Mass Effect Series Catch-All

Quick question - I'm playing through ME2 for the first time now. In fact, the next main story event is "Activate the IFF" with numerous side missions to go.

I have no DLC installed as it's a PITA to get it via the Steam version, and I also see little point in spending 25 EUR for it now (and hope I can activate it in the Steam version via purchase in the EA Online/Origin account I created solely to try to get it) with the remaster on the way. I'm assuming/hoping I can just import a save game into the remaster.

So my question is, no matter if I eventually buy the DLC or go straight for the remaster - is there any DLC that I cannot play after completing the main storyline?

I think Activate the IFF is the point of no return. After that there is no time to do anymore side quests. There is a DLC that comes after the events of ME2, but the name is escaping me now (cause I never played it).

The post-game ME2 DLC is called "Arrival".

So what I'm reading is:
- wrap up all side stuff
- make a save game before the Activate IFF beacon mission and back it up
- wait for the remaster and import the save
- if the itch to see the ending becomes too strong, play through it, but then reset to the backed up save when the remaster comes out.

That about sum it up?

Just in case, is it clear that ME2 is *not* like ME1, where once you got beyond a certain point in the main story, you had to finish the story and then the credits will roll? In ME2 there's the opportunity to keep playing after you finish Activate the IFF mission.

edit: there are a lot of spoilers involved in explaining exactly how ME2 is different from ME1, so that's about the simplest I can put it--it's *not* like ME1 where past a certain point you have no opportunity to get to choose where the Normandy goes for the rest of the game.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Just in case, is it clear that ME2 is *not* like ME1, where once you got beyond a certain point in the main story, you had to finish the story and then the credits will roll? In ME2 there's the opportunity to keep playing after you finish Activate the IFF mission.

edit: there are a lot of spoilers involved in explaining exactly how ME2 is different from ME1, so that's about the simplest I can put it--it's *not* like ME1 where past a certain point you have no opportunity to get to choose where the Normandy goes for the rest of the game.

ME2 is like that in its entirety. There is zero exploration in ME2. Every mission and location in ME2 is scripted down to the second, and no mission is superfluous.

It is episodic in the sense that the character vignettes and little snapshots of galaxy life portray an aspect of the Mass Effect world. But it's not like ME1 at all where there was some attempt to make a plethora of planets that are too many to explore. They CAN all be explored exhaustively, but it's repeating pregenerated stuff that's largely uninspiring. ME2's approach of portraying things in specifically scripted arcs is more flavorful, IMO, than exploring yet another world with yet more nameless bandits on it.

Not to get spoilery, either, but time and the ordering of missions does matter in ME2. You don't have all year to go everywhere. You only have enough time to do a few things, and which missions you do and in which order makes a difference in how things can turn out.

I don't think AUs_TBirD is asking about anything other than whether there's a point you lose control of where the Normandy goes until the credits roll and the game ends, only for purposes of being able to do the side missions or not.

Basically, I think AUs_TBirD is asking "will this be like the DLC from ME1 where if you finished the game you needed an old save to access it?"

As for spoilers, I chose my words carefully ; D

I don't think I've seen anywhere where EA/Bioware has said you'll be able to import a save.

mwdowns wrote:

I don't think I've seen anywhere where EA/Bioware has said you'll be able to import a save.

They really haven't said much of anything. I was really surprised we didn't at least get a teaser trailer on N7 Day. Makes me question that vague release date of theirs.

Rykin wrote:
mwdowns wrote:

I don't think I've seen anywhere where EA/Bioware has said you'll be able to import a save.

They really haven't said much of anything. I was really surprised we didn't at least get a teaser trailer on N7 Day. Makes me question that vague release date of theirs.

I'll honestly be surprised if we see this at retail before next N7 day.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I don't think AUs_TBirD is asking about anything other than whether there's a point you lose control of where the Normandy goes until the credits roll and the game ends, only for purposes of being able to do the side missions or not.

Basically, I think AUs_TBirD is asking "will this be like the DLC from ME1 where if you finished the game you needed an old save to access it?"

That's about the gist of it. I just wanted to know if there was a point after which playing the DLC is either not possible because the galaxy/Normandy has changed so much, or it is possible, but doesn't make much sense anymore in relation to the main story.

mwdowns wrote:

I don't think I've seen anywhere where EA/Bioware has said you'll be able to import a save.

I'd be mighty disappointed if this wasn't the case....I wasn't planning on playing ME3 in the next few months, and hope I can just start ME3 remastered straight from my ME2 save file. One of the reasons I held off on ME2 so long is because 3 wasn't on Steam and I kept waiting on it.

AUs_TBirD wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I don't think AUs_TBirD is asking about anything other than whether there's a point you lose control of where the Normandy goes until the credits roll and the game ends, only for purposes of being able to do the side missions or not.

Basically, I think AUs_TBirD is asking "will this be like the DLC from ME1 where if you finished the game you needed an old save to access it?"

That's about the gist of it. I just wanted to know if there was a point after which playing the DLC is either not possible because the galaxy/Normandy has changed so much, or it is possible, but doesn't make much sense anymore in relation to the main story.

I'd say the new party member DLC makes little sense narratively to do after - why recruit people for a mission that's over? Otherwise they can be done after with no problem. (And given that Lair of the Shadowbroker is such a high point, I usually save that for last anyway.)

Happy 13th birthday to Mass Effect!

BadKen wrote:

Happy 13th birthday to Mass Effect!

2007 was such a good year for gaming. Bioshock, Halo 3, The Orange Box, Crackdown, CoD4, Assassin's Creed, and of course Mass Effect.

I actually didn't play much Mass Effect in 2007 despite getting it at launch. My Xbox 360 red ringed in late September and they sent me a replacement with a bad optical drive. It sort of worked for a while but would throw read errors from time to time. Looks like I was mostly playing Half-Life 2 and Assassin's Creed when ME came out. I played it briefly (long enough to get to the Citadel) and then like 3 days later the optical drive completely crapped out and I didn't get my 360 back until January. They made me send in the power cable the second time and I asked the person on the phone if they wanted the full cord (including the breakaway part) or just the power brick and they said the whole thing. They then proceeded to put it on a shelf and forget about it for over a month (I had to call to ask about it and a few days later this is what they told me had happened). When they finally shipped it back they didn't include the power cable so I had to call back about that and then they shipped me a power brick only. Luckily the breakaway cable was just slightly different than a standard PC power cable so I was able to modify one of those to work with it while waiting for them to send me the correct cable. I played it a few times here and there throughout the year but didn't really get into it until the summer.

Who needs a Legendary Edition?

Don’t know to place this here or in the Loathe thread, but Amazon just cancelled my new Normandy SR2. My old one broke in the move, and the new one was going to be my birthday present to myself.

Gripe, 2020, gripe.

Rykin wrote:

Who needs a Legendary Edition?

I do on PS4 I work on Macs and don’t have a PC. I’ve been jonesing for a remaster for a looooong time.

You and me both. Bring on the remaster.

That modding magic was crazy impressive, though.

That was one weak-sauce "reveal", though. "Mass Effect will continue." No kidding! EA likes money.

If that's who most people think it is though, looks like actual ME4.

Maybe they will retcon their sh*tty ME3 ending a little more.

Spoiler:

Looked like Liara, right? With how long Asari live, they could totally fast forward a few centuries and still hand-wave the galactic reconstruction away. Which, in retrospect, is maybe what they should have done all along.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

That was one weak-sauce "reveal", though. "Mass Effect will continue." No kidding! EA likes money. :lol:

I coulda sworn I'd always heard that ME was a pretty poor seller, especially given what you'd think the audience was like based on all the whining about the games.

billt721 wrote:

I coulda sworn I'd always heard that ME was a pretty poor seller, especially given what you'd think the audience was like based on all the whining about the games.

I expect to the demands of EA, quarterly growth, late capitalism, got lots of execs to overpay, all that jazz, it was a poor seller, in the same way that movies that only make a paltry $750 million are poor performers.

beanman101283 wrote:
Spoiler:

Looked like Liara, right? With how long Asari live, they could totally fast forward a few centuries and still hand-wave the galactic reconstruction away. Which, in retrospect, is maybe what they should have done all along.

Spoiler:

I'm thinking it's a Refuse ending, where Liara spends the next couple of centuries seeding the galaxy with the tools the next cycle can use against the Reapers, like the Protheans did in their cycle.

Maybe it's even set in the next cycle, with flashbacks--maybe a whole game--set during Liara's quest and the success of some future cycle

like BioShock: Infinite, it was never really the shepard's story... ; D

Shepherd was indoctrinated. So they rebuild her. Again.

No matter what the game ends up being, at the very least, I can't wait for a new Mass Effect soundtrack.

A tentative, Whoo!

billt721 wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

That was one weak-sauce "reveal", though. "Mass Effect will continue." No kidding! EA likes money. :lol:

I coulda sworn I'd always heard that ME was a pretty poor seller, especially given what you'd think the audience was like based on all the whining about the games.

Actually it was a pretty good seller. Not Madden good but still good. This is from Wikipedia:

Two weeks after the game was released, Mass Effect 2 shipped two million copies to retailers. The game sold over 500,000 copies in the month of release, despite being released at the end of the month. Before the release of the third game, the series sold a total of 7 million copies worldwide.

Mass Effect 3 sold over 800,000 copies in its first 24 hours, and its opening month sales were twice that of its predecessor's, selling over 900,000 copies on the Xbox 360 version, outselling the PlayStation 3 version 4 to 1 and bringing in over $200 million in revenue. Mass Effect 3 was the most commercially successful game of the series, selling over twice as many copies as Mass Effect 2 in their respective launch months and generating lifetime sales of over six million copies.

By July 5, 2014, the Mass Effect series had sold a total of 14 million units. By the end of March 2018, at least 2.5 million retail copies of Mass Effect: Andromeda had also been shipped for $110 million in revenue; additionally, $53 million in net sales from digital and special editions for Andromeda were generated in March but deferred to a later date, putting total lifetime shipments for the franchise at 16.5 million.

I have zero faith that the current BioWare can produce an enjoyable Mass Effect game.