Commander Shepard’s abilities and statistics won’t transfer to Mass Effect 2 in an obvious fashion. Retooling of the game’s core systems has made raw character data carryover impossible. But don’t start throwing things yet. Mass Effect 2 will know if your character was a level 60 Geth stomper with a Renegade edge and acknowledge it. Also, as an added bonus, the game will explain away the stat wipe.
Mass Effect 2 lead designer Casey Hudson explained the stat wipe and the reasons behind it to Computer World. “There's something that's happening with the story that explains what happens with your abilities. It's something we can't go into detail about for obvious reasons, but it actually happens the other way around. Our goal with the story, in terms of getting the game started quickly and players into really compelling story situations ... that dictated and allowed us to do certain things including changing the way that your abilities work and the way you develop your character.”
Hudson goes on to explain that “literally every system” in the game -- inventory, guns, stats, etc., -- have been improved, thus prohibiting a straight transfer. The designer adds that BioWare is “taking into account all of your accomplishments in terms of building a character from the first game. So things you'd expect to be acknowledged, like if you were a level 60 character, or you were highly Renegade and don't want to start out at the middle again. If you import your save game from Mass Effect, these kinds of things will be acknowledged in ways that map across to the new system. You will feel, even in terms of the character that you build, that you are continuing as that character.”
Even outside of the technical issues with a straight stat and ability transfer, this move makes perfect sense: imagine the uphill battle it would be for a first-time player to go through a game created specifically for Mass Effect veterans. It would be rough to say the least.
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Contest:
11:00 PM on 07.29.2009 | 
Personally, I'm glad they announced this. Imagine starting the game and having 100 points to put wherever you wanted. And this was your first time playing a ME game. Where would you even begin?
My guess is... you'll get injured when the Normandy is destroyed or something. And so you'll do a bit of recovery. Also, as this is later on, all guns and armor will be modified to be more effective against the Geth. Or something...
...So what? They're gonna pull a metroid?
And it would serve them right for not playing the first one.
I would have loved to take a level 60 Shepard and improve upon that guy.
Think about it. Shepard is a soldier in a long war (3 Games at least) so he should continuously improve on his abilities.
Also Shepard is already a pretty outrageously badass guy, so making him more and more badass would just be a logical progression.
The game I was waiting for the most just got a little negative point. :(
Still gonna buy it though because ME1 was awesome.
20 minutes in, nobody is going to care about stats from 2 years ago, and we all know it.
The idea that a company OWES you something for playing a previous game such that you MAXED out your character is laughable. If they give you something extra for being a loyal fan, then good for them (and you). If they don't, so what...you got your enjoyment out of playing the previous game...get over it.
They said your accomplishments in leveling will be taken into account, cry sum moar.
Such a thing was done in Baldur's Gate 2 and in Wizardry 7 & 8, as well as others. It's not a question of "how can they balance it?" because it would only take a grain of imagination to figure out how to do that- Scaling/alternate introductions/so on. Instead it's a question of budgetary constraints/time constraints/ or simply they just didn't want to deal with ironing out programming snags.
I don't believe I am owed anything but it does feel... misleading.
Yeah I'm with you. They should definitely leave more ends loose for players to tie up.... such as how many times we want to play through a game with our character.
At least, in theory.
It's the same thing I see happening with WoW in the future. Each expansion adds 10 more levels of talents. What if it goes on to level 100? There will be rows and rows of talents that will be harder and harder to balance.