduit" which we're supposed to conclude is bad because reasons was a little weak.

"We have to stop Saren from finding the conduit!"

YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS YET LOL
 

DevilDog

Member
Diaspora pls

I assume it will be either inoffensively boring/cliche or a comical calamity of missteps. When they start writing better, I'll start raising my expectations. I have the game pre-ordered by the way, so I'm a horrible enabler in the end.

Well Bioware is catching up to the fact that writing doesn't sell games.
 
TBH, the worst of it is... most of it. That sticks out the most in how Shepard seemed like such an absolute loon but the whole game of chasing Saren and the "conduit" which we're supposed to conclude is bad because reasons was a little weak.

"We have to stop Saren from finding the conduit!"

YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS YET LOL

The first time you present the audio recording and the Turian council member says "This evidence is Irrefutable" I thought he was being sarcastic.
 
I know James Paesono was announced as the lead composer but does anyone know if Sam Hulik will make a reappearance or is scoring a couple tracks? That man is responsible for some of my favourite themes in the whole trilogy, it would be cool to hear something from him.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
The first time you present the audio recording and the Turian council member says "This evidence is Irrefutable" I thought he was being sarcastic.

Haha I remember thinking exactly this too. In the future, where voice replication is effortless, a couple of lines is all the new guy on the job needsbto impeach a renowned Spectre.
 

Killzig

Member
I know James Paesono was announced as the lead composer but does anyone know if Sam Hulik will make a reappearance or is scoring a couple tracks? That man is responsible for some of my favourite themes in the whole trilogy, it would be cool to hear something from him.

Pretty sure he's not making any new music for Andromeda.

Edit: I knew I'd seen him say no recently. https://twitter.com/SamHulick/status/821400678589308928
 

Corsick

Member
I know James Paesono was announced as the lead composer but does anyone know if Sam Hulik will make a reappearance or is scoring a couple tracks? That man is responsible for some of my favourite themes in the whole trilogy, it would be cool to hear something from him.

I have to have Vigil and the Galaxy Map themes return in some form. I think they're timeless and convey everything Mass Effect is supposed to be perfectly, but maybe I'm just gushing out of bias.
 

DevilDog

Member
Haha I remember thinking exactly this too. In the future, where voice replication is effortless, a couple of lines is all the new guy on the job needsbto impeach a renowned Spectre.

I always assumed that the reason why it was irrefutable evidence, was the fact that it came from a geth unit, instead of a rewritten mixtape of Tali.
 
The worst of it isn't ending related, it's the opening scenes when you're first trying to persuade the council of your visions. I was desperately trying to find an option that wouldn't make me sound like a raving lunatic, but Shepard didn't oblige.

The first time you present the audio recording and the Turian council member says "This evidence is Irrefutable" I thought he was being sarcastic.

Haha I remember thinking exactly this too. In the future, where voice replication is effortless, a couple of lines is all the new guy on the job needsbto impeach a renowned Spectre.

How to enjoy ME's writing:

1) Start the game

2)
s4ohi11.gif


3) Everything make sense now!!!
 
The writing is fine in ME2 and 3; some of the best written characters in gaming even to this day.

There is some good character stuff there, but there's also a lot of silliness. Mostly related to the main plot thread. In ME2 it's Human Reaper, Cerberus silliness, killing and resurrecting Shepard for no good reason, council doesn't care about collectors even if they're all human, going through the Omega 4 relay with literally no idea what's on the other side, expecting to defeat the Collectors, whom they up to that point believed had a "home planet" not just one space station and a single warship.

In ME3 there's EDI Pinocchio, Cerberus working with the Reapers now+they are a massive army capable of going anywhere and doing anything, Kai Fucking Leng, deus ex machina device you spend the whole game building despite knowing nothing about it and the massive clusterfuck of an ending.
 

diaspora

Member
There is some good character stuff there, but there's also a lot of silliness. Mostly related to the main plot thread. In ME2 it's Human Reaper, Cerberus silliness, killing and resurrecting Shepard for no good reason, council doesn't care about collectors even if they're all human, going through the Omega 4 relay with literally no idea what's on the other side, expecting to defeat the Collectors, whom they up to that point believed had a "home planet" not just one space station and a single warship.

In ME3 there's EDI Pinocchio, Cerberus working with the Reapers now+they are a massive army capable of going anywhere and doing anything, Kai Fucking Leng, deus ex machina device you spend the whole game building despite knowing nothing about it and the massive clusterfuck of an ending.

Oh, absolutely. There's also most of the ME1 plot, male Shepard's shonen-tier harem with Liara and Ashley, the bizarre special nature of human genes during a few ME2 moments.
 
The writing is fine in ME2 and 3; some of the best written characters in gaming even to this day.

Agreed. Femshep is my favorite female character, next to The Boss. The universe and characters Bioware created are incredible.

It was mostly a joke from the quoted lines. It has to do with the main story, how everything is presented and it's ruined if you see it through a microscope.

I remember the first time I completed ME3 and you see harbinger literally in front of the normandy, he does nothing and leaves the area, and the only obstacle between you and the blue beam are a bunch of husks and marauder shields. I just learned to go with the flow.
 

Renekton

Member
From Dualshockers - some are rumors

- No crossplay in MP.
- You can romance one of the new Angara race (?)
- Sara has more LI options than Scott (?)
- You can choose your character's training backstory ME1-style.
- The NPC will refer you by first name if you use the default Scott and Sara.
- New language translation to be explained, and minigames (possibly related?)
- Full squad count to be revealed later.
 

prag16

Banned
I'm torn on playing as male vs. female. My initial playthroughs for all games previously were male. But considering all playthroughs in the end, the split is probably close to 50/50.

Maybe female Ryder, in hopes of creating a love triangle with Peebee and the bunny/twilek hybrid alien. Not bad.
 

diaspora

Member
From Dualshockers - some are rumors

- No crossplay in MP.
- You can romance one of the new Angara race (?)
- Sara has more LI options than Scott (?)
- You can choose your character's training backstory ME1-style.
- The NPC will refer you by first name if you use the default Scott and Sara.
- New language translation to be explained, and minigames (possibly related?)
- Full squad count to be revealed later.

I don't even think most of these are even rumours. IIRC romancing an Angara was mentioned by one of the developers on twitter. Same with "NPC will refer you by first name if you use the default Scott and Sara" and "New language translation to be explained".
 

Renekton

Member
It seems the Remnants are the new Protheans. Maybe we're in competition with the Kett to discover their tech and fix the expanding Dark Matter thing. Reminds me of Witcher 3 (space elves fighting with us to solve an expanding winter ragnarok) if true.
 

Sou Da

Member
From Dualshockers - some are rumors

- No crossplay in MP.
- You can romance one of the new Angara race (?)
- Sara has more LI options than Scott (?)
- You can choose your character's training backstory ME1-style.
- The NPC will refer you by first name if you use the default Scott and Sara.
- New language translation to be explained, and minigames (possibly related?)
- Full squad count to be revealed later.

This is just speculation and confirmed stuff drawn from twitter posts.

The third one looks like ugly fearmongering to me.
 

aravuus

Member
The first time you present the audio recording and the Turian council member says "This evidence is Irrefutable" I thought he was being sarcastic.

Hah, I didn't even remember this. It's probably been years since I replayed ME1, wonder if I could squeeze in a fuck-around-and-be-stupid playthrough before MEA is out.

I'm torn on playing as male vs. female. My initial playthroughs for all games previously were male. But considering all playthroughs in the end, the split is probably close to 50/50.

Maybe female Ryder, in hopes of creating a love triangle with Peebee and the bunny/twilek hybrid alien. Not bad.

I'll probably go with female just cause I don't like how male Ryder looks and I don't care enough to spend even a second customizing the face lol.
 
I looked it up, and there doesn't seem to be a fixed date on which IGN releases their Firsts. That being said though, it might well be this week going off of what Shinobi has said.
 

Nodnol

Member
Finished Noveria on my plathrough of the first game. Just Feros to do next. I'm systemically doing everything I can in between missions though; I've broken the game a bit though by selling everything early on, and now I have a Spectre assault rifle that just melts everything.

I haven't touched a ME game since I finished ME3. I didn't even play ME3 after the ending patch. Replaying the first game after all this time has been great, and I've surprised myself at just how much I know and learnt about the universe. It's such a great world they created, irrespective of what they did with it in the end.
 
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