I find most of how the ending is being covered in the press weird, especially since most seem to classify anyone that has a problem with the ending a whiner.
Most high profile games/media get a certain amount of whining/bitching about the ending, regardless of the quality. So many that aren't really looking deep into this are just seeing the surface whiny people and assuming that it's the same thing.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
To be fair, there's a lot of incoherent rage that tends to obscure the more measured complaints.
Ok, so I'm here to complain about a different ending: Priority Rannoch. I've never felt so railroaded since the end of Fallout 3.
Where was my "I'll let you upload the code, if you let the Quarians have Rannoch" option. I'd have taken a "Ok, if you spare the Quarian fleet" option as well.
And then when not-Legion turned it down, I could kill all the Geth for a reason. I understand not letting me have peace between the two (despite making all the correct choices - I looked it up), since Legion died on the Suicide Mission. That's a perfectly fair consequence. But not allowing me to actually weigh my options before picking what race to exterminate is just poor writing.
That and the Reaper fight right before it is really silly. If you fight the Reaper like it's aiming at you (by waiting to dodge at the last second), you die. If you just walk aimlessly back and forth, you'll beat it.
Rannoch spoilers
It wasn't about the Geth "sparing" the Quarians, though. It was about the Quarians firing and firing and firing whether you tell them to stop or not, despite everything you say to them. "Don't defend yourselves!" is not a good argument. I did have enough points to tell the Quarians to stop being stupid idiots, and they listened to me.
Also I think you can still have enough 'peace' points even if Legion is dead... you just have to have done his loyalty mission before he died and destroyed the heretics instead of reprogramming them.
I did have enough
Peace points. In fact, I had the maximum possible (7). But with the Legion VI you just don't get the choice.
Which makes no sense since, as you say, you're trying to convince the Quarians to back down.
Oh. Well that kinda sucks then, yeah.
I'm trying to finish up my 'imperfect' save of ME2 so that I have one to import where people actually died... and I know that there are going to be some consequences for the people who died, oh yes.
I meant to do a run through of ME2 where I intentionally screwed up as much stuff as possible. I never quite finished it though. I think my plan was to play on Insanity, never scan a single planet, not buy any ship upgrades, and never take a single Paragon/Renegade option.
One of the speculated scrapped endings for ME3 had this.
After Shepard had killed ILM and Anderson had died, Harbinger would assume control of the corpse of ILM in a horrible manner and you'd have a conversation with him instead of the starchild 8-)
This is why ILM had all that technology inserted into his body, so the Reapers could failsafe him if they had to
Just played a few games on Silver with the N7 Valiant, and yeah ... it's the best sniper rifle in ME3, hands down. I didn't think anything would be able to compete with the Widows, but the N7 Valiant blows them both out of the water: hits as hard as the Black Widow, with a slightly higher rate of fire, more controllable recoil, and much less weight. It also reloads about as fast as the Avenger assault rifle, which is, like, a quarter of a second? It has no down-side.
My last two Silver games were both against Cerberus. The first was on Firebase Ghost, and I was about 30k higher than the next highest person. And the second game was on Firebase Glacier (the smallest, tightest map in the game), and I was up against not only my friends, but also a Human Vanguard who's N7 rating was even higher than mine (mine's like 350, his was 498). On that map, the Vanguard should have blown away everyone else, and he did ... except for me. I ended up beating him like 63,000 to 62,000.
Ok, so I'm here to complain about a different ending: Priority Rannoch. I've never felt so railroaded since the end of Fallout 3.
Where was my "I'll let you upload the code, if you let the Quarians have Rannoch" option. I'd have taken a "Ok, if you spare the Quarian fleet" option as well.
And then when not-Legion turned it down, I could kill all the Geth for a reason. I understand not letting me have peace between the two (despite making all the correct choices - I looked it up), since Legion died on the Suicide Mission. That's a perfectly fair consequence. But not allowing me to actually weigh my options before picking what race to exterminate is just poor writing.
That and the Reaper fight right before it is really silly. If you fight the Reaper like it's aiming at you (by waiting to dodge at the last second), you die. If you just walk aimlessly back and forth, you'll beat it.
Rannoch spoilers
It wasn't about the Geth "sparing" the Quarians, though. It was about the Quarians firing and firing and firing whether you tell them to stop or not, despite everything you say to them. "Don't defend yourselves!" is not a good argument. I did have enough points to tell the Quarians to stop being stupid idiots, and they listened to me.
Also I think you can still have enough 'peace' points even if Legion is dead... you just have to have done his loyalty mission before he died and destroyed the heretics instead of reprogramming them.
I did have enough
Peace points. In fact, I had the maximum possible (7). But with the Legion VI you just don't get the choice.
Which makes no sense since, as you say, you're trying to convince the Quarians to back down.
Oh. Well that kinda sucks then, yeah.
I'm trying to finish up my 'imperfect' save of ME2 so that I have one to import where people actually died... and I know that there are going to be some consequences for the people who died, oh yes.
I meant to do a run through of ME2 where I intentionally screwed up as much stuff as possible. I never quite finished it though. I think my plan was to play on Insanity, never scan a single planet, not buy any ship upgrades, and never take a single Paragon/Renegade option.
The "Meh" Shepard run?
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
Ok, this would have been fucking awesome. Hell, make it happen when
You convince him that he's indoctrinated and that he's wrong. Right as he's about to shoot himself his eyes burn yellow and you hear Harbinger's line, and then he raises the gun and points it at you before you shoot him.
FuriousJodo on Twitch/PSN/XBL/Whatever else
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mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
Ok, so I'm here to complain about a different ending: Priority Rannoch. I've never felt so railroaded since the end of Fallout 3.
Where was my "I'll let you upload the code, if you let the Quarians have Rannoch" option. I'd have taken a "Ok, if you spare the Quarian fleet" option as well.
And then when not-Legion turned it down, I could kill all the Geth for a reason. I understand not letting me have peace between the two (despite making all the correct choices - I looked it up), since Legion died on the Suicide Mission. That's a perfectly fair consequence. But not allowing me to actually weigh my options before picking what race to exterminate is just poor writing.
That and the Reaper fight right before it is really silly. If you fight the Reaper like it's aiming at you (by waiting to dodge at the last second), you die. If you just walk aimlessly back and forth, you'll beat it.
Rannoch spoilers
It wasn't about the Geth "sparing" the Quarians, though. It was about the Quarians firing and firing and firing whether you tell them to stop or not, despite everything you say to them. "Don't defend yourselves!" is not a good argument. I did have enough points to tell the Quarians to stop being stupid idiots, and they listened to me.
Also I think you can still have enough 'peace' points even if Legion is dead... you just have to have done his loyalty mission before he died and destroyed the heretics instead of reprogramming them.
I did have enough
Peace points. In fact, I had the maximum possible (7). But with the Legion VI you just don't get the choice.
Which makes no sense since, as you say, you're trying to convince the Quarians to back down.
Oh. Well that kinda sucks then, yeah.
I'm trying to finish up my 'imperfect' save of ME2 so that I have one to import where people actually died... and I know that there are going to be some consequences for the people who died, oh yes.
I meant to do a run through of ME2 where I intentionally screwed up as much stuff as possible. I never quite finished it though. I think my plan was to play on Insanity, never scan a single planet, not buy any ship upgrades, and never take a single Paragon/Renegade option.
Ben Kuchera is certainly not the only dude who writes about video games who has come off as snide during this whole thing, but he has been one of the more prominent people, which has been disappointing.
The Giant Bomb guys actually had a really reasonable discussion about it last night, which I was impressed with.
Giant Bomb was literally founded on a violent rejection of everything wrong with game industry journalism at large.
They are Good Dudes(tm).
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Get him to the end, talk him down and when he's about to go all Saren with a gun to his head, out comes the glowy eyes and burned flesh and Harbinger laughing at you in his booming voice, for thinking you had won
The fundamental thing is: The intro and outro are the top two priorities for entertainment presentation. You have a great intro and outro and mediocre middle and people love it. You have a great middle and mediocre into outro and people will dislike it. This is what made Mass Effect originally so good, despite having pretty poor to mediocre gameplay elements. This is also why Mass Effect 2 is so freaking great. Because they did everything right from ME and improved on it. Tough act to follow really.
The 'intro' to Mass Effect 3 was me importing my Shepard. But that didn't work, at least the face didn't. Now I look like default Shep, which is fine. But. Really? You guys missed that, huh? (I actually don't know, was there some basic technical reason that they can't fix that?)
The game is fantastic. I love the writing, the gameplay is good, the multiplayer is great.
But. Well, my second time to sit down and play the single player I had a bug in the paid DLC that crashed the game for me about 6 times before I found the 'solution'. And then I got stuck on geometry in the ship and had to reload. So my first and second day impressions weren't great. I just played a bunch of multiplayer for a few days after that.
However, having gotten back into it. The game is fantastic. I love the writing and environments, the gameplay is good, the multiplayer is great. I'm not to the ending yet, but I suspect I will not be 100% pleased with it.
It's a great game, Bioware should be proud. If the ending falls short, it's probably that much worse by juxtaposition to the main game writing+narrative+environments+characters that are so good and strong.
Except for that reporter lady on my ship. What the hell?
Ok, so I'm here to complain about a different ending: Priority Rannoch. I've never felt so railroaded since the end of Fallout 3.
Where was my "I'll let you upload the code, if you let the Quarians have Rannoch" option. I'd have taken a "Ok, if you spare the Quarian fleet" option as well.
And then when not-Legion turned it down, I could kill all the Geth for a reason. I understand not letting me have peace between the two (despite making all the correct choices - I looked it up), since Legion died on the Suicide Mission. That's a perfectly fair consequence. But not allowing me to actually weigh my options before picking what race to exterminate is just poor writing.
That and the Reaper fight right before it is really silly. If you fight the Reaper like it's aiming at you (by waiting to dodge at the last second), you die. If you just walk aimlessly back and forth, you'll beat it.
Rannoch spoilers
It wasn't about the Geth "sparing" the Quarians, though. It was about the Quarians firing and firing and firing whether you tell them to stop or not, despite everything you say to them. "Don't defend yourselves!" is not a good argument. I did have enough points to tell the Quarians to stop being stupid idiots, and they listened to me.
Also I think you can still have enough 'peace' points even if Legion is dead... you just have to have done his loyalty mission before he died and destroyed the heretics instead of reprogramming them.
I did have enough
Peace points. In fact, I had the maximum possible (7). But with the Legion VI you just don't get the choice.
Which makes no sense since, as you say, you're trying to convince the Quarians to back down.
Oh. Well that kinda sucks then, yeah.
I'm trying to finish up my 'imperfect' save of ME2 so that I have one to import where people actually died... and I know that there are going to be some consequences for the people who died, oh yes.
I meant to do a run through of ME2 where I intentionally screwed up as much stuff as possible. I never quite finished it though. I think my plan was to play on Insanity, never scan a single planet, not buy any ship upgrades, and never take a single Paragon/Renegade option.
I did that. Miranda and Zaeed ended up surviving, because I did their loyalty missions to do something while I waited for certain story events to trigger. I had intended to get Shepard killed, but it didn't work out. Which is great, because now I have a barely passable Shep to play in ME3.
Get him to the end, talk him down and when he's about to go all Saren with a gun to his head, out comes the glowy eyes and burned flesh and Harbinger laughing at you in his booming voice, for thinking you had won
Would that not be an improvement 10 fold over what WAS after that point?
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I find most of how the ending is being covered in the press weird, especially since most seem to classify anyone that has a problem with the ending a whiner.
Most high profile games/media get a certain amount of whining/bitching about the ending, regardless of the quality. So many that aren't really looking deep into this are just seeing the surface whiny people and assuming that it's the same thing.
So yeah. Bad journalism compounded by a snarky, holier than thou high ground stance. Sprinkled with people who don't know what makes something narratively good or bad.
That's what I'm getting from journalists and it makes me just feel disappointed.
Ok, so I'm here to complain about a different ending: Priority Rannoch. I've never felt so railroaded since the end of Fallout 3.
Where was my "I'll let you upload the code, if you let the Quarians have Rannoch" option. I'd have taken a "Ok, if you spare the Quarian fleet" option as well.
And then when not-Legion turned it down, I could kill all the Geth for a reason. I understand not letting me have peace between the two (despite making all the correct choices - I looked it up), since Legion died on the Suicide Mission. That's a perfectly fair consequence. But not allowing me to actually weigh my options before picking what race to exterminate is just poor writing.
That and the Reaper fight right before it is really silly. If you fight the Reaper like it's aiming at you (by waiting to dodge at the last second), you die. If you just walk aimlessly back and forth, you'll beat it.
Rannoch spoilers
It wasn't about the Geth "sparing" the Quarians, though. It was about the Quarians firing and firing and firing whether you tell them to stop or not, despite everything you say to them. "Don't defend yourselves!" is not a good argument. I did have enough points to tell the Quarians to stop being stupid idiots, and they listened to me.
Also I think you can still have enough 'peace' points even if Legion is dead... you just have to have done his loyalty mission before he died and destroyed the heretics instead of reprogramming them.
I did have enough
Peace points. In fact, I had the maximum possible (7). But with the Legion VI you just don't get the choice.
Which makes no sense since, as you say, you're trying to convince the Quarians to back down.
Oh. Well that kinda sucks then, yeah.
I'm trying to finish up my 'imperfect' save of ME2 so that I have one to import where people actually died... and I know that there are going to be some consequences for the people who died, oh yes.
I meant to do a run through of ME2 where I intentionally screwed up as much stuff as possible. I never quite finished it though. I think my plan was to play on Insanity, never scan a single planet, not buy any ship upgrades, and never take a single Paragon/Renegade option.
The "Meh" Shepard run?
Pretty much. Though to clarify, when I said Paragon/Renegade I meant the Blue/Red options that magically make people do what you want. I did an entire playthrough of ME1 like that and I didn't run into many consequences - Other than Wrex . I think in ME2 there would be a lot of fatalities, especially due to arguments between the crew that I can't defuse.
It's weird that @Ben Kuchera is being such a whiner about Bioware changing the ending. You'd think that, being a game journalist and all, he'd have experience writing bad fiction nerds disagree with.
I dont find it suprising.
Honestly, he's the reason I stopped reading Ars Technica in the first place because he was often a whiny twat and I virtually never agreed with anything he said about games. I was really disappointed with the PA Presents announcement and just try to ignore that it exists. Given how he responded to the ending stuff to begin with, him being a child over this isn't surprising at all.
Hate to say it, as I used to really enjoy him at Ars, but you're correct. In his last few years at Ars, he was getting increasingly whiny, almost to the point where I actively avoided his posts. I was hoping he'd be different coming over to PA, but it appears nothings changed.
That said, both sides of this debacle have people who are being childish, so I can't fault him too much.
Except for that reporter lady on my ship. What the hell?
Yeah, can we direct some outrage at this, or something? Shake things up?
Am I the only one that thinks she looks really weird? Uncanny Valley maybe. Also, should have been Emily Wong.
It is the U.V. effect. They had to do a lot of work on Miranda to be even moderately successful in fixing her.
If Diana Allers actually should've been Emily Wong before whatever deal with G4 was made, I'm going to shake my fist in impotent rage for like three seconds. Emily Wong never even merited one Shepard punch.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
One of the speculated scrapped endings for ME3 had this.
After Shepard had killed ILM and Anderson had died, Harbinger would assume control of the corpse of ILM in a horrible manner and you'd have a conversation with him instead of the starchild 8-)
This is why ILM had all that technology inserted into his body, so the Reapers could failsafe him if they had to
That would have been sweet
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Get him to the end, talk him down and when he's about to go all Saren with a gun to his head, out comes the glowy eyes and burned flesh and Harbinger laughing at you in his booming voice, for thinking you had won
Would that not be an improvement 10 fold over what WAS after that point?
Ok, so I'm here to complain about a different ending: Priority Rannoch. I've never felt so railroaded since the end of Fallout 3.
Where was my "I'll let you upload the code, if you let the Quarians have Rannoch" option. I'd have taken a "Ok, if you spare the Quarian fleet" option as well.
And then when not-Legion turned it down, I could kill all the Geth for a reason. I understand not letting me have peace between the two (despite making all the correct choices - I looked it up), since Legion died on the Suicide Mission. That's a perfectly fair consequence. But not allowing me to actually weigh my options before picking what race to exterminate is just poor writing.
That and the Reaper fight right before it is really silly. If you fight the Reaper like it's aiming at you (by waiting to dodge at the last second), you die. If you just walk aimlessly back and forth, you'll beat it.
Indeed, that first part sucked as did:
Moridin getting blown up and them covering their asses story-wise by suddenly making you dismiss your squad. Which could include a disposable robot body. Or if you didn't have Kaiden, EDI too!
"Had to be [Mordin]. Somebody else would have gotten it wrong."
Posts
Most high profile games/media get a certain amount of whining/bitching about the ending, regardless of the quality. So many that aren't really looking deep into this are just seeing the surface whiny people and assuming that it's the same thing.
*Opens Victory pack* Hornet II
Biowareeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
I meant to do a run through of ME2 where I intentionally screwed up as much stuff as possible. I never quite finished it though. I think my plan was to play on Insanity, never scan a single planet, not buy any ship upgrades, and never take a single Paragon/Renegade option.
One of the speculated scrapped endings for ME3 had this.
This is why ILM had all that technology inserted into his body, so the Reapers could failsafe him if they had to
My last two Silver games were both against Cerberus. The first was on Firebase Ghost, and I was about 30k higher than the next highest person. And the second game was on Firebase Glacier (the smallest, tightest map in the game), and I was up against not only my friends, but also a Human Vanguard who's N7 rating was even higher than mine (mine's like 350, his was 498). On that map, the Vanguard should have blown away everyone else, and he did ... except for me. I ended up beating him like 63,000 to 62,000.
This gun is amazing.
The "Meh" Shepard run?
Ok, this would have been fucking awesome. Hell, make it happen when
Oh you tease.
That would have been incredible.
This guy already took care of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsdFbkN4ppA
Giant Bomb was literally founded on a violent rejection of everything wrong with game industry journalism at large.
They are Good Dudes(tm).
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
The 'intro' to Mass Effect 3 was me importing my Shepard. But that didn't work, at least the face didn't. Now I look like default Shep, which is fine. But. Really? You guys missed that, huh? (I actually don't know, was there some basic technical reason that they can't fix that?)
The game is fantastic. I love the writing, the gameplay is good, the multiplayer is great.
But. Well, my second time to sit down and play the single player I had a bug in the paid DLC that crashed the game for me about 6 times before I found the 'solution'. And then I got stuck on geometry in the ship and had to reload. So my first and second day impressions weren't great. I just played a bunch of multiplayer for a few days after that.
However, having gotten back into it. The game is fantastic. I love the writing and environments, the gameplay is good, the multiplayer is great. I'm not to the ending yet, but I suspect I will not be 100% pleased with it.
It's a great game, Bioware should be proud. If the ending falls short, it's probably that much worse by juxtaposition to the main game writing+narrative+environments+characters that are so good and strong.
Except for that reporter lady on my ship. What the hell?
Origin: Viycktor
I did that. Miranda and Zaeed ended up surviving, because I did their loyalty missions to do something while I waited for certain story events to trigger. I had intended to get Shepard killed, but it didn't work out. Which is great, because now I have a barely passable Shep to play in ME3.
Yeah, that is a super nice touch. I'm always doing a doubletake to determine if something is a quarian or a geth from a distance.
Would that not be an improvement 10 fold over what WAS after that point?
The Hornet is awesome though. The only SMG worth using, imo.
Too bad Emily Wong died on Twitter.
Yeah, can we direct some outrage at this, or something? Shake things up?
Am I the only one that thinks she looks really weird? Uncanny Valley maybe. Also, should have been Emily Wong.
So yeah. Bad journalism compounded by a snarky, holier than thou high ground stance. Sprinkled with people who don't know what makes something narratively good or bad.
That's what I'm getting from journalists and it makes me just feel disappointed.
Pretty much. Though to clarify, when I said Paragon/Renegade I meant the Blue/Red options that magically make people do what you want. I did an entire playthrough of ME1 like that and I didn't run into many consequences - Other than Wrex . I think in ME2 there would be a lot of fatalities, especially due to arguments between the crew that I can't defuse.
The future is comprised of other species with wildly different temperments and morphology, but nothin' sells like a little T'nA!!
Hate to say it, as I used to really enjoy him at Ars, but you're correct. In his last few years at Ars, he was getting increasingly whiny, almost to the point where I actively avoided his posts. I was hoping he'd be different coming over to PA, but it appears nothings changed.
That said, both sides of this debacle have people who are being childish, so I can't fault him too much.
Edit: Blah, this thread moves too fast :P
It is the U.V. effect. They had to do a lot of work on Miranda to be even moderately successful in fixing her.
If Diana Allers actually should've been Emily Wong before whatever deal with G4 was made, I'm going to shake my fist in impotent rage for like three seconds. Emily Wong never even merited one Shepard punch.
ME1 was a really really good game. I mean just good in so many large and small ways.
That would have been sweet
I just heard her talking to one of my crew in the lobby, and I couldn't stand her voice. She was still on the station.
Oh absolutely.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I only say this because whenever talk turns to single player stuff my eyes glaze over and I'll skip entire pages until I spot MP discussion again.
Edit: Damn, beaten
I totally expected that to happen as well.
I can't believe I didn't ever notice this about them.
Here's to hoping they don't also inherit some of their less desirable qualities.
Her face is modelled after Jessica Chobot, an IGN reporter
Jessica Chobot also happens to be the voice for the character
Oh god chobots face makes those horrifying flesh balls in reality too.