Mass Effect 5...or 4...? - Are we all pretending Andromeda is canon, or not?

[Quintex96]

I wish they didn't make Cerberus the big villain, I bet they did that based on the feedback from their Tumblr audience who were pinching their nose whenever Ashley was making xenophobic remarks.

Cerberus is handled the way it is because of how badly the story was botched in ME2. You are given very little choice for a 'Your Choices matter' Game. Ideally you would have been given the choice to work with Cerberus in ME2 which in turn would affect how they appeared in 3. I get why they didn't (or couldn't) do it that way but the end result is you being forced to work with Cerberus which a lot of people didn't like so they did a complete 180 with them in 3

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

It's sad how the franchise went from having a Star Trek and Babylon 5 feel to full on "Cerberus Man Bad".
There's a huge downgrade and streamlining done between ME1 and ME2 in terms of gameplay and storytelling. You play a different game after the prologue of ME2. I wish they didn't make Cerberus the big villain, I bet they did that based on the feedback from their Tumblr audience who were pinching their nose whenever Ashley was making xenophobic remarks.

I liked how they improved upon the gameplay and story between ME1 and ME2. The gameplay was pretty clunky in ME1. The problem was between ME1 and ME2, the series became less and less like an RPG. The Paragon/Renegade system was the most fucked. It was increasingly forcing you to go either full Paragon or full Renegade, restricting some of your choices. Other choices had little consequence, so they were easy to make.

ME3 doubled down on fucking everything except the gameplay. Like you said, they turned Cerberus into a generic villain organization from what they were in ME2. You have less choices to make (see Jacob's romance), and you definitely have to go either full Paragon or full Renegade. They also integrated multiplayer into how the story of the single player goes, which is the dumbest idea.

 

[cuÞbert]

She's a fine character but she fucks with people's brains. Talimancers are some of the weirder shit I've seen out there, perfectly on the level of Hamburger Hepler's Gigglesquee Elf.

As a former rabid talimancer, it was seeing how insultingly lazy Bioware was in revealing how Quarians look that broke the conditioning.

Those damned leafs didn't even bother fixing her hands.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

Cerberus is handled the way it is because of how badly the story was botched in ME2. You are given very little choice for a 'Your Choices matter' Game. Ideally you would have been given the choice to work with Cerberus in ME2 which in turn would affect how they appeared in 3. I get why they didn't (or couldn't) do it that way but the end result is you being forced to work with Cerberus which a lot of people didn't like so they did a complete 180 with them in 3

Even then it was stupid as fuck. You could have still had Cerberus being bad guys without them being the main enemy force of the game.

That was, quite honestly, the faction that the Batarians should have occupied in Mass Effect 3. Especially considering that Batarian space was established as being *the* spot the Reapers were going to exit dark space from. Instead they are just handwaved away as getting wiped out right away. Why wouldn't the Reapers just indoctrinate them immediately, gaining themselves a huge ground invasion force in the process? Imagine how much more cunning and manipulative it would have been if the Reapers were the ones trying to stop a Genophage cure, or attacking the Biotic Acadamy and doing other such espionage/sabatage?

I get that they needed that final confrontation with TIM, but that could have easily been done by simply having Cerberus establish an uneasy truce with the Alliance because it's literally the Reaper invasion, only to have TIM betray you either at the mid point with the Citadel attack or at the very end. Since those were the only points where Kei Leng even mattered it's not like it would have been much different. It's like they completely forgot that the Sovereign was only ever *actually* present at like two fucking points in the first game.

Batarians were the most wasted thing in Mass Effect and I will always stand by that.

 

[Snekposter]

Agreed on Cerberus, especially how absurdly powerful they got after ME1. They went from "Black ops group that went rogue and the Alliance finally noticed and has been doing their best to wipe them out because they're killing more humans than the aliens are" to some Hollywood writer's ideas of what the CIA are. It was just weird, especially since then you have ME3 where they've somehow pulled entire armies and fleets out of the Illusive Man's ass.

 

[Back me up!]

Batarians were the most wasted thing in Mass Effect and I will always stand by that.

Shepard did blow up their relay in the ME DLC Bringing Down the Sky (and I think their home planet?) but I agree they really should have pushed the Batarians more. Even just to have them really, really hate Shepard and how up every now and then to try to fuck you up.

I will say I did love the Batarians classes the multiplayer dev team made up whole sale. Really fit the theme of the species that was hinted at support material.

 

[April Ryan]

Shepard did blow up their relay in the ME DLC Bringing Down the Sky (and I think their home planet?) but I agree they really should have pushed the Batarians more. Even just to have them really, really hate Shepard and how up every now and then to try to fuck you up.

I will say I did love the Batarians classes the multiplayer dev team made up whole sale. Really fit the theme of the species that was hinted at support material.

Bring down the sky was about stopping Batarian terrorists from dropping an asteroid onto a human colony.

Arrival from ME2 you blow up the relay which takes out a sub-million population Batarian colony.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

Yeah, it was a colony not their home world. Still a big deal but it wasn't the death of the Batarians by any means.

Hell, that would be even more justification for them to be easily indoctrinated by Reapers. They'd be out for revenge against the Alliance/Citadel races.

I dunno, it's just always irked me that Batarians were set up as these big bads against humanity/citadel and then just were never used. It especially irks me because I always felt that Zaeed should have been a Batarian, but it was almost like Shepard couldn't possibly work with a Batarian because they were so bad. Yet then they never actually used as anything except generic merc fodder.

 

[Reverend]

Krogan+Quarian=ALL DAY ERRRY DAY

Nothing stands in my way with that team, nothing. That's all I want is to play in that time between 2 and 3 where the galaxy was in flux but not gone to shit yet. The other option is we jump 2-300 years into the future which is also ok.

You are going to have people hating bioware because their 'choice' at the end of 3 is not the choice that starts off with and Bioware is going to try to please everyone at the same time and appease NO ONE.

There needs to be call backs to the OT but there is so much to this galaxy spanning adventure that they have a ton of room to write a new story.

Of course this game will be chock full of gays, trans, interspecies sexytimes, and cringe writing because Twitter is where all the REAL fans talk about the series (EYEROLLS OUT OF HEAD).

Unless they bring back some of the original writers, tell twitter and social media to fuck off, take a goddamn stand in where their jumping start point is going to be, it's going to be a stillborn dead on arrival game.

 

[Miller]

it was almost like Shepard couldn't possibly work with a Batarian because they were so bad.

I doubt that Shepard or the batarians would accept to work in the same team, especially after the events of Mindoir. Although if I'm not mistaken, in ME3 they only bring up the destruction of a batarian colony that happened in The Arrival DLC for ME2.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

I doubt that Shepard or the batarians would accept to work in the same team, especially after the events of Mindoir. Although if I'm not mistaken, in ME3 they only bring up the destruction of a batarian colony that happened in The Arrival DLC for ME2.

I don't know, Batarians were the best overall race in ME3 Multiplayer and it's canon that those were special forces teams and such. 50% of their classes were absolutely top tier (Soldier and Adept), one was second best in their class catagory (Vanguard and hate surfing, only the Krogan manguard is better) and the other, well, no Batarian is quite useless, but not really Gold ready (Sentinel).

The thing that kills me is her finding a part of an N7 helmet on some iceball of a world, but if she's looking for Shepard, why wouldn't he be on earth? Why would destroy have him on some random ice planet? Like everything else, it makes no sense, just like all BioWare's world building, it's a mile wide, but an inch deep.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

I doubt that Shepard or the batarians would accept to work in the same team, especially after the events of Mindoir. Although if I'm not mistaken, in ME3 they only bring up the destruction of a batarian colony that happened in The Arrival DLC for ME2.

Seems pretty stupid when Shepard worked with a Geth in the very same game. I'm not talking some patriotic Batarian, I'm literally talking about a Batarian who is just in it for money like Zaeed was.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

As a former rabid talimancer, it was seeing how insultingly lazy Bioware was in revealing how Quarians look that broke the conditioning.
View attachment 1786536
Those damned leafs didn't even bother fixing her hands.

I think I've said it before, but this is the perfect example of BioWare's world building. It's not just that lazy about Tali, it's the whole Quarian race. The Quarians interacted with the Council races before the Geth, if I remember right part of the reason why they tried to shut the Geth down was because of the Council's anti-AI laws. Despite there, no one knows what they look like under their suits. Which means the Galactic internet has no pictures of Quarians, no one has ever done an autopsy on Quarians, no one has ever paid a down on their luck Quarian to star in Space Porn, there's no Quarian selfies, there's no Quarian portraits, there's no Quarian art involving the physical form. If you go to Haestrom, there's no pictures of Quarian families on work stations. Quarian women have birth giving hips and pleasing hip-to-waist ratios and no Asari is actively getting into their suits. No human either, other than maybe Shepard, even though Quarians make sense as fellow traveler with Humans, given both races were screw in varying ways by the Council, one by the Council shrugging after the Geth revolt and the other by the First Contact War.

There, I just put more thought into the Quarians than BioWare. Probably because of Casey Hudson's hard-on for his Blueberry Waifu.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

I think I've said it before, but this is the perfect example of BioWare's world building. It's not just that lazy about Tali, it's the whole Quarian race. The Quarians interacted with the Council races before the Geth, if I remember right part of the reason why they tried to shut the Geth down was because of the Council's anti-AI laws. Despite there, no one knows what they look like under their suits. Which means the Galactic internet has no pictures of Quarians, no one has ever done an autopsy on Quarians, no one has ever paid a down on their luck Quarian to star in Space Porn, there's no Quarian selfies, there's no Quarian portraits, there's no Quarian art involving the physical form. If you go to Haestrom, there's no pictures of Quarian families on work stations. Quarian women have birth giving hips and pleasing hip-to-waist ratios and no Asari is actively getting into their suits. No human either, other than maybe Shepard, even though Quarians make sense as fellow traveler with Humans, given both races were screw in varying ways by the Council, one by the Council shrugging after the Geth revolt and the other by the First Contact War.

There, I just put more thought into the Quarians than BioWare. Probably because of Casey Hudson's hard-on for his Blueberry Waifu.

I mean, it's not hard to see Bioware forgetting or not thinking their shit through. The Genophage was cured in ME3. That's cool and dandy for the immediate fight, but a krogan female lays a thousand eggs a year. Krogan reach fighting age fast, and sexual maturity just as quickly. The galaxy is fucked, the Krogan can live pretty much everywhere, eat anything, and breed in unstoppable swarm numbers. Unless they genocide the Krogan then the galaxy in a few hundred years is going to drown in Krogan warlords.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

I mean, it's not hard to see Bioware forgetting or not thinking their shit through. The Genophage was cured in ME3. That's cool and dandy for the immediate fight, but a krogan female lays a thousand eggs a year. Krogan reach fighting age fast, and sexual maturity just as quickly. The galaxy is fucked, the Krogan can live pretty much everywhere, eat anything, and breed in unstoppable swarm numbers. Unless they genocide the Krogan then the galaxy in a few hundred years is going to drown in Krogan warlords.

That was always stupid, especially after Mordin explained just what they were doing, but it was always inconsistent. I'd always felt like they had live births in ME1 and they just changed it later. Don't even get me started on the DNA Chirality thing. That's not how it works, we eat plenty of opposite chirality things all the time. Shit immune system would have worked well enough for the Quarians. I think Drew K and Chris L'Etoile tried to world build properly, but I think Casey Hudson wanted something more movie like and damn the depth or lack thereof.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

That was always stupid, especially after Mordin explained just what they were doing, but it was always inconsistent. I'd always felt like they had live births in ME1 and they just changed it later. Don't even get me started on the DNA Chirality thing. That's not how it works, we eat plenty of opposite chirality things all the time. Shit immune system would have worked well enough for the Quarians. I think Drew K and Chris L'Etoile tried to world build properly, but I think Casey Hudson wanted something more movie like and damn the depth or lack thereof.

I thought it was that the quarians had a symbiotic immune system? There were organisms on their homeworld that entered their body and served as an immune prescence? That might have been a fanfic though ngl. If it was then it would no sense either since the level of biotech we've seen from ME is so insane that they could easily make that shit in a lab.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

I thought it was that the quarians had a symbiotic immune system? There were organisms on their homeworld that entered their body and served as an immune prescence? That might have been a fanfic though ngl. If it was then it would no sense either since the level of biotech we've seen from ME is so insane that they could easily make that shit in a lab.

That was from ME3, in ME2 they beat you over the head with the Quarians and Turians requiring food with the opposite DNA chirality from everyone else. The food story on the Citadel bring it up, even for humans, but I'm pretty sure stuff like mint is opposite human Chirality. They could have just gone with allergic reactions and that would have been a believable enough cover, but it probably didn't sound Sci-Fi enough to Casey Hudson. The Quarians have been living on ships for centuries at this point, you could chalk it all up to living in sterile shipboard enviroments wrecking their immune system and such.

There's story elements there. You have to explain why the Quarians don't just build new colonies, or at least space stations. Maybe the Council is punishing them for the Geth by refusing to let them settle until they deal with the Geth. I'd have loved if ME2 required you to make ties with the races other than the main Council, show the actual dark underside of galactic politics while Shepard continues to chase after a more permanent solution to the Reapers. But I'd also mostly completely redo ME2 and ME3, play up the Space Cthulhu aspect of the Reapers, make far more use of Indoctrination, less Cerberus and have them actually act like a Secret organization. Just little things that competent world building would have taken care of.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

That was from ME3, in ME2 they beat you over the head with the Quarians and Turians requiring food with the opposite DNA chirality from everyone else. The food story on the Citadel bring it up, even for humans, but I'm pretty sure stuff like mint is opposite human Chirality. They could have just gone with allergic reactions and that would have been a believable enough cover, but it probably didn't sound Sci-Fi enough to Casey Hudson. The Quarians have been living on ships for centuries at this point, you could chalk it all up to living in sterile shipboard enviroments wrecking their immune system and such.

There's story elements there. You have to explain why the Quarians don't just build new colonies, or at least space stations. Maybe the Council is punishing them for the Geth by refusing to let them settle until they deal with the Geth. I'd have loved if ME2 required you to make ties with the races other than the main Council, show the actual dark underside of galactic politics while Shepard continues to chase after a more permanent solution to the Reapers. But I'd also mostly completely redo ME2 and ME3, play up the Space Cthulhu aspect of the Reapers, make far more use of Indoctrination, less Cerberus and have them actually act like a Secret organization. Just little things that competent world building would have taken care of.

Honestly a lot of ME background material makes no sense when put against main plot points; in ME people see garden worlds as these precious resources, but one of the random planets mentions that a local corp literally mined it down to the core and made it an asteroid, an Asari university build a particle accelerator that rings an entire planet. Their industrial capacity is beyond insane. The Quarians should all be living on O'Neill cylinders by now, not worrying about the migrant fleet. Every single of them carries an omnitool which can be used to build parts to build bigger 3-D printers.

There shouldn't be an issue with ships, they should be able to just build ships from random asteroid belts they're mining when they float through systems. You could excuse it by saying they're scared of the Geth, but that still doesn't make sense; the Quarians were an established space faring race, even if the Geth took every world they had and closed the borders they should have still brought enough industrial capability, capital and people to have rebuilt into an actual space faring species.

Fuck me the Andromeda initiative was a privately funded venture that built multiple dreadnought sized vessels and a functional city in space. But the Quarians are all doomed to live on cramped, second hand ships? No space stations? The Migrant fleet should have realistically found some Terminus system, said 'this is ours now' mined the fuck out of it and build a load of habitats. The Terminus warlords would have went 'fair enough' when faced with the choice of engaging the single largest fleet in being in the galaxy and that would have been it.

You could still do the 'waaah woe is me!' thing with them flitting around the galaxy on pilgrimages, but also have had the Quarians not behave like utter retards. Hell, that goes for most other races as well, the Terminus regions and outlying council regions should be filled with asteroid habitats, O neill cylinders, Power satellite swarms, and other megaengineering structures. Their equivalent to millionaires can fund extragalactic colony efforts and the Illusive Man had a fleet, the logistics to supply it and somehow entire worlds at his beck and call. The ability for the ME species to build is staggering; and it makes the given fleet numbers, and state of the world make zero sense.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Honestly a lot of ME background material makes no sense when put against main plot points; in ME people see garden worlds as these precious resources, but one of the random planets mentions that a local corp literally mined it down to the core and made it an asteroid, an Asari university build a particle accelerator that rings an entire planet. Their industrial capacity is beyond insane. The Quarians should all be living on O'Neill cylinders by now, not worrying about the migrant fleet. Every single of them carries an omnitool which can be used to build parts to build bigger 3-D printers.

There shouldn't be an issue with ships, they should be able to just build ships from random asteroid belts they're mining when they float through systems. You could excuse it by saying they're scared of the Geth, but that still doesn't make sense; the Quarians were an established space faring race, even if the Geth took every world they had and closed the borders they should have still brought enough industrial capability, capital and people to have rebuilt into an actual space faring species.

Fuck me the Andromeda initiative was a privately funded venture that built multiple dreadnought sized vessels and a functional city in space. But the Quarians are all doomed to live on cramped, second hand ships? No space stations? The Migrant fleet should have realistically found some Terminus system, said 'this is ours now' mined the fuck out of it and build a load of habitats. The Terminus warlords would have went 'fair enough' when faced with the choice of engaging the single largest fleet in being in the galaxy and that would have been it.

You could still do the 'waaah woe is me!' thing with them flitting around the galaxy on pilgrimages, but also have had the Quarians not behave like utter retards. Hell, that goes for most other races as well, the Terminus regions and outlying council regions should be filled with asteroid habitats, O neill cylinders, Power satellite swarms, and other megaengineering structures. Their equivalent to millionaires can fund extragalactic colony efforts and the Illusive Man had a fleet, the logistics to supply it and somehow entire worlds at his beck and call. The ability for the ME species to build is staggering; and it makes the given fleet numbers, and state of the world make zero sense.

It really is one of the weird things Andromeda got right. One of the few things. Tuchanka makes no sense either. The feeling is the Krogan were cavemen given hand grenades, but then they turn out to be an industrial race that have nuked themselves repeatedly. It's just stupid.

Then there's the shift about the Ardat-Yahkshi from ME2 to ME3. They went from incredibly rare, just two or three, to common enough to make all the Banshees the Reapers needed. It could have been deeper, but Casey Hudson is all about flash and no substance. It's a shame too, there was legitimate potential there, but BioWare is too small minded and incompetent to make it work.

 

[Quintex96]

Seems pretty stupid when Shepard worked with a Geth in the very same game. I'm not talking some patriotic Batarian, I'm literally talking about a Batarian who is just in it for money like Zaeed was.

I always wanted a Batarian squadmate. In my mind the best the they could have done it would be a mercenary like Zaeed but was infamous for a human massacre or had an abdsurdly high human bodycount only for it to be revealed that he was indifferent or at the very least admirable of them and when questioned he would make an offhand comment about humans being unpopular outside of council space and how there is 'always another job'