Hey folks! We've got a long legacy of Mass Effect threads here at PA, and it's time once again to chart new planets, meet new squadmates, and punch new reporters!
There's been a pretty interesting leak about what's coming next to the Mass Effect universe:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uG8V9dRqSsw
Putting the entire thing in spoilers so people don't have to scroll:
The Next Mass Effect Context:
The next Mass Effect game takes place in the Helius Cluster (a cluster of 100s of solar systems in the Andromeda Galaxy), far removed by time and space from Commander Shepard’s heroic acts and the final events of the Mass Effect trilogy. You are a pathfinder, a combat trained but un-tested explorer leading an expedition into the Helius cluster to establish a new home for humanity. As you explore this sprawling series of solar systems (over 4x the size of Mass Effect 3), collecting resources and building colonies, you will encounter the savagery of untamed lands in the form of cut-throat outlaws and warring alien races. To survive and colonize the wild reaches of space, you will need to grow your arsenal, your ship, your crew and make strategic (and often uneasy) alliances to fight against increasingly menacing foes. Along the way, you will encounter the remains of a once powerful and mysterious alien race, the Remnant, whose forgotten technology holds the key to gaining power in this region of the galaxy. As you uncover who the Remnant were, and the mysteries their ruins contain, you are drawn into a violent race to find the source of their forgotten technology that will determine the fate of humanity.
Collect Resources to Fuel your Growth:
Scour solar systems and planets within the Helius Cluster to find valuable resources and blueprints of long forgotten alien technology that will allow you to craft better equipment and weapons, such as improving your leg armor to allow you to jetpack jump, or upgrading your cryo-beam (laser cannon) to target enemies or do area damage around you to clear out close threats. As you build your arsenal and resource infrastructure, you will be able to explore deeper into the increasingly dangerous and resource-rich solar systems of the Helius Cluster.
A Capable Crew:
Throughout the story, you will recruit seven distinct crew members to fight by your side. Each crew member has a unique personality and specific abilities that open up strategic options as you choose which two of them to bring into each mission. For example, Cora has the ability to deploy a biotic shield that protects everyone in the bubble while still allowing you and your squad to fire out of it. Your crew will grow alongside you as you explore the Helius Cluster, and you can choose how you upgrade your crew’s weapons, gear and abilities to increase their individual combat effectiveness. Create the perfect squad to react to any situation and to support your preferred gameplay style.
Your Crew, Your Story:
Your crew members aren’t merely hired guns – they are part of the living universe in the Helius Cluster that develops in response to your actions and choices. Increase each crew member’s loyalty by pursuing missions that are important to that specific character. For example, when a Krogan colony ship has been stolen by one of the outlaw factions leaving the colonists stranded without resources to survive, your Krogan squad mate, Drack, is determined to strike out against them. If you take the mission and help him track down the outlaws’ hideout to return the ship to its rightful owners, Drack’s loyalty toward you and your squad will increase and Drack will unlock a brand new skill tree.
Explore each individual’s backstory and develop your relationship with them through conversations and unique missions. True to Mass Effect, what you choose to say will directly affect your crew’s loyalty and relationship with you, and will open up different conversations and narrative opportunities at the end of the game depending upon how you approach each encounter.
Deployed Strike Team Missions:
The Helius Cluster is 1000s of light years across, and you can’t be everywhere at once. As you develop more colonies, resource bases and settlements, you have to be able to keep them safe. Spend resources to recruit mercenaries and develop an AI controlled Strike Team that you can deploy to take on randomly generated, time-sensitive missions. Strike Team missions take many forms, including settlement defense and Remnant artifact recovery, which will take real-time to complete. Send your Strike Team out on a mission while you continue playing the main game and they will return, 20 – 30 minutes later, having gained rewards such as XP, currency and equipment based on the success of their mission. Spend money and resources to train your Strike Team and acquire better gear for them, which will increase their success rate and allow them to take on more difficult missions for greater rewards.
Active Strike Team Missions:
When you encounter a Strike Team mission in the Single-Player mode, you can leave your Strike Team at their base and decide to tackle the mission yourself with your Multiplayer roster of characters. You also have the option of tackling the mission by yourself, or recruiting up to three friends to play with you. The more friends you bring, the greater the challenge and the greater the reward. These missions will play out using the Next Mass Effect’s multiplayer Horde mode (more details on this later). These missions will include a variety of thematically appropriate objectives, like defending a Settlement against Khet attacks, or recovering a Remnant artifact off of a planet before an outlaw gang gets there first. By taking an active role in strike team missions, you can earn special Single-player rewards in addition to the usual multiplayer specific characters, weapons, weapon mods, and pieces of equipment which can be customized between missions. Additionally, players who join another person’s Strike Team mission will receive bonus in-game currency and multiplayer XP for helping others with their missions.
Multiplayer “Horde” Mode:
The next Mass Effect’s “Horde” multiplayer pits you and up to three of your friends against waves of enemy troops on various battlefields throughout the galaxy. Players fight together to survive increasingly difficult enemy attacks and accomplish objectives, like disabling a bomb near a colony base or assassinating a target. Progress through multiplayer missions to gain XP and earn new multiplayer specific weapons, characters, weapon mods, and pieces of equipment, which can be customized between matches. Multiplayer play will also earn you APEX funds (in-game currency), which can be used to purchase items and gear in the Single Player game.
Establish Settlements:
Search solar systems for rare habitable planets to establish a settlement that could serve as a base for humankind’s new home in the Helius Cluster. As you build permanent settlements, you will make strategic choices on where to focus your new base’s resources. For example: Recon Settlements will clear fog of war from the space map and give the player more strike team missions to choose from, while Mining Settlements will periodically supplement the player’s supply of crafting materials.
Dialogue:
Building upon the rich history of strategic dialogue that has defined the Mass Effect series, you can make meaningful choices in every conversation you have with characters that impact the way your game evolves. The next Mass Effect adds deeper control over your conversations through a greater ability to interrupt and change the course of the conversation as it is happening. During certain conversations, you will be able to take action based choices, such as the option to pull out your gun and force someone to open a door instead of convincing them to do it through conversational guile. Action based choices give you more options for how you approach dialogue with characters in the game and can lead to more extreme outcomes on the story as it evolves around the decisions you make when interacting with a huge cast of NPC characters.
Seamlessly Travel Through the Next Mass Effect Universe:
As you pilot your space ship, Tempest, across the 100s of solar systems that are seamlessly connected in the next Mass Effect, you will encounter new planets filled with valuable resources, intelligent life, conflict, and alien technology that all give you opportunities to increase the power of your character, your ship and your team so that you can build them into a force that perfectly suits your gameplay style. Transitions between activities, like flying your Tempest (space ship) across a solar system to land on a mineral rich planet, then jumping into your Mako (land vehicle) to explore the surface of planet, all happen smoothly without loading screens.
Customize and Share Your Experience:
Discover new things in Andromeda Galaxy, like alien artifacts and natural wonders, that serve as trophies and decorations that you can use to modify the look of your character, Tempest (Space Ship) and Mako (land vehicle). Customize the way your squad and your character look with clothes and aesthetic modifications that you unlock throughout the game. Photos you take from the far reaches of the galaxy can be used to decorate your starship or sold to certain characters.
Remnant Vault Raids: Find and activate Remnant Monoliths to unlock Remnant vaults. Explore abandoned Remnant ruins to find and locate a powerful artifact, but once you remove it you will trigger the vault defenses that will arm traps, activate defense robots and even change the architecture of the vault itself to stop you from escaping. Fight your way out of the vault and you will be rewarded with valuable loot, including powerful gear, crafting resources and Star Keys that can be used to unlock massive orbital facilities in space that grant permanent stat bonuses.
Optional Elite Remnant Vault Raids are scattered around the Helius Cluster located in special orbital facilities that are unlocked by Star Keys. Similar to the standard Remnant Vaults, you enter them to retrieve a special artifact which will trigger the vault defenses that arm traps, activate defense robots and change the architecture of the vault itself to stop you from escaping. However, Elite vaults ratchet up the difficulty of the encounter with increasingly powerful defense robots and traps, as well as roaming outlaws and deadly Khet patrols that are also in search of the elite artifacts. Elite Remnant vaults will test the limits of your combat and puzzle solving acumen, but with greater difficulty comes greater rewards. Gain rare loot, narrative acclaim and huge rewards for completing these daunting challenges.
Khet Outposts:
As you explore planets throughout the Helius Cluster, you will encounter Khet Outposts. These outposts are optional combat experiences where you enter the outpost and fight off waves of enemies. Destroy Khet outposts to earn XP, rewards and thwart their growing power in the region. Your allies will reward you with praise and increased narrative options as you fight to remove the Khet presence from the region.
Drive and upgrade your Mako (land vehicle):
Explore the surfaces of 100s of planets in the Helius Cluster in your versatile land vehicle, the Mako. Whether you are looking for a place to set up a colony, searching for a Remnant vault or attacking a Khet Outpost, you will enjoy getting there in your Mako. Equip and upgrade your Mako in dozens of ways, like adding turbo boosters, upgrading your shield generator or adding a Hostile Detector to your radar to create the ultimate planetary exploration vehicle. Finally, get your Mako looking the way you want with a custom paintjob.
Source:
http://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/32yzxf/last_month_i_took_a_random_survey_about_mass/
Notable bits: Mako is back, customization is huuuuuge in general, MP and SP are closely tied. new galaxy, new challenges, new squadmates!
Anyway, I'm sure everyone is glad to have the Mass Effect thread back, but I'd like to keep to substantive discussion if possible.
quads.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
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Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I really hope this leak it mostly accurate, because the whole thing sounds fucking awesome. I have just been a big mess of hyper joy energy this morning after reading that stuff.
Also, return of the Mako, woo!
Still, unbelievably pumped from this new info! I'm doing my best Commander Shepard dance.
I'll be more-than-fine with it if it turns out these guys are the tentacle-faced dudes from Ilos, after the Protheans were revealed to just look like the Collectors.
Heck, I want something akin to Battlefield with that shuttle and mako for coop...
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
are we still able to make a post that just says "quads" on the first page of the thread or has that gone the way of the clawhammer
Neat!
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
Let's stay optimistic! I am excite!
You can, but first you need to calculate the appropriateness with a quadratic equation. Don't worry, any college student living in a quad could solve it.
In other news, this new game seems too big. Bioware should think smaller, but detailed. Like, Dragon Age: Inquisition was enormous, and superficially beautiful, but there was so much that was just kinda same-y. I'd hate for them to make the same mistake they made in ME1 with huge procedurally generated worlds with zero flavor.
Yeah... I agree with this sentiment. My interest in Dragon Age Inquisition waned steadily after the 60 hour mark. There was just too much content and it wasn't all very interesting.
I'm now getting to the point that I miss the old JRPG days where you walked from village to village, solved 1-2 problems in each then moved on to NEVER return.
It's simply too hard to ignore content in an RPG and DA:I was padded out to the extreme. I echo the earlier sentiment that some of the War Table content seemed far more worthy of being full fledged quests than much of the other crap in the world.
I used to be big on the idea that length = value but not so much anymore. I have one too many games in my backlog that are content rich slogs that I just got bored of before the end.
I'm 100% on board with this. Mass Effect is my favorite series ever, and I'll never not be excited for it. As far as I know, this stuff isn't even confirmed but it's pretty detailed info and that leads me to believe it's real.
This hype train's leaving now y'all, CHOO CHOOOOOO!!
I'm excited to see what they add to SP after all they learned from ME3MP. A squadmate starting with the justicar's biotic shield could just be the tip of the iceberg. And tricked out Mako? Just don't bring back the hellscape planets and that sounds golden. Also, jetpack jump boots? Uh, yes.
I'm just thrilled to finally have more Mass Effect coming guys.
The Reapers had to crawl their asses across intergalactic space. Humanity has surpassed them.
Excellent.
Isn't representative of the whole game. I study colonial expansion at my day job; I don't want to spend my leisure time playing Manifest Destiny.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
You're fired.
I've been holding off doing a series play through - and I never actually went back and played the ME3 updated ending or DLC- but I'm convinced that a "remastered" or whatever trilogy will come out before too long.
Huh. Didn't think of that. Makes sense.
I imagine that the dichotomy between peaceful immigration and colonial conquest will be the driving force of the game. The Paragon tries for peaceful coexistence, and the Renegade for annihilation.
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You and I are not going to agree, but I'd be totally down for Manifest Effect.
Alternatively, if the massive amount of scavenged Reaper technology combined with Geth-speed development created a technological/military hegemony which became the de facto peacemaker of warring nations/races/whatever encountered. Within the Citadel space it'd be known as the Council's Peace, but in the out worlds it'd be called the Reaper's Peace.
Ah man, you're in for a treat. All the ME3 DLC is pretty good, IMO, but Citadel is on an entirely different level. Probably the best ME DLC in the whole trilogy.
I can get behind new beginnings, new hope.
That said, much like with Star Wars, I think my hype's going to remain a little more tempered than last time. :P
I just thought "Wait that's not right, your ship is the Norm--oh" and then I got sad.
They shouldn't! They should just be like, here's a new Mass Effect game, when does take place, it don't matter, fuck you, do you want krogan or don't you
Because they screwed themselves so hard with the multiple endings of 3 that there's no way to set a game after that, they have to invent this ersatz-Prothean ancient alien shit yet again, and go to a whole other place where all the Reaper shit doesn't matter at all in order to have it make sense at all
When they could just go "who cares" and have Mass Effect be more character-focused instead
I dunno
I'm just wary of whatever big new Main Story Plot they have cooked up, I guess
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Sure, people will bitch as is their wont, but once the game is released no one will care anymore as history tells us.
THERE'S NOW AN OFFICIAL PLUSH ELCOR. THAT TALKS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkcqcZgHIyg
THIS IS A REAL THING YOU CAN BUY.