22 Random Tidbits about Andromeda (GI 24th nov) marked spoilers!

I quite liked that we could shape Inky with dialogue choices so either blank slate or inexperienced career wise wouldn't bother me. Hawke's Diplomatic/Humour/Aggressive setup would work quiet well in ME too.

Being able to look around during conversations implies that side quests will have limited cut scenes again. I hated that in DAI, your companions were sliding all over the place and sometimes the pc's animation would glitch and they would do this weird shuffle dance thing. It was so distracting.

Forcing actual interaction just works better for immersion.

I guess it's partially because it helps reduce some costs.
in any case, it seems there should be far less compared to DAI and most conversations should be on the more classic style. We'll see how it turns out this time.

Poor allocation of resources then IMO. I just want them to do something of ME2's calibre. All numbers say they're way above that, but it feels less impressive when they start using non-cinematic sequences for companion development and such. I'd rather they kept it concise and only used cutscenes, maybe gave the writers more banter to make instead.

While that would certainly excuse the PC from not knowing about specifics in Andromeda (besides what scans have already shown), it doesn't excuse question about the basics of lore, like ME fields, how ships work, MW species cultures, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, I anticipate Ryder asking some dumb questions about the Arks/Andromeda Initiative that they should really know the answers to considering they left on a one-way trip. I hope they keep that to a minimum and/or find ways to make the questions sound less dumb. Ideally, our own character could do some of the exposition instead of always getting it from someone else, making them look ignorant.

Yeah, that's the trouble with interviews. Very precise wording is needed, to avoid confusion like this. I hope Mac was referring to inexperience rather than general blank-slate-ness.

I doubt they won't wake up at all. Rather, I think something during the awakening/stasis cripples them enough to be a non-combatant, since the GI article says they'll still be a main character you can talk to.

Something worth keeping in mind is that with ME's fancy genetic manipulation, genetic diversity shouldn't be much of a problem for colonies, even with a low starting population.

Couldn't agree more. ME3's, and especially DA:I's zoomed-out camera that didn't let you see any of the participants' faces or see expressions was one of the worst parts about it, in my opinion. In some cases, the characters wouldn't even look at each other! I really hope that'll be gone this time. Completely unimmersive.

Maybe, but the explanations for it from devs hinted more at it being a design experiment. One that clearly failed for a lot of people, including me. Besides, it shouldn't actually be all that costly. How else would DA:O, DA2, ME1 etc. all have the cinematic system?

To avoid confusion: When I'm talking about cinematic conversation, I'm not talking about cutscenes. Those are indeed more resource-intensive, because they have lots of animations and movement. But cinematic conversation is when the camera simply switches perspectives between 2 or more characters in a conversation, letting you see their faces and expressions. Generally, they're standing still.

So with that in mind, it makes sense that nearly all of the conversations in previous Bioware games were done in this style (or cutscenes). It's not very resource-intensive to set 2 fixed camera points and then alternate between them. It's a matter of coordinates and a bit of code.

Now, this is the part where some will call me out for being presumptuous about game development. But here's the thing: Fallout 4 even has cinematic conversations as a toggle option. And since you can talk to companions anywhere in the world, that means the game will automatically set coordinates for where the camera should be in relation to each character, even having one close-up face angle and one less close torso angle for each.

So all Bioware has to do, if it really is a problem (which I seriously doubt considering past games), is be innovative and find a solutions like Fallout did. Even make it a toggle for people who prefer the zoomed out version if they want.

I adamantly disliked the zoomed-out camera in DA:I for a plethora of reasons, so I'm definitely hoping it's scrapped for ME:A, at least for 95% of the conversations. At least for the companion/main character ones, please.

Have you ever seen such a "sophisticated" piece of writing in a game?

Don't hold your breath.

20. You pick up additional Tempest crew members on your journey.


- Other specie when we on rescue mission maybe
- Some Andromeda member?

Yah, I mean... I don't wanna be cynical here, but (which means that I'm going to anyway) I can see a future where it says "Add more inventory for only $5!"


That would completely kill immersion.

The whole thing goes:
8. Not all of the races from the original trilogy appear in Andromeda, but they may show up in future installments. “We’ve designed the IP in such a way that they can all show up,” Walters says. “For hopefully obvious reasons, they’re not all going to show up in the first game.”

This reassures me greatly since this was my main worry about this move to Andromeda. So while they may not be in this first game, the fact that Bioware has purposefully made it so any and all races we know can be in Andromeda is a great relief.

It mentioned how Liam has a British accent, which is pretty cool. The characters are my favorite part of Mass Effect, so any new info is awesome for me.

Are you sure he was talking about units? Not thousands? Because from biological point of view you need 120 000 animals or humans to start a colony. Otherwise inbreeding will kill your re-population affords pretty fast.

Nope, entire humanity was once presumably at 15 000 people mark, but that's not the lowest required point. For example on island Tristan da Cunha 16 people managed not to get extinct due to inbreeding (even though they do have problems) in 200 years and now their population counts 200 people.

Good point about advanced genetic technologies. I would add to that cloning factories - should be even more simple to take with you several incubators and frozen material for it.

But if we take into consideration accidents of any kind (one of which can be a loss of that genetic technologies) the numbers are growing: In 2013 anthropologist Cameron Smith reviewed existing literature and created a new computer model to estimate a minimum reasonable population in the tens of thousands. Smith's numbers were much larger than previous estimates such as Moore's, in part because Smith takes the risk of accidents and disease into consideration, and assumes at least one severe population catastrophe over the course of a 150-year journey.  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship#Biology_and_society

Still, glad they used the actual research!