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Mass Effect the way you see it

Sjukob

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
2,052
Just make it a dating sim .
 

donkeymong

Scholar
Joined
Nov 23, 2012
Messages
210
I find it interesting that a lot opted to keep ME1 as is. Don't get me wrong, it's really decent for what it set out to do, and for most part it achieves it pretty well barring a few hiccups. (Inventory management in that game was horrible and don't let nostalgia tell you otherwise.) But given $CURRENT_YEAR technology, I'd actually like to see ME1 being remastered in something that isn't a shitty Bioware engine (something like the TW2/TW3 engine, perhaps), make the randomly generated worlds to be less sparse, more variety in interior design, and yes, improved combat that doesn't involve bullet-sponges.

Improving ME2 would require first stripping out the stupid jesus plot, Collectors plot and make Cerberus not pants out retarded... actually that's 90% of the game so you may well scrap it and redo the entire thing.

Bioware used Unreal Engine 3 for Mass Effect, the same one that was used for Gears of War. It wasnt their own engine like in Dragon Age 1 and 2.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,237
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Bros just play Stellar tactics or something. Shit's even turn-based.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,530
Location
Kelethin
^ That looks good. But Mass Effect isn't for turn based strategy fans. Mass Effect is for millennials who have never played a tactical game, read a book, watched a film, or seen a TV, and think games like this are the peak of storytelling and orsum deep and exciting action gameplayz.
 

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
I would wrap the Reaper story with Mass Effect 1-the reapers are in deep space and it would take them millions of years to reach the nearest relay, hence no need to deal with them anymore-end of storyline. Mass Effect 2 and especially 3 felt very forced.
 
Self-Ejected

Harry Easter

Self-Ejected
Joined
Jul 27, 2016
Messages
819
- I would shut up the Reapers completely. The more they speak, the less interesting they get.

- cut the last minutes of the ending of 3. Reapers stopped, Shepard dies, good ending, new story please.

- replace Ceberus through a sect of Reaper-Worshippers with members from all races.There is religious aspect in the series, so why not amp it up? Besides, I think the Asari have the potential to be the most dangerous enemies in all of ME (I mean they are a race of perfectionist space squids with psychic powers, who are the best at everything. Too bad, Bioware never used that).

- Make Miranda the main antagonist. It's in her backstory and she's already introduced as a sociopath.

- Let The Invisible Man die after ME2. One of the most boring antagonists of all time (at least Leland from Alpha Protocol was a wonderful slimy bastard. TIM just sits on his ass and smokes and doesn't even bother to get pissed, when I cut him off).

- Don't let Shepard die right at the beginning of the game. It could have been good twist ... later!

- never force the player to work with Cerberus together at the beginning of the game. It was stupid as their death at the start of part 2.

- Kill Joker, 'cause Joker annoys me.
 

Jacob

Pronouns: Nick/Her
Patron
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Messages
3,336
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Hatington
Grab the Codex by the pussy

While I think you have a great premise of an idea, it lost the charm because of how self-aware it is. There should be no stuff like "They couldn't endure the stupidity of it." Everyone should always be totally serious all the time. War and social changes will happen just because females couldn't stand Shepard's dick. The companions stay because of Shepard's penis, whether they will have it or not.

The gameplay should be changed too. 3rd-person cover shooter is gay. Make it FPS with actual level design. Shepard's crewmates will give assists or secondary objectives or whatever, but Shepard will be the only one on the field because we all know he's the galaxy's biggest badass.

Cut the game length too, no need for stupid overly long stories, just short briefing and short cutscenes, the trilogy shouldn't be longer than 30 hours total.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
ME1 - Absolutely loved it. No need to change anything. 10/10

ME2 - Much dumber and thus more boring a game, but still semi-enjoyed it to some degree 7.5/10. Would change Shepards death at the start - totally pointless really. I actually liked the overall plot & idea, but the lack of Reaper focussed involvement hurt it overall too, so would like to see more of a focus on that as the rag-tag rogue group plot progressed. Really liked the Illusive Man, the fact you worked for Cerberus & the moral choices in the game. A nice amount of grey areas.

ME3 - Awful game all round, especially when it comes to lack of RPG elements. Would scrap the entire thing and start over. The ending was the least of it's problems. Seeing Sheppard worry about 1 childs death when he starts my ME1 as either a War Hero or Lone Survivor was woeful. A bloke who's seen and killed thousands suddenly shocked by the horrors of war? Didn't buy it for a second. And the Illusive man's approach & motives go from a superb middle ground, very much open to interpretation, to a Scooby Doo villains. Dreadful game.
 

Vival

Augur
Joined
Apr 13, 2004
Messages
230
Easy:
Spider ships instead of squid ships.
Aken Bosch instead of too Illusive for you Man.
Proper Freespace game instead of popamole shooter.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,230
All the Mass Effect games are
rating_shit.png
, and as many posters have said, unsalvageable. Unless the only thing in common is the name. Perhaps the setting too.
 

Nutria

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 12, 2017
Messages
2,252
Location
í•śě–‘
Strap Yourselves In
I see a lot of people saying that the Reapers shouldn't have been the focus of the story after ME1. I totally agree. ME1 put a lot of work into building up a setting that you could use to tell all kinds of stories. It already had the seeds for a few sequels planted in it. ME2 could have been about the Shadow Broker, the Krogan genophage, the Protheans, or humanity's rise to power in the galaxy. Instead we get two of those possibilities explored in shitty DLC and one dropped altogether.
 

NeoKino

RPGCodex Ninja
Patron
Joined
May 7, 2016
Messages
1,864,638
Location
Somewhere
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
Mass Effect 1 the only mediocre game (the rest are shit) was like the poor man's Deus Ex combine with generic Starwarsian setting.

Muh man and machine drama, muh existential threat beyond humanities scope, muh trans-organic message.
 
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Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
All the Mass Effect games are
rating_shit.png
, and as many posters have said, unsalvageable. Unless the only thing in common is the name. Perhaps the setting too.

ME 2 and 3 were irredeemable pieces of turd. ME 1 was decent, around 6 to 7 out of 10 tops. It was a space opera in the veins of Star Wars without lightsabers, which I am not sorry about. Story was ok, some likeable character and some bland ones and an annoying one, but even that was fine with me.
What they should have done is getting away from the 3rd person cover shooter or make it good enough that you do not know immediatly upon entering an area with tons of chest high small wall segments that a fight is incoming. Good cover shooter is only good if the cover is organic and not obvious. Also sticky cover is shit. Mako exploration could have been fun with good physics and good map design, both were sorely lacking on most planets though.
Summa summarum, a lot of ME 1 problems stem from poor execution much more so than basic plot or gameplay issues.
Of course part of the problem are also consoles, may they burn in hell. Too much of control and UI issues stem from the idiotic overpriced consoles, especially PS and XBox. Only retards buy those, or people too bored to know what to do with their money.
Also radial menue for dialogue needs to die in a fire asap as should quest marker but that is a general complaint I have about all so called "AAA" games these days.
Oh and fuck romances. All they do is reduce the quality of writing and drain resources better spent on story and gameplay instead.
 

Lagole Gon

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 4, 2011
Messages
7,279
Location
Retaken Potato
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Pathfinder: Wrath
There's nothing really original about it, so I don't see the point of fixing it. But I have a free BRO tip:
Hire a lead writer with a coherent vision and fuckin' KEEP HIM. DON'T FIRE HIM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SERIES YOU FUCKS!
 

Liz

Novice
Joined
Apr 13, 2013
Messages
19
Location
Somewhere in a basement
I find it interesting that a lot opted to keep ME1 as is. Don't get me wrong, it's really decent for what it set out to do, and for most part it achieves it pretty well barring a few hiccups. (Inventory management in that game was horrible and don't let nostalgia tell you otherwise.) But given $CURRENT_YEAR technology, I'd actually like to see ME1 being remastered in something that isn't a shitty Bioware engine (something like the TW2/TW3 engine, perhaps), make the randomly generated worlds to be less sparse, more variety in interior design, and yes, improved combat that doesn't involve bullet-sponges.

Improving ME2 would require first stripping out the stupid jesus plot, Collectors plot and make Cerberus not pants out retarded... actually that's 90% of the game so you may well scrap it and redo the entire thing.

Bioware used Unreal Engine 3 for Mass Effect, the same one that was used for Gears of War. It wasnt their own engine like in Dragon Age 1 and 2.

Still, it's really apparent Bio got their shit together engine wise ME2 onward, less visible texture streaming, better use of lightning and colors.
 

Vibalist

Arcane
Joined
Jul 21, 2008
Messages
3,583
Location
Denmark
The problem with ME from a narrative standpoint is that it tries to be a space opera, but it also wants to have lovecraftian machine gods as the main villain. Such a villain can never work in a classic good vs. evil story where the heroic underdog overcomes impossible odds through grit and determination, because going head to head with mechanical Cthulhus would only ever result in humiliating defeat.

Therefore, you need to get rid of the Reapers entirely or alter the tone and mood of the series significantly. I actually like the idea of the Reapers because I love cosmic horror, but they don't add anything to the story. They're way too easily defeated to seem convincing in the role Bioware sets them up to play, and if you want to make them less threatening to the point where they're just a bunch of synthetics with advanced tech that serve as the antagonist, use the Geth. They can play the exact same role the Reapers do currently, while being a much more realistic opponent for Shepard. Then you can write a story about politicking, human beings finding their place in the Citadel, different factions and races vying for power, etc., without it being completely overshadowed by the urgency of the Reaper mission, and still use the threat of the Geth attack as something that unites the council races in the final showdown.

The Reapers, if they're to be kept in the story, have to play a much more subtle role. Scatter a few of their derelict ships across the galaxy, but don't give us too many details about what they are or why people who stay on them for too long go insane. Imply they had something to do with the destruction of Prothean society, but don't make it explicit. Give us alternate theories that are just as likely. Make the Reapers a mysterious background entity and make the game take place 5.000 years before the next supposed extinction event so that we can't know whether or not it's even a real thing.
In other words, play the cosmic horror angle straight by making these horrific entities truly alien, withdrawn and incomprehensible, rather than having them explain their entire plan to you at the end of the first game.

And then continue keeping them in the background while the rest of the game is about politics, carving out a place for humanity in the galaxy and figuring out what the Geth want and how you can defeat them or make peace with them. This way, we get the same conventional story while preserving the at times unnerving atmosphere that the first game pulled off rather well.
 

Cudgel

Learned
Patron
Joined
Feb 15, 2017
Messages
275
Location
Inside
Hire a writer with some of their own ideas rather then just lifting whole things from other media i.e. Berzerkers = Reapers. lol just joking you have to use SEO based world-building; I am sure Peter F. Hamilton could have made a better universe in his sleep. This is of course too fantastical an idea for a company like EA to let happen.

I think that they should have planned out the series in a way that made sense for what they were trying to do.
ME:1 - Make the whole first game about becoming a Spectre, lessening the amount of larger scale C & C.
ME:2 - Now open things up and have bigger choices that effect races other then humans because then you can....
ME:3 Make this a short game, maybe only twenty hours. That way you can really make the C & C from 2 really matter. Huge amounts of content that you can't see without replaying the series from the beginning

Also F the Reapers, I agree with the others; faction based politics are far more compelling then space monster gods.

Or copy Dragon Age : Inquistion and kill my love for a company I have always enjoyed despite its flaws.

Mechanics-wise I like ME 1 but maybe refine it something between one and two.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Hire a writer with some of their own ideas rather then just lifting whole things from other media i.e. Berzerkers = Reapers. lol just joking you have to use SEO based world-building; I am sure Peter F. Hamilton could have made a better universe in his sleep. This is of course too fantastical an idea for a company like EA to let happen.

I think that they should have planned out the series in a way that made sense for what they were trying to do.
ME:1 - Make the whole first game about becoming a Spectre, lessening the amount of larger scale C & C.
ME:2 - Now open things up and have bigger choices that effect races other then humans because then you can....
ME:3 Make this a short game, maybe only twenty hours. That way you can really make the C & C from 2 really matter. Huge amounts of content that you can't see without replaying the series from the beginning

Also F the Reapers, I agree with the others; faction based politics are far more compelling then space monster gods.

Or copy Dragon Age : Inquistion and kill my love for a company I have always enjoyed despite its flaws.

Mechanics-wise I like ME 1 but maybe refine it something between one and two.

I actually like that. Especially considering how easy it is to become a specter, even though the game tells you how difficult it is even for the established older races. Thinking about establishing humans among the other, mostly older races sounds more compelling than the old "that evil guy over there, kill him!" which frankly is getting boring more and more the older I get.
 

Max Stats

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 26, 2016
Messages
1,091
ME1 - Absolutely loved it. No need to change anything. 10/10

'Cept that inventory "system". Still better than the complete throwing out of inventory ME2/3 "fixed" it with.

ME3 - Awful game all round, especially when it comes to lack of RPG elements. Would scrap the entire thing and start over. The ending was the least of it's problems.

It's times like this I wish I was able to brofist.
 

AstralStorm

Educated
Joined
Jan 8, 2012
Messages
68
Location
Land of Underground Orange
Remastering ME1 wouldn't even be too hard. Stuff it into UDK 4.latest, probably even the scripts will work, if not some will need tweaks. Paint higher resolution textures. Use new skin shaders with subsurface reflections so that people no longer look like clay. You may have to tweak animations as the skeletal model has improved. UI and gamepad support needs to be scrapped anyway.

In fact, some random people have already made many high resolution texture upgrades and it is even possible to replace shaders with much nicer ones without changing the engine. Makes the game look at least 5 years newer - though it still plays old.
 
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mbv123

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 1, 2017
Messages
917
Location
Lettland
End the Reaper arc on the first game already, since it's pretty fucking boring and there's no way they could defeat them without some retarded deus ex machina. Make the second game about the Citadel/Terminus systems cold war that they mentioned in the first game.
Eh, who am I kidding, the series is just an excuse to watch softcore alien porn with some mediocre TPS sections in between
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
I think the most astounding thing about both the ME & DA series is how Bioware decided to ignore the games strengths, and build on or follow their weakness' instead.
How combat became a selling point, never mind the focus, for either series I'll never know.

'Cept that inventory "system". Still better than the complete throwing out of inventory ME2/3 "fixed" it with.

It's times like this I wish I was able to brofist.

Yeah, fair point about the inventory.
 

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