So I finally got around to finishing Mass Effect...

[drebo]

And now I have a completely logical and wholy unnatural utter hatred for elevators.

:sneaky:

 

[Anteaus]

Consider yourself lucky. Consoles had it far worse. I've beaten the game on 360 and PC and I can tell you the PC load times were light speed in comparison

 

[irishScott]

Don't worry, they wisely removed that "feature" from ME2.

 

[Doppel]

LOL I am playing it on xbox 360 for first time. I'm only a few hours through it so far but holy sh*t why do the elevators move so slowly, ugh!

 

[GundamW]

Played on PC. It was tolerable.

 

[StinkyPinky]

LOL I am playing it on xbox 360 for first time. I'm only a few hours through it so far but holy sh*t why do the elevators move so slowly, ugh!

They are loading screens.

Personally I'd rather just have a loading screen.

 

[Modular]

The loading screens (elevator rides) were never long enough for me to really notice when I played through a year ago.

 

[NoSoup4You]

I had no problem with the elevators, again like others have mentioned they are just loading screens except they're actually interactive which is much better than ME2's static loading screens where you just stare at a canned background.

The larger problem wasn't the elevators in ME1, but rather the quests on the Citadel which kept sending you to every corner of the place, obviously an attempt to get the player to explore but often times required multiple elevator rides in between.

 

[Via]

The only thing that really bothered me about the elevators was the bug where you get stuck in them. It wasn't that frequent, but it did happen about 4 times during the game.

 

[irishScott]

I had no problem with the elevators, again like others have mentioned they are just loading screens except they're actually interactive which is much better than ME2's static loading screens where you just stare at a canned background.

The larger problem wasn't the elevators in ME1, but rather the quests on the Citadel which kept sending you to every corner of the place, obviously an attempt to get the player to explore but often times required multiple elevator rides in between.

You must have played on the x-box. On my PC, which isn't even all that fast by modern standards, the loading screens are around for <5 seconds without fail. Compare that to a 30 second elevator ride. Thankfully they included rapid transit. 4 seconds load-time, and I'm there.

ME2, maybe 15 seconds.

 

[Glitchny]

The long elevator rides on the xbox version is actually what made me stop playing the game the first time. It was crazy, and then the quests that sent you back and forth through them. I eventually finished it an played ME2 on the pc, and those loading screens are so much better.

 

[Zenoth]

You can receive one or two Assignments by going in elevators that would otherwise never be found. If my memory serves me well one of them (I THINK there's about two, I'm not sure) is something about a survey team that's gone missing. That Assignment is only triggered if you happen to hear the news about it during an elevator ride.

To be honest I think it's inefficient to provide quest(s) that way since we can always just use the travel terminals and instantly spawn at any given wards or the presidium locations, in such a case I guess it's possible to entirely miss such elevator-unique Assignments. But thankfully those Assignments aren't very important.

I finished ME1 recently and really, it wasn't as bad as I remembered those elevator rides to be. I think I had around five or six rides total, otherwise I'd just use the terminals for instant travel to specific locations.

 

[Anteaus]

You can receive one or two Assignments by going in elevators that would otherwise never be found. If my memory serves me well one of them (I THINK there's about two, I'm not sure) is something about a survey team that's gone missing. That Assignment is only triggered if you happen to hear the news about it during an elevator ride.

To be honest I think it's inefficient to provide quest(s) that way since we can always just use the travel terminals and instantly spawn at any given wards or the presidium locations, in such a case I guess it's possible to entirely miss such elevator-unique Assignments. But thankfully those Assignments aren't very important.

I finished ME1 recently and really, it wasn't as bad as I remembered those elevator rides to be. I think I had around five or six rides total, otherwise I'd just use the terminals for instant travel to specific locations.

I just completed ME for the third time using a mission checklist to make sure I hit every quest and ever planet. Took almost 25 hours. Some systems and their corresponding quests don't become available unless you complete it's requisites (i.e. 75% morality, level 20, prior side quests, feros, novina, etc). None of them require any sort of elevator ride to acquire. It's just a matter of hitting the right person or system after you hit it's prereq. I hit every quest/planet systematically off a checklist just to make sure I didn't miss anything. MEwiki has a great spreadsheet that gives all of this information. Also there is a map of the Citidel with every quest giver and area of interest for quests.

I beat it again because I lost my saves and I'm also planning on doing a similar completion of ME2 in the next month so that when ME3 comes out I'll be ready to go with my saves.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

The load screens in both Mass Effects for the PC are especially obnoxious, because the stupid loading screen actually slows the game. Disable the load screens in ME2, and this becomes readily apparent - actual loading takes 2 seconds, tops. It actually waits for the entire loading movie to play, even if it's already finished loading.

If ever you decide to replay ME1 on the PC again, remember to edit the keybinds to include a bind to "Slomo 4.0" and "Slomo 1.0" - gives you toggleable fast forward to get through pointless elevator scenes.

Can do the same in ME2, and probably should, but it requires fixing the coalesced after the edit, and it won't help with the load movies themselves, just unskippable cutscenes.

 

[Gothgar]

And now I have a completely logical and wholy unnatural utter hatred for elevators.

:sneaky:

lol

better than staring at a loading screen right?

 

[Red Storm]

I enjoy party banter, so I actually liked the elevator rides. That they doubled as "loading screens" also helped the immersion factor.

 

[Bateluer]

Did ME2 ever fix that bug with multi core systems having insane load times? Several minutes moving up from Deck 1 to Deck 2 on the Normandy. There was a work around, but I'm not sure if they ever actually fixed it.

 

[Glitchny]

Did ME2 ever fix that bug with multi core systems having insane load times? Several minutes moving up from Deck 1 to Deck 2 on the Normandy. There was a work around, but I'm not sure if they ever actually fixed it.

I just played it this weekend on my Multi core and I didn't have any noticeable problems with the loading screens.

 

[coloumb]

those same elevators are also in SWTOR... millions of voices cry out everyday when we have to use them as well...

 

[irishScott]

Did ME2 ever fix that bug with multi core systems having insane load times? Several minutes moving up from Deck 1 to Deck 2 on the Normandy. There was a work around, but I'm not sure if they ever actually fixed it.

I've had ME2 for over a year on my multicore and the loading screens have never taken longer than a few seconds.

 

[drebo]

Yeah, I have no problems with ME2s loading times on my quadcore Core i5 2500K.

Game runs great, although I have to say I don't like it as much as ME1, from a playability point of view. Don't like the ammo system, the item system, the upgrade system, or the map. Other than that...

 

[lavaheadache]

I'm playing ME 1 right now and keep trying to reload during gun fights consequently tossing grenades all over the place. I think I'm going to rebind the "r" key to do nothing