Mass Effect: ANDROMEDA

[BillJ]

I think from a storytelling perspective, having the Arks or at leas the one the Ryder the player chooses is on, leave at the latest moment possible would be my preference. By having them leave at the last possible moment they can have more oportunities to follow up on plot points from ME3. Even if the player choices don't effect the game, it would still be nice to get a few references to the previous games just to cement it's place in the ME universe.

The animosity between races will still be there. I have a feeling the fate of the Milky Way will come into play at some point in the next set of games.

 

[Reverend]

The Arks would have to be pretty damn quick or launched considerably before the activation of the Crucible, or they wouldn't have cleared the galaxy before the effect (whichever one Shepard chose) propagated through the Mass Relay network. For that matter, if the Crucible's effect DID propagate via the network, what stops it travelling to Andromeda along with the Arks? Signal decay? What if a Reaper had hung back in intergalactic space as a living time capsule?

It would stand to reason that assuming any Arks were still there at that point, they would have been on hot standby while the battle for Earth was going on, ready to leave at a moment's notice if things went to shit. It also stands to reason they would have been waiting right out by dark space, on the Andromeda facing edge of our galaxy. That could also have been several systems away from the closest relay, giving them plenty of lead time from when they were given to "go" order when all looked lost to when the crucible was activated.

Indeed we don't precisely know how much time passed between Harbinger wiping out the first wave and the Crucible activating as there's at least two points where Shepard seems to loose consciousness. Having a quick look at a random LP on YT, that's about a 35 minute window that could actually have been closer to an hour.

Seems like plenty of lead time since Normandy was *almost* able to keep pace with the wave front and it only had a lead time of mere seconds. I also doubt the effect propagated any appreciable distance outside of the Milky-Way since it clearly used the relay network to get galactic coverage.

 

[AJE]

Also, since the lore establishes that conventional FTL is limited in how far it can go before thermal and static build-up microwaves the crew to death, the engines of the Arks are almost certainly going to be based either directly or indirectly on reaper drives. Those are established to be able to travel in dark space for years and at speeds way beyond what conventional drives can do, so the likelihood of anyone bettering that by any meaningful margin so as to catch up or overtake simply isn't credible.
The Reapers were around for *billions* of years and the Leviathans before them potentially billions more. That's an unfathomable technological head start that nobody is about to improve on any time soon.

Speaking of that, I hope that we do get all the technology from the Reapers and Leviathans when going to Andromeda. Since we were at a disadvantage technologically in the first 3 games, it stands to reason when the roles are reversed and we are the "aliens", that we have a technological advantage over the home species. The protagonist can't have all the disadvantages (inferior technology, diplomatic/social isolation, and unfamiliarity); the game would just be too hard.

 

[Reverend]

Well if the protagonist has all the advantages then in what sense is there any sort of challenge? It's be like having a game where you fight Roman Cenurions with Apache gunships, napalm and ICBMs. Fun for a bit, but it'd get old fast.

In-universe: a couple of ark ships essentially alone in a whole galaxy aren't going to have anywhere near the resources and infrastructure of the millennia old galactic civilisation they just left behind. So even if Hackett gave them every last scrap of R&D data before they left, there's not a huge amount they can do with it anytime soon.

 

[AJE]

In-universe: a couple of ark ships essentially alone in a whole galaxy aren't going to have anywhere near the resources and infrastructure of the millennia old galactic civilisation they just left behind. So even if Hackett gave them every last scrap of R&D data before they left, there's not a huge amount they can do with it anytime soon.

That's OK with me as long as I get to play with superior technology the same way the Reapers did.

 

[HotRod]

So this is old news by now, but with the art book coming out on March 21st, it's looking like that's going to be the release date.

 

[HotRod]

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The media campaign is warming up! 6 days till N7 day!

*also: Clancy Brown ftw.

 

[BillJ]

Six hundred years? So this will be taking place a couple centuries after the trilogy?

 

[HotRod]

The general belief is that the expedition leaves sometime shortly before the Reapers arrive at the beginning of ME3 and that it will take about 600 years for the Ark ships to arrive in Andromeda with the colonist in stasis.

 

[Reverend]

One assumes this means Clancy Brown is playing N7 Guy AKA Ryder Snr. While it's always great to have Clancy Brown in *anything*, part of me is a little sad that they cast him as the villain yet again. Unless of course they're playing on that expectation and will flip the script in the second act as it turns out he's not the bad guy after all? That'd be fun.

Part of this is from that quote where he jokingly bemoans the fact that he auditioned for Superman in the animated series, but got cast as Lex Luthor and part from my being one of only like five people on the planet that still remember 'Earth 2'.

Not sure if I want to sign up to whatever it is they're doing with this initiative. Looks like a thinly veiled excuse to give permission for EA to flood one's inbox with spam.

 

[SPCTRE]

this game is so getting delayed it's not even funny, but that's also not news to anyone.

And our guidance assumes that Mass Effect continues to be in this year, but it gives us some flexibility that we might choose to move it either a week or three or four or five months

 

[Reverend]

Given that ME3 was obviously released way before it was really ready, I'd rather they take their time on this one.

 

[HotRod]

**Docking bays are used to transport passengers in local ranged vessels to and from other nearby arks and planets for safe landing.

They are a critical element in discovering and ensuring a safe environment to colonize a golden world.**

 

[SPCTRE]

Given that ME3 was obviously released way before it was really ready, I'd rather they take their time on this one.

well, duh

 

[HotRod]

 

[BillJ]

this game is so getting delayed it's not even funny, but that's also not news to anyone.

I wouldn't mind the delay, if we got the first three remastered for current gen consoles to tide us over.

 

[LeadHead]

I really want a original trilogy remaster, but I doubt that's coming for at least a couple of years if at all.

 

[Skywalker]

I'm down for a remaster of the first two and a total remake of the third.

 

[SPCTRE]

I wouldn't mind the delay, if we got the first three remastered for current gen consoles to tide us over.

that's exactly what happened with Uncharted 4 > The Uncharted Collection

I would certainly not mind that scenario

 

[HotRod]