Bioware General (Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Other)

[Dragaros]

https://twitter.com/DirtyEffinHippy/sta ... 8715997184

"Here GameInformer’s Liana Ruppert (big ME & DA fan who has done a lot of coverage for MELE and so on, including lots of dev interviews) says the next Mass Effect is at least 4 years away."

[Dragaros]

https://www.pcgamer.com/mass-effect-leg ... v-fix-mod/

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... on/mods/17

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... tion/mods/

"There’s now an FOV fix mod for MELE, among others."

[Dragaros]

https://www.ea.com/games/mass-effect/ma ... pdate-5-17

[[ "The following are fixes and improvements we’ve made across all platforms in this update.

General

Fixed the main issue where the launcher would crash or become unresponsive on Xbox Series X when using a wireless headset
Known issue: This can still happen if you enable/disable a headset in the launcher. A future fix will resolve this issue.
Improved iris shaders for better interaction with light and ambient occlusion
Minor calibrations, fixes, and stability improvements

Mass Effect

Improved terrain textures
Fixed an issue where kills for achievements/trophies weren’t tracking correctly

Mass Effect & Mass Effect 2

Resolved an issue where the character code would sometimes not display in the squad menu
Improvements to pre-rendered cutscenes to reduce occasional artifacts

Mass Effect 2

Improved lighting and shadows in some cinematics
Minor visual, rendering, and VFX improvements on some levels
Resolved minor text issues with achievements

Mass Effect 3

Fixed an issue where kills for achievements/trophies weren’t tracking correctly." ]]

[Dragaros]

[magnuskn]

https://www.pcgamer.com/mass-effect-legendary-edition-fov-fix-mod/

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... on/mods/17

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectleg ... tion/mods/

"There’s now an FOV fix mod for MELE, among others."

Well, seems that modding is quite possible for MELE. So hopefully people will be porting MEHEM soon.

[magnuskn]

Finished ME1, with a playtime of 35 hours, everything done, including the tedious collector missions. All to get that one dialogue chain from Conrad.

Let's see how long ME2 takes.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IH-8JIvf-Y

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

Is it just me or do the Elcor look even more muscular?

[Dragaros]

"Why yes, I too play Mass Effect for the PLOT™ and no other reason..."

[magnuskn]

Yeah, the Elcor retexturing was quite noticeable. They went from elephant dudes to ripped elephant dudes.

[Alienmorph]

So looks like they managed to sneak in at least one redesign:



Kelly Chambers is now Karen Chambers lol Looks a lot like the kind of "remodeling" they did to make "less overly-feminine" the characters in ME:A. Maybe she was redone earlier and then it became clear redesigning all the characters would have taken too much time and money?

Or maybe they just screwed the pooch trying to make ME2 and ME3 Kelly look more like the same character, ngl, I could barely recognize Chambers when I came across her in ME3 back in the days.

Given the character, it's not that big a deal. Traynor >>> Kelly, anyways. But I'd be curious to know what happened here. Also why are always the redheads getting the short end of the stick?

[magnuskn]

I mean, holy shit. She looks markedly inferior to her prior model. The hell went wrong here?

[TTTX]

I mean, holy shit. She looks markedly inferior to her prior model. The hell went wrong here?

well there seems to be a hatered against red heads in fiction these last few years (a lot of them seems to be replaced with black people most of the time mostly in films and tv, has also happened in comics as seen with red head Walley West, from DC, was replace by a black Walley West) or maybe it's just a rush job that went wrong.

probably the later, but it's really odd they made her brown instead of the redish she had before and in ME3.

[Someone With Mass]

Finished ME1, with a playtime of 35 hours, everything done, including the tedious collector missions. All to get that one dialogue chain from Conrad.

Let's see how long ME2 takes.

Oh, speaking of which, I wonder if they have fixed his import bug that makes him tell you that you were an asshole to him in ME2 no matter what you did in ME1.

[magnuskn]

I hope not, because that gets a hilarious line in ME3, where he apologizes that he was so stressed out at the time of ME2 that he made that whole "you were being an asshole" thing up.

[SciFlyBoy]

I'm on Feros for my first mission in ME1. Found some bugs with some missions where the squadmates would stay put in the underground water ways while I fight back geth and charging krogan with only my pistol. (Playing Insanity with solider BUTTTTTTT I can only use a pistol challenge) Also they didn't go into the varren room. I would holster my gun and they'd fly to me, but take it out and they'd disappear. Also after I returned from ExoGeni, Garrus repeatedly wouldn't come up the elevator so I had to do the colonist mission without him. I had to open the passage to the Thoridan before he showed up but then he'd be just a floating figure, not walking or responding when I'd talk to him or taking out his weapon. Also during this mission the audio would cut out of the game until I holstered my weapon. When I take it back out the audio would pop and go silent again until I holstered my gun. Saved the game at that point, heading to the Thorian when I play next. I'm on the Xbox. Anyone experience something similar?

Still can't get that one ExoGeni guy to not die after returning from taking out the geth. All my past playthroughs except my very first ever I couldn't get him to not die. Charm is maxed out, can't figure out what to do.

One issue I have with the updated HUD is that your squadmates have the same shield/health bar floating in front of you as the enemy has. So it's difficult to pinpoint which health bars are badguys and which are yours, especially when badies cluster around you.

Also, not a fan of the huge avatar heads on the HUD that ME2 introduced. Though it is amusing when, say you're at Chora's Den and you're ducking behind the counter, and you bring up your power wheel to see Wrex's upper profile staring back at you from the other side of the bar because you angled it perfectly.

The game looks the same to me, but that's a credit to the work that went into giving everything the same updated look. I have nothing jarring, or old to look back to when I play, so I'm immersed. Did notice a lack of funky shadows on character's faces which is good.

Forgot how important it is to have someone with enough Decryption to hack the consoles. Good thing the geth ship mission gives you some XP, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to pick up that info.

The insanity pistol only challenge is really teaching me to appreciate the non-weapon soldier related powers I have. I'm spamming immunity and adrenaline burst now more than I've ever done in the past, where I probably never took advantage of them much because I'd just point my weapon and fire until they died.

[magnuskn]

Uuggggghhhhh. They haven't brought the "helmets off during conversations" option over from ME3 to ME2. No Blood Dragon armor until ME3, I guess, back to the visor. Ah, well, at least I can run interesting color schemes on the existing armor pieces.

Still can't get that one ExoGeni guy to not die after returning from taking out the geth. All my past playthroughs except my very first ever I couldn't get him to not die. Charm is maxed out, can't figure out what to do.

Worked for me, however I did Feros after Noveria and about every secondary mission I could find, so I had charm completely maxed out and my specialization. No idea why it wouldn't work with maximum charm, maybe you also need to be Paragon high enough to pull it off?

[Ragabul]

On the Exogeni guy, if I remember right persuades in ME1 aren't based on entirely on what percentile of the charm bar you've filled but on some black box alchemical fuckery which is like "what percentage of paragon points have you acquired relative to renegade points" or something like that. Some dev explained it on the old forums once but I don't remember precisely how he explained it.

Basically ME punishes you for trying to be paragade or renegon. I would think they would have fixed this, but I guess not.

Zaeed's persuade in his loyalty mission in ME2 has this problem too.

[magnuskn]

On the Exogeni guy, if I remember right persuades in ME1 aren't based on entirely on what percentile of the charm bar you've filled but on some black box alchemical fuckery which is like "what percentage of paragon points have you acquired relative to renegade points" or something like that. Some dev explained it on the old forums once but I don't remember precisely how he explained it.

Basically ME punishes you for trying to be paragade or renegon. I would think they would have fixed this, but I guess not.

Zaeed's persuade in his loyalty mission in ME2 has this problem too.

Seems probable, I always play Paragon, except for some itty bitty Renegade stuff (headbutting a Krogan is just too good to pass up and some other really cool Renegade moments). So I probably just paragoned the shit out of the guy, aside from my maxed persuasion skill.

[Ragabul]

My mainshep is a paragade and I remember having to do some juggling to get persuades to turn out right because sometimes I wanted to use the paragon persuade for some stuff and the renegade for others. I had worked out a pattern for order of play that pretty much worked but I've long since forgotten what that was.

[SciFlyBoy]

Yeah, I thought that I might not have enough accumulated paragon to get that option. Oh well. Off to play to some more!

[Mazder]

Uuggggghhhhh. They haven't brought the "helmets off during conversations" option over from ME3 to ME2. No Blood Dragon armor until ME3, I guess, back to the visor. Ah, well, at least I can run interesting color schemes on the existing armor pieces.

Anyone gotten to ME2 yet to say when we get the armours unlocked?
The first customization bench/unit I got to after the opening had nothing but the unbra visor on it, no blood dragon or anything else.
I hope they'll be available once O get on the SR2...

[magnuskn]

Uuggggghhhhh. They haven't brought the "helmets off during conversations" option over from ME3 to ME2. No Blood Dragon armor until ME3, I guess, back to the visor. Ah, well, at least I can run interesting color schemes on the existing armor pieces.

Anyone gotten to ME2 yet to say when we get the armours unlocked?
The first customization bench/unit I got to after the opening had nothing but the unbra visor on it, no blood dragon or anything else.
I hope they'll be available once O get on the SR2...

You can buy them (pretty cheaply) from market stalls. I got the Blood Dragon armor from a vendor at Omega. Oh, and most of my money from ME1, so I started with about 850k credits. ^^

[Mazder]

You can buy them (pretty cheaply) from market stalls. I got the Blood Dragon armor from a vendor at Omega. Oh, and most of my money from ME1, so I started with about 850k credits. ^^

Oh so instead of just being in the inventory when you start like in ME2 OG they're in Omega.

Also, pfft, I started with over 1 million credits!

Actually doing an ME1 New Game+ and hoarding all the loot to sell right before the final mission is a MASSIVE boost to your ME2 career it seems.

[magnuskn]

You can buy them (pretty cheaply) from market stalls. I got the Blood Dragon armor from a vendor at Omega. Oh, and most of my money from ME1, so I started with about 850k credits. ^^

Oh so instead of just being in the inventory when you start like in ME2 OG they're in Omega.

Also, pfft, I started with over 1 million credits!

Actually doing an ME1 New Game+ and hoarding all the loot to sell right before the final mission is a MASSIVE boost to your ME2 career it seems.

Yeah, I probably should have capped out my money before touching down on Ilium. Not sure if you need a New Game+ to take the maximum amount to ME2, given that money in ME1 caps out at 9.999.999 credits and level 8-10 equipment sells for crazy amounts. I easily capped the maximum amount of money during Feros, but spent a lot of it on the Spectre weapon set for Shepard, when it finally was available at the Citadel.

Also not sure that the armors aren't spread out to vendors on other planets and the Citadel as well, I haven't really played the last two days. Since tomorrow I'm in home office, then I get a long weekend due to the pentecost holiday and Tuesday I'll be in Home Office again, I think I'll catch up, though. ^^

You can get the Geth Plasma Shotgun from a vendor in Omega for a cheap 5.000 credits, which is fricking insane, it's the best shotgun in the game.

[Mazder]

Yeah, I probably should have capped out my money before touching down on Ilium. Not sure if you need a New Game+ to take the maximum amount to ME2, given that money in ME1 caps out at 9.999.999 credits and level 8-10 equipment sells for crazy amounts. I easily capped the maximum amount of money during Feros, but spent a lot of it on the Spectre weapon set for Shepard, when it finally was available at the Citadel.

Also not sure that the armors aren't spread out to vendors on other planets and the Citadel as well, I haven't really played the last two days. Since tomorrow I'm in home office, then I get a long weekend due to the pentecost holiday and Tuesday I'll be in Home Office again, I think I'll catch up, though. ^^

You can get the Geth Plasma Shotgun from a vendor in Omega for a cheap 5.000 credits, which is fricking insane, it's the best shotgun in the game.

Yeah when I saw that and the Mattock I was all "Welp, I'm fucking set!"

[magnuskn]

Yeah when I saw that and the Mattock I was all "Welp, I'm fucking set!"

True. Although they didn't allow the "use all weapons" mechanic they implemented in ME1 to be used in ME2, which is a bit inconsistent. So I'll have to wait until the Collector ship to get assault rifles unlocked.

[Vol]

Seems probable, I always play Paragon, except for some itty bitty Renegade stuff (headbutting a Krogan is just too good to pass up and some other really cool Renegade moments). So I probably just paragoned the shit out of the guy, aside from my maxed persuasion skill.

My gut reaction is that its an overly complicated work around because you don't have a set order to the planets, so the developers cannot make any fair assumptions of how many morality points are accumulated at any given point. That would leave them with either having to lock out P/R options totally, as you'd necessarily not be able to meet every numerical check in every playthrough, or, work in a system of relative moral balance. It appears they did both. The idea of having a long-term ratio system for morality is very interesting, but would be an incredible amount of work to make meaningful.

E.g., Shepard visits planet X, then Y, then Z. Planet Y has a Paragon check to save a very evil character's life and bring them to justice. If the check is purely numerical, having Paragon 10, and the only way to reach Paragon 10 at that point is doing the planets in order Z->X->Y, then you've created a difficult situation. The choice to save the character is _meaningful_ by exclusion, as well as the planetary order, because now other options are presumably locked out. But its not particularly _fair_, as the choice of planet order does not (necessarily) logically connect to how much of a moral bastion Shepard is. So the happy compromise is to set a lower bar, say, Paragon 5, as well as the ratio of Paragon:Renegade to make a fair prediction assumption of what kind of guy this Shepard is.

So it reads as a very reasonable compromise that comes across as a bit convoluted.

[SciFlyBoy]

Yeah when I saw that and the Mattock I was all "Welp, I'm fucking set!"

Stuck with my pistol.

[magnuskn]

Ergh. I am kinda getting into the tedious part of ME2, i.e. doing all the side stuff and fucking planet scanning. To boot, I kinda am hankering to sink some serious hours into Pathfinder: Kingmaker, because someone made a really good review (MandaloreGaming). Gotta see if I want to to a giant side quest, because replaying Kingmaker will probably cost me another 100 hours, or if I stay on the charted course of Mass Effect Legendary -> Subnautica Below Zero -> Mechwarrior V: Heroes of the Inner Sphere.

[Dragaros]

https://www.gameinformer.com/2021/05/21 ... o-mans-sky

[Dragaros]

"Tali Is The Most Popular Companion In Mass Effect Legendary Edition: According to achievement stats, Tali gets taken on the most missions in Mass Effect - whereas Kaidan spends most of his time on the Normandy."

[[ "The fight over who is the best companion in the Mass Effect trilogy can be a bloody one. With (almost) every crewmate on the Normandy being so full of personality, it’s easy to form favourites, and want to defend those favourites from any and all criticism, valid or otherwise. However, as divisive as it can be, the stats don’t lie - there is a clear fan favourite. Based off achievement and trophy stats on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation, Tali is the most used companion in the first game, with Garrus narrowly in second place. We know this due to the first game granting achievements for taking each companion on five missions. The “Quarian Ally” achievement has a completion rate of 52.1% on Steam - almost 20% higher than the achievement for taking Kaidan on five missions.

Garrus takes second place at 49.6%, followed by Liara at 38.4%, then Wrex at 35.7%. Unsurprising to anyone in the Mass Effect fanbase, this puts the two human companions in last - despite them both being recruited in the first mission. Kaidan just about takes last place over Ashley, with only 31.9% of players bothering to take him along on at least five missions. Tastes must have completely changed since 2007, because the achievement list for the original release on Xbox 360 paints a much different picture. According to True Achievements, almost every companion is neck and neck, with Ashley just about taking the lead. It’s quite the fall from grace for the Alliance soldier, as she’s now barely clinging on to her second-from-last placement." ]]

[SciFlyBoy]

I found something interesting. When you're at the medical office on the citadel (Dr. Michel) and you walk up to the medical beds and go into photo mode to look around, which I chose because the windows are open, there's a bunch of pistols floating about. By the door where the C-Sec officer is there's four floating by the door. There's one floating at the same level, but underneath the medical beds. They're all pointing the same direction. I wonder what that's all about?

[magnuskn]

So, yeah, I'm taking a big break from continuing Legendary edition, at least that's the plan for now. And I'm putting off Subnautica Below Zero as well. Guess doing the shooty-shooty so much for ten days straight put me off the first/third-person perspective, at least for this moment. The plan is to do an actual full second Pathfinder: Kingmaker run, now with the Varnholt Lot DLC completed. That will probably take another 100 hours of gameplay, unless I get tired of it in the middle or something.

At least this gives people time to port MEHEM over to Legendary edition, which I really hope will happen rather sooner than later. If I can avoid Star Brat completely, I will.

[SciFlyBoy]

Well that sucks, they got rid of the gun that you can hack in the Noveria garage. That was so fun when I learned I can mow down those geth like that.

[SciFlyBoy]

It hurts watching my brother play ME1. He told me long ago that you can't play insanity on any other character but soldier. I took that challenge and beat the game years ago with an adapt on Insanity, so I challenged him this round to play Insanity with adapt. Basically for him he uses the pistol to kill EVERYTHING and maybe uses a biotic power occasionally when he feels he needs some assistance. Sigh, it's like he doesn't even like playing the game.

[magnuskn]

Well, he certainly can play the game on Insanity, then. ^^ I must admit, I struggled a bit on my Vanguard, since shotguns are so much ass in the early game, but the biotic powers really helped out in a pinch. In ME2 it's of course Biotic Charge which is the star, but I found, since Insanity gives you so much incoming damage, that I still need to play the shoot+hide game a lot. ME3, when I get to it (after finishing Pathfinder Kingmaker and ME2 and maybe even Subnautica Below Zero and Mechwarrior 5 and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous... damn, guys, port MEHEM already!), of course has Biotic Charge + Nova, which takes care of basically 99% of everything.

[Vol]

Well that sucks, they got rid of the gun that you can hack in the Noveria garage. That was so fun when I learned I can mow down those geth like that.

That was one of those little nuggets I didn't realize for multiple playthroughs. Don't recall the ambush being hard enough to warrant it, or it ever coming up again, but it was _neat_ that it was there.

[Dragaros]

https://twitter.com/BioWareGear

[Dragaros]

"Hey, @masseffect fans... @ashsroka and I will be doing a duo signing of “Ultimatum” by Alexander Manakhov via @StreamilyLive! Visit http://streamily.com/ashsroka to order!"

https://twitter.com/Mark_Meer/status/13 ... 8795190276

https://www.instagram.com/ash.sroka/

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbThKaoTYD0

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCBpldUb8n0

[Dragaros]

https://twitter.com/BioWareGear/status/ ... 7770674178

https://gear.bioware.com/pages/call-for-artists

[[ "Between your awesome ideas and awesome fan art, we know that Mass Effect, Anthem, and Dragon Age fans are an incredibly creative bunch. That got us wondering. Do you want to be part of our creative process? The BioWare Gear Store is looking for artists who want to turn their work into official merch.

Yes, we’re paying.

If you are asked to contribute to a project, you will be provided with a project brief, deadlines and compensation information. Since every project is different in scope and scale, we cannot provide that information beforehand. If you wish to be considered, please fill out our form below." ]]

[Dragaros]

https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/com ... aster_egg/

[Dragaros]

LE does give those quarian suits some extra pop.

Huh, the resolution is finally decent enough I can make out that male quarian's face in the background on that one ending slide.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWdW7-h11Nw

[magnuskn]

Ugh, apparently the modding tools will only release in a couple of weeks and then all the mods will have to be remade from scratch. Meaning, if I want to get the ending I want (i.e. MEHEM and probably the Citadel ending mod), I'll have to wait a few months to continue with Legendary Edition.

Luckily, the time table looks good for that. I'm still in the very middle of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Mechwarrior 5 is waiting in the wings, Subnautica Below Zero as well, I can still do a Rakarth run in Total War: Warhammer 2 and then I go on vacation for three weeks at the end of August. When I come back, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has just released. I might even finish Mass Effect 2 in the meanwhile, it's Mass Effect 3 which needs the mods. So, there's a ton of content to keep me occupied.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dxEcxMHqro