Mass Effect Andromeda - I'm not Commander Shepard and this is my favorite sequel

Unsubstantiated, but someone on Reddit took a survey that appears to spill the beans on Mass Effect 4. It should be noted that the anonymous Reddit poster deleted their account shortly thereafter.

(Many details of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Halo 4 were leaked in a similar manner as well.)

The next Mass Effect game takes place in the Helius Cluster (a cluster of 100s of solar systems in the Andromeda Galaxy), far removed by time and space from Commander Shepard’s heroic acts and the final events of the Mass Effect trilogy. You are a pathfinder, a combat trained but un-tested explorer leading an expedition into the Helius cluster to establish a new home for humanity. As you explore this sprawling series of solar systems (over 4x the size of Mass Effect 3), collecting resources and building colonies, you will encounter the savagery of untamed lands in the form of cut-throat outlaws and warring alien races. To survive and colonize the wild reaches of space, you will need to grow your arsenal, your ship, your crew and make strategic (and often uneasy) alliances to fight against increasingly menacing foes. Along the way, you will encounter the remains of a once powerful and mysterious alien race, the Remnant, whose forgotten technology holds the key to gaining power in this region of the galaxy. As you uncover who the Remnant were, and the mysteries their ruins contain, you are drawn into a violent race to find the source of their forgotten technology that will determine the fate of humanity.

More details at the link. There were multiple gameplay categories that were described and the survey taker was asked to rate their interest.

Exploring unknown lands you say? Tell me more…

I hope it doesn’t turn in to much faffing about on meaningless fluff, but the concept has my attention.

There is no reason to regard this story, which seems like a perfectly interesting SciFi concept, as a Mass Effect story.

If you read the survey details in the link, it pretty much follows the Dragon Age: Inquisition model. They’re sort of pulling a Ubisoft by hanging the game-specific details over a similar open-world framework. Unfortunately for me, I found Dragon Age: Inquisition’s design to be entirely composed of tedium. Still, for others, I’m sure this comes as good news. I realize I’m the outlier on DAI opinion.

Here’s one of the bits of concept art Bioware released on N7 Day last year:

This colony needs more iron ingots to upgrade its town hall.

Suffice it to say I’m on a wait-and-see approach with Bioware now. I’m so burned out I no longer feel the need to be there at release to form my own opinion about their games.

I took one of those surveys a while back that made the annoucement that AC:Unity would be in France not be a surprise to me.

But… I didn’t talk about what I read online, as I think you sign an NDA or something.

That survey I took also had a bunch of other things that haven’t happened yet, so who knows what is going on with ME3, really.

The survey leak from Dragon Age was spot-on. Everything mentioned was in the game. The AC Unity and Black Flag ones did have some stuff that didn’t appear in either game.

IIRC, the Ubisoft surveys happened a lot earlier during the dev cycle and I think they were actually asking potential customers how much they’d like to see particular features implemented as well as pricing questions, whereas the EA ones are asking more for opinions on marketing.

And yeah, you’re definitely not supposed to talk about the content of these surveys if you’re asked to participate.

Those sorts of surveys are never a guarantee that the company is going to do something. In fact, if they’re asking questions, it’s more likely they haven’t committed to a specific approach yet and they’re floating test balloons to gauge how people will react. There’s not much point asking the questions if they’ve already decided what they’re going to do!

-Tom

Hey, if any of you dudes should get the opportunity to respond to one of these questionnaires, you’d be doing me a solid by replying “Yes please!” to any exploration questions.

Saw this a few days ago and I hate to be a downer, but it really killed all the hype I had for the sequels. It’s obvious right away that the game’s going to follow DAI’s structure model which likely means the same mmo-esque gameplay.

The names in that link are generic as fuck. Helius? Tempest? APEX? Remanants? Did they open a book of Generic Sci-fi names and randomly pick a few?

I don’t know, I just can’t shake the feeling that this is going to be a reskinned DAI, pegi 12 writing included. I fully expect a generic, uninspired, by the numbers AAA collectathon.

Yeah, let’s call them Myzct, Wheezit, ARBOT and Googledoodle, that would be so much better! :)

Ahhhh ARBOT how do I love thee! Let me count the ways…

Mostly true. But there are cases where surveys are used to validate direction already taken and to make sure that a pivot isn’t necessary. EA’s pivot on Hardline late last year is an example.

These things can also be used to direct marketing as mentioned above, and/or how much to continue to invest in systems that may already exist to some degree. I’ve even seen data like this used to better promote features within a company.

There was a bit of a teaser released on N7 day (Nov 7), not much of one but what the heck, this thread is looking a little light on content. I am hopeful that this game will, as the teaser mentions, focus more on exploration in the new game. And I like the “handoff” of having Cmdr. Shepard doing the voice over.

If you freeze frame that teaser, the dog tag says “Ryder”.

I’m Commander Ryder, and this is my favorite store in the Andromeda Galaxy.

You know what stinks about some of the surveys recently? When they ask your age and you answer honestly - then it says thanks but we’re not interested in your opinion. I never felt old at 45 until that started happening.

Ha, happened to me, too. Now I delete them.

They probably figure that you have such a large backlog that you wont buy the game till its on sale.

Well I lie about my age now, because I want them to hear my opinion. Like this one from Konami:

"What do you think of "free to play tablet gaming?
A. It’s great
B. It’s Ok.
C. Could be improved.
D. Other: write in your own answer…

notice how there no real options for saying mobile ftp was horrible. so I choose D. and wrote:
"FTP gaming on tablets is not unlike a giant, pulsing, hemorrhoid coming out of Satans butthole as he surveys which toilet he will defile after a weekend bender at Taco Bell. ". I hope those writin answers got read. But then again Konami went all mobile psycho anyways.