General Gaming The next Mass Effect - N7 Day 2023 trailer shows off a nice overcoat or trench coat

[johnny]

3 hours ago, legend said:

The three choices were just bad, even with the patch. They're thrown at you in the last minute with some huge new heavily contrived info dump and every choice goes against what the game was about before that and doesn't even give you a good understanding about what your choice really means rendering it a pretty unsatisfying "choice."

 

Destroy: Oh you spent the last three games turning the Geth from a villain into an ally, talking about how you're stronger together without sacrificing each other? Sorry they're doomed to kill you all, we couldn't possibly be wrong about this, so genocide it is.

 

Control: You just minutes before were telling the Illusive Man that you can't control the Reapers, they control you? Naa it's cool you're Shepard try anyway and become the Galaxy tyrant. Sure, much of yourself will be lost in the process, but what could go wrong?

 

Synthesis: How about we just mandate some vague notion of "evolution" onto ever single living being in the Galaxy whether they want it or not? Don't worry, you'll actually all still be yourselves, you'll just superficially have green lines on your face. But trust us, these meaningless green lines on your face will make all the difference in stopping wars between "synths" and "organics" because now you all have a superficial similarity!

 

It was fucking awful.

 

 

But otherwise the I love those fucking games.

So what you’re saying is they should retcon the destroy ending and keep the Geth alive for ME4. Works for me  

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

The other issue with the endings is you also saw the Mass Effect relays explode with energy. We had a whole DLC in ME2 that’s point was destroying a ME relay would destroy the system it inhabited. So no matter how “good” an ending was we just destroyed every system that had a ME relay. 
 

But Casey Hudson didn’t know why we would have assumed that in the original endings. 
 

fucking idiot. 

[johnny]

14 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

The other issue with the endings is you also saw the Mass Effect relays explode with energy. We had a whole DLC in ME2 that’s point was destroying a ME relay would destroy the system it inhabited. So no matter how “good” an ending was we just destroyed every system that had a ME relay. 
 

But Casey Hudson didn’t know why we would have assumed that in the original endings. 
 

fucking idiot. 

All we’ve seen is a short teaser announcement. I don’t think we can really say anything about what the Milky Way is going to be like yet. Every system with a Mass Relay could have gotten fucked up to varying degrees. I kinda hope they do retcon some stuff though.  🤷‍♂️

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

4 minutes ago, johnny said:

All we’ve seen is a short teaser announcement. I don’t think we can really say anything about what the Milky Way is going to be like yet. Every system with a Mass Relay could have gotten fucked up to varying degrees. I kinda hope they do retcon some stuff though.  🤷‍♂️

they “fixed” it with the newer endings. They show the relays more gently breaking apart and the energy wave not being devastating and destructive. 

[Brick]

All this is making me want to replay the trilogy now. It might be my favourite gaming trilogy. Fuck they're so good. 

 

I really hope he Legendary Edition is worthy remaster. I wonder if they'll retcon anything to better lead into this new game. Changes are additional endings perhaps???... 

 

Actually speaking of changes, I always thought that if Mass Effect was ever remade or remastered that one change they should make is Saren's arm. He has a geth/reaper arm throughout the game, yet in the final battle it's supposed to be a shocking reveal that since his last encounter with Shepard he let Sovereign implant him...uh yeah I thought that was already the case with your damn arm, glowing blue eyes, and tubes all over the place. I think that could, and should save that until the final battle, but up until then he looks like a normal turian. 

 

 

With Mass Effect 3, aside from the endings, I think they also missed a few opportunities with some of the choices you made in the previous games. Again this could be because of the clear rush from EA, but some things could have been different. Did you let TIM take the reaper/collector data at the end of Mass Effect 2? I don't remember what, if anything different happens in 3 from this, but one clear change they could make that has a direct impact would be on combat. If you let him take it, then Cerberus forces could have tougher enemies to fight, with more advanced tech. Did you kill the rachni queen in Mass Effect 1? Well I always thought it was a cop out to have the rachni breeder, and therefore Ravagers in 3 if you did. Perhaps they could change that so if you kill the queen in 1, then there is no breeder and by extension Ravagers in 3, so there's less enemies to fight, but if you did save the queen you do encounter her again, and there are Ravagers, but if you save her again then you gain the military strength of the rachni for the final battle. Choices. 

[Greatoneshere]

5 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

The other issue with the endings is you also saw the Mass Effect relays explode with energy. We had a whole DLC in ME2 that’s point was destroying a ME relay would destroy the system it inhabited. So no matter how “good” an ending was we just destroyed every system that had a ME relay. 
 

But Casey Hudson didn’t know why we would have assumed that in the original endings. 
 

fucking idiot. 

 

Yep. The extended cut, as you said, helps with this (apparently they can repair relays all of a sudden?) but yeah.

[legend]

7 hours ago, johnny said:

So what you’re saying is they should retcon the destroy ending and keep the Geth alive for ME4. Works for me  

 

Yeah I'd honestly be perfectly happy with that.

[Greatoneshere]

Just now, legend said:

 

Yeah I'd honestly be perfectly happy with that.

 

I hate to say it, because canon is canon and I'm a masochist about that shit (the reason Laurence Fishburne isn't in Matrix 4 as Morpheus is because the Wachowski-written The Matrix Online MMORPG canonically killed him off, and The Matrix 4 is a sequel to that - The Matrix Online was a direct sequel to the Matrix trilogy and I approve) but the ending is so bad I'd be content with them absolutely re-writing and retconning everything after Shepard is taken up that elevator to the holo-child. The Geth are an incredibly interesting species and to deny us the evolution/growth of what we worked for in the first 3 games basically ruins why we bothered in the first place. Make it mean something.

[legend]

4 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

I hate to say it, because canon is canon and I'm a masochist about that shit (the reason Laurence Fishburne isn't in Matrix 4 as Morpheus is because the Wachowski-written The Matrix Online MMORPG canonically killed him off, and The Matrix 4 is a sequel to that - The Matrix Online was a direct sequel to the Matrix trilogy and I approve) but the ending is so bad I'd be content with them absolutely re-writing and retconning everything after Shepard is taken up that elevator to the holo-child. The Geth are an incredibly interesting species and to deny us the evolution/growth of what we worked for in the first 3 games basically ruins why we bothered in the first place. Make it mean something.

 

Yeah I'm not usually keen on major retcons, but it's bad enough to warrant it.

[Brick]

The Destroy ending also killing the geth would probably be a bit better if it was very upfront about it. Obviously if you didn't broker peace with them, then destroying them would have been an added bonus, but if you did, and you knew they would get destroyed as well would have been an added weight on your decision. Is sacrificing a whole race worth it to save the galaxy from the Reapers? This is why I wish making peace with the geth was brought up with the star child (unless it was and I forget, but nothing can really be done with it), and added yet another option of winning against the Reapers; convince them you've broken the cycle of synthetics wiping out organic life. Maybe the Reapers would go away, but with a warning that they will continue to monitor the galaxy, and return if synthetics began to get out of control again or something, that way sure you won, but only for now, and they could come back at any moment. I don't know. I know one added ending in the Extended Cut was to tell the star child to go fuck himself basically, by making no choice, and decided to still fight the Reapers, which of course leads to the galaxy losing, but Liara is able to leave a message for the next cycle in 50 000 years to know about and prepare for the next Reaper invasion.

[Greatoneshere]

6 minutes ago, legend said:

 

Yeah I'm not usually keen on major retcons, but it's bad enough to warrant it.

 

Yeah, I hate to say it, but agreed.

 

3 minutes ago, Brick said:

The Destroy ending also killing the geth would probably be a bit better if it was very upfront about it. Obviously if you didn't broker peace with them, then destroying them would have been an added bonus, but if you did, and you knew they would get destroyed as well would have been an added weight on your decision. Is sacrificing a whole race worth it to save the galaxy from the Reapers? This is why I wish making peace with the geth was brought up with the star child (unless it was and I forget, but nothing can really be done with it), and added yet another option of winning against the Reapers; convince them you've broken the cycle of synthetics wiping out organic life. Maybe the Reapers would go away, but with a warning that they will continue to monitor the galaxy, and return if synthetics began to get out of control again or something, that way sure you won, but only for now, and they could come back at any moment. I don't know. I know one added ending in the Extended Cut was to tell the star child to go fuck himself basically, by making no choice, and decided to still fight the Reapers, which of course leads to the galaxy losing, but Liara is able to leave a message for the next cycle in 50 000 years to know about and prepare for the next Reaper invasion.

 

So, as a person who picked the destroy ending and hating that I had to (least worst choice), I endlessly hounded the holo-star child about the Geth. There is no option to confront the hologram about brokering peace (which I did) between the Geth and the Quarians. It's very frustrating. 

 

I like that you bring up the extended cut endings, because the only reason I went back to the extended cut long after I beat the game was to check out what they added and when reloading my save and doing the extended cut endings I went with rejecting the holo-child outright (I loved I could basically tell him to fuck off) and of course the game just tells you "you lose" and the Reapers win. I thought it was the most honest ending, except for not allowing the possibility we could win, because a war with the Reapers was the whole point and I felt like we could have? So even the extended cut fucked it up. Like @legend said, the extended cuts don't actually help much, except with retconning the mass relays thing (they're rebuilt in the extended cut, destroyed in the original cut).  

[johnny]

Really all they need to do is go with the theory that the reaper AI child was lying to Shepard and then do what they want lol 

[Brick]

57 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Yeah, I hate to say it, but agreed.

 

 

So, as a person who picked the destroy ending and hating that I had to (least worst choice), I endlessly hounded the holo-star child about the Geth. There is no option to confront the hologram about brokering peace (which I did) between the Geth and the Quarians. It's very frustrating. 

 

I like that you bring up the extended cut endings, because the only reason I went back to the extended cut long after I beat the game was to check out what they added and when reloading my save and doing the extended cut endings I went with rejecting the holo-child outright (I loved I could basically tell him to fuck off) and of course the game just tells you "you lose" and the Reapers win. I thought it was the most honest ending, except for not allowing the possibility we could win, because a war with the Reapers was the whole point and I felt like we could have? So even the extended cut fucked it up. Like @legend said, the extended cuts don't actually help much, except with retconning the mass relays thing (they're rebuilt in the extended cut, destroyed in the original cut).  

 

I was able to make peace with the geth too, so not being able to tell the child I proved him wrong was frustrating to me as well. In fact, I basically did everything perfectly; got the whole galaxy together by making peace between the geth and quarians, curing the genophage, etc etc. 

 

I disagree with winning against a straight up fight with the Reapers though. Even if you do every possible thing right to make your military strength as strong as it can be, throughout the trilogy you're told that you can not win. The Reapers are simply too much of a superior force, and the fact that all the technology you rely on was built by them gives them a huge advantage because they basically directed you exactly where they wanted you to end up technologically speaking. Sure you might be able to take out a few, and in fact you do, but in the end, there are too many of them, and they are too strong, so they will overwhelm the galaxy. There is no winning against them. There is no, "if we stick together, I know in our hearts we can win" bullshit. They. Will. Slaughter. You. 

 

To me, that's terrifying. Far more terrifying that there is no military strategy, or special force that can win against them. They are simply too strong. Remember that Reapers are patient and thorough in wiping out all advanced organic life in the galaxy, and erasing all evidence to their existence, even if it takes centuries. Javik even said that by the time he was born that his empire had been at war with them for hundreds of years. Even Sovereign might have been waiting for a hundred or more years when his signal to the keepers to use the Citadel to open up the path for the Reaper fleet to come back from dark space failed, coming up with a plan to take back control of the Citadel from the prothean's blocker. 

 

You're constantly told throughout the trilogy that you need to prevent the return of the Reapers, but because of inaction from politicians, and other bureaucratic nonsense they do come back, so really the only hope is to find some deus ex machina device to defeat them, which was the Crucible. Sure a deus ex machina to easily win an impossible situation is always kind of troubling in media (in fact I remember back before the game came out, maybe even after the second game came out, @Commissar SFLUFANmade a thread on IGN speculating that basically the only way to win would be a deus ex machina, and he was right), but in this situation it's better than just trying our gosh darn hardest, and by sticking together, and with love in our hearts, and hope on our minds, we can shoo those nasty Reapers away 

[johnny]

I also think it’s reasonable that once that reapers were defeated, they were able to have a leap forward in technology from getting to pick apart the reaper ships and everything else. 

[Greatoneshere]

12 hours ago, johnny said:

I also think it’s reasonable that once that reapers were defeated, they were able to have a leap forward in technology from getting to pick apart the reaper ships and everything else. 

 

Not within days/months - how do the aliens get their food in our solar system in the meanwhile?

[johnny]

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Not within days/months - how do the aliens get their food in our solar system in the meanwhile?

Well yeah not immediately. I’m thinking about mass effect 4 not the immediate aftermath 

[BloodyHell]

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Not within days/months - how do the aliens get their food in our solar system in the meanwhile?

Yeah. Hell, that trailer could have been long after ME3. How long do Asari live? Isn’t it like a thousand years?

 

I honestly think she’s going to clone him. 

[Greatoneshere]

49 minutes ago, johnny said:

Well yeah not immediately. I’m thinking about mass effect 4 not the immediate aftermath 

 

35 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Yeah. Hell, that trailer could have been long after ME3. How long do Asari live? Isn’t it like a thousand years?

 

I honestly think she’s going to clone him. 

 

Then I expect a lot of species by this point to be dead. They have to go all in on the fallout of their own stupid ending or retcon it completely. Neither is satisfying, and I don't expect this game to be good - the Bioware of old is long gone.

[BloodyHell]

2 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

 

Then I expect a lot of species by this point to be dead. They have to go all in on the fallout of their own stupid ending or retcon it completely. Neither is satisfying, and I don't expect this game to be good - the Bioware of old is long gone.

Not really. The Geth should be gone. Some species need special food, but would have survived in their home systems. 
 

though, tbh, its been so long I don’t remember all the details. Can’t wait for legendary edition to experience that series again. Especially 1&2

[Greatoneshere]

Just now, BloodyHell said:

Not really. The Geth should be gone. Some species need special food, but would have survived in their home systems. 
 

though, tbh, its been so long I don’t remember all the details. Can’t wait for legendary edition to experience that series again. Especially 1&2

 

I only meant all the members of species who showed up for the final fight and are stuck in our solar system. They all have to or are likely dead. Yeah, they're probably fine on their homworlds, etc.

[johnny]

It doesn’t really bother me if things don’t totally make sense and I’ve already said I’m cool with retconning stuff. If it bothers others I get it though. 
 

Andromeda wasn’t that good BUT it had the best combat in the franchise. I would never expect anything as good as the trilogy but I think they CAN still make a good game. Especially if they’re able to actually take their time on it lol. BioWare is not the same company it used to be but there are a few important people who worked on 2 and 3 who are working on this new one, so they do have some important people with experience on the team still. 

[Greatoneshere]

14 minutes ago, johnny said:

It doesn’t really bother me if things don’t totally make sense and I’ve already said I’m cool with retconning stuff. If it bothers others I get it though. 
 

Andromeda wasn’t that good BUT it had the best combat in the franchise. I would never expect anything as good as the trilogy but I think they CAN still make a good game. Especially if they’re able to actually take their time on it lol. BioWare is not the same company it used to be but there are a few important people who worked on 2 and 3 who are working on this new one, so they do have some important people with experience on the team still. 

 

Well, I hope you're right, but Mass Effect 3 came out in 2012, and Dragon Age: Inquisition came out in 2014, and they haven't made a good game since. That's a long 6-8 years to hope for a turnaround at this point when a lot of talent have left since (as you said, some remain). Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem were, by all accounts, not very good games.

[BloodyHell]

2 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Well, I hope you're right, but Mass Effect 3 came out in 2012, and Dragon Age: Inquisition came out in 2014, and they haven't made a good game since. That's a long 6-8 years to hope for a turnaround at this point when a lot of talent have left since (as you said, some remain). Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem were, by all accounts, not very good games.

I still enjoyed andromeda after it was fixed. 

[Greatoneshere]

1 minute ago, BloodyHell said:

I still enjoyed andromeda after it was fixed. 

 

Well I suppose that's something. Not exactly an endorsement of current Bioware though.  

[BloodyHell]

9 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Well I suppose that's something. Not exactly an endorsement of current Bioware though.  

Oh god no. 
Im in though. Ill give them another shot.

[Greatoneshere]

12 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Oh god no. 
Im in though. Ill give them another shot.

 

How many games would it take for you to give up on them? Out of curiosity. I haven't even watched the trailer yet.  

[BloodyHell]

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

How many games would it take for you to give up on them? Out of curiosity. I haven't even watched the trailer yet.  

I mean, unless the next DA is really good, im out, but ll always jump on a new sci-fi space rpg.

[Fizzzzle]

I thought Inquisition was... pretty good. Not a world-beater, but I enjoyed it well enough. Definitely bloated. Andromeda had really good parts, it just didn't all come together. I'm still willing to ride with BioWare as long as they aren't doing any more MMO-lite garbage.

[BloodyHell]

8 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I thought Inquisition was... pretty good. Not a world-beater, but I enjoyed it well enough. Definitely bloated. Andromeda had really good parts, it just didn't all come together. I'm still willing to ride with BioWare as long as they aren't doing any more MMO-lite garbage.

Inquisition really soured me on the series.

Honestly though, I only truly loved the first. I enjoyed the second, but really didn’t love the changes. Where ME2, I liked most of the changes they made, and thought they only went too far in the third. 

[Fizzzzle]

36 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Inquisition really soured me on the series.

Honestly though, I only truly loved the first. I enjoyed the second, but really didn’t love the changes. Where ME2, I liked most of the changes they made, and thought they only went too far in the third. 

Yeah, it's not simple.

 

I LOVED Dragon Age: Origins. Like, it might be in my top 5 games of all time. Dragon Age II was boring, but still fun from a narrative perspective. Inquisition brought some fun back but I kind of wish somehow there was a mix between the open adventure feel of Inquisition with the tight narrative of DAII. Almost like... I wish they just kept going with what they did with Origins.

 

ME2 was fucking phenomenal. Peak fucking game design as far as I'm concerned.

 

At any rate, like I said, I'm not writing off BioWare if they're making standalone narrative RPGs. Even Andromeda was... fine-ish in that regard. We get so few of those games these days that I'll take what I can get.

[SaysWho?]

Looks like there's a good chance the release date is March 12, 2021.

 

Looks like Mass Effect: Legendary Edition launches in March

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

 

Quote

A couple of online retailers have now listed the upcoming Mass Effect: Legendary Edition for release on 12th March 2021.
 

EA is yet to officially announce a date for its remastered Mass Effect trilogy pack beyond a vague spring window but, barring any further delays, Eurogamer understands the above date to currently be accurate.

 

Singapore retailer Shopitree and Indonesian outlet GSShop both have Mass Effect: Legendary Edition down for 12th March, as spotted by Twitter user Idle Sloth.

 

[Mercury33]

Ugh I have too many new games and now I want to go back and play 200 hours worth of ok’d games. God damnit.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

On 12/14/2020 at 2:28 PM, Fizzzzle said:

I thought Inquisition was... pretty good. Not a world-beater, but I enjoyed it well enough. Definitely bloated. Andromeda had really good parts, it just didn't all come together. I'm still willing to ride with BioWare as long as they aren't doing any more MMO-lite garbage.

the problem with these MMO-lite games is the developers can ever seem to find the direction they want the game to go in, the form for it to take until like 8 months before it’s due to release. Then by the time it releases there is nothing but a proof of concept released as a full game. It’s not enough. Definitely not enough in the “end game”. Not being able to have enough content for a full release is probably exactly why Bungie seems pretty opposed to doing an actual Destiny 3. 
 

On 12/14/2020 at 11:34 PM, Fizzzzle said:

Yeah, it's not simple.

 

I LOVED Dragon Age: Origins. Like, it might be in my top 5 games of all time. Dragon Age II was boring, but still fun from a narrative perspective. Inquisition brought some fun back but I kind of wish somehow there was a mix between the open adventure feel of Inquisition with the tight narrative of DAII. Almost like... I wish they just kept going with what they did with Origins.

 

ME2 was fucking phenomenal. Peak fucking game design as far as I'm concerned.

 

At any rate, like I said, I'm not writing off BioWare if they're making standalone narrative RPGs. Even Andromeda was... fine-ish in that regard. We get so few of those games these days that I'll take what I can get.

 

I liked ME2’s gameplay quite a bit. I think I played this game more than any other in series. Though there were things I missed about ME1’s RPG character progression systems. My biggest issue with ME2 was how the narrative felt. It felt like a second act. Putting together the team was where most of the story was. The stuff with the Collectors and Reapers felt secondary. Like it was always a back seat to recruiting and gaining the loyalty of a team member. Almost as if the game was planned to be twice as long, and we got an abridged arc with the Collectors. 
 

I also really liked ME3’s gameplay. It felt more like a natural evolution of ME2, than ME2 from ME. Andromeda felt so very different, because it really went full circle back to ME, with less reliance on managing the battle from behind cover. Gone was the ability to pull a target over or around cover as they approached and instantly kill them with an Omni blade. And areas were open enough that getting flanked happened more regularly. It also didn’t feel like you needed to rely on your team’s powers as much as ME2 and 3. More like your team added to you, rather than feeling like essential parts of your build. 
 

For me Andromeda fell short in its world building. This feeling might have felt lessened with a sequel as we’d already be well past “first contact”. But in the only entry we got it felt more like they blew through it with generic sci-fi tropes. It almost seemed like the game needed at least several more hours of narrative allowing us to properly be introduced to the inhabitants and lore of the Andromeda galaxy. 

[Brick]

 

[Kal-El814]

I've seen more takes online about how Mass Effect would be better as a visual novel and I can't hate that.