Ark Mod was originally intended to be a DLC sized mod that bridges ME3 to MEA. The general story was that the Reapers discover that the Andromeda Initiative have departed the Milky Way, send the Collectors to hunt them down, but the only way is to use the QECs that each Ark carried that linked them to the Milky Way.
During five N7 length missions Shepard would hunt down and destroy the QECs, one for each race, based on maps in Rio (humans), Menae (turians), Thessia (asari) and Erinle (salarians) plus a final mission set on the Kholas Relay. Liara would leave her message and the Initiative would be eventually cut off, as per the MEA lore. The story of the mod would be a race against time as Shepard and the Collectors raced to seal the Initiative's fate.
We originally conceived of the idea once EGM was largely finished and started work on it before MEA was launched. We started by working out how to build gameplay mechanics and use multiplayer assets in single player, doing the hazard maps in the process, and then started building missions. We had planned adding one or two temporary squadmates (who went through so many iterations - human N7 cyborg, quarian exile, a VI and even a volus), in order to give exposition and guide the story along.
MEA came out, and some of the team, especially the writers, felt disappointed by it, had lots of other things going on and lost interest. Of the five missions originally conceived, gameplay was finished in three, and the other two had much of the art done, but without the writers the cutscenes, story and especially new characters just weren’t working.
So, we eventually put out a cut back version of the Menae, the Operation Paladin mission, on its own without the story portion of it which tells what happened to the Turian team who were trying to recover the QEC from a nearby facility.
The full version of the mod is unlikely to be finished, given I am busy with work, and other members of the team have moved on. Big mods are always a combination of artists, game designers, toolkit programmers, audio specialists, voice actors and writers. Any one skill is difficult to learn, nobody can do them all, so finding a group who have the motivation and time to give is even rarer. Therefore I want to give the tip of the hat to those who helped a lot, particularly Sil, Mgamerz and especially Furinax. We were very lucky with EGM that the team came together, and whilst I regret that the full version of Ark has not been made, at least we got one good mission.
Finally, I would also like to say thanks to all the players for their kind words of encouragement and constructive criticism. It really helps.
I just wanted to say I really appreciate what you and the broader mass effect modding community have done with the mods like this one. I haven't played in a few years (no time sadly as I have to play the trilogy in 1 go and not wait in between) and and now that I saw all the new additions that this mod, omega hub, spectre expansion, take earth back, ITEM and project variety have added. I am very excited! It's too bad that this will never appear on the LE due to missing multiplayer maps and for me it is enough reason to not bother switching. I also don't get why so many people switched to LE with the best mods missing or only partially ported since LE is basically a graphics overhaul (and mods like Alov, Alot and MEIUTM make the graphics on par with the LE anyway) and everything else is fixed by existing OT mods also. In a way I find it a shame that the legendary edition was even released and that modders have to waste their time porting everything instead of focusing on something new. Anyway, I just wanted to say as a fan of the franchise thanks a lot and keep up the good work!
I agree with you on this, this makes me don't want to switch to the legendary edition, there mods like better dreams or the urz mod or the ark mod that aren't coming to the legendary edition.
After my first playthrough of LE I did a OG ME3 playthrough with all mods including ark since ark is my favorite and I severely missed it in LE. I spent hours trying to get the graphics to look the same as LE and while they come close they just aren’t on par. The darks look crushed and unclear. Took forever to get past my OCD. Once I did it was fine but that’s why people switched.
wish you could take the actual textures from LE but ALOT is using higher textures anyway so not sure why the darks still look crushed.
So I ended up missing the n7 pathfinder armor because I didn't know it was in the escape pod and I walked right past it. I'm already deep into the game and don't want to make up so much. any other way to get the armor?
So, I'm guessing the answer is no, but is it possible to get around the dependancy on Resurgance? I never bothered with the free multiplayer packs, and I'm not seeing any way to download them. There's no DLC page on the EA desktop app. It's a shame, becsuse the mod does sound interesting.
What a cool idea and what was released is certainly appreciated. I've added your notes to my head cannon to bridge ME3 and Andromeda :) I'm playing through LE trilogy now but I think my next playthrough will be OG plus mods. I was thinking I could just import an LE 1+2 playthrough into OG ME3 but couldn't find much on that and decided it would be cool to do a full LE playthrough regardless. But I've found the LE edition to be pretty lacking vs OG trilogy and severly lacking vs fully moded trilogy. With some devs now releasing editions of their games with mods integrated, I wonder if ME will ever get that treatment. Would be awesome to see.
Thanks for all the hard work and vision. Regardless of how it turned out, you guys have extended the reach of what mods can do in a game like this.
Everything about Andromeda was a mistake, both the game and the mission in the Mass Effect universe... except this mod. Operation Paladin was some of the most fun I've ever had on ME3. That the Reaper forces can't figure out how to get past their own barriers is a godsend and even then I was up to my mech's eyes in Collector's. Scorced Earth was a little buggier but still enjoyable/challenging. And the N7 Pathfinder armor became my favorite, atleast when combined with some actual leg and arm armor. Great addition all around
Note Ark Mod won't work with Legendary Edition. It is not possible to transfer it to LE because the multiplayer assets it uses are not in LE.
I mean, that isn't true. Most, if not all, of the stuff you need for it is in the Armax Arena for Citadel DLC. Which is in Legendary Edition. I'm sure there are differences between the MP and Citadel assets, and it won't be easy to redo it because coding is not a simple thing, but I don't believe it's not possible. And if Pinnacle Station of all things can be readded as a mod despite being completely lost by BioWare, I don't see why Ark Mod can't.
Edit: I'll admit, I had completely forgotten about the Firebase Stages used for Scorched Earth and Operation Paladin. My bad.
This mod is great but Scorched Earth is horrendously bugged and not fun.
1. I wasn't told I needed a hacking expert until AFTER I had chosen my squad. 2. The countdown has a time dilation effect that makes it so it's like I have adrenaline rush active ALL THE TIME. it's extremely irritating. 3. The mission will fail at the end of the countdown (extra long because of the time dilation bug) even if all my squadmates are in the circle.
Can you please Nexus friends making Ark Mod for Legendary Edition. Please guys we got bored searching for Mods. Please make us all the necessary DLC in one or 2 or 5 files, or a torrent for all. Believe me I got sick from game crashing and Beta and Zeta and deleted textures from users. Moreover, ALOT is making me crazy. It is nice to use Tweak manager of those 8 pages to enjoy some tweaks, but searching after 500 GB files in many websites is terrible. I hope you do something. Thanks.
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Ark Mod was originally intended to be a DLC sized mod that bridges ME3 to MEA. The general story was that the Reapers discover that the Andromeda Initiative have departed the Milky Way, send the Collectors to hunt them down, but the only way is to use the QECs that each Ark carried that linked them to the Milky Way.
During five N7 length missions Shepard would hunt down and destroy the QECs, one for each race, based on maps in Rio (humans), Menae (turians), Thessia (asari) and Erinle (salarians) plus a final mission set on the Kholas Relay. Liara would leave her message and the Initiative would be eventually cut off, as per the MEA lore. The story of the mod would be a race against time as Shepard and the Collectors raced to seal the Initiative's fate.
We originally conceived of the idea once EGM was largely finished and started work on it before MEA was launched. We started by working out how to build gameplay mechanics and use multiplayer assets in single player, doing the hazard maps in the process, and then started building missions. We had planned adding one or two temporary squadmates (who went through so many iterations - human N7 cyborg, quarian exile, a VI and even a volus), in order to give exposition and guide the story along.
MEA came out, and some of the team, especially the writers, felt disappointed by it, had lots of other things going on and lost interest. Of the five missions originally conceived, gameplay was finished in three, and the other two had much of the art done, but without the writers the cutscenes, story and especially new characters just weren’t working.
So, we eventually put out a cut back version of the Menae, the Operation Paladin mission, on its own without the story portion of it which tells what happened to the Turian team who were trying to recover the QEC from a nearby facility.
The full version of the mod is unlikely to be finished, given I am busy with work, and other members of the team have moved on. Big mods are always a combination of artists, game designers, toolkit programmers, audio specialists, voice actors and writers. Any one skill is difficult to learn, nobody can do them all, so finding a group who have the motivation and time to give is even rarer. Therefore I want to give the tip of the hat to those who helped a lot, particularly Sil, Mgamerz and especially Furinax. We were very lucky with EGM that the team came together, and whilst I regret that the full version of Ark has not been made, at least we got one good mission.
Finally, I would also like to say thanks to all the players for their kind words of encouragement and constructive criticism. It really helps.
Kinkojiro
Note Ark Mod won't work with Legendary Edition. It is not possible to transfer it to LE because the multiplayer assets it uses are not in LE.
Anyway, I just wanted to say as a fan of the franchise thanks a lot and keep up the good work!
wish you could take the actual textures from LE but ALOT is using higher textures anyway so not sure why the darks still look crushed.
Are you sure you're checking mass effect 3 and not the legendary edition?
Thanks for all the hard work and vision. Regardless of how it turned out, you guys have extended the reach of what mods can do in a game like this.
multiplayer assets it uses are not in LE.
I mean, that isn't true. Most, if not all, of the stuff you need for it is in the Armax Arena for Citadel DLC. Which is in Legendary Edition. I'm sure there are differences between the MP and
Citadel assets, and it won't be easy to redo it because coding is not a
simple thing, but I don't believe it's not possible. And if Pinnacle Station of all things can be readded as a mod despite being
completely lost by BioWare, I don't see why Ark Mod can't.
Edit: I'll admit, I had completely forgotten about the Firebase Stages used for Scorched Earth and Operation Paladin. My bad.
1. I wasn't told I needed a hacking expert until AFTER I had chosen my squad.
2. The countdown has a time dilation effect that makes it so it's like I have adrenaline rush active ALL THE TIME. it's extremely irritating.
3. The mission will fail at the end of the countdown (extra long because of the time dilation bug) even if all my squadmates are in the circle.
Absolutely not worth it. Won't be doing that mission again in the future.