Mass Effect Legendary Edition - Coming 2021

By FTS Gecko, in X-Wing Off-Topic

18 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

How about the import feature actually working for 3. IIRC, at least at launch, if you tried to import a ME2 to ME3 character that you had previously imported from ME1, it would just give you a default face. Can't recall if they ever fixed this.

They fixed that after like a week. It looked bad at the time, but people very quickly forgot about it.

Only problem is that they used different assets and facial structuring for 3, so most people's characters came out looking a bit different. I remember there was even a mod tool on PC that tried to fix some of the worst of it. I did a whole thing of copying my Xbox saves to a USB, converting them to PC format, running them through this tool and then converting back. Huge amount of effort, and while it improved one character, the other ended up with this weird single, untextured vertex sticking out from her chin that meant in some animations there was a weird black dot just floating there.

So yeah, if they could fix things so that your ME3 character actually looks like your ME1/2 character, that'd be great.

They clearly won't, though, as this is obviously just going to be an elaborate HD texture pack and some lighting improvements.

On 11/10/2020 at 10:51 PM, MasterShake2 said:

The ME:3 Earth DLC was awesome. I loved the N7 Shadow class. Being able to teleport behind a Phantom and instant kill her was so gratifying.

Ehhhhh. I really didn't like how they were mostly just asset reuse from the Cerberus units.

I loved the ME3 multiplayer, but it definitely suffered from the issue where the newer classes just dwarfed the originals and made the experience seriously sucky for a newbie. I remember when I switched to PC after a sale, and had to build up my multiplayer stash from the ground up despite having played to a pretty high level on Xbox. Being stuck with the default classes after experience wonky ***** classes like the krogan hammer guy and the ex-cerberus biotics was a miserable experience. I used to have so much fun with my C-Sec inspired basic human Engineer running around with nothing but a Phalanx pistol, a tech drone and nigh on instant recharge Overcharge. But if you wanted to play Platinum difficulty with the big boys, it just stopped being viable.

The classic Pay To Win problem.

Sadly, something else I don't see being corrected for this version. The multiplayer was definitely popular enough that EA will bank on nostalgia to keep nickle and diming players for upgrade crates even though most of the playerbase will be double or even (as in my case) triple dipping just to buy the remasters in the first place.

1 hour ago, GuacCousteau said:

They fixed that after like a week. It looked bad at the time, but people very quickly forgot about it.

Only problem is that they used different assets and facial structuring for 3, so most people's characters came out looking a bit different.

Yeah, it was the same with imports from ME1 to ME2. The biggie there was the Renegade "scarring effect" you could get in ME2, which IIRC didn't combine with the facial scarring options from ME1. All three games contained graphical updates and improvements though, so it's no surprise they didn't end up being 100% accurate.

1 hour ago, GuacCousteau said:

Ehhhhh. I really didn't like how they were mostly just asset reuse from the Cerberus units.

I loved the ME3 multiplayer, but it definitely suffered from the issue where the newer classes just dwarfed the originals and made the experience seriously sucky for a newbie. I remember when I switched to PC after a sale, and had to build up my multiplayer stash from the ground up despite having played to a pretty high level on Xbox. Being stuck with the default classes after experience wonky ***** classes like the krogan hammer guy and the ex-cerberus biotics was a miserable experience. I used to have so much fun with my C-Sec inspired basic human Engineer running around with nothing but a Phalanx pistol, a tech drone and nigh on instant recharge Overcharge. But if you wanted to play Platinum difficulty with the big boys, it just stopped being viable.

The classic Pay To Win problem.

Couldn't you import your multiplayer data then? I'm sure it was possible to transfer your multiplayer profile with the EA/Bioware account...

It was gratifying that all of the multiplayer DLC packs were free of charge, it went a long way to keeping the community active. Personally, I never paid for a single loot box during my time playing in ME3. I unlocked all of the characters, upgrades and maxed out most of the weapons (bar the ultra rares) through gameplay alone. Given what happened with Battlefront II (and the current political discussion over loot crates in general) I'd be very surprised if microtransactions are a thing in the Legendary edition. It'll be the classic Play to Win problem. ๐Ÿ˜†

Some of the DLC characters were definitely far superior to the starting set (looking at you, Geth Juggernaut), but I still played the original cast regularly enough. Or the aliens, at least - Asari Adept/Vanguard, Turian Soldier, Salarian Infiltrator etc. The only ones I didn't really get much mileage from were the stock human male/female.

I remember one of my last games was joining a Gold lobby with a low-to-mid level Asari character, and one of the party bleating about me not being ready for Gold and trying to ick me. Quickly changed their tune when I ended up dragging the team through wave 9 and to the EZ...

10 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Yeah, it was the same with imports from ME1 to ME2. The biggie there was the Renegade "scarring effect" you could get in ME2, which IIRC didn't combine with the facial scarring options from ME1. All three games contained graphical updates and improvements though, so it's no surprise they didn't end up being 100% accurate.

Couldn't you import your multiplayer data then? I'm sure it was possible to transfer your multiplayer profile with the EA/Bioware account...

It was gratifying that all of the multiplayer DLC packs were free of charge, it went a long way to keeping the community active. Personally, I never paid for a single loot box during my time playing in ME3. I unlocked all of the characters, upgrades and maxed out most of the weapons (bar the ultra rares) through gameplay alone. Given what happened with Battlefront II (and the current political discussion over loot crates in general) I'd be very surprised if microtransactions are a thing in the Legendary edition. It'll be the classic Play to Win problem. ๐Ÿ˜†

Some of the DLC characters were definitely far superior to the starting set (looking at you, Geth Juggernaut), but I still played the original cast regularly enough. Or the aliens, at least - Asari Adept/Vanguard, Turian Soldier, Salarian Infiltrator etc. The only ones I didn't really get much mileage from were the stock human male/female.

I remember one of my last games was joining a Gold lobby with a low-to-mid level Asari character, and one of the party bleating about me not being ready for Gold and trying to ick me. Quickly changed their tune when I ended up dragging the team through wave 9 and to the EZ...

Do you remember getting vote-kicked when you'd go in a lobby as a Human Vanguard? That happened all the time. People did not like having that class on their team. CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA,

2 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Do you remember getting vote-kicked when you'd go in a lobby as a Human Vanguard? That happened all the time. People did not like having that class on their team. CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA, CHARGE, NOVA,

Yeah, that was one of the big complaints when the game first came out. It died down a bit once a few new characters were introduced though and people moved on. Drell Vanguards with Cluster Grenades, Krogan Headbutt parties... one of my favourite powers was Lash when the Cerberus defector classes arrived on the scene. It was nerfed eventually, but you could yeet units into low orbit with it, hilarious ๐Ÿ˜‚

OMG, when they dropped the four Volus classes, me and three friends all each picked one and ran a bunch of missions. We never died, but we couldn't kill anything...except for collectors, they would just murder Volus. Literally 30 minute gold games.

46 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

OMG, when they dropped the four Volus classes, me and three friends all each picked one and ran a bunch of missions. We never died, but we couldn't kill anything...except for collectors, they would just murder Volus. Literally 30 minute gold games.

"I AM A BIOTIC GOD!" The Volus were hilarious. Good old Thunderballs.

I was so glad when the Collectors returned, such a great enemy faction. And released at the same time as the Hazards and Platinum too...

... I was just disappointed Harby didn't ake an appearance like he did in the trailer!

Detonating Abominations in the Extraction Zone with 10 seconds to go for the win!

22 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Yeah, it was the same with imports from ME1 to ME2. The biggie there was the Renegade "scarring effect" you could get in ME2, which IIRC didn't combine with the facial scarring options from ME1. All three games contained graphical updates and improvements though, so it's no surprise they didn't end up being 100% accurate.

I'd forgotten about the scars not carrying over, actually.

That was the only issue from ME1 to 2 though, right? The face gen used the same basic geometry and options so the face shape stayed the same. There was maybe some tweaking to things like alpha shaders for the hair models too, though they were definitely the same 3d assets.

The hair models themselves changed from 2 to 3 though. Like, the female ponytail option got thinner and sleeker and gained two little curls at the front.

22 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Couldn't you import your multiplayer data then? I'm sure it was possible to transfer your multiplayer profile with the EA/Bioware account...

It was gratifying that all of the multiplayer DLC packs were free of charge, it went a long way to keeping the community active. Personally, I never paid for a single loot box during my time playing in ME3. I unlocked all of the characters, upgrades and maxed out most of the weapons (bar the ultra rares) through gameplay alone. Given what happened with Battlefront II (and the current political discussion over loot crates in general) I'd be very surprised if microtransactions are a thing in the Legendary edition. It'll be the classic Play to Win problem. ๐Ÿ˜†

Some of the DLC characters were definitely far superior to the starting set (looking at you, Geth Juggernaut), but I still played the original cast regularly enough. Or the aliens, at least - Asari Adept/Vanguard, Turian Soldier, Salarian Infiltrator etc. The only ones I didn't really get much mileage from were the stock human male/female.

I remember one of my last games was joining a Gold lobby with a low-to-mid level Asari character, and one of the party bleating about me not being ready for Gold and trying to ick me. Quickly changed their tune when I ended up dragging the team through wave 9 and to the EZ...

Possibly. There was some reason I couldn't carry over, anyway.

I'm not sure I ever had an EA account for the console versions of ME. Or if I did, it was tied to my Xbox gamertag and my PC Origin account used a more up to date email.

Something like that.

It wasn't a huge deal or anything, just exposed me a bit to what life was like for someone new to the game after all the DLC drops. It was kinda sucky for the first dozen games are so. I got kicked a bunch too.

You must have played a lot to max most things by unlocking alone. I never paid for a loot box either, but the grind definitely edged into frustrating over fun for me.

I really liked the multiplayer, but I will admit it started to wear on me when every game turned from 'small team of council race specialists' to 'bright pink get juggernauts fighting with volus who use spinny blue balls'.

I wasn't a huge fan of what the team that worked on the multiplayer did with biotics. They turned them from cool physics based powers to space magic pretty quickly. Lift, throw, Singularity and barrier all made sense to me with what we're told about the titular mass effect. Charge was the first one I was sketchy on, but that was the core team and a ton of fun so.... whatever. But things like Lash and those biotic orbs were just straight up fantasy ********.

Yes, multiplayer was more fun than story - but it still got to a point where my immersion and suspension of disbelief were being seriously tested.

Honestly, I'd love it if they rebalanced the multiplayer a little bit for this edition. Maybe do something to reduce the randomness of weapon and character drops too. It'd be cool if they could add a breakdown/crafting system like Inquisition's multiplayer so that if you're getting classes and weapons you don't want, you can take some form of resource instead and build up to weapons/classes you do want.

4 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

You must have played a lot to max most things by unlocking alone...

Oh, I did. I did. I put it up there with Left 4 Dead as one of the best multiplayer games I've played.

To be honest, most of the time I was playing with randoms in Gold matches. If I remember right every two Gold wins would net you a crate with at least one Rare and a good chance for an Ultra Rare. The RNG let you unlock the characters pretty quickly and the new weapons didn't take too long to unlock either, it was just levelling them up to X that took a while.

I thought the way Biotics and Tech powers worked in ME3 was pretty well done from an action point of view. Priming and detonating Biotic explosions was a lot of fun, and it let you focus on power and class based abilities rather than just relying on weapons the entire time.

Saw this great retrospective on Mass Effect's multiplayer on YouTube earlier. I'm sure there's a tabletop miniatures game in there somewhere.

YES. OH YES.

20 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

YES. OH YES.

Liara has some wrinkles. Maybe she's a matriach? Way in the future, then?

Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies are shown, then we focus in to the MW. Not surprising. Either it's a tongue-in-cheek thing saying "we know you want more of this and not more of that," or maybe it's a way of saying "we know Andromeda didn't meet expectations but we still have plans for that... just not right now." FWIW I liked Andromeda, though it didn't live up to the rest of the games for me. I don't think it will be connected to this game but it's possible that they've gotten FTL working to the point of intergalactic travel. While I would like to know what happened in Andromeda, I think it makes more sense to keep it contained to one galaxy. But my speculation below allows for it in some spots.

There's a Reaper corpse/shell in the background on the snowy planet. I don't think this indicates the reapers are back but rather that they are indeed not the threat at hand.

That can't be Shepherd's N7 gear, right? That doesn't look like Earth but I suppose Shepherd could have lost some of that gear on another planet before the end of the game. (last bit of ME3 happens on Earth)

Near the ship, there's a Krogan, what I'm fairly sure is a Salarian, and another humanoid. Could be human or krell. Doesn't appear to have Turian legs. There's a part of me that wants them to be Angara, since we're so far in the future maybe FTL is that good now, or maybe they sent a reverse ark back to the MW. But their legs also have different turns in them than humans. Same for Turians. Though for Angar and Turians, it's a bit less pronounced and that part of the video is pretty blurry.

If there is a "matriarch time jump" the Krogan could also be one we know from the original trilogy (or Andromeda, if they connected the galaxies through FTL). I wouldn't expect Wrex or Grunt since both of them have potential deaths in the original trilogy and Wrex was already pretty old (I've seen estimates putting him close to a millennia based on events he's said to have been involved in). Likewise Nakmor Drak from Andromeda probably was already too old. Grunt maybe, with save file/choice during game start that he survives. If Andromeda is connected, maybe Nakmor Kesh could show up. I'm sure there are some other cool choices we could grab from the trilogy but it's been longer since I've played those (I'll be jumping back in with the remaster).

Anyway, enough wild speculation for today.

2 hours ago, CaptainJaguarShark said:

Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies are shown, then we focus in to the MW. Not surprising. Either it's a tongue-in-cheek thing saying "we know you want more of this and not more of that," or maybe it's a way of saying "we know Andromeda didn't meet expectations but we still have plans for that... just not right now." FWIW I liked Andromeda, though it didn't live up to the rest of the games for me.

I picked up Andromeda on sale, but haven't actually played it yet. This news might prompt me to dive in and give it a playthrough.

I'm currently finishing up a lockdown-induced run through the Baldur's Gate series. It might be 20+ years old now, but it still stands the test of time and remains my favourite D&D rpg of all time. In fact, it's probably a close call with the Witcher III as my favourite rpg of all time, full stop. Bioware remain my fsvourite developer, but CD Projekt Red are getting awful close.

2 hours ago, CaptainJaguarShark said:

Anyway, enough wild speculation for today.

There's certainly a lot to unpack from such a short trailer, not least the implications of there being dead Reapers and wrecked Mass Relays in the first place.

But it's early days yet; I imagine we won't see the final product until 2023 at the earliest. And that's good - I wasn't as annoyed by ME3 as many were, but there were definitely signs of it being rushed. If Bioware need time to get back to their top form, let them have all they need!

2 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

I picked up Andromeda on sale, but haven't actually played it yet. This news might prompt me to dive in and give it a playthrough.

I'm currently finishing up a lockdown-induced run through the Baldur's Gate series. It might be 20+ years old now, but it still stands the test of time and remains my favourite D&D rpg of all time. In fact, it's probably a close call with the Witcher III as my favourite rpg of all time, full stop. Bioware remain my fsvourite developer, but CD Projekt Red are getting awful close.

There's certainly a lot to unpack from such a short trailer, not least the implications of there being dead Reapers and wrecked Mass Relays in the first place.

But it's early days yet; I imagine we won't see the final product until 2023 at the earliest. And that's good - I wasn't as annoyed by ME3 as many were, but there were definitely signs of it being rushed. If Bioware need time to get back to their top form, let them have all they need!

Oh, I thought the wreckage was the Citadel. Which is technically a relay. Weren't the relays also destroyed as an impact of the end of ME3? (at least some endings)

10 hours ago, CaptainJaguarShark said:

Oh, I thought the wreckage was the Citadel. Which is technically a relay. Weren't the relays also destroyed as an impact of the end of ME3? (at least some endings)

Yeah, the Reapers and Relays were destroyed in one ending. I'd have to check, but I don't recall if presumably the Citadel and the Crucible were destroyed as well, but there's an awful lot of wreckage floating about in the trailer.

There's not only a Reaper in the background in the Liars scene - I've seen people say she appears to be walking ON a snow-covered Reaper.

It certainly looks as though we're seeing an ending for ME3 canonised.

I remember - I think it was Casey Hudson - talking about the ambiguity of the endings a while back. He said something like "Well, Ridley Scott never confirmed or denied anything with Blade Runner". Then of course, we got a sequel.

I hate that I can't get excited for what used to be my favourite franchise.

I've just been burned too many times at this point by sequels made by different creative teams from the originals. Even the original lost talent over its run, and that showed.

Big time skip is reasonable, given the ending of 3. It was always going to take a long time for things to get back to anything like normal. My worry is that they will assume the future needs lots of tech advancements and we'll lose the grounded feel of the first two games in favour of the space magic that 3 started to bring in.

The relay wreckage is interesting. That was one of the major sticking points of the original ending. The relays were completely destroyed, which implied doom for all the characters as they were now all stranded. It ruined even the sweet part of the bittersweet ending, and it was really telling that they specifically changed it in the Extended Cut to just show them damaged . The wreckage of the relay might imply they're going back on that now and we're going to have a horrible setting where all these worlds have been cut off and isolated for hundreds of years.

.... I dunno. I'm just not interested in trudging through a graveyard galaxy or a plot that's trying to rebuild an old status quo. I don't see how they're ever going to recapture the feeling of exploration and newness that ME1 had, with humans as these freshfaced underdogs. They tried that with Andromeda and it just didn't work.

Maybe the worst part of this is that the strongest vibes I'm getting from this is Star Trek Discovery Season 3. Which just...... no thanks.

6 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

.... I dunno. I'm just not interested in trudging through a graveyard galaxy or a plot that's trying to rebuild an old status quo. I don't see how they're ever going to recapture the feeling of exploration and newness that ME1 had, with humans as these freshfaced underdogs. They tried that with Andromeda and it just didn't work.

While I personally enjoyed Andromeda with all of its flaws, I agree with this sentiment. ME1 felt like discovering new frontiers more so than any of the other games, and that feeling of humans being on the bottom rungs compared to everyone they dealt with.

There was never a point where I didn't feel like the council races in Andromeda weren't a bunch of colonizing imperial asshats (as a whole, individuals varied). Sure, you help the Angarans from being assimilated but it almost felt transactional (we helped you, now let us be on these planets you live on) and I'm not sure they could have stopped them if Nexus command decided they wanted to settle without permission, so it even feels a bit like bullying into those territories. ME2/ME3 felt somewhat like being half cop/half savior of the entire **** universe which is weird. There's stuff I love about all of these games, though. They all certainly had exploration stuff but ME1 definitely captured the feel of that best.

9 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

The relay wreckage is interesting. That was one of the major sticking points of the original ending. The relays were completely destroyed, which implied doom for all the characters as they were now all stranded...

Actual quote from the voices in the trailer: "Is anyone recieving this? We've lost contact!"

Yeah, the Mass Relays look like they've been obliterated. And the quote would suggest that yes, the worlds and species in the galaxy are isolated and stranded. That doesn't spell doom, though. It just means that things will need to change. That the various species in the galaxy will need to find a new way.

Which - considering the point of the first three games was to end an endlessly repeating cycle of annihilation - seems pretty appropriate.

It's a new beginning . That's what Shepard fought for. Right?

Haven't seen any of Star Trek Discovery so the comparison is totally lost on me But the vibe I got from the (one minute forty-three second) teaser trailer was pure, unadulterated Mass Effect.

13 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

The relay wreckage is interesting. That was one of the major sticking points of the original ending. The relays were completely destroyed, which implied doom for all the characters as they were now all stranded. It ruined even the sweet part of the bittersweet ending, and it was really telling that they specifically changed it in the Extended Cut to just show them damaged . The wreckage of the relay might imply they're going back on that now and we're going to have a horrible setting where all these worlds have been cut off and isolated for hundreds of years.

3 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Yeah, the Mass Relays look like they've been obliterated. And the quote would suggest that yes, the worlds and species in the galaxy are isolated and stranded. That doesn't spell doom, though. It just means that things will need to change. That the various species in the galaxy will need to find a new way.


So this is just incorrect flat out. I need to address this quite badly.

People very easily forget that FTL travel is still a thing in Mass Effect. Yes, Mass Relays definitely are helpful but are very far from the end-all-be-all of space travel. Indeed, the entirety of Mass Effect: Andromeda takes place with absolutely zero Mass Relay tech (technically. It IS strange that the Angara's weapons - not The Kett's, used the same or similar mass driver technology that utilizes Eezo as the Milky Way races' weapons did...), so it was no trouble. Sure, travel was more limited but did it feel very slow to you all at all? Didn't to me.

But the thing is, FTL was used plenty in the original game.


1000?cb=20080725051654
https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/FTL
So, yeah.

Nobody's stranded or abandoned. Not to be a jerk but it does pay to pay attention to the lore of the setting itself. Granted, as a kid I slaved over the codex and memorized a majority of it. Andromeda's,
"Tempest" can travel at 13LY/D. The Milky Way is roughly... 100,000LY end to end. From edge to core, 50k. If my math and measurements are right, The Citadel in its original position, where it currently is not but hey, you know, why not use this - is ~13,500LY away from earth. Girlfriend helped with a little math here, that'd be about... Ah, yikes. 1,038 days travel. That seems a little excessive, but hey. It's about right if the sluggish pace of 13LY/D is to be believed.

Unless my math is all frakking wrong and it's like... 138 days.

Okay, so 2.8y to get to The Serpent Nebula from The Local Cluster is pretty bad, especially compared to the Mass Relay nigh hours time, but... Here's the thing.

How hard are Mass Relays to build, really? Why NOT build your own networks. The Crucible happened and though it took everyone... Well... Everyone's at Sol at the end of 3. Might... as well try to build a relay. Point it in different directions and adjust its trajectory. Unless of course you have to build two to connect, in which case, well yes that does get far more complicated. But consider the fleets and productions the Citadel races were able to make.

These Mass Relays would NOT be impossible to build yourself. Sol itself as a system, has the resources to build more Relays.

8 hours ago, KCDodger said:

So this is just incorrect flat out. I need to address this quite badly.

...it's really not. At least, not for the forseeable future after ME3. Short term (5-10 years after ME3, at least), the civilisations in the Milky Way are stranded / isolated. And a LOT can happen in the space of 5 / 10 years, especially when a large percentage of that civilisation's military forces are on the other side of the galaxy.

Of course conventional FTL is possible - less than 20 years after the discovery of the Charon relay, humanity had already developed FTL technology (admittedly it could only manage around 0.15 light years per day, but it was there). FTL drives are essentially a basic requirement for travelling around a star system in anything like a reasonable time frame.

Also, you can't say things like

8 hours ago, KCDodger said:

...Not to be a jerk but it does pay to pay attention to the lore of the setting itself...

only to follow up with

8 hours ago, KCDodger said:

How hard are Mass Relays to build, really? Why NOT build your own networks. The Crucible happened and though it took everyone... Well... Everyone's at Sol at the end of 3. Might... as well try to build a relay. Point it in different directions and adjust its trajectory. Unless of course you have to build two to connect, in which case, well yes that does get far more complicated...

Yes, relay travel is dependent on interconnected relays. You need one at each end.

From the Codex entry:

"..Primary mass relays can propel ships thousands of light years, often from one spiral arm of the galaxy to another. However, they have fixed one-to-one connections : a primary relay connects to one other primary relay, and nowhere else. Secondary relays can only propel ships a few hundred light years, however they are omnidirectional: a secondary relay can send a ship to any other relay within its limited range.

There are many dormant primary relays whose corresponding twins have not yet been located. These are left inactive until their partner is charted, as established civilizations are unwilling to blindly open a passage that might connect them to a hostile species..."

But it's not just travel that's impacted by the loss of the Relays either; interstellar communications are as well, which would make a co-ordinated effort to rebuild or repair the network an even more daunting prospect.

During ME3, the only way the Normandy is able to stay in contact with Anderson on Earth is through the use of paired quantum entanglement devices, which are in an incredibly short supply. Plus of course, you'd need to send the interconnected QECs to the appropriate locations in the first place...

The fleets of each species were gathered at Earth at the end of ME3, and would need to return to their (devastated) home worlds. If this journey takes 2+ years via conventional FTL, and the fleets stick around long enough to build enough QECs to create a viable temporary communication network before they leave, then you're looking at a 3+ year power vacuum before interstellar communications are restored and a rebuilding process can even begin.

Assuming they don't run into problems at the other end. With a power vacuum like that, who knows what the fleets will find when they return home?

9 hours ago, KCDodger said:

These Mass Relays would NOT be impossible to build yourself.

No, not impossible, but far from easy. The Protheans managed to do it - once - with the Conduit.

Even if you get around the obvious issue of building multiple relays at multiple positions in the galaxy that connect directly to each other during an interstellar communications outage, at the time of ME3, a lot of the technology behind them is still unknown. They require vast amounts of Element Zero to operate, no one really understands how they work or even the material they're constructed from.

Of course, were Reaper technology, through and through. There's the remains of the Charon relay to investigate, and what's left of the Citadel and the Crucible to scavenge. And there's all these dead Reapers lying around for salvage, so there's that.

Unfortunately, as we know from the IFF mission in ME2, even a dead God can dream...

On 12/17/2020 at 10:39 AM, GuacCousteau said:

I 've just been burned too many times at this point by sequels made by different creative teams from the originals. Even the original lost talent over its run, and that showed.

If I can alieviate this worry somewhat, it looks like Biowate are reuniting a lot of the core crew from the Mass Effect series for this one.

https://www.gamesradar.com/mass-effect-team-reunite-as-several-bioware-veterans-join-development-of-new-game /

...which is great to see. Mike Gamble's Twitter makes for hopeful reading right now.

I'm all for the original game developers - you know, the people who have lived and breathed a franchise and worked their assets off over the years making a game a huge success - getting the opportunity to deliver the goods and continue doing what they love.

*cough*

8 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

...it's really not. At least, not for the forseeable future after ME3. Short term (5-10 years after ME3, at least), the civilisations in the Milky Way are stranded / isolated. And a LOT can happen in the space of 5 / 10 years, especially when a large percentage of that civilisation's military forces are on the other side of the galaxy.

Of course conventional FTL is possible - less than 20 years after the discovery of the Charon relay, humanity had already developed FTL technology (admittedly it could only manage around 0.15 light years per day, but it was there). FTL drives are essentially a basic requirement for travelling around a star system in anything like a reasonable time frame.

Also, you can't say things like

only to follow up with

Yes, relay travel is dependent on interconnected relays. You need one at each end.

From the Codex entry:

"..Primary mass relays can propel ships thousands of light years, often from one spiral arm of the galaxy to another. However, they have fixed one-to-one connections : a primary relay connects to one other primary relay, and nowhere else. Secondary relays can only propel ships a few hundred light years, however they are omnidirectional: a secondary relay can send a ship to any other relay within its limited range.

There are many dormant primary relays whose corresponding twins have not yet been located. These are left inactive until their partner is charted, as established civilizations are unwilling to blindly open a passage that might connect them to a hostile species..."

But it's not just travel that's impacted by the loss of the Relays either; interstellar communications are as well, which would make a co-ordinated effort to rebuild or repair the network an even more daunting prospect.

During ME3, the only way the Normandy is able to stay in contact with Anderson on Earth is through the use of paired quantum entanglement devices, which are in an incredibly short supply. Plus of course, you'd need to send the interconnected QECs to the appropriate locations in the first place...

The fleets of each species were gathered at Earth at the end of ME3, and would need to return to their (devastated) home worlds. If this journey takes 2+ years via conventional FTL, and the fleets stick around long enough to build enough QECs to create a viable temporary communication network before they leave, then you're looking at a 3+ year power vacuum before interstellar communications are restored and a rebuilding process can even begin.

Assuming they don't run into problems at the other end. With a power vacuum like that, who knows what the fleets will find when they return home?

No, not impossible, but far from easy. The Protheans managed to do it - once - with the Conduit.

Even if you get around the obvious issue of building multiple relays at multiple positions in the galaxy that connect directly to each other during an interstellar communications outage, at the time of ME3, a lot of the technology behind them is still unknown. They require vast amounts of Element Zero to operate, no one really understands how they work or even the material they're constructed from.

Of course, were Reaper technology, through and through. There's the remains of the Charon relay to investigate, and what's left of the Citadel and the Crucible to scavenge. And there's all these dead Reapers lying around for salvage, so there's that.

Unfortunately, as we know from the IFF mission in ME2, even a dead God can dream...

All very ture and good points sure, but they're not doomed is what I'm saying.

17 minutes ago, KCDodger said:

All very ture and good points sure, but they're not doomed is what I'm saying.

Totally agree with you there.

I reckon seeing the galaxy at the stage where it's struggling to recover and rebuild - while trying desperately to avoid the mistakes of the past - could be a really cool story.

Wonder which race is most likely to try and make a power grab in the aftermath?

1 hour ago, FTS Gecko said:

Totally agree with you there.

I reckon seeing the galaxy at the stage where it's struggling to recover and rebuild - while trying desperately to avoid the mistakes of the past - could be a really cool story.

Wonder which race is most likely to try and make a power grab in the aftermath?

Krogans would be in a good position if the Genophage was cured. They can live basically forever and could absolutely breed armies in the time it takes to get from point A to point B.
Turians have loads of military might.
Salarians are likely not in a good state.
Humans are in a bad state as well and very very very scattered.
Asari will likely be just fine.
Quarians... Should be okay.
Batarians are screwed.
Elcor should be okay.
Volus should be fine.
Hanar, fine.
Drell, no reason to be doomed utterly but not doing great.
Vorcha will be okay.
Rachni, jury's out on them. Should be okayish?

7 minutes ago, KCDodger said:

Krogans would be in a good position if the Genophage was cured. They can live basically forever and could absolutely breed armies in the time it takes to get from point A to point B.
Turians have loads of military might.
Salarians are likely not in a good state.
Humans are in a bad state as well and very very very scattered.
Asari will likely be just fine.
Quarians... Should be okay.
Batarians are screwed.
Elcor should be okay.
Volus should be fine.
Hanar, fine.
Drell, no reason to be doomed utterly but not doing great.
Vorcha will be okay.
Rachni, jury's out on them. Should be okayish?

One big candidate: the Yagh.

Incredibly powerful, incredibly intelligent and incredibly aggressive.

A single Yagh became one of the most powerful figures in the galaxy as Shadow Broker.

And apparently, the Yagh homeworld was all but untouched by the Reaper invasion.