Mass Effect 2

[SPCTRE]

A propos of nothing.

[T.Geiger]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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Where did that come from?

I was picking a bit at Bioware's knee-jerk-throw-baby-out-with-bath-water approach to criticism (instead of just fixing the damn thing) and how often they'd refer to as such as "streamlining" or a "vast improvement" or somesuch in interviews.

SPCTRE wrote:

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A propos of nothing.

Ha, that's awesome. I would always go out of my way to initiate and end conversation with Wrex when I was on that deck. My friends called me a "sick man".

[Herkimer Jitty]

LeadHead wrote:

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The Hammerhead has more abilities and speed, so I like it more, but it is waaaaaaaay too weak. Reverend is correct, a few shots from a Geth Trooper and you've got alarms going off and fires are soon to come. I hope they keep the Hammerhead for ME3, but make it a much tougher, so it doesn't blow up so easily.

Also, give it an independently moving-turret, get rid of those silly LEDs on the back, and give it wheels so it isn't a GI Joe toy anymore.

Oh shit, I'm describing the Mako, aren't I...?

[Darth_Daver]

I don't know if it has been discussed in the 80+ pages of this thread, but what do you think are the "major decisions" in ME1 and 2, that will effect ME3 playthrough, and which are the "correct" options?
For me, I think:

• Save the rachni queen (paragorn)
• Keep Wrex Alive (paragorn)
• Save the Council (paragorn)
• Keep the genophage research (renegade)
• Reprogram the Geth (paragorn)
• Keep the quarians from going to war (paragorn)
• Keep Kasumi's box (paragorn)
• Get the Shadow Broker's info with Liara's help (any)
• Keep the Collector base (renegade)

[Reverend]

Well for starters there is no "correct" options, only choices or consequences. There's no way they're going to make it so that (for the sake of argument) a choice you made on Eden Prime will totally screw you over in ME3 and cause the Reapers to win. Only decisions made in ME3 itself should be able to categorically decide the outcome, anything else is just window dressing.

Indeed we can already see what kind of affect earlier decisions will have based on ME2. For instance, letting the council die in ME1 means you get racist snipes from Turians and a vaguely Orwellian vibe on the Citadel in ME2. The difference between this and if you saved the council is more textural than anything. Sure it was a major decision but it didn't really effect the plot did it?

Most if not all of what you listed will each most likely have their consequences and will most likely effect what the state of the galaxy is by the time the credits role. Still, the "MAJOR" decisions will of course have to be the ones that you can't avoid, like saving Ash or Kaiden, saving the council or letting them die, the rachni queen etc. etc. You can't have an important story element hinge on anything that happens in an optional mission or DLC because some people simply might not have played it.

For example, take the Legion mission; it's not a simple binary decision of destroy or reprogram the heretics. There's a third option in which you can choose not to reactivate Legion and just turn it over to Cerberus for the bounty money. Likewise with the Genophage research, you don't have to do that mission at all. Indeed none of the loyalty missions are compulsory to complete the game so ME3 has to allow for players who chose to do nothing but the bare essentials.

The real question here is what effect your decisions will have and how will they interact? In general terms I think the decisions that have the most effect are the ones that either rally other races and allies against the reapers or divide them. So yes, if you spared the rachni queen, converted the heretics, discouraged the quarians from war and cure the genophage you'll probably get the proverbial cavalry charge that could hypothetically turn a pyrrhic victory into total victory, but not doing so should not necessarily result in defeat.

[LeadHead]

I'm not sure I agree about the Legion's mission response there. It's true that it's not a simple yes/no situation, but the process could be this: Did the Player use Legion as a Character Y/N, If Yes did they Reprogram the Geth or Destroy them, R/D. Thus allowing for 3 contingencies, 1: you Reprogram, 2: You destroy, 3: you didn't use Legion, therefore the Geth remain unchanged from either of the above.

They've had situations in the carryover from ME1 that worked in a similar fashion, albeit on a smaller scale. My Male Shepard from ME1 either A: Romanced Liara B: Romanced Ashley or C: Neither or the one pursued died at Virmire. At the beginning of ME2 it would go like this, If A is True, Liara runs to see Shepherd during the attack. If B is true, Ashley runs to see Shephard during the attack. If C is true, Kaiden runs to see Shepherd during the attack.

It's been said that they are using a thousand different points to carry over from ME2 to ME3, The loyalty missions like Mordins probably will have some impact.

[Reverend]

^I rather think if you didn't use Legion then the heretics would have used the virus and converted the other side to their mindset. I'm not saying they won't have an effect, i'm sure there'll be a ton of stuff that carries over, large and small, but I can't see them stacking the deck so that a decision in ME1 or 2 could make it impossible to (for lack of a better term) "win."

I probably wasn't articulating my thinking very well, but in a nutshell, what I was getting at was that I'm pretty confident that the only effect such things as the status of the Geth, Quarrians, Rachni, Krogan etc. will have is the general state of the galaxy when all the dust settles (think along the lines of the epilogue in Dragon Age.)

To give a hypothetical example, if you killed the Rachni queen then you have less forces on your side to fight the Reapers, so while you may defeat them, Earth suffers greater casualties. Or for another if you let the council die on ME1 then let the Illusive man have the Collector base then humanity may become a tyrannical and oppressive force throughout the galaxy, using Reaper tech to assert dominance over all the other races and build a human empire.

Both of these hypothetical scenarios of course would have a massive impact on the galaxy at large but not the plot of the game itself (as opposed the the narrative.) Think about the impact ME1 had on ME2: did it really make much of a difference to the plot if you saved Kaiden or Ash? Did talking Wrex around or killing him affect your ability to secure Grunt's loyalty? No. Indeed nothing you did in ME1 altered the plot for ME2. Sure there's tons of details that can change, characters like Fist, that Asari commando from Feros or that undercover cop from Noveria that can crop up based on what you may or may not have done but that only effects the narrative. The plot of the game was: Shepard died -> Cerberus brought him/her back -> Collectors are abducting humans so build a team and go stop them.

Nothing you did in ME2 changed any of that and likewise I don't think anything will drastically affect the plot of ME3, only vary the narrative. Just from a practical standpoint, if even a handful of events could radically change the plot then they'd basically have to make several different games to account for all possible permutations with whole levels and missions rendered inaccessible depending on the character import.

While we're on the subject, let's take a look and try and figure out the framework ME3 would have to work in based on decisions from ME2. Firstly, since and any all of the companions could potentially die, there can't be anything in ME3's plot that would require any specific individual's presence. So in all likelihood your companions will be taken away from you regardless...which is probably what'll happen anyway since they'll need to wipe the slate clean to start a new game.

I can't help but wonder how they'll do that since there's no way you should start a new game with all of your weapons, armour, upgrades and abilities that you has by the end of ME2. It's not as if they can just blow up the Normandy again...one hopes.

[Darth_Daver]

Sorry, I wasn't precise in my post, I didn't mean "plot-altering" right or wrong, I mean details like an extra conversation (for a few paragorn/renegade points) if you have a teammember surviving ME2, a different sidemission if there is no quarian-geth war, etc. I'm pretty sure it'll be "gather up allies and take back Earth from the reapers" anyway, it's just not the same if the geth are weak, apathetic or completley reprogrammed to follow the reapers (Destroyed, Reprogrammed heretics or didn't activate Legion and sent him away), but in the latter case you might have some advanced weapon against them, which Cerberus developed based on Legion. And in this vein, I think it matters a lot when you try to get the krogan to help whether Wrex is boss or not, whether Grunt is loyal or is kept in a box, or if you can throw in the cure for the genophage to sweeten the deal...

And for the DLCs, I'd like an optional reward for those who completed them (maybe more than a thankyou email like I got for completing Bring Down The Sky), especially for Liara (she should be really helpful) and Kasumi, since they made such a big deal about her box (and a reaper is shown among the images).

Just like in ME2, to complete the game without dying, you need at least two loyal members surviving until the fight against the reaper.
So in ME3, to save the galaxy without for example sacrificeing earth, you'll need three allies, but you can have as many as you'd like (and even more, if you've completed the DLCs)

[Darth_Daver]

deleted for double post (stupid browser)

[Reverend]

As I said, I don't think they'll be making whole missions centred around specific characters from ME2 if it's possible they didn't even survive. Creating content like this takes time and money and it's one thing to record a series of alternate lines of dialogue, it's quite another to make whole sections of the game that could be skipped over entierly depending on what you did during the suicide mission. This is exactly why Kaiden, Ash and Wrex only had cameo roles in ME2 since any two of them could be dead.

As for Liara, given how thing are left off if you don't have LotSB I think the only real difference in how things are likely to turn out for her without Shepard's help is that Feron probably didn't survive and she's become much more hardened after becoming the new Shadow Broker. Again, this is just narrative variation, from a functional plot POV there'd no difference. Just like with switching Wrex with his brother or Ash/Kaiden on Horizon. Sure the dialogue is different but functionally the plot is no different no matter who's playing the part.

[Jeff O'Connor]

Reverend wrote:

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Aside from the fact that gunships can't fit in Citadel elevators, or that the big ass defence turrets would cut it to pieces? No reason.

That's why you fly it real high-like.

No, yeah, you're right.

[Herkimer Jitty]

Also, we need more variations on the "snide insinuations" line.

My suggestions:

"I've had enough of your spurious allegations."
"I've had enough of your base assertions."
"I've had enough of your duplicitous aspersions."

[-Brett-]

"I've had enough of your slanderous prevarications!"

"I've had enough of your intentional misinterpretations!"

"I've had enough of your... honest representations? "

"I've had enough of your... oh forget it. *punch*"

[Hartzilla2007]

I just got the PS3 version interesting thing is Liara is the one who shows up in the begining instead of Ash when I choose new game as male and Miranda and the Illusive Man are really vague in the begining but that probably has to do with the Comic thing.

Oh and the comic thing is framed as a flashback after Shepard gets spaced at the start of ME2.

[LeadHead]

Hartzilla2007 wrote:

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I just got the PS3 version interesting thing is Liara is the one who shows up in the begining instead of Ash when I choose new game as male and Miranda and the Illusive Man are really vague in the begining but that probably has to do with the Comic thing.

The PS3 version it can only be Liara who goes to Shepard at the very beginning of the game since there's nothing to carry over from ME1. PC and Xbox versions it's dependent on factors mentioned already.