Mass Effect Mass Effect general thread

[Husky_Khan]

Mass Effect 2 was the best of the series. I know doing side quests for characters is a staple not just of Bioware games but RPG's in general and it feels like padding, but Mass Effect 2 was one of the best at doing it I feel even if it feels a bit formulaic or following a pattern.

There were also arguments that ME2 kinda shifted the franchise too far from whatever the idea was in Mass Effect but it's still the strongest game in the trilogy IMHO with the gameplay, setting, characters and yes story and it did an excellent job leading into Mass Effect 3... which dropped the ball and IMHO made Mass Effect 2 less well received since it was responsible for setting up the climax of the trilogy. But overall, even if largely character driven, Mass Effect 2 was just excellence and a significant upgrade over Mass Effect which was a good game itself.

And that's not to say Mass Effect 2 was perfect... it wasn't. Like I didn't find Jacob's character missions (or character in general) all that interesting for example. But still a really solid game.

 

[Deleted member 88]

I still have one more person to recruit, and I’ve got a few loyalty missions as well.

I also may go back to Ilos and do whatever Liara wants with regard to that debt she mentioned.

I’ve done loyalty missions for:

Miranda
Jack
Samara
Mordin
Grunt
Jack

I have to do missions for Garrus, Tali, and Thane.

And the new squadmate, when I get to finding it.

 

[bullethead]

And the new squadmate, when I get to finding it.

You can't miss him, he's on a story mission map.

You just have to remember to do his loyalty mission ASAP before you run into the timer pushing you to do the suicide mission.

 

[Deleted member 88]

You just have to remember to do his loyalty mission ASAP before you run into the timer pushing you to do the suicide mission.

Wait there’s a timer?

 

[bullethead]

Wait there’s a timer?

Yes, but only after a really obvious story mission.

You cannot miss it, as it is very in your face.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Ah, well got him.

Now, I’m doing his loyalty mission.

Hopefully, I’ll conclude the romance with Miranda soon.

But I’m mostly done.

 

[Captain X]

I think I've already said it here somewhere, but I'll reiterate it - I still think of the first game as the best of the entire triology. The only really bad part of it was that the combat could be a bit awkward at times, yet after multiple playthroughs with different characters of all three games, the only real improvement to combat, IMO, was with some of the variety of biotic powers, and even then it was the cost of being able to effectively do combos or attacking multiple enemies thanks to the changes in cooldown. I also didn't care for the fact that a unique aspect of the weapons was lost in that you had to start going around collecting ammo where before you simply had weapon cooldowns. I remember thinking it was pretty cool back when I played the first game for the first time, that I didn't have to go around collecting ammo after every battle. The second game changed that, along with getting rid of most of the RPG elements I liked from the first game, which is saying a lot because my first entry into gaming was Halo and before Mass Effect came along, games like that were more my groove.

I honestly can really only give ME2 props for game mechanics, improvement in graphics, soundtrack, and how interesting it made most of the characters. Other than that it was a reboot that made no real sense to me, and was an early preview into how your choices weren't really going to matter all that much in the end.

As for the new trailer and all the hype surrounding the new upcoming game:

 

[Husky_Khan]

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition may be coming in March

A leak has sprung.

www.pcgamer.com

According to leaked information from retailers in Indonesia and other Asian locations, the release date of the remastered trilogy, Mass Effect: The Legendary Edition is supposedly March 12th.

 

[bullethead]

Can't get excited until we see what they did with ME1.

 

[Battlegrinder]

I'm not particularly inclined to get excited in general. Unless they, at minimum, completely rewrote and redesigned ME3 from the ground up (which they probably haven't), we're just going to get the same flawed story with a new coat of paint.

 

[Captain X]

From what I heard, the only real additions were going to be some nudity, and they were actually going to be taking some of the side-missions and such out of it. Wouldn't be surprised if they made the weapons, armor, and skill management more in line with the later games.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Rejiggering the gameplay's an obvious choice, though as the ME series never had gameplay good enough that it served as any kind of real selling point, that's basically just making ME 1 not suck to play. Ditto with trimming the make-work side content.

Nudity is a bit of a surprise, but I guess in hindsight not as much of one. Lots of publishers have been pushing the boundaries on that lately. I don't particularly care for that, the old phrase "just because you can doesn't mean you should" exists for a reason. A simple fade to black is more than sufficient to actually tell a romantic story, the actual sex scene is usually gratuitous at best, a waste of time better spent elsewhere at worst. Put bluntly, if I really, really wanted to see Liara naked and in the throes of passion, I don't need bioware for that.

 

[Doomsought]

I don't particularly care for that, the old phrase "just because you can doesn't mean you should" exists for a reason.

It would have been smarter to just license out a DLC to one of the mod teams that usually create nude mods for games. You'd get all of the appeal, but none of the reputational damage or off-putting for people who are squeamish about that type of content.

Also, the models will actually looks good, rather than like make it look like the characters have fetal alcohol syndrome. At least the models won't be as ugly as Cyberpunk.

 

[Darth Robbhi]

ME1 threw the universe out there. It created the wonder.
ME2 is what the universe feel like a universe. It got ever so bigger, less black and white, and we saw the seedy underbelly. Especially as we added plots for the supporting characters.
ME3 felt like a contraction, removing the aspects that made the universe feel open ended. It was much more like ME1 that way. It was also a lot more “getting the band back together” than “meet and greet new people,” which also constrains things.

ME, and many other video games of its era, really weren’t set up for the gaming community really wanting D&D in their chosen fantasy setting. Even today, with HUGE developments in computing power and networking, you’d have a hard time building that. You would essentially have to have a DM at corporate who spends his life worldbuilding and quest building.

Even going with a MMORPG would still ultimately limit the universe, since your players aren’t really building stories about the world, but themselves. Some folks will love that, but a LOT of folks freak out over lack of structure. Similarly, others will freak out over lack of a unifying plot - what is the point of being an epic hero if you’re not being epic?

So a modern episodic television series is honestly about the best compromise you can make.

The real trick will be not be how you hold the weapons, but how you blend three or four games into one. The character advancement system will require a complete revamp. Several of the romantic options in ME1 and 2 were the products of social issues at the time of their writing that are irrelevant now. Finally, what is new to bring gamers back, especially completionists who have it all and done it all, while drawing in new blood?

 

[Battlegrinder]

ME1 threw the universe out there. It created the wonder.
ME2 is what the universe feel like a universe. It got ever so bigger, less black and white, and we saw the seedy underbelly. Especially as we added plots for the supporting characters.
ME3 felt like a contraction, removing the aspects that made the universe feel open ended. It was much more like ME1 that way. It was also a lot more “getting the band back together” than “meet and greet new people,” which also constrains things.

ME, and many other video games of its era, really weren’t set up for the gaming community really wanting D&D in their chosen fantasy setting. Even today, with HUGE developments in computing power and networking, you’d have a hard time building that. You would essentially have to have a DM at corporate who spends his life worldbuilding and quest building.

Even going with a MMORPG would still ultimately limit the universe, since your players aren’t really building stories about the world, but themselves. Some folks will love that, but a LOT of folks freak out over lack of structure. Similarly, others will freak out over lack of a unifying plot - what is the point of being an epic hero if you’re not being epic?

So a modern episodic television series is honestly about the best compromise you can make.

I don't think your core premise of "people liked mass effect for the setting" is true. People like Halo for the setting, or battletech, or 40k, or star trek, or star wars, which is why there's tons and tons of fan material set in those universes that has no connection to the main plot, and why they have loads of spinoff material about the setting and filling in gaps about the universe.

That doesn't happen for ME, works that focus on anything but the main cast are few and far between, and the vast majority of the fan interest is based around Shepard and his team. When discussion comes up about the game, it's always about the plot of the game, the characters, what could be changed, how the story could work in another medium, etc. Not something like "so, how does the turian military work in comparison to it's peers" or "does asari culture actually make any sense" and so one, no one's really interested in the nuts and bolts of the setting.

The real trick will be not be how you hold the weapons, but how you blend three or four games into one. The character advancement system will require a complete revamp. Several of the romantic options in ME1 and 2 were the products of social issues at the time of their writing that are irrelevant now. Finally, what is new to bring gamers back, especially completionists who have it all and done it all, while drawing in new blood?

I don't think there's any need to shake up the series core gameplay, that's not the main draw. Maybe some streamlining and tinkering, but the remake's success won't hinge on the mechanics. It'll hinge on the plot and characters.....which are sorta what killed ME as a franchise and don't appear to be getting fixed (because they'd have to basically remake 2/3 of the series to do that, which is almost certainly not happening).

Instead, apparently rumor has it that they're making a gamble appears of "I bet people really, really want to see Liara/Miranda/Tali naked." This is correct, which is why who knows how many artists and animators have stepped up to fill that niche already, catering to fans of every ship and fetish imaginable (and several that can't or shouldn't be imagined). So....I don't think that's gonna work out.

 

[Captain X]

And once again I'm the odd man out for actually liking ME1 the way it was.

And my impression is that they're adding the nudity because that's what they did for Andromeda. Which is amusing in hindsight, because when the first game came out, they had to fight a hit piece that accused the game of being a sex simulator, and while completely false, it followed them for years afterwards. I noted that in the second game, they shied away from showing even what they had in the first one, and I took that to be because of that unfair criticism. Then in Andromeda they just went ahead and showed us tits... in the game that hit every woman with an ugly stick.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Instead, apparently rumor has it that they're making a gamble appears of "I bet people really, really want to see Liara/Miranda/Tali naked." This is correct, which is why who knows how many artists and animators have stepped up to fill that niche already, catering to fans of every ship and fetish imaginable (and several that can't or shouldn't be imagined). So....I don't think that's gonna work out.

One thing I'd like to see in the reboot is for Jack to be a romance option regardless of player gender, which was how she was originally written. The game devs were forced to cut that by the producers for political reasons.

 

[Captain X]

I did find it a bit odd that she talk about how in the past she lived with a couple and had threesomes with them, then later on told FemShep she wasn't into women. 🤔

 

[ShadowArxxy]

I did find it a bit odd that she talk about how in the past she lived with a couple and had threesomes with them, then later on told FemShep she wasn't into women. 🤔

Yeah, that's because the producers told the game devs that same-sex romance options in ME2 were forbidden, except asari don't count.

 

[Captain X]

Because they technically aren't women, in spite of looking just like them. Because the truth is, they're futanari.