[Mass Effect] SPOILER ALL ME3 DISCUSSION. EVERY SINGLE BIT. EVEN HINTS.

Elitistb · March 2012

jdarksun wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

Man, I just can't do a run where Wrex dies in 1 or anybody dies in 2. Nobody falls, you hear me?

Yeah, but I've seen that already. ;)

Elitistb wrote: »

WTF was this TV Tropes crap?
AI is a crapshoot? Really? After several instances of Synthetics being sympathetic and harmonious races, they make the ending entirely depend on it? When I heard "Organics create Synthetics, Synthetics will then kill off Organics, so we made the cycle so that Synthetics only MOSTLY kill off Organics to turn them into Synthetics" my mouth dropped open. In the cases of EDI and the Geth, Shepard even specifically states that they are life, regardless of their composition or origins. But the Catalyst is all like, "Nope, Synthetic=evil."

Why the hell didn't the Catalyst just make it so that periodically, the Reapers emerge to destroy all Synthetic life, since they seem to be what it considers as the problem?

I guess Synthesis is the best ending, what is the romance partner's suffering compared to everyone getting cool techno-organic bodies? The Control ending is a close second, with Destruction a very distant last.

In the end, though, I immediately thought "Really? You're just going to rip off the 3 endings from Deus Ex by slapping on a coat of paint and calling it over?

Shep (and you) might disagree, but...
...it makes perfect sense that this thing that was designed to keep synthetics down can only do a few things.

1) Take control of the cycle
2) Abort the cycle

3) ...or, if you're good, force evolution to circumvent the cycle.

I didn't have any problems with the consistency of it.

Those three options are okay, except they have at the least several assumptions which are either only sparsely dealt with or not dealt with at all:

1. Why is it a good thing to keep synthetics down? Once you hit sufficiently advanced technology, there is literally no difference between synthetic and organic. There are good synthetics, and bad synthetics, good organics, bad organics. Even at their worse, the Geth were less problematic than the Rachni (organic but under Reaper control, different evolutionary stages might have had them be that way on their own, however) or the Krogan (organic, uplifted but still the same problems as synthetics without being synthetic). Both of these races could easily have ended up accomplishing the same result as synthetics. Even in the Synthesis ending this is still a very real danger, it isn't as if "combine the two and you get the disadvantages of neither!" is a valid assumption. And even if I were to generously allow the "Synthetics and Organics are totally different", despite the game itself showing there was no difference depending on path, this leads to the next problem:
2. Where was the necessity of the cycle at all demonstrated? Where was it shown that there was any reason to believe that synthetics overrunning the galaxy and/or universe was ever a problem to be significantly concerned about?

Orca · March 2012

Dragkonias wrote: »

You know my personal feelings, after really thinking about it. I wouldn't mind if that added a

epilogue. As long as they don't go too far into the future. Basically, start off at the beginning of these situations, while they're still developing.

That way you give closure to people who want to know what happens and the people who want the future to be ambiguous are happy to and can still contemplate their decisions.

Maybe some pictures over the credits or something. I dunno.

A bit too late for that though...

Khildith · March 2012

kedinik wrote: »

Khildith wrote: »

Evigilant wrote: »

My biggest beef with the ending:
The part where Liara walks in and shows you she's keeping a black box that has the record of your life, the fight, and everything completely disappears at the end, the game completely forgets that the scene happened. The stargazer scene falls flat because it's all "legend" and happened so long ago, but that's the very reason why this box exists and why Liara created it: so that people could always remember what was and what happened and who you are.

I would fix this one scene by having it start off by showing the things you where able to accomplish in your play through, the recording ending, and THEN the kid asking if the stories are true about "the Shepard."

As for the choices with the crucible god kid, I don't know really what to think. I think the sole complaint would be that in my opinion, throughout ME2 and ME3 we're focused on how evil TIM is and how insane his idea of controlling the Reapers really is and yet that's the Paragon option. Before you even get on the elevator to make that choice, you just finished arguing with Anderson and TIM over this. Your decisions in ME2 and ME3 regarding the Geth, control is not the paragon option, but it's some how alright because now we're dealing with Reapers and it's alright only if you're the one controlling them?

Why? Why does the game decide in the final moments that, TIM's idea of controlling the reapers is the Paragon option? It felt like the argument I just had with Anderson and TIM, and since I went paragon, meant nothing because he was right.

TIM was wrong, in my opinion, not only because he was indoctrinated, but because he was willing to risk the future of humanity that he MIGHT be able to control the Reapers. When the Catalyst tells you that you'll be able to take control of the Reapers, you have no more reason to doubt one option over another, so why not pick the one that keeps the Geth and EDI alive?

That was actually a completely ridiculous situation that feels like a bigger plot hole the more that I think about it.

So TIM does, in fact, feel 100% confident he will be able to control the Reapers with the Catalyst. And he was right if he had not indoctrinated himself for no apparent reason.

His own indoctrination hardware was used to:

1) Make his own soldiers stronger
2) Make his own soldiers into brain dead drones that could not resist external signals

So, uh, I would like a stronger explanation than, "We must do this! STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS DOCTOR, NOW! So that my muscles will be stronger and my brain will be vulnerable to VPN!"

Endgame/books spoilers

I'm pretty sure TIM was already party indoctrinated. In one of the books both he and Saren get blasted with an instant indoctrination thing, but it doesn't "take" quite yet. I was under the impression that their unique situations had made Saren such an easy target, and TIM got the same treatment the moment the Reapers arrived in force.

Rhan9 · March 2012

curly haired boy wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

i'm with you, cambiata.

the relays HAD to go. sovvy says from the beginning that their chief purpose is to guide organic development along a pre-determined path. fuck that shit, time to break free.

also, anyone who things the ending makes all your work count for nothing is on SPACE CRACK.

you have a chance to leave the galaxy in a more hopeful long-term position than it's EVER been in. you defeat the reapers, ending the cycle. depending on your choices you can solve some of the greatest interspecies conflicts of your era. so fucking what if the relays are gone - we need to determine our own path. and i can't think of a more hopeful ending than a galaxy, united - both organics and synthetics - to fight for survival and a common desire to rebel against the plans of the ancients.

as i've said before, this ending lets bioware take some frankly amazing steps with the mass effect universe going forward. i can't fucking wait.

It does invalidate your choices if you care more about the direct consequences of those choices and not some hypothetical future society that's at best marginally tied to the current setting. The defeat of the reapers and the ending of the cycle were to many people just a stepping stone towards finding out how their choices shape the galaxy afterwards, and they received nothing for it, making the choices pointless, since you can do whatever and get the same ending with a different color palette.

The destruction of the relays is not a bad thing, in fact it's a good thing for the setting to become more interesting, but the current endings address none of the expectation for a sizable portion of the player base at the moment.

the bolded above confirms that a sizable portion of the player base is silly geese, then.

i'm getting the feeling that if they had to choose between saving their friends and saving the galaxy, the reapers would get their harvest.

shepard says it over and over and over and over and OVER during the course of ME3: i'm prepared to die to save my friends save the normandy save earth SAVE THE GALAXY AND DEFEAT THE REAPERS

Really? For many people the meat of the game is the characters and the plot choices and interactions. If you got the satisfaction from just fighting the reapers, good for you.

for me, the characters and plot choices and interactions are there to hammer home the gravity of the threat. what i love about the mass effect series is that they spend two entire games building up the universe to something you love immensely, then give you a slim chance to save it from being wiped out. that's great storytelling. but the two things have to go together - i'm not interested in the mundane adventures of a random turian during his middle career years, angling for a promotion that never comes. mass effect tells me i have a problem, and then makes me care about solving it.

tangentially: this is also why i have trouble getting into most fantasy games. they're great about presenting problems, but really bad at telling me why i should care. if they're good, they tell strong player characters why they should care, and i'll believe that.

Ah. You see, the threat of Reapers brings the characters in the franchise together, and I grew to care about what happens to them due the the impending doom that we were working to prevent. Without them I wouldn't have given a shit about the reapers, and after dealing with the reapers the part of the game I cared about(the characters and the setting I've grown to love) seems to be completely disregarded, and I got no closure on them. Great, I beat the final boss or something, but the driving motivation of my run through the game was not addressed at all in the end. I mean, do you get what I'm saying here? The Reapers were more or less a part of the scenery, a reason for the adventures, not the goal and the point of everything. They were never THE motivation to play through the story.

i think we're viewing different sides of the same coin here. it's just a matter of a difference in priorities. ;)

Yeah, but can you see how the ending fails to satisfy people on this side of the coin? ;)

kedinik · March 2012

Khildith wrote: »

kedinik wrote: »

Khildith wrote: »

Evigilant wrote: »

My biggest beef with the ending:
The part where Liara walks in and shows you she's keeping a black box that has the record of your life, the fight, and everything completely disappears at the end, the game completely forgets that the scene happened. The stargazer scene falls flat because it's all "legend" and happened so long ago, but that's the very reason why this box exists and why Liara created it: so that people could always remember what was and what happened and who you are.

I would fix this one scene by having it start off by showing the things you where able to accomplish in your play through, the recording ending, and THEN the kid asking if the stories are true about "the Shepard."

As for the choices with the crucible god kid, I don't know really what to think. I think the sole complaint would be that in my opinion, throughout ME2 and ME3 we're focused on how evil TIM is and how insane his idea of controlling the Reapers really is and yet that's the Paragon option. Before you even get on the elevator to make that choice, you just finished arguing with Anderson and TIM over this. Your decisions in ME2 and ME3 regarding the Geth, control is not the paragon option, but it's some how alright because now we're dealing with Reapers and it's alright only if you're the one controlling them?

Why? Why does the game decide in the final moments that, TIM's idea of controlling the reapers is the Paragon option? It felt like the argument I just had with Anderson and TIM, and since I went paragon, meant nothing because he was right.

TIM was wrong, in my opinion, not only because he was indoctrinated, but because he was willing to risk the future of humanity that he MIGHT be able to control the Reapers. When the Catalyst tells you that you'll be able to take control of the Reapers, you have no more reason to doubt one option over another, so why not pick the one that keeps the Geth and EDI alive?

That was actually a completely ridiculous situation that feels like a bigger plot hole the more that I think about it.

So TIM does, in fact, feel 100% confident he will be able to control the Reapers with the Catalyst. And he was right if he had not indoctrinated himself for no apparent reason.

His own indoctrination hardware was used to:

1) Make his own soldiers stronger
2) Make his own soldiers into brain dead drones that could not resist external signals

So, uh, I would like a stronger explanation than, "We must do this! STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS DOCTOR, NOW! So that my muscles will be stronger and my brain will be vulnerable to VPN!"

Endgame/books spoilers
I'm pretty sure TIM was already party indoctrinated. In one of the books both he and Saren get blasted with an instant indoctrination thing, but it doesn't "take" quite yet. I was under the impression that their unique situations had made Saren such an easy target, and TIM got the same treatment the moment the Reapers arrived in force.

That would certainly explain things but it's hardly ideal for external Extended Universe information to be required for the games themselves to make sense.

Captain Carrot · March 2012

Dragkonias wrote: »

You know my personal feelings, after really thinking about it. I wouldn't mind if that added a

epilogue. As long as they don't go too far into the future. Basically, start off at the beginning of these situations, while they're still developing.

That way you give closure to people who want to know what happens and the people who want the future to be ambiguous are happy to and can still contemplate their decisions.

Right, I want the beginnings. As I think I've said before, I want little scenes of the rebuilding. If I have Wrex arguing before the Council that the krogan should be allowed to have ships again and the turian councilor backing him up, and the same for the quarian and geth, I'm happy. A scene with your crew either mourning you or dragging you out of the rubble would also be good. I think the ending should have the same quality of work put into it as the rest of the game.

Cantido · March 2012

Khildith wrote: »

kedinik wrote: »

Khildith wrote: »

Evigilant wrote: »

My biggest beef with the ending:
The part where Liara walks in and shows you she's keeping a black box that has the record of your life, the fight, and everything completely disappears at the end, the game completely forgets that the scene happened. The stargazer scene falls flat because it's all "legend" and happened so long ago, but that's the very reason why this box exists and why Liara created it: so that people could always remember what was and what happened and who you are.

I would fix this one scene by having it start off by showing the things you where able to accomplish in your play through, the recording ending, and THEN the kid asking if the stories are true about "the Shepard."

As for the choices with the crucible god kid, I don't know really what to think. I think the sole complaint would be that in my opinion, throughout ME2 and ME3 we're focused on how evil TIM is and how insane his idea of controlling the Reapers really is and yet that's the Paragon option. Before you even get on the elevator to make that choice, you just finished arguing with Anderson and TIM over this. Your decisions in ME2 and ME3 regarding the Geth, control is not the paragon option, but it's some how alright because now we're dealing with Reapers and it's alright only if you're the one controlling them?

Why? Why does the game decide in the final moments that, TIM's idea of controlling the reapers is the Paragon option? It felt like the argument I just had with Anderson and TIM, and since I went paragon, meant nothing because he was right.

TIM was wrong, in my opinion, not only because he was indoctrinated, but because he was willing to risk the future of humanity that he MIGHT be able to control the Reapers. When the Catalyst tells you that you'll be able to take control of the Reapers, you have no more reason to doubt one option over another, so why not pick the one that keeps the Geth and EDI alive?

That was actually a completely ridiculous situation that feels like a bigger plot hole the more that I think about it.

So TIM does, in fact, feel 100% confident he will be able to control the Reapers with the Catalyst. And he was right if he had not indoctrinated himself for no apparent reason.

His own indoctrination hardware was used to:

1) Make his own soldiers stronger
2) Make his own soldiers into brain dead drones that could not resist external signals

So, uh, I would like a stronger explanation than, "We must do this! STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS DOCTOR, NOW! So that my muscles will be stronger and my brain will be vulnerable to VPN!"

Endgame/books spoilers
I'm pretty sure TIM was already party indoctrinated. In one of the books both he and Saren get blasted with an instant indoctrination thing, but it doesn't "take" quite yet. I was under the impression that their unique situations had made Saren such an easy target, and TIM got the same treatment the moment the Reapers arrived in force.

This amuses me.
http://cyberghostvpn.com/

Orca · March 2012

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

i'm with you, cambiata.

the relays HAD to go. sovvy says from the beginning that their chief purpose is to guide organic development along a pre-determined path. fuck that shit, time to break free.

also, anyone who things the ending makes all your work count for nothing is on SPACE CRACK.

you have a chance to leave the galaxy in a more hopeful long-term position than it's EVER been in. you defeat the reapers, ending the cycle. depending on your choices you can solve some of the greatest interspecies conflicts of your era. so fucking what if the relays are gone - we need to determine our own path. and i can't think of a more hopeful ending than a galaxy, united - both organics and synthetics - to fight for survival and a common desire to rebel against the plans of the ancients.

as i've said before, this ending lets bioware take some frankly amazing steps with the mass effect universe going forward. i can't fucking wait.

It does invalidate your choices if you care more about the direct consequences of those choices and not some hypothetical future society that's at best marginally tied to the current setting. The defeat of the reapers and the ending of the cycle were to many people just a stepping stone towards finding out how their choices shape the galaxy afterwards, and they received nothing for it, making the choices pointless, since you can do whatever and get the same ending with a different color palette.

The destruction of the relays is not a bad thing, in fact it's a good thing for the setting to become more interesting, but the current endings address none of the expectation for a sizable portion of the player base at the moment.

the bolded above confirms that a sizable portion of the player base is silly geese, then.

i'm getting the feeling that if they had to choose between saving their friends and saving the galaxy, the reapers would get their harvest.

shepard says it over and over and over and over and OVER during the course of ME3: i'm prepared to die to save my friends save the normandy save earth SAVE THE GALAXY AND DEFEAT THE REAPERS

Really? For many people the meat of the game is the characters and the plot choices and interactions. If you got the satisfaction from just fighting the reapers, good for you.

for me, the characters and plot choices and interactions are there to hammer home the gravity of the threat. what i love about the mass effect series is that they spend two entire games building up the universe to something you love immensely, then give you a slim chance to save it from being wiped out. that's great storytelling. but the two things have to go together - i'm not interested in the mundane adventures of a random turian during his middle career years, angling for a promotion that never comes. mass effect tells me i have a problem, and then makes me care about solving it.

tangentially: this is also why i have trouble getting into most fantasy games. they're great about presenting problems, but really bad at telling me why i should care. if they're good, they tell strong player characters why they should care, and i'll believe that.

Ah. You see, the threat of Reapers brings the characters in the franchise together, and I grew to care about what happens to them due the the impending doom that we were working to prevent. Without them I wouldn't have given a shit about the reapers, and after dealing with the reapers the part of the game I cared about(the characters and the setting I've grown to love) seems to be completely disregarded, and I got no closure on them. Great, I beat the final boss or something, but the driving motivation of my run through the game was not addressed at all in the end. I mean, do you get what I'm saying here? The Reapers were more or less a part of the scenery, a reason for the adventures, not the goal and the point of everything. They were never THE motivation to play through the story.

i think we're viewing different sides of the same coin here. it's just a matter of a difference in priorities. ;)

Yeah, but can you see how the ending fails to satisfy people on this side of the coin? ;)

Sure, but everyone's acting like the entire thing is a pile of shit because the ending is flawed.

FFS, it's not. Take a step back, look at how much fun you had, how engaged you were with the characters along the way.

Even if you hate the ending with the power of a thousand suns, didn't you enjoy drunk Tali, or target shooting with Garrus, or the Brothean talking to that Hanar, or motherfucking Blast 6: Partners in Crime?

Asiina · March 2012

jdarksun wrote: »

I guess I don't understand what some folk were looking for as a coda.

Did you really want a slideshow?

It wouldn't have been an ideal ending, but it would have been an acceptable one.

Khildith · March 2012

kedinik wrote: »

Khildith wrote: »

kedinik wrote: »

Khildith wrote: »

Evigilant wrote: »

My biggest beef with the ending:
The part where Liara walks in and shows you she's keeping a black box that has the record of your life, the fight, and everything completely disappears at the end, the game completely forgets that the scene happened. The stargazer scene falls flat because it's all "legend" and happened so long ago, but that's the very reason why this box exists and why Liara created it: so that people could always remember what was and what happened and who you are.

I would fix this one scene by having it start off by showing the things you where able to accomplish in your play through, the recording ending, and THEN the kid asking if the stories are true about "the Shepard."

As for the choices with the crucible god kid, I don't know really what to think. I think the sole complaint would be that in my opinion, throughout ME2 and ME3 we're focused on how evil TIM is and how insane his idea of controlling the Reapers really is and yet that's the Paragon option. Before you even get on the elevator to make that choice, you just finished arguing with Anderson and TIM over this. Your decisions in ME2 and ME3 regarding the Geth, control is not the paragon option, but it's some how alright because now we're dealing with Reapers and it's alright only if you're the one controlling them?

Why? Why does the game decide in the final moments that, TIM's idea of controlling the reapers is the Paragon option? It felt like the argument I just had with Anderson and TIM, and since I went paragon, meant nothing because he was right.

TIM was wrong, in my opinion, not only because he was indoctrinated, but because he was willing to risk the future of humanity that he MIGHT be able to control the Reapers. When the Catalyst tells you that you'll be able to take control of the Reapers, you have no more reason to doubt one option over another, so why not pick the one that keeps the Geth and EDI alive?

That was actually a completely ridiculous situation that feels like a bigger plot hole the more that I think about it.

So TIM does, in fact, feel 100% confident he will be able to control the Reapers with the Catalyst. And he was right if he had not indoctrinated himself for no apparent reason.

His own indoctrination hardware was used to:

1) Make his own soldiers stronger
2) Make his own soldiers into brain dead drones that could not resist external signals

So, uh, I would like a stronger explanation than, "We must do this! STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS DOCTOR, NOW! So that my muscles will be stronger and my brain will be vulnerable to VPN!"

Endgame/books spoilers
I'm pretty sure TIM was already party indoctrinated. In one of the books both he and Saren get blasted with an instant indoctrination thing, but it doesn't "take" quite yet. I was under the impression that their unique situations had made Saren such an easy target, and TIM got the same treatment the moment the Reapers arrived in force.

That would certainly explain things but it's hardly ideal for external Extended Universe information to be required for the games themselves to make sense.

I totally agree, I read about it in some article about what from the books would make it into the games. I'm pretty sure the boss at Grissom Academy was the main character from the books.

Cambiata · March 2012

Khildith wrote: »

kedinik wrote: »

Khildith wrote: »

Evigilant wrote: »

My biggest beef with the ending:
The part where Liara walks in and shows you she's keeping a black box that has the record of your life, the fight, and everything completely disappears at the end, the game completely forgets that the scene happened. The stargazer scene falls flat because it's all "legend" and happened so long ago, but that's the very reason why this box exists and why Liara created it: so that people could always remember what was and what happened and who you are.

I would fix this one scene by having it start off by showing the things you where able to accomplish in your play through, the recording ending, and THEN the kid asking if the stories are true about "the Shepard."

As for the choices with the crucible god kid, I don't know really what to think. I think the sole complaint would be that in my opinion, throughout ME2 and ME3 we're focused on how evil TIM is and how insane his idea of controlling the Reapers really is and yet that's the Paragon option. Before you even get on the elevator to make that choice, you just finished arguing with Anderson and TIM over this. Your decisions in ME2 and ME3 regarding the Geth, control is not the paragon option, but it's some how alright because now we're dealing with Reapers and it's alright only if you're the one controlling them?

Why? Why does the game decide in the final moments that, TIM's idea of controlling the reapers is the Paragon option? It felt like the argument I just had with Anderson and TIM, and since I went paragon, meant nothing because he was right.

TIM was wrong, in my opinion, not only because he was indoctrinated, but because he was willing to risk the future of humanity that he MIGHT be able to control the Reapers. When the Catalyst tells you that you'll be able to take control of the Reapers, you have no more reason to doubt one option over another, so why not pick the one that keeps the Geth and EDI alive?

That was actually a completely ridiculous situation that feels like a bigger plot hole the more that I think about it.

So TIM does, in fact, feel 100% confident he will be able to control the Reapers with the Catalyst. And he was right if he had not indoctrinated himself for no apparent reason.

His own indoctrination hardware was used to:

1) Make his own soldiers stronger
2) Make his own soldiers into brain dead drones that could not resist external signals

So, uh, I would like a stronger explanation than, "We must do this! STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS DOCTOR, NOW! So that my muscles will be stronger and my brain will be vulnerable to VPN!"

Endgame/books spoilers
I'm pretty sure TIM was already party indoctrinated. In one of the books both he and Saren get blasted with an instant indoctrination thing, but it doesn't "take" quite yet. I was under the impression that their unique situations had made Saren such an easy target, and TIM got the same treatment the moment the Reapers arrived in force.

Ending/comic spoilers

Now that we know that it was always part of the Reaper's plan to have a divisive faction among the organics in order to keep them from coming up with a coherent and unified attack, TIM's initial "indoctrination" thing makes sense. It wasn't until after that event that he started up Cerberus for the sake of human dominance. He's been indoctrinated since then, but in a more subtle form, so that he could be the leader of that divisive faction but with his faculties mostly intact. It also explains why 1) he's mostly pretty inept at follow-through and 2) He still brought Shepard back unharmed. He's been implanted with the idea of "Control at any cost!" so it makes him try some destructive plans. But he's still un-indoctrinated enough that he can come to his own conclusions about people like Shepard, and to use her as a tool instead of giving her to the reapers. Only when the indoctrination became more pronounced did "Kill Shepard" become a thing for him.

Captain Carrot · March 2012

jdarksun wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

jdarksun wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

Ah. You see, the threat of Reapers brings the characters in the franchise together, and I grew to care about what happens to them due the the impending doom that we were working to prevent. Without them I wouldn't have given a shit about the reapers, and after dealing with the reapers the part of the game I cared about(the characters and the setting I've grown to love) seems to be completely disregarded, and I got no closure on them. Great, I beat the final boss or something, but the driving motivation of my run through the game was not addressed at all in the end. I mean, do you get what I'm saying here? The Reapers were more or less a part of the scenery, a reason for the adventures, not the goal and the point of everything. They were never THE motivation to play through the story.

And if you do well enough...

...you see that they survive. And if you pick the right (literally, the one on the right) ending, Shep survives too.

I guess I don't understand what some folk were looking for as a coda.

Did you really want a slideshow?

Yes. That is exactly what I wanted. Given the subplots running literally since your first arrival on the Citadel in 1, I think a couple of minutes exploring how your actions affected the conflicts (all of them, including the major ones in 3, which do not qualify as closure by themselves to me) is completely warranted.

Ah. Those never fail to disappoint me. Going from an awesome rendered cinematic (or in-game event) to still frames with text tends to make me check out. They also tend to be overly maudlin or not what I would have wanted.

FO:NV had this problem. My character is around to do stuff, but the world just goes on like he's not there anymore.

Well, yeah, real scenes would have been ideal, but a slideshow would have been nice, and a hell of a lot better than we got.

Jephery · March 2012

Captain Carrot wrote: »

jdarksun wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

jdarksun wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

Ah. You see, the threat of Reapers brings the characters in the franchise together, and I grew to care about what happens to them due the the impending doom that we were working to prevent. Without them I wouldn't have given a shit about the reapers, and after dealing with the reapers the part of the game I cared about(the characters and the setting I've grown to love) seems to be completely disregarded, and I got no closure on them. Great, I beat the final boss or something, but the driving motivation of my run through the game was not addressed at all in the end. I mean, do you get what I'm saying here? The Reapers were more or less a part of the scenery, a reason for the adventures, not the goal and the point of everything. They were never THE motivation to play through the story.

And if you do well enough...

...you see that they survive. And if you pick the right (literally, the one on the right) ending, Shep survives too.

I guess I don't understand what some folk were looking for as a coda.

Did you really want a slideshow?

Yes. That is exactly what I wanted. Given the subplots running literally since your first arrival on the Citadel in 1, I think a couple of minutes exploring how your actions affected the conflicts (all of them, including the major ones in 3, which do not qualify as closure by themselves to me) is completely warranted.

Ah. Those never fail to disappoint me. Going from an awesome rendered cinematic (or in-game event) to still frames with text tends to make me check out. They also tend to be overly maudlin or not what I would have wanted.

FO:NV had this problem. My character is around to do stuff, but the world just goes on like he's not there anymore.

Well, yeah, real scenes would have been ideal, but a slideshow would have been nice, and a hell of a lot better than we got.

Ideally, we'd have a fully playable epilogue where you'd walk around on the ship and Earth and talk to everyone to get their take on everything. Maybe a few missions afterwards to show that things aren't perfect.

Hopefully we'll get a DLC that is basically like that.

Nightslyr · March 2012

Just beat it:

Had 6000+ effective fleet strength, but no Shepard under rubble breathing. Is that only available if you pick destroy? Because I chose synthesis.

Ending wasn't horrible, but just felt out of place. Shepard making the ultimate sacrifice (at least, in my ending) is perfectly fine. The problem is that, for a franchise that's supposed to be about choice and consequences, we don't get to see any consequences. Ambiguous endings are fine if they ask the viewer/player significant questions, but what's there to figure out? In my game, Shepard brokered peace between the Quarians and Geth. He already broke the cycle there, for all intents and purposes. The Reapers are stopped, no matter what the player chooses (for shits and giggles, I tried shooting at the ghost kid). Why not show something more interesting than Buzz Aldrin (who's a fucking boss, regardless) talking to a kid? Or, in my case, the newly hybridized Normandy crew crash landing on a random planet?

I'm also not a fan of the Catalyst info dump. It's helped by the day-one DLC, as Javik really beats you over the head with the whole "Organics and synthetics cannot coexist" meme, but since the reapers are techno-organic, we don't get any kind of confirmation about that until the end. It would have worked better if the Prothean data found on Mars also described what the Protheans understood about previous cycles, with supporting corroboration coming from Liara, Thessia, etc. Draw it out, reveal it in pieces, rather than just spew it all out at the end.

Finally, where's Harbinger? He made, what, like one appearance? What a wasted opportunity.

Rhan9 · March 2012

Orca wrote: »

Sure, but everyone's acting like the entire thing is a pile of shit because the ending is flawed.

FFS, it's not. Take a step back, look at how much fun you had, how engaged you were with the characters along the way.

Even if you hate the ending with the power of a thousand suns, didn't you enjoy drunk Tali, or target shooting with Garrus, or the Brothean talking to that Hanar, or motherfucking Blast 6: Partners in Crime?

Dunno about others, but I've been saying all along that I adore almost everything else about this game. The ending is a big steaming turd, but otherwise my only complaint is not seeing Quarians unmasked(that photoshopped stock photo doesn't count).

Cambiata · March 2012

Erlkönig wrote: »

Cambiata wrote: »

Erlkönig wrote: »

Sirson wrote: »

mogonk wrote: »

I am surprised at how blatant they're being about it. Talking about how it's like people are playing different games because of the choices they made in ME1 and ME2 is absolutely ludicrous given how minimal and superficial the effects of your previous choices are in this game.

I feel like you are being a little too cynical here, your choices do have consequences, just talking to my coworkers has the almost exact same effect that is shown in that comic. Two of my coworkers just outright let Tali die in #2, and IMPORTED that save into 3. Madness I tell you.

This is funny, because about an hour after I read the comic, I had one of those moments with one of my friends. She didn't import a character and we were talking about mission decisions (couple of early/mid game spoilers):

Grunt died while fighting the Ravagers, and Samara never showed up for the Ardat-Yaksi mission

I'm sure there's more disparity going on, but those two were the most glaring and recent ones I can recall.

Another example
In one of these threads, someone said they fought a Morinth reaper at the Ardat Yakshi camp.

Oh crap, really! Damn, that's pretty awesome. Can anybody confirm if: (Mass Effect 2 side mission tie-in to ME3)

Charr (the love-poetry shouting Krogan) and his Asari girlfriend who get together because of your conversation...when you're on Tuchanka (I think), you find a recording and bring it to the Asari shopkeeper. If you don't convince the Asari to continue dating the Krogan, what happens with that recording? Does it just not happen or is it replaced with something else?

Yes, this happens.

And damn it made me cry hard. Once again, bravo @Takyris.

TTODewback · March 2012

Any idea when Mass Effect: Data Pad is going to be released?

GoodKingJayIII · March 2012

So is there something particular I have to do to upgrade a weapon to 10? Once I purchase the upgrades up to level V, the gun disappears as an upgrade option.

Monger · March 2012

So I just finished ME3.

what

like

what

(Ending)

Everything up until the Crucible activates is perfect. Then I am inexplicably watching Ferngully. Then Buzz Aldrin's Intergalactic Story Hour.

what

Look, Bioware. I'm not even mad like other people are mad. I'm just very confused.

electricitylikesme · March 2012

Elitistb wrote: »

jdarksun wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

Man, I just can't do a run where Wrex dies in 1 or anybody dies in 2. Nobody falls, you hear me?

Yeah, but I've seen that already. ;)

Elitistb wrote: »

WTF was this TV Tropes crap?
AI is a crapshoot? Really? After several instances of Synthetics being sympathetic and harmonious races, they make the ending entirely depend on it? When I heard "Organics create Synthetics, Synthetics will then kill off Organics, so we made the cycle so that Synthetics only MOSTLY kill off Organics to turn them into Synthetics" my mouth dropped open. In the cases of EDI and the Geth, Shepard even specifically states that they are life, regardless of their composition or origins. But the Catalyst is all like, "Nope, Synthetic=evil."

Why the hell didn't the Catalyst just make it so that periodically, the Reapers emerge to destroy all Synthetic life, since they seem to be what it considers as the problem?

I guess Synthesis is the best ending, what is the romance partner's suffering compared to everyone getting cool techno-organic bodies? The Control ending is a close second, with Destruction a very distant last.

In the end, though, I immediately thought "Really? You're just going to rip off the 3 endings from Deus Ex by slapping on a coat of paint and calling it over?

Shep (and you) might disagree, but...
...it makes perfect sense that this thing that was designed to keep synthetics down can only do a few things.

1) Take control of the cycle
2) Abort the cycle

3) ...or, if you're good, force evolution to circumvent the cycle.

I didn't have any problems with the consistency of it.

Those three options are okay, except they have at the least several assumptions which are either only sparsely dealt with or not dealt with at all:
1. Why is it a good thing to keep synthetics down? Once you hit sufficiently advanced technology, there is literally no difference between synthetic and organic. There are good synthetics, and bad synthetics, good organics, bad organics. Even at their worse, the Geth were less problematic than the Rachni (organic but under Reaper control, different evolutionary stages might have had them be that way on their own, however) or the Krogan (organic, uplifted but still the same problems as synthetics without being synthetic). Both of these races could easily have ended up accomplishing the same result as synthetics. Even in the Synthesis ending this is still a very real danger, it isn't as if "combine the two and you get the disadvantages of neither!" is a valid assumption. And even if I were to generously allow the "Synthetics and Organics are totally different", despite the game itself showing there was no difference depending on path, this leads to the next problem:
2. Where was the necessity of the cycle at all demonstrated? Where was it shown that there was any reason to believe that synthetics overrunning the galaxy and/or universe was ever a problem to be significantly concerned about?

This was the thought loudest in my mind actually: how this thing delineating synthetic and organic as being a meaningful difference besides origin? Technically anything "organic" could just be nanotechnology - engineered proteins and cells. It would be no different to "organic" naturally evolved species.

And then of course, how is the conquest a problem if you're ok with just straight up murdering trillions of people. Unless you're ascribing a ridiculous purpose to evolution, then if you're willing to kill trillions of people every 50,000 years and eradicate galactic civilization, why the fuck do you even care that it might be being run by only 1 set of guys. Do their citizens not have regional differences in culture, art, scientific study? It's a civilization not a population of homogenizing bon Neumann machines (which is much closer to what the Reapers seem to behave like).

And on top of that all is the fucked up torture and experimentation: the Reapers don't just kill people. They harvest them. They torture and mutate them and psychologically destroy them. None of which is necessary - at all - if the purpose is simple annihilation.

Black_Heart · March 2012

Badassfully: I'm getting too old for this excrement.

Zzulu · March 2012

Nightslyr wrote: »

Just beat it:

Finally, where's Harbinger? He made, what, like one appearance? What a wasted opportunity.

Yeah he basically just makes the appearance at the very end

where he burns you up right? I was hoping for a confrontation with Harbinger, kind of like what we got with Sovereign in ME1. I thought the starchild would be our exposition database instead when Harbinger never happened but the convo with the kid isn't exactly long either

Dac · March 2012

<Catalyst> At the end of every cycle, there's always been a champion that opposes us. It is strange, we've always been able to predict who that champion would be until now. You were not who we thought it would be.

<Shepard> Then who?

<Conrad Verner> *busts through a wall like the Kool Aid man* DON'T WORRY SHEPARD, I'VE GOT THIS!!!

<Shepard> *Renegade throws Conrad into the Synthesis beam*

Preferable.

Warlock82 · March 2012

So does anyone have the Prima strategy guide? Is it any good?

Forar · March 2012

Zzulu you might want to fix that spoiler tag.

mojojoeo · March 2012

Monger wrote: »

So I just finished ME3.

what

like

what

(Ending)
Everything up until the Crucible activates is perfect. Then I am inexplicably watching Ferngully. Then Buzz Aldrin's Intergalactic Story Hour.

what

Look, Bioware. I'm not even mad like other people are mad. I'm just very confused.

Thats just it tho.

We are taught a Relay blowing up = a system exploding with it. SO did we just kill half the galaxy?

WHere the fuck is joker going? Why? How? How did garrus and EDI who were with me on earth get there?

Does no one remember the MASSIVE flack the movie contact got for the aliens being her dad? This is the same thing... its dumb! make it something like vigil but not some sappy char (just introduced in this damn game) from sheps past....

If the relays DO NOT wipe out the systems SOL is fucked. Every major military faction stuck near earth which is decimated and depleted (its why we left, earth is used up of resources.) Turians and quarians cant eat our food so they starve off. Shit is very very dire in all cases.

Its like they heaped on way more questions than answers.

I WANT MY MP- look me on the origins my PC buddays- lets get those credits and xp coming on strong! I want to run goldS!

Nightslyr · March 2012

Something I don't get:

Why does the synthesis ending kill Shepard? He's already, essentially, a man/machine symbiote. And, why would he live with the destroy ending? Destroy means destroy all synthetics and Reaper tech, which is what's keeping him alive. It seems ass backwards to me.

Asiina · March 2012

Orca wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

Rhan9 wrote: »

curly haired boy wrote: »

i'm with you, cambiata.

the relays HAD to go. sovvy says from the beginning that their chief purpose is to guide organic development along a pre-determined path. fuck that shit, time to break free.

also, anyone who things the ending makes all your work count for nothing is on SPACE CRACK.

you have a chance to leave the galaxy in a more hopeful long-term position than it's EVER been in. you defeat the reapers, ending the cycle. depending on your choices you can solve some of the greatest interspecies conflicts of your era. so fucking what if the relays are gone - we need to determine our own path. and i can't think of a more hopeful ending than a galaxy, united - both organics and synthetics - to fight for survival and a common desire to rebel against the plans of the ancients.

as i've said before, this ending lets bioware take some frankly amazing steps with the mass effect universe going forward. i can't fucking wait.

It does invalidate your choices if you care more about the direct consequences of those choices and not some hypothetical future society that's at best marginally tied to the current setting. The defeat of the reapers and the ending of the cycle were to many people just a stepping stone towards finding out how their choices shape the galaxy afterwards, and they received nothing for it, making the choices pointless, since you can do whatever and get the same ending with a different color palette.

The destruction of the relays is not a bad thing, in fact it's a good thing for the setting to become more interesting, but the current endings address none of the expectation for a sizable portion of the player base at the moment.

the bolded above confirms that a sizable portion of the player base is silly geese, then.

i'm getting the feeling that if they had to choose between saving their friends and saving the galaxy, the reapers would get their harvest.

shepard says it over and over and over and over and OVER during the course of ME3: i'm prepared to die to save my friends save the normandy save earth SAVE THE GALAXY AND DEFEAT THE REAPERS

Really? For many people the meat of the game is the characters and the plot choices and interactions. If you got the satisfaction from just fighting the reapers, good for you.

for me, the characters and plot choices and interactions are there to hammer home the gravity of the threat. what i love about the mass effect series is that they spend two entire games building up the universe to something you love immensely, then give you a slim chance to save it from being wiped out. that's great storytelling. but the two things have to go together - i'm not interested in the mundane adventures of a random turian during his middle career years, angling for a promotion that never comes. mass effect tells me i have a problem, and then makes me care about solving it.

tangentially: this is also why i have trouble getting into most fantasy games. they're great about presenting problems, but really bad at telling me why i should care. if they're good, they tell strong player characters why they should care, and i'll believe that.

Ah. You see, the threat of Reapers brings the characters in the franchise together, and I grew to care about what happens to them due the the impending doom that we were working to prevent. Without them I wouldn't have given a shit about the reapers, and after dealing with the reapers the part of the game I cared about(the characters and the setting I've grown to love) seems to be completely disregarded, and I got no closure on them. Great, I beat the final boss or something, but the driving motivation of my run through the game was not addressed at all in the end. I mean, do you get what I'm saying here? The Reapers were more or less a part of the scenery, a reason for the adventures, not the goal and the point of everything. They were never THE motivation to play through the story.

i think we're viewing different sides of the same coin here. it's just a matter of a difference in priorities. ;)

Yeah, but can you see how the ending fails to satisfy people on this side of the coin? ;)

Sure, but everyone's acting like the entire thing is a pile of shit because the ending is flawed.

FFS, it's not. Take a step back, look at how much fun you had, how engaged you were with the characters along the way.

Even if you hate the ending with the power of a thousand suns, didn't you enjoy drunk Tali, or target shooting with Garrus, or the Brothean talking to that Hanar, or motherfucking Blast 6: Partners in Crime?

I love that everyone is talking about the Garrus target shooting bro moment, cause I romanced Garrus so after the target shooting they totally make out on that bridge. That was such a different scene for me.

Also I didn't even realize that thing with Charr was the same as the guy from the previous game. That's extra sad now.

Rhan9 · March 2012

Dac wrote: »

<Catalyst> At the end of every cycle, there's always been a champion that opposes us. It is strange, we've always been able to predict who that champion would be until now. You were not who we thought it would be.

<Shepard> Then who?

<Conrad Verner> *busts through a wall like the Kool Aid man* DON'T WORRY SHEPARD, I'VE GOT THIS!!!

<Shepard> *Renegade throws Conrad into the Synthesis beam*
Preferable.

Putting this re-imagining of the ME3 ending here again:

Captain Carrot · March 2012

Well, for your first point, not quite.

A giant asteroid hitting a relay is one thing, and space magic is another, so the clusters should be fine as far as that goes.

As for the rest of it, pretty much.

mojojoeo · March 2012

BTW- this game is tits on ice in every respect but the ending.

And it wouldnt even knock off that many points.... its just damn!

electricitylikesme · March 2012

Captain Carrot wrote: »

Well, for your first point, not quite.
A giant asteroid hitting a relay is one thing, and space magic is another, so the clusters should be fine as far as that goes.
As for the rest of it, pretty much.

Well, still...

It's not just anyone who destroyed a relay. I, Commander Shepard destroyed a relay (and a star system as a result). So you'd think when someone says "doing this will destroy all the relays", even if there's a pile of Reapers flying around, I might stop and go "wait, won't that kill everybody?"

Monger · March 2012

mojojoeo wrote: »

If the relays DO NOT wipe out the systems SOL is fucked. Every major military faction stuck near earth which is decimated and depleted (its why we left, earth is used up of resources.) Turians and quarians cant eat our food so they starve off. Shit is very very dire in all cases.

This bothers me more than anything.

With the possible exception of

Why synthetic life is a problem in the first place. Organic life is just synthetic life that happened accidentally.

Also, I made peace between the Geth and Quarians! Eldritch ghost boy disproved.

Warlock82 · March 2012

mojojoeo wrote: »

BTW- this game is tits on ice in every respect but the ending.

And it wouldnt even knock off that many points.... its just damn!

Infiltrator tits?

Dashui · March 2012

Nightslyr wrote:

Why does the synthesis ending kill Shepard? He's already, essentially, a man/machine symbiote. And, why would he live with the destroy ending? Destroy means destroy all synthetics and Reaper tech, which is what's keeping him alive. It seems ass backwards to me.

In the destroy ending (which the catalyst said would kill you), Shepard appears to wake up on London, too. How the fuck did he/she get back there after being blown up in a glass room on a space station? HALLUCINATION/INDOCTRINATION THEORY!

Another thing I found a bit odd with the ending

The reapers take control of the geth to kill organics in order to prevent machines from killing organics. Okay. Head scratch. And the reapers are largely sentient machines, too, so I just... God dammit. I would have preferred the Revelation Space explanation instead.

Donnicton · March 2012

electricitylikesme wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

Well, for your first point, not quite.
A giant asteroid hitting a relay is one thing, and space magic is another, so the clusters should be fine as far as that goes.
As for the rest of it, pretty much.

Well, still...
It's not just anyone who destroyed a relay. I, Commander Shepard destroyed a relay (and a star system as a result). So you'd think when someone says "doing this will destroy all the relays", even if there's a pile of Reapers flying around, I might stop and go "wait, won't that kill everybody?"

That's when you'd get into some abstract concepts like sacrificing this cycle to make sure the next cycle does not have the reapers hanging over them.

But then, who'd want to sacrifice themselves for a Yahg cycle?

mojojoeo · March 2012

Monger wrote: »

mojojoeo wrote: »

If the relays DO NOT wipe out the systems SOL is fucked. Every major military faction stuck near earth which is decimated and depleted (its why we left, earth is used up of resources.) Turians and quarians cant eat our food so they starve off. Shit is very very dire in all cases.

This bothers me more than anything.

With the possible exception of
Why synthetic life is a problem in the first place. Organic life is just synthetic life that happened accidentally.

Also, I made peace between the Geth and Quarians! Eldritch ghost boy disproved.

This goes to the fact that reaper motivations changed between 2 and 3.

Originally we are told they purge higher organics to limit the build up of dark energy in the univers and save it from destruction. Dark energy gets mentiond a bunch in me 2.

NOW they are motivated by stopping the sythetic singularity. dark energy was no where in there in 3.

Ah whatever...

mojojoeo · March 2012

Warlock82 wrote: »

mojojoeo wrote: »

BTW- this game is tits on ice in every respect but the ending.

And it wouldnt even knock off that many points.... its just damn!

Infiltrator tits?

The kind that you see a shimmer and know they are there cloaked... just jiggling there invisibly taunting you?

Taramoor · March 2012

Warlock82 wrote: »

mojojoeo wrote: »

BTW- this game is tits on ice in every respect but the ending.

And it wouldnt even knock off that many points.... its just damn!

Infiltrator tits?

Some of the ambient conversations in this game are just amazing, and the infiltrator tits one was a personal favorite.

Captain Carrot · March 2012

electricitylikesme wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

Well, for your first point, not quite.
A giant asteroid hitting a relay is one thing, and space magic is another, so the clusters should be fine as far as that goes.
As for the rest of it, pretty much.

Well, still...
It's not just anyone who destroyed a relay. I, Commander Shepard destroyed a relay (and a star system as a result). So you'd think when someone says "doing this will destroy all the relays", even if there's a pile of Reapers flying around, I might stop and go "wait, won't that kill everybody?"

Relay explosions are color-coded, though. A white one means the system is destroyed, a red one means Reaper tech is eliminated, a blue one means they all fly away, and a green one means everyone is a cyborg now, accomplished by adding circuit-skin to everyone (including EDI

).

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[Mass Effect] SPOILER ALL ME3 DISCUSSION. EVERY SINGLE BIT. EVEN HINTS.

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