A Faint Glimmer of Hope?

Of all the miniscule little tidbits released so far on ME4's prospects, this latest has me excited the most

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/20462/article/mass-effect-4-could-bring-back-first-game-s-weapon-holstering/ especially this quote:

"The best part of working on the next
#MassEffect is having an excuse to keep studying and replaying the trilogy for research. "

I'm currently really enjoying my PC run of the first game, perhaps my most enjoyable since first discovering the series, could Ian Frazier be rediscovering the same simple pleasures of enjoying the sunset on Edolus, which is only viewable from certain high
peaks due to its neighboring star's low position on the horizon for those of us who genuinely enjoy these moments that are only found in the first game? I sincerely hope so...

:)

 

they wont listen

Before I pre-order by PS4, I'm kinda holding onto a small glimmer of hope that they WILL listen. I mean, they're adding the start button back to Windows 8.1 due to consumer demand, so maybe there IS a small glimmer of hope.

 

Deafeat a Legendary Dragon

Well, is a glimmer of hope for some people. Looks legit to me.

 

After reading a little bit, I'm almost... not as excited as I thought I'd be? Although I'm sure it's probably speculation for the most part, I think one of the posts claimed it would be a completely different story that didn't involve Shepard (which I expected)
or any of his/her former team? I was really hoping that it would be a prequel I guess. At least that way there would at least be the possibility of a former crew member making a cameo, just to kind of kick a little nostalgia at me.

IDK, guess we'll just have to wait and see...

 

I'm a little surprised that you're "hoping that it would be a prequel" for I think that most are gunning for a sequel. I'm also hoping for one of our beloved crew members to make a return, and there's certainly possibilities in a sequel for this to happen
depending on how "creative" the writers get (which may not be such a good thing for some). I'm also very open to whatever new characters BioWare may develop next, something that I wasn't very open to for MASS Effect 3. I had low expectations for James Vega
after seeing the first screenshots of him and figured like many others that he was some 'Gears of War' "meatball" that seemed out of place, but he won me over very early on in the game and is an excellent character, in my opinion. I felt the same when the
first leaked images of EDI appeared from the artbook, I thought "how cheesy" that they'd go in this direction but again, EDI's character development was some of the best of the entire series from BioWare.



I still believe that Campaign Co-op will be the direction that they go in next time, ME3's Multiplayer almost seems to be the groundwork for this obvious next step, not to mention that it's a growing trend amongst newer titles. I even read about a new game
recently (apologies for the title eludes me) that incorporates "8 Player Open Roam", how cool would that be for MASS Effect!? Instead of competing with the body counts, how about massive open roam maps where you need to gather different objects/minerals/hacking
objectives etc. to progress to the next stage which may be more battle oriented? Maybe gather fuel in order for your ship to leave the world that you may be stranded on, perhaps avoid trip mines to navigate through the map as opposed to Reapers/Geth etc.
shooting at you, the possibilities are endless with rebooting the series. The mistakes made by BioWare in the past can only help the next project along if they've learned some valuable lessons from the experience. The "bottleneck" or "funneling" of story
arcs into the three choices at the end of the first trilogy was the result of them "writing themselves into a corner" from trying to do too much along the way I felt, you gotta think that they'll be a little more aware of the long term implications this time
around, or so we hope...

 

I've admittedly never been a fan of prequels. A sequel would be OK with me... if and only if it didn't canonize one of the ME3 endings. Something I can't see being possible without multiple layers of cheese, no matter how creative the writers are TBH. I
guess every rule has an exception and hoping for a prequel vs a sequel for the next ME is mine. It's unfortunate, but I just don't have as much faith in their creativity as I once did and I do feel I would have said that, in all honesty, regardless of how
I felt about ME3.

Mass Effect, for me, has been about the SP experience and that has me lowering my expectations on what might become of the next game. I really won't be excited for it at all if I find out that its storyline is centered around coop that dumbs down all of
the dialog and decision making options. Although I'm still going to try keeping an open mind for it... after all, what I've heard about Destiny gives me hope. If it could be a SP experience that happens in an open world where you can seamlessly walk into a
MP event... or bypass it altogether... and then have your choices affect the game's galaxy and/or your interaction with it? Meet friends in a hub area and go find a good firefight? Or just solo it.

Actually that just gave me a thought that would be really cool IMO. Your character could enter the game with a AI squad, just like in ME... and that squad could travel with you wherever you go, if you want to solo it. Or you could go to a hub area and if
you meet a friend and want to do some coop mission(s) your friend would replace a squad member of your choice. Your friend would also have to give up a squad member of his/her choice to keep things balanced. Can you imagine some of the NPC interactions when
they meet up/depart and lines they'd have? Hmmm...

 

There's really only two prequel possibilities that would interest me, the first would be one set way back to the Prothean Ages where it'd be so far removed from the first trilogy that you could still have the story branching off in many different directions,
as we've become accustomed to. We've only just begun to get our toes wet in Prothean lore with Javik and another game set in this timeline could be very good, it'd be great to see the races that we've come to know and love in their "primal" stages of development
("The Lizard People", etc.). The downside would be that the nostalgia would likely get tired quickly and I can't help but think that this would be a step backwards because, well, it IS "a step backwards" and I'm not a fan of the Prothean/Collector Weaponry.

The other possibility that interests me would be a sequel to the first game, but be a prequel to ME2. Supposedly two years had passed inbetween these two games (well, after Shepard "dies" in ME2 that is) and I'd like to see more of what happened here. Of
course, you'd have to make some concessions with some of the characters such as Wrex, Kaiden or Ashley who may not have survived the first game, or Tali who clearly hadn't seen Shepard since she "died" in ME2, but familiar characters such as Liara, The Shadow
Broker (before Liara), and The Illusive Man (who I still don't think got enough screen time in the first trilogy) could satisfy our desire to reconnect with the characters that we all ready know (Sorry Kimieva, but that would include Kai Leng as well!). The
'Citadel' DLC introduced us to another story arc from this period, but it would probably involve some more "creative writing" to provide further background on it, but it would still stay true to their declaration that the new game "won't involve Commander
Shepard", well sort of. I wouldn't mind at all if it were set from Cerberus' point of view, Renegades play as Miranda while the Paragons play as Jacob, haha. The downside here though is that any outcome would have to be tailored to "fit" the start of ME2
when Shepard wakes up at the Lazurus Facility.

While both these possibilities intrigue me somewhat, it still absolutely has to be a sequel for me. I would set it right at the end of the trilogy and introduce new characters attempting to sort out what happened from the Crucible "blast". You could set
it from anywhere in the galaxy where nobody really knows what happened onboard The Crucible other than there is a big mess left behind galaxy-wide that put all survivors of "the blast" in survival mode. Whether Control, Destroy or Synthesis was chosen, the
result was that The Reapers' Cycle was "interrupted" somehow by Commander Shepard and the possibility of them returning is still looming. One of the side-missions would be to gather intel on what actually happened, this would give BioWare another chance to
explain themselves! 'Survival Mode' opens up a lot of exploration possibilities that would be required to "rebuild" and there'd be no shortage of "competition" for resources, and this would work nicely with Multiplayer/Co-op....

 

I hope for something completely new.

 

I came across this interesting piece on Steam tonight involving an upcoming 'Open Roam Explorer' being developed by a group of Ex-BioWare developers

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/03/13/epoch-return-mass-effect-tribes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rockpapershotgun%2Fsteam+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%3A+Steam+RSS%29 and it's looks to be very intriguing indeed. The
developers give some good insight during the video and I love the emphasis on the environment which was so prevalent in the first MASS Effect game, they should have hung onto these guys...

 

I hope they take ideas from ME1 I really miss the planet exploration and the more RPG like inventory and leveling system.

 

^

I really didn't like the exploration that much because it wasn't implemented as well as it could have been, but the inventory I much preferred and all-in-all I'd like to see more of the first game back in the next Mass Effect.

 

I haven't seen a game since that "implemented (the exploration) as well" as the first MASS Effect did, I think considering the technology available to them, BioWare did outstanding work and people are still talking about how disappointed they were when this
element was all but abandoned by them for the next two games. The uncharted worlds (or, side missions more precisely) are much varied with the different hazards, combat scenarios and excellent planetscapes, in all honesty, I'm not sure how they could've made
it any better with the tools and budget that they had back then...

 

The exploration could've been better if they added more stuff to discover. I was hoping for that in ME2 but instead I got a slimmed down hallway simulator. I love the game but they took a few steps back in their effort to take a step forward in character
development.