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You can't outrun your crappy storytelling ability forever Bioware!

Just proves that 3 was an extra-Galactic feth up.

No it doesn't. It proves that Shepard's story is told and they want to tell a different one in the same setting. Just like they've been saying all along. Your inchoate (and, in my view, irrational) rage at ME3 not conforming to precisely what you wanted it to be is kind of dragging this thread off topic.

 Melissia wrote:
inchoate rage

LEL

If you think 3 colour filter endings are an acceptable way to end a trilogy then by all means continue to give bioware your money.

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
inchoate rage

LEL

If you think 3 colour filter endings are an acceptable way to end a trilogy then by all means continue to give bioware your money.

Most games only have one. So you get one per game, it's about average.

More on topic:

 Frankenberry wrote:
Although, for being such a massive change in timeframe, the trailer weapons and armor look really similar to the first trilogy's gear.

Curious here, you mean the first game in the trilogy?

I'd find that interesting, if they're maybe going back to the way weapons worked in the first game?

I don't think this will be hundreds of years before or after, given that Shepard is seeing them off. I imagined they sent them off sometime before or during ME3, but well before ME3's ending.

 Medium of Death wrote:
You can't outrun your crappy storytelling ability forever Bioware!

Just proves that 3 was an extra-Galactic feth up.

It's not bad. Bioware just cannot do proper romances and proper characters anymore. They are mediocre. Mass Effect 3 was oka until the ending which, naturally, was an utter piece of trash. Lazy and incredibly badly written.

 Melissia wrote:
More on topic:

 Frankenberry wrote:
Although, for being such a massive change in timeframe, the trailer weapons and armor look really similar to the first trilogy's gear.

Curious here, you mean the first game in the trilogy?

I'd find that interesting, if they're maybe going back to the way weapons worked in the first game?

I don't think this will be hundreds of years before or after, given that Shepard is seeing them off. I imagined they sent them off sometime before or during ME3, but well before ME3's ending.

I think the "hundred years" is a reference to the travel time. There are no jump points between the Milky Way and Andromeda. So assuming that there's a ship traveling between the two, it's probably either a generation ship, or uses stasis of some sort.

I'm guessing stasis. But if that's a recording, then it may very well be a generation ship.

Best guess -

Some of the Earth authorities get worried about Shepard's Reaper information. Between ME1 and ME2, they put together a program that changes the destination of a planned colonization mission to the Andromeda Galaxy, since the Reapers presumably don't affect that galaxy. Shepard, who's famous for being the first human specter, gives a speech about the program. Because there are no known relays between the two galaxies, the colony ship is forced to travel at sub-light speeds. Finally, based on some of the early dev comments, I suspect that the game starts some time after the colonists have already built up their planet with full infrastructure, and possibly established colonies in other star systems. I suspect that the game won't start a year after landfall, or something like that.

The launch can't be between ME2 and ME3, because Shepard's in political hot water at that point, and wouldn't be allowed to give a public speech. And the Reapers attack Earth at the start of ME3.

Pretty solid logic, there. I'm sold on the argument.

I'm thinking it'll be like 1,000 years after ME3 and of course be in another galaxy so it'll be like a fresh start for the series. Then a matriarch Liara will make an appearance as an NPC.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
I'm thinking it'll be like 1,000 years after ME3 and of course be in another galaxy so it'll be like a fresh start for the series. Then a matriarch Liara will make an appearance as an NPC.

I'd love to see Grunt make an appearance too.

I really don't want to see any of the characters or locations from the first trilogy, personally. New setting, new characters, new story please.

Agreed. New galaxy, new characters. It's time for someone else's story to be told.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
I'm thinking it'll be like 1,000 years after ME3 and of course be in another galaxy so it'll be like a fresh start for the series. Then a matriarch Liara will make an appearance as an NPC.

I'd love to see Grunt make an appearance too.

Oh yeah, the Krogan are that long lived as well. Plus he's a Super-Krogan. He could even still be in squadmate fighting shape!

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
I'm thinking it'll be like 1,000 years after ME3 and of course be in another galaxy so it'll be like a fresh start for the series. Then a matriarch Liara will make an appearance as an NPC.

I'd love to see Grunt make an appearance too.

Oh yeah, the Krogan are that long lived as well. Plus he's a Super-Krogan. He could even still be in squadmate fighting shape!

His harem would be keeping him busy, I'm sure.

"In addition, killing the thresher maw has produced several breeding requests for Grunt. And one for Shepard."

IRT "stasis sleep", I believe one of the codex entries in ME1 makes some mention of them as a device created before they discovered element zero and the relays.

As far as I'm aware, there aren't any definitive 'facts' about when this is supposed to take place - and given the limited information in the 'trailer' it seems like it's possible for instantaneous, or near to, travel to occur in the game/universe.

What I meant by the gear comment was it seemed like they were using very similar weapons and armor to what Shepard/everyone else had access to in the first three games - despite it being mentioned that Andromeda takes place in X years in the future.

Since it's mentioned that the new 'hub' for the game is that giant ship/station you saw on the N7 Day video, I wonder if it's going to be similar to the fortress you get access to in DA:I? I mean, the two games don't necessarily have any similarities in the past, but it's a thought.

Also, as far as old characters not making an appearance, I can't see them doing that per se. We all know Shepard will be mentioned, Anderson too, that's unavoidable - but there are other characters that, by the end of ME3 and shortly after, would have been in places of leadership and power - their inclusion wouldn't break the story THAT much I don't think.

Then again, it's hard for me to be anything other any excited by the prospect of a new Mass Effect game - so this might just be subconscious wish-listing.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
You can't outrun your crappy storytelling ability forever Bioware!

Just proves that 3 was an extra-Galactic feth up.

It's not bad. Bioware just cannot do proper romances and proper characters anymore. They are mediocre. Mass Effect 3 was oka until the ending which, naturally, was an utter piece of trash. Lazy and incredibly badly written.

That's cause they didn't have Drew Karpyshyn writing the story for ME3...

Instantaneous travel isn't a thing. They can create corridors of zero or even negative mass, which means you can accelerate and decelerate quickly to extremely-faster-than-light speed between mass relays, taking a few hours to get between various parts of the galaxy IIRC. But they can't just teleport. Their "normal" faster-than-light speed isn't as good as the mass relay bit.

 Melissia wrote:
Instantaneous travel isn't a thing. They can create corridors of zero or even negative mass, which means you can accelerate and decelerate quickly to extremely-faster-than-light speed between mass relays, taking a few hours to get between various parts of the galaxy IIRC. But they can't just teleport. Their "normal" faster-than-light speed isn't as good as the mass relay bit.

Fair enough - but on that point, this is meant to be in the future - perhaps those rules don't apply anymore. Then again, we're talking about a pretty specific plot element that doesn't really factor much into the overall discussion, LoL.

Anyone spent time speculating on what those random buildings are the begin to sprout up from the ground during the first trailer? I know that Protheans aren't going to be a thing anymore, at least I figure they won't be because it was never mentioned that they left the Milky Way, nor were the Reapers Extra-Galactical in their whole 'clean house' bit.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
So how is bioware going to deal with the outcomes of previous games? Will there be geth or quarians? Will the Krogans be cured of the genophage? Is everyone a cyborg or are all the machines dead?

My guess is they'll probably go, largely, with a strong paragon-completionist version of the events of the original trilogy as it allows for the greatest possible array of material to use, maybe with some hazy "fog of history" stuff to show that maybe some of the more minor Renegade paths were taken and chalk it up to the legendary shepard being a "complex" character or somesuch.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
You can't outrun your crappy storytelling ability forever Bioware!

Just proves that 3 was an extra-Galactic feth up.

It's not bad. Bioware just cannot do proper romances and proper characters anymore. They are mediocre. Mass Effect 3 was oka until the ending which, naturally, was an utter piece of trash. Lazy and incredibly badly written.

What's worse, not only was it lazy and bad, it was copy-pasted, straight from the original DeusEx, same 3 concepts (control AI, destroy AI, merge with AI) and the same 3 color options (blue/red/green)

Eumerin wrote:
Best guess -

Some of the Earth authorities get worried about Shepard's Reaper information. Between ME1 and ME2, they put together a program that changes the destination of a planned colonization mission to the Andromeda Galaxy, since the Reapers presumably don't affect that galaxy. Shepard, who's famous for being the first human specter, gives a speech about the program. Because there are no known relays between the two galaxies, the colony ship is forced to travel at sub-light speeds. Finally, based on some of the early dev comments, I suspect that the game starts some time after the colonists have already built up their planet with full infrastructure, and possibly established colonies in other star systems. I suspect that the game won't start a year after landfall, or something like that.

The launch can't be between ME2 and ME3, because Shepard's in political hot water at that point, and wouldn't be allowed to give a public speech. And the Reapers attack Earth at the start of ME3.

One correction - the ship still travels at Plus-C speeds. But it's a *long* way to the Andromeda Galaxy. I looked it up, and the distance between our galaxy and Andromeda is apparently 2.5 million light years. So it's a Plus-C stasis ship, more than likely. Otherwise, the rest of humanity would have ascended by the time the ship reached Andromeda, converted itself to energy form, and gone on ahead to meet the ship when it arrived at its destination.




And state of the Milky Way? Choices that you made in all three games? Who survived?

Irrelevant.

The colonists will have no way of communicating with Earth short of one of the new instantaneous quantum-entanglement communicators that they introduced in ME3. And that's assuming that the thing could work over 2.5 million light years. And that neither end of it broke down in the meantime.

In short, the setting will be completely new. But the technology - both in-game, and game engine - will be familiar.

As far as character stories and romances by Bioware go?

Dunno, I thought the ones in Dragon Age 3 were pretty good. Given that it's a video game, it's not meant to represent the long-term process of building an interpersonal relationship. A lot of the early back-and-forth banter and such is minimized to a few conversations... because it's an adventure game, not a dating sim.

There's assumed to be a lot more interaction going on than is actually shown on screen, as travel time and etc are abstracted. There's video games that represent the long-term process of building an interpersonal relationship, but games like mass effect tend to abstract it for the sake of brevity as that's not their focus. I mean, most of them also don't show you physically taking apart the gun and putting the mods on it then re-assembling it and testing it to make sure the mods are installed properly, either. People didn't complain about not having to swing a sword a thousand time after paying for training in 1h weapons in Skyrim, for example. You just pay for it and bam you get the xp.

Well, most people didn't. Some did, but can't please everyone.

I thought the rumor was they found a Relay to the andromeda galaxy?

I have heard no such thing.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I thought the rumor was they found a Relay to the andromeda galaxy?

NOPE!

Only people talking about that rumor are usually using it in addition to Indoctrination Theory.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Mr Nobody wrote:
So how is bioware going to deal with the outcomes of previous games? Will there be geth or quarians? Will the Krogans be cured of the genophage? Is everyone a cyborg or are all the machines dead?

My guess is they'll probably go, largely, with a strong paragon-completionist version of the events of the original trilogy as it allows for the greatest possible array of material to use, maybe with some hazy "fog of history" stuff to show that maybe some of the more minor Renegade paths were taken and chalk it up to the legendary shepard being a "complex" character or somesuch.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
You can't outrun your crappy storytelling ability forever Bioware!

Just proves that 3 was an extra-Galactic feth up.

It's not bad. Bioware just cannot do proper romances and proper characters anymore. They are mediocre. Mass Effect 3 was oka until the ending which, naturally, was an utter piece of trash. Lazy and incredibly badly written.

What's worse, not only was it lazy and bad, it was copy-pasted, straight from the original DeusEx, same 3 concepts (control AI, destroy AI, merge with AI) and the same 3 color options (blue/red/green)

It'll be interesting to see if the awful ME3 ending even gets acknowledged, or just handwaved away as hastily as possible to get on with the story of Andromeda. "Wreck the mass relays and turn everyone into cyborgs with technobabble green energy at the behest of an evil, mega-genocidal child made out of sparkles? Clearly, that's not how the war ended, since we're here, the mass relays are fine, the Citadel doesn't have a supervillain hiding in the middle of it and nobody got turned into a cyborg. As for how it did end? Uh....moving on!"

I find myself thinking of Devil May Cry 2, and how nobody wanted to follow on from the ending of that one, instead making the third game a prequel and putting the fourth between the first and second.

I have no idea what ending you're talking about, that you call it awful and act like it's the greatest sin in all of gaming. Personally, I'd say that was the ending to Ghosts 'n' Goblins was worse.