Insofar as the entirety of Mass Effect is restricted to the Milky Way galaxy, I would find this highly unlikely.

Breaking into the solar system, though, that would make an interesting chain of missions, if only because we could mess around stations circling Neptune or Saturn or something.

You know what really concerns me about Mass Effect 3, though?

I actually think the game is being released too soon.

...With most games I'd be perfectly satisfied with a slightly-less-than-two-year production cycle, but with ME3 I am like "I want ME3 to do so much shit and to be so context specific to the circumstances of my particular Shepard, and I want everyone from ME1 and ME2 to return, and I want a fair amount of returning and new characters, and I want fucking amazing Reaper battles. Bioware, take your goddamn time. I would much rather wait another year or two for the greatest game ever, which ME3 has a significant chance of being, then get an early crack at a fantastic game that still misses that mark."

EDIT: Like if Bioware was like "We'll make Mass Effect 3 the most amazing game you'll ever play, but it will come out in 2013 and cost $100 due to all the extra time and effort we'll invest in giving every ME1 and ME2 character and scenario adequate closure, or we'll just release the game this fall as planned, with whatever we finish by then making it in," you had better believe I am choosing the former option.
And not regretting it in the least.

Snake: As far as I'm aware, Bioware was already outlining the third game well before the second game even hit the store and started early development during the last few weeks before Mass Effect 2 went gold.

But to be fair, I could be talking shit, because try as I might, I can't find where I read that.

Bells: Yeah, I guess how to look at things really depends on how you played the game...
I'm simply assuming, for now, that the canon ME2 ending is a Paragon Shep, all allies loyal and the base destroyed.
We'll have to wait and see what the actual canon ending is when ME3 releases. (Or somebody from EA or BioWare lets this info slip.)

From what I heard, they're going all out, though, so it wouldn't surprise me that in your game Miranda DOES turn on Shep (assuming that'll be a plot in the first place) and in mine she won't.

Really, though, thinking like this, if most of a game's budget and time goes to graphics, they pretty much have all those at this point.

Really, think about it. They already have the old and new textures for all the old party members and the textures for all the new party members, plus the Normandy 2, plus a ton of worlds. What more do they need? FFX-2 was cranked out in, what, two years using the resources from X? And look at all the graphics they added with that!

In this case, they wouldn't even need to add anything. The whole series has been on one console generation and they have the graphical resources already made for every console it'll be released on. All they really needed to do was write the story, write the lines, maybe add a thing or two, record everything, and shove it out the door.

Oversimplifying by a LOT, but you get the idea. When the graphics are already done for you, you save a lot of time and money.

...I'm not sure if FFX-2 is the best possible example to bring into this conversation.
(Excuse me while I now go to the bathroom to wash the bile out of my mouth.)

The game is alot about choices and their impact. I bet supporting Earth is a choice. Do you defend your homeworld and fellow humans, leaving the rest of the galaxy on its own, or do you protect the Citadel and galactic infrastructure for benefit of all while putting your own people in a weaker position

Say what you will about the story (I didn't have a problem with it, personally), but it had the best battle system of the series, made excellent use of X's resources, and offered quite a lot to those who played it with its complex web of missions.

I really don't get where all the hate for it comes from, considering how well-received it was.

Reception of a product =/= objective quality of a product.

And hey, I can't say it's terribly surprising to note that a game that features Rikku and Yuna as dress-up dolls in bikinis and other skin-tight outfits and transforms their once depth-filled personalities into one-dimensional, prototypical Jpop singers would be popular. Games with physically attractive female leads certainly have a nice head start there. And the gameplay isn't altogether terrible, assuming you completely forget about the art direction and analyze it as something more akin to FF5's "jobs" or "specializations."

...Heck, you could even make the argument, and I wouldn't necessarily completely disagree with it, that FFX-2 would have been an acceptably mediocre, average RPG if it just featured new female characters in a new world, as opposed to piggybacking off of FFX and disrupting the established personalities of known characters.

...But all that aside, the list of "things that are horribly, horribly wrong with FFX-2 when considered as a sequel to FFX", not to mention "the things that are horribly, horribly wrong with FFX-2's depiction of women to a predominantly young male audience" would cover an entire essay worth of material. And it's an essay that I've written multiple times, and one I probably shouldn't repeat here, lest I derail the thread.

...So. Which ME1 and ME2 characters do you expect will be prominently featured in ME3, and which squadmates might be relegated into small cameos or ditched entirely?

They just switched from one cliched one note personality to another.
 

You had me annnnd You lost me.

I am apprehensive because given the enormous web of choices available via two games, I can't see them having that many ME1 and 2 characters playing a huge role. That would be a lot of redundant/overlapping work to fully story and voice a character that may be dead.

I figure the length to which you saw Ashley/Kaiden/Wrex in ME2 may be the extent to which you see ME2 characters.

Mind I don't WANT this, but it's also a huge job to do what I WANT. Surprise me, Bioware.

Also get this fucking Final Fantasy bullshit out of my Mass Effect thread. Blues if you don't understand the Internet view of FFX-2 at this point, you live under a rock. Snake, don't goad him! Me, stop backseat modding!

Well he's right about the J-Pop thing. Literally. :\

Well that's why I didn't quote THAT part.