Is it just me, or did Bioware really oversell how big of an impact the decisions from ME1 would make on ME2? After hearing the Bioware guy on the Bombcast a bit before the release I was completely pumped to see just how different of a game two people could play, but after playing the game I am left hugely disappointed in their actual weight.

Just think about all the actual "big" decisions that carried over from ME1:

Killing Wrex: Aside from the bonus of having Wrex still alive in your game, the actual effect of the game is virtually nothing. All that changes is that Wrex's brother(I think) is the leader on the Krogan planet, he thanks you for killing wrex, then the mission plays out the same way. All that really changes is some dialogue.

Kaiden or Ashely: This one is just as irrelevant. All that changes is who shows up on Horizon, and that conversation lasts maybe 1 minute, and quite frankly, sucks.

Killing the Council: Probably the biggest fucking letdown of all the decisions. They are literally NO WHERE. They never appear in the game, never send you any kind of communication, NOTHING. The only time this even gets referenced is when you go to the Citadel, you hear some lines of dialogue about how aliens don't like humans now if you let them die.

Udina or Commander Anderson: Results in 1 dialogue tree and an email. What a letdown.

Killing the Rachni: Is this even mentioned in the entire game?

Anyway, ME2 was pretty goddamn awesome, but they dropped the ball in such a huge way on this part of the game. I don't know if they came up with this idea later on in development, and were unable to implement it as deeply as they may have wanted to, or if this is how they plan to do it for the rest of the series. Looking back I feel kind of foolish for thinking about the final decision in ME2 for so long after realizing how little the previous games' big choices mattered. I really hope Bioware pulls it together for ME3, because the way they described it prior to release sounded amazing.

Council Descion: Letting them live and nominating Anderson, at least, has you participate in a meeting with them. 
Rachni Descion: You meet an asari with a message from the rachni saying they will help you against the Reapers in ME3.

 
Anyway, yeah, I have complete faith. In addition to those 2, you have the fact that sparing Wrex has him uniting the krogan clans, the choice you make in Mordin's loyalty mission, Legion's loyalty mission, how you handle Tali's trial, and the big choice at the end. 
 
There is also all the variables with all the deaths and teammates. I am almost completely sure they will wrap everything up in a satistfactory way.  
 
Here's something else that gives me hope, particuliarly with the teammates: 

I think the biggest thing is first of all the resolution of all the plots, all the decisions players have made throughout. Being able to play and experience all the surviving cast members, all the characters people liked. That’s one big part of it.     

 Click Here

I'm sure some of those will have bigger impacts in Mass Effect 3. At least I hope they do.

The way they handed decisions is by having one point or one discussion related to a previous decision, whether it was an email from the slave in me2 or the asari rachni. THese are isolated events. I wish in ME3 these decsions are more expansive.
 
First thing I want is the same crew plus crew from ME1 in addition to a few select new squads that we know, such as aria, Anderson and another who can stand as a tech replacement, maybe the quarian who knew tali. Obviously if you killed or squad or have certian from ME1 dead, they won't join you

Depending on the decisions you made in ME1, you can get some quests that you wouldn't get if you just started a new game. Also, yeah the Rachni greets you if you saved them. But I agree, the decisions didn't really change much.
   
I wasn't too disappointed in the way that ME1 decisions turned out in ME2 considering its the middle of a trilogy. Since ME3 is the last of the trilogy, I'm sure that your decisions will have much heavier consequences.

"

Council Descion: Letting them live and nominating Anderson, at least, has you participate in a meeting with them. 
Rachni Descion: You meet an asari with a message from the rachni saying they will help you against the Reapers in ME3.

 
Anyway, yeah, I have complete faith. In addition to those 2, you have the fact that sparing Wrex has him uniting the krogan clans, the choice you make in Mordin's loyalty mission, Legion's loyalty mission, how you handle Tali's trial, and the big choice at the end. 
 
There is also all the variables with all the deaths and teammates. I am almost completely sure they will wrap everything up in a satistfactory way.  
 
Here's something else that gives me hope, particuliarly with the teammates: 

I think the biggest thing is first of all the resolution of all the plots, all the decisions players have made throughout. Being able to play and experience all the surviving cast members, all the characters people liked. That’s one big part of it.     

 Click Here

"

The 3 loyalty missions you mentioned are what I'm most hopeful for. The geth/quarian situation is the most interesting thing in all of ME if you ask me, even more so when you consider what happens in Legion's loyalty mission, and Tali's trial + the email that you get from one of the quarian admirals after the trial.

It kinda sucks that 4 of my favorite squad members are all going to be on opposite sides on the 2 biggest upcoming conflicts in the world. Mordin vs Wrex on the genophage, and Tali vs Legion on the upcoming war.

" Depending on the decisions you made in ME1, you can get some quests that you wouldn't get if you just started a new game. "

I just hope they don't hold killing Wrex against me. 
 
I can't deal with that.

Oddly enough the Council decision effects your status as a Spectre - if you save them they will offer it back (you're then free to accept or reject their offer), if you let them die however the all human council will not reinstate you (or rather you're force to turn it down during the dialog). 
 
If you romanced Kaiden or Ashely you'll get an E-mail from them after the meeting on Horizon - Bioware really dropped the ball when it came to Liara though, aside from a kiss vs. a hug there's not difference.
 
Killing the Rachni is not mentioned, if you save them you'll be contacted by an agent of theirs and given a message from the queen.
 
Various people you may or may not have killed or help make an appearance here and there: Conrad Verner, The Cop from Noveria, Fist the nightclub owner, the green Asari from Zhu's Hope and a few others. It seems that's completing quests or how you completed them in ME1 gives you at best a nod to past actions - you can remind Tali that you helped her with her Pilgramage if you found the data in ME1, various news reports on the citadel and emails will come your way - the senator you saved from the biotics, Tombs if you made choices that allowed him to live etc.  It's not great, and hopefully will be improved in Me2->Me3, then again the quests in Me2 seemed pretty self-contained.

" @Semition said:

" Depending on the decisions you made in ME1, you can get some quests that you wouldn't get if you just started a new game. "

Like what? "

" @EvilTwin said:

" @Semition said:

" Depending on the decisions you made in ME1, you can get some quests that you wouldn't get if you just started a new game. "

Like what? "

Like helping a representative of the Feros survivors. "

" Oddly enough the Council decision effects your status as a Spectre - if you save them they will offer it back (you're then free to accept or reject their offer), if you let them die however the all human council will not reinstate you (or rather you're force to turn it down during the dialog).    

"@General_D23 said:

"

Council Descion: Letting them live and nominating Anderson, at least, has you participate in a meeting with them. 
Rachni Descion: You meet an asari with a message from the rachni saying they will help you against the Reapers in ME3.

 
Anyway, yeah, I have complete faith. In addition to those 2, you have the fact that sparing Wrex has him uniting the krogan clans, the choice you make in Mordin's loyalty mission, Legion's loyalty mission, how you handle Tali's trial, and the big choice at the end. 
 
There is also all the variables with all the deaths and teammates. I am almost completely sure they will wrap everything up in a satistfactory way.  
 
Here's something else that gives me hope, particuliarly with the teammates: 

I think the biggest thing is first of all the resolution of all the plots, all the decisions players have made throughout. Being able to play and experience all the surviving cast members, all the characters people liked. That’s one big part of it.     

 Click Here

"

The 3 loyalty missions you mentioned are what I'm most hopeful for. The geth/quarian situation is the most interesting thing in all of ME if you ask me, even more so when you consider what happens in Legion's loyalty mission, and Tali's trial + the email that you get from one of the quarian admirals after the trial.

It kinda sucks that 4 of my favorite squad members are all going to be on opposite sides on the 2 biggest upcoming conflicts in the world. Mordin vs Wrex on the genophage, and Tali vs Legion on the upcoming war.

"

I have all the faith in the world in Bioware after playing Dragon Age. I can't wait until my PC is fixed so that I can play ME1 and then 2 in marathon.

" @sixghost said:

"@General_D23 said:

"

Council Descion: Letting them live and nominating Anderson, at least, has you participate in a meeting with them. 
Rachni Descion: You meet an asari with a message from the rachni saying they will help you against the Reapers in ME3.

 
Anyway, yeah, I have complete faith. In addition to those 2, you have the fact that sparing Wrex has him uniting the krogan clans, the choice you make in Mordin's loyalty mission, Legion's loyalty mission, how you handle Tali's trial, and the big choice at the end. 
 
There is also all the variables with all the deaths and teammates. I am almost completely sure they will wrap everything up in a satistfactory way.  
 
Here's something else that gives me hope, particuliarly with the teammates: 

I think the biggest thing is first of all the resolution of all the plots, all the decisions players have made throughout. Being able to play and experience all the surviving cast members, all the characters people liked. That’s one big part of it.     

 Click Here

"

The 3 loyalty missions you mentioned are what I'm most hopeful for. The geth/quarian situation is the most interesting thing in all of ME if you ask me, even more so when you consider what happens in Legion's loyalty mission, and Tali's trial + the email that you get from one of the quarian admirals after the trial.

It kinda sucks that 4 of my favorite squad members are all going to be on opposite sides on the 2 biggest upcoming conflicts in the world. Mordin vs Wrex on the genophage, and Tali vs Legion on the upcoming war.

"

You realized that you can get Mordin to help the Krogan right? And yea, I screwed up the whole Tali vs Legion thing in my first playthrough.... "

Yeah I'm sure the whole "Mordin created the genophage" thing won't be a big deal if Wrex and Mordin are both in your party in ME3. "

" @sixghost said:

Yeah I'm sure the whole "Mordin created the genophage" thing won't be a big deal if Wrex and Mordin are both in your party in ME3. "

I don't think we will see any ME2 character as a full-blown party member in ME3. They won't write a script and record substantial VO for characters who could die in ME2 - which is everyone. So don't expect more than brief cameos in ME3. From the Normandy crew, only Joker, Chakwas and EDI can be re-used, because Bioware made sure they survived in any case. "

I think a lot of it comes down to the expectations each person went into the game with.  I knew some people were going to be disappointed with how shallow the consequences were, because they had totally unrealistic expectations.  I went in expecting the worst and they made a far better job if it than I was expecting, so I was happy with it.  
 
I would need to play a Paragon save to say for sure, but I felt like the world reacted appropriately to my decision to let the Council die.  There were a lot of nice little touches, from how regular Asari, Turians and Krogans on the Citadel treated me, to the news reports I kept hearing.  You know that the Turians have reneged on the established Dreadnought Treaty ratio for example, which is a pretty bad sign because -if you know your history- that's pretty much exactly what happened before the outbreak of WW2 (except obviously without the Turians).
 
As above, I also don't expect ME 2 squad members to show up in ME 3.  Maybe they have something significantly different planned for 3, because otherwise they've developed themselves into a bit of a corner with regards squad members.  Otherwise, realistically we can only expect Liara, maybe Legion (he's relatively easy to bring back to life), and maybe Kaidan/Ash if they can make them totally interchangeable in the storyline.

I completely and very reluctantly agree. I absolutely LOVED a few of the characters from ME2 (Thane, Jack, Grunt, Legion and Kelly Chambers are my TOP) and really would love for them to come back. Yet I understand how that is sadly not possible.  But who knows! Maybe BioWare will surprise us all and put them in there as a big part of the game. "

Bioware rocks, they won't do us wrong.

Point taken. Maybe it's because there is no dealing with it, just Shepard looking at the space coffins. It just seems so casual to me, almost like a game show. 
 
 "Hello and Welcome to another exiting edition of 'who is toast next!?' with your host - Dude Shepard. Who will kick the bucket this time? Stay tuned and find out!"

on the one hand I do feel like they may have put themselves into a corner in regards to squad members and whatnot considering pretty much anybody from ME2 can be dead by the end. but bioware has known all along that this is a trilogy, i dont see them going ahead with ideas in the middle chapter despite the fact that they screw up the 3rd and likely biggest and most important chapter. I feel like they have a plan, we just dont know quite what that plan is at the moment. 
 
with regards to if i think decisions will have bigger impacts in ME3, i think they absolutely will. I think ME2 was them kind of getting introduced and comfortable with carrying information over from one game to the next. I think in ME3 you are going to see people having hugely different experiences depending on what decisions you made in the previous games. I think its going to be absolutely crazy epic and i cannot wait

" on the one hand I do feel like they may have put themselves into a corner in regards to squad members and whatnot considering pretty much anybody from ME2 can be dead by the end. but bioware has known all along that this is a trilogy, i dont see them going ahead with ideas in the middle chapter despite the fact that they screw up the 3rd and likely biggest and most important chapter"