2 & 3 were nearly perfect in my opinion. Was I disappointed in the ending. Yeah, but those games were sick. Really pumped for the next generation.

I'd still love a nextgen update for the old games.

I never played the 3rd one until the DLC that fleshed out the ending was released so I never really had an issue with it.

Regardless, ME is probably my favorite game series of all time. Everything good that Bioware learned from KOTOR, they poured into this series.

So I'm heavily anticipating this.

I really want to be excited about it, but I think I'm one of the OP's "big stupid jellyfish." From a lore standpoint, I have no clue how they'll explain traveling to Andromeda, unless it's the Noah's ark theory to bail on the Milky Way and avoid the endings. And did the new Normandy jump through a wormhole?

So this post about the infamous "survey" hit the ME reddit:

quote:

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NARRATIVE:
Premise: Set in the Helius Cluster of the Andromeda Galaxy, removed by time and space from the Mass Effect "Commander Shepard" trilogy and its ending. Play as a "Pathfinder" explorer leading expedition with the aim of establishing new home for humanity. Encounter "savage untamed lands", "cut-throat outlaws", and "warring alien races" in an effort to survive and colonies. Andromeda is home to a mysterious alien race, the Remnants, who've left their vaults and ancient technology throughout.
Game Objective: Explore 100s of solar systems (over 4x size of Mass Effect 3) collecting resources, developing your ship, crew, and arsenal, while engaging in diplomacy in order to set up colonies, while discovering the mystery behind the Remnants and racing to secure their technology.
New Species: Remnants, an ancient race who've left ruins and technology throughout the galaxy. And Khet, seemingly antagonistic.
Squadmates: Same as previous games: make friends, take two with you on missions. Cora is able to generate biotic shields you can fire out of. Drack is a Krogan.
Loyalty Missions: Same as previous games: complete to unlock increased loyalty and new skill tree for that character. Example: Krogan colony ship has been stolen by outlaws. Track down the ship and return it to increase loyalty with Drack. Dialogue trees and end game impacted by loyalty status.
Dialogue: "Meaningful choices". Deeper control over responses, such as interrupting conversation. Action based choices are physical choices to shape the course of conversation, such as pulling out a weapon and forcing them to open a door instead of attempting to do so purely via conversation.

EXPLORATION/CUSTOMISATION
Tempest Starship: Pilotable ship to discover 100s of solar systems. Customisable with trophies/loot/photos taken through the galaxy. Transition between flying ship, to landing on planet, to driving Mako, to getting out on foot, all seamless with no loading screens.
Mako Vehicle: Upgradeable with turbo boost, shield generator, hostile detector, etc. Customisable paint job.
Planets: 100s of surfaces to explore, for discovering places to colonise, and alien vaults/outputs to conquer.
Colonies: Build settlements on habitable planets. Able to decide what type of settlement for bonuses. EG: Recon Settlements will clear fog of war on space map and offer more strike team missions, meanwhile Mining Settlements will periodically supply crafting materials.
Blueprints: Allow you to craft alien technology using materials for better equipment and weapons, such as a jetpack for jumping, cryo-beam to target enemies, etc.
Crew: Customisable skill trees, gear, weapons, etc.

MISSIONS TYPES AND MULTIPLAYER:
Remnant Vault Raids: Ancient ruins in two variants. Standard: Accessed by finding and activating Remnant Monoliths, explored to find a "powerful artefact". Acquiring artefact triggers defence systems: robots, traps, and restructured layout. Rewards with valuable loot, crafting resources, and Star Keys. Orbital Facilities: Unlocked with Star Keys, provide permanent stat bonuses, and optional higher difficulty vault raids that add Khet patrols and outlaws. Rewards with rare loot and narrative acclaim.
Khet Outposts: Optional wave-based combat challenges that reward with XP, reduced Khet power and additional narrative options in the region if destroyed.
Strike Team: Spend resources to recruit mercenaries and develop AI controlled strike teams to be deployed on randomly generated, time sensitive missions. Include settlement defence and remnant artefact recovery. Strike Teams return 20 - 30 minutes later with XP, currency, and equipment depending on mission outcome. Spend money/resources to train Strike Team, and buy better equipment, to increase success rate and send on dangerous missions.
Active Strike Team: See above, however you can choose to complete the Strike Team mission manually via play using your multiplayer roster of characters. Able to play co-op with friends, more friends increasing difficulty and rewards. Bonus rewards for joining another players strike team mission. XP, loot, and customisation rewards for Strike Team played characters are cohesive with multiplayer specific horde mode.
Horde Mode: Similar to Mass Effect 3: four players against waves of enemies with additional objectives such as disabling a bomb or assassinating a target. Similar XP/loot rewards to Mass Effect 3. APEX funds earned to be used in single player.

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link

Sound like they are going for less storyline more open world in the next series. Not sure how I feel about that, the characters are what made the first trilogy great and I feel like you need a common struggles to hash/develop teammates out. Can this happen with such a loose story?

Also count me in the group of ME2 being the best game I ever played.

I mean, I still enjoy Bioware games, so I will be picking this up day 1.

I'm all for the game going for more open world, but like you said, the story and characters are what made the game so damn good

Hype

Sign me up, really loved the combat mechanics of melee vanguard with shotgun doing warp etc from the mass effect series, hope that returns

The Mass Effect series was so amazing due to the fact that it mastered game mechanics AND story/character development. That is a VERY RARE combo (see Witcher 3) and the games that come from it make a long lasting impression.

I played ME1 through once (found the exploration and inventory cumbersome) ME2 through three times, and ME 3 through twice. This and DA are the only single player games I have played through multiple times in my 30+ years of gaming.

I am all in on anything they put out to be honest. If they flop on story/character and win on mechanics and multiplayer-- I'm ok with that! It will be hard to forget the amazing characters from ME1-3 though.

quote:

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I'm all for the game going for more open world, but like you said, the story and characters are what made the game so damn good

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I'm not for it being more "open-world." We had that with Mass Effect 1, and there was just entirely too much space to search with too much time spent driving in whatever that little vehicle is. I don't want more exploring landscapes and a less defined story.

What I want is Mass Effect 2 and 3, but even bigger. A focused story with a lot more campaign missions, a lot more meaningful choices, more weapons and upgrades of course. But mainly I want a lot more populated hubs (like the citadel) with lots of different stores, lots of different people to talk to with conversations that further develop the story, and definitely a lot more side quests (that still tie into the main story as they do so well in Mass Effect).

I don't want just hours of aimless exploring like in ME1, and I doubt that's what they're going for. I think they learned with 2 and 3 that these games are so much better when everything you do has a story-driven purpose, even if it's not immediate or obvious.

ME2 is my favorite game of all time. I put over 300 hours into ME3's multiplayer alone. So, I'm more than ready for this game. I just hope, with all the staff changes at Bioware since 2012, that this game is still good.

A few quick observations:

1) The planets shown and the speed of the Mako seem to suggest that this won't be the same kind of "exploration" as we saw in ME1. ME1 was practically all moons, and you roamed around at a slow speed with 1 cannon and 1 machine gun. This is a customizable Mako, and (I'd imagine) worlds that are far more interesting and enticing than moon 1, moon 2, moon 3, etc.

2) 2007 was a long time ago in gaming. They've learned a few things since then.

3) Setting this game in a new galaxy is the only way to avoid retconning the Crucible decision from ME3. There's no forced canon if the Ark (or whatever you want to call it) left before the finale of ME3. Now, HOW they got to Andromeda is a complete unknown.

4) As much as I love the original trilogy, I think it's a good thing if there are no cameos, or Reapers. Take the old races with you, but open the door to all kinds of new possibilities.

5) The original survey link mentions strategically establishing settlements. I doubt each of these settlements will be hub worlds, but my guess is that there would be some kind of central launching point. Your ship (the Tempest, apparently) is just one ship in Andromeda. Survey mentions, for example, a Krogan colony ship.

6) Glad that the Krogan will be joining, but how will they resolve the Geno****e decision? Not every Shepard cured it.

7) Slight concern about an N7 soldier rocket-punching an enemy through a hail of bullets.

I'm in. Loved 1-3. Still enjoy playing me3 my occasionally.

I figured it would be fun to post this: a potential explanation for how we get to Andromeda:



The prevailing thought is that the Council finds a mass relay or wormhole and sends the Arkcon(Ark Contingency?) when the final battle looks bleak.

The video above explains that the Ark could be a captured Collector ship, because it isn't limited by the need to static discharge. Additionally it's massive size could be a solid refugee transport.

Also in the trailer dogtags with the name Ryder was found by a fan, might be the name of the new protagonist.

The Mass Effect series is what opened the entire RPG genre to me. Before I played Mass Effect, I thought all RPGs were like Final Fantasy. I've likely played more hours of ME3 multiplayer than any non-MMO (Turian Soldier with proxy mines FTW). Here's what I know about Andromeda:

• Scheduled to release Q4 of 2016.
• During the reveal of the "Andromeda" title, they stated their goal was to mesh the action play of ME3 with the openness of the original ME.
• A large aspect of the game is going to be exploring/fighting in the new Mako, which is going to be upgradeable/customizable as you advance your story.
• They suggested early on that the protagonist isn't required to be human, but I don't know if they have officially stated one way or the other yet.

Regarding the open issues created by ME3, first off I don't see why the end has to be a big deal. The only major difference between the 3 choices is whether the Geth survived. If you remember, the very end is an old man telling his grandson about "the Sheppard." So we know Earth and humanity survived. The major catastrophe is the destruction of the mass relay system, but the game had already indicated that people were figuring out how to create new mass relays. With all three choices, the Reaper threat goes away, because presumably "the Sheppard" now controls them and wouldn't use them to renew the life cycle any longer. IMO the important thing about the Geno****e isn't whether you cured it or not in your play through, but the fact that a cure exists. In any future games, they can easily write around that choice. Ex: Krogans were "cured" but their reproduction cycle is no longer as rapid as pre-Geno****e, or that Krogan have evolved to have a normalized reproduction cycle.

I would love a new Mass Effect game set 20-50 years after ME3 where you play a pirate type character. Create your own Omega.

This should be a great year for PC games. XCOM 2 next month, ME:A at the end of the year.

I agree with the Krogan geno****e bit. As far as the endings go the only the synthesis ending is a "no return scenario" even then I guess they can just give all organics the green eyes and go from there.

I'm a turian ghost guy myself on multiplayer, though I'm warming up to the Asari Huntress.

Pushed back til 2017

I guess it needed calibrating...

Crushing info indeed. It was my most looked forward to game of 2016

Booooo!!

I would have been very surprised if this came out this year anyway.

quote:

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Pushed back til 2017

I guess it needed calibrating...

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I don't find this to be bad news --- I'd rather have a great product delayed by a few months than an average problem on release. BioWare know what they are doing.

quote:

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quote:

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Pushed back til 2017

I guess it needed calibrating...

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I don't find this to be bad news --- I'd rather have a great product delayed by a few months than an average problem on release. BioWare know what they are doing.

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Certainly can't disagree. If they can give me something even close to ME2 I will be totally ecstatic

Damn. Definitely was my most anticipated game this year. I guess time for some more playthroughs!

Gameplay footage possibly leaked.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/04/02/mass-effect-andromeda-gameplay-leaked

https://www.facebook.com/andromedamasseffect/videos/1534834160153541/

embedded, it is alpha footage according to sources.

Jet packs

I quit playing Bioware games after 3 color endings, gay romances and tranny characters. Just thought I'd let you know.

Wait which character was a tranny?

Dragon Age Bioware book or comic had a tranny main character. Big part of the game world.

You just wait, there will be tranny characters in future projects. BeamDog already put one into a Baldur's Gate expansion.

There was one in DA:I. You can ignore her though

Edit: sorry, him

WGAF is a character is gay or trans?! It is a fking video game. DA:I was a masterful game and I honesty could care less about those issues which you seem to care so deeply about. Just stick to COD.