Five Things BioWare Fixed for Mass Effect 2

[Dommyboy]

"Fans are clingy complaining dipshits who will never ever be grateful for any concession you make. The moment you shut out their shrill, tremulous voices the happier you will be for it."

Listening to fans only makes games worse...

Because I'm sure Yahtzee is correct 100% of the time, right? Listening to fans isn't what ruins games, it's how developers go about it.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

First they make futuristic guns with magnetic acceleration and infinite ammo. Then they realized they had to put some limitation on them, and added overheating, even though magnetic acceleration = no combustion = no overheating. Then they wanted to add the ability to reload, but because you have infinite ammo, you swap the heat sinks. Yeah, real smooth, Bioware. I would have preferred the tried-and-true ammo clips, to be honest.

And mass effect fields and magnetic acceleration generate no heat because....?

My computer has no combustion, it gets damn hot. Electronics can overheat as well you know.

it doesn't generate heat because there is no friction, a reason weapons overheat is that the bullets rub against the inside rifling creating friction, along with the heat of a small explosion of propellant. The reason your computer gets hot is from electricity heating up its components, hence heat-sinks and fans you need.

the way a magnetically fired weapon works is that it, well, uses magnets to propel the round, or in this case a mass effect generator, so the only heat being made would be friction, and even then it would be negligible. [using our world sciences here]


Also, I swear to god if you run out of thermal clips and you are no longer able to fire, I wont play this game. Thats what I liked about the first one, yes the game says you would eventually run out of ammo since your using a solid block of metal as a source, but god damn Bioware, couldn't you at least make us change THAT instead and kept a shred of continuation?

however, I might take a better look if it actually keeps it kinda like the first one, as in if you run out of said clips you would use the old system and have to wait for it to cool down, and the clips are just to keep a somewhat pro-longed fire rate.

Mmmmmmmm *general fiction thinking cap on* compact tech using mass rail, or advanced mag rail technology on a micro scale, I can't help but think due to power conversation,energy generation and field tensions you'd generate something unwanted either heat or energy flux that made the weapon unstable or un usable for a time.

I mean if they wanted to they could have re did ammo as all it is is shavings of alloy, common ammo(the INF kind) dose lil damage to normal enforcer/combat/army armor however enforcer/combat/army armor dose 10+ more damage the trouble is you go from inf to hundreds if not thousands of shots so another mechanism would be needed unless you want to go with something more contemporary(IE normal ammo,pistols having 6-22,assault rifles 22-60,shotguns 6-12,ect,ect) but I think ME would be better off not going is such worn and overly used direction....

If they wanted to bring in a clip mechanic why not just tweak the heat setup, something like first stage heat build up leads to slower fire rate and slower cool down 2nd stage heat build up locks the weapon until cool down is completed between that and clips you would have enough delay in weapon use to flesh out the gamepaly itself more than what ME offered.. whitch amy well how it will work when its all said and done.

 

[lobotoja]

so they overhauled every piece of shooting equipment in the galaxy to an inferior model that you might ran out of ammo for... i guess all the pirates and raiders were like YEAHH!!

 

[Susan Arendt]

Susan, or anybody here really, do you know if Mass Effect 2 will be released in January for the PC as well?

As far as I know, yep.

 

[Susan Arendt]

As to "Fish tanks" in the Normandy: Did anyone else think it was odd for a ship of about 25 crew members to have 8 "sleeping bunks" and no bathrooms/Showers? You could have at least put in a door that doesn't open that just says "Restroom" on it. I doubt the Normandy II is going to look like the Enterprise from NextGen, but anymore "Form over function" and you have the prequel to the next "Dead Space" game. (Deranged Crew Member wearing ear necklace: "Why are there no F**ing BATHROOMS!")

Oh, also, you have a bathroom with flushable toilet in your quarters.

 

[BlueInkAlchemist]

I'm just really glad I'm not the only one excited about the fish. It's a silly thing, I realize, but in between bouts of saving the universe and prepping for a suicide mission, I think collecting space fishies would be very appealing.

Ever since Captain Picard introduced us to Livingston (his lionfish) I've thought aquariums in space was a neat idea. I'm glad to see this one is coming to Mass Effect 2.

Now if I can just get in a pre-order for the Collector's Edition so I'm not staring at that lackluster box art during load times...

 

[Gestapo Hunter]

Had me sold at fish tank

 

[Souplex]

Spoiler: Snip

First they make futuristic guns with magnetic acceleration and infinite ammo. Then they realized they had to put some limitation on them, and added overheating, even though magnetic acceleration = no combustion = no overheating. Then they wanted to add the ability to reload, but because you have infinite ammo, you swap the heat sinks. Yeah, real smooth, Bioware. I would have preferred the tried-and-true ammo clips, to be honest.

And mass effect fields and magnetic acceleration generate no heat because....?

My computer has no combustion, it gets damn hot. Electronics can overheat as well you know.

it doesn't generate heat because there is no friction, a reason weapons overheat is that the bullets rub against the inside rifling creating friction, along with the heat of a small explosion of propellant. The reason your computer gets hot is from electricity heating up its components, hence heat-sinks and fans you need.

the way a magnetically fired weapon works is that it, well, uses magnets to propel the round, or in this case a mass effect generator, so the only heat being made would be friction, and even then it would be negligible. [using our world sciences here]


Also, I swear to god if you run out of thermal clips and you are no longer able to fire, I wont play this game. Thats what I liked about the first one, yes the game says you would eventually run out of ammo since your using a solid block of metal as a source, but god damn Bioware, couldn't you at least make us change THAT instead and kept a shred of continuation?

however, I might take a better look if it actually keeps it kinda like the first one, as in if you run out of said clips you would use the old system and have to wait for it to cool down, and the clips are just to keep a somewhat pro-longed fire rate.

Not necessarily true. First of all, the barrel in order to keep the round flying straight generally has some contact with the sides of the bullet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifling
Secondly, in order to use magnetic weapons, you generally need electricity, and electricity carries heat.
Thirdly, there are two current types of magnetic weapons being fooled around with, those that actually have contact with the bullet, and those that don't.
The kind that does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun
The kind that does not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Hang on, their biggest blueprint for fixing faults was looking at fan comments?

Uh oh. I seem to recall a famous ZP quote about this.

I'm just kidding (I hope, because I want this game so bad). I'm sure the professional designers haven't just listened to all the whining and bitching of a group of malcontents.

The more I follow this train of thought the less I like it.

 

[JaredXE]

Umm, I had NO problems with combat other than occasionally my teammates got in my line of fire...just like every other shooter. I do NOT like the idea of finite thermal clips or whatever. Infact, finite ANYTHING sounds bad, especially ammo.

They wanna fix things from the first game, then just stick to the Mako BS and make it so when we are shopping we can actually see what we are purchasing instead of some damned box.

Otherwise, the game was great and nothing else needed work. Not the inventory, not the guns, not the combat, didn't need any fishtanks and do I care if Shepard puts on blue jeans for Casual Friday?

 

[Danpascooch]

The real question is are they going to let you be a melee focused character? Shotguns are allright, but they can't match the satisfaction and personal feeling of melee combat.

Yeah....not a chance in hell.

Melee would be fun, but if you make you way through all that hope clouding the truth, there's no way they are gonna let you be a melee focused guy.

The REAL REAL question is if that crappy built in EA server thing from Dragon Age is going to be there.

Unfortunately I think the answer is yes.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

Did anyone else think it was odd for a ship of about 25 crew members to have 8 "sleeping bunks"

Hotbunking. It actually is (or at least used to be) a common practice in the Navy. 3 or so "shifts" in a day, as many as 3 to a bunk in rotation. Especially in submarines; which have been the conceptual "model" for the function of fictional "long-range" spacecraft.

 

[Noone From Nowhere]

For #5: Are you implying that everything was broken in Mass Effect?

 

[Raithnor]

Did anyone else think it was odd for a ship of about 25 crew members to have 8 "sleeping bunks"

Hotbunking. It actually is (or at least used to be) a common practice in the Navy. 3 or so "shifts" in a day, as many as 3 to a bunk in rotation. Especially in submarines; which have been the conceptual "model" for the function of fictional "long-range" spacecraft.

Yeah it mentioned "Hotbunking" in the Codex and I'm familiar with the concept. I just found it odd that *everyone* hotbunked with the exception of the Captain. You had the junior officers and the XO hotbunking also with the enlisteds and then add in the 4 extra passengers. (Kaiden and Ashley don't count, Kaiden was a crew member and Ashley replaced Jenkins.)

Still, the lack of a common Toilet/Shower I still think was an oversight. Unless those Cryo capsules doubled as a toilet and shower al a the Jetsons. I suppose you could also just write it off as a sci-fi "in-joke" also.

 

[Meberem]

Well as long as they fix that god awful inventory system on the consoles, no idea what it was like on the PC, that was damn near impossible to navigate and use when it was full

 

[TundraWolf]

The one and only problem I had with the original game was the lack of meaningful tutorials. As the prime example of this: I didn't actually know the Mako had a tank cannon until my second playthrough of the game. That's right, I played the entire game using only the machine gun on the Mako. You have no idea how many times I died fighting Thresher Maws and Geth Collosi and Armatures. It's disgusting.

So yeah. More tutorials are better.

 

[Korey Von Doom]

Don't you think that whole thing about the ending deserved atleast a small spoiler tag, it won't come as even a remote surprise now.

 

[Copter400]

Any word on biotic powers? I found them to be really underwhelming in the first Mass Effect, with it all boiling down to buffs and ragdoll physics control (with like, one direct damage thingy). I'd really like to see more incentive to try that kind of character.

Yup. Here's a video.
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14235013/mass-effect-2/videos/masseffect2_trl_adept_112309.html

GLEE!!!

Okay, I have to try this game now.

 

[SageRuffin]

Sounds like BioWare is doing it big for this next installment of Mass Effect; I'm not feeling the "thermal clip" system as far as the weapons are concerned. I'm looking forward to taking my two FemSheps and tearing ass through/protecting the galaxy.