[Colonol Dekker]

Could it have been funded by cerberus?

[NGTM-1R]

Doubtful, those Krogan and all. Can't see Cerbieman introducing that kind of competition into a human promised land scenario.

[Col.Hornet]

To me it looks that we will have some new type of technology to make jumps. look at the trailer. Our protagonist was just watching the photos of different locations in different systems and then, with a swing of a finger he hit the jump drives. relays were Reaper technology and I doubt that they were watching over other galaxies. My money goes for the scenario where action takes place after the events of ME3.

My speculations.
I will talk a bit about ME3 endings and how it could affect the idea for new ME game so I will hide it if somebody doesn't want to read it:

Spoiler:

Red ending.
Relay cores are damaged, Reapers are dead so we will have to solve the problem of long distance jumps on our own. But what if we can develop a jump drives that will make each ship a small relay itself? Well, if the Protheans managed to create a smaller and simpler version of the Relay, then why not we? There are millions of Reaper corpses all over the Milky Way, so a lot of information could be recovered (even if the Crucible's blast caused tremendous damage) Lets keep in mind that Reaper "neural network" which contain all the information, knowledge and conciousness is made of organic matter from harvested species (Crucible's blast destroyed synthetics). In fact the Reapers were like.... 3/4 synthetics so I guess that habitants of the galaxy may somehow be able to retrieve some information from the Reaper corpses. In the end of ME3 we have seen that the Citadel (which is a huge relay itself and there are Keepers aboard who know everything about the station!) and the London conduit being operational so my guess is that we are or will be able to master the technology of the relays Or, that's also a possibility, we used the Citadel relay, but somehow it fired us outside the Milky way

Green and blue endings make things even simpler because Reaper are alive so they just help us rebuild relays and maybe even after we will improve that technology.

And I also hope that we will now hear a word about Shepard in the new game. I really enjoyed my ending of the 3 and I would like to keep his story opened for different scenarios of what can happen after the Reaper war (paragon MaleShep in relationship with Miranda, Reapers are dead, Shepard survived in the rubble on the Citadel )

I hope that we will see more details soon, because right now I'm very excited. To be honest I finished the trilogy for the first time this year (and I regret very much that I did it all these years after the ME series came out. I simply drowned in this universe, it's characters and storyline). I also heard that the remastered version of the Trilogy is in progress, so when it comes out, I will hit it for sure

[Luis Dias]

Remastered?

.....

**** the textures and ****, I just hope they fix the combat system in ME1!

[Scotty]

ME1 remade with 2 or 3's combat would be ****ing sweet.

[Klaustrophobia]

I thought ME2 wrecked ME1's combat.  3 fixed 2 a little.  "Thermal clips" is the STUPIDEST retcon I've ever encountered.  1's atmosphere and combat with 3's polish would have been the perfect game.

[Phantom Hoover]

Thermal clips are idiotic from a fluff perspective but they're OK from a gameplay one. ME1's combat was really clunky and lifeless whereas 2 and 3 were fast-paced and thrilling, at least if you picked the right class.

[TrashMan]

All they had to do to stick the landing on ME3 was to use my ending

No, they would have to re-write half the thing.
There are far more problems than the ending.

Personally, I vommited at the beginning.

[Phantom Hoover]

Yeah I think ME3 had a lot more wrong with it than just the ending. Presentation issues like the art and the character animations (good god the character animations) aside I think the writing got pretty lazy and caricatured in places. Mordin's arc, for instance, did such a great job of tugging fan heartstrings that most people didn't notice that it was a total betrayal of his character in ME2.

[Klaustrophobia]

Thermal clips are idiotic from a fluff perspective but they're OK from a gameplay one. ME1's combat was really clunky and lifeless whereas 2 and 3 were fast-paced and thrilling, at least if you picked the right class.

I absolutely loved the overheat system, and it fit perfectly in the mass accelerator themed universe they went to great pains to construct.  It was new and interesting.  In the very early levels the overheating was a bit much, but that went away pretty damn quick. 

And then I played 2, and it felt like I got downgraded from badass railgun to stupid pea shooter.  Everything about ME2's gunplay felt lame, except for the super guns you end up getting by the end.  And even then I think that was just by comparison.  And I think mods should have been expanded upon, not neutered.

[General Battuta]

Thermal clips make perfect sense fluff wise, I kept wondering why we didn't have them in ME1. 

The weird thing isn't the presence of thermal clips, it's the inability to fall back from clips to the old overheat model once your clips are gone.

[Luis Dias]

The weird thing isn't the presence of thermal clips, it's the inability to fall back from clips to the old overheat model once your clips are gone.

Bang on. In ME1 they tried to innovate gameplay with a clipless weapons feature, only to find out that it's still more interesting to control weapon ammo through thermal clips.

[StarSlayer]

There were plenty of planets and missions in ME1 I ground through purely for the fluff, not because they were fun.  Mass Effect certainly had its strong points but a lot of gameplay elements were a chore.

[Col.Hornet]

I would love to play ME 1 with the combat system from 3. Sorry but for me the combat system from the first game was a bit problematic. Actually our shooting and aiming skills were less relevant then the weapon itself and the upgrades and character talents. I know I know that's an RPG. Such systems are cool when we have to fight hand-to-hand with swords etc. But when it comes to firearms that makes no sense at all. Combat system from mass effect 3 was in my opinion the best one.

[Klaustrophobia]

Thermal clips make perfect sense fluff wise, I kept wondering why we didn't have them in ME1. 

The weird thing isn't the presence of thermal clips, it's the inability to fall back from clips to the old overheat model once your clips are gone.

I would have been plenty happy with that.  Provided they also used ME1's sounds and effects.  The slow moving tracers and the wimpy pew-pew sound that brought to mind a small child making blaster noises with his mouth drove me up the wall.  Oh, and drop the rock-paper-scissors armor system also.  A small bonus/resistance would be fine, but "kill shields, switch guns, kill armor, switch guns, kill health" was immersion-breaking and annoying.


But the andromeda devs aren't reading this and taking suggestions so I'll stop polluting the thread now.

[Luis Dias]

Well, they did maintain the overheat sound at the end of your clip count ....

[Scotty]

If you thought ME2's weapons felt anemic all you need to do to recalibrate how they feel is play through ME1's campaign on Insanity at high level.  Everything takes for-goddamn-ever to die it's infuriating.  Try fighting an Armature, even with an assault rifle that never overheats (lame) and never loses accuracy (also lame) from being so high level.  It was a slog of the highest order and ME2 fixed most things wrong with it.

[Meneldil]

And then I played 2, and it felt like I got downgraded from badass railgun to stupid pea shooter.  Everything about ME2's gunplay felt lame, except for the super guns you end up getting by the end.  And even then I think that was just by comparison.  And I think mods should have been expanded upon, not neutered.

The problem with ME2 is that on higher difficulties you feel completely powerless. It's not that you can't win, it's just that it's going to be a long and boring bullet-by-bullet grind (but I still think it's better than what passed for combat in ME1).
ME3 on the other hand makes both you and your enemies ridiculously overpowered which miraculously fixes the problem and makes for maybe the best gameplay possible, so I'm hoping they stick to it.

As for the setting of ME:A, I fear Battuta may be right (expedition left before the ending of ME3), because that's the only way to sidestep the differences between the different endings I can see. Although as far as solutions go, it's about as elegant as commiting a galaxy-wide genocide every 50k years to prevent a possible emergence of a dengerous AI, but there you have it.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah, guessing here that main plotline will begin on Milky Way at the middle of the Reaper war, some high military guy (Hackett?) gets your ass into building an Noah's arc with some kind of new found FTL technology amidst all the confusion around you.

Very high secretive ****, main guy (the N7 guy) gets the job done of getting most genetic pool and you're one of the officers aboard this project.

There'll be Voyager-type of shenanigans between surviving Krogan and Salarians / Turians, because doh. I'm guessing the Krogans got on board either by force or by hard-line negotiations (you can use our resources for this if we're into it as well). Lots of potential here for you either to appease these different tribes or even for some of them going rogue on you, etc.

At some point, N7 John Wayne guy goes rogue too, and now not only you have to fight that bastard, you'll have to outrun him on your chase to do [MYSTICAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDING] before something [DEEPLY DISTURBING] happens.

Yeah, it will be Saren all over ****ing again. Somewhat. I'm speculating.

Any guesses on who's gonna cameo? Shepard him/herself? Hackket? Mordin the science guy? Because, come on, there're gonna be cameos!

[Meneldil]

Any guesses on who's gonna cameo? Shepard him/herself? Hackket? Mordin the science guy? Because, come on, there're gonna be cameos!

If it's really set in the far future of ME3 (ie. it causally follows ME3, and is not this ark stuff we're talking about) then Liara should still be alive and must make a cameo doing space archeology in the new galaxy.