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[inteuniso]

Thought this might be worth mentioning. Bioware released Mass Effect 2: Arrival, a "2.5" mission of sorts.

A deep cover operative has gone missing in Batarian space, days after reporting conclusive evidence of an imminent Reaper invasion. Shepard must travel to the edge of the galaxy, rescue the Alliance agent, and discover the truth behind the Arrival.

[Taricus]

Looks like three just got some info leaked.

[Digital Hellhound]

I dunno if you guys saw the thread+low-quality webcam pics of the gameinformer article, but here are the first high-quality scans. After reading it, I'm pretty damn exciteeeeeeeeeed. Gah.

It's got several minor spoilers, so be warned.

[Virex]

Probably the reason why we don't have the option to downgrade to an ME1 era weapon is that it wouldn't be very effective, like trying to kill a tank with a handgun. Only the tank armor is on an angry guy who's shooting at you.

This is, more or less, the explanation we're given.

We're told that it isn't so much how hard you hit a shield, as how often you hit it.  So rapid-fire weapons became very powerful.  And the built-in heatsinks couldn't keep up with the heat being put off from these guns anymore.  So they basically built disposable heatsinks.  Dump all your heat into a clip, get it good and toasty, and then eject it instead of waiting for it to cool off.

How would you propose to keep a heat sink that has been heated to some 500-odd degree around without burning yourself? Plus, if they're there to get rid of so much energy, then you can bet they have a huge heat capacity, meaning cooling down is going to take in the order of a few hours if you're lucky (note that not burning your foot on dropped heatsinks is a different kind of plot hole)

Or, barring that, why not throw in a traditional heatsink in addition to the clips?  Yes, I know, it can't keep up...  So I can only fire one shot every once in a while...  And it will not be effective for a real fight...  But it'd give you some ability to continue fighting after you'd run out of clips.

If the amount of energy is well over the cooling duty of a conventional heatsink then running on a conventional heatsink is going to cook your gun from the heat generated by the firing of a single shot. (pretty easy if it's a radiative heat sink. Hell, even air-cooled heat sinks usually need forced convection to work well enough). Plus, you need to fit those heat sinks somewhere, which means more weight and less space for the firing mechanism and that counts for a lot. Imaging lugging around a 10 pound block of cooling fins attached to your gun. Also, I haven't played ME1, but from the pictures of the guns it seems the cooling system is way to small compared to the energy they're said to generate.[/quote]

[Pandarsenic]

It's rather easy to miss. It's on a side planet and shows up as an anomoly on the map. No quest or anything. I only found it becouse my OCD made me search all over every map for anythin I could find.

You just summarized why I hated the extra planets in ME1. I wasted SO much time on that shit.

At least in ME2 you can crack open a save editor and give yourself resources instead of wasting time with probes.

[Saint]

Probes were fun. I would have liked exploring the planets but still.

[Thexor]

Probes were fun. I would have liked exploring the planets but still.

Probe scanning was, to be kind, "zen-like". To be blunt, "boring."

Sure, bouncing around random planets in the physics-defying Mako wasn't exactly the strong point of ME1. But heck, at least you got to land on the planet, allowing you to admire the stunning views while cursing the mountainous terrain. And there was the chance of finding something downright interesting - thresher maws, interesting bits of lore, the odd ambush or battle. It was certainly a lot more fun than sitting in orbit, dragging a targeting reticule across the planet and watching the graph for sudden spikes. 

[Pandarsenic]

The thresher maws had incredibly bugged projectiles but were otherwise fun.

The Mako was sort of fun and sort of retarded.

Bouncing yourself into the air with glitches was hilarious though.

[Sinned]

Probes were fun. I would have liked exploring the planets but still.

Probe scanning was, to be kind, "zen-like". To be blunt, "boring."

Sure, bouncing around random planets in the physics-defying Mako wasn't exactly the strong point of ME1. But heck, at least you got to land on the planet, allowing you to admire the stunning views while cursing the mountainous terrain. And there was the chance of finding something downright interesting - thresher maws, interesting bits of lore, the odd ambush or battle. It was certainly a lot more fun than sitting in orbit, dragging a targeting reticule across the planet and watching the graph for sudden spikes. 

Have to agree with that, just like the inventory system they went a bit to far to remove the entire concept.

[Sergius]

I liked that you "unlocked" inventory items, instead of micromanaging 5000 upgrades to find which ones to turn into omnigel, even if you already had 999 gel (last playthru I gave up and changed the config file to allow for thousands of items in my inventory). But it sucked that there were basically 3 of each kind of item.

The way I would have done it: keep the whole "Model XX", but you only ever keep the highest XX of the model you found, and you basically get unlimited amounts of it once found. Still somewhat random, in lockers etc, and you're only informed if you found a better model.

In the first ME it also didn't help that some models were simply better at everything, instead of a tradeoff. (a rare few had "better precision but lower damage, and faster cooling" and such). So, don't have 100 models just because you can or cuz it's RPG-ey if 90 of those models simply suck.

[Rakonas]

Probes were fun. I would have liked exploring the planets but still.

Probe scanning was, to be kind, "zen-like". To be blunt, "boring."

Sure, bouncing around random planets in the physics-defying Mako wasn't exactly the strong point of ME1. But heck, at least you got to land on the planet, allowing you to admire the stunning views while cursing the mountainous terrain. And there was the chance of finding something downright interesting - thresher maws, interesting bits of lore, the odd ambush or battle. It was certainly a lot more fun than sitting in orbit, dragging a targeting reticule across the planet and watching the graph for sudden spikes. 

Have to agree with that, just like the inventory system they went a bit to far to remove the entire concept.

I disagree, going around in the Mako was one of the best transitions, and it would have done well to stay entirely. I would like to have a point to get out of the vehicle and explore, and disliked the utter lack of foliage, but it was a good mechanic.
The inventory was bad in ME1, but the research in ME2 was a good  system in some regards, except for the annoying necessity of buying or finding extra upgrades in order to research something new. In all likelihood ME3 will do away with the "Mine for 50,000 platinum, use it, mine another 50,000." mechanic of planet mining for a DA2-esque system of finding resources and always being able to use those resources, though. Not a great mechanic, but it's good enough and wouldn't be tedious like ME2's system.

[Zangi]

ME1 and ME2 planet searching both sucked.  I found em tedious and boring.  But, still had to do em.
Inventory system in ME1 was just terribad.

[Felius]

Probably the reason why we don't have the option to downgrade to an ME1 era weapon is that it wouldn't be very effective, like trying to kill a tank with a handgun. Only the tank armor is on an angry guy who's shooting at you.

This is, more or less, the explanation we're given.
We're told that it isn't so much how hard you hit a shield, as how often you hit it.  So rapid-fire weapons became very powerful.  And the built-in heatsinks couldn't keep up with the heat being put off from these guns anymore.  So they basically built disposable heatsinks.  Dump all your heat into a clip, get it good and toasty, and then eject it instead of waiting for it to cool off.

How would you propose to keep a heat sink that has been heated to some 500-odd degree around without burning yourself? Plus, if they're there to get rid of so much energy, then you can bet they have a huge heat capacity, meaning cooling down is going to take in the order of a few hours if you're lucky (note that not burning your foot on dropped heatsinks is a different kind of plot hole)

Well, you could build something akin to a handle in the heatsink, so you could actually hold it. Sure, it might make it a bit heavier (make the actual isolator part out of aerogel. It's both an awesome isolator and awesomely light) and bulky, but still, it'd be an advantage if you could not thrown them away. Or if you could actually carry more of them. They seem pretty small, how the hell can Shepard carry so little ammo? Didn't they make pockets in his combat armor? Or at the very least get a reload when going back to the Normandy, instead of always having to scavenge for them.

[Saint]

They sucked at weapon variety too.
I had a choice of 3 weapons through out the entire game, fuck you bioware.
(not including the 2 kinds of pistols I could have used.)
I mean jesus fucking christ, you can't give me any more variety or something? Too fucking lazy to make at least one more sniper rifle?

[Thexor]

They sucked at weapon variety too.
I had a choice of 3 weapons through out the entire game, fuck you bioware.
(not including the 2 kinds of pistols I could have used.)
I mean jesus fucking christ, you can't give me any more variety or something? Too fucking lazy to make at least one more sniper rifle?

To be fair, in ME1 you had only one sniper rifle 'option'. Plus a hundred or so inferior variants that would take up space in your inventory until you decided to go through the tedious "Are you sure you want to convert this to omni-gel?" procedure for the umpteenth time, only then realizing that Garrus was still toting around a tier I weapon. 

ME3 sounds like you'll still have a fairly limited weapon selection, but with the ability to mod said weapons it'll at least feel a little more varied, without getting back to the ME1's inventory nightmare.