@rethla: The part where 'everything is dark' is not necessarily better or worse than 'angel vs devil' choices. The latter has the effect of seeming way less nuanced I grant you, but that doesn't mean the former is nuanced in any sort of way. We're also discussing ME at its worst here and W3 at its best, which is a weird approach to this discussion. It's not like all dialogue options in ME are 'I love you' versus 'you're a bitch, here is a knife in your face'. Those are in there, sure. But there is a lot more good stuff than bad stuff in there. Over time that series also got a lot better about what constitutes a Renegade choice. Especially in 3 there are some really good and funny Renegade options that don't take it to the extremes we're discussing here. It's more something like cracking a good joke at the expense of someone else.

@zevvion: But things isnt always dark. In witcher you get appropiate answears to the situation. If you are in a fucked up place there really cant be anything else to say than dark stuff. The options will be how you wanna aproach it rather than good or bad. If your in a bar you can crack a joke or talk memories etc, still not good vs bad or "everything is dark". Its situationbased where in mass effect its more "what type of moviesterotype do you wanna respond as".

@rethla: It wasn't that cut and dry for me, but sure, Mass Effect kept to its Paragon/Renegade thing in key moments. But you're wrong about it being that way for every single conversation. I'll say that W3 is more advanced in that style of dialogue, but you're comparing a 2015 game to a 2007-12 one. The way they are approaching things in Andromeda is already vastly different.

And I'll say again that it doesn't need to be 'all dark' like W3 tries to be. Because yes, you can crack a joke if you are in a bar: you could do the same in Mass Effect. That's what I was saying when you're talking about W3 in the best of light and ME in the worst. That's unfair.

@zevvion: i think its fair to say there is a clear difference in their approach. Biowares system often gets in the way of good writing where witchers doesnt.

When i say mass effect and witcher im not comparing W3 to ME1, thats a strange conclusion you made ;)

Im kinda talking about all the witcher games and all biowaregames since me1 but mostly its focused on the latest releases since we are speculating about andromeda.

@rethla: Sure. I don't know. I don't think Mass Effect's writing suffers because of their approach with the Paragon/Renegade system. I think individual conversations could have been better in some spots. It is entirely possible to create good and coherent dialogue while still sticking to a good vs evil choice mechanic. In fact, they did that in several instances. They just didn't do as good of a job with it in others. It's also worth pointing out that ME was by far the biggest offender of that, in contrast to ME3 for example, where being Renegade was often pretty nuanced and didn't always have that 'Yeh! I'm evil!' tone.

I think it's fair to say that the Paragon/Renegade system was limiting in many ways, the largest being that it forced the writers to think in simple binary terms, and therefore to arrange their story scenarios to accommodate said terms. Plenty of choice-y games use moral binaries as guiding principles, Witcher 3 included, but by leaving those principles hidden and opaque, the writers retain the freedom to go off script. Mass Effect couldn't do that because it's tied into a rigid system that was itself plugged into several other systems. Worse, by codifying it as a metagame of accruing alignment points, they also compromised player agency by encouraging them to min-max the system, effectively reducing the number of actual choices you make. Everything is in those games is telling you to go all-in in one direction. That's where we got the meme of players sleepwalking their way through dialogue scenes, just up-righting or down-righting choices as their chosen alignment demanded, and no one chose the middle-right option because why the fuck would you. You aren't getting points for that, then when Tali gets exiled from the Fleet because you weren't Paragon enough, you only have yourself to blame.

They got better at using this system throughout the series, but in my opinion only because the writers discovered their shackles and began to rage against them. ME3 separating alignment from speech checks was, I feel, their acknowledgment that the system wasn't working as intended, though their solution in that game was more of a half-measure than complete overhaul. The obvious next step was to toss the system altogether, which they've done for Andromeda. Everyone wins.

new trailer dropped:

it's nice to see some non-combat elements and new alien designs, even if the antagonist seems utterly generic/cliched. also- kinda hilarious that they still think it's a good idea to show off video game physical intimacy.

Still not on board with the warframe villain but this trailer did make me more excited. I think I'm just going on a full blackout and I'll see how this thing turns out when it comes out.

Looking good. I liked that trailer a lot.

Okay, that officially won me over. Looked really sharp. I now feel optimistic about this game.

That trailer is fuckin doooope! I can't wait to have a new Mass Effect to play.

Eh, still not totally sold on it. I want gameplay footage in addition to a vague cut up of the "best of" story moments. If this game were a stock, I think my rating would be a solid "Hold."

Character models have the same fugly look and weird skin shine as Dragon Age did. I know it's the same engine, but it's not a good look. Hopefully that's were the similarities end and it doesn't have Inquisitions open world environment/mission design, what a monotonous slog that turned out to be.

@lawgamer: We already had the gameplay trailer tho

@jonny_anonymous said:

Which showed all of 2 minutes of a vast array of systems. I'm talking an actual chunk of real gameplay. Not something they threw together for a trailer to be able to say "Hey look! We're a real RPG. We've got menus!" Give me a 20-30 minute preview so I know if the combat is as clunky as prior entries and I'll be happy.

Have they shown female turians before? She looks cool. I still want to see a female volus too.

@cerberus3dog: One of the DLCs had one. Omega, maybe?

Trailer looks real solid to me. Do we know how many party members there are and who they are?

I assume the blonde lady, the black dude, the Asari, and the Krogan are; but are they the only ones? Its only those four and male Ryder that are in the heroic pose establishing shot at 1:01.

@cerberus3dog: There's a female Turian in the Omega expansion of ME3. No female Volus. Or Hanar, or Elcor.

@lawgamer: So...wait for the game to come out and watch the QL? I don't quite understand your demands; you're talking about 30 minute gameplay previews from developers as if that were common.

There was this trailer, too. I like Scott Ryder's voice, he sounds like a cocky Nathan Drake-type character. Which isn't normally my favorite, but femshep was like the stiffest performance I've heard from Jennifer Hale. This is more fun. The other voice actors sound good to me, too.

I can tell you who I want to romance of this party lineup, based on looks: Freakin' nobody.

Save a new galaxy from a new monstrous terror!

Why's Bioware so awful at naming their villains?

so we've already made up our collective minds that this will be the worst Mass Effect game yet?

Yes. But I really hope we are wrong.

I just want the Saturday Morning Villain to be a front for a much better story, but I don't have my hopes up.

I wanna be clear on one thing: If it plays better than the previous ones and it tells a decent story, it could easily be my favorite. Some of what they've shown looks like good improvements on what's there, with more freeform movement(not like DOOM or Titanfall 2, but something) and large open environments and vehicles again. The tone of this game seems more adventerous compared to the previous ones, and the characters they've shown look a bit more goofy than normal. Compare say, Not-Finn to Jacob, and it just looks like we're gonna be less military this time around, which I appreciate. Even if the main plot is as meh as Inquisition's, it could still be a lot of fun.

I just hope they aren't planning on making a new trilogy, because I'm pretty sure I read a story that said the writers have already left the company. If there's one thing they should have learned, it's that changing staff between games means the tone and writing is all over the place. I don't want to see Mass Effect turn into a reaper cycle, so in 6 years everyone is talking about how the ending of Andromeda 3 was awful and a lot of fans felt Andromeda 1 was the best because it was the most RPG-like and worldbuildy, but most prefer Andromeda 2 for its balance.

@redhotchilimist: @poser: i'll admit i've mostly only watched the games being played but i do have an appreciation for the series. it seems people are being harsh on the new one already in a typical internet fashion. i'm willing to wait and see but as a *very* casual fan it looks pretty good so far.

i'm tempted to make a fool's errand of trying to marathon all three myself prior to andromeda's release. breath of the wild will most likely fit in there... somewhere...

@ripelivejam: I am pretty excited for the game. Most of the changes look positive for it being a bigger game and more of an RPG. I just hope they deliver on writing but that will be something I'll see when they put it out.

Everything with the gameplay looks like a big improvement from the weakest parts of 2 and 3 for me.

As far as marketing for this game goes, some people seem to complain about it but I don't want to see that much of the game and at this point I am satisfied with everything I've read and seen.

This really seems to be giving me that sense of scope/exploration that was missing in ME2-3. Have they mentioned how they'll deal with the ME3 endings? Since at least two of those have kinda large hard to ignore impacts on a sequel. I assume they'll just pick their canon. Hope this time around they put more effort into the animation/clipping stuff, it's starting to become really hard to ignore for me.

@aktivity: Andromeda's entire premise is set up to let them sidestep all of that stuff. If they want to tell another Milky Way story post-ME3, they'll have to choose a canon ending, but for now they're off the hook.

This new trailer finally felt like Mass Effect. I like that plant alien thing homeworld and whatever that cloud weapon thing was looks very alien and non conventional, which is cool. It's just... why does the main antagonist have to act so stereotypical? I really hope that this ends up being more about smaller conflict between two different species instead of a "threat to the whole galaxy" scenario.

Also, there's a new Andromeda Initiative trailer.

You know this is a Bioware game right?

@encephalon: Kinda weak and half-assed if the Reapers only stuck to one Galaxy though. But I'm willing to ignore it if makes things feel fresh.

@ripelivejam: Andromeda is two months away and we have less than 10min of game footage and whats show hasn't been all that interesting, Andromeda has also been a no show at all the trade shows. For whatever reason EA seem afraid to show off the game, but despite all the red flags its Mass Effect a serious I love I'm there day 1 regardless.