Mass Effect General - /meg/

The haircuts in the trilogy were all pretty bad with the exception of the basic buzzcut, which any modeler with a Community College art degree could have made.

Come to think of it, 90% of all the hair in every Bioware game is shit.

they gave us a quarian with goddess-tier breeding hips but can't yield any children with the protag

fuck bioware

>quarian
>yield any children with the protag

The fuck did you expect, son?

So how many species of interactable """"""""""aliens"""""""""" do you think Andromeda will contain?
That's not really an obstacle if you're sufficiently determined.
c.f. hurians

What do you mean with 'interactable aliens'? Enemies, or speaking with them?

Either.

Mos RPGs usually circumvent the whole "biology" thing in favor of pregnant waifus.

I suppose I should give them credit for sticking to heir guns in one area, at least. But I don't have to like it.

Quarians were literally made for hard missionary fucking and prone boning.

The geth were such great fodder enemies. They made cool sounds, had a great look, and were just generally fun to blast apart either on foot or in the mako. And their lore made you feel a little something about them before you killed them.

Everything after was just Ubisoft-tier cover-shooter dudes with body armor.

Terrible OP picture. At least there won't be any Quarifags in Andromeda.

E3 killed the last bit of interest in ME

I was a faggot who didn't mind the cookiecutter planets from ME1 at all, so cookiecutter characters wouldn't bother me so long as there's more to explore/see/do.

I thought "artisti integrity" did that long ago.

>At least there won't be any Quarifags in Andromeda.
If anything quarians are the most well suited to go Andromeda, since all they need is to slap whatever plot device is responsible for intergalactic travel onto their ships.

The ME1 cast were cookie cutter. MEA cast will be cookie cutter, with the crust cut out.

>ME1
The galaxy map and Citadel were the dough crust, the planets and story section were the circular cookie cuts, and the characters and combat were the chocolate chips.

>ME2
There is no crust. You have a few big, rock-hard cookies with some raisins in there somewhere, but the centers are still gooey (loyalty missions, suicide mission), but it leaves you with some cavities (nerfing RPG/inventory elements)

>ME3
Just the whole bag of chocolate chips. It's fine, yeah, but no real substance and you never really made anything to start with. You're just being tided over with sweats.

don't forget there is a nest of cockroaches at the bottom of the ME3-bag.

Are the roaches the DLC notice at the end or the DLC itself?

And I forgot to take the MP into consideration. What would that even be? The milk?

I'm specifically referring to the characters. All the landscapes that we explore in ME, we've seen them, one way or another in other games. I'd rather explore them, frankly. What makes Bioware games memorable for me, is the company.

I agree. Bioware's characters, if nothing else, have at least been interesting, whether they trigger autists on /v/ or if they're endearing enough that they become waifus/husbandos.

For me, the atmosphere of ME1 is what hooked me. I love the isolation and somber tone of being out in the frontier of space with nothing but your crew and your wits. I hope ME:A can rekindle that to some degree.

>28 posts
>8 poster

wew

But if you played DAI you know they won't be. Which makes me far less inclined to give MEA a chance.

>but the centers are still gooey (loyalty missions)

Those were complete shit, though.
>sheppur pls help me with this, or i wont be gud

>The ME1 cast were cookie cutter.

And the ME2 cast were cardboard cutouts.

More likely a shit twinkie.

I am a very avid fan of the quarians, but I try not to broadcast my autism about it too much. I would be a little bummed if they didn't make another appearance, but I'd bear it in silence.

Aren't the capabilities of the Migrant Fleet just a big DeM for whenever they need a big group of ships to being something somewhere?

They could have been structured a little better; maybe if they hid them in the journal in such a way that you didn't know you were even doing a loyalty mission until "that moment" when you have make some decisions.

Or maybe the culmination of several missions played out in a specific way would earn someone's loyalty. More than being an N7 doctor making house call after house call.

I'm going to have to disagree. In ME1, the characters were barely developed. They were walking codex entries for life in the 22nd century.

ME2 characters had flair. They were over the top, but memorable. Video game characters have to be video gamey to an extent. And the ME2 cast bar Jacob were built on something solid. If nobody cared about hte ME2 cast, why was it that Bioware got so much shit about treating them like that in ME3? Nobody would have cared. So I'm going to disagree with you on that.

>I'd bear it in silence.
Honestly? I think you shouldn't, eddrf. Everyone has something that is Mass Effect to them. Change it too much and you kill their version of Mass Effect, effectively killing off the franchise for them. You could always go look for it somewhere else, but you found it here and you feel comfortable with that and you want to keep coming here for more of it. Even if I don't like Quarians, I like you for liking them, if that makes any goddamn sense.

Or didn't call them loyalty missions at all. You either help me with this thing, or you don't. Don't bitch about your petty problems when this whole mission is a thousand times more important.

The first game did them way better. They're more character missions than loyalty mission, and they not blatantly marketed to the players, either, nor is the game telling you YOU HAVE TO DO THIS QUEST FOR THIS CHARACTER OR HE OR SHE MAY TOTALLY DIE.

You get the quest by speaking to the character, and by getting closer to the character, getting him to trust you more, consider you a friend. And it's still completely optional, you do it because the character asked you about it, not because of a shitty, contrived gameplay mechanic.

>The first game did them way better
Every character in every Bioware game has had their own quest. They just made them more story oriented in ME2 and, if I recall correctly, had done so in DA2 as well. Only DA2 characters were shit entirely.

Playing Me for the first time right now and I can't put any points into the shotgun skill.

Why is that? Can I level the shotung somewhen in the game?

which class did you pick?
sometimes you have to invest points in pistol first to unlock shotguns.

I don't see how that has anything to do with my post. I said that they were better done, not that they didn't exist at all.

>They just made them more story oriented in ME2

Not really, no more than than Garrus' or Wrex's missions. They were, however, a forced gameplay mechanic to allow people to die arbitrary deaths. I still have no idea what Jack/Kasumi is doing in the reactor core room.

Invest a few points into Pistols, then unlock the Shotgun path.

I didn't know you could pick a class.

I'm playing as the default shepard then, I guess.

>I didn't know you could pick a class.
what? the game offers you choices in the beginning.
clearly you are a casual pleb kek

>I didn't know you could pick a class.

This is all mostly true. But I wouldn't necessarily want to see the whole concept nixed, but definitely done better/more subtlety.

Take away the labels, make them regular missions, or maybe do certain things other than literal "missions"

>one character has a crippling fear of thresher maws: don't consistently bring him on trips to planets that have thresher maws
>one character copes with stress by talking A LOT: earn a degree of trust by letting them yammer on at you while you just nod your head
>maybe one character gets antsy when they don't see enough action, prompting you to bring them on more missions, or have an extended conversation to find out why they constantly need to be fighting

Imperfect ideas, but it's something I think. And all of these scenarios and the like could have gameplay effects as well (higher damage, lower DT, ect.) Or maybe they just react to you differently based on those actions.

but this would require time/effort, and usually those are mutually exclusive/nonexistent.

It's gated early on. You need to allocate points into other weapons first.

It's worth it though. If you roll with a shotgun squad that all have carnage rounds, it's nasty.

I'm trying to say that, as missions, character quests aren't something new to Bioware games, nor something that was "better handled" in previous games. It's how it was handled in all their games. They tried to change that in ME2 and DA2. I understand that it doesn't work for you, but the change of pace, for me, was refreshing. Especially since it didn't have to commit having said squad member in my party for long periods of time, or having to carry them along in multiple places, often redoing maps 2-5 times, to trigger the right prompts and conditions for quests, without, simultaneously fearing, that I might have locked myself out of something else that was on the way.

I am not entirely sure I'm making sense, but I hope you understand what I'm getting at.

>They were, however, a forced gameplay mechanic to allow people to die arbitrary deaths. I still have no idea what Jack/Kasumi is doing in the reactor core room.
That has to do with Normandy upgrades, not loyalty.

>If nobody cared about hte ME2 cast, why was it that Bioware got so much shit about treating them like that in ME3?
Biodrones have autism and think they were really characters with depth. The reason I care for them being dropped was that you spent an entire game assembling a crew and it's all for nothing since they split up first chance they get. It made the second game even more irrelevant to the series than it already was.

So who's in charge of the lore of MEA? That's really all I need to know before deciding to give it a chance or not.

>Story rpg focuses around a pre given character
>Allowes me to mess around with his identity

Welp

Allright, thanks.

>character quests aren't something new to Bioware games
Never said it was.
>Especially since it didn't have to commit having said squad member in my party for long periods of time, or having to carry them along in multiple places, often redoing maps 2-5 times, to trigger the right prompts and conditions for quests, without, simultaneously fearing, that I might have locked myself out of something else that was on the way.
None of this is in the first game.

Literally the only things they changed in Mass Effect 2 was forcing it on the player because it meant the character was a liability, and that every, single character had a problem that needed to get fixed by yours truly to check the loyalty box. That's it. Do you even have to speak with them at all? I can't remember if you do, or if Kelly just tells you they want to speak with you.
It's not more story focused than in the first game, it's just a badly developed gameplay mechanic.

>That has to do with Normandy upgrades, not loyalty.

Riiight, I forgot about that.
They were pretty badly done, too. It's not something that changes gameplay (aside from the upgraded scanner and fuel cells), it's only function is preventing deaths at three (the magical number) stages of approach toward the Collector base.

>Biodrones have autism and think they were really characters with depth
ME2 characters are, for the most part, on par with other Bioware characters. In terms of writing and character depth. There are a couple in every game that are a cut above the rest and really good, but those are exactly as rare as that sounds.

I don't understand what makes you like ME, or Bioware games in general, though, if you're so against that.

everyone from the original game is gone, expect many inconsistencies and retcons of the ME lore.
Mac Walters is in charge of everything, he was the one responsible for the story fuckups in 2 and 3.
that should give you the general gist of it.

The computer voice LITERALLY tells you to pick background, military service and class.

I would assume the writers are, but as far as I know, it's a totally different studio than Bioware Edmonton. It's Montreal now, I think.

>None of this is in the first game.
I ME1, most of the time I did the quests as I went around from planet to planet and when the time came to talk with the characters about their said quests, I just gave them their quest items and the only reaction was "ok, cool, did that". It's a lot more distant and actually ruined my immersion. Like, I had Wrex along when I found his ancestral armor, but he didn't even recognize it, until some time later when it came up in a conversation, off to the side. I think it's clearly the wrong way to handle it.

While what I described didn't happen in ME1, it did happen in Baldur's Gate 1 and in Baldur's gate 2 and in Neverwinter nights and in KotoR and in Jade Empire and literally every other game pre-ME1.

While ME1's way was better, it still wasn't that great. And while I ME2's was better for me, I understand your point and I understand it requires refinement.

I would like the Normandy upgrades to be more meaningful, as well.

It doesn't, tho. It tells me to confirm that my identity is john shepard, soldier, from earth.

he has gone for the pleb option an just took standard Sheploo solfier option.

no you can literally choose everything if pick "create class".
But this was probably too complex for your little casual brain and you went for the "give me gears of war" option. open your fucking eyes

>While ME1's way was better, it still wasn't that great.

It could still have been improved in the first game, obviously. Like you said, stumbling onto Wrex's ancestral armour before getting the quest, and without him ever making note it. But, I guess that's what happens when you put a character quest on a sandbox planet.
I'm not sure if you can stumble onto Garrus' quest, or if the trail leading you to it only unlocks after you speak with him.

Calm down, you fucking idiot.

I thought it might be an advanced option for players who already played through the game with the default shepard, just like PoE's Scion or DS' Deprived.

There are no downsides regarding story or quests when picking my own class?

then dont say there was no option for a character creation if you are too retarded to read, fucking cunt

Mac Walters @macwalterslives 12 t12 tuntia sitten

@Gavin_J_Porter Ryder is a last name. And the dog tags found in the N7 day trailer belong to another...

no, why would there, soldier is the most boring class to play.

Veeky Forums is more than one person.

No, it doesn't matter what class you go with. As for the background, you only get a single quest out of it.

Thanks lads.

I don't remember Garrus' quest, but Tali's was also solved through picking up an item that was readily available.

And the thing is, one of the first conversations you have with Tali on the ship is about her pilgrimage. So I know she wants something unique to take back to the flotilla, I know I have something like that, but I can't even offer it to her, not until her Quarian Codex entries are depleted, which is when she gives me the quest.

I know I am not by any means the smartest pea in the pod, but come on!

Oh boy! Speculesshuns! Your new characters will be a joke, Mac. Just like the rest of your game.

Against what?

And I didn't play Mass Effect for the characters, I did it for the setting. Let me sum up Bioware's catalogue and what I thought of each game because why not. We need something to talk about.

>Baldur's Gate
A fun D&D romp much like the old goldbox games but more accessible. Characters have flavour with their quips but not much more than that.
>MDK2
Terrible sequel to a very good game. It's been clear since this game that they were shit at art direction and style even though they keep trying.
>Baldur's Gate 2
It's like the first game but edgier and with more character interaction. Since the release of this game it has been the formula for all other RPGs made by the company. It's probably also their best work since it's the least dumbed down.
>Neverwinter Nights
The final and most genuine attempt at doing tabletop roleplaying justice with a multiplayer that emulates how it is played. The SP was thrown together very quickly at the end of development and is shit.
>Knights of the Old Republic
The proto Mass Effect, nails the Star Wars feeling and is a great licence game. Built using the BG2 formula it works very well and the twist for those kids who didn't see it coming was amazing. Unfortunately the combat was shit since it was console first.
>Jade Empire
KotOR reskinned into a faux wuxia game with martial arts instead of lightsabers. Same BG2 formula, unfortunately it didn't have the same impact since it didn't have the Star Wars setting to fall back on and thus it is largely forgotten these days.
>Mass Effect
Bioware decides that since kotor did so well it was worth investing in their own science fiction setting. Again built on the BG2 formula and what they learned from kotor they made something pretty much unheard of, a new expansive action RPG in an completely new and original setting developed from scratch. The cool thing is that they actually put a lot of effort into the setting, something they wasted in the sequels.

What a lovely picture.

Part 2.

>Dragon Age: Origins
Mass Effect was a success so naturally they were trying to do the same thing with fantasy, making a new BG game but without a licence. They wrote a new expansive fantasy setting that wasn't half as interesting or had a smidgeon of the potential ME had but it did well anyway. Classic RPG design didn't work very well on consoles however. As generic as it was and even though they couldn't make the gameplay match the BG series it was a success. Needless to say it was the old BG2 formula yet again.
>Mass Effect 2
Bioware is now owned by EA, this will be noticeable in their future games. This is Bioware's attempt at the second darker entry into a trilogy. For some reason they made it into a mix between the dirty dozen and a heist movie. Lore and setting was flushed down the toilet. It's also a straight up linear action game now instead of an open action RPG. Aside from the writing it was a pretty fun game with some cool ideas that would have worked better in a standalone game but it shat all over ME1.
>Dragon Age 2
An expansion to Dragon Age gets out of hand and chaos ensues. It's the standard BG2 stuff but developed on a shoestring budget and a crazy deadline.
>TORtanic
Bioware makes WoW with a Star Wars skin.
>Mass Effect 3
They figured out that they were supposed to be making a trilogy and quickly tied together all plot points and finished the story, previous setting information and story was run over with a tank. Much like DA2 this game was rushed as fuck but as far as gameplay goes it was alright. Level design went to shit with the multiplayer integration. Somehow it didn't turn out as bad as DA2.
>Dragon Age: Inquisition
Bioware took what they learned from TOR and applied it to a singleplayer game.

>And I didn't play Mass Effect for the characters, I did it for the setting
I play Bioware games for the Bioware/BG2 formula. Especially since BG2 is probably my favourite game of all time. Good times with fun companions. ME3 was 3 good occasions the entire game and shoved the fun companions to the side, in favour of Kai Leng, Diana Allers and Steve Cortez. So I was upset. I still am upset.

Haven't played MDK2, but I had fun with all the above mentioned games. Less so with the NWN OC and Jade Empire, more so with KotoR, BG1 and BG2. ME1 lacked the variety of companions I wanted, but was OK.

As for ME1, there are figuratively a million other sci-fi settings out there. It's not the setting I want so much. It was OK, on par with Jade Empire, in terms of overall setting quality. Lacked variety in fun characters, was pretty boring, Virmire choice was rather trivial and could be prevented, but we just went total braindead. Metal Cooler for a final villain was a mistake.

ME2 had more characters, they seemed much more fun. Shame how they handled ME1 cast, i.e. Liara, Wrex and VS, but the new characters compensated and then some.

I already said my piece for ME3 above.

Tali doesn't really have a personal quest in that sense, it's a direct follow-up to the quest that takes you to the geth outpost that keeps the data, and the only thing her 'quest' entails is whether you give data to her.

Yeah, the Ryder family stuff is already confirmed. I wonder if gender selection will make you pick between playing the brother or the sister. Twins maybe? And then you face off against your twin in the end because they do the opposite of you?

>sandbox
Open world. Not sandbox. Minecraft is sandbox, terraria is sandbox. The Witcher 3 and GTA are open world.

No I bet its like the father who is the N7 dude antagonist. They said that the dogtags arent Ryders, and in the same trailer next to the doogtags theres the family portrait with a dad and two kids.

Anyone heard of this? Know source?

I don't know. It seemed like overall sloppy to me. Like an afterthought, more than anything.

>And then you face off against your twin in the end because they do the opposite of you?
Didn't we play Devil May Cry already?

gamespot.com/articles/mass-effect-andromeda-dev-on-studio-tensions-femal/1100-6440814/

RIP

ME1 had a dedicated lore guy who was great. He also worked on ME2 for a while before the staff was assfucked by EA. Wrote all the planet descriptions and codex entries in ME1. He also wrote some of the best characters and locations.

Basically I'm wondering if it will be as coherent as the first game or if nobody gives a shit like in the last game.

just asked the guy.
sources:
archive.is/xJtHH
gamespot.com/articles/mass-effect-andromeda-dev-on-studio-tensions-femal/1100-6440814/

He'd have to be pretty old. I still think it'll be sibling rivalry. Although the evil dad thing does sound pretty SJW...

>84 posts
>14 (fourteen) unique ips

jesus christ just let it die, it's pathetic

>Although the evil dad thing does sound pretty SJW
Jesus christ I hope this is bait. What's SJW next? Breathing?

Yeah, reading it right now. Sounds as bad as you'd expect and management denying everything like it's regular brothers quarrel. Only everyone understands it's not quite like that.

>pic
Inaccurate. We never got Yellow ending.
>It only happens if you kept Kai Leng's corpse and threw it into the Catalyst.

Chris L'Toile, or something, yeah. Pretty insane, writing every codex entry and planetary discription.

From the article
>I'm pretty confident. We're lucky to have an amazing publisher in EA, who want us to make the best Mass Effect game we possibly can. We talk to them constantly, they're always asking questions and giving advice

Sounds pretty bad, if you decode the PR talk.

The boogeyman is everywhere, user!

>I wonder if gender selection will make you pick between playing the brother or the sister.

That would be pretty cool.
I'm still wondering what they meant further explaining female Ryder's non-default face. If it is indeed that you pick how your parents look.

>ME1 lacked the variety of companions I wanted, but was OK.
The thing is that it was the first entry in the series so your companions had to give you insight into the game world. I actually liked the ME1 characters the most because they felt so connected with the setting as a result of that. The ME2 crew were edgy comic book style characters. You even had a capeshit light character with the Asari milf.
>As for ME1, there are figuratively a million other sci-fi settings out there.
But pretty much zero RPGs using them. The closest thing to Mass Effect 1 out there is Star Control 2 and Starflight and they aren't exactly new. There's nothing quite like it at the market at the moment, that's why I liked it so much that I'm posting here years later. If it had been another shitty fantasy game or a generic cyberpunk game I wouldn't have liked it half as much.

>Inaccurate. We never got Yellow ending.
it's the refuse ending then

gamespot.com/articles/mass-effect-andromeda-dev-on-studio-tensions-femal/1100-6440814/

>But now we have a new generation of developers who are trying to bring their vision of Mass Effect to life.

YES! change the staff that made the original series and swap it with people who dont know shit what Mass Effect is about.

>I also heard that some gameplay features are now being stripped out to meet the release date.
>Oh I haven't heard about any of that.

Gameplay elemtents are cut: confirmed

>We're lucky to have an amazing publisher in EA
Is this all just a bad dream, am I already dead? WHERE AM I

>A lot of fans hold the studio to a really high standard
they are fucking delusioned

>I can understand those fan concerns. I feel that, this close to release, it's a bit worrying there's no deep dive on how the game plays.
>Oh okay, we could absolutely go into all that detail now. I have no concerns with that stuff.

Doesnt go into detail....wtf is this shit

>So moving on, so the Pathfinder character that was revealed at the end of the trailer appears to be a female by default this time?

>Well there's a trick there, I can't get into it
Tranny confirmed

>Now that we have some years of distance from it, how did you feel about the Mass Effect 3 ending? The backlash, the alternate ending, bowing to fan pressure; how do you feel about all of it?
>Oh yeah, I mean [releasing the alternate ending] was an incredibly cathartic moment for the studio. There we were, desperate to pay off a decade of work, and to have that negativity come back we thought, god, what are we doing here?

Heads were hanging like this [puts heads in hands between his knees]. It was a deeply introspective and challenging time for all of us. We carry a lot of scars from that time, and took a lot of lessons.

YES! PLAY THE FUCKING VICTIM YOU FUCKING BITCH; YOU DESTROYED MASS EFFECT FUCKING KILL YOURSELF

This fucking face is following me everywhere!

>I actually liked the ME1 characters the most because they felt so connected with the setting as a result of that
They seemed realistic. But I don't really care for realism in video games. Different and over the top is how you make something memorable. For me, at least. But I understand it's not up to your taste.

>But pretty much zero RPGs using them
So make one. It's not that hard. For example, Shadowrun is one of my favourite settings. For a time Microsoft owned the rights to Shadowun, right around the time they were working in tandem with Bioware. Cyberpunk still counts as sci-fi last I checked.

And even so, many more out there Bioware could work their hands on. With their reputation, at the time, people would practically throw franchises at them. It doesn't have to be Mass Effect, you just have to use it and use it well.

This is not me, but boy, does it sure sound like me. Also, you're absolutely right.

THATS IT
IM already raging over ANDROMEDA like the mess MASS EFFECT was
ITS DONE; ITS FINISHED, RIP MASS EFFECT FUCKING THANKS EA#

FUCK This gay earth fuck everything, WHAT IS THIS CRAZY SHIT
Im done, I cant come here anymore to get new bad news about this franchise, I will paly ME1-3 till the end of days ignoring everything else
fuck man this is just depressing

You got it the wrong way around. Making a father the villain isn't inherently political at all but SJW demagouges have ideological motivation for making the villain your father. Much like having a negro in the lead role isn't really a leftist thing or anything but modern leftists are motivated to cast one because of their identity politics.
Yeah, I'm sure bogeymen are behind the state of comics and the tabletop rpgs. Bogeymen apparently run Hollywood and Brittania too.

>Well there's a trick there, I can't get into it
>Tranny confirmed

>scars
>SCARS

is this chick from tumblr
did she get PTSD from being told that ME3 blew krogan dick
jesus christ