Well I mean, there's a lot of dialogue, that some players never hear(have you taken every possible permutation of every team to every place?) but that didn't stop Bioware from recording it. I'd say that the average player who imports will hear just as much dialogue as those who play it new. We're like the geth in this community, you say that the old squaddies wouldn't make sense because people wouldn't hear it, but my point is that a large portion of players don't hear it anyway.smudboy wrote...
That comes down to your definition of role.
For example, I, and many others, see nothing wrong with the survivors being cameos and playing a large role in ME3's ending (like a rally call for war.) They can create all the new squad characters they want, and have the new squad characters for plot integral scenes.
Now, it's possible that we could have a ME2 squadmember act as a placeholder that becomes plot integral (e.g. MacGuffin provider, like Tali or Mordin), but their MacGuffin (or other plot device) should be something generic or external that anyone can do (like being at the right place at the right time to observe something, get Geth data, save Shepard's ass again, discover a Prothean artefact and be introduced to the plot in returning from said mission, etc.) An internal MacGuffin or quality would be extremely large and highly variable to include, but it's not impossible nor asset heavy to accomplish, but still difficult (meaning I can't quite think of one off the top of my head.) So there are plenty of ways to write a ME2 squadmate character to become plot integral. There just wouldn't be anything to their character, because there's no purpose to them after that.
In another scenario, let's assume everyone from ME2 can be squadmates in ME3. Does that mean they'll all develop more, have arcs, have backstories? No. That's way too much work on completely optional content new ME3 players won't have, nor will that be the focus of the story. Can they be cardboard cutouts of what we knew of them, with not much to say? Sure, but there'd be no point, and that's not why we have side characters, which would only insult ME1/2 players.
The best they can do (there may be more, but this is all I've thought of) is give them basic dialog trees that expand as each plot point continues. Obviously they'll provide more content to LI's trees, and they can have heavy plot involvement (as OP suggests), or fluff.
That's not reason enough on it's own to bring back ME2 squaddies I agree, but when you think about it the only non-romanceable characters in ME2(I would like to believe that your LI would come back, so if they're penned why not put them all in, even with the Virmire survivor and Liara, whether you agree or not is another point entirely)are Legion, Mordin, Zaeed, Kasumi, Grunt and arguably Samara and Morinth. I understand the points that Zaeed and Kasumi wouldn't come back(regardless of their DLC status) because they were hired. I'd like to believe the overarching threat would keep them from turning their backs on me but I understand why if they do leave. You're Grunt's battlemaster, something I and many others figured to be the reason he would stay. Legion can communicate with the geth through the FTL comm bouys, leaving him with no reason to leave and possibly alerting you to important geth communiques, and Mordin could stay on the ship regardless of his age, as your Q, as the 4chan poster said(even though I don't believe him, it was a good analogy). Morinth would be drawn to murder more people if you had her so she would leave although I feel a paragon shepard could keep Samara around, it being her new "quest" since her 400 year old issue with Morinth is over. I do understand why people think she'd leave to search out new injustices but since you had to be paragon to keep her I think she'd figure you'd do the honorable thing, and if you didn't she'd leave/try to kill you(think ashes of andraste)
Retour en haut
If you seriously think that no one is returning, even for example a Mass 2 LI if you decided to wait until the second game to get in on that, your sadly, sadly sadly, mistaken. 
