Mass Effect 3, what can we expect?

[PeterDawson]

I'm curious really if certain characters who's deaths are optional in earlier games have the potential to be party members if they're alive. I can't think of their names but the not-secretary from the ice planet in the first game as well as the asari host from the planet with the giant alien living inside it (I'm trying to be vague since I don't want to throw around spoilers even though I'd consider it a non issue with this thread). Both of them are women that seem to show an interest in Shepard and both seem like they'd be decent fighters. Really, optional party members based on decisions from older games would be pretty impressive in my opinion, I can't think of a game that's done that.

 

[Lust]

I've been playing Mass Effect 2 for a while, and everytime I finish certain missions I keep wondering, how exactly would they effect the story of Mass Effect 3 when I import one of my Commander Shepards in it?

everytime I read the loading screen telling me decisions I make in Mass Effect 2 have 'dire ramifications' in Mass Effect 3, I always feel weirdly uneasy, presumably because the 3rd game will likely have you go against the Reaper Fleet, which if it's something you'd be doing in-game and not some climatic cutscene doing the work for you, well, it might be fair enough if it involves you taking the Normandy for a real-time ship combat spin, but if you're expected to fight one on foot, well the Human-Reaper Larva was bad enough to me, you know?

And what happens to any of Shepard's squadmates provided their still alive? and if you play the default game, what characters do and don't survive?

Bioware, depending on how big the choices in Mass Effect 3 are, and how many actually have impact, they might have a hard time deciding what the default game would be like, though if Mass Effect 2 is any indication, they might go for a default game plot with the least amount of perks.

What do you think, or want to expect, will come out of Mass Effect 3?

Universal cathartic ecstasy.

 

[stormyfs]

What do I expect?

a) Shepard saves the day. Possibly using duct tape and a big gun, riding on the prow of Normandy III in a spacesuit, leading the masses of the 'good' races in a violent counter-attack from the bowels of the citadel, after clearing the streets in a series of vicious hand-to-hand battles.
b) Everyone dies. EVERYONE.

A is more likely.

 

[Limzz]

There will be only one of each type of gun in the entire game. In the opening cut scene they will show how your saved character's attributes have all been mysteriously removed. You are now John Shepard and you're going to fucking like it. Every option in the dialog wheel will have either '(good)' or '(bad)' written after it. The level design will have more linearity than ever before!

 

[Booze Zombie]

Most likely we can expect the third game in the Mass Effect series.

You fucking genius!

On topic: I'm expecting maybe they'll try to give us proper decisions with immediate consequences, seeing as they don't have to worry about building up all of your decisions for another game.

For instance:

You shoot the drug dealer and clear the way of thugs so the clinic personnel can help the addicts recover.
You play though a bit, meet all of the recovered addicts working as a mercenary band, they agree to help you out in a later mission.

They help you in a major boss battle by providing fire support with a gunship.

Something like that.

 

[RatRace123]

We'd better expect to see some more Wrex, goddamnit.

I'm also guessing we'll see Karma either save Shepard or completely bite him/her in the ass.

 

[Shock and Awe]

I actually wrote a blog [http://screwattack.com/blogs/Air-Force-One-Logs/What-I-Want-in-Mass-Effect-3] about what I wanted in Mass Effect 3. Here is some copy pasta,

Shit to Hit The Fan, If I recall correctly, Mass Effect is designed to be a trilogy, so Mass Effect 3 is going to tie it all together, so shit is going to go crazy. Are the Reapers going to make there entrance? I don't know, but I hope they do, at least to some point. That means almost everything that the galaxy knows will change, and it will set up many of the other things I want to see.

Familiar Faces, I want everyone back. I would love to see everyone(thats still living) available for a squad member. Thats from both games, Ashley, Wrex, Garrus, Thane, everyone! It would be freaking awesome, and the doomsday scenario caused by the Reapers return would make everyone make sense, Liara would not exactly be doing much brokering if galactic society was falling apart. I doubt the Alliance would deny Ashley from joining Shepard, and Wrex would almost definitely fight with Shepard with the rest of Urdnot behind him. The list goes on and on, it would be very easy story wise to have damn near everyone back that isn't already dead.

A New Ship, I think it would be pretty cool if Shepard was given a new ship. The Normandy SR2 took quite a beating in Mass Effect 2, and depending on your upgrades, it might not be quite fit for duty, and with the new evidence, it would quite easy to get a ship from the Council or the Alliance. Of course it would have to be some top of the line experimental craft, maybe a new Cruiser? Not essential, but it would be nice.

Continuing and New Romances, In the first game I chose the romance option with Ashley, the character appealed to me more than Liara, and more than any of the female Mass Effect 2 characters as well, so I did not use the romance option in that game because I knew that the romance would Ashley would be back in the third title, and I wanted the story to go like that. So I really hope that romances will be continued with all characters, and new ones would be quite good as well.

Huge Battles, If there is going to be some kind of Reaper invasion or something of the like, that means that there can be no denying, and all the species will fight. That means there may be huge battles on the ground and in space, so it would be nice to be able to participate in them.

Bring Back Some RPG Elements, I would love to see Bioware find the middle ground between what they used in Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2. Maybe reintroduce weapon mods that are not treated as a combat power? A greatly expanding the armory from ME2, but not as many as ME1 would be a big improvement. . I would also like to see more areas that were like Noveria where many choices and paths could be taken, as well as having the great combat segments from ME2. The small details go on.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Within the established fiction, as near as I can tell there isn't going to be a reaper fleet/galactic showdown. The combined might of the citadel fleet and the Alliance's 5th fleet managed to bring down one reaper in a pitched battle at a potential cost of the largest dreadnought the non-reapers could field and nearly 30 cruisers. There are literally hundreds of these things and thus they not only outnumber the "good guys", each of their ships is dramatically superior. In a pitched battle, short of a deus ex machina, there could be no victory for organic life.

But, there is a bit of hope. Without someone to turn on the citadel for them, the reapers are sitting around (based on very rough science with incomplete information) about 40 - 50k lightyears from the galactic center (based on the relative size of a reaper to the estimated size of the galaxy). According to the game's fiction, the purpose of the mass relays is to create a zone of very near "massless space" which I interpret to mean "any object in this zone has it's mass reduced without regard to velocity or any of the other factors that come into play when relativity takes over". This is the same function that the mass effect cores of the starships use. Within the fiction, it is asserted that one must apply an electric charge to element zero in order to unlock it's properties, and an unfortunate side effect of such things is that said charge simply builds with no place to discharge unless near something very, very large (planet, star or even presumably a gas cloud would work). Thus, even assuming they can find sufficient power to burn straight into the galaxy, they will run into an inevitable problem of building an enormous charge with no place to send it.

This, along with other stuff, leads me to believe the end game will play out in one of two ways. Either they simply assert that the journey is possible and simply play off the presumed weakned state the journey would naturally leave these vessels in as an equalizer, or, more likely, the end game involves destroying a mcguffin that halts any hope of invasion for the forseeable future. The latter seems the most likely given the simple fact that the game has been built upon a foundation of 3rd persion Action RPG functionality and a pitched space battle would create a wholly different sort of game. Better still, such a move would allow for a more feasable narrative structure. In a ship battle your entire crew could be wiped out in an instant, and even assuming one resorted to a boarding action, the best they could hope for is bringing down a single reaper from the inside.

My assumption is therefore that there is a much smaller but very long ranged mass relay located somewhere near a backdrop with amazing visuals. The relay would allow for small groups of reapers to launch into the galaxy at at time allowing for a pitched battle against reasonable odds. The allies Shepard has gathered would more or less allow for more mistakes to be made in the assault against this relay without resorting to large sacrifices of team members. The assault itself would likely play out in a similar fashion as ME2, but I'd wager there wouldn't be any escaping with everyone alive. Truth be told, I wouldn't expect Shepard to make it out alive, as you will almost certainly be forced to either leave your romance choice behind or draw the poverbial line in the sand yourself to allow the rest to escape at the cost of your own life.

 

[Shock and Awe]

snip

I am not quite sure about the odds being hopeless for one big pitched battle. There are at least 84 dreadnoughts at the time of Mass Effect 2. We can assume that after the events of Mass Effect 2 the Council and all species will finally recognize the threat. This would put the entire galaxy into a massive preparation for war. We could assume that with every species working for more ships that the number of dreadnoughts could double by the time the reapers show up. We also saw that Reaper ships use the same tech as the Collector ship(at least as far as weapons). One large frigate took down a collector ship that we can assume was probably a cruiser equivalent. This is of course with upgraded weapons using their technology. This would most likely be applied to every ship in the galaxy; regardless of cost, since extinction is one hell of a motivator. You also must take into account the countless number of Cruisers and Frigates that would also be part of the effort, easily in the thousands.

These kind of events may also convince the Terminus systems to at least temporarily ally themselves with the council, adding many ships to the fleet. Sovereign also may have been a more powerful kind of Reaper ship, wouldn't it make sense to send a very powerful ship to execute such an important mission?

 

[Flying-Emu]

Personally, I'm hoping to be able to choose between all the squad members from ME1 and 2. It'd be fuckin' crazy to have Engineer Shepard, Urdnot Wrex, AND Thane Krios in the same party.

Something tells me that Wrex and Krios would get along well.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[kannibus]

If we want to go TOTALLY insane, how about a team up with THE GRAY WARDEN? Oh man, does anyone think that the universe would explode to the concentration of badassery in that game?

 

[MajorKris]

I don't want to just kill the Illusive Man. I want to Be the Illusive Man!

 

[Fappy]

Seeing a Quarian's face! I must know!

Also: More Tali romance. Best romance of any BioWare game ever.

I want to see some Turian, Batarian, Krogan and Salarian females for the loves of Andraste!

 

[Altanese]

Whoever you left to die is not dead. Kaiden/Ashley will come back, only they will be controlled by the Reapers. Think about it: did we ever find a body? And if Cerberus can bring Shep. back, I'm sure the Reapers could do the same. Moral choice there.

I wanted to comment on this specifically:
The reason a body was never found was because Kaiden/Ashley was right next to a nuclear bomb as it went off, effectively reducing him/her to ash. Granted, Shepard crashed into a planet and burned up in the atmosphere, but even that's more survivable; the space suit provides some protection, and the atmosphere of the planet is pretty thin, if I recall correctly from the Normandy crash site DLC (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

-== !SPOILERS AHOY! ==-
All that aside, I have no idea what to expect from ME3, but my best, vaguest guess is that a Renegade Shepard in the past few games will have a strong humanity fighting the Reapers with a huge fleet and galactic power from the first game and the Cerberus tech (especially from the Collecter base) from the second (the Empire), or a Paragon Shepard rallying the allies made in the first two; the Krogan under Urdnot Wrex, Rachni, Council races, Quarians, Geth (orthodox), and probably more(the Alliance). Of course, -you- won't be involved in any real space battles, none that you control anyway; it'll be more like the cutscenes at the end chapters of both games.

What I am 100% sure of is that you will have a chance to end a conversation with Khalisah Al-Jilani by saying "I've had enough of your ('pompous accusations', 'uncomplimentary predications', et cetera)!" and then punching her IN THE FAAACE!

Beyond that, though, I can only hope foASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL!

 

[harnzolo]

expect the unexpected... Lolx, I think we might see some of the Mass Effect 1 characters joining the crew... Because there are multiple endings where some crew survived, some didn't make it, I think Bioware might make the Normady crashed yet again for simplicity's sake... That's just my two-cent.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

snip

I am not quite sure about the odds being hopeless for one big pitched battle. There are at least 84 dreadnoughts at the time of Mass Effect 2. We can assume that after the events of Mass Effect 2 the Council and all species will finally recognize the threat. This would put the entire galaxy into a massive preparation for war. We could assume that with every species working for more ships that the number of dreadnoughts could double by the time the reapers show up. We also saw that Reaper ships use the same tech as the Collector ship(at least as far as weapons). One large frigate took down a collector ship that we can assume was probably a cruiser equivalent. This is of course with upgraded weapons using their technology. This would most likely be applied to every ship in the galaxy; regardless of cost, since extinction is one hell of a motivator. You also must take into account the countless number of Cruisers and Frigates that would also be part of the effort, easily in the thousands.

These kind of events may also convince the Terminus systems to at least temporarily ally themselves with the council, adding many ships to the fleet. Sovereign also may have been a more powerful kind of Reaper ship, wouldn't it make sense to send a very powerful ship to execute such an important mission?

The collector ship itself was a cruiser class. The Normandy when upgraded was armed as well as a cruiser. It also had protection above and beyond what a frigate is expected to possess. The result was simple enough: complete tactical surprise. Rather than engaging the Normandy as an equal, the collector ship instead saw it again as easy prey and thus it was tactical error not technoligical aptitude that swung the battle in the end.

As for building new dreadnoughts, it all depends upon the timeframe. Ships that are kilometers long clearly take ages to build - the repair and victory tour of the Destiny Ascencion took more than two years to complete. Even if rushed and with every resource of the galaxy dumped into preparing for an all or nothing battle it would take years to dramatically alter the balance of power. In terms of alliances and the like, there are few notable space powers in the game. Only the Turians, Asari Salarians and Alliance possess large combat fleets. Quarian ships could likely be repurposed for the task of combat assuming you could find a place to put non-combatants and had time to retrofit (presumably useless weapons would be jettisoned for more pragmatic fixtures). The Geth presumably possess some quantity of vessels but there has never been demonstrable proof of a ship larger than cruiser in their ranks. The Terminus systems do not possess a great deal of military power. The issue as near as I can tell that keeps them relatively free of outside interference is smiply that the cost of occupying and pacifying the space has thus far not been warranted. Commander Shepard pointed out that the citadel fleet could carry out the task by itself. The Krogan likely possess some form of force projection capacity in space but they relied in the past on armanents provided by others. Given the events leading to their current state, it is unlikely that they would provide a meaningful contribution to a fleet. The Rathni are an unknown quantity as they once possessed the capacity to bring the galaxy to it's knees which implies the ability to at least contest battles in space. They may bring something to the party, but given the species has had a mere two years to begin anew, even a concerted effort at repopulation and fleet building wouldn't have resulted in much in terms of fleet potential. The short version is, if the third installment takes place only a few months or even a few years after the events in ME2, the balance of power in terms of large ships would likely not change significantly. Worse still, it is not known just how many reaper ships there are. Soverign claims they are "legion", which if taken literally implies a force of greater than 5,000 and even if it is simply a figure of speech it implies a very large group. It is also not known what sort of ground forces they possess, nor is it known if they use smaller classes of vessel in combat.

Regardless, the ending cinematic in ME2 showed several hundred ships that appeared to be dreadnoughts. As the ME cannon states any commander would be foolish to counter a dreadnought with anything short of another dreadnought, which you have already pointed out numbered less than 100 in ME2. While fighters, frigates and cruisers may prove a sufficient force multiplyer is unknown. Soverign demonstrated proficiency at point defence inside the citadel but that was against cruisers. Frigates and Cruisers are clearly capable of bringing down a dreadnought given sufficient numbers, but that's assuming they can actually close into range without being shot to pieces on the approach. The only conclusion I can draw here is that even with every creature in the galaxy capable of taking flight behind them, you're still looking at very long odds in a pitched battle.

Not to be overlooked is the simple fact that engaging a reaper fleet in battle might be folly in and of itself. Without any real defense against the control the reapers demonstrate one couldn't even really hope for a prolonged campaign to wear down the strength of the reapers, which all but forces the all or nothing battle if the entire strength of the reapers make it into the galaxy.

Of course, much of this hinges upon recognizing the threat presented. Humanity lost hundreds of thousands of colonists and didn't mobilize to stop it. Even when confroted with the threat in the most direct fashion possible most of the universe still refused to believe the scope or even nature of the threat. It would seem likely then that in the event of an invasion from the galactic rim the response would be slow at best simply because this has been the pattern of action given similar situations. Even if the threat is recognized with enough time to organize a defence, it would still require mobilizing the necessary assets in a process that takes months in a conventional war on the ground.

I'm not going to say that the idea of a pitched battle is impossible, it just doesn't seem to fit. This is a fleet so nasty that it has annihilated all advanced organic life for untold millions of years. Even given extra time to get up to speed and an early victory or two don't really change the reality. Other species have killed reapers and given heroic resistance but each and every one of them were wiped out. Plus, a pitched space battle simply doesn't fit the sort of games bioware makes nor does it really make sense in terms of how the past games have played out.

As a summary, what we have is simple. The science fiction of the universe tells us that without a relay the trip would be all but impossible. The cannon asserts that the reapers have been wiping out life for untold millions of years. The gameplay that the company has demonstrated has never included anything resembling large scale space battles and the history of the franchise hasn't even dabbled in the subject outside of cinematics. All of this points in a particular direction and that is a pitched battle designed to buy time while shepard destroys a mcguffin that halts the invasion for the forseeable future. It's not like this is without precident either. KOTOR presented a similar problem (a seemingly unstoppable enemy) and forced a pitched battle where losing was all but assured in order to allow the player to destroy an object that halted the introduction of new ships to the conflict.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[Fappy]

Seeing a Quarian's face! I must know!

Also: More Tali romance. Best romance of any BioWare game ever.

I want to see some Turian, Batarian, Krogan and Salarian females for the loves of Andraste!

Try Google Images. I'm sure the Internet has already amply provided for your needs

Come to think of it, I'd quite like to see what female salarians look like. Especially given that salarians are apparently quite . . . flexible.

Oh God, what the hell did I just write? I think I'm a little too into Mass Effect at the moment. I also think I should go to bed now before I say anything more.

Bet I won't, though.

They have a lot of cartilage in there body allegedly... too bad they don't have sex drives

 

[Sexbad]

Sexy sweaty gay krogan sex.

You all know you want to see what two crab-buffalo-mixes would look like sexing.

I'm not expecting much since I'm not a BioWare fan but the shooting should be nice.