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Post by colfoley on May 22, 2017 8:46:30 GMT
So since the release of Mass Effect Andromeda I have been writing a lot and going into what the game did well. And that...may continue in the future. Though I have a lot of ideas for threads.
But, the one thing that MEA did do wrong, or at least not quite up to scratch, was its dangling plot threads.
Now there are two kinds of dangling plot threads. The good ones and the bad ones, for sake of argument. The good ones are those the writers obviously intend to carry on or develop the ideas they were introducing in future seasons/ chapters/ installments. Pieces of the puzzles leading to larger puzzles leading to still larger ones. And hopefully to satisfactory conclusions...though not all dangling plot lines lead to good conclusions. And bad ones. Bad ones are those that the writers basically go 'this is a cool idea lets shove it in there!' and then they do not really wrap up the plot or anything or explain them at all. Just a cool one off idea, but a cool one off idea that seems to not be properly wrapped up, so it needs more explanation...but no real hint we will get it.
Andromeda has both:
The Jaardan, the Angarra origins, the Benefactor, the Quarian Ark, and quite probably the Kett all have a lot more to offer us and a lot of explanation. And it would be a shame if BioWare lets fan hate discourage them from advancing some of these plotlines.
But then there are the bad ones. Namely two of them.
First off you have the Roekar and the Angarra. Now the Roekar were interesting, so interesting that I half think they shoud have been the main antagonists...but then you get to Jaals loyalty mission. And you are faced with a choice. Either kill Aksuul, or spare his life. Now admittedly this situation exisists in part because you do have two choices with two very different outcomes. If Aksuul is killed, it makes some sense for the Roekar to still be a threat. But if you spare him you get an e-mail stating his regret and that you have given him a lot to think about. But then you go back to Havarl and you fight...more Roekar. I guess this is somewhat explainable but it would have made so much more sense if the Roekar had folded up. I mean this implies there is more to do with the Roekar in the future...but I just do not get that sense. If Mass Effect continues they will open it up from here and the Roekar just do not seem to be 'opening up'.
And the second one...and this is a real doozy. Holy freaking crap the Advent. Now Andromeda made a...great deal...about different factions leaving the Nexus. You have exiles on Kadara, Krogan on Elaaden, and also exiles of exiles on Elaaden. And all of these groups get a fair bit of screen time with multiple quests devoted to them, you can visit their colonies, and just get a different amount of plotlines out of them. But Advent, holy freaking crap, Advent was just...such an interesting idea. A very cool idea. A peaceful, seperate, colony from Nexus which is self suficient. I wanted to visit them, I wanted to get them...but...we just get one quest related to them and they are just a fairly small subplot of the kill the Architects stuff. There should have been so much more with Advent, but we got so little, and that is why its a bad plot line, because i just do not see them wanting to devote more time to this in the future...but maybe I am wrong. Its just the kind of bad writing that you would see from science fiction, like Star Trek and ST TNG...just...no.
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Post by xeternalxdreams on May 22, 2017 12:37:57 GMT
So since the release of Mass Effect Andromeda I have been writing a lot and going into what the game did well. And that...may continue in the future. Though I have a lot of ideas for threads. But, the one thing that MEA did do wrong, or at least not quite up to scratch, was its dangling plot threads. Now there are two kinds of dangling plot threads. The good ones and the bad ones, for sake of argument. The good ones are those the writers obviously intend to carry on or develop the ideas they were introducing in future seasons/ chapters/ installments. Pieces of the puzzles leading to larger puzzles leading to still larger ones. And hopefully to satisfactory conclusions...though not all dangling plot lines lead to good conclusions. And bad ones. Bad ones are those that the writers basically go 'this is a cool idea lets shove it in there!' and then they do not really wrap up the plot or anything or explain them at all. Just a cool one off idea, but a cool one off idea that seems to not be properly wrapped up, so it needs more explanation...but no real hint we will get it. Andromeda has both: The Jaardan, the Angarra origins, the Benefactor, the Quarian Ark, and quite probably the Kett all have a lot more to offer us and a lot of explanation. And it would be a shame if BioWare lets fan hate discourage them from advancing some of these plotlines. But then there are the bad ones. Namely two of them. First off you have the Roekar and the Angarra. Now the Roekar were interesting, so interesting that I half think they shoud have been the main antagonists...but then you get to Jaals loyalty mission. And you are faced with a choice. Either kill Aksuul, or spare his life. Now admittedly this situation exisists in part because you do have two choices with two very different outcomes. If Aksuul is killed, it makes some sense for the Roekar to still be a threat. But if you spare him you get an e-mail stating his regret and that you have given him a lot to think about. But then you go back to Havarl and you fight...more Roekar. I guess this is somewhat explainable but it would have made so much more sense if the Roekar had folded up. I mean this implies there is more to do with the Roekar in the future...but I just do not get that sense. If Mass Effect continues they will open it up from here and the Roekar just do not seem to be 'opening up'. And the second one...and this is a real doozy. Holy freaking crap the Advent. Now Andromeda made a...great deal...about different factions leaving the Nexus. You have exiles on Kadara, Krogan on Elaaden, and also exiles of exiles on Elaaden. And all of these groups get a fair bit of screen time with multiple quests devoted to them, you can visit their colonies, and just get a different amount of plotlines out of them. But Advent, holy freaking crap, Advent was just...such an interesting idea. A very cool idea. A peaceful, seperate, colony from Nexus which is self suficient. I wanted to visit them, I wanted to get them...but...we just get one quest related to them and they are just a fairly small subplot of the kill the Architects stuff. There should have been so much more with Advent, but we got so little, and that is why its a bad plot line, because i just do not see them wanting to devote more time to this in the future...but maybe I am wrong. Its just the kind of bad writing that you would see from science fiction, like Star Trek and ST TNG...just...no. I agree 100%. I guess some Roekar still have hatred so they will not stop? Maybe for gameplay reasons, they didn't want some sidequest to unravel into nothing because a leader quit and the side quest disappear and the enemy models. As for the Advent, I wonder if they will flourish. They could easily say their colony died off, ignore them, or even expand on them. I might be wrong but I could of swore that I saw a couple Advent outfits (symbol on chest) on some exiles in Kadara Port/Badlands.
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Post by wickedtruth on May 22, 2017 15:09:53 GMT
your first issue i think you are confusing dangling plot threads with game play. yes they could have gotten rid of the Rokkar but then what Havarel looses a good portion of its enemies. Could work but then you have a little less variety in combat. Its one of those sacrifices made for game play bits.
Advent im fairly sure was designed for a seasonal approach not done in game. keep in mind some people might not actually do that quest. besides Advent was a plot hole any way. Seriously the first bit of the game you find evidence all over the place that the radiation and storms were way too bad to keep a permanent colony. Yet you expect me to believe these ass hats were able to settle before the initiative when they literally dropped their outpost block with in a few hours of me clearing it all up? with no heads up? Honestly in my opinion advent was just put in to force a stupid choice that was it. no loss.
yeah the whole advent thing really annoys me can you tell?
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Post by flyingsquirrel on May 22, 2017 15:42:37 GMT
For a while I wasn't sure if the question of why so many AI personnel settled into the lifestyle of violent criminals was a dangling plot thread or just a contrivance to allow for more combat, but then Lexi brought it up and asked me to scan some people on Elaaden to try to figure it out. I did all the scans, but she never reported back to me on any sort of conclusion as to what might have affected their brain chemistry. Did I miss something or is there nothing further to this sidequest?
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Post by anddill on May 22, 2017 16:57:40 GMT
It gets you some lines of text in some questlog.
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: yangthecat
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Post by caterpillar on May 22, 2017 17:16:26 GMT
I was pretty confused about Advent when they first turned up in that quest. I assumed they had set up their colony after I had cleared the radiation, because the game did a pretty good job of showing how disastrous the first tries went. So all this guy's talk about how his people wanted to make it own their own, no help from Nexus made me laugh. Because literally the air they were breathing was a gift from Nexus (in the form of the Pathfinder). And I guess I missed something there, and that Advent was really supposed to predate Prodromos, and was there while the radiation was still a problem?
Whatever their situation, Bioware completely failed at telling their story. I was irritated that I couldn't offer Advent's people a place on Prodromos or come to some sort of terms with them. It all came down to drilling water for Prodromos or drilling gas so Prodromos would have to use it to buy water from Advent, and they couched that decision as an environmental issue, completely bypassing what could have been a more meaningful decision involving water rights and a choice for your Ryder to go with a central authority or to support independent settlements.
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Post by colfoley on May 22, 2017 18:57:23 GMT
For a while I wasn't sure if the question of why so many AI personnel settled into the lifestyle of violent criminals was a dangling plot thread or just a contrivance to allow for more combat, but then Lexi brought it up and asked me to scan some people on Elaaden to try to figure it out. I did all the scans, but she never reported back to me on any sort of conclusion as to what might have affected their brain chemistry. Did I miss something or is there nothing further to this sidequest? you.missed something. Lexi speculates that it's a resultb of the cryo sleep messing with brain chemistry. My hunch is in later games/ dlc it was intentional.
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by dmc1001 on May 25, 2017 11:13:56 GMT
The thing about fundamentalist behavior (in this case, all aliens are bad, even if they happen to do good things for us) is that it's irrational. The Roekar are likely to continue on with a new leader if a) Akksul is dead or he exits the group. They just may not be as strong. We know BioWare considers this stuff because the Outcasts and Collective stop being a threat after the Sloane/Reyes encounter. As for the Advent, they were tiny. At least, that's the impression I got. Maybe after some time passes they'll be relevant somehow. And, realistically, the Advent might just fold back into the AI once Podromos starts to expand. I mean, unless they have some real reason for remaining separate.
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Post by gplayer on May 25, 2017 11:42:36 GMT
For me the following plot points were incomplete for me and was hoping there would be a dlc or something to explain further 1. Medical tech who smuggled his very sick aunt into a cryo pod. When will I get to arrest/exile him? 2. Dr. Kennedy: When will I be able to bring her to justice for stealing supplies from my outposts? 3. Sid: When will I be able to arrest her for trafficking exiles on to my outposts? 4. Tann: When will I be able to punch him in the face? We got to punch Udina - and Tann is more annoying 5. Addison: Where are the hearings and imprisonment for the 3 sabres debacle, more or less Andromedas version of the Iran-Contra affair 6. Peebee: When will be able to kick her off the tempest? 7. Drack: How much longer can modern medicine extend his life? 8. Liam: see (4) 9. Where is Alec Ryder's body? I have serious doubts Cora would have left it behind 10. Captain Dunn: She might have died, might not have died. So the question is will we see an email from her in the future? 11. Other Pathfinders: Do they have their own ships like the Tempest, or was this first come, first serve? Can the other ships combin with the Tempest to form Voltron? 12. Will we be able to eat produce from the seeds we collected from various plants across Heleus? 13. Will we get to apply non-humane traps so that our only options are not keep a pet or ruin another planet's ecosystem?
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Origin: ferroboy
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Post by dmc1001 on May 25, 2017 14:07:31 GMT
1. Agreed. Should be justice for smuggling not just a sick, but potentially contagious, person to Andromeda. 2. Agreed. Again, but then someone has to raise her baby. 4. Anderson got to punch Udina. We only got to shoot him. 5. Agreed. I'm sure we could pull a new director of colonial affairs out of cryo. Or, hey, why not Bradley? 6. Probably never but she's extremely reckless. 9. I feel the same about Alec's body. It's a mystery. 13. I don't think one space hamster can ruin an ecosystem. Two, maybe, but not one.
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Post by Iakus on May 25, 2017 16:07:21 GMT
13. I don't think one space hamster can ruin an ecosystem. Two, maybe, but not one. what if it's an asari space hamster?
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Post by duelli75 on May 28, 2017 11:38:46 GMT
I was pretty confused about Advent when they first turned up in that quest. I assumed they had set up their colony after I had cleared the radiation, because the game did a pretty good job of showing how disastrous the first tries went. So all this guy's talk about how his people wanted to make it own their own, no help from Nexus made me laugh. Because literally the air they were breathing was a gift from Nexus (in the form of the Pathfinder). And I guess I missed something there, and that Advent was really supposed to predate Prodromos, and was there while the radiation was still a problem? Well Advent was founded on Eos long before Prodromos. Like this guy stated the "city" was underground in a cave. So they didn't really suffer from the radiation. It was a problem for sure, but they managed to build an Outpost/City/State what ever you want to call it, in spite of that. So up to a point, they did better then the Nexus. The failure here is they didn't pursue that interesting plot any further.
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