Mass Effect Series

[Russell]

>da2 gets developed, people complain it's too mass effect'd

How was DA2 Mass Effect'd?

 

[Max Payne]

Also perhaps boards dedicated to something are harsher on that something? We're pretty rough on Square, after all. And I'm kinda surprised on the rare occasion I go somewhere else on the internet and see that SE isn't taking nearly the same amount of abuse. (Apart from the FF haters that have always existed)

The SE hate is justified though. Their stuff has been pretty subpar.

Bioware's games, have been no where near as bad, and most of the complaints are fan nitpicking and elitism.

 

[Zee]

How was DA2 Mass Effect'd?

The dialogue wheel, for one.

People bitched and moaned about this for weeks. Seriously.

 

[ForceStealer]

^I admit I did kinda like having the insane amount of dialogue options in the first one

 

[Joker]

We don't get as extreme in our opinions about games as those nerds do.

I WILL KILL MYSELF IF TALI ISN'T PLAYABLE IN ME3

 

[Sheva Alomar]

If you love her so much, why don't you just go marry her?

 

[Hisako]

^I admit I did kinda like having the insane amount of dialogue options in the first one

I'm sort of glad about the dialogue wheel. Not the wheel itself, rather, but actual freakin' voice acting rather than listing out some silent protagonist's decisions in written form.

The last game I played which used written dialogue was Neverwinter Nights 2, and playing Dragon Age Origins after Mass Effect 1 just felt plain backward.

 

[Madame Mayor]

If you love her so much, why don't you just go marry her?

If I'm not celebrating saving the universe with some romantic space sex imma cut someone.

 

[Joker]

If you love her so much, why don't you just go marry her?

because fictional ;_;

 

[Alex]

I'm sort of glad about the dialogue wheel. Not the wheel itself, rather, but actual freakin' voice acting rather than listing out some silent protagonist's decisions in written form.

This might actually be my biggest complaint with DA. It just throws me out of the entire experience so damn much.

 

[Max Payne]

I felt there were probably enough new details here to justify a new thread.

Unfortunately I can't link the site since it has scans.

Originally Posted by Mystery Site:
-Tali is a confirmed squadmate
"Garrus, Liara, Kaidan, Ashley and (newly confirmed) Tali are all full
time members of your team if they survived the previous games."

-Wrex?
"I asked point blank about Wrex and got as close to a 'no' as I think Bioware will come at this early stage: exceutive producer Casey Hudson simply re-emphasised that such characters canplay a role and fight alongside you without necessarily being permanent squad members."

-No new Romance in ME3

-Biotics are more potent in combat
"Biotics can use their Pull ability to rip a shield out of someone's hands"

-Multi Layered combat areas
"The games combat spaces have graduated from the often-familiar open areas dotted with low walls. They're now multi layed encouraging you to seek high ground for a better vantage point...[the rest is about Cerberus rocket boot dudes using this to their advantage]

-class Specific Melee attacks
Engineer: Omni-tool fire lash attack
Adept: Melee (biotic) attack that knocks everyone near them away and stuns

-Powers Evolve more than once
"In ME3 this is just the start. A Vanguard player can customise their devastating Charge move first to slam people harder, then do more damage, then to reduce the cooldown.

-Powers combine
Example given with Soldier: "Soldier still has an arcing attack called Concussive Shot, but it now behaves differently depending on the ammo ugrade he/she is using. Cryo ammo lets you use that same trajectory to deliver a blast of ice that canfreeze every enemy in the area."

-Story is more like ME1 than ME2

-Places being visited (at least what the Magazine reports):
[...]mission takes you to the Salarian homeworld, the Quarian homeworld, the Asari homeworld, and the human homeworld - Earth. You'll even go to Mars [...]

-Every major character you have met will play a role in the last game

-Why is Cerberus after Shepard? They are working with the Reapers
"If your wondering why we were fighting Cerberus, having worked closely with this shadowy organisation in Mass Effect 2, the answer just raises further questions. They are wokring with the Reapers"

-Reaperized enemies include Asari, Krogan, Rachni
"In Mass Effect 3 we'll fight the Reapers other experiments, with other species.
One is a hideously bloated pregnant Asari, her gums stripped away and a robot skeleton showing through her rotting flesh"

"The Reapers take on the Rachni, who were already viscious insect monsters,are covered with bulging savs of lesser creatures. Rather than hitting their weak spot for massive damage, you want to avoid it like the plague: bursting any of these sacs before the creature is dead wit will unleash a swarm of horrible mini-rachni that crawl all over your body"

"The Reaperised Krogan wears heavy armor plates that can shear off with enough focused fire. Once you do the creature changes its behaviour to be more defensive clutching its lurid blue intestines to its stomach as its lumbers towards you"

"One Reaper creature draws life force from anything that dies near it.
The time-honoured strategy of taking out the easy enemies first ends up
being counter-productive: you make the creature stronger than it would
have been with its allies alive."

Casey Hudson summarizing ME3 (This is an article quote):
"Casey sums up Mass Effect 3 as being about victory through sacrifice, the scale of that sacrifice has been increasing with each new chapter" [Rest is authors speculation about saving(or not saving) Wrex and Rachni consequences]
Originally Posted by Nirolak:
Here are a few more quotes from the article about combat.

"To deal with the last few elites, Shepard [using the freezing concussion shot] freezes them solid to hold them still, then lines up sniper shots exactly through the eye-slits in their shields."

"Put a shield in front of an enemy, and suddenly the ability of the engineer class to place a combat drone behind someone and blow it up gains a new significance. Namely, knocking a guy on his face and shooting him in the head."

"Shepard commando-rolls out of the elite's way - a new move, by the way - and sneaks behind a partition running alongside the main corridor. Liara springs out of cover and pins the elite with a biotic singularity, while Garrus snipes him from cover. Neither kills the elite, but now Shepard is behind him. Rather than fire, he lashes out with his omni-tool, which emits a blade of flame that cuts through the elite's exposed back. He drops."
Originally Posted by Nirolak:
This preview mentions that 70% of people weren't faithful to their ME1 romance, and that this will come back to bite them.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27660102&postcount=1

Spoiler: scans

http://i.imgur.com/fLXmO.jpg

DOH HO HO.

WHAT SAY YOU NOW WAKEEN.

 

[Zee]

-Wrex?
"I asked point blank about Wrex and got as close to a 'no' as I think Bioware will come at this early stage: exceutive producer Casey Hudson simply re-emphasised that such characters can play a role and fight alongside you without necessarily being permanent squad members."

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

 

[Max Payne]

Well at least he'll be in the squad somewhat.

Hopefully every squad member you've ever had that is alive will participate in the final battle with you. That'd be so epicly awesome.

 

[Zee]

I really hope so, but uuugh, having him as a squaddie again would have balanced out Ashley (or Kaiden, I find them equally annoying) and Jack.

and i'm worried miranda's been bumped down to temp companion as well :|

 

[Joker]

DOH HO HO.

WHAT SAY YOU NOW WAKEEN.

As soon as I read that part I *knew* you were gonna say it. XD

 

[Hisako]

My guess is that if Wrex comes back in ME3 it'll be to lead the krogan in the fight against the Reapers

Not hard to imagine that in the context of Hudson's words

"In Mass Effect 3 we'll fight the Reapers other experiments, with other species.
One is a hideously bloated pregnant Asari, her gums stripped away and a robot skeleton showing through her rotting flesh"

And I thought Broodmothers were gross.

Bioware #1 for Nightmare Fuel

 

[Russell]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/8850-Critical-Miss-Mass-Effect-3

I lol'd

 

[Madame Mayor]

I don't hate scanning nearly as much with the update. But I got all the stuff I needed for all the achievos that were linked to it (like upgrading so people don't die etc.) before that update. Update happened and I was all...

Spoiler

:FFFUUU:

 

[Hisako]

I don't know what yalls are talkin bout since I only have the PC version (and therefore have the ability to mod my game, ), but I can safely say that resource scanning is probably the worst mechanic in the entire game.

At least, the one that is the *least fun*. If they do bring it back in 3, I hope that it's in a way that actually construes actual exploration rather than sitting at a screen firing blips on a grid

Like seriously it's a fucking pain in the ass to drag your mouse while holding down both buttons, that was total cocknshite

 

[Alessa Gillespie]

-No new Romance in ME3

then can i marry garrus

 

[Sheva Alomar]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/8850-Critical-Miss-Mass-Effect-3

I lol'd

omg you beat me to posting this

 

[Max Payne]

Someone on the Bioware forums summarized some info from the new Xbox World magazine:

Quote:

SQUADMATES:
"Twelve was a big number in Mass Effect 2 - almost too big", Hudson concedes. "We're focused on a smaller squad with deeper relationships and more interesting interplay in Mass Effect 3' he explains. "We're not going to have twelve again but we are going to do more with the characters on your squad including Liara, and Kaidan or Ashley. And we're bringing everyone back - every main character is in Mass Effect 3 somewhere"


ON CHARACTER RE-DESIGN:
"We have to update the look," Watts continues, referring to Jack, Ashley and Kaidan's refesigns "And the people who redesign the characters are the same people who did the original characters; and they know best how these things are supposed to mature. Stuff changes. Garrus' armour is going to change. Even Shepard has changed quite a bit. His armour has changed a lot since the first Mass Effect"


CERBERUS
"Regardless of how you finished ME2, Cerberus are now your enemy and are throwing their black and yellow-clad commandos at Shepard for reasons he'll discover later in the game when, as Bioware confirm then Illusive Man returns"

"You were begrudgingly working for Cerberus in ME2" Explains Casey Hudson, "but they've gone a bit further and Shepard has returned to the Alliance so Cerberus troops are a major threat"

"Cerberus heavy troopers wear enormous armour, Assassins use the same Biotics as Shepard and Phantoms use blades."



COMBAT
"Cerberus Troopers can do everything that Shepard can do now" says Designer Corey Gaspur. "So your fighting a force that's a lot more punishing"

"We wanted to make it so that when the player's fighting in the moment they feel like they have more options than aiming shooting and using powers says Lead Gameplay Designer Christina Norman. "We really want to make
mobility a factor that plays into combat. You'll always ask yourself, 'am I in the right position on the battlefield? Where are my enemies? How am I going to get from point A to point B?' Players should never be walking tino these safe places with great cover and stay there for the whole fight. It's about how you're going to move through the
battlefield as the enemies through the battefield move through the battlefield and how they're reacting to one another and to you"



LOCATIONS (we obviously know more than article mentions)
-"Turian homeworld Palaven and theQuarian homeworld Rannoch are early new destinations."
-Returning to Tuchanka
-Mining base on the edge of a Martian crater
-BUT "it's Earth cities which form the game's showpiece locations"

"The Seatle/Vancouver megacity on the west coast of North America is a truly gigantic space which Shepard will visit before and after the Reapers take it apart."

"If you Google Map Vancouver the layout is pretty much the exact same as our map" says Level Artist Don Arceta. "Geographically it's very true to the real world"


"You play a game like Gears or War and they just have sandbags everywhere, and we really don't want to do that. We really want to get away from arbitrary things placed just for the people working there, and we're just trying to really make sense of these spaces"
"We try to design the arhitecture first before we blow it up" says Arceta. "Like, really thinking about how did they actually design this building, and does it function well?"


BIG LEVELS:
"These spaces large enough to accommodate a six hundred foot Reaper bossfight, and a fifty foot Cerberus Atlas mech Shepard himself pilots later in the game."

"Over and over Bioware's team mention the scale of ME3 - every fight every enemy and every space is bigger than anything you've ever seen rendered in Mass Effect - or by the Unreal Engine - before"

LEVEL VARIETY

"I think Lair of the Shadow Broker is a good look at how we design levels now" says Hudson [...] "It's all about sudden shifts in the action. There's a section on Earth where you're running a narrow walkway and there's a war going on all around you and a ship is in the distance. Suddenly its nuclear core blows up and its suchs a shockwave that it knocks you off the walkway and you end up sliding down the glass face of a knocked over high-rise and then you kind of roll and catch yourself and all that happens in a moment of gameplay. You have control thoughout and that's when you'll realise annything could happen at any time"


FOR NEW PLAYERS
Similar to what PS3 owners got for ME2...BUT:
"It might not be comic style, but we'll do something in the same style to recap the story", says Hudson. "It's essentially a really fancy save game generator

REWARD FOR LOYAL FANS?
"Absolutely," he says. "Definitely. The challenge is to make the game better than ever before, to make it a great entry point for new players, and to make it the ending fans deserve. It's about making sure it starts the way a
great story should start versus just being a continuation. And thats tough becaus there is no canon except for what the player has chosen. In the end, its their game".

END.

I tried to cut out some of the stuff we've heard about already, full post is here: http://social.bioware.com/forum/Mass...7352856-1.html

fifty foot Cerberus Atlas mech Shepard himself pilots

goddamn

 

[Joker]

TOO MANY DRINKS TO THINK ABOUT THIS WITHOUT HEAD SEXPLODING

 

[Hisako]

If the Illusive Man is just pulling off another Saren "I should make myself appear useful to them so I won't get killed by them Reaper dudes" I will thoroughly enjoy trampling over his stupid-ass corpse


Aw man I just realised, if we wanted to learn where The Illusive Man's hidey-hole was we could have just asked Miranda

 

[Joker]

It changes, though. It's "an unnamed space station" that constantly moves from one galactic phenomenon to the next. He'd have to send the info to Horseface McGee first.