Mass Effect 2 E3 Prelude

[Morgoth]

Never used the squad members. They were so useless, because the game just didn't support or encourage any tactical finesse at all.

[Cycloneman]

So they're focusing on improving the combat. Well, Mass Effect's combat was pretty good, and with some tweaks it can be great. Companion and enemy AI both need a few enhancements. Also, some tweaking to the responsiveness of the cover system would be great. Also, did I see weapon reloading at about 45-50 seconds in?

 

But as much as I'd love to see combat improvements, I feel there are other areas that need a lot more attention, like the dialog system, and general pacing. Also, side exploration should either suffer massive improvements, or get the boot.

 

Anyway, I'm interested in this one, and I hope the PC version comes out the same time as the other versions. Btw, any news on that?

 

Agreed.

 

How about, FAR LESS ITEMS TO PICK UP AND CLUTTER YOUR INVENTORY?

 

or

 

UNIQUE ITEMS YOU OBTAIN FROM DOING SIDE QUESTS?

 

or

 

POPULATED WIDE OPEN CITY AREAS?

 

or

 

SOME PLANETS WHICH TAKE A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO COMBAT?

 

or

 

A FREAKIN JET PACK OR SOMETHING TO DECREASE TIME ON FOOT?

or

 

A RUN COMMAND THAT ACTUALLY MAKES YOU MOVE FASTER RATHER THAN JUST ZOOMING THE CAMERA IN AND ADDING A MOTION BLUR?

 

That was perhaps the second most egregious of Mass Effect's flaws (the most egregious being loading, particularly "you have to use the elevator every time you go to the Citadel, heh heh heh, enjoy").

Edited May 16, 2009 by Cycloneman

[Kaftan Barlast]

First off, you guys are complete morons. Just so we're in the clear about that.

 

 

But regarding the trailer it sounds like they're looking to improve in just the right areas; making the combat faster and more dynamic. It was good in the first game, but not great. Always a bit too slow and unresponsive, and the weapons didnt have any real punch.

 

 

 

edit: and it was sweet to see that BioWare are using Mudbox for ME2, not that satanic piece of user-hostile crap Zbrush.

Edited May 16, 2009 by Kaftan Barlast

[Morgoth]

We're talking about Bioware here. They'll never get combat right.

[Blodhemn]

or

 

A RUN COMMAND THAT ACTUALLY MAKES YOU MOVE FASTER RATHER THAN JUST ZOOMING THE CAMERA IN AND ADDING A MOTION BLUR?

 

That was perhaps the second most egregious of Mass Effect's flaws (the most egregious being loading, particularly "you have to use the elevator every time you go to the Citadel, heh heh heh, enjoy").

 

Ain't that the freakin truth! There should be a Hitch**** silhouette burnt into the screen during that depth of field change. It would be about as useful as that run command.

 

or

 

What about some stores with something actually useful to buy? I don't get it. The universe is loaded to the brim with scattered items and yet the actual stores are barely even stocked with anything worth your time. I think I ended up with $12,000,000 without anything to buy.... heck, it could've been even higher than that.

 

I think most of this stuff would be overlooked if the main part of the game wasn't mainly a run from point A to point B through blocky cooridors. For, instance, it'd be cool if in part of the game your guns wouldn't be used at all, and you were thrown into this world where you have to discover the "vision" through other means. Tons of possibilities there.

[Kaftan Barlast]

With the Unreal3 engine you get the basic mechanics for free, how good you manage to get it just depends on how much resources and time you're willing to spend testing and tweaking it. They have had a lot of time to do just that with ME2, so the question is just how much of an improvement we will see in the end.

 

All Bioware's previous game used the old IE-NWN system of the 6-second round, that was inherently flawed. Trying to get good combat out of that is like trying to make a turd taste like cake, you just cant do it,

[Morgoth]

Whatever, I hope you're right.

 

Doesn't change the fact though that Dragon Age looks like another clunky NWN-ish combat clickfest.

[aries101]

Gamespy talked to (or chatted with) Casey Hudson from the ME2 team...

 

You can read it here:

 

 

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/mass-effect-2/983782p1.html

 

Casey said they fixed the texture popping in ME2, they also fixed about 38 areas of improvement, including the Mako-driving.

 

Here's a tidbit from the interview:

 

Casey Hudson said:

 

"But, for example, you frequently would come up to a door, and you could send them up ahead, but you wouldn't know where they'd go. With Mass Effect 2 it's a relatively simple change, but you can tell them exactly where to go, and you have exact control over their positioning."

 

Sidequests in ME2 will now tie directly into the main story (or quest) in ME2, according to Casey.

 

You should really read the interview yourselves; it is pretty interesting...

[Guest PoziomyPion]

Interesting, maybe it will convince me to pick up MassEffect again ( lost the first one on the airport ) for the sake of continuity. It's relatively cheap now.

 

Sidequests in ME2 will now tie directly into the main story (or quest) in ME2, according to Casey.

 

Like in The Twitcher, me likes.

Edited May 16, 2009 by PoziomyPion

[Volourn]

"We're talking about Bioware here. They'll never get combat right."

 

All BIO games had good combat... except KOTOR.

 

 

 

"Sidequests in ME2 will now tie directly into the main story (or quest) in ME2"

 

BOOO!

 

 

"All Bioware's previous game used the old IE-NWN system of the 6-second round, that was inherently flawed"

 

You are double wrong.

 

A. Je didn't have that combat system. I doubt MDK2 or SS had it either.

 

B. The 6 second round system is awesome.

Edited May 16, 2009 by Volourn

[Killian Kalthorne]

Of course the games that used the 6 second round were DnD/d20 games in which a round was 6 seconds in the rules mechanic.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Im just going to go out hard and say it, the IE/NWN/KOTOR had pretty bad combat. You should have it full turnbased or actual hands-on realtime control, that kind of half-assed compromise only makes nuts like Volo happy. I really hope DA wont go down that road, it looks terrible enough as it is

 

 

Casey said they fixed the texture popping in ME2

 

Maybe it's because I know how the tech works, but the people who complain about the way textures are loaded are friggin' morons. You have two choices, either you see them load, or you can stare at a black loading screen for a couple of seconds instead. Thats your choice, take a pick dumbass. (not you, I meant the typical whiny player who complains about things that arent broken)

Edited May 16, 2009 by Kaftan Barlast

[Deraldin]

Casey said they fixed the texture popping in ME2

 

Maybe it's because I know how the tech works, but the people who complain about the way textures are loaded are friggin' morons. You have two choices, either you see them load, or you can stare at a black loading screen for a couple of seconds instead. Thats your choice, take a pick dumbass. (not you, I meant the typical whiny player who complains about things that arent broken)

 

Texture pop in annoyed me on PC because it seemed so unnecessary. It wasn't that the effect looked horrible, but ME already had load screens. How much work would it have taken to extend the load screens a couple seconds to load the textures properly?

[Maria Caliban]

This is the important part of the interview.

 

Casey Hudson: It's definitely a continuation of the idea that you can have agonizing choices and that they all have very real consequences to the story. The fun thing is that Mass Effect 2 is going to make people realize that their actions in the first game really did have consequences, because the results go beyond those in the first game.

 

I think it's something where people are going to realize that to such a degree that they'll want to go back and play the first game again with that in mind. For example, from the moment you start Mass Effect 2, you'll realize that the world that you left behind in Mass Effect 1 is where you start in Mass Effect 2. It starts out being shaped a little bit differently based on your endings and the choices you made.

 

All throughout the game, you'll see that if you made a decision in the first one, like where someone died in the first game, that character will be dead in the second. It makes you really think that when they reach a moment in Mass Effect 1, or Mass Effect 2, they're decisions that can impact the ending of the trilogy. That realization will make an impact. You'll recognize characters from the first game, and the consequences of decisions from the first game.

 

 

Now, Casey Hudson seems like a nice guy, but he tends to blow smoke up the customer's ***. He's the marketing dude; that's what they pay him for.

 

The question is: How much of this is accurate?

[Slowtrain]

This is the important part of the interview.

 

Casey Hudson: It's definitely a continuation of the idea that you can have agonizing choices and that they all have very real consequences to the story. The fun thing is that Mass Effect 2 is going to make people realize that their actions in the first game really did have consequences, because the results go beyond those in the first game.

 

I think it's something where people are going to realize that to such a degree that they'll want to go back and play the first game again with that in mind. For example, from the moment you start Mass Effect 2, you'll realize that the world that you left behind in Mass Effect 1 is where you start in Mass Effect 2. It starts out being shaped a little bit differently based on your endings and the choices you made.

 

All throughout the game, you'll see that if you made a decision in the first one, like where someone died in the first game, that character will be dead in the second. It makes you really think that when they reach a moment in Mass Effect 1, or Mass Effect 2, they're decisions that can impact the ending of the trilogy. That realization will make an impact. You'll recognize characters from the first game, and the consequences of decisions from the first game.

 

 

Now, Casey Hudson seems like a nice guy, but he tends to blow smoke up the customer's ***. He's the marketing dude; that's what they pay him for.

 

The question is: How much of this is accurate?

 

I don't understand.

 

Is Casey saying that each choice an individual player made in playing ME1 is going to have an effect in ME2? It sounds like he is. But how is that going to work? Will you have to import a final save from ME1 into ME2 so ME 2 knows what choices you made? What if you never played ME1? DO you have to answer a questionaire about what your choices would have been? Does the game make up some default choices for you?

[Maria Caliban]

I don't understand.

 

Is Casey saying that each choice an individual player made in playing ME1 is going to have an effect in ME2? It sounds like he is. But how is that going to work? Will you have to import a final save from ME1 into ME2 so ME 2 knows what choices you made? What if you never played ME1? DO you have to answer a questionaire about what your choices would have been? Does the game make up some default choices for you?

 

At the end of ME1, a special save game file is created. If you install ME2 on the same system, it will read that file and know what you did in the previous game.

 

If you haven't played ME 2, I believe it works like the backgrounds in the first game.

[Wrath of Dagon]

This stuff is like a summer action movie for me, just pure fun chock full of wooden dialogue and hilariously over-the-top efforts to create empathy in cardboard-cutout characters which were never developed beyond the introduction : "Hi, I'm a Carth wannabee, my childhood was terrible, waaah!"

Fixed that for you.

Double fixed. Edited May 17, 2009 by Wrath of Dagon

[Slowtrain]

At the end of ME1, a special save game file is created. If you install ME2 on the same system, it will read that file and know what you did in the previous game.

 

If you haven't played ME 2, I believe it works like the backgrounds in the first game.

 

 

Awesome. That's pretty ccol. Although with a 2 year dev cycle between games, I don't know how really useful it is.

 

But still, I like the thought.

 

Did ME really have player choices that were significsnt enough to warrant this sort of treatment.

 

If so, I may go buy it.

[Jaesun]

Did ME really have player choices that were significsnt enough to warrant this sort of treatment.

 

If so, I may go buy it.

(NON Spoilerish)

NPC BIG CHOICE!

QUEEN BIG CHOICE!

HUMANS vs COUNCIL BIG CHOICE

WREX CHOICE!

 

That's pretty much all I can think of. They did confirm your NPC BIG CHOICE and WREX CHOICE will for obvious reasons show up in the game. HOW Bioware chooses to play out these choices.... we have to wait and see. Unless they do the typical Bioware..... no matter what you choose... they all lead to the same conclusion.

 

I'm still looking forward to this. I am SO SICK of Fantasy RPG's and I <3 SciFi. And there is not really that much to choose from *cries* Actually I prefer the V:TM setting but that choice is even MORE limited. *cries more*

[Slowtrain]

Interesting. I may go buy this. I didn't realize.

 

I thought ME was just kiddie sky-fi shoot-em-up with cheesepuff combat.

 

Perhaps I was gravely mistaken.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

This stuff KotOR I is like a summer action movie for me, just pure fun chock full of wooden dialogue and hilariously over-the-top efforts to create empathy in cardboard-cutout characters which were never developed beyond the introduction : "Hi, I'm a Carth wannabee, my childhood life was terrible, waaah!"

Fixed that for you.

Double fixed.

 

[Volourn]

"You should have it full turnbased or actual hands-on realtime control, that kind of half-assed compromise only makes nuts like Volo happy"

 

The hilarious thing then is thata ccording to you there's a lot of nuts like me then since A LOT of people seem to enjoy and are happy with the IE/Aurora/KOTOR type combat.

 

R00fles!

[Maria Caliban]

Awesome. That's pretty ccol. Although with a 2 year dev cycle between games, I don't know how really useful it is.

 

What do you mean?

 

But still, I like the thought.

 

Did ME really have player choices that were significsnt enough to warrant this sort of treatment.

 

If so, I may go buy it.

 

... yes. I wouldn't go out and buy it just yet. I'd wait until people talk about how well these consequences are implemented in ME2. It could be a few throwaway lines of speech and a single, specific quest that

[Hurlshort]

Interesting. I may go buy this. I didn't realize.

 

I thought ME was just kiddie sky-fi shoot-em-up with cheesepuff combat.

 

Perhaps I was gravely mistaken.

 

Your synopsis is correct, but I enjoyed the storyline and characters enough that the combat and gameplay weren't a big deal.

[Morgoth]

I think that's kinda a waste of time, importing the save data and shaping the beginning of ME2 according to this. Heck, I already can't remember anymore what I did in my last ME walthrough, let alone if I have the savegames somewhere left. I think I'll start fresh from scratch with ME2. Wrex, I don't care, but I better get Ashley back so that I finally get a chance to do nice happy sexy lovely things with her. Ho ho. Ho...