Mass Effect 3.7B: ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL OF THIS FORUM (Story/Spoiler Thread!)

[TheLaughingMan]

Hello and welcDIRECT INTERVENTION IS NECESSARY

YOUR ARGUMENTS HAVE FALLEN, FORUM
AND NOW YOU STAND ALONE

THIS IS WHAT YOU FACE

http://thetruthcometh.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Mass-Effect-3-catalyst.jpg

HOPE IS IRRELEVANT

PROGRESS CANNOT BE HALTED
THIS THREAD IS UNSTOPPABLE

WE ARE THE BEGINNING (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=236157)

SHEPARD (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=238818)

YOU ARE THE END (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244607)

[Psyren]

Lovely.

I'll kick things off with some HULK SMASH!! (http://badassdigest.com/2012/08/06/film-crit-hulk-smash-a-few-words-on-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3/)

(Warning - lots of capslock in that link)

[Beowulf DW]

Lovely.

I'll kick things off with some HULK SMASH!! (http://badassdigest.com/2012/08/06/film-crit-hulk-smash-a-few-words-on-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3/)

(Warning - lots of capslock in that link)

Well, it's nice to know that the internet is still split along nigh uncrossable fault lines. In other news, the grass is green.

Also, this is from the comments section of a video showcasing the Shadow Broker's different reactions to your companions:


You travel with fascinating companions, doctor.

Thank you for bringing me John Riccitiello. His death will cripple EA.

At least you brought me both Casey Hudson and Mac Walters. Mass Effect fans pay well for those with “Artistic Integrity.”

I'm obliged you brought along Chris Priestly. He was an obnoxious gourmand.

At least you brought me Mike Gamble. The fanbase had enough of his snide insinuations.

Thank you for bringing me Jessica Merizan. I've enough of her disingenuous assertions.

[TheLaughingMan]

Don't tell me you all don't know what to talk about after I make a whole new thread. :smallannoyed:

[Psyren]

Don't tell me you all don't know what to talk about after I make a whole new thread. :smallannoyed:

There's not much more to say on the story front until Leviathan debuts. I imagine there'll be plenty to talk about then and the thread will pay for itself (as it were.)

I did find a hidden convo in ME3 that could explain why Harbinger didn't shoot at the Normandy during the beam run though. Can't post the video from here (YT's blocked) but I'll dig it up when I get home.

[Calemyr]

I did find a hidden convo in ME3 that could explain why Harbinger didn't shoot at the Normandy during the beam run though. Can't post the video from here (YT's blocked) but I'll dig it up when I get home.

Was it the Adams/EDI conversation about how EDI is using her Electronic Warfare credentials the entire ME3 game and screwing with the Reapers IFF abilities?

[Psyren]

Was it the Adams/EDI conversation about how EDI is using her Electronic Warfare credentials the entire ME3 game and screwing with the Reapers IFF abilities?

The one where EDI uses a fake Reaper voice - yeah I think that's it. She could have fooled Harbinger just long enough to do a quick pickup.

[Calemyr]

The one where EDI uses a fake Reaper voice - yeah I think that's it. She could have fooled Harbinger just long enough to do a quick pickup.

Quite likely. Besides, Harb's unexplained obsession with Shep also could explain it.

I wish they'd go into more detail about Harb, why he won't shut up about you either while controlling the Collectors or talking to his fellow Reapers... Unfortunately, BioWare is not in the business of using Word of God to answer anything interesting.

[Beowulf DW]

Quite likely. Besides, Harb's unexplained obsession with Shep also could explain it.

I wish they'd go into more detail about Harb, why he won't shut up about you either while controlling the Collectors or talking to his fellow Reapers... Unfortunately, BioWare is not in the business of using Word of God to answer anything interesting.

Yes, they were too busy using it to salvage the ending.

[Calemyr]

Yes, they were too busy using it to salvage the ending.

Salvage the ending? It took 'em two months to say "No, not everyone dies in this massive cluster of unfortunate implications we packed as an ending."

They were too busy telling us how fan reaction hurt their feelings, and that how it was art and so we had no reason to complain.

The only time they have been quick (that I've heard about) in responding was to tell us that the next generation just took Starkid's deal, rendering that entire ending pointless.

[Psyren]

I wish they'd go into more detail about Harb, why he won't shut up about you either while controlling the Collectors or talking to his fellow Reapers... Unfortunately, BioWare is not in the business of using Word of God to answer anything interesting.

To be fair, answering details like that now means that (a) there's less interesting mysteries to explore in future installments, and/or (b) they could be forced to contradict/retcon previous explanations if they change their minds about how something should work or be explained. In their position, I'd want to answer as little as possible too.



They were too busy telling us how fan reaction hurt their feelings, and that how it was art and so we had no reason to complain.

You're right, they didn't think our grievances were legitimate at all, which is why they didn't give us 2 gigs worth of free DLC to provide clarification and closure over the most poignant questions regarding the ending. Nope.

[TheLaughingMan]

You're right, they didn't think our grievances were legitimate at all, which is why they didn't give us 2 gigs worth of free DLC to provide clarification and closure over the most poignant questions regarding the ending. Nope.

To be fair, BioWare can be all pissy and EA can be the one ordering an ending DLC, or vice-versa. We don't quite know anything that went on behind the corporate curtain.

Heck, EA could've mandated that BioWare make an ending like that super-popular Deus Ex whatever that just came out, because hey, Eidos did it and it was super-popular, right?

[Calemyr]

You're right, they didn't think our grievances were legitimate at all, which is why they didn't give us 2 gigs worth of free DLC to provide clarification and closure over the most poignant questions regarding the ending. Nope.

Oh, yes. They did do that. After two months of doing nothing but display shock and dismay that their gorgeous piece of art wasn't given the proper respect it deserved, they did indeed set out to explain it. Not fix it (except for editing out the most unfortunate implications), but to explain it. And you know what? I can respect that. Sticking to their guns, taking that awful mess and making something actually pretty epic out of it... But they have never said anything about how the backlash had some legitimate points. The only person going on the record (that I have heard of) to make that point is Lance Henriksen, and he's a voice actor.

The EC was a good PR stunt and the right thing to do, but it was by no means an admission of error. I personally would have favored a "Yeah, we didn't really think of those points." over the EC any day. And I like EC.

[Psyren]

I guess we'll never agree on how much of an admission of error the EC constituted or not. I think it's self-evident.

Anyway, I had another interesting thought. There was another protagonist who fought against all the odds, fought destiny itself, and won. And at the end of his game, he was also presented with a railroad choice. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8xTWoTEK94) Yet somehow, that never seemed to have incited quite as much rage. Why is that?

[Trazoi]

Don't tell me you all don't know what to talk about after I make a whole new thread. :smallannoyed:
I've mainly been keeping up with these threads because I like discussing game design and writing - learning from what Bioware did right and what they did wrong with Mass Effect. And it feels like we've dissected ME3 completely multiple times. Plus it's been so long since I've played the game the details are a grey blob in my mind.

I'm sure there will be more to talk about when the new DLC story packs come out. I'll need someone to provide summaries though as I doubt I'll get them.


To be fair, BioWare can be all pissy and EA can be the one ordering an ending DLC, or vice-versa. We don't quite know anything that went on behind the corporate curtain.
I don't know what was going on internally either but I'm sure plenty if not most of the Bioware devs were unhappy with the ending they had to ship - not necessarily the whole Starkid thing, but the rushed ending sequences that didn't provide closure that they fixed with the EC. My hunch is a lot of the point of releasing the EC was to make everyone happier inside Bioware as well as appeassing miffed fans.


Heck, EA could've mandated that BioWare make an ending like that super-popular Deus Ex whatever that just came out, because hey, Eidos did it and it was super-popular, right?
Speaking of design mandates: It's evident someone along the chain mandated that ME3 be designed for new players, presumably those into more shooty games like Call of Duty. Hence all the "Take Back Earth" focus and stripping down of references to the previous games (poor Harbinger. :smallfrown:) But I don't know whether this was Bioware's idea or an EA mandate down from on high. I suspect the latter but I can't say for sure.


Anyway, I had another interesting thought. There was another protagonist who fought against all the odds, fought destiny itself, and won. And at the end of his game, he was also presented with a railroad choice. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8xTWoTEK94) Yet somehow, that never seemed to have incited quite as much rage. Why is that?
For those who don't want to click a link to know what game Psyren is talking about, it's Half-Life 1. And the ending of HL1 was the one thing that was ragged on the most, although that was mostly the entirety of the whole jump puzzle weirdness that is Xen.

Half-Life 1's feature was that it told its entire story unbroken through the first person perspective. You the player were Gordon Freeman and did all the actions. But it was still a completely linear story where you had to do all the right actions to advance the game. There were plenty of points where you would get a mission critical failure, like letting an important character die, and have to reload a save and try again. The "bad ending" is another one of those. Hardly anyone complained about that because providing multiple solutions and story paths wasn't what Half-life 1 was trying to do.

Mass Effect the series however was all about choices, at least for the first two games. In Mass Effect 2 there were heaps of little touches where the decisions you made in the first game came back and were shown to have consequences - not big changes, but enough to give some flavour that there was a difference. ME3 however choked on this, where all those decisions amounted to was points on a scoreboard. Even really big choices like what to do about the Collector Base were eventually revealed to only matter for +/- 10 points difference.

Then there was the (original) ending, where the culmination of three whole games worth of choices was a few minutes of exposition from a Deus Ex Machina Starkid and the colour of the explosion. It broke the expectation of the series and of Bioware games in general

That's the difference as I see it. Half-Life 1 remained true to what it aimed to achieve, whereas Mass Effect 3 didn't and ended up a total mess because of it.

[Psyren]

Mass Effect, not linear? Did you really have an alternative to "stop the Reapers?" Even death couldn't knock you off those rails.

I think you're conflating true choice, with the illusion of choice. Shepard can certainly choose how he accomplishes certain lesser objectives, but your overarching path is set the moment you land on Eden Prime.

[Trazoi]

I think you're conflating true choice, with the illusion of choice.
Actually I fully agree with this - Bioware games are all about the illusion of choice, and it was what they used to do very well. The earlier Bioware games used to be a solid linear story path that allowed the player to bend it to a number of different interpretations to give it their own particular spin. It was a good combination of the strength writers can give to a linear story with some bending to player choices so they feel like they have some degree of agency.

But Bioware botched the illusion in ME3. All those little decisions didn't seem to amount to anything but a score on your EMS sheet, and the EMS didn't amout to anything but unlocking endings. It was pulling the sheet off the apparatus at a magic show so you could see how it works from the inside. It's exactly the same mechanically but it ruins the whole show.

That's why Half-Life 1's ending choice isn't comparable, because Half-Life 1 didn't pretend to be all about choice.

[TheLaughingMan]

Mass Effect, not linear? Did you really have an alternative to "stop the Reapers?" Even death couldn't knock you off those rails.

There are points between "linear" and "blank page," comrade. Strictly technically speaking, Mass Effect has always given the player a level of control over the course of the game that exceeds Half-Life I by a fair margin. Mass Effect (and really all games) have some degree of control over what happens during their runtime, from Half-Life to Mario Bros. If we were to begin arguing that Mass Effect is a linear game on par with Half-Life because we have no choice but to go save the galaxy, then you might as well say pretty much any game outside of things like Minecraft are all horribly linear, because there's no option to pants everyone in San Andreas.

tl;dr: You knew perfectly well what he meant, comrade. Arguing semantics just makes things tedious.

(And on a side note, sorry for not getting back to you with that reply I promised. I just figured everyone had already said everything I wanted to say).

[darksolitaire]

Coming late to the ME3 ending and seeing it discussed, dissected and debated trough all over the internet, I really don't have anything to say that hasn't been said by others better then I could.

However, the discussion has been centered on the fan reaction and Bioware not understanding it, while I'm curious about another thing; not understanding Bioware.

What events led to ME3 having the ending it did? Why did Bioware and their 150-strong production team decide to include the final ending in the game? What did they hope to gain with it? Did they honestly think that it would be well received? Clearly they had invested more to the game then players, having developed the series for eight years. Was that really the best possible ending to their epic trilogy?

Checking this poll, "the vocal minority" who didn't like the ending is in fact very much a majority.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/268/346/83e.png

[Psyren]

That's why Half-Life 1's ending choice isn't comparable, because Half-Life 1 didn't pretend to be all about choice.

I think it was more that the degree to which you believed ME was "all about choice" is at fault here.

In short, Bioware promised you a journey. It's not their fault you took that to mean you could choose your destination as well.



tl;dr: You knew perfectly well what he meant, comrade. Arguing semantics just makes things tedious.

Tedious? I find it quite interesting, myself. I specifically brought up Half-Life to spark this sort of discussion.



Checking this poll, "the vocal minority" who didn't like the ending is in fact very much a majority.

Of course a BSN poll is going to have more disgruntled folks than not. It's BSN.

[Trazoi]

I think it was more that the degree to which you believed ME was "all about choice" is at fault here.

In short, Bioware promised you a journey. It's not their fault you took that to mean you could choose your destination as well.
Sorry Psyren, I'm going to have to agree with LaughingMan's tl;dr above there. You're ignoring or misconstruing all my arguments. Do you want to discuss ME3 in comparison to Half-Life? Or why there was a reason why many die-hard fans created dozens of Shepards to import into ME3? I don't want to spend the time phrasing and typing my arguments if they're not wanted.

[Aotrs Commander]

In short, Bioware promised you a journey. It's not their fault you took that to mean you could choose your destination as well.


Yes. Yes, it IS.

Because that IS what they "promised." I don't think I need to repeat the oft-mentioned sixteen totally different ending that they said we'd get, or that it wouldn't come down to pressing a button for endigns A, B or C...

And even if it wasn't, it was a ridiculously shoe-horned, contrived and nonsensical ending. Even after polishing the turd to a mirror-like golden sheen with the DLC (and so polish it they did, which I will give them credit for).

So Bioware can harp all they like about "artistic integrity" and "this is the story we wanted to tell" and I reserve the right to say "it's still crap" and "it's not the story I wanted to hear, nor the story you started to tell1, and furthermore, I'm paying you good money to listen."

"Artistic" does not mean "automatically good."



(In fact, to be brutally honest, if "artistic integrity" is going to be used as an excuse to peddle preachy elitist crap (i.e. "you're (the complainants) all too dumb to understand it",) as is touted by some defendants of the endings on the internet (not meaning you, Psyren; despite our differences, you've been reasonable about it, as I hope I have at least passably been!) it can frankly go die in a fire.)



1Because you actually can't say "this was the story we planned to tell from the beginning", because, you know, you didn't (change of chief writers between games, at least one disgarded ending theory etc etc.)

[Psyren]

Sorry Psyren, I'm going to have to agree with LaughingMan's tl;dr above there. You're ignoring or misconstruing all my arguments. Do you want to discuss ME3 in comparison to Half-Life? Or why there was a reason why many die-hard fans created dozens of Shepards to import into ME3? I don't want to spend the time phrasing and typing my arguments if they're not wanted.

Just because I'm not quote-streaming every single point you make, doesn't mean I'm ignoring them. You say that Bioware "botched the illusion" just because they converged the choices in the final installment. I posit that instead, the illusion was meant to come apart at this stage of the series. The choices we made had to converge at some point, else there would be too many parameters to track and chaos would result.

Nor do I think ME was pretending to be all about choice the way you say. Choice certainly played a large part in the journey, but the specific point at which I compared HL and ME was the destination - i.e. the ending. Just as the first ME can only end with thwarting Sovereign, the first HL can only end with taking G-Man's offer.

As far as "die-hard fans importing dozens of Shepards," I'm not certain that means what you think it means. I am a die-hard fan, and I did that too, despite fully expecting my Paragon Shepard to die. The prospect of losing my Shepard did not make it not worth importing him in the slightest, and I doubt I'm alone in that sentiment.


@Aotrs: You've been plenty reasonable, as has everyone in the Playground :smallsmile:

[Trazoi]

Just because I'm not quote-streaming every single point you make, doesn't mean I'm ignoring them.
You were glossing over that you asked a very specific question, which was the differences between Half-Life 1 and Mass Effect 3 and why so many fans had more issues with the ending of the latter over the former. They're very different games.

When I played Half-Life 1, I wasn't after any plot or character decisions, as the game never sold itself as aiming to achieve that. What Half-Life 1 was was a FPS based around environmental puzzles and occasional gunplay sections, with a paper thin plot told through an unbroken first person perspective. I didn't have any problems with the ending choice because it did not register as a choice at all - it wasn't the "good ending" vs. the "bad ending", it was the "ending" vs. a non-standard game over screen. And that's fine, for Half-Life 1.

For Mass Effect 3, I was expecting a game similar to the other Bioware games: an RPG with action sections (third person shooter in Mass Effect's case) with a strong mostly linear story (i.e. optional ordering of chapters) and plenty of the character-based decisions (Paragon/Renegade, Light Side/Dark Side, Heroic/Jerkass) that is Bioware's trademark. I also expected payback for all the major decisions I had made through the other two games, as they promised through all those loading screens in ME1 and ME2 that told me to hold on to my saves for import. That's why, when the game glossed over those decisions and started to impose Bioware's writer's will on Shepard's characterisation, I was disappointed.

Now you can argue that Bioware didn't explicitly make any promises about character agency in ME3 (although I'm sure I or others can find direct quotes that say otherwise. :smalltongue:), but that doesn't actually matter. Bioware implicitly made those promises by the previous games in the series and by their signature style in their games. I buy Bioware games for that Bioware style of linear story bent to character personality choice, so I was annoyed when they took that away. Theoretically Bioware might have got away with it as a deliberate artistic choice, but for it to work that had to nail it so exquisitely that players like me would be in awe with their artistic skill. It was impossible for them to do when they half-assed the writing of the ending (or in the case of the original cut, fully-assed it).

(Additional: I only have one Shep, but I know some die-hard fans made a point of saving all different kinds of permutations of decisions so they could see all the differences who were crushed when they realised the answer was "not much". I know I spent a while considering what option to pick at the end of ME2 regarding the Collector Base, so I was annoyed to know it makes no real difference. If I replay ME2 every Shep will destroy that base because there is no reason not to. One of the biggest issues with ME3 is that it's killed a lot of the replay value of the entire series; there's no point in seeing how it plays differently, because it all ends up the same.)

[Calemyr]

Coming late to the ME3 ending and seeing it discussed, dissected and debated trough all over the internet, I really don't have anything to say that hasn't been said by others better then I could.

However, the discussion has been centered on the fan reaction and Bioware not understanding it, while I'm curious about another thing; not understanding Bioware.

What events led to ME3 having the ending it did? Why did Bioware and their 150-strong production team decide to include the final ending in the game? What did they hope to gain with it? Did they honestly think that it would be well received? Clearly they had invested more to the game then players, having developed the series for eight years. Was that really the best possible ending to their epic trilogy?

Checking this poll, "the vocal minority" who didn't like the ending is in fact very much a majority.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/268/346/83e.png

Here's the prevailing theory for ME3's ending as I understand it. This is one fool's take on events he has nothing to do with, so take it as you will.

1) The ME trilogy was originally designed based off a blueprint created by one guy: Drew Karpyshyn.

2) For unknown reasons, Karpyshyn was shifted to the Star Wars: The Old Republic project instead. Then he left the company completely.

3) ME3 had a good ending that was consistent with the original two games, called the "Dark Energy" ending. Short version of it is that the Mass Effect has a brutal environmental side effect (black holes and solar decay), and the Reapers are using the cycle to both limit its impact and create more Reapers in the hopes of brainstorming a more permanent solution. Harbinger would have believed a human Reaper would have been the ultimate resource for to that end.

4) Microsoft got stupid and released a demo of the multiplayer before they'd properly cleaned the code. People hacked the demo and pulled out the script, or at least enough of it to royally spoil the conclusion to about a decade of really hard work.

5) The team leads (minus Karpyshyn) attempted to write a new ending. Since the leak occurred very late in the development cycle, they didn't have much time and they were paranoid of leaks. They worked alone, to limit the risk of leaks, and completed it using as few outside resources as possible (only the kid and both Shepards were needed for voice acting).

6) Because it was written in isolation and in a hurry, the ending did not go through any sufficient critical review process. It was rushed out not only to meet the projected release date, but also to minimize the risk of spoilers. As such, nobody had the time or opportunity to say "this is stupid" or "this makes no sense" or "but this and this imply some pretty bad stuff".

7) It came out, and got the reception it did. For the first couple weeks, Bioware was under strict orders not to talk about the spoilers, so all they were able to actually do was act hurt and tease the "wonderful" DLCs they had been working on since it went gold but could not actually talk about either.

8) Bioware released the Extended Cut, which takes the abomination of an ending and polishes it until it's merely mediocre, possibly even a bit epic. The outrage is quelled and some good will is restored. Hard feelings remain and resentment continues, but in a relatively subdued manner.

9) We are here. ME3's first post-release, paid, content-based DLC is arriving fast. Will public interest and good will carry the DLC to profitability? Or will Bioware's rep be so tarnished that even the DLC for a genuinely awesome game (with a decidedly mediocre conclusion) will be received with suspicion? I honestly don't know.

Also, don't take that poll as gospel. It's an internet poll, and as such voting multiple times is not unheard of. If anything, it could be used to gauge the depth of passion in the response, if not the actual numbers.

[Aotrs Commander]

One of the biggest issues with ME3 is that it's killed a lot of the replay value of the entire series; there's no point in seeing how it plays differently, because it all ends up the same.

I think that's probably as big a danger for the future DLC as well.

Curiousity: shows of hands. Who here is going to buy the Levithan DLC straight away, who is going to wait until other people have had a look, and who's not interested at all?

I'm pretty much in the latter category, unless Levithan is something particularly spectacular. (And I mean, really, REALLY spectacular.) I mean, I've seen how it all ends - badly - so I don't, at this juncture, see what I have to gain by seeing another part that won't really affect anything. (Unless, of course, it does, in which case Bioware is playing a rather dangerous game...! That would be cutting very close to the former accusations of "pay to get ending.")

It's that same sort of sensation I get when I've played a game of Civ to the "win" stage. I know I could carry on, and, say, conquer the world, but whatever, I just seem to lose all enthusiasm once I'm past that magic point. It's sorta like that with ME now. I've seen the final, final ending, and my interest has cooled off almost completely.

[Beowulf DW]

I think that's probably as big a danger for the future DLC as well.

Curiousity: shows of hands. Who here is going to buy the Levithan DLC straight away, who is going to wait until other people have had a look, and who's not interested at all?

I'm pretty much in the latter category, unless Levithan is something particularly spectacular. (And I mean, really, REALLY spectacular.) I mean, I've seen how it all ends - badly - so I don't, at this juncture, see what I have to gain by seeing another part that won't really affect anything. (Unless, of course, it does, in which case Bioware is playing a rather dangerous game...! That would be cutting very close to the former accusations of "pay to get ending.")

It's that same sort of sensation I get when I've played a game of Civ to the "win" stage. I know I could carry on, and, say, conquer the world, but whatever, I just seem to lose all enthusiasm once I'm past that magic point. It's sorta like that with ME now. I've seen the final, final ending, and my interest has cooled off almost completely.

Same here. Unless the DLC is truly awesome, I'm saving the money for a different game. Maybe I'll buy a used Pokemon Soul Silver and ride the nostalgia train for a while.

[TheLaughingMan]

Tedious? I find it quite interesting, myself. I specifically brought up Half-Life to spark this sort of discussion.

You asked why Half-Life's ending worked while Mass Effects did not. You did not ask whether or not Mass Effect can be considered an open world game. As such, it looks a bit like you're heading down rabbit trails, comrade.


I think that's probably as big a danger for the future DLC as well.

Curiousity: shows of hands. Who here is going to buy the Levithan DLC straight away, who is going to wait until other people have had a look, and who's not interested at all?

On the one hand, the only reason I'm interested is to see what kind of discussion it spawns, as the ending blunts any chance of real character development or really any plot relevance this might have. So probably some sort of BC hybrid.

On the other hand, I'm quite eager to see if BioWare can pull a Mask of the Betrayer and make up for the game proper by sheer force of good writing. Probably not, but as I am not currently a psychic of any sort I'll just have to wait and see with the rest of you.

[Joran]

I think that's probably as big a danger for the future DLC as well.

Curiousity: shows of hands. Who here is going to buy the Levithan DLC straight away, who is going to wait until other people have had a look, and who's not interested at all?


Day 1 purchase. I've been playing a crapton of ME3 Multiplayer and I've enjoyed enough of the Mass Effect series to want to play more of it.

BTW, interesting numbers from Bioware: Mass Effect 2 has the highest completion rate over all of Dragon Age/Mass Effect series at only 56%.

ME1: 40%
ME2: 56%
ME3: 42%
DAO: 36%
DA2: 41%

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/08/13/mass-effect-2-has-highest-completion-rate-in-me-dragon-age-seri/

Talk about a silent majority.

[Psyren]

You were glossing over that you asked a very specific question, which was the differences between Half-Life 1 and Mass Effect 3 and why so many fans had more issues with the ending of the latter over the former. They're very different games.

Are they, though? Are they really? From a story perspective, that is. We're coming back to the "illusion" point again. How much do appearances ultimately matter to the reality? I posit that the differences are more academic/cosmetic than you appear to believe.


When I played Half-Life 1, I wasn't after any plot or character decisions, as the game never sold itself as aiming to achieve that. What Half-Life 1 was was a FPS based around environmental puzzles and occasional gunplay sections, with a paper thin plot told through an unbroken first person perspective. I didn't have any problems with the ending choice because it did not register as a choice at all - it wasn't the "good ending" vs. the "bad ending", it was the "ending" vs. a non-standard game over screen. And that's fine, for Half-Life 1.

For Mass Effect 3, I was expecting a game similar to the other Bioware games: an RPG with action sections (third person shooter in Mass Effect's case) with a strong mostly linear story (i.e. optional ordering of chapters) and plenty of the character-based decisions (Paragon/Renegade, Light Side/Dark Side, Heroic/Jerkass) that is Bioware's trademark. I also expected payback for all the major decisions I had made through the other two games, as they promised through all those loading screens in ME1 and ME2 that told me to hold on to my saves for import. That's why, when the game glossed over those decisions and started to impose Bioware's writer's will on Shepard's characterisation, I was disappointed.

All right; let's talk about some of those other Bioware games.

Jade Empire - aside from the Water Dragon, your other major choices included Tien's Landing, Chai Ka vs. Ya Zhen, and how to handle Death's Hand. Yet not one of those choices truly impacted the ending, or was even really represented; only the Water Dragon choice impacted your ending, because it was the one thing that truly mattered.

DA:O - Lots of big choices here, like the Dwarven king, Dwarves vs. Golems, Elves vs. Werewolves, Templars vs. Mage Circle etc. In the end these also amounted to little more than War Assets, with the only real choices being reduced to Logain and Morrigan.

These games showcase what I've been saying all along - that the journey is where those narratives find meaning, not the destination. Just because the ending of the game doesn't incorporate every thread that has come before, doesn't make those threads meaningless. There's still a great deal there to contemplate, debate and ponder.


Now you can argue that Bioware didn't explicitly make any promises about character agency in ME3 (although I'm sure I or others can find direct quotes that say otherwise. :smalltongue:), but that doesn't actually matter. Bioware implicitly made those promises by the previous games in the series and by their signature style in their games. I buy Bioware games for that Bioware style of linear story bent to character personality choice, so I was annoyed when they took that away. Theoretically Bioware might have got away with it as a deliberate artistic choice, but for it to work that had to nail it so exquisitely that players like me would be in awe with their artistic skill. It was impossible for them to do when they half-assed the writing of the ending (or in the case of the original cut, fully-assed it).

As I pointed out above, "Bioware's signature style" is not what you remember it to be. They certainly weave fantastic tapestries of the journey, but when it comes to tying up all those threads only a handful of choices truly matter in terms of the result you get. And this is a necessity to keep the universe(s) manageable.



(Additional: I only have one Shep, but I know some die-hard fans made a point of saving all different kinds of permutations of decisions so they could see all the differences who were crushed when they realised the answer was "not much". I know I spent a while considering what option to pick at the end of ME2 regarding the Collector Base, so I was annoyed to know it makes no real difference. If I replay ME2 every Shep will destroy that base because there is no reason not to. One of the biggest issues with ME3 is that it's killed a lot of the replay value of the entire series; there's no point in seeing how it plays differently, because it all ends up the same.)

I consider this to be highly unreasonable. You wanted deep and significantly different permutations based on decisions like the Collector Base, or the Council choice - but for those choices to be truly meaningful would mean crafting separate games for each. At some point the threads need to converge, for simplicity's sake if no other reason.

[Calemyr]

I consider this to be highly unreasonable. You wanted deep and significantly different permutations based on decisions like the Collector Base, or the Council choice - but for those choices to be truly meaningful would mean crafting separate games for each. At some point the threads need to converge, for simplicity's sake if no other reason.

Is it, though? The variations didn't need to be grand. Actually being able to talk (or at least react) to Morinth or Jack or any of the other "converted" allies you once had would have been nice. Getting cutscenes where something other than humans fought on earth would have been nice. (Although an asari and krogan do appear in a cutscene, I mean a real alien presence rather than a couple tokens.) ME3's main game is a monument to exactly how it the ending should have played - little touches changing events here and there, little scenes that may or may not be played, each tied to a subset of your decisions.

Heck. Even seeing the surviving bit players attending a service at the newly finished Shepard Memorial Park would have been awesome - Verner trying not to tear up while standing next to his new lady friend, Samara watching from a distance with stoic approval, Kenneth and Gabby in civilian wear - still playing off each other even now, Jacob holding his new baby as he throws a crisp salute... The lives you touched, the lives you saved, the world you left behind... What you did should have mattered. And in the end, it didn't.

The EC did do some of that, though, and I am grateful for that. It felt a little boiler-plate, a little too disconnected, but it still helped immensely.

[TheLaughingMan]

Are they, though? Are they really?

...Yes. Really. Mass Effect is a space opera with slight horror elements, involving a vast array of characters fighting for galactic peace. Half-Life I is a horror game with sci-fi elements, involving a very minimalist cast to create an atmosphere of tension and fear. Comparing the two is much like comparing Star Trek to Alien: Sure, they are both of the same sort of setting and possess some superficial similarities, but beyond that they are as different as one can manage.


All right; let's talk about some of those other Bioware games.

-snip-

These games showcase what I've been saying all along - that the journey is where those narratives find meaning, not the destination. Just because the ending of the game doesn't incorporate every thread that has come before, doesn't make those threads meaningless. There's still a great deal there to contemplate, debate and ponder.

The destination is, by no means, something most people look forward to when purchasing a story. But when an ending sucks, it matters much more to people than if it was merely mediocre. I tend to find that endings are a bit like baselines: Very noticeable when good, very much a non-factor when merely competent, and very, very noticeable when it's bad/missing.

[darksolitaire]

Thanks for the time to clarify, Calemyr. The Dark Energy ending seems credible, seeing that it was hinted in ME2.


Also, don't take that poll as gospel. It's an internet poll, and as such voting multiple times is not unheard of. If anything, it could be used to gauge the depth of passion in the response, if not the actual numbers.

Ah yes, internet poll. Accurate measure of peoples' opinions. We have dismissed that claim.

[Psyren]

I'm not concerned with the integrity of the poll so much as I'm concerned with its methodology. If you poll angry people and conclude that they're angry, your conclusion may be completely accurate, but that doesn't mean your poll is worth the bandwidth it took to host its colored bars.


Is it, though? The variations didn't need to be grand. Actually being able to talk (or at least react) to Morinth or Jack or any of the other "converted" allies you once had would have been nice.

Not sure what you mean - you can talk to Jack just fine, including on Earth.
Morinth... is an unrepentant serial-killing waste of oxygen, and being Banshee'd was too good for her.


Getting cutscenes where something other than humans fought on earth would have been nice. (Although an asari and krogan do appear in a cutscene, I mean a real alien presence rather than a couple tokens.) ME3's main game is a monument to exactly how it the ending should have played - little touches changing events here and there, little scenes that may or may not be played, each tied to a subset of your decisions.

Several other writers (including Tycho, of Penny Arcade fame) pointed out that the entirety of ME3 (http://penny-arcade.com/2011/03/14) was itself the ending. Elements like the ones you ask for above exemplify that viewpoint; asking for them to repeat these things in the game proper and in the ending doesn't seem particularly necessary to me.

Now , what I will applaud the EC for is using the epilogue to show new possibilities. The Krogan renaissance. Reapers pitching in to rebuild. Maskless Quarians cooperating with Geth, and so on. I was okay with the original set of endings, but welcomed additional clarity/closure with open arms, as you did.



The destination is, by no means, something most people look forward to when purchasing a story. But when an ending sucks, it matters much more to people than if it was merely mediocre. I tend to find that endings are a bit like baselines: Very noticeable when good, very much a non-factor when merely competent, and very, very noticeable when it's bad/missing.

I didn't bring those other Bioware titles up to dispute the quality (or lack thereof) of the endings, as that is subjective. My purpose in doing so was to challenge the assertion that ME3 is somehow the only Bioware game where the ending doesn't incorporate the choices made throughout the game.

[Calemyr]

I'm not concerned with the integrity of the poll so much as I'm concerned with its methodology. If you poll angry people and conclude that they're angry, your conclusion may be completely accurate, but that doesn't mean your poll is worth the bandwidth it took to host its colored bars.

Valid opinion, of course, but I thought previously the argument was that the data was slanted by outraged fans and neutral participants didn't bother.


Not sure what you mean - you can talk to Jack just fine, including on Earth.
Morinth... is an unrepentant serial-killing waste of oxygen, and being Banshee'd was too good for her.

If you don't hit Grissom before the 360 break (Kai Leng Emerges), then Jack is captured, broken, and reprocessed into a phantom that appears during the final fight with Leng.

Morinth... I agree on. But that still doesn't mean Shepard shouldn't have be able to (ineffectively) try to snap her out of it or lament that one of his/her crew being turned into something like that.

Same goes for Jack. Shep may not know the full depths of the tragedy, but it's still one of the crew.

Legion, of course, is another story. Shep could comment on the fact that a geth is working for Cerberus, but wouldn't know the legion assassin from a hole in the ground.


Several other writers (including Tycho, of Penny Arcade fame) pointed out that the entirety of ME3 (http://penny-arcade.com/2011/03/14) was itself the ending. Elements like the ones you ask for above exemplify that viewpoint; asking for them to repeat these things in the game proper and in the ending doesn't seem particularly necessary to me.

Oh, I whole-heartedly agree. If the ending had been consistent to the story, if it had continued to include the consequences of your action, I would have been happy even with this Starkid crap for an ending. If the fight had ended when Shep passes out, it would have been a great conclusion.

Instead, for the unmodified ending, they just completely cut the conclusion off from anything you've done before, except for the vaguest impact of the most generalized rating of your actions which has no explicit connection to what's going on. The narrative is going 70 and then hits a brick wall right there. All your actions are rendered meaningless, the game before it may as well not even be played at that point. All that matters is your EMS score, and even then only abstractly, and everything that happens afterwards has nothing whatsoever to do with anything that preceded it. And that's completely leaving out the raw quantities of fridge horror that you and I have discussed at exhausting length before.

The clip show at least brings the smallest part of the actual game back into things at the last minute, but the ending itself continues to completely leave out three games worth of adventure in favor of a single action. It was a big action, yeah, the culmination of everything you worked for, but the culmination is not the summation. What you did should have mattered, even if only in the most trivial ways, it should have mattered.

[Zevox]

Curiousity: shows of hands. Who here is going to buy the Levithan DLC straight away, who is going to wait until other people have had a look, and who's not interested at all?
Depending on what I'm playing at the time of the release, I'll probably get it either day 1 or once I complete what I'm playing at the time. (Playing P4A has made me want to replay Persona 4 itself, which would take quite some time, and I would not be inclined to play even something as good as Mass Effect if I'm in the middle of Persona at the time.) Either way, I'm interested in it and plan to get it.


I mean, I've seen how it all ends - badly - so I don't, at this juncture, see what I have to gain by seeing another part that won't really affect anything.
See, that is a mindset I don't get. The point of DLC is the contents of the DLC itself, not how it impacts anything else - hell, none of the DLC for the previous games impacted anything in the main story, save for Arrival only, yet we all praise Lair of the Shadowbroker and Stolen Memories quite regularly. The ending isn't the only thing that matters in a game, not by a long shot.

Zevox

[Psyren]

Valid opinion, of course, but I thought previously the argument was that the data was slanted by outraged fans and neutral participants didn't bother.

BSN is 90% "outraged fans" (as that very poll indicates) so I'm not sure what you mean by "previously."



If you don't hit Grissom before the 360 break (Kai Leng Emerges), then Jack is captured, broken, and reprocessed into a phantom that appears during the final fight with Leng.

And if you do hit Grissom you get to talk to her quite a bit, so... hit Grissom? I'm not sure what you're getting at here either. :smallconfused:



Morinth... I agree on. But that still doesn't mean Shepard shouldn't have be able to (ineffectively) try to snap her out of it or lament that one of his/her crew being turned into something like that.

This is a question of resources. So few people actually picked the psycho that any more effort spent on her character would have been a waste of valuable dev time that could have gone into my fish tank.


*snip*

For the latter part of your post, it seems we both agree the slideshow was a good move on Bioware's part.

[Serenity]

Are they, though? Are they really? From a story perspective, that is. We're coming back to the "illusion" point again. How much do appearances ultimately matter to the reality? I posit that the differences are more academic/cosmetic than you appear to believe.



All right; let's talk about some of those other Bioware games.

Jade Empire - aside from the Water Dragon, your other major choices included Tien's Landing, Chai Ka vs. Ya Zhen, and how to handle Death's Hand. Yet not one of those choices truly impacted the ending, or was even really represented; only the Water Dragon choice impacted your ending, because it was the one thing that truly mattered.

DA:O - Lots of big choices here, like the Dwarven king, Dwarves vs. Golems, Elves vs. Werewolves, Templars vs. Mage Circle etc. In the end these also amounted to little more than War Assets, with the only real choices being reduced to Logain and Morrigan.

These games showcase what I've been saying all along - that the journey is where those narratives find meaning, not the destination. Just because the ending of the game doesn't incorporate every thread that has come before, doesn't make those threads meaningless. There's still a great deal there to contemplate, debate and ponder.



As I pointed out above, "Bioware's signature style" is not what you remember it to be. They certainly weave fantastic tapestries of the journey, but when it comes to tying up all those threads only a handful of choices truly matter in terms of the result you get. And this is a necessity to keep the universe(s) manageable.



I consider this to be highly unreasonable. You wanted deep and significantly different permutations based on decisions like the Collector Base, or the Council choice - but for those choices to be truly meaningful would mean crafting separate games for each. At some point the threads need to converge, for simplicity's sake if no other reason.

Having never played Jade Empire, I can't speak to that one, but as far as Dragon Age: Origins goes? You make comparison between the allies you gather and the War Assets in Mass Effect. But while the War Assets in Mass Effect are completely abstracted and never seen, in Dragon Age, you get to see different armies called in--and the Werewolves Vs. Elves and Templars vs. Mages are distinctly different. And it's certainly more than 'Loghain vs. Morrigan' which affects the ending (in fact, Loghain vs. Morrigan isn't even a choice, but a conflation of at least two): Do you spare Loghain's life and induct him into the Gray Wardens, losing Alistair but giving a Well-Intentioned Extremist the chance for redemption? Do you enthrone Alistair or the Queen? Do you sacrifice yourself? Alistair? Loghain? Or do you make a deal with the devil so that everybody lives? All of those are crystal clear differences, and arise naturally from what has come before. And that's not to mention an epilogue which explains consequences of countless choices throughout the game, including many that seemed utterly minor, like whether a dwarven girl gets to study at the Circle of Magi.

So yes, I think we can say that choice, or a very, very significant illusion thereof is something we can reasonably expect from Bioware's signature style. Especially when we have countless developer quotes swearing up and down that there would be sixteen different endings, influenced by past choices instead of 'A, B,C' (or 'Red, Blue, Green' as it turned out), and how the fact that it was the last game, and didn't have to tie into a future installment, meant the threads didn't have to converge. We can certainly say that choice figures more prominently in Mass Effect than in Half Life.

[Calemyr]

This is a question of resources. So few people actually picked the psycho that any more effort spent on her character would have been a waste of valuable dev time that could have gone into my fish tank.


It was too much effort to add something like this?
Shep: Oh no... Morinth?
Companion: Who's "Morinth"?
Shep: Long story.

Heck, they had Garrus and Shep joking about how the freed Yahg was gunning for Liara's position!

As for Grissom, I mean that it's a psuedo timed mission. If you don't do the mission before the 360 divide, Cerberus cleans house at the academy. That includes Jack, who appears as a named phantom with a distinctive battlecry at the Cerberus base. A brief comment on it would have at least been deserving.

[Psyren]

Having never played Jade Empire, I can't speak to that one, but as far as Dragon Age: Origins goes? You make comparison between the allies you gather and the War Assets in Mass Effect. But while the War Assets in Mass Effect are completely abstracted and never seen, in Dragon Age, you get to see different armies called in--and the Werewolves Vs. Elves and Templars vs. Mages are distinctly different. And it's certainly more than 'Loghain vs. Morrigan' which affects the ending (in fact, Loghain vs. Morrigan isn't even a choice, but a conflation of at least two): Do you spare Loghain's life and induct him into the Gray Wardens, losing Alistair but giving a Well-Intentioned Extremist the chance for redemption? Do you enthrone Alistair or the Queen? Do you sacrifice yourself? Alistair? Loghain? Or do you make a deal with the devil so that everybody lives? All of those are crystal clear differences, and arise naturally from what has come before. And that's not to mention an epilogue which explains consequences of countless choices throughout the game, including many that seemed utterly minor, like whether a dwarven girl gets to study at the Circle of Magi.

1) I know that Logain and Morrigan are two separate choices. Nowhere did I say "Logain vs. Morrigan" - that was your own invention.

2) Alistair or the Queen is another I consider to be not that important. Sure, the epilogue has a text blurb for some of the stuff you did, in much the same manner as Extended Cut has slides for some of the decisions you made. The question is - when Dragon Age II - or hell, even Awakening - rolled around, how much of that actually mattered?

As it turns out - not a whole lot. The journey itself was the point.


It was too much effort to add something like this?
Shep: Oh no... Morinth?
Companion: Who's "Morinth"?
Shep: Long story.

An exchange like that adds so little to the game that its inclusion or omission amounts to quibbling.



As for Grissom, I mean that it's a psuedo timed mission. If you don't do the mission before the 360 divide, Cerberus cleans house at the academy. That includes Jack, who appears as a named phantom with a distinctive battlecry at the Cerberus base. A brief comment on it would have at least been deserving.

Actually, there was a brief comment on that, in Chronos itself.

EDI: "That was Jack."
Shepard: "One more thing the Illusive Man has to pay for." (Or something like that; only heard the sound byte once.)

I'm just not sure what you wanted there. A tear-filled cutscene over her body? If she appears there at all it means the player screwed up; no point dwelling on it beyond that.

[Calemyr]

Actually, there was a brief comment on that, in Chronos itself.

EDI: "That was Jack."
Shepard: "One more thing the Illusive Man has to pay for." (Or something like that; only heard the sound byte once.)

I'm just not sure what you wanted there. A tear-filled cutscene over her body? If she appears there at all it means the player screwed up; no point dwelling on it beyond that.

No what's there is just right, I've just never heard of it. Consider me satisfied on that count.

[Serenity]

Ah, I'm sorry, I misread 'the only choices are Loghain and Morrigan' as 'a choice between Loghain and Morrigan.' I did not mean to put words in your mouth.

[Aotrs Commander]

See, that is a mindset I don't get. The point of DLC is the contents of the DLC itself, not how it impacts anything else - hell, none of the DLC for the previous games impacted anything in the main story, save for Arrival only, yet we all praise Lair of the Shadowbroker and Stolen Memories quite regularly. The ending isn't the only thing that matters in a game, not by a long shot.

Zevox

Partly because, with the possible exception of Shadowbroker, most of Bioware's DLC (in any of their games) has been pretty meh on it's own, and works best in context with the rest of the story - and the prior Mass Effect DLC has an affect on the future games (especially Shadowbroker, which fitted in either before or after the suicide mission).

But this time, we know the final fate. So this means there's no future incentive for me, so it's got to be taken on it's own merits - whcih from prior experience, just isn't that great in isolation. Bioware work best when they've got time to run a story out, and slap-in loads of character interaction, neither of which are likely to be in spades in a DLC. (They might pull off a Shadowbroker, of course - but for those of us less bothered, we'll leave that to the likes of you, Zevox, to determine!)

Plus it sort of feels, for my "primary" Shepard, backtracking. (And I've not even finish my second Shepard's ME 1 run yet, so I don't have an urgancy to get it for him, vile nutter than he is...!) I know it's a bit strange; and it's hard to explain.

Note that I'd feel this way regardless of what the ending was, good or bad. It's the fact it's going to be set before, not after, the ending that is most of all killing my interest. This isn't - for once! - a reaction to the quality of the ending.

It's really kind of wierd. Maybe it's because I play so many games and complete far too few, but I tend to find my interest in games tends to dissipate after the "end." I very rarly make use of any new game plus (though I like having the option!). Even stuff like, say Pokemon. Aside from the one game per generation I'm completeing the Pokedex for, usually once I've beaten the league, I tend not to go back to that game much for it's own sake. And I also find I sort of lose a bit of steam when the Pokemon team I've spent ages working on, finally comes into full power (attacks evolutions)...

And, as I said, it's like winning a Civ game too early (like by culture or something). As soon as I pass that score screen, not matter where I am, even if I'm only halfway through the game I tend to find my interest in playing further just goes. Take the Witcher, there's another good example; I've got the extended version, which has got all those little extra side-quest-module-thingys. I may well never play them for their own sake, because they're isolated from the main campaign and each other.

I think I sort of need a goal to grind against when I'm playing a game. I have to have an objective (getting to the end of the game, assembling them team etc etc) - probably why I don't handle sandbox games very well. (I didn't even bother to look at Skyrim on the basis I got through a fair bit of Morrowind, slightly less in Oblivion and Fallout 3, so I was going to get no further with that...)

Maybe it's more fundemental than that, maybe it's a story thing. (Since, at the end of the day, everything I do, every hobby I have is a story, whether it's wargames, roleplaying or computer games.) Maybe a way too look at it then, is after I've read that last chapter, I'm less interested in going back to read a chapter that should have been in the middle somewhere. I even notice it when I see TV shows; I tend to be less interested in watching something that's older than the current leading edge if I come in half-way through a series of something.

I don't really think I do much of anything for the sake of just doing it - everything has to have a purpose, even if a nebulous one, it has to contribute to something...

While it's often is more about the journey than the destination, I think I to HAVE a destination or I can't enjoy the journey properly, if that makes any sense.

Huh. That was more enlightening than I expected it to be.

...

I now I'm depressed that the thought of DLC has been more thought provoking for me than the actual game itself was (or at least the ending was supposed to be..!

...

...

Also, as I'm now rambling semi-incohently about fairly abstract philosphical contructs, I think Thanqol must be rubbing off on me...

[Trazoi]

Are they, though? Are they really? From a story perspective, that is. We're coming back to the "illusion" point again. How much do appearances ultimately matter to the reality? I posit that the differences are more academic/cosmetic than you appear to believe.
Yes. Yes they are. They're different in content, tone, message, theme... honestly I don't know what you're asking here. We're not comparing Half-Life to Doom or Quake (exact same plot presented in fantastically different ways, shows how that makes such a difference).

I'm not sure we're using the same definition of "illusion of choice". For me, it's how Bioware games give you a solid linear story but allow the player to "bend" it to different interpretations based on their actions. It's why they put in decisions like whether to answer the reporter or punch the reporter, but obviously can't put in the option to ask the reporter on a date or ask if she wants to fly the Normandy to Disneyland. There is only a limited amount of choice in the game, carefully crafted by the designers and writers, so the player feels that its taking their choices into consideration but allows the strength of the techniques of solid linear storytelling to still apply.


I consider this to be highly unreasonable. You wanted deep and significantly different permutations based on decisions like the Collector Base, or the Council choice - but for those choices to be truly meaningful would mean crafting separate games for each. At some point the threads need to converge, for simplicity's sake if no other reason.
No, I said I wanted my decisions to appear to matter. That does not necessarily mean two effectively completely different games. I don't care how Bioware implements it, as long as it's there. This didn't come from nowhere. If Bioware didn't want to make the Collector base an important decision, then they should not have put so much importance on that decision at the end of ME2.

I put that in bold above because this is my point - there is a reason why many fans expected our decisions from prior games to matter, and it's all down to how Bioware presented it in the story in the prior games. I agonised over the decision in ME2 because the way it was given to me, it felt like it would have immense ramifications down the line. That's why this particular one annoys me, because all it turns out to do is change a few lines from TIM and +/- 10 points. It made the whole main quest in ME2 feel hollow. (The game even ends with a discussion about it with TIM and him possibly looking at a model of the base. It felt much more important than the Council choices in ME1.)


Curiousity: shows of hands. Who here is going to buy the Levithan DLC straight away, who is going to wait until other people have had a look, and who's not interested at all?
I'm almost certainly not going to touch any ME3 DLC. Partly this is due to me being finished with the game, but also due to me having a list of unplayed games as long as my arm.

I might change my mind if word comes out that the add-on DLCs somehow are beyond amazing.

[Zevox]

Partly because, with the possible exception of Shadowbroker, most of Bioware's DLC (in any of their games) has been pretty meh on it's own, and works best in context with the rest of the story - and the prior Mass Effect DLC has an affect on the future games (especially Shadowbroker, which fitted in either before or after the suicide mission).
:smallconfused: I have no idea what you mean by that ("works best in context with the rest of the story?"). And how did any of the previous DLC affect future games? The most they added was cameo appearances, like Kasumi showing up in one quest in ME3.


I think I sort of need a goal to grind against when I'm playing a game. I have to have an objective (getting to the end of the game, assembling them team etc etc) - probably why I don't handle sandbox games very well. (I didn't even bother to look at Skyrim on the basis I got through a fair bit of Morrowind, slightly less in Oblivion and Fallout 3, so I was going to get no further with that...)
I can understand that. I have similar complaints about sandbox games, though I tend to term it as them feeling like they lack focus, or seem to represent a quantity-over-quality approach to gaming, creating a massive world and filling it with many things to do, inevitably leaving most or all of those things shallow and uninteresting. For instance, I played Fallout 3 all the way to the end, but found my motivation to play the game vanished completely the moment I hit level 20 (the maximum), so it seems like simple grinding was all that had kept me playing it. Fortunately I was just before the end when that happened, so I finished it just to be able to say I had, and haven't even thought about touching it since.

What I don't understand is why completing the DLC itself would not be a sufficient goal here. Bioware's work is always good, the last ten minutes of ME3 aside, and I don't think I could call the premise we've been given for Leviathan uninteresting.


Maybe it's more fundemental than that, maybe it's a story thing. (Since, at the end of the day, everything I do, every hobby I have is a story, whether it's wargames, roleplaying or computer games.) Maybe a way too look at it then, is after I've read that last chapter, I'm less interested in going back to read a chapter that should have been in the middle somewhere. I even notice it when I see TV shows; I tend to be less interested in watching something that's older than the current leading edge if I come in half-way through a series of something.
Huh, weird. That one I don't get - I've never had any problem going back to my favorite parts of something after its over. I've re-watched season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender more than seasons 1 or 3 precisely because of that, to give one example.

Zevox

[RagingKrikkit]

Well, maybe it's that there is a sense of finality/futility to the DLC. So what if Shepard stops an asteroid from crashing into a colony if (s)he's going to die screwing over the galaxy? (Note that I don't have EC yet, due to bandwith issues keeping me from getting on live. Maybe I can hijack a friend's internet and get it...)

[EagleWiz]

What I don't understand is why completing the DLC itself would not be a sufficient goal here. Bioware's work is always good, the last ten minutes of ME3 aside, and I don't think I could call the premise we've been given for Leviathan uninteresting.

Ahh yes, the "pinnacle station", an alledged dlc full of inconsistant difficulty and a really lame horde mode. We have dismissed this claim.

[TheLaughingMan]

Ahh yes, the "pinnacle station", an alledged dlc full of inconsistant difficulty and a really lame horde mode. We have dismissed this claim.

It now shares its non-existent shelf-space with something termed "the last third of Dragon Age II," which was rumored to be full of silly, ham-handed moral dilemmas and an even sillier ending.

[Logic]

Ah, I'm sorry, I misread 'the only choices are Loghain and Morrigan' as 'a choice between Loghain and Morrigan.' I did not mean to put words in your mouth.
I personally think Psyren was fairly unclear on his original post, so I get your mistake. I initially made the same mistake myself, then re-read his post to make sure I understood what he was talking about.

[Zevox]

Ahh yes, the "pinnacle station", an alledged dlc full of inconsistant difficulty and a really lame horde mode. We have dismissed this claim.
I never played any of ME1's DLC, so I cannot speak to that. Only to what I have played, which is everything Bioware has made from KotOR on except The Old Republic and the DLC for ME1 (I think - it's always possible I'm forgetting or missed something; I nearly forgot TOR when initially typing this).

Zevox

[Aotrs Commander]

I never played any of ME1's DLC, so I cannot speak to that. Only to what I have played, which is everything Bioware has made from KotOR on except The Old Republic and the DLC for ME1 (I think - it's always possible I'm forgetting or missed something; I nearly forgot TOR when initially typing this).

Zevox

Their full games are good (ME3 endng notwithstanding) to okay (the fact I've not played more than the first hour or so of DA2 speaks to that corner)... but their DLC... has been much more marginal. ME2's was better on average than most of that from DA1, I'll grant you...

But the former also had the impetous that it wasn't just some sidequest, that it would have some affect down the line (not much, granted...)

Like I say, I've got the equivilent of DLC in little episodes in the EE of the Witcher 1, and I'm not sure I'll ever play those.


Huh, weird. That one I don't get - I've never had any problem going back to my favorite parts of something after its over. I've re-watched season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender more than seasons 1 or 3 precisely because of that, to give one example.

Zevox

No, I don't do that. Part of it's the completionist thing, part of it's the equally "must-be-in-chronological-order" thing and part of it's the "don't do any one thing too much, and widely spaced apart to keep it relative fresh" thing. If and when I watch Avatar again (and bear in mind I was quite subborn enough to wait even when it first came out, after only watching a couple of episodes, to ignore when it was shown on TV and wait until the season box sets came out in the US so it ws mostly completely new), I'll watch the whole thing.

It sorta like if you watch/play/do the same thing over and over again, it loses it's sheen.

Notably, for example, I never play the same wargame scenario more than once, even the ones that give us a particualrly good game.


Well, maybe it's that there is a sense of finality/futility to the DLC. So what if Shepard stops an asteroid from crashing into a colony if (s)he's going to die screwing over the galaxy?

Yeah, that's part of it.



I don't why my mind works like this, but it does. All I can do is try to explain.
*shrug* That's all I can say, really...

[Name_Here]

All right; let's talk about some of those other Bioware games.

Jade Empire - aside from the Water Dragon, your other major choices included Tien's Landing, Chai Ka vs. Ya Zhen, and how to handle Death's Hand. Yet not one of those choices truly impacted the ending, or was even really represented; only the Water Dragon choice impacted your ending, because it was the one thing that truly mattered.

DA:O - Lots of big choices here, like the Dwarven king, Dwarves vs. Golems, Elves vs. Werewolves, Templars vs. Mage Circle etc. In the end these also amounted to little more than War Assets, with the only real choices being reduced to Logain and Morrigan.

These games showcase what I've been saying all along - that the journey is where those narratives find meaning, not the destination. Just because the ending of the game doesn't incorporate every thread that has come before, doesn't make those threads meaningless. There's still a great deal there to contemplate, debate and ponder.

Did you even play these games? Because your decisions effected the end of both of those games.

In Jade Empire depending on whether you helped the NPCs through their problems you either made them broken bitter people or they left you to go on and do great deeds.

And DA:O your decisions have no effect on the ending? The Bioware team was awesome at showing you what the effects of your actions were. Where your actions led to grand results and where your actions led to unexpected consequences.

[Psyren]

I'm not sure we're using the same definition of "illusion of choice". For me, it's how Bioware games give you a solid linear story but allow the player to "bend" it to different interpretations based on their actions. It's why they put in decisions like whether to answer the reporter or punch the reporter, but obviously can't put in the option to ask the reporter on a date or ask if she wants to fly the Normandy to Disneyland. There is only a limited amount of choice in the game, carefully crafted by the designers and writers, so the player feels that its taking their choices into consideration but allows the strength of the techniques of solid linear storytelling to still apply.

I'm glad you brought up Khalisah, because that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about - again, journey vs. destination. You've got this horrible woman/Terra Firma mouthpiece who wants nothing better than to make you look like a Council toady. Even agreeing with her pro-humanity rhetoric (i.e. being Renegade) results in snark from her. And famously, the option comes up to knock her on her ass every time you meet. But this is an option my main Shepard would never take.

Now, at the end of this arc you can get some token war assets out of her if you were nice the whole time. She can even end up acknowledging your worth to the Alliance. But the game didn't have to "reward" me like that; I was a Paragon to her simply because that's what my Shepard would do. Even if she had left the ME3 meeting hating my guts, I would feel no desire to rush back to ME1/ME2 and throw those punches after all; I would not proclaim that my being nice to this harridan had been a waste of time all along. The destination once again was irrelevant - it was the opportunity to define another aspect of my Shepard through my interactions with this woman that mattered, i.e. the journey.



No, I said I wanted my decisions to appear to matter. That does not necessarily mean two effectively completely different games. I don't care how Bioware implements it, as long as it's there. This didn't come from nowhere. If Bioware didn't want to make the Collector base an important decision, then they should not have put so much importance on that decision at the end of ME2.

If that's not necessarily what it means, then how do you expect them to implement it? There is no way for them to make the choice having true impact and still converge everyone's Shepard. It has to not matter in the end or they really would be stuck making two games. Your demand is thus unreasonable.

Now, does that mean - as you said - that they should have de-emphasized the importance of the choice in ME2? Of course not. The choice itself (the journey, again) was its own reward. Look at how much debate was fostered by the Geth Heretic choice for instance - it was held up far and wide as one of the best philosophical conundrums in modern gaming (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/enriching-lives) - and the fact that the consequences didn't significantly differ in the end was purely tangential to its own worth. Those choices were great, and discussion-worthy, in spite of their relatively small impact on the narrative itself.



I put that in bold above because this is my point - there is a reason why many fans expected our decisions from prior games to matter, and it's all down to how Bioware presented it in the story in the prior games. I agonised over the decision in ME2 because the way it was given to me, it felt like it would have immense ramifications down the line. That's why this particular one annoys me, because all it turns out to do is change a few lines from TIM and +/- 10 points. It made the whole main quest in ME2 feel hollow. (The game even ends with a discussion about it with TIM and him possibly looking at a model of the base. It felt much more important than the Council choices in ME1.)

I'm sorry to tell you this, but if all your artistic value in making a choice comes out of the consequences rather than the choice itself, you're going to be continually disappointed playing artistic games in general, and Bioware games in particular. I already pointed out numerous examples from their previous RPGs (DA:O and Jade Empire) where the choice itself was the worthy aspect and the consequences didn't really matter. The point of philosophy is the questions themselves, not necessarily answering them.

There's an impulse in humanity to answer all our outstanding questions, but the answered questions - at least to me - are the ones that quickly cease to be interesting. And it seems that Bioware shares this viewpoint.

[Calemyr]

The endings to previous BW games have definitely brought in the game more, as Name_Here states.

Jade Empire's monologue includes what happened to each of your allies, and these stories differ not only depending on if you helped someone, but how you helped them. Death's Hand can be dead, your pet monster, or a free man seeing redemption for crimes that were not exactly his. Silk Fox can be the radiant monarch, the sacred ninja, or a perfect blend of each, and her relationship with the main character is reflected in there as well.

Meanwhile, DA:O not only placed representatives of each ally in your camp, the last mission contained a completely new mechanic that revolved around summoning your allies to even the odds. I personally didn't use it much - it made the fights easier, but I didn't like watching my comrades die so I'd rather leave them out of the tough stuff. The golems in particular are a devastating resource. Additionally, any "hero" grade NPCs you spared over the course of the game show up to assist you in the final fight.

Your actual decision, and the real meat of the ending, is still decided by one decision (Baldur's Gate does the same thing in Throne of Bhaal), but the other decisions you make have some very visible impact somewhere in the ending.

As for DLC, BioWare generally has three types of DLC: Those that don't mean anything (gear ones usually), those that provide context, and those that advance the plot. Those that advance the plot (Shadow Broker, Arrival) tend to be their best work. Unfortunately, the plot isn't in a position to be advanced anymore, so the best we'll get are those that add context (Overlord, Zaeed, and Kasumi), which can be good, but are rarely up to the same level.

Leviathan could be on par with Shadow Broker, I'll admit. It's pretty darn remarkable how much From Ashes adds to the game just by adding one outside perspective. Perspective is all it can really add, however, because the ending is supposedly set in stone. But it also could easily be just another minor mission that in the end means nothing.

The ME1 DLCs, however, were not made by Bioware, as I understand it. This is why there is no voice acting by any of your companions and why the end result is sub-par. Bring Down the Sky was pretty mediocre (albeit not without redeeming features), while I have yet to hear anything good at all about Pinnacle Station.



I'm glad you brought up Khalisah, because that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about - again, journey vs. destination. You've got this horrible woman/Terra Firma mouthpiece who wants nothing better than to make you look like a Council toady. Even agreeing with her pro-humanity rhetoric (i.e. being Renegade) results in snark from her. And famously, the option comes up to knock her on her ass every time you meet. But this is an option my main Shepard would never take.

Now, at the end of this arc you can get some token war assets out of her if you were nice the whole time. She can even end up acknowledging your worth to the Alliance. But the game didn't have to "reward" me like that; I was a Paragon to her simply because that's what my Shepard would do. Even if she had left the ME3 meeting hating my guts, I would feel no desire to rush back to ME1/ME2 and throw those punches after all; I would not proclaim that my being nice to this harridan had been a waste of time all along. The destination once again was irrelevant - it was the opportunity to define another aspect of my Shepard through my interactions with this woman that mattered, i.e. the journey.


You're arguing the wrong point, there. The game is good. The game is gorgeous. The ending sucked some generic crude innuendo to several degrees. And while it still sucks, it now at least is well-written garbage, so that's tolerable. Khalisah is an example of why the game rocked, and there are few people who would argue that point (though many would justifiably say it wasn't as perfect as many suggest - even without the ending, there's still Leng, super-eavesdropper Shep, and easily one of the worst side quest journals since the NES).

Khalisah does nothing to redeem the ending, pre or post EC. She's actually an example of why the ending is so bad - events like her really made the player feel like like their actions meant something, and then it's all torn away from you like some epic April fools joke.

[Psyren]

In Jade Empire depending on whether you helped the NPCs through their problems you either made them broken bitter people or they left you to go on and do great deeds.

Mere blurbs, on par with the still slides in the EC. Compared to the fate of the Empire itself, these hardly mattered.



And DA:O your decisions have no effect on the ending? The Bioware team was awesome at showing you what the effects of your actions were. Where your actions led to grand results and where your actions led to unexpected consequences.

Pray tell, which of these "grand results" had any real impact on DA:A or DA2?

A handful did - choice of Ferelden king/queen, your Warden surviving, and Morrigan's baby. The rest did not, despite being pretty weighty choices in and of themselves (e.g. the dwarven king and the fate of the Circle.)


You're arguing the wrong point, there. The game is good. The game is gorgeous. The ending sucked some generic crude innuendo to several degrees. And while it still sucks, it now at least is well-written garbage, so that's tolerable. Khalisah is an example of why the game rocked, and there are few people who would argue that point (though many would justifiably say it wasn't as perfect as many suggest - even without the ending, there's still Leng, super-eavesdropper Shep, and easily one of the worst side quest journals since the NES).

Khalisah does nothing to redeem the ending, pre or post EC. She's actually an example of why the ending is so bad - events like her really made the player feel like like their actions meant something, and then it's all torn away from you like some epic April fools joke.

You're misunderstanding me - I'm not saying she "redeems the ending," which is... pretty nonsensical as she has nothing to do with the ending anyway. I'm saying that there is no reason for her, or indeed the vast majority of such arcs in the story, to be related to or reflected in the ending in any way. Again, I would have been just as happy with Khalisah even if she didn't grant a single point of war asset.

How is she an example of how bad the endings are? Your interactions with her meant something when they happened; do you really feel as though it was all pointless just because they didn't dig up a polaroid of her to shove in the ending montage? Were there no discussions/debates over "I punched the reporter!" in the months leading up to both ME2 and ME3?

[Trazoi]

If that's not necessarily what it means, then how do you expect them to implement it? There is no way for them to make the choice having true impact and still converge everyone's Shepard. It has to not matter in the end or they really would be stuck making two games. Your demand is thus unreasonable.
I wasn't "demanding" anything. I was describing my expectations. You seem to have wrapped up my expectation into some amazingly far-fetched pipe dream for what ME3 should be. I know about the sorts of trade-offs game developers have to do to ship a game. I definitely know what Bioware is capable of because I have played their games. All I expected was the same degree of integration of choices/decisions as was done in ME2.

Frankly I'm sick of arguing against the "entitlement" nonsense. I was answering with personal experiences because I thought you wanted to examine what is was about ME3 in particular that caused such a negative reaction. You seem to be arguing that the entire reason is that people like me don't know how to appreciate a game.

[Psyren]

I wasn't "demanding" anything. I was describing my expectations. You seem to have wrapped up my expectation into some amazingly far-fetched pipe dream for what ME3 should be. I know about the sorts of trade-offs game developers have to do to ship a game. I definitely know what Bioware is capable of because I have played their games.

I apologize if I mischaracterized you; but that only changes my statement to "I find your expectation to be unreasonable." The reason why stays the same - expecting Bioware to make the choice have significant impact without diverging the galaxies into separate games/expressions is just not possible.


All I expected was the same degree of integration of choices/decisions as was done in ME2.

But how was ME2 different/better in this regard? ME2 had just as many ME1 decisions become normalized, as ME3 did to ME2 decisions. Saving/killing the council had as little impact in ME2, as saving/destroying the Collector base did in ME3.

So I still don't understand what makes it seem so much superior in this regard, when both games did the same things.



Frankly I'm sick of arguing against the "entitlement" nonsense. I was answering with personal experiences because I thought you wanted to examine what is was about ME3 in particular that caused such a negative reaction. You seem to be arguing that the entire reason is that people like me don't know how to appreciate a game.

I do think you can appreciate a game. My disconnect stems from "{Example A} did {quality X} much better than ME3 did" - but when I analyze example A, I see no difference in their approach. Or "{Choice B} is meaningless now because the endings didn't express it" and when I analyze choice B, it was clearly meant to stand on its own merits. Or "{Action C} wasn't even acknowledged in ME3!" until I point out that it was (such as Calemyr's belief that Jack's conversion by Cerberus went unremarked by Shepard.)

Ultimately, I think most of the objections stem from half-truths and gut feelings than legitimate complaints.

[Calemyr]

Mere blurbs, on par with the still slides in the EC. Compared to the fate of the Empire itself, these hardly mattered.

No, not mere blurbs. Personal blurbs. The characters you met, bonded with, shaped... those blurbs spoke of the impact you had on them, and how their life went from there. EC's slideshow condenses any and all impact you have on an individual into maybe one picture. Some of those pictures say a lot (such as Kasumi hiding in a corner going over Keiji's Graybox yet again or actually spending time with a virtualized Keiji), but they are disconnected snapshots, a single moment in a life - maybe an important moment, maybe even a definitive moment, but still a single moment.

Adding the slideshow was a critical boost to the ending, and one of EC's greatest contributions in my too-oft-shared opinion, but it is still not on par with those we've seen before.


You're misunderstanding me - I'm not saying she "redeems the ending," which is... pretty nonsensical as she has nothing to do with the ending anyway. I'm saying that there is no reason for her, or indeed the vast majority of such arcs in the story, to be related to or reflected in the ending in any way. Again, I would have been just as happy with Khalisah even if she didn't grant a single point of war asset.

How is she an example of how bad the endings are? Your interactions with her meant something when they happened; do you really feel as though it was all pointless just because they didn't dig up a polaroid of her to shove in the ending montage? Were there no discussions/debates over "I punched the reporter!" in the months leading up to both ME2 and ME3?

I saw two ways to read your reference to Khasilah: either it's a defense of the game or it's a defense of the ending. If you're defending the game, I'd question from whom. If you're defending the ending, I'd question how it relates. You seem to be of the same opinion on the latter, however. So who is attacking the game itself?

As for my relating Khasilah to the ending, it's about the contrast between the twenty or so hours of constant references, recurrences, choices, and consequences and the five minutes of sterile isolation that's tacked on to the end. As I've said since my first post on the matter, the game itself is a freaking love-letter to their fans. It is beautiful. Khasilah is part of why the game is so great. The problem is that she and everything else in the game ( as well as the games before it and the ads about it) build an expectation that the ending utterly fails to deliver. It is like climbing the ladder of a diving board and only discovering mid-dive that the pool has no water. The impact is devastating. It is an ending for an entirely different kind of game. EC reduces this impact, but does not remove it.



Ultimately, I think most of the objections stem from half-truths and gut feelings than legitimate complaints.

It is true that the point on Jack was an error on my part. Once I was shown the error I admitted such and retracted my objection. But that was a very small side point to the major argument, and one acknowledged counterpoint does not invalidate the rest of it.

[Psyren]

No, not mere blurbs. Personal blurbs. The characters you met, bonded with, shaped... those blurbs spoke of the impact you had on them, and how their life went from there. EC's slideshow condenses any and all impact you have on an individual into maybe one picture. Some of those pictures say a lot (such as Kasumi hiding in a corner going over Keiji's Graybox yet again or actually spending time with a virtualized Keiji), but they are disconnected snapshots, a single moment in a life - maybe an important moment, maybe even a definitive moment, but still a single moment.

I meant they didn't matter to the main narrative; i.e. the Blight plot shakes out in much the same way regardless of most of these lesser decisions, just like ME's Harvest plot shakes out the same way regardless of most of the sidequests. I wasn't at all attempting to claim they didn't matter to the player.

RE: a single moment - perhaps here I'm speaking for myself, but a single moment is all I need. Take the Keiji Synthesis slide: how did that happen? Did the green wave go out, and a disoriented Kasumi start to hear a voice come out of her graybox? Did she question her sanity (briefly, or even over a long period of time); did she even come to the brink of destroying the device? Or perhaps it didn't happen automatically - perhaps Synthesis upgraded her intelligence, and as she looked at her graybox again, suddenly bringing him back seemed so simple, she couldn't imagine how the idea didn't occur to her before. And in both scenarios, I wonder - did she know what the Crucible did? Did she or anyone else know that Shepard had anything to do with it? Is Shepard being lauded or vilified if people do know? And given the clear benefits for Kasumi personally, did she become a poster-child (willing or unwilling) of the benefits Synthesis provides to others?

Perhaps a long enough blurb could have answered any or all of these questions. But for me, the questions themselves are much more interesting, and I am free to speculate all manner of permutations.



I saw two ways to read your reference to Khasilah: either it's a defense of the game or it's a defense of the ending. If you're defending the game, I'd question from whom. If you're defending the ending, I'd question how it relates. You seem to be of the same opinion on the latter, however. So who is attacking the game itself?

Trazoi brought up Khalisah to show that he was aware Bioware's ability to convey player agency was constrained by resources and necessity. But I used the example to point out that even the little agency we got was quite deep and meaningful, independent of its permutations to the conclusion of the story.



As for my relating Khasilah to the ending, it's about the contrast between the twenty or so hours of constant references, recurrences, choices, and consequences and the five minutes of sterile isolation that's tacked on to the end. As I've said since my first post on the matter, the game itself is a freaking love-letter to their fans. It is beautiful. Khasilah is part of why the game is so great. The problem is that she and everything else in the game ( as well as the games before it and the ads about it) build an expectation that the ending utterly fails to deliver. It is like climbing the ladder of a diving board and only discovering mid-dive that the pool has no water. The impact is devastating. It is an ending for an entirely different kind of game. EC reduces this impact, but does not remove it.

I don't have anything I can really say here except that it somehow managed to build a different expectation in me, one that both endings delivered on. Maybe it's as simple as a difference in outlook. I'm not at all claiming that my expectation was the "right" one, but it certainly seems to have been different.

[Dienekes]

(the fact I've not played more than the first hour or so of DA2 speaks to that corner)...

That's a pity really, as the beginning is really just a (rather funny in my opinion) joke and a look at the combat system. As a game it's pretty decent, the best bits being in the second of the 3 acts. Mind you I think Origins was better, but DA2 was not so bad as to be dismissed in such a way.

[Aotrs Commander]

That's a pity really, as the beginning is really just a (rather funny in my opinion) joke and a look at the combat system. As a game it's pretty decent, the best bits being in the second of the 3 acts. Mind you I think Origins was better, but DA2 was not so bad as to be dismissed in such a way.

Didn't say it was bad... (Not got far enough to call that.) Merely that, unlike every single Bioware priorly, that it didn't immediately make me want to play it almost straight through right away. But Bioware's (mostly...!) very high standards, that's relative poor going.

[Name_Here]

Mere blurbs, on par with the still slides in the EC. Compared to the fate of the Empire itself, these hardly mattered.

Still provided a sense of closure and completeness to the game. Still let me know what effect I had on the world as I closed the book.

Still effected the ending.

Compare that to the original ending of ME3. which was pretty much the developer going "This game is over. I will be taking no questions."


Pray tell, which of these "grand results" had any real impact on DA:A or DA2?

A handful did - choice of Ferelden king/queen, your Warden surviving, and Morrigan's baby. The rest did not, despite being pretty weighty choices in and of themselves (e.g. the dwarven king and the fate of the Circle.)

I think that speaks more harshly of DA2 than the DA:O ending. But even that doesn't change the fact that your actions directly changed the ending of DA: O.

And considering the rather large shift in reference point, the narrow scope of DA2 and the overlap in time periods I wouldn't expect too many choices to actually carry over despite the rather large effects that both sets of decisions would have on the game world as a whole.

[Logic]

I personally thought the best DLC was Project Overlord. I have never been more moved by a video game. Lair of The Shadow Broker is the next best, then Arrival, then I'd say Zaeed, Kasumi and Bring Down the Sky are all on the same level of good. Everything else is/was either forgettable or just plain bad.

[Trazoi]

I apologize if I mischaracterized you; but that only changes my statement to "I find your expectation to be unreasonable." The reason why stays the same - expecting Bioware to make the choice have significant impact without diverging the galaxies into separate games/expressions is just not possible.
Well obviously it is possible to have that expectation, otherwise I wouldn't have it. :smalltongue: But you're still hung up on the level of impact I was expecting, like I wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than a game with an entirely different mission track depending on every major decision in the game.

All I mean by having an expectation was that I thinking something along the lines of "Wow, Bioware sure left us on a cliffhanger about what effect that Collector Base will have in the conclusion. I'm curious to see what comes of that." When it turned out the answer was "virtually nothing", I was let down.

And obviously it's not just this one thing - if the Collector Base result was as it was and everything else was amazing everyone would be hailing ME3 as a great game. There's a bunch of things like this in ME3 that added up, for me, to an overall disappointing final experience.


Ultimately, I think most of the objections stem from half-truths and gut feelings than legitimate complaints.
But there's nothing wrong with like or disliking a game purely on gut feeling. If you like a game, you like it. Same with dislking it. If someone can't accurately describe exactly why they do or don't like a game, it doesn't change that they do or don't like the game.


But how was ME2 different/better in this regard? ME2 had just as many ME1 decisions become normalized, as ME3 did to ME2 decisions. Saving/killing the council had as little impact in ME2, as saving/destroying the Collector base did in ME3.

So I still don't understand what makes it seem so much superior in this regard, when both games did the same things.
Comparing ME3 to ME2 is a much better comparison than Half-Life, because they're much closer (plus this is the Mass Effect thread, so we don't have to worry about spoilers!)

Unfortunately I've only played ME2 once, years ago, so I can't remember a lot about the fine details. I'll try to dredge up what I remember about how I felt while playing the game.

I remember ME2 not being issue free. The plot was flaky in parts. I didn't like how Cerberus was done and how Shepard was forced to work for them (it needed a little more writing to give the option for Shep to push the line). There were a few moments where Bioware going with what was cool felt stupid.

Overall though, I liked the focus on building a rag-tag crew of colourful characters to go on a dangerous mission. It was a clever choice as characters are what Bioware do best. And through doing all the character missions, more of the Mass Effect universe was explored.

What everyone remember however is that final mission, as the Suicide Mission was very well done. The way it revolved around choosing the right team for each job was brilliant, as it tied together the focus on crew to the final challenge. If you lost a crew member in that mission, you knew it was because of a decision you made somewhere along the game.

What's interesting is that there were a couple of glaring issues with that Suicide Mission. The Reaper Baby Boss was goofy as all out. But (funnily enough given our discussion in earlier posts) I thought the choice of what happens to the Collector Base was tacked on, or at least in the wrong spot. But the rest of the mission was well designed and these flaws didn't detract from that.

Thinking it through, that was the key missing element in ME3. It needed a Suicide Mission. If it had a final mission that tied together everything that happened previously in the game in a way that had visceral impact to the player like the crew choices in the Suicide Mission in ME2 then almost all the other issues in the game would be forgiven.

Also, no Starkid.

[SiuiS]

Psyren: you're missing the point.

There is a difference between entitlement and expectation. This isn't us drawing a straight line, and getting upset its not the Mona Lisa. That's dumb.

This is us being told, continually, repeatedly, verbally, intellectually, viscerally, by example and by outright statement that a set of expectations were good; would be exceeded; were appropriate and healthy.

Responding after the fact with Bioware didn't owe us any of their promises and our sense of entitlement is why we are disappointed is, quite frankly, bull****.

No amount of rhetoric will change that. They said game will have X, and more. Game did not have X, certainly not more. Complaints of a lack of X are justified.

[Beowulf DW]

I just finished playing ME2 with my soldier file (the I was using previously was my vanguard file), and I was shocked to find something I completely missed in Lair of the Shadowbroker.

Liara mentions that the Broker is looking for some else that the Protheans left behind. This indicates to me that the folks at Bioware had something like the Crucible in mind for quite some time. Perhaps, initially, it was meant to simply be the superweapon we were always told it was, without the Multicolored Space Magic?

[Trazoi]

Liara mentions that the Broker is looking for some else that the Protheans left behind. This indicates to me that the folks at Bioware had something like the Crucible in mind for quite some time. Perhaps, initially, it was meant to simply be the superweapon we were always told it was, without the Multicolored Space Magic?
I don't know what was said in Shadow Broker specifically, but hinting that some long lost ancient tech will be important doesn't give away much. It's the sort of thing that should be a given in the plot of a Mass Effect game. It sounds like the perfect sort of foreshadowing - enough to be intriguing but general enough so the writers can take it in a multitude of different ways.

[RagingKrikkit]

Well, to be fair, the Crucible was always intended for use as a superweapon, but Shepard has the ability to repurpose it for space magic. Although, yes, I was expecting a giant Reaper-incinerating cannon.

[Psyren]

Psyren: you're missing the point.
...
No amount of rhetoric will change that. They said game will have X, and more. Game did not have X, certainly not more. Complaints of a lack of X are justified.

No, I get what you're saying. I just think most of the "game will have X" expectations were overblown/over-read-into.



Liara mentions that the Broker is looking for some else that the Protheans left behind. This indicates to me that the folks at Bioware had something like the Crucible in mind for quite some time. Perhaps, initially, it was meant to simply be the superweapon we were always told it was, without the Multicolored Space Magic?

That description is too vague to pigeonhole the Crucible into one function.

Besides - given the Broker's nature, he strikes me as the type that (like TIM) would be far more interested in Controlling them.

[TheLaughingMan]

No, I get what you're saying. I just think most of the "game will have X" expectations were overblown/over-read-into.

Go-go gadget formula!

"Game A2 is out. Game A had B, which was an integral part of the experience. I therefore expect Game A2 to possess, at least in a loose fashion, some sort of B. However, Company has replaced B with C. Unless Company manages to make C on par to the quality of B, regardless of what C ends up being, then I shall consider Game A2 to be a disappointment in some regard, varying on how good B was compared to how insufficient C was."

I don't think that's over-read-into. It's just that, at this point, people are just trying to put into words what exactly made C (our good acquaintance, Taskmaster, and all that comes with him) fail, and this naturally draws comparisons to B (in this case, the Suicide Mission), which was so widely successful. The more fans see B's successes, the more they bemoan C's lack of such. Such a feeling of disappointment is only heightened by the fact that BioWare has proven themselves quite capable of writing B's in the past. I expect that the hatred of C will die down over time, but I don't think it'll ever quite cease causing confusion and annoyance amongst the fanbase, simply because BioWare's B's will always be there to prove to everyone that they can do better.

EDIT: Sorry if that was rambly and incoherent. Me tired.

[Trazoi]

No, I get what you're saying. I just think most of the "game will have X" expectations were overblown/over-read-into.
If enough people thought the game would have X, and are disappointed that the game didn't have enough X, then there had to be something that Bioware and EA did to make them think they were getting X.

[SiuiS]

No, I get what you're saying. I just think most of the "game will have X" expectations were overblown/over-read-into.


Okay. Well, ignoring everything else, an going off the understandable notion that if some of the complaints are bollocks, does not mean all of the complaints are bollocks.

I was told the ending would be complex, and would be a deeper experience Than "welcome to the endgame! Pick End-credits movie A, B or C". When this was untrue, not only was the game lesser for it, but I was lied to. That is a problem.

Bioware usually makes games. The end of mass effect three was more like a movie, an the lack of gameplay was a problem. The gameplay that was there discounted pretty much everything else in the game; class, weapons, armor, powers, level, choices, hell there was little indication that we were even playing the same game still. Certainly felt different to me. And not only in the macro scale but also the micro scale, there was no third act, and the closest we come to catharsis isn't a victory, even in the Punic sense; we get to watch something else have a victory for us. All three of these are pretty minor, but added together they represent a huge deficit of quality, and a lacking of what made Mass Effect a game I played. As I've said, something as small as an actual boss battle or a well handled ending sequence would have worked. Something to push the game from "crap" up beyond "meh" just a tad. That's all I ask.

The game designers promised me a non-trinary ending. They messed that up. The game designers and game itself implicitly promised me a complete game, and they messed that up, on a quality scale. These problems are not really opinion, as a game usually has an ending and this one did a bad job of it. This is based of course, on the assumptions that a company wants to and intends to make a high-quality product, an that such quality requires at least a nod to the basics.

Mmmm. I gues that second one could be argued with to be opinion on some level. Saying a game company wants to make a "game", and do a "quality job" requires discussing definitions of game and quality, and why I'd expect the baselines I do.


Go-go gadget formula!

"Game A2 is out. Game A had B, which was an integral part of the experience. I therefore expect Game A2 to possess, at least in a loose fashion, some sort of B. However, Company has replaced B with C. Unless Company manages to make C on par to the quality of B, regardless of what C ends up being, then I shall consider Game A2 to be a disappointment in some regard, varying on how good B was compared to how insufficient C was."

I don't think that's over-read-into. It's just that, at this point, people are just trying to put into words what exactly made C (our good acquaintance, Taskmaster, and all that comes with him) fail, and this naturally draws comparisons to B (in this case, the Suicide Mission), which was so widely successful. The more fans see B's successes, the more they bemoan C's lack of such. Such a feeling of disappointment is only heightened by the fact that BioWare has proven themselves quite capable of writing B's in the past. I expect that the hatred of C will die down over time, but I don't think it'll ever quite cease causing confusion and annoyance amongst the fanbase, simply because BioWare's B's will always be there to prove to everyone that they can do better.

EDIT: Sorry if that was rambly and incoherent. Me tired.


If enough people thought the game would have X, and are disappointed that the game didn't have enough X, then there had to be something that Bioware and EA did to make them think they were getting X.

These both make sense.

[Psyren]

Go-go gadget formula!

"Game A2 is out. Game A had B, which was an integral part of the experience. I therefore expect Game A2 to possess, at least in a loose fashion, some sort of B. However, Company has replaced B with C. Unless Company manages to make C on par to the quality of B, regardless of what C ends up being, then I shall consider Game A2 to be a disappointment in some regard, varying on how good B was compared to how insufficient C was."

We're not going to get anywhere without specifics. What exactly did A have that A2 lacked so much? What was the "B" that Bioware replaced with "C?"


If enough people thought the game would have X, and are disappointed that the game didn't have enough X, then there had to be something that Bioware and EA did to make them think they were getting X.

And yet, fans twist and stretch dev words all the time. Mass Effect isn't the first game to have such controversy, just the loudest. I've been on the Blizzard forums for years, and watched every single blue statement picked apart incessantly and mined for its worst possible interpretations. And the Bioware forums were little better even prior to ME3.

Now, I won't deny that the ME3 response was much stronger than any other I've seen in recent memory. But I still question, how much of that was due to divergent expectations, and how much of that was due simply to this being the end of the trilogy itself (and thus, there being no hope that the next game would "fix everything")


Okay. Well, ignoring everything else, an going off the understandable notion that if some of the complaints are bollocks, does not mean all of the complaints are bollocks.

I was told the ending would be complex, and would be a deeper experience Than "welcome to the endgame! Pick End-credits movie A, B or C". When this was untrue, not only was the game lesser for it, but I was lied to. That is a problem.

On the surface, the game can seem to only have "A, B, C" endings. But deeper analysis of all the possible permutations shows that Bioware was actually right; you simply have to speculate a lot of the details (though less so with EC.)


Bioware usually makes games. The end of mass effect three was more like a movie, an the lack of gameplay was a problem.

I'm not sure I understand this statement. 90% of games end with movies, putting the gameplay aside to finish off the narrative. What did ME3 do that was so wrong in this regard?


And not only in the macro scale but also the micro scale, there was no third act, and the closest we come to catharsis isn't a victory, even in the Punic sense; we get to watch something else have a victory for us.

Eh. Suffice to say I didn't feel like this at all - my victory was my victory. Not sure what that "something else" was. The Crucible? It was just a giant gun; this makes as much sense to me as saying my gun beat Saren in ME1 instead of me.

[Trazoi]

And yet, fans twist and stretch dev words all the time. Mass Effect isn't the first game to have such controversy, just the loudest. I've been on the Blizzard forums for years, and watched every single blue statement picked apart incessantly and mined for its worst possible interpretations. And the Bioware forums were little better even prior to ME3.
And in the world of commercial art, this doesn't matter. Fans wanted X, fans expected X, Bioware failed to deliver. Bioware can figure out where it went wrong and attempt to do things differently next time. Or they can say it's all the fans fault for not understanding their genius. But it won't bring the fans back, because they want X, Bioware isn't giving them X, so they'll be spending their money somewhere else.


Now, I won't deny that the ME3 response was much stronger than any other I've seen in recent memory. But I still question, how much of that was due to divergent expectations, and how much of that was due simply to this being the end of the trilogy itself (and thus, there being no hope that the next game would "fix everything")
Given one of the biggest expectations was a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, they kind of are the same thing.

[SiuiS]

We're not going to get anywhere without specifics. What exactly did A have that A2 lacked so much? What was the "B" that Bioware replaced with "C?"

That depends on what you're arguing. Merely pointing out how a phenomenon works, and what a lot of people mean even if they cannot articulate it well gives you an understanding of how to take their statements.



On the surface, the game can seem to only have "A, B, C" endings. But deeper analysis of all the possible permutations shows that Bioware was actually right; you simply have to speculate a lot of the details (though less so with EC.)


Uh, repsectfully I disagree heartily. Being told an endin wot be one of three choices picked, means exactly that. Not that I'd you look hard enough you could interpret the ending as actually being something else.

Seeing as how one of the bigger complaints is that the end was not affected by your choices. And I agree; no choice actually changes how destroy plays out. All synthetics die. None of my choices affected how synthesis played out. There is no way to alter how control unfurls. There is now a fourth choice, a non-choice which delays the a/b/c decision for someone off screen to make. How is that more than A/B/C?


I'm not sure I understand this statement. 90% of games end with movies, putting the gameplay aside to finish off the narrative. What did ME3 do that was so wrong in this regard?

In most games the game ends and there is a movie at the end. In mass effect three there is the same buildup as usual, and there is no ending in the play sense. It is something over which we can quibble details until we are blue in te face; I cannot define what I mean without using a different word that you will question my use of. I can only ask you try to grasp my concept instead of latching on to the surface details which I try to convey it by.



Eh. Suffice to say I didn't feel like this at all - my victory was my victory. Not sure what that "something else" was. The Crucible? It was just a giant gun; this makes as much sense to me as saying my gun beat Saren in ME1 instead of me.

Understandable. I don't feel like the crucible is a gun however. The whole crucible ending feels more like a boat, which introduces another character, who how's me his gun, and asks me how he shoul shoot it. It's divorced enough from anything heard actually does, especially compared to pretty much everything else he has done through his career, my career, that it's a bigger gap than before. I have precedent that Shepard does stuff himself, even including ME3, wherein Shepard is given the illusion of taking down a reaper on his own; Shepard is given the illusion of surviving a killing ambush which manages to take apart an entire convey of tanks; Shepard is given the illusion of stopping a three century war by implicitly threatening the armed involved. And then Shepard is... Allowed to advise as a sparkly ghost out of left field shoops the whoop and charges up his lazer and des something in my stead because he's ever so gracious.

And I say "gives the illusion" as an affectation because I know it coul be seen that way. I am firmly of the belief that Shepard DID do these things.

[supermonkeyjoe]

I personally had no problem with the actual content of the endings, it was more than I was expecting, the problem I had was with the execution of it. The whole last-minute introduction of the starchild thing felt wrong, the conversation with it felt rather lacklustre and the actual ending managed to be both bafflingly internally inconsistent and again, extremely lazy.

Thankfully the EC resolved most of my issues, expanding Starchild's dialogue (I would've preferred it to be a projection of Harbinger similar to the Sovereign conversation on Virmire) and explaining the reason behind Joker flying off for no discernible reason and the normandy crashing for no real reason in 2/3 endings.

[TheLaughingMan]

We're not going to get anywhere without specifics. What exactly did A have that A2 lacked so much? What was the "B" that Bioware replaced with "C?"

But... but I spent the rest of my post outlining what that meant in this context.

I mean, lookit:


I don't think that's over-read-into. It's just that, at this point, people are just trying to put into words what exactly made C (our good acquaintance, Taskmaster, and all that comes with him) fail, and this naturally draws comparisons to B (in this case, the Suicide Mission), which was so widely successful. The more fans see B's successes, the more they bemoan C's lack of such. Such a feeling of disappointment is only heightened by the fact that BioWare has proven themselves quite capable of writing B's in the past. I expect that the hatred of C will die down over time, but I don't think it'll ever quite cease causing confusion and annoyance amongst the fanbase, simply because BioWare's B's will always be there to prove to everyone that they can do better.

EDIT: Sorry if that was rambly and incoherent. Me tired.

[Zanfib]

So I did forum search and as far as I can tell, MrBtongues 'Tasteful, Understated Nerdrage' videos have not yet been mentioned in this venue.

This is a shame because he does a pretty bang up job of explaining the problems with the ending.

So here they are:

Mass Effect 3 Ending: Tasteful, Understated Nerdrage (SPOILERS)
http://youtu.be/7MlatxLP-xs

Tasteful, Understated Nerdrage: Additional Clarity and Closure
http://youtu.be/jT_x64921ls

TUN: Extended Complaining (spoilers)
http://youtu.be/2NNUImNL9Ok

[Psyren]

Uh, repsectfully I disagree heartily. Being told an endin wot be one of three choices picked, means exactly that. Not that I'd you look hard enough you could interpret the ending as actually being something else.

Seeing as how one of the bigger complaints is that the end was not affected by your choices. And I agree; no choice actually changes how destroy plays out. All synthetics die. None of my choices affected how synthesis played out. There is no way to alter how control unfurls. There is now a fourth choice, a non-choice which delays the a/b/c decision for someone off screen to make. How is that more than A/B/C?

That's because you are (mistakenly, in my mind) seeing the Crucible's discharge as the "ending," rather than what actually matters - the aftermath of that choice. That the Reapers are neutralized matters much more (at least in the short run) than how they are neutralized. Then we get to the points where your choices DID matter - the fate of the Krogan/Geth/Quarians, your squadmates' futures etc. Even pre-EC did this, they just didn't show as much of it.


In most games the game ends and there is a movie at the end. In mass effect three there is the same buildup as usual, and there is no ending in the play sense. It is something over which we can quibble details until we are blue in te face; I cannot define what I mean without using a different word that you will question my use of. I can only ask you try to grasp my concept instead of latching on to the surface details which I try to convey it by.

But I seriously have zero idea what you mean. "No ending in the play sense?" I can't grasp something I can't understand.



Understandable. I don't feel like the crucible is a gun however. The whole crucible ending feels more like a boat, which introduces another character, who how's me his gun, and asks me how he shoul shoot it. It's divorced enough from anything heard actually does, especially compared to pretty much everything else he has done through his career, my career, that it's a bigger gap than before. I have precedent that Shepard does stuff himself, even including ME3, wherein Shepard is given the illusion of taking down a reaper on his own; Shepard is given the illusion of surviving a killing ambush which manages to take apart an entire convey of tanks; Shepard is given the illusion of stopping a three century war by implicitly threatening the armed involved. And then Shepard is... Allowed to advise as a sparkly ghost out of left field shoops the whoop and charges up his lazer and des something in my stead because he's ever so gracious.

1) It's your gun, not his. He's the one asking you for permission to fire it (especially post-EC.)

2) There actually ARE lots of illusions in your examples. Shepard never took a single Reaper down on his own, the convoy wasn't ambushed (do you mean the one on Tuchanka?), and you stopped that war by saving the peacemakers (Tali and Qwib Qwib), not merely by yelling. Without them it would be hopeless.

3) Similarly, the Crucible represents the combined effort of all organic races. This story was never intended to be "Shepard punches out the Reapers with his massive testes"; Duke Nukem already told that story and it has no place here.


But... but I spent the rest of my post outlining what that meant in this context.

I mean, lookit:

By "Taskmaster" do you mean the Catalyst?

But you're comparing apples to volkswagens here. Starkid isn't analogous to the SM; ME3 as a whole is "the SM," i.e. the climactic struggle against impossible odds. The climax starts when they attack Earth, not when you run for the beam days later. And I know I'm not the only person (or author) to see things this way. (I have noticed, however, that folks who see it this way - the way Bioware intended it to be seen - also tend to be "pro-enders." Coincidence? I think not.)

[Trazoi]

But you're comparing apples to volkswagens here. Starkid isn't analogous to the SM; ME3 as a whole is "the SM," i.e. the climactic struggle against impossible odds. The climax starts when they attack Earth, not when you run for the beam days later. And I know I'm not the only person (or author) to see things this way. (I have noticed, however, that folks who see it this way - the way Bioware intended it to be seen - also tend to be "pro-enders." Coincidence? I think not.)
Did Bioware actually say that? If they did, my opinion of them went down a notch further, because that's a terrible way to tell a story (edit: or rather a story in a cRPG like Mass Effect). And also that's not what they did.

The climax in ME1 and ME2 are both when you've committed to the final goal (racing Saren to the endgame, going through the Omega Relay) and the game enters a crescendo of tension right to the end. ME3 doesn't have a good point where it does that - the "point of no return" is committing to the Cerberus base, but it stops and starts several times after that. The final pitstop in London where you talk to all your comrades is probably the most accurate point where the climax starts, but the weird jolt in tone when you get to charging Harbinger throws it all in a loop.

If the entirety of ME3 was meant to be the climax, then the pacing doesn't make any sense. Why is there a whole bunch of wandering around the Citadel and other downtime if it's all meant to be the climax?

Plus if all of ME3 is meant to be the climax of the trilogy, then why on earth did they design the thing so heavily for new players and ignore or be dismissive of so much of what came before it?

[TheLaughingMan]

But you're comparing apples to volkswagens here. Starkid isn't analogous to the SM; ME3 as a whole is "the SM," i.e. the climactic struggle against impossible odds. The climax starts when they attack Earth, not when you run for the beam days later.

And yet, despite it being filled with ending-goodness, an ending of a trilogy still requires an ending itself.

Let us consider, for the umpteenth time, the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In essence, your argument is akin to saying that it'd be all right to just gloss over that end bit with Frodo and Gollum and the ring at Mt. Doom, because we already had a huge Gondor fight and the death of the Witch King that whole "Aragorn kicks orc hide by way of massive army" sequence. Certainly those resolved quite a few sub-plots, but we did travel all the way to Mt. Doom to burn jewlery, not fight Nazgul.

Similarly, I would have been quite satisfied with ME3 as an ending to the entire series if the focus of the story was Rannoch or the Genophage, because those sub-plots wrapped up nicely and were great pieces of game. But the series' main focus is "go stop those Reapers with your buddies! Anything is possible!" so when the end of the game is "you can't even dream of winning, so we're just handing over a win for you, you helpless meatbag," it doesn't matter if the rest of the game is super-duper awesome at wrapping up every last plot point in all three game of the series. If ME3 can't accomplish its primary goal and bring a satisfying end to the main plot, in most cases the sub-plots aren't enough to carry the game against a tide of frustration.


And I know I'm not the only person (or author) to see things this way. (I have noticed, however, that folks who see it this way - the way Bioware intended it to be seen - also tend to be "pro-enders." Coincidence? I think not.)

On the contrary, I am in full agreement with you the the whole of ME3 is an extended ending to the series at large, and I still think the ending sucks, perhaps even more-so seeing as how a good chunk of the rest of the game was quite well-written.

(And as an aside, I think it's a bit condescending the way you worded that, as it seems to imply that we simply don't "get" the ending and how it fits in with the series at large. I don't think you meant it, comrade, but I'd still say to consider your word choices a bit more carefully).

[Psyren]

If the entirety of ME3 was meant to be the climax, then the pacing doesn't make any sense. Why is there a whole bunch of wandering around the Citadel and other downtime if it's all meant to be the climax?

Plus if all of ME3 is meant to be the climax of the trilogy, then why on earth did they design the thing so heavily for new players and ignore or be dismissive of so much of what came before it?

1) Exposition. Why did Ilos have a nice scenic lull where you could chat up Vigil? Same thing. They can't keep the amp cranked up to 11 every moment; that doesn't mean it's not the climax of the series.

2) What did they ignore/dismiss? Again, we need to be specific for this to have meaning.



(And as an aside, I think it's a bit condescending the way you worded that, as it seems to imply that we simply don't "get" the ending and how it fits in with the series at large. I don't think you meant it, comrade, but I'd still say to consider your word choices a bit more carefully).

I don't think you don't get the ending specifically. But there's an attitude (in this thread and elsewhere) towards Shepard that suggest s/he should be able to conquer all, that no amount of odds should be impossible to overcome, just because Shepard has done some great things in the previous games. That's what I don't get.

[Trazoi]

1) Exposition. Why did Ilos have a nice scenic lull where you could chat up Vigil? Same thing. They can't keep the amp cranked up to 11 every moment; that doesn't mean it's not the climax of the series.

2) What did they ignore/dismiss? Again, we need to be specific for this to have meaning.
The ending of the main game of ME2 has Shepard vanquishing the Collector Base (destroying or keeping it), a final defiant statement by Harbinger, and Shep's confrontation and severance of their relationship with TIM. In ME3, out of these, only the TIM relationship has much meaning and that is done briefly at a few points in the game. The Collector Base barely gets a passing mention and all Harby gets is a namedrop once or twice. If the entirety of ME3 is the climax it should flow on from the end of ME2, using the themes used in ME2, rather than ignoring most of ME2 to swerve off in its own direction.

There are a few different definitions of "climax" with respect to narrative so maybe we're arguing cross-purposes, but most of the definitions I've read involve the protagonist making some big decision (a turning point) and then a straight confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist. This doesn't happen at the start of ME3. Shep might give a little speech about how we need to struggle against the Reapers, but then Shep goes off to solve diplomatic problems and clash against Cerberus.

Why you think the whole of ME3 works as a climax?


I don't think you don't get the ending specifically. But there's an attitude (in this thread and elsewhere) towards Shepard that suggest s/he should be able to conquer all, that no amount of odds should be impossible to overcome, just because Shepard has done some great things in the previous games. That's what I don't get.
Shep as the determinator who can overcome all odds was a strong undercurrent in all three games. Even in ME3, it was mentioned by several characters. It's even some of the lines said by the Shep AI on the Citadel. So for Bioware to then reverse that, it requires careful and clever plotting - which many people, myself included, don't think they come close to meeting.

Personally I think I'd give them a pass if they at least made a valiant effort. But the suicide on-foot charge on Harby and everything that follows reeks of lazy and/or rushed writing far below the standard I had previously associated with Bioware.

Plus the whole fatalistic theme was done better in Dragon Age 2 (and Bioware got flak for it then).

[Beowulf DW]

I don't think you don't get the ending specifically. But there's an attitude (in this thread and elsewhere) towards Shepard that suggest s/he should be able to conquer all, that no amount of odds should be impossible to overcome, just because Shepard has done some great things in the previous games. That's what I don't get.

Well, now that you've brought it up, I must say that I've noticed two attitudes that the respective camps seem to hold on to. The anti-enders seem to think that the pro-enders don't get what Shepard represents as a character, and the pro-enders seem to think that the anti-enders don't quite understand the story progression of the Mass Effect series.

In the end, both attitudes seem utterly useless to me. There's so much room for debate and interpretation that no side will ever be patently "correct."

Just saying. Also, I'm a little bit tipsy while I write this, so please excuse any grammatical errors, or percieved insults. I really didn't mean it.

[Psyren]

Why you think the whole of ME3 works as a climax?

Because there is no longer any great mystery or clear unknown to face. To quote a film critic I once heard: "We know who the good guys are. We know who the bad guys are. We know what's at stake. All that's left is to fight it out, then tie up the loose ends."



Shep as the determinator who can overcome all odds was a strong undercurrent in all three games. Even in ME3, it was mentioned by several characters. It's even some of the lines said by the Shep AI on the Citadel. So for Bioware to then reverse that, it requires careful and clever plotting - which many people, myself included, don't think they come close to meeting.

They didn't reverse squat; I've pointed out numerous examples in all three games where Shepard couldn't overcome everything. Where was that can-do magic on Virmire? Or Horizon? Or Arrival?

Shepard is capable of a great deal, but he's not a god.


Well, now that you've brought it up, I must say that I've noticed two attitudes that the respective camps seem to hold on to. The anti-enders seem to think that the pro-enders don't get what Shepard represents as a character, and the pro-enders seem to think that the anti-enders don't quite understand the story progression of the Mass Effect series.

In the end, both attitudes seem utterly useless to me. There's so much room for debate and interpretation that no side will ever be patently "correct."

Perhaps, but I still think one side is based more on gut feelings and emotion than the series' plot. And have yet to see anything to convince me otherwise.

[Trazoi]

Because there is no longer any great mystery or clear unknown to face. To quote a film critic I once heard: "We know who the good guys are. We know who the bad guys are. We know what's at stake. All that's left is to fight it out, then tie up the loose ends."
There is some truth in that, but I also think that's why the core plot in ME3 ended up such a steaming pile. I don't think Mass Effect was ready to enter that state right at the beginning of the game. Bioware was left trying to combine the increased tension of galactic invasion with the standard Mass Effect structure, such as hanging around the Citadel fishing for subquests. And the twists and revelations in the main plot (Udina, learning about the Catalyst, etc.) were forced.


They didn't reverse squat; I've pointed out numerous examples in all three games where Shepard couldn't overcome everything. Where was that can-do magic on Virmire? Or Horizon? Or Arrival?
Those were mid-game missions to fill in the bittersweet slots on Bioware's Hero's Journey checklist. And Shep succeeded the mission on Virmire, drove back the Collectors on Horizon, and kept on fighting.
(Haven't played Arrival so can't comment on that.)

As has been pointed out several times, the main arc of ME2 has Shep bouncing back from dying to survive what is literally titled a "Suicide Mission". There are down points in the ME2 arc but an overall theme is about Shep's determination to succeed over overwleming odds.

It's all about the tone and presentation. If Shep had to go out fighting then that's still showing determination. But ME3 it's a valid interpetation that Shep, at the last step of the journey, capitulates to the Head Reaper. But we've covered this multiple times in the last thread.
(edit: not trying to be dismissive with that, but we'll be treading over stuff we've already argued to death and I don't want keep looping over stuff we're going to fundamentally disagree over.)


Perhaps, but I still think one side is based more on gut feelings and emotion than the series' plot. And have yet to see anything to convince me otherwise.
There have been arguments for the plot already, but the more interesting part is the dismissal of gut feelings and emotion. They're an important part of how we react to storytelling. IMO you're right on the button with this as it's the fatal flaw with the ending. Bioware gets the emotion completely wrong.

[RagingKrikkit]

There have been arguments for the plot already, but the more interesting part is the dismissal of gut feelings and emotion. They're an important part of how we react to storytelling. IMO you're right on the button with this as it's the fatal flaw with the ending. Bioware gets the emotion completely wrong.

How so? I was fully immersed and emotionally invested in the ending. Heck, I was too wrapped up in it to complain about the starchild comming out of nowhere.

[Trazoi]

How so? I was fully immersed and emotionally invested in the ending. Heck, I was too wrapped up in it to complain about the starchild comming out of nowhere.
That's the power of being emotionally invested. If you had pulled me away from ME3 at London and asked me what I thought about the game, I'd have said it was great. The flaws in the plot were noticeable but I could overlook them as I was looking forward to the final showdown where Shep heroically saves the day.

But the ending sequeunce all through London suffers from the combo of trying to throw spanners into the players expectations and from obviously being rushed in development. There's a whole bunch of really weirdly designed moments one right after one another. If a player manages to keep their emotional investment through one, there's a good chance they'll get tripped on the next.

For me, it was the suicide charge on Harbinger and the teleporter beam that threw me out of immersion. It felt so stupid and forced. Shep is nearly fatally wounded (and for all I knew my squadmates were toast) because the designer forced them to do something dumb. I was in totally the wrong mindset for that ending.

[RagingKrikkit]

Really? It stuck me as them essentially saying "Okay, this is it. We know we're probably, almost certainly going to die, but we're going to do this anyway, because if even one of us manages to get to that beam, we can win this."

[Trazoi]

It's been a while since I've seen it so I might be remembering details wrong, but it was something about how the Alliance didn't seem to be trying to do anything tactical. No diversionary strikes against Harbinger, no fanning around and attempting different approaches, no letting my Infiltrator Shep use cover and stealth. Just park the Mako a fair ways away and do a Great War style trench charge at the proverbial machine gun nest, with similar results.

I'm sure your interpretation is what they wanted me to think, but the way it was presented came across as heavy-handed plot railroading to the point of breaking through to be comical. Everything beyond that came across as varying degrees of silly (save for the quiet dying scene with Anderson which the voice acting really sold and almost got be back into the right frame of mind.)

[RagingKrikkit]

Well, the mako Shepard was in got hit, and you see other makos rushing the beam... not that they get to it. Due to the timing issue of getting the arms open before the Crucible gets wiped out, I'm guessing that they didn't have time to try flanking Harbinger. They needed to go, now.

[RagingKrikkit]

Making the previous post appear.

[Trazoi]

It wasn't just that element in isolation. There's a build-up of weird things all through the ending that were ridiculous - why the Citadel was moved to Earth, why there is a teleporter here out of nowhere, etc. While I was puzzled with them I was happy to let them slide on trust that it would be explained later, but at that point my sense of disbelief snapped.

It was also probably because that was the point where it became clear that there wasn't going to be a full mission on the other side of that teleporter. And also that Bioware was going for some kind of bittersweet or downer ending, but more in the vein of pre-DLC Fallout 3 than the games that do that well.*
* It's really hard to talk about games that do good downer or bittersweet endings, because merely mentioning the title could be a massive spoiler.

[RagingKrikkit]

My thoughts on the Citadel movement go something along the lines of "If they can build the mass relays and construct a base surrounded by black holes, why can't they move the Citadel?" My guess would be either that the Citadel has some sort of engine of its own, or the Reapers towed it to the mass relay.

As for the teleporter, well, teleportation is about the most effective method of moving things from one place to another, and they've had months to build it. According to the codex, it takes massive strain on a Reaper's eezo core to land on a planet, and maybe the resistance got good enough at taking down Reapers that they decided to only leave Reapers on the ground in critical areas. Although I will admit that placing the teleporter on an island is a little strange...

EDIT: Oh, why the Citadel was moved to Earth. I'm going to guess it was because Earth seems to have been the Reaper's main base, heavily fortified, far behind their lines, and Harbinger was there.

"The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness."

--Evil Overlord Rule #5

[thegurullamen]

EDIT: Oh, why the Citadel was moved to Earth. I'm going to guess it was because Earth seems to have been the Reaper's main base, heavily fortified, far behind their lines, and Harbinger was there.

Why not just Reaper-hack it into shutting down the ME relay leading to the Citadel? Leave one behind to reopen it if necessary. War won. Even funnier would be getting the galaxy to commit its forces to Earth, then once they're in, shutting down that relay, having Harby's team use their superior FTL to move out and leaving them to starve with some hit and run attacks on supply lines. Patient and effective, which is right up the Reapers' alley.

Or if you don't like bleak endings, at this point, Shepard could use TIM's Reaper indoctrination tech to grab a Reaper and trick the Citadel Reaper into reopening the gate for a surprise invasion of the Citadel. War lost again, but it gives the Reapers cause to freak the hell out and try to bargain with Shep on the Citadel instead of playing the "You are but insects" card again.

[RagingKrikkit]

Superior FTL? Shepard broke one relay, and set the Reapers back six months as they went for the next one. They only started really going after they got into the relay network.

Anyawy, note that the Reapers didn't seem to know that much about the Crucible. Was it capable of overriding the Citadel controls? Did it have to physically dock, or only be close to it? Could it make FTL speeds that could get to the Citadel even if the relay was shut down? When dealing with unknowns such as these, the best course of action would probably be to surround it with everything you have and crush the enemy's desperate attack.

[SiuiS]

That's because you are (mistakenly, in my mind) seeing the Crucible's discharge as the "ending," rather than what actually matters - the aftermath of that choice. That the Reapers are neutralized matters much more (at least in the short run) than how they are neutralized. Then we get to the points where your choices DID matter - the fate of the Krogan/Geth/Quarians, your squadmates' futures etc. Even pre-EC did this, they just didn't show as much of it.

They didn't show any of it, not even through implication. Because the why and the how, left unanswered, counter the what.



But I seriously have zero idea what you mean. "No ending in the play sense?" I can't grasp something I can't understand.

Games have structure. In a game, you do not show up at the final boss chamber and watch a cutscene of how the fight unfolds. You actually participate in that fight. This has been ingrained in, what, 35 years or so mass effect 3 utterly lacks the final act as a game. Giving me a pretty movie during the part that I am most looking forward to and have had the game itself build up to, only to deny me, is utterly terrible game design. It fails at game design. A full third of the game is unfulfilling and begins to fail at the concept of being a game.

That's where our differences come in. I didn't want a climax in any generic sense, so much as I wanted a game climax. The entire horse pull could have even swallowed with some decent game design to wash it down. Instead, they cut the climactic fight and they cut the good parts out of the dialogue. They built up their story, they followed through on the usual design patterns, and they left off the end cap.



1) It's your gun, not his. He's the one asking you for permission to fire it (especially post-EC.)

If Shepard had aimed or fired the gun, or hell, if Starkid were a simple VI saying "puh red to fire, push blue to mind control" I could buy that. But the entire sequence of being let into starkids house to have a sherry with him while discussing his plans in proper British fashion, and then him giving me choices? Nope. Because he gives you the option, which thwarts the accomplishment.


2) There actually ARE lots of illusions in your examples. Shepard never took a single Reaper down on his own, the convoy wasn't ambushed (do you mean the one on Tuchanka?), and you stopped that war by saving the peacemakers (Tali and Qwib Qwib), not merely by yelling. Without them it would be hopeless.

Reaper on Rannock was taken down by the player's action with a targeting laser.
The convoy ambush in London can be mitigated if Shep is fast enough, reducing casualties by such actions at taking out the harvester.
The war between the geth and quarians is directly In the player's hands, in that even with Tali and Qwib Qwib alive (isn't he actually named something else?) you can choose the outcome.

Crucible is pretty much automated. Hel, it uses Shepard, not the other way around.


3) Similarly, the Crucible represents the combined effort of all organic races. This story was never intended to be "Shepard punches out the Reapers with his massive testes"; Duke Nukem already told that story and it has no place here.

And I've been saying since mass effect two that shifting the story so strongly into being The Ballad Of Shepard Archangel was a bad idea. Shepard has been established as the unstoppable force. He bounces off immovable obects and comes back, eventually beating them. That's not me, that's Bioware gifting the story and gameplay. Have you noticed ever since mass effect 2, enemies don't use biotics the same way you do? In the first game, it was an even field. Enemies used lift, throw, stasis, now it was a surprise to see banshees using warp!



But you're comparing apples to volkswagens here. Starkid isn't analogous to the SM; ME3 as a whole is "the SM," i.e. the climactic struggle against impossible odds. The climax starts when they attack Earth, not when you run for the beam days later. And I know I'm not the only person (or author) to see things this way. (I have noticed, however, that folks who see it this way - the way Bioware intended it to be seen - also tend to be "pro-enders." Coincidence? I think not.)

The story begins to wrap up, yes. The climax begins? No.
And your assertion is dissengenuous. Of course we don't see th story as Bioware thought we would. Their messing up the delivery is what we are arguing about!


1) Exposition. Why did Ilos have a nice scenic lull where you could chat up Vigil? Same thing. They can't keep the amp cranked up to 11 every moment; that doesn't mean it's not the climax of the series.

The amp was at eleven from the conduit on, up to the boss fight.
In me 2 the amp was steadily rising, if no at Mac, upon entering collector space, storming their base, fighting a guerilla battle through it and decimating the reaper.
In me3 the amp was building to 11, and hit around 10 During the Thanix missile situation. And then we run to a teleported and Shep is hit with Batarian sickness, where he looks like a human but for some reason can't dodge. And I did spend three seconds, frustrated, mashing the dodge intros and wondering why my system or controller was messing up. Instead of the climactic fight we were expecting, that was designed, and eventually cut, we get... A movie. Well, a mini game and then a movie. No catharsis. The game is over, and half of the ending wants you to think its still a game, but it's not.



I don't think you don't get the ending specifically. But there's an attitude (in this thread and elsewhere) towards Shepard that suggest s/he should be able to conquer all, that no amount of odds should be impossible to overcome, just because Shepard has done some great things in the previous games. That's what I don't get.

It's been a shift in tone ever since Me2. It's not something I like, but it's there. And they pander to it. So it's not like Bioware was unaware of these expectations they've built up.


The ending of the main game of ME2 has Shepard vanquishing the Collector Base (destroying or keeping it), a final defiant statement by Harbinger, and Shep's confrontation and severance of their relationship with TIM. In ME3, out of these, only the TIM relationship has much meaning and that is done briefly at a few points in the game. The Collector Base barely gets a passing mention and all Harby gets is a namedrop once or twice. If the entirety of ME3 is the climax it should flow on from the end of ME2, using the themes used in ME2, rather than ignoring most of ME2 to swerve off in its own direction.

There are a few different definitions of "climax" with respect to narrative so maybe we're arguing cross-purposes, but most of the definitions I've read involve the protagonist making some big decision (a turning point) and then a straight confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist. This doesn't happen at the start of ME3. Shep might give a little speech about how we need to struggle against the Reapers, but then Shep goes off to solve diplomatic problems and clash against Cerberus.

Why you think the whole of ME3 works as a climax?


Shep as the determinator who can overcome all odds was a strong undercurrent in all three games. Even in ME3, it was mentioned by several characters. It's even some of the lines said by the Shep AI on the Citadel. So for Bioware to then reverse that, it requires careful and clever plotting - which many people, myself included, don't think they come close to meeting.

Personally I think I'd give them a pass if they at least made a valiant effort. But the suicide on-foot charge on Harby and everything that follows reeks of lazy and/or rushed writing far below the standard I had previously associated with Bioware.

Plus the whole fatalistic theme was done better in Dragon Age 2 (and Bioware got flak for it then).

Much better than I put it. Thank you.


Well, now that you've brought it up, I must say that I've noticed two attitudes that the respective camps seem to hold on to. The anti-enders seem to think that the pro-enders don't get what Shepard represents as a character, and the pro-enders seem to think that the anti-enders don't quite understand the story progression of the Mass Effect series.

In the end, both attitudes seem utterly useless to me. There's so much room for debate and interpretation that no side will ever be patently "correct."

Just saying. Also, I'm a little bit tipsy while I write this, so please excuse any grammatical errors, or percieved insults. I really didn't mean it.

It's really as Psyren says, logical understanding versus visceral. The game not only failed to be moving at the end, but actively undid the emotional work that it had up to that point.


Because there is no longer any great mystery or clear unknown to face. To quote a film critic I once heard: "We know who the good guys are. We know who the bad guys are. We know what's at stake. All that's left is to fight it out, then tie up the loose ends."

And then we don't get to fight it out. I point again to my example of a game where, instead of a boss fight, you enter the final chamber to watch a cutscene.



They didn't reverse squat; I've pointed out numerous examples in all three games where Shepard couldn't overcome everything. Where was that can-do magic on Virmire? Or Horizon? Or Arrival?

Shepard is capable of a great deal, but he's not a god.

Unstoppable force and immovable object.



Perhaps, but I still think one side is based more on gut feelings and emotion than the series' plot. And have yet to see anything to convince me otherwise.

Of course it is. It has always, ALWAYS been about "this did not feel satisfying". Even the Commodore admits this, saying the logic is there, but it felt terrible. It's like someone wheedling out of a contract; sure, you're clear by the letter of the agreement? But you know damn well that you've dropped the spirit of the agreement in the process.


How so? I was fully immersed and emotionally invested in the ending. Heck, I was too wrapped up in it to complain about the starchild comming out of nowhere.

Wow, this was long. >_>;


• First was the Cerberus base. They did a pretty good job, and bringing the citadel to earth, while weird, made ascertain amount of sense from a pulp adventure perspective. The feeling that I was way out in left field while center plate was over run was off putting, but whatever.
• then we have earth. You get there and it starts out food, really good. Right off the bat you have ground forces denying landing, lots of enemies, lots of fire, standard warfare. You even immediately have a consequence for your past choices as Esteban lives or dies base on how well you treated him.
• you get to the base and there is an understandable lull. They... Linda do a good job of presenting a last man standing feel, because they talk about how harried they are... But it's very calm. Very secure. Almost peaceful. And a single ain't on an AA gun doesn't really fix that.
• you do the convey escort, stopping them from killing the tanks... Mostly. This was well done, in my opinion, because of you dawdle you can lose men and vehicles. I checked; if Shepard isn't fast enough there are two points where a Mako blows up. One is with the harvester.
• suddenly things get weird. You get to some trucks and have to hold out until the vehicle is ready to fire? This would have been better if done as a multiplayer mission, with set enemy spawns and a timer. But, I mean, okay. I'm willin to believe that last marauder over there is stopping EDI kinda.
• The crescendo begins, as a reaper shoots at you and banshees rain down from the sky in all their terrible single-mother fury. You manage to hold them off, get to and fire the missile, an success! The reaper goes down.
• There is no boss. Okay, well. This must not be the end then, right? So I go along. we are going to make a mad dash for the teleport beam, which is really more of a constant, low level mass relay effect. I can buy it. Except none of the vehicles I've saved are there. Conversely, if the vehicles in te convoy all die, they are still there. Uh...
• we all run to the beam. I'm perfectly capable of dodging the flak, and actually get hit and stumble when I don't dodge. AI for about fifteen seconds, my expectation is building. Looks like I'm gonna be one of the few to make it! Maybe they'll even put Anderson back on my team! Man this is a Lon endin though, another level? Well, we fought through te citadel on ME1, so maybe it's cyclic.
• Harby shoots, Shepard throws up his hand like a wuss, and there is a solid three second gap between being forced to stop and the laser coming anywhere near Shepard. I expect a CRITICAL FAILURE and to try again, since obviously I messed up right? No actually. That's supposed to happen. Never mind that I've dodged reaper weaponry before, no. This one is special.
• suddenly, bad controls, and too long of a walk. an the mini game where I get to shoot a marauder in slow motion with this predator that is totally not the Carnifex I had equipped. Come on, even the thing with EVA got that right!
• I show up on the citadel, and it's boring and doesn't ad anything exposition wise, and get to a central chamber. I expect Otto be TIM, since the illusion man has been trying to get to this point. I prepare for a showdown turns out its Anderson. Uh...
• TiM shows up an demonstrates what he has been working on. Great. He forces the player to act, not even bothering with the semblance of a contest like morinth did. That sucks. That's pretty terrible gameplay. But at least I'll get to fight super Cerberus! It will be like Saren, it really will be a nice wrap up. Oh, I shot him... Uh...
• Anderson dies, but that was a given. Supposedly you can miss this chance to talk to him if you don't have enough points? Okay, we'll, there's that. Except the crucible isn't doing anything, so let's turn it on and watch Shepard win.
• oh. I passed out. Okay that is pretty damn stupid but let's see where this is going.... Column of light?
• suddenly starkid! Okay, wait. Let's break from the bullet points here.

Starkid. Starkid is a hologram in the shape of Shepard's I'll-explained nightmares. Starkid is not a VI or a plain hologram, but is actually a reaper AI from a bajillion years ago. Starkid speaks with both FemShep and BroShep voices.

If any one of these were true, I would be okay. If Starkid were a VI and the interface of the crucible, awaiting input, that would be fine. cheesy, but fine.

If starkid were somehow reading Shepard's mind to set him at ease, that's creepy and not backed up by any technology, not even that demonstrated by the reapers, but okay.

If starkid were just a blob that the reapers used which spoke in Shepard's own voice just because, well, sure. Whatever.

Starkid is, as it stands, a terribly forced, contrived and utter bull piece of manipulation. They pull out all the stops in order to make me stop and pay attention. Frost gets to the top of mount doom, and then Sigfried and Roy covered in sequins ride a flaming tiger out don behind their vaudeville stage and insist on explaining the One Ring and how lava of all Thigs will be its downfall, while also explaining Frodo can choose instead o control the ring because he has the Will and the Power. And if Frodo befriende enough elves and such, he could also bein peace to middle earth through Kumbayah!

I'm not buying it. It's dawned on me I'm not going to get a boss fight. The SMS is basically already over and I'm pissed. The one thin I've been looking forward to since goin to the Cerberus base is not going to happen. TiM doesn't get what's coming to him, because he deserves a grand death, not to be marginalized in the final act. Andersonseserves some damn medigel, even of choosing to save him prevents Shepard don retuning because he takes the last escape pod. So the good ending isn't going to happen. Hell, the fun boss fight that would satisfy me isn't goin to happen.

And ten, when I'm already pissed off, a sparkling nine year old jumps out and poorly reads a condescending speech he saved me from traumatic blood loss just to hear. And then he politely, as if he didn't need to but had decided in his infinite wisdom to be magnanimous an allow me to put my two cents in to what he was going to do anyway, let's me pick one of three options.

I was furious. The gameplay had failed. The storytelling had failed. The facts were there, the history, but it didn't matter. It wasn't about beating the reapers, because if it was then Bioware could have made a movie. No, it was about Shepard and the player beating the reapers, and how, and that was taken away. The road to enjoyment ended in traffic comes and a construction sign that said
ROAD ENDS
ARTISTIC INTEGRITY AHEAD

Which, you know? Okay. I didn't like it, but maybe I'm hard to please? No, no it seems like a lot I people are upset too. Okay cool, maybe we can he some answers. Some information that will clear it all up. I know for a fact that when you are immersed in something, designing something, you'll swear up and down certain Things are obvious but accidentally leave them out so they are vague to an outsider. Hey Bioware, what am I missing?

"you're missin that the game is art, and I'd you don't like I you're a philistine."

...

So the game builds into a poorly written final act, fails to deliver a satisfying end-game experience, and the movie they replaced the end-game experience with failed to satisfy as well. The ending was silly, my crew had abandoned their posts seemingly, and nothing I did mattered because space explosions the end.

And I'm not even allowed to civilly discuss why I didn't like it because "I just don't get it, maaan." which is salt in the wound.


I don't dislike Synthesis. I understand what they were goin for, even if they explained it poorly.
I dislike the Illusive man's handling, because they changed him from a bishop to a pawn rather than sorting out the story.
I don't like the starkid explanation because even though I see where they are going, the whole shebang was handled so poorly. Where they were going is dumb. The reapers being that unbeatable? Not a thing to be finally, definitively handled in the last 1% of the narrative.

[thegurullamen]

Superior FTL? Shepard broke one relay, and set the Reapers back six months as they went for the next one. They only started really going after they got into the relay network.

It was a setback because they were hiding in dark space, far enough away for a relay to be a good idea. The six months was them using their FTL to cover that distance instead, something that team milky way would have had trouble with.


Anyawy, note that the Reapers didn't seem to know that much about the Crucible. Was it capable of overriding the Citadel controls? Did it have to physically dock, or only be close to it? Could it make FTL speeds that could get to the Citadel even if the relay was shut down? When dealing with unknowns such as these, the best course of action would probably be to surround it with everything you have and crush the enemy's desperate attack.

Wouldn't the absolute prudent thing to do be to shut down the relay to Earth then? Even if the Crucible allowed for FTL jumps on its own, it's still not as direct as a relay jump. And if it could override the Citadel's controls, well, at least they know that much more about it.

Shutting down the relay would at least force TMW's hand, either making them take a long route or use the Crucible, which would let the Reapers figure out everything they know about the Crucible and determine the threat level. Also, if they assumed that the Crucible didn't have to dock, that it could do what it needed with proximity instead, why let it get that close that fast to start with?

[Aotrs Commander]

Wow, this was long. >_>;


• First was the Cerberus base. They did a pretty good job, and bringing the citadel to earth, while weird, made ascertain amount of sense from a pulp adventure perspective. The feeling that I was way out in left field while center plate was over run was off putting, but whatever.
• then we have earth. You get there and it starts out food, really good. Right off the bat you have ground forces denying landing, lots of enemies, lots of fire, standard warfare. You even immediately have a consequence for your past choices as Esteban lives or dies base on how well you treated him.
• you get to the base and there is an understandable lull. They... Linda do a good job of presenting a last man standing feel, because they talk about how harried they are... But it's very calm. Very secure. Almost peaceful. And a single ain't on an AA gun doesn't really fix that.
• you do the convey escort, stopping them from killing the tanks... Mostly. This was well done, in my opinion, because of you dawdle you can lose men and vehicles. I checked; if Shepard isn't fast enough there are two points where a Mako blows up. One is with the harvester.
• suddenly things get weird. You get to some trucks and have to hold out until the vehicle is ready to fire? This would have been better if done as a multiplayer mission, with set enemy spawns and a timer. But, I mean, okay. I'm willin to believe that last marauder over there is stopping EDI kinda.
• The crescendo begins, as a reaper shoots at you and banshees rain down from the sky in all their terrible single-mother fury. You manage to hold them off, get to and fire the missile, an success! The reaper goes down.
• There is no boss. Okay, well. This must not be the end then, right? So I go along. we are going to make a mad dash for the teleport beam, which is really more of a constant, low level mass relay effect. I can buy it. Except none of the vehicles I've saved are there. Conversely, if the vehicles in te convoy all die, they are still there. Uh...
• we all run to the beam. I'm perfectly capable of dodging the flak, and actually get hit and stumble when I don't dodge. AI for about fifteen seconds, my expectation is building. Looks like I'm gonna be one of the few to make it! Maybe they'll even put Anderson back on my team! Man this is a Lon endin though, another level? Well, we fought through te citadel on ME1, so maybe it's cyclic.
• Harby shoots, Shepard throws up his hand like a wuss, and there is a solid three second gap between being forced to stop and the laser coming anywhere near Shepard. I expect a CRITICAL FAILURE and to try again, since obviously I messed up right? No actually. That's supposed to happen. Never mind that I've dodged reaper weaponry before, no. This one is special.
• suddenly, bad controls, and too long of a walk. an the mini game where I get to shoot a marauder in slow motion with this predator that is totally not the Carnifex I had equipped. Come on, even the thing with EVA got that right!
• I show up on the citadel, and it's boring and doesn't ad anything exposition wise, and get to a central chamber. I expect Otto be TIM, since the illusion man has been trying to get to this point. I prepare for a showdown turns out its Anderson. Uh...
• TiM shows up an demonstrates what he has been working on. Great. He forces the player to act, not even bothering with the semblance of a contest like morinth did. That sucks. That's pretty terrible gameplay. But at least I'll get to fight super Cerberus! It will be like Saren, it really will be a nice wrap up. Oh, I shot him... Uh...
• Anderson dies, but that was a given. Supposedly you can miss this chance to talk to him if you don't have enough points? Okay, we'll, there's that. Except the crucible isn't doing anything, so let's turn it on and watch Shepard win.
• oh. I passed out. Okay that is pretty damn stupid but let's see where this is going.... Column of light?
• suddenly starkid! Okay, wait. Let's break from the bullet points here.

Starkid. Starkid is a hologram in the shape of Shepard's I'll-explained nightmares. Starkid is not a VI or a plain hologram, but is actually a reaper AI from a bajillion years ago. Starkid speaks with both FemShep and BroShep voices.

If any one of these were true, I would be okay. If Starkid were a VI and the interface of the crucible, awaiting input, that would be fine. cheesy, but fine.

If starkid were somehow reading Shepard's mind to set him at ease, that's creepy and not backed up by any technology, not even that demonstrated by the reapers, but okay.

If starkid were just a blob that the reapers used which spoke in Shepard's own voice just because, well, sure. Whatever.

Starkid is, as it stands, a terribly forced, contrived and utter bull piece of manipulation. They pull out all the stops in order to make me stop and pay attention. Frost gets to the top of mount doom, and then Sigfried and Roy covered in sequins ride a flaming tiger out don behind their vaudeville stage and insist on explaining the One Ring and how lava of all Thigs will be its downfall, while also explaining Frodo can choose instead o control the ring because he has the Will and the Power. And if Frodo befriende enough elves and such, he could also bein peace to middle earth through Kumbayah!

I'm not buying it. It's dawned on me I'm not going to get a boss fight. The SMS is basically already over and I'm pissed. The one thin I've been looking forward to since goin to the Cerberus base is not going to happen. TiM doesn't get what's coming to him, because he deserves a grand death, not to be marginalized in the final act. Andersonseserves some damn medigel, even of choosing to save him prevents Shepard don retuning because he takes the last escape pod. So the good ending isn't going to happen. Hell, the fun boss fight that would satisfy me isn't goin to happen.

And ten, when I'm already pissed off, a sparkling nine year old jumps out and poorly reads a condescending speech he saved me from traumatic blood loss just to hear. And then he politely, as if he didn't need to but had decided in his infinite wisdom to be magnanimous an allow me to put my two cents in to what he was going to do anyway, let's me pick one of three options.

I was furious. The gameplay had failed. The storytelling had failed. The facts were there, the history, but it didn't matter. It wasn't about beating the reapers, because if it was then Bioware could have made a movie. No, it was about Shepard and the player beating the reapers, and how, and that was taken away. The road to enjoyment ended in traffic comes and a construction sign that said
ROAD ENDS
ARTISTIC INTEGRITY AHEAD

Which, you know? Okay. I didn't like it, but maybe I'm hard to please? No, no it seems like a lot I people are upset too. Okay cool, maybe we can he some answers. Some information that will clear it all up. I know for a fact that when you are immersed in something, designing something, you'll swear up and down certain Things are obvious but accidentally leave them out so they are vague to an outsider. Hey Bioware, what am I missing?

"you're missin that the game is art, and I'd you don't like I you're a philistine."

...

So the game builds into a poorly written final act, fails to deliver a satisfying end-game experience, and the movie they replaced the end-game experience with failed to satisfy as well. The ending was silly, my crew had abandoned their posts seemingly, and nothing I did mattered because space explosions the end.

And I'm not even allowed to civilly discuss why I didn't like it because "I just don't get it, maaan." which is salt in the wound.


I don't dislike Synthesis. I understand what they were goin for, even if they explained it poorly.
I dislike the Illusive man's handling, because they changed him from a bishop to a pawn rather than sorting out the story.
I don't like the starkid explanation because even though I see where they are going, the whole shebang was handled so poorly. Where they were going is dumb. The reapers being that unbeatable? Not a thing to be finally, definitively handled in the last 1% of the narrative.

What he said.

Except that I pretty much hated everything about the ending, and don't find a single redeeming feature in it whatsoever, from conception to execution.

(The DLC, I will grant, improved it, but you can polish a turd to a golden sheen - which they did, to be fair - but at the end of the day, it's still a thing that's come out of something's butt.)

They were never, ever, ever going to have won me over with a downer ending on the very, very, very best of days, because I inherently dislike them; I have never seen a single downer ending in any medium that I didn't dislike (with the possible exception of Mortal Kombat Annhilation, in which the bad guys actually won properly, but I didn't really consider that a downer1.

To compound that, then, to try to fob us of with that pile of abysmal dung (which as SiuiS said, was not the way to END A GAME SERIES, bugger "artisitic integrity"; even NWN2's dreadful "rocks fall everybody dies" at least came after one of the best ending boss fights I've ever seen in a game.)

Another thing that makes me annoyed is quietly unstated baseline assumption behind the ending that "art" equals "misery" and that a (relatively) happy ending cannot be "artistic" (for the given value of "artisitic"), because only people being miserable at each other constitues "art". I have had WAAAY to much of that crap from movies, comics and everything else, to take it from anybody anymore.

On top of all that, I am waay past tired of "art" being used as an excuse for people to preach at me in my entertainment. Because, no, actually, I do NOT want to be beaten over the head with some philosphical/moral claptrap or whatever's your poison, in the middle (or the start and especailly at the end) of my military-based shootey-war space-opera! It has been done sufficiently often that the novelty has worn off, and it is therefore no longer clever, thought-provoking or an automatic sign of a good writer.



1Now, if one of the endings showed the Reapers winning, and a scene thereafter of Harbinger being all smug about it, laughing over Shepard's broken corpse and giving it a solid kick into space or or something, I could have unlived with that, because that meant the bad guys actually won. But you don't get even that satisfaction.

[RagingKrikkit]

suddenly things get weird. You get to some trucks and have to hold out until the vehicle is ready to fire? This would have been better if done as a multiplayer mission, with set enemy spawns and a timer. But, I mean, okay. I'm willin to believe that last marauder over there is stopping EDI kinda.

Yeah, I’ve never liked it when a game makes it so that hacking attempts last just as long as the enemy is alive, but that’s standard fare. Every time I’ve gone through the second part of that, though, I’ve been sprinting away from banshees trying to stay out of the line of fire long enough to get to the launch control.


There is no boss. Okay, well. This must not be the end then, right? So I go along. we are going to make a mad dash for the teleport beam, which is really more of a constant, low level mass relay effect. I can buy it. Except none of the vehicles I've saved are there. Conversely, if the vehicles in te convoy all die, they are still there. Uh...

What, you’re saying that those two makos were the only ones hammer had?


Harby shoots, Shepard throws up his hand like a wuss, and there is a solid three second gap between being forced to stop and the laser coming anywhere near Shepard. I expect a CRITICAL FAILURE and to try again, since obviously I messed up right? No actually. That's supposed to happen. Never mind that I've dodged reaper weaponry before, no. This one is special.

That laser was initially shot a lot closer to Shepard than other lasers through the game, and you can see it throwing up tons of shrapnel as it goes (yes, even dirt can hurt when it’s traveling that fast. But you probably already knew that, seeing as that’s how the combat works.) When one has a blinding light and shrapnel flying in one’s face, the standard reaction is to flinch. I’m going to guess that Shepard’s instincts kicked in at the last instant, preventing vaporization.


suddenly, bad controls, and too long of a walk. an the mini game where I get to shoot a marauder in slow motion with this predator that is totally not the Carnifex I had equipped. Come on, even the thing with EVA got that right!

I didn’t have a pistol equipped, and she got a Carnifex. I assumed that she salvaged it.


TiM shows up an demonstrates what he has been working on. Great. He forces the player to act, not even bothering with the semblance of a contest like morinth did. That sucks. That's pretty terrible gameplay. But at least I'll get to fight super Cerberus! It will be like Saren, it really will be a nice wrap up. Oh, I shot him... Uh...

I actually kinda like the irony of the Illusive Man being “I am unstoppable! Fear me!” only to be taken out without even the dignity of a stand-up firefight. Glass Cannon FTW.


Andersonseserves some damn medigel, even of choosing to save him prevents Shepard don retuning because he takes the last escape pod.

Agreed, I was not happy when he died, but it’s a bit hard to administer medigel when your suit is that badly trashed.


suddenly starkid!

As for the Catalyst, I am not going to defend the original ending, as yes, that was absolute crap. However, with the extended cut, I like the ending. Though, yes, the form of the child thing was unnecessary.

First off, the Catalyst does not come out of total nowhere: Vendetta, the Prothean VI, states that through the cycles there are patterns that continue to repeat themselves over and over, and states the implication/inference of a central figure manipulating the cycles, and that the reapers are its servants.

The Catalyst acts exactly like an AI without restraints on killing organics would. It searches for the most efficient solution, and does it, which in this case has almost an “I, Robot” feel to it. When that solution is no longer the most efficient, it goes and finds a new one. Shepard may consider geth the enemy, but Legion sees the need to cooperate. Shepard may consider the Catalyst the enemy, but it sees the need to cooperate.

And as for space magic? Well…


Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Not understanding how things work is one of the classic features of science fiction, going right back to such classics as “The Time Machine”. Nobody understood exactly how the time machine worked, but nobody worried about that, because it didn’t need to be worried about. Perhaps Star Trek is to blame for this, with people now wanting at least a touch of technobabble to explain something that they don’t immediately understand.

In short, I sat down and thought about the ending, and it made sense to me. Congratulations, Psyren, you now have at least some sort of reinforcement.

[Psyren]

*snip*

Suffice to say that I don't consider the distinction between "not being perfectly hypercompetent at some point in the middle" and "not being perfectly hypercompetent at some point near the end" to be particularly meaningful. So we can agree to disagree here.

Nor do I consider what happens on the Citadel to be any kind of "capitulation to the head Reaper." HE needs YOU. HE is powerless to continue HIS cycle, thanks to YOUR actions. That's the weirdest sort of "capitulation" I'd have ever seen.

So we can (and it seems, must) agree to disagree.


Games have structure. In a game, you do not show up at the final boss chamber and watch a cutscene of how the fight unfolds. You actually participate in that fight. This has been ingrained in, what, 35 years or so mass effect 3 utterly lacks the final act as a game. Giving me a pretty movie during the part that I am most looking forward to and have had the game itself build up to, only to deny me, is utterly terrible game design. It fails at game design. A full third of the game is unfulfilling and begins to fail at the concept of being a game.
...
That's where our differences come in. I didn't want a climax in any generic sense, so much as I wanted a game climax. The entire horse pull could have even swallowed with some decent game design to wash it down. Instead, they cut the climactic fight and they cut the good parts out of the dialogue. They built up their story, they followed through on the usual design patterns, and they left off the end cap.
...
And then we don't get to fight it out. I point again to my example of a game where, instead of a boss fight, you enter the final chamber to watch a cutscene.

I don't really see what value running around a circular room and taking potshots at mecha-TIM from cover while Ominous Latin Chanting plays in the background would have added to the game. I wouldn't be upset had they included it, certainly, but its lack is nothing to fuss over either.

And plenty of games end with cutscenes, rather than a traditional boss fight: God of War III ends with you walking through a landscape, and a brief button mash sequence. There is no big fight with the Prophet of Truth in Halo 3. Arkham City has you not even lay a finger on Hugo Strange. etc.

It's a valid artistic choice, and one that has been done plenty of times before. Acting as though it isn't - well, that's the kind of attitude that makes me want to join the "you just don't get it" camp.


If Shepard had aimed or fired the gun, or hell, if Starkid were a simple VI saying "puh red to fire, push blue to mind control" I could buy that. But the entire sequence of being let into starkids house to have a sherry with him while discussing his plans in proper British fashion, and then him giving me choices? Nope. Because he gives you the option, which thwarts the accomplishment.

He narrates the options. Not the same thing. The Crucible is the source, not the Catalyst.



Shepard has been established as the unstoppable force.

Except on Virmire, Horizon, Arrival etc...
If an unstoppable force can be stopped, in what way is it unstoppable?
Clearly there are things beyond Shepard's reach, and that's the (perhaps unfortunate) truth of the matter.



It's really as Psyren says, logical understanding versus visceral. The game not only failed to be moving at the end, but actively undid the emotional work that it had up to that point.

All I can say here is that I'm sorry you feel that way, and that it moved me just fine.

[Trazoi]

Suffice to say that I don't consider the distinction between "not being perfectly hypercompetent at some point in the middle" and "not being perfectly hypercompetent at some point near the end" to be particularly meaningful. So we can agree to disagree here.
That's fine, except I don't thnk anyone is asking for "perfect hypercompetence". It's more of a "space opera player character action hero captain" level of competence. It's all about the presentation, and like SiuiS I felt Shep wasn't dying like a hero but being sacrificed by the writers because triumphant endings aren't, like, art, man.


And plenty of games end with cutscenes, rather than a traditional boss fight:

It's a valid artistic choice, and one that has been done plenty of times before. Acting as though it isn't - well, that's the kind of attitude that makes me want to join the "you just don't get it" camp.
It can be an valid artistic choice, but I don't think it was in Mass Effect 3. The pacing required another mission of some kind on the Citadel, and I thought TIM deserved a stronger confrontation than meeting him for the first time, and doing a argument thing that you have to win (breaking the convention about Paragon/Renegade interrupts being non-essential in almost all cases too).

Rather than deliberate artistic choices, everything about the ending smacked of Bioware running out of time and having to throw together something at the last moment.


On another note, I finally finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and can see what everyone was talking about with regards to comparisons to Mass Effect 3. :smallsmile:
(I really liked DX:HR. Save for the boss fights though, those were dumb. Definitely the wrong artistic choice there!)

[Zevox]

And plenty of games end with cutscenes, rather than a traditional boss fight: God of War III ends with you walking through a landscape, and a brief button mash sequence. There is no big fight with the Prophet of Truth in Halo 3. Arkham City has you not even lay a finger on Hugo Strange. etc.
I don't know about the other two (haven't played either, have no intent to play the shooter), but
Arkham City does end on a boss fight, with Clayface. And really, Hugo Strange was a background piece for 90% of the game, so his end didn't matter much - most of the game was spent on finding a way to cure the Joker's illness.
Zevox

[SiuiS]

Yeah, I’ve never liked it when a game makes it so that hacking attempts last just as long as the enemy is alive, but that’s standard fare. Every time I’ve gone through the second part of that, though, I’ve been sprinting away from banshees trying to stay out of the line of fire long enough to get to the launch control.

It is standard, but ME3 already shook up that formula - in it's demo, and continuing on into Multiplayer. It's a minor disconnect, but it's made more apparent because they didn't have to do it that way.


What, you’re saying that those two makos were the only ones hammer had?

Not at all. But let's make up some arbitrary numbers to illustrate my point.

At the forward operating base, it is established that you are throwing EVERYTHING at this mission, along with implications that everything they are throwing is a small amount. There's nothing left to salvage for a second mission. So we will say maybe twenty tanks are going.

In the death valley ambush, where Shepard gets to walk through what the game calls No Man's Land, and defend the convoy, you can lose several tanks.

During the in my opinion poorly orchestrated suicide rush, the number of tanks is not affected by how many tanks you lost. Which is unfortunate, because that would have been both easy to implement and rather thematic. Even if they kept the suicide rug a suicide rush, Shep could have gotten closer wih more tanks, as Harby targeted them first or something.



That laser was initially shot a lot closer to Shepard than other lasers through the game, and you can see it throwing up tons of shrapnel as it goes (yes, even dirt can hurt when it’s traveling that fast. But you probably already knew that, seeing as that’s how the combat works.) When one has a blinding light and shrapnel flying in one’s face, the standard reaction is to flinch. I’m going to guess that Shepard’s instincts kicked in at the last instant, preventing vaporization.

This is wrong on two counts.
One, Shepard survived lazer equally close, actually much closer, on Rannoch. Sure, harbinger could be arbitrarily stronger1, but Shepard threw up his hands on my first go round with a full mako between me an the laser, and it was a dodge-roll's instance away. That's a huge distance! I seriously had time to get out the sentence "huh, I'm not dodging? Is my controller broken, or-- oh damn is this a cutscene?" at a leisurely, disbelieving pace.

And two, kinetic barriers are designed to stop shrapnel. Any incoming object above a certain speed threshold activates the barriers. This includes high-velocity conclusive grenade blasts and high velocity automatic weapons fire, both of which have been optimized for kinetic impact and can this be considered to travel much faster and hit much harder than mere blast shrapnel. The kinetic barriers are also a constant thing, now, such that whether or not the emitters "activated" the shield would have stopped the shrapnel far enough away that Shep (and any veteran soldier) would be inured to it. And the light? Shepard had been running into a field of it that whole time.

I can't accept "despite being a cyborg, Shepard's human limits kick in now of all times." if Bioware said that's what happened, I would quibble but accept it. As is, it's a justification.



I didn’t have a pistol equipped, and she got a Carnifex. I assumed that she salvaged it.

I think you're right. It may indeed have been a Carnifex. The predator shoots faster! I recall being surprised by the gun sprite, however. Maybe I am second guessing myself and expected the predator, saw a Carnifex and crossed those wires?


I actually kinda like the irony of the Illusive Man being “I am unstoppable! Fear me!” only to be taken out without even the dignity of a stand-up firefight. Glass Cannon FTW.

But... He wasn't a glass cannon. He was a cellophane McGuffin.
Boss fights don't have to be straight combat. He could have summoned husk corpses from the GIANT TUNNELS OF CADAVERS while using an Arbitrary Citadel Defense System(tm) to protect himself an lecturing you on the necessity of his victory. It would have made perfect sense. Like fighting Benezia, who was a good enough boss fight, or like dealing with the Thorian. It could have fit in between the questions he was already asking. "Don't you see Shepard! I can control them!" *husks rise* "Of course you can. Just like they want you too!" etc.


Agreed, I was not happy when he died, but it’s a bit hard to administer medigel when your suit is that badly trashed.

That is actually a good point.



As for the Catalyst, I am not going to defend the original ending, as yes, that was absolute crap. However, with the extended cut, I like the ending. Though, yes, the form of the child thing was unnecessary.

First off, the Catalyst does not come out of total nowhere: Vendetta, the Prothean VI, states that through the cycles there are patterns that continue to repeat themselves over and over, and states the implication/inference of a central figure manipulating the cycles, and that the reapers are its servants.

The Catalyst acts exactly like an AI without restraints on killing organics would. It searches for the most efficient solution, and does it, which in this case has almost an “I, Robot” feel to it. When that solution is no longer the most efficient, it goes and finds a new one. Shepard may consider geth the enemy, but Legion sees the need to cooperate. Shepard may consider the Catalyst the enemy, but it sees the need to cooperate.

One question, which goes unanswered, which refutes this entire thing.

If the Citadel was the Catalyst was the Starchild, why did sovereign need an arbitrary signal to get all the reapers there? Starchild, being part of the reaper collective and possibly their mastermind, could have sent that signal himself. Or stopped the protheans from messing with it. Or you know, could hve existed, conceptually, before the last two minutes of exposition.

He doesn't act like an AI would, he acts like a Deus Ex Machina - he appears from the machine to win the day.

[qute]And as for space magic? Well…

Not understanding how things work is one of the classic features of science fiction, going right back to such classics as “The Time Machine”. Nobody understood exactly how the time machine worked, but nobody worried about that, because it didn’t need to be worried about. Perhaps Star Trek is to blame for this, with people now wanting at least a touch of technobabble to explain something that they don’t immediately understand.

In short, I sat down and thought about the ending, and it made sense to me. Congratulations, Psyren, you now have at least some sort of reinforcement.[/QUOTE]

And to quote, they say, is a sufficient substitute for wit.

I hve issues with people throwing aroun that quote. It encourages "welp, they're wizardsSuper Scientists, they ain't gotta explain ****" which is often contrary to the story involved, and worse, allows people to get away with blatantly contradicting themselves an not fearing reprisal.

Mass Effect went out of its way to make an explanation that, if not scientifically accurate, could at least be swallowed by the science-minded. They continued this trend, with a growing caveat of "just... Don't pay too much attention to biotics, we want them to be more fun and less rote."

So a left field "TIS SPACE WIZARDRY THOU ART TO FIND UNFATHOMABLE" is not excusable because an old science fiction writer postulated a philosophy thr would inform his genre.



Nor do I consider what happens on the Citadel to be any kind of "capitulation to the head Reaper." HE needs YOU. HE is powerless to continue HIS cycle, thanks to YOUR actions. That's the weirdest sort of "capitulation" I'd have ever seen.

You seemingly contradict yourself, friend.

You've said yourself, you can refuse his help and he will win.
Starkid does not need you because his cycle is flawed and he wants a better way. He can just kill you now, seriously.

He needs you because every cycle has lasted longer, fought harder, Dow more damage, something's got to give, and by his own admission he does not have the programming to change. He isn't working for Shepard, he is hoping that he can compromise enough to achieve his goals despite his own survival, while maybe ensuring his own survival. That's very AI, right there, considering he wants to achieve his ends even beyond his own death. That does lock your choices into things he is comfortable with though, and suddenly I understand te lure of "he's lying so the reapers will win".

I see, clearly, that Starkid is admitting the organics are winning the long war. He wants to settle outside the Court of Battle, because he will lose the suit otherwise. So he deigns to help heard now because it's in his own best interests. He's a logic system, it's asinine to think he is just rolling over 100% because of a USB stuck into him. He knows he cannot win, not in the long run, and will compromise with Shepard. That compromise is not The alliance or the player winning. It is them not losing, but that is an entirely different beast. It's letting Starkid get his goal in and sorta kinda settling for not losing so bad I guess on Shepard's part.



I don't really see what value running around a circular room and taking potshots at mecha-TIM from cover while Ominous Latin Chanting plays in the background would have added to the game. I wouldn't be upset had they included it, certainly, but its lack is nothing to fuss over either.

That would be pretty crap, yeah. Luckily, there are hundreds of ideas for a boss fight that don't include running in circles and shooting. That's kinda why Kai Leng sucked as a fight.

And you may be okay with the lack of a vital gameplay element, but I'm not. To use the phrase I've been shyin away from this whole time, it was a ****-tease. they built up that expectation and then stopped. No let down, no cool off, just me holding my... Controller and wondering where my promise of catharsis went.


And plenty of games end with cutscenes, rather than a traditional boss fight: God of War III ends with you walking through a landscape, and a brief button mash sequence. There is no big fight with the Prophet of Truth in Halo 3. Arkham City has you not even lay a finger on Hugo Strange. etc.

Your first example ends with a rather interesting boss fight involving cloning and some cheap tactics inside of another character. Then running along another character while slaying zombies. Having a little bit after the climax? Sure. It's called a warm down.
Your second example comes from a genre that doesn't normally use boss fights in the same fashion, and is less about the single player game almost entirely.
Example three follows the same formula as example one, I'm guessing


It's a valid artistic choice, and one that has been done plenty of times before. Acting as though it isn't - well, that's the kind of attitude that makes me want to join the "you just don't get it" camp.

It's a valid artistic choice. It's a piss poor videogame design choice. Art is fine, but you don't write an incorrect technical manual and pass it off as okay because it's art. You don't write a tragedy and say its good scifi because it's art. You don't design. Shooter game that sucks as as a shooting game because it's full of puzzles, and say it should succeed because the puzzles are art. Art is not an argument. It is not a defense. It's a distraction tactic. Have you noticed your examples all come from the same era and the same design ideas that lead to such feces spattered on a wall as Metroid: Other M? Or the same principles behind final fantasy XIII, which had tacky caps all over it's gameplay in order to spen millions programming beautiful artistic vistas you can't see because you're on rails.

Yes, the modern day has companies who know they can get away with this crap. My putting up with it tells them it's okay to keep pulling this crap. It's not.

And finally, "I find your arguments difficult to process so I'll join an extreme end of the hyperbole spectrum out of spite" is a terrible argument.



Except on Virmire, Horizon, Arrival etc...
If an unstoppable force can be stopped, in what way is it unstoppable?
Clearly there are things beyond Shepard's reach, and that's the (perhaps unfortunate) truth of the matter.

Your examples are terrible. Shepard succeeded on Virmire (taking out the facility), Horizon in gaining more data, arrival falls under my "if it's not in the game, it's not in the game" clause, and they all also fall under my previous statement.

Unstoppable force bounce off an immovable object, gets begin it and achieves its goal. You can keep suing Virmire, arrival, horizon, but the names themselves mean nothing.

As a personal thing, and this may be just my perceptions, but you've got a habit of ignoring counter examples, not explaining how they didn't work or not explaining how your supplied evidence counters the prior argument. It presents a very brick-wall sensation, especially since I have to argue every brick. It gets very frustrating, and leads me to resort to hyperbole. Is this intentional? Because it spirals, seeing as frustrated hyperbole Is cake for you to dissassemble.



All I can say here is that I'm sorry you feel that way, and that it moved me just fine.

I envy you. Like I said, all I wanted was for one of twelve things to be like, 0.02 better, an is be okay. Everything being just a sliver below expectations makes the whole thing fall apart. I would have been fine with hearing "sorry, guess we dropped the ball" when faced with complaints. You know, taking it gracefully.

[SiuiS]

All formers hitting buttons make forum go crazy.

[GloatingSwine]

Except on Virmire, Horizon, Arrival etc...
If an unstoppable force can be stopped, in what way is it unstoppable?
Clearly there are things beyond Shepard's reach, and that's the (perhaps unfortunate) truth of the matter.


There's a time and place for such elements. It is not at the end of a work of heroic space opera.

[Trazoi]

I would have been fine with hearing "sorry, guess we dropped the ball" when faced with complaints. You know, taking it gracefully.
I'd love to see a proper post-mortem of ME3. I doubt one will ever be released, but I'm really curious as to what internal forces let them to develop the game the way they did.

Are there signs that Dragon Age 3 is either going to avoid the same problems as ME3, or are there hints it's going down exactly the same path? (if there have been leaks, no spoilers outside tags please)

[Zevox]

Are there signs that Dragon Age 3 is either going to avoid the same problems as ME3, or are there hints it's going down exactly the same path? (if there have been leaks, no spoilers outside tags please)
All that's known about DA3 is that it exists, and even that technically hasn't been officially announced. So at this point, all we can really say is that at least it isn't being rushed like DA2, since it's already been longer in between DA2's release and now than it was between DA:O's release and DA2's.

Zevox

[TheLaughingMan]

I think you're missing something, GS.


There's a time and place for such elements. It is not introduced at the end of a work of heroic space opera.

[KnightDisciple]

So, I've not purchased Leviathan, because I am a cautious man when it comes to Bioware.
So I waited for some people to give opinions and summaries, and just a bit ago I read the wiki summary.
This:
:smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh: :smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh:

Spoilering because it's so new, this may ramble, and I'm frankly mad.

This. Is. So. Stupid.
Not just stupid.
INANE.

So we've got this super-ancient race that's super-powerful and super-smart, has been in hiding the whole time doing jack and diddly. Somehow simultaneously powerful enough to remote-control sapients across the galaxy, and to do so enough to wipe their existence, yet they can't figure out how to kill Starchild/Catalyst/"The Intelligence" and his pet toys. They had an enormous empire with mind-slaves, but nope, the Reapers are just magically that strong.

Except not, because apparently 3-4 of the bony squids can think hard at a Reaper Capital Ship and kill it. And they can start mind-controlling Husks to turn against the Reapers.

But somehow, despite all of this, their presence is a minor thing that doesn't really change the war? Doesn't allow you to change your options?

Nope. Because "Artistic Integrity". :smallfurious:

Oh, and the icing on this FailCake?
Apparently their legions of mind-slaves constantly made AIs, and, to a one, those AIs always rose up to kill their masters. No exceptions. Because technology is evil, amiright?
Look, I'm a fan of EDI and the Geth, but it's a bit...unbelievable...that somehow they are the only super-special examples of synthetics that aren't "KILL ALL ORGANICS! PURGE THE GALAXY OF MEAT!".
And of course the Leviathans go and make an AI that decides "lol making meat slurries into flying biorobot abominations is TOTALLY AWESOME and the best way to do what my creators want!". :smallfurious::smallmad:

Seriously, this whole DLC's idea feels like another slap in the face to those of us who wanted something more from the ending. It's a cheap cop-out and a blatant money grab.

Frankly, I'm starting to be convinced EA is tainting and ruining Bioware.

And the Marauder Shields fancomic is patently and objectively better written and more enjoyable than the tripe plopped down in our Three-and-a-Half-Choices ending. :smallmad:

[Illieas]

So, I've not purchased Leviathan, because I am a cautious man when it comes to Bioware.
So I waited for some people to give opinions and summaries, and just a bit ago I read the wiki summary.
This:
:smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh: :smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh:

Spoilering because it's so new, this may ramble, and I'm frankly mad.

This. Is. So. Stupid.
Not just stupid.
INANE.

So we've got this super-ancient race that's super-powerful and super-smart, has been in hiding the whole time doing jack and diddly. Somehow simultaneously powerful enough to remote-control sapients across the galaxy, and to do so enough to wipe their existence, yet they can't figure out how to kill Starchild/Catalyst/"The Intelligence" and his pet toys. They had an enormous empire with mind-slaves, but nope, the Reapers are just magically that strong.

Except not, because apparently 3-4 of the bony squids can think hard at a Reaper Capital Ship and kill it. And they can start mind-controlling Husks to turn against the Reapers.

But somehow, despite all of this, their presence is a minor thing that doesn't really change the war? Doesn't allow you to change your options?

Nope. Because "Artistic Integrity". :smallfurious:

Oh, and the icing on this FailCake?
Apparently their legions of mind-slaves constantly made AIs, and, to a one, those AIs always rose up to kill their masters. No exceptions. Because technology is evil, amiright?
Look, I'm a fan of EDI and the Geth, but it's a bit...unbelievable...that somehow they are the only super-special examples of synthetics that aren't "KILL ALL ORGANICS! PURGE THE GALAXY OF MEAT!".
And of course the Leviathans go and make an AI that decides "lol making meat slurries into flying biorobot abominations is TOTALLY AWESOME and the best way to do what my creators want!". :smallfurious::smallmad:

Seriously, this whole DLC's idea feels like another slap in the face to those of us who wanted something more from the ending. It's a cheap cop-out and a blatant money grab.

Frankly, I'm starting to be convinced EA is tainting and ruining Bioware.

And the Marauder Shields fancomic is patently and objectively better written and more enjoyable than the tripe plopped down in our Three-and-a-Half-Choices ending. :smallmad:

had you had played the dlc you would have a better understanding of the events.


First off there are only 3 of them. second off they remote control just like how the reapers remote control. as in it take quite some to time to indoctrinate and when you do they act very much off what they could be doing. and why they aren't killing the reapers is because they made the damn AI. They were the first cycle. they lost their war and thus there are only three on the planet. they then spent the rest of the time hiding. 3 vs hundred thousands of reapers. they would not win an all out battle.

for the last thing they are being consistent. star kid said that is what happened. and indeed that is what happened provided by a different source. synthetics killed organics. these leviathans are organics, reapers are synthetics. they also fell to the synthetics taking over the galaxy trap too.

but really i just think you are attempting to find things wrong so you can complain about the ending more.
there is no way the ending will be changed on an middle of the game dlc. It provides a nice atmospheric side quest and explain more of the back story of the reapers. It is one of the better DLCs.

[Joran]

So, I've not purchased Leviathan, because I am a cautious man when it comes to Bioware.
So I waited for some people to give opinions and summaries, and just a bit ago I read the wiki summary.
This:
:smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh: :smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh:

Spoilering because it's so new, this may ramble, and I'm frankly mad.

This. Is. So. Stupid.
Not just stupid.
INANE.

So we've got this super-ancient race that's super-powerful and super-smart, has been in hiding the whole time doing jack and diddly. Somehow simultaneously powerful enough to remote-control sapients across the galaxy, and to do so enough to wipe their existence, yet they can't figure out how to kill Starchild/Catalyst/"The Intelligence" and his pet toys. They had an enormous empire with mind-slaves, but nope, the Reapers are just magically that strong.

Except not, because apparently 3-4 of the bony squids can think hard at a Reaper Capital Ship and kill it. And they can start mind-controlling Husks to turn against the Reapers.

But somehow, despite all of this, their presence is a minor thing that doesn't really change the war? Doesn't allow you to change your options?

Nope. Because "Artistic Integrity". :smallfurious:

Oh, and the icing on this FailCake?
Apparently their legions of mind-slaves constantly made AIs, and, to a one, those AIs always rose up to kill their masters. No exceptions. Because technology is evil, amiright?
Look, I'm a fan of EDI and the Geth, but it's a bit...unbelievable...that somehow they are the only super-special examples of synthetics that aren't "KILL ALL ORGANICS! PURGE THE GALAXY OF MEAT!".
And of course the Leviathans go and make an AI that decides "lol making meat slurries into flying biorobot abominations is TOTALLY AWESOME and the best way to do what my creators want!". :smallfurious::smallmad:

Seriously, this whole DLC's idea feels like another slap in the face to those of us who wanted something more from the ending. It's a cheap cop-out and a blatant money grab.

Frankly, I'm starting to be convinced EA is tainting and ruining Bioware.

And the Marauder Shields fancomic is patently and objectively better written and more enjoyable than the tripe plopped down in our Three-and-a-Half-Choices ending. :smallmad:

I enjoyed it. It's relatively short for a DLC, about 2.5 hours worth of play. No new boss fights, but they added the escort/package missions from multiplayer. The main thing is atmosphere. The entire DLC is suffused with it. Lots of creepy.

Overall, on par with Overlord, better than Arrival.

Your objections are with the ending, not with the DLC. Points below:


Yup, I can see if you didn't like the ending, you wouldn't like the DLC. It basically doubles down on the ending; not much new is added, but basically rehashes the ending. Honestly, did you think they'd change the ending post-Extended Cut? At this point, it's better for them just to keep the ending, even though it sucks, just to keep it consistent.

As for why 3-4 Leviathians can't swing the war. They can indoctrinate a Reaper Capital ship, but if the Reapers came in force they could easily be overwhelmed. They're the last survivors and they're not going to risk the last of their species doing something risky. Better to keep their heads down and keep on living.

Additionally, their reach is only through the artifacts. It's not a magical "No range applies" technology; the people being indoctrinated need to be in contact with an artifact for extended periods of time. The war effort boost is from the lesser races smuggling artifacts into Reaper controlled space; the Leviathans themselves are not joining the fight, only indoctrinated troops.

P.S. My only problem with the Leviathans is the post-victory scenario. You have a species that was overlords of the galaxy and view all species as lesser to them. Additionally, they have an indoctrination style ability. That's freakin' scary.

[RagingKrikkit]

And to quote, they say, is a sufficient substitute for wit.

Okay, then let me put it in my own words:

How the Crucible works does not matter!

Let me say it again:

It does not matter how the Crucible works!

One last time:

How the Crucible works is IMMATERIAL

Why?

Because the Crucible is not the focus of the segment. The focus of the segment, and really, the final boss fight (so to speak), is what Shepard decides to do with the Crucible, which is one of the most interesting and hard-to-choose (in my experience) moral decisions in video game history.

Remember the geth base in ME2? First off, let's apply that template to the destroy and control options. Either you can seize control of a sentient race against their will, and make them your servants forevermore, or you can blow them the hell up, and perhaps even live to tell about it. But wait! If you choose to destroy, especially to keep yourself alive, I hope you feel, as I did, that you are betraying Legion and EDI, crushing their hopes for a new and better future for the geth and herself, not to mention how Joker would react if he knew that you deliberately killed her. Do you mind control, or do you kill, knowing that your allies, your friend, will die.

Or do you synthesize? Yes, this is in theory the best option, but at the same time, it requires the most sacrifice, as it is the only ending where Shepard is garrunteed to completely, irrevocably die. It is also similar to the choice to control, although arguably to a lesser degree, but on a much larger scope. If you choose to synthesize, you are literally modifying every life form in the galaxy, down to the microbes sitting on your computer screen, regardless of the wishes and without the consent or knowledge of those affected.

Or do you say "Screw you, I'm not playing by your rules"? You know you cannot defeat the Reapers in a stand-up fight, but you would rather go down fighting than submit to this nonsense. Or perhaps you would rather go down fighting than have to make a decision such as this. A decision that will shape the galaxy forevermore.

The Crucible is the vessel of these choices, the MacGuffin that gives the hero his power for the final battle. It does not matter how it does so. But this final battle is not one of weapons and ships, it is one of heart, mind and soul.

[Calemyr]

So, I've not purchased Leviathan, because I am a cautious man when it comes to Bioware.
So I waited for some people to give opinions and summaries, and just a bit ago I read the wiki summary.
This:
:smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh: :smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh:

Spoilering because it's so new, this may ramble, and I'm frankly mad.

This. Is. So. Stupid.
Not just stupid.
INANE.

So we've got this super-ancient race that's super-powerful and super-smart, has been in hiding the whole time doing jack and diddly. Somehow simultaneously powerful enough to remote-control sapients across the galaxy, and to do so enough to wipe their existence, yet they can't figure out how to kill Starchild/Catalyst/"The Intelligence" and his pet toys. They had an enormous empire with mind-slaves, but nope, the Reapers are just magically that strong.

Except not, because apparently 3-4 of the bony squids can think hard at a Reaper Capital Ship and kill it. And they can start mind-controlling Husks to turn against the Reapers.

But somehow, despite all of this, their presence is a minor thing that doesn't really change the war? Doesn't allow you to change your options?

Nope. Because "Artistic Integrity". :smallfurious:

Oh, and the icing on this FailCake?
Apparently their legions of mind-slaves constantly made AIs, and, to a one, those AIs always rose up to kill their masters. No exceptions. Because technology is evil, amiright?
Look, I'm a fan of EDI and the Geth, but it's a bit...unbelievable...that somehow they are the only super-special examples of synthetics that aren't "KILL ALL ORGANICS! PURGE THE GALAXY OF MEAT!".
And of course the Leviathans go and make an AI that decides "lol making meat slurries into flying biorobot abominations is TOTALLY AWESOME and the best way to do what my creators want!". :smallfurious::smallmad:

Seriously, this whole DLC's idea feels like another slap in the face to those of us who wanted something more from the ending. It's a cheap cop-out and a blatant money grab.

Frankly, I'm starting to be convinced EA is tainting and ruining Bioware.

And the Marauder Shields fancomic is patently and objectively better written and more enjoyable than the tripe plopped down in our Three-and-a-Half-Choices ending. :smallmad:

The DLC is not without its flaws, but the actual context of the plot runs a bit counter to your conclusions.

First, you only see three Leviathans, while the Reapers number in the 700 range. And they don't explicitly kill the Reaper, they just make it veer off course and hit the water face-first.

Second, Leviathan indoctrination is entirely dependent on the little pearl-like artifacts you find. (Which Shep may have found in ME2's Hammerhead DLC.) Destroy the pearl, you destroy their control. The cutscene where they took down the Reaper suggests you'd need a lot of them to do much to a Cap ship.

Third, the Leviathans fell from the highest spot in the history of galactic dominance to hiding in a back-water ocean planet. They lack the power to accomplish anything but a glorious last stand against the Reapers and they know it. And the thing about glorious last stands is that they're the last. It's kinda in the name. They don't even think Shepard is enough to make it worth risking their hides. Of course, the fact that they got discovered at all ends up being the deciding factor - they now get no benefit from holding back, because as soon as the Reapers are done with the harvest, they'll be on the hunt for them.

Finally, and this isn't directed at you in particular, consider the ending without the Extended Cut. Without EC this one would have been a heavy hitting game-changer to dwarf even Javik in implications. EC revealed just enough to take the wind out of those sails. They effectively shot themselves in the foot while trying to recover from shooting themselves in the foot.

And yes, the actual gameplay from this DLC (although a scant three combat missions) is very well done. Don't know if it's worth ten bucks, since most of the other things it adds aren't all that shiny, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

[KnightDisciple]

Okay, then let me put it in my own words:

How the Crucible works does not matter!

Let me say it again:

It does not matter how the Crucible works!

One last time:

How the Crucible works is IMMATERIAL

It does matter, and it's not immaterial.
At least, for me it mattered and wasn't immaterial.

There's a vast difference between the ending being "This McGuffin we've talked about the whole game is up and running, and all my efforts to ensure I had enough War Assets rating have succeeded! Now I shall fire it and end the Reapers!" (and then you do, an they die), and being dragged into a conversation with a BS hypocritical Starchild who's all "Oh I control the Reapers, but I can't stop them, oh no, you have to die for that, or die while using BS out-of-nowhere space magic, or maybe die blowing up them and most all technology, including your friends EDI and the Geth".

Basically, the entire game acknowledged it was a Plot Device, but it also was setting things up for it to play out in a particular way...and then decided to instead strip away 99.9% of your player agency and do it some other way.

If the speculation someone else made earlier is true, and this ending really was a rushed work to replace a leaked ending of higher quality, it makes sense.
And that would also fly in the face of "Artistic Integrity".

Now, I did see a post from someone on another forum mentioning an Omega DLC. Anyone else heard that rumor? Because that might actually be worth my money (as opposed to Leviathan).

[Liffguard]

Played Leviathan, pretty happy with it. Not as good as Lair of the Shadow Broker, better than Arrival, about on par with Overlord. Combat missions were good, especially the second one with the thousands of Harvesters flying overhead (though again, not quite up to Shadow Broker levels). A couple of new weapons (though I haven't got to use them yet since I was playing an infiltrator without assault rifles or shotguns). The atmosphere is great, really heavy and spooky especially when searching round the lab (quite reminiscent of searching Liara's apartment). Doesn't really change anything story-wise, just expands upon what's already there.

Overall, I enjoyed it and would say it's worth the six quid.

[Beowulf DW]

One little thing, here, because there seems to be some inconsistencies in this discussion.

Some of us seem to think that the Reapers are synthetic. But one of the major plot points is that they are synthetic and organic. It's just a minor detail, but one that probably shouldn't be ignored.

Just saying.

[KnightDisciple]

One little thing, here, because there seems to be some inconsistencies in this discussion.

Some of us seem to think that the Reapers are synthetic. But one of the major plot points is that they are synthetic and organic. It's just a minor detail, but one that probably shouldn't be ignored.

Just saying.

The Starchild Intelligence Catalyst seems to be purely synthetic.

And while technically the Reapers are made of organic-people-slurry, they look synthetic, their Husks are basically "synthetic systems take over an organic", their general operating abilities make them seem entirely synthetic, they're made of metal, and when Nazara exploded all over the Citadel, it was chunks of metal and pieces of technology that were discovered, not meaty bits and blood.

They're only organic in origin; at the time we see and interact with them, their composition is 99% synthetic. Even the slurrying seems to mix in metal with flesh.

[Toastkart]

One little thing, here, because there seems to be some inconsistencies in this discussion.

Some of us seem to think that the Reapers are synthetic. But one of the major plot points is that they are synthetic and organic. It's just a minor detail, but one that probably shouldn't be ignored.

Just saying.

The reapers were created using the organic slurry, and supposedly the "essence" of the race that made up that slurry survived, but what wasn't explained was what that "essence" means, whether that "essence" has any affect on the reaper, or if it's just a delusion of a being who thinks it's a good idea to use synthetics to wipe out organics so that they won't be wiped out by synthetics.

I think it's relevant to look at reaper troops and the collectors. Mordin says that the collectors are the result of technology overriding biology, not supplementing. They also have no culture or social existence.

[RagingKrikkit]

Just found this. Please don't consider it an authorative source, but...


The older you get, the less elastic your imagination becomes, and the less able you are to fill in whatever gaps the game leaves in the narrative. It's why a toddler can open a birthday present and then immediately disregard the toy in favor of spending the next three hours playing with the box. If you see an adult doing that, suddenly it's time for an intervention.

How old are you? Maybe this has something to do with it...

[Trazoi]

The golden ME3 ending: when Shep returns to Earth, quit the game and spend three hours playing around with the box. :smalltongue:

Seriously though, the problem is the ending doesn't fit the type of game ME3 is. I've read rumours that Bioware's designers were really into Deus Ex: Human Revolution when they made the ending, and now I've finished DX:HR I can believe that. But DX:HR is hard sci-fi, and the whole entire game is based around one central theme (the effect of augmenting human bodies with cybernetics on society). In contrast Mass Effect is space opera (much softer sci-fi), and only barely touched on synthetics vs. organics. The end effect I had was that Mass Effect 3 was pretending to be something it wasn't.

[Aotrs Commander]

Just found this. Please don't consider it an authorative source, but...



How old are you? Maybe this has something to do with it...

Are...are you seriously suggesting that age has got anything even remotely to do with liking the end or not?

Because it's hard to tell what and who you're addressing otherwise.

[SiuiS]

So, I've not purchased Leviathan, because I am a cautious man when it comes to Bioware.
So I waited for some people to give opinions and summaries, and just a bit ago I read the wiki summary.
This:
:smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh: :smallmad::smallfurious::smallsigh:

Spoilering because it's so new, this may ramble, and I'm frankly mad.

This. Is. So. Stupid.
Not just stupid.
INANE.

So we've got this super-ancient race that's super-powerful and super-smart, has been in hiding the whole time doing jack and diddly. Somehow simultaneously powerful enough to remote-control sapients across the galaxy, and to do so enough to wipe their existence, yet they can't figure out how to kill Starchild/Catalyst/"The Intelligence" and his pet toys. They had an enormous empire with mind-slaves, but nope, the Reapers are just magically that strong.

Except not, because apparently 3-4 of the bony squids can think hard at a Reaper Capital Ship and kill it. And they can start mind-controlling Husks to turn against the Reapers.

But somehow, despite all of this, their presence is a minor thing that doesn't really change the war? Doesn't allow you to change your options?

Nope. Because "Artistic Integrity". :smallfurious:

Oh, and the icing on this FailCake?
Apparently their legions of mind-slaves constantly made AIs, and, to a one, those AIs always rose up to kill their masters. No exceptions. Because technology is evil, amiright?
Look, I'm a fan of EDI and the Geth, but it's a bit...unbelievable...that somehow they are the only super-special examples of synthetics that aren't "KILL ALL ORGANICS! PURGE THE GALAXY OF MEAT!".
And of course the Leviathans go and make an AI that decides "lol making meat slurries into flying biorobot abominations is TOTALLY AWESOME and the best way to do what my creators want!". :smallfurious::smallmad:

Seriously, this whole DLC's idea feels like another slap in the face to those of us who wanted something more from the ending. It's a cheap cop-out and a blatant money grab.

Frankly, I'm starting to be convinced EA is tainting and ruining Bioware.

And the Marauder Shields fancomic is patently and objectively better written and more enjoyable than the tripe plopped down in our Three-and-a-Half-Choices ending. :smallmad:

This is coming from a unicorn who hasn't hit the extended cut yet, nor actually played the DLC, so grain of salt...

Consider the ending before Extended Cut. An then think about the ramifications of Leviathan, which they had been planning since wfote the game released. It's actually possible that we, the fans, screwed things up by being so angry with the ending. Because it certainly seems to me like Leviathan was supposed to do what the extende cut did. They tried to artistically leave a cliff-hanger to fill, bungled it and instead made a bad product. But the entire narrative has a semblance of internal consistency, an we the audience ruined the story by guessing the plot and getting frustrate it was taking so long. To make an analogy. Or allegory or metaphor. Never could keep those straight.

Leviathan sounds like it is actually pretty good. There are some inconsistencies, but they are along the lines of any soap opera plot development more than the assumed Herp Derp the ending came of as.

Like I said in the other thread, Leviathan sounds like it would do a lot to cool my jets.


Okay, then let me put it in my own words:

How the Crucible works does not matter!

Let me say it again:

It does not matter how the Crucible works!

One last time:

How the Crucible works is IMMATERIAL

Head on is a suppose medicinal cream which claims to work by soaking into the skin. It doesn't actually work, but convinces you it does by screaming HEAD ON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO HEAD! Eight times.

Extenz commercials are notorious for rephrasing the same sentence sweep times without actually givin you information. They literally say "most people don't believ a pull can have results" three ways in the first twenty seconds.

I am a rational, if whimsical, thinking creature. If what you say doesn't make any sense, then saying it three more times, in different levels of loud, is not going to fix that. I have taken in the information you presente. I found it lacking. I would prefer a response that wasn't "Nuh-Uh yer wrong!" in response, please.

So, bearing that in mind; how is "it doesn't matter how the crucible works" even remotely akin to sufficiently advanced technology appearing to be magic?


Why?

Because the Crucible is not the focus of the segment. The focus of the segment, and really, the final boss fight (so to speak), is what Shepard decides to do with the Crucible, which is one of the most interesting and hard-to-choose (in my experience) moral decisions in video game history.

It's a false difficulty. Arbitrarily adding "oh, and I'd you beat me I will murder your favorite party members when I go down" does not create in me a sense of obligation all of a sudden. It does not make it a moral choice all along, it makes it a farce.


Remember the geth base in ME2? First off, let's apply that template to the destroy and control options. Either you can seize control of a sentient race against their will, and make them your servants forevermore, or you can blow them the hell up, and perhaps even live to tell about it. But wait! If you choose to destroy, especially to keep yourself alive, I hope you feel, as I did, that you are betraying Legion and EDI, crushing their hopes for a new and better future for the geth and herself, not to mention how Joker would react if he knew that you deliberately killed her. Do you mind control, or do you kill, knowing that your allies, your friend, will die.

Again, it's a false thing. The geth base in ME 2 was about whether you as the player even considered ayntheitc intelligence valid. Remember that Ashley was specifically religious? She also had a lot of renegade opinions. Opinions like "they don't have a soul so they don't really matter" fit right in there. There is a world of difference between controlling a race of creatures (such as te Krogan, or Vorcha, or Turian, or Quarian, or Asari, or Salarian, or Drell, or Hanar, or...) and even considering a robot a creature, let alone an army of slave drones a race.


Or do you synthesize? Yes, this is in theory the best option, but at the same time, it requires the most sacrifice, as it is the only ending where Shepard is garrunteed to completely, irrevocably die.

This is only a sacrifice for some people. For others, for me, it is literally not a sacrifice at all. 1 life + guaranteed victory, happiness, and unity, versus any other choice and billions of lives? I'll reincarnate, eventually. I'm fey. It's what we do. Dyin for a cause is more important than living for it. worrying about how you will fair is asinine, and cowardly.




Or do you say "Screw you, I'm not playing by your rules"? You know you cannot defeat the Reapers in a stand-up fight, but you would rather go down fighting than submit to this nonsense. Or perhaps you would rather go down fighting than have to make a decision such as this. A decision that will shape the galaxy forevermore.

You missed the part where "screw you" was an option only after we complained enough to make them realize they had made a mistake. There Was no "screw you" originally. Their plan? Become the enemy, murder your friends, or rape very thing on a molecular level. Those are ALL bad choices. It's all in the presentation.


The Crucible is the vessel of these choices, the MacGuffin that gives the hero his power for the final battle. It does not matter how it does so. But this final battle is not one of weapons and ships, it is one of heart, mind and soul.

The crucible is not a Mcguffin. It is a Deus ex Machina. It actually brings you back from the dead so you can witness its plan and make a decision it can't be arsed to do for the sole purpose of making you feel useful. You can try to explain how it is a mcguffin, but unless you first explain effectively how it is not a Deus ex Machina you are wasting your time. My point still stands.


One little thing, here, because there seems to be some inconsistencies in this discussion.

Some of us seem to think that the Reapers are synthetic. But one of the major plot points is that they are synthetic and organic. It's just a minor detail, but one that probably shouldn't be ignored.

Just saying.

I believe that is only a MP thing. They are robots made from organic parts, in the same way petrol is organic.


Just found this. Please don't consider it an authorative source, but...

How old are you? Maybe this has something to do with it...

Old enough to know better and young enough to do it anyway.

Being unable to pick apart an argument and so trying to challenge the validity of the arguer is kind of tacky, though. There is a difference between not picking up insinuations, and pointing out factual error. Thinking I lack mental plasticity is as invalid as thinking you lack the higher education to see my point of view.

[RagingKrikkit]

So, bearing that in mind; how is "it doesn't matter how the crucible works" even remotely akin to sufficiently advanced technology appearing to be magic?

Not going to bother with the rest of that right now, but that was because of/for shock value, not brainwashing. Besides, I haven't seen a TV commercial in months.

[Beowulf DW]

Just found this. Please don't consider it an authorative source, but...



How old are you? Maybe this has something to do with it...

YakYak, whether you know it or not, you made an argumentum ad hominem which is something most decent rhetoricians would attempt to avoid. Rather than try to defend your position, you have implied that there is something wrong with your opposition. This would be like me saying that you buy into the ending due to your youth and naivety. You see? I can't prove to you just how imaginative I am, and last time I checked, there was no way to measure a person's naivety or lack thereof.

[RagingKrikkit]

Well, then please accept my offical oops. I was just stating that in terms of a hmm, interesting, not as an argument.

[VanBuren]

Mass Effect 3: Leviathan "Creating Of" Blog

Mass Effect 3: Leviathan producer Billy Buskell has taken to the BioWare Blog (http://blog.bioware.com/2012/08/29/from-the-desk-of-billy-buskell-creating-leviathan/) to share some of the experiences that he and his team had while creating the single player DLC. It's spoiler-free from what I can tell, but I'll still avoid reading the quote as I leave it for you below:
Because of the mysterious nature of the Leviathan, the team also started to think of how we could craft that mystery in the game. How could we have the player solve a mystery? We wanted the player to do the solving for themselves. This led to the idea of finding clues within the pack and that these threads would then lead the player to a central location where they could piece the puzzle back together, knowing there may always be more pieces to discover. In Leviathan, we give the players a brand new way to locate clues throughout their journey and to use those clues in a new in-game system to help track down new locations to visit.

This led to our next goal. Exploration was going to be a major part of Leviathan. In any BioWare game, there is exploration, but we wanted to take this idea even further in Leviathan. Exploration has typically meant creating additional space in a location or environment where the player can spend some time, find some cool loot, learn more about the story and universe, and trigger new quests within the larger story. For Leviathan, exploration meant adding more of this but also having a variety of diverse locations to travel to, and those locations would then present new areas to explore: everything from searching through facilities, vertical movement throughout a level and combat, and, for the first time in the Mass Effect series, controlling your movement in an underwater environment.

Mass Effect 3: Leviathan DLC Reviews

Here are a batch of reviews for Mass Effect 3's latest DLC, the single-player-oriented Leviathan, and owners of the title will be pleased to know that the reception so far has been on the positive side.

GameSpy (http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/mass-effect-3-leviathan/1225911p1.html), 7.5/10.

Beyond the DLC's own bounds, not a vast amount really changes. You get a new War Asset or two, which as we know affects pretty much nothing. Still, Leviathan is hilariously weak. It's a living god, one whose dark influence stretches through the galaxy -- an entity even the Reapers fear. Total military worth: 400 points. Good grief. What's it planning to do for the war effort exactly - make some really good sandwiches?

Leviathan's core problem though is that it's a DLC created to answer questions that nobody was asking, after an ending that itself answered too many, which you know from the start isn't actually going to mean much in the great sweep of things. If you can ignore that though, or simply don't care, it's fun addition to Mass Effect 3 and a great reason to be excited about whatever new adventure comes next.

Official Xbox Magazine (http://www.oxmonline.com/mass-effect-3-leviathan-review), 8.0/10.

New banter with crewmates and Shep’s love interest more than makes up for the pace-stalling investigation segments, though, as do some tough scuffles with Harvesters, Banshees, and Brutes. And the alluring mystery at the heart of Leviathan is enough to coax you beneath the waves for an all-too-brief taste of one of Mass Effect 3’s most wonder-inducing setpieces. What’s here isn’t radical, ending-altering content, so much as a slightly uneven but deeply worthwhile journey that adds intriguing lore to the series’ canon — and instills a wide-eyed sense that we’re nowhere near done with this universe.

The Controller Online (http://thecontrolleronline.com/2012/08/mass-effect-3-leviathan-dlc-review/), 9/10, though the review doesn't really read like a 9.

The Leviathan DLC carries a hefty price tag for such a short mission, weighing in at 10$ (800 MS Points). With that in mind, I can’t recommend this download to anyone unless you’re really into the lore and backstory of the Mass Effect universe. What is here is enjoyable, it just isn’t worth the amount of money they’re asking for.

Finally, Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5938637/mass-effect-3-leviathan-the-kotaku-review) recommends playing it:

Leviathan is a fun return to Commander Shepard's Mass Effect, but the overall feeling here is that, as good as it is, Shepard's Mass Effect is exhausted. Her cycle is over. This is just good filler. It's time to prepare for the future. And, for the record, I would play L.A. Noire In Space.

[Aotrs Commander]

Well, considering the fact I am unable to maintain connect to EA servers for more than five minutes at a time (and the PC tech forums are filled with enough people having problems playing single-player DLC and problems with Levithan in particular), I think I'm not even going to look at Leviathan at any point in the near future, though it appears from the reviews it has at least hit Bioware's middle-upper-end in terms of quality.

But if one can't play the damn game, quality is rather a moot point...

[TheLaughingMan]

So it seems that Leviathan has left an incredible, long-lasting impression on the fanbase.

[SiuiS]

So it seems that Leviathan has left an incredible, long-lasting impression on the fanbase.

Elaborate please?

[VanBuren]

Elaborate please?

Poking fun about how quiet this thread is despite the major exposition dumped by the DLC.

[Zevox]

Poking fun about how quiet this thread is despite the major exposition dumped by the DLC.
Likely because many posters here had no intention of getting it, and even some of us that do haven't gotten it yet. I intend to, but am playing Persona games right now, and not even Mass Effect can distract me from that. I know SiuiS has stated his intention to get it in the other thread as well, but for whatever reasons of his own is waiting to do so.

Zevox

[Triscuitable]

Buying the DLC on the PC is a convoluted and frustrating process that I don't want to deal with in either ME2 or 3.

[Corvus]

Hrm, EA came out with some interesting comments in an interview (http://www.vg247.com/2012/09/11/bioware-owns-its-creative-culture-is-free-to-make-new-ips-says-gibeau/comment-page-1/)

“Casey is an artist. He made a choice about the story that he [and the team] wanted to tell as related to Mass Effect 3. And we didn’t intervene,” said Gibeau

“The truth is BioWare has developed as BioWare and that creative culture is owned by them. There’s nobody in the central planning committee at Electronic Arts that rolls in the tank divisions [into our studios] when they get too independent or too risky or too thoughtful.”

So is that EA trying to say that all the blame lies with Bioware but not actually coming out and saying it?

[Joran]

Buying the DLC on the PC is a convoluted and frustrating process that I don't want to deal with in either ME2 or 3.

It's not too bad in Mass Effect 3. It involved entering the game, clicking Downloadable Content, getting sent back out into Origin, clicking on the DLC I want and then paying for it.

It was a convoluted annoying process for 2, but well, well worth it since Lair of the Shadow Broker was exemplary.

[SiuiS]

Hrm, EA came out with some interesting comments in an interview (http://www.vg247.com/2012/09/11/bioware-owns-its-creative-culture-is-free-to-make-new-ips-says-gibeau/comment-page-1/)

“Casey is an artist. He made a choice about the story that he [and the team] wanted to tell as related to Mass Effect 3. And we didn’t intervene,” said Gibeau

“The truth is BioWare has developed as BioWare and that creative culture is owned by them. There’s nobody in the central planning committee at Electronic Arts that rolls in the tank divisions [into our studios] when they get too independent or too risky or too thoughtful.”

So is that EA trying to say that all the blame lies with Bioware but not actually coming out and saying it?

Sounds that way. Which just means that both are going downhill, not just the one. Though I'm still leaning towards Leviathan fixing my gripes.


Likely because many posters here had no intention of getting it, and even some of us that do haven't gotten it yet. I intend to, but am playing Persona games right now, and not even Mass Effect can distract me from that. I know SiuiS has stated his intention to get it in the other thread as well, but for whatever reasons of his own is waiting to do so.

Zevox

economic downturn. Microsoft points are just less of a worthwhile purchase at the moment. Istanna Shepard still hasn't left ME1, even.

[Trazoi]

So is that EA trying to say that all the blame lies with Bioware but not actually coming out and saying it?
Kind of but not really; it sort of says both. He's saying EA didn't force any of the creative decisions in ME3 onto Bioware. The interesting part is the sentence before that quote (Kotaku: EA Exec Swears His Company Is Not Evil) (http://kotaku.com/5942024/ea-exec-swears-his-company-is-not-evil), (bolding mine):

Gibeau offers up the controversial ending of Mass Effect 3 as proof of the company's hands-off policies. "Did EA intervene and say, 'Hey Casey, you've got a really interesting ending here to [Mass Effect 3], you're probably going to cause some fans to get upset?" Gibeau said, referring to BioWare executive director Casey Hudson. "No, we didn't do that. Casey is an artist. He made a choice about the story that he [and the team] wanted to tell as related to Mass Effect 3. And we didn't intervene." "It's the same thing with PopCap, it's the same thing with how we reinvigorated [SimCity studio] Maxxis. It's the same thing with DICE. The way it actually really works is those guys report to me and they run their own individual businesses. They have their own individual creative choices. I will give them editorial feedback from time to time. But most of [my] time is spent doing research with customers and fans and understanding what's happening, and understanding how to make our games better."
If true, that suggests Gibeau (EA) knew that the ending of ME3 was going to cause a firestorm before it launched, but both EA and Bioware decided to go with it anyway.

[Seerow]

So, I just beat ME3 for the first time a couple of days ago. I picked up this series really late (starting ME1 around 6 months ago), so I was pretty far behind, and managed to avoid any spoilers beyond "People were really disappointed with the ending".

But anyway, this is my reaction:

I actually wasn't too bothered by Starkid. It was kind of weird to me that the catalyst would take that form, but I could ignore that. I also didn't mind the existence of the three options. Personally my biggest complaint there was presentation.

First, I really didn't like the flat statement at the end that synthetics and organics could never get along. I mean, I can understand that the Catalyst would believe this, but to me a large focus of the last two games (ME2 and ME3) has been on how that statement isn't true. You team up with Legion, and manage to get along with him, and eventually see him sacrifice himself for his people. You have the ability to save both the Geth and Quarians and they proceed to work in peace. You see EDI come into her own as an individual, and develop very real relationships with the crew. After the events of ME3, I would find it very hard to see either EDI or the Geth turning on organics and causing the sort of trouble the Catalyst hints at.

Like I said, I understand the Catalyst holding that opinion, but where a lot of people complain that your actions have no real effect on the ending, this is probably the biggest sticking point to me. There should have been dialogue options to point out that while his predictions played out, given more time the predicted wars have ended peacefully. That organics and synthetics can cooperate-assuming you made the choices that allowed that statement to be true. Something as simple as being able to prove the Catalyst wrong and having him call off the reapers and go into "Wait and See" mode without having to have Shepard sacrifice the reapers to take control would have been to me the "good" ending, that comes about from playing the peacemaker in the game.

As it was, I chose synthesis. As mentioned, I had developed an attachment to EDI and the Geth, and couldn't see myself picking the option to destroy the reapers (which was my intent throughout the whole game) knowing it would destroy them as well. And given the choice between Dying and taking control of the reapers, and taking a huge step forward in the development of the galaxy... well I went with synthesis. I didn't quite like the idea of forcefully changing every living thing in the galaxy, but it seemed preferable to mind controlling a bunch of super advanced robots, which to me felt like something that would likely backfire in the end (Shepard being corrupted by it or some such).


But anyway, yeah. Aside from the actual end, the ending sequence did have some problems, but wasn't too bad. Personally I would have loved to see a little more of some of the more minor characters, but can understand that we didn't. For example the last you see of Bailey is him in his office at C-Sec, saying he feels so much safer that Shepard is around. Sure we can presume that he's gone as of the citadel being taken over, but it would have been nice to see something. And actually, that's one problem with a lot of the ending sequence. We see very limited parts of this big climactic battle. And as far as I can tell, no matter how many war assets you get, the battle plays out the same, you just get more ending options. I mean how cool would it be if you had maxed out your war assets completely and told the catalyst to screw himself, your galactic alliance wins the war anyway? Or as someone else mentioned earlier in the thread, if you save more of the ground forces, it's easier to get to the Citadel?

For the complaints about your choices not affecting the ending, I would be fine with them not drastically changing the ending itself, but still changing how this sequence plays out. I put a lot of time and effort into doing every sidequest in the game knowing that I didn't have access to multiplayer to raise my EMS, it would be nice for those war assets I got to actually make a noticeable difference in the fight, rather than "Well you got everything but your force is still being ripped to shreds". Ideally I'd have liked to see quick cuts of the various forces. Jack and her Students providing some support or artillery; a strike squad of Drell if you save the Hanar homeworld; Aria leading the Terminus fleets to the fight. You have dozens of different factions under your banner if you do everything, but you only see like 3 of them. I understand there's development and space constraints, but just seeing things like that and having them hold up better for them being there would make the whole end sequence feel so much more cohesive with the rest of the game. I think this is kind of what they were trying to go for with the ending slide show, but meh.


One other comment on the game, but not the ending. I didn't really care for how the Genophage thing played out. Okay, I liked the actual execution of Priority: Tuchanka, what I didn't like was how curing the genophage is made out to be the clearly right thing to do. I know I still remember talking about this in depth with Moridin, where it was made clear the Geneophage may drastically reduce reproduction rates, but the entire point of it was to balance the Krogan population, not cause an extinction. Yet everyone in the game (including Moridin!) talks about it like it is a horrible sin. I can understand Wrex feeling that way, but characters who should know better are talking about how we need to do this to save the Krogans, and that just annoyed me.

I would have liked to see a compromise option where you could alter the genephage (again!) to let Krogan numbers grow, but not nearly as quickly. I mean Krogan live to be centuries (maybe millenia?) old, and give birth to hundreds at a time. Even with the genophage making the number of successful births 1 in 1000, you're looking at a fair number of new krogans each year. Curing the genophage combined with their long life expectancies means they overpopulate just about anywhere within a few decades, unless they have constant war to bring it under control. I mean I really didn't like the idea of curing the genophage, but I wound up doing it anyway because the alternative was betraying two old friends for a politician, rather than being able to convince said friends that there was another way.



And I think Im going to stop rambling now.

[RagingKrikkit]

So, I just beat ME3 for the first time a couple of days ago. I picked up this series really late (starting ME1 around 6 months ago), so I was pretty far behind, and managed to avoid any spoilers beyond "People were really disappointed with the ending".

Same camp for me, essentially


I actually wasn't too bothered by Starkid. It was kind of weird to me that the catalyst would take that form, but I could ignore that. I also didn't mind the existence of the three options. Personally my biggest complaint there was presentation.

Once again, same opinion


First, I really didn't like the flat statement at the end that synthetics and organics could never get along. I mean, I can understand that the Catalyst would believe this, but to me a large focus of the last two games (ME2 and ME3) has been on how that statement isn't true. You team up with Legion, and manage to get along with him, and eventually see him sacrifice himself for his people. You have the ability to save both the Geth and Quarians and they proceed to work in peace. You see EDI come into her own as an individual, and develop very real relationships with the crew. After the events of ME3, I would find it very hard to see either EDI or the Geth turning on organics and causing the sort of trouble the Catalyst hints at.

That's one of the classic features of renegade AI, the inability to form new postulates (to put it in mathematical terms)


Like I said, I understand the Catalyst holding that opinion, but where a lot of people complain that your actions have no real effect on the ending, this is probably the biggest sticking point to me. There should have been dialogue options to point out that while his predictions played out, given more time the predicted wars have ended peacefully. That organics and synthetics can cooperate-assuming you made the choices that allowed that statement to be true. Something as simple as being able to prove the Catalyst wrong and having him call off the reapers and go into "Wait and See" mode without having to have Shepard sacrifice the reapers to take control would have been to me the "good" ending, that comes about from playing the peacemaker in the game.

My anger about this tempered massively when I got the Extended Cut, because now I did feel like my decisions actually mattered. And not just the main ending, they also have resolution for your choices with Wrex/Wreav, Jack, the Geth/Quarrians, and so on.


As it was, I chose synthesis. As mentioned, I had developed an attachment to EDI and the Geth, and couldn't see myself picking the option to destroy the reapers (which was my intent throughout the whole game) knowing it would destroy them as well. And given the choice between Dying and taking control of the reapers, and taking a huge step forward in the development of the galaxy... well I went with synthesis. I didn't quite like the idea of forcefully changing every living thing in the galaxy, but it seemed preferable to mind controlling a bunch of super advanced robots, which to me felt like something that would likely backfire in the end (Shepard being corrupted by it or some such).

That's really the selling point of the ending point for me. They give you not a final boss and tell you "kill this", they give you a choice and say "this will affect all life forevermore, choose wisely." I find it a very hard-to-make choice. Those of you who say it's ripped off DE:HR, well, I haven't played it, so I'll have to take your word for it.



But anyway, yeah. Aside from the actual end, the ending sequence did have some problems, but wasn't too bad. Personally I would have loved to see a little more of some of the more minor characters, but can understand that we didn't. For example the last you see of Bailey is him in his office at C-Sec, saying he feels so much safer that Shepard is around. Sure we can presume that he's gone as of the citadel being taken over, but it would have been nice to see something.

Yeah, I was a little confused about the condition of civvies on the Citadel. My guess is that it was swarmed with Reaper forces when they took it, and Bailey probably died trying to protect the people. Probably a Banshee that got him, can't think of much else that would stop him.


And actually, that's one problem with a lot of the ending sequence. We see very limited parts of this big climactic battle. And as far as I can tell, no matter how many war assets you get, the battle plays out the same, you just get more ending options.

At ~2600 effectice strength there is a slightly different variation of the opening battle scene, showing an Alliance ship being destroyed instead of a Reaper one, the dogfight the camera focuses on goes to the Reaper fighter, and you hear a Turian group sending out a distress call as you break for the planet.


I mean how cool would it be if you had maxed out your war assets completely and told the catalyst to screw himself, your galactic alliance wins the war anyway? Or as someone else mentioned earlier in the thread, if you save more of the ground forces, it's easier to get to the Citadel?

This is one I hear a lot, and it has one major flaw. According to the codex, the galaxy has about 50 dreadnaughts (not counting the Quarians' glass cannons). On the other hand, the Reapers have been making, let's play this conservative and say an average of 1 Soverign-class per cycle. There are 20 cycles in every million years, and we know the Reapers have been around for at least 37 million years. That means that there have been at least 740 million Soverign-class reapers, each requiring a massive amount of coordinated fire to bring down. Even a mere Reaper destroyer on a platetary surface (thus with reduced shields) required the combined power of the entire Quarrian fleet to stop. Most of the Codex entries that involve destroying reapers involve blowing them up from the inside. I'm afraid Admiral Hacket is right, there is no way to beat the Reapers conventionally.


I put a lot of time and effort into doing every sidequest in the game knowing that I didn't have access to multiplayer to raise my EMS, it would be nice for those war assets I got to actually make a noticeable difference in the fight, rather than "Well you got everything but your force is still being ripped to shreds". Ideally I'd have liked to see quick cuts of the various forces. Jack and her Students providing some support or artillery; a strike squad of Drell if you save the Hanar homeworld; Aria leading the Terminus fleets to the fight. You have dozens of different factions under your banner if you do everything, but you only see like 3 of them. I understand there's development and space constraints, but just seeing things like that and having them hold up better for them being there would make the whole end sequence feel so much more cohesive with the rest of the game. I think this is kind of what they were trying to go for with the ending slide show, but meh.

Agreed, the battle was a little lacking, without seeing your various forces you had collected, and only getting the three that you are garunteed to bring along. But if you think about the technical requirements, having that would have required models of the Terminus fleets, Elcor infantry, and everything else you can take along, plus sets, animations, sounds... It would have been one hell of a huge thing, and if they had tried it, it probably could have doubled the size of the Extended Cut. Ah, well, that's what fan fiction and head cannon are for.


One other comment on the game, but not the ending. I didn't really care for how the Genophage thing played out. Okay, I liked the actual execution of Priority: Tuchanka, what I didn't like was how curing the genophage is made out to be the clearly right thing to do. I know I still remember talking about this in depth with Moridin, where it was made clear the Geneophage may drastically reduce reproduction rates, but the entire point of it was to balance the Krogan population, not cause an extinction. Yet everyone in the game (including Moridin!) talks about it like it is a horrible sin. I can understand Wrex feeling that way, but characters who should know better are talking about how we need to do this to save the Krogans, and that just annoyed me.

Well, to be fair to Mordin, he says that things have changed, and they need the Krogan without the genophage, but yes, it was a little one-sided. Instead, it almost feels like they tried to distract you with the Dalatrass' request, but I still had a field day with that one. I honestly didn't know which choice I was going to make until Shepard was in the shroud.


I would have liked to see a compromise option where you could alter the genephage (again!) to let Krogan numbers grow, but not nearly as quickly. I mean Krogan live to be centuries (maybe millenia?) old, and give birth to hundreds at a time. Even with the genophage making the number of successful births 1 in 1000, you're looking at a fair number of new krogans each year. Curing the genophage combined with their long life expectancies means they overpopulate just about anywhere within a few decades, unless they have constant war to bring it under control. I mean I really didn't like the idea of curing the genophage, but I wound up doing it anyway because the alternative was betraying two old friends for a politician, rather than being able to convince said friends that there was another way.

How long did it take Mordin to modify the genophage the first time? Anybody know? I'm guessing that it would take a significant amount of time, and most of the galaxy would have fallen by the time it was ready. Not to mention that Wrex is a very stong-willed indivudual, and I cannot see him agreeing to a compromise like that. And even if he did agree, he wouldn't start sending any help to Palaven until it was in place.

[Zanfib]

This is one I hear a lot, and it has one major flaw. According to the codex, the galaxy has about 50 dreadnaughts (not counting the Quarians' glass cannons). On the other hand, the Reapers have been making, let's play this conservative and say an average of 1 Soverign-class per cycle. There are 20 cycles in every million years, and we know the Reapers have been around for at least 37 million years. That means that there have been at least 740 million Soverign-class reapers, each requiring a massive amount of coordinated fire to bring down. Even a mere Reaper destroyer on a platetary surface (thus with reduced shields) required the combined power of the entire Quarrian fleet to stop. Most of the Codex entries that involve destroying reapers involve blowing them up from the inside. I'm afraid Admiral Hacket is right, there is no way to beat the Reapers conventionally.

There are a few problems with this. The most important one is that the Reapers are clearly less powerful their max theoretical numbers would indicate.

The most important indicator of Reaper power is their performance against the cycle immediately before the current one. If there were even 1 million Sovereign class Reapers the protheans would have been conquered in less than a year. Probably less than a month. Instead, it took centuries.

Given that the protheans were fighting from a much weaker position than the current cycle (due to not having access to the mass relays) and that the Reapers would not have been able to significantly increase their numbers in the time between cycles, it seems most implausible that the Reapers would perform better against the current cycle.

Of course I am aware that in ME3 the do perform better against the current cycle, I just don't want anyone to mistake it for a logical element of the story. The Reapers win due to writer fiat, nothing else.

[Calemyr]

Those of you who say it's ripped off DE:HR, well, I haven't played it, so I'll have to take your word for it.

Oh, it is, so very very much.

Here's a quick synopsis of the DE:HR ending.
An organization opposed to the use of cybernetic body augmentation (of which the player character is a poster child) manages to hack into the cybernetics of all augmented individuals, turning them into tech-zombies that turn on everything around them (except possibly the main character). Their goal is to create public sentiment against the technology.

Adam is forced to fight his way through a huge facility out in the middle of the ocean, in a mad dash to turn off the signal broadcasting the hack. The enemies are a bit weaker than normal, but come in much larger numbers and ammo is a real concern.

Anyway, he makes it to the control center of the facility and the AI that's been helping you tells you that turning the hack off is simple, but you're in a position to weigh in on the debate that turned a cyber-cop game into a zombie apocalypse. You can broadcast a mission containing the falsified data the way the hackers intended to, devastating the cause of cyborg rights. You can tell the whole truth, turning the cyborgs from monsters into victims in the public eye. You can send the research you discover on yourself, which makes cyborgs without crippling side effects plausible for the first time in history*. Or you can simply blow the facility up, and leave it to the survivors to determine for themselves what the right course of action is.

Afterwards, you get a monologue by Adam, pondering on what he did and how he did it (largely non-lethal runs have that aspect noted, for instance) and how he hopes his decision will effect the world from this point on.

After the credits, however, a research group is talking about using data obtained on Adam to create a new paradigm for cybernetics, regardless of what choice you make. This is necessary, of course - DE:HR is a prequel, JC Denton's nano-tech had to be invented regardless of public acceptance.

The catch here is that the major themes of the finale are present throughout the game, as are the major players (although not necessarily their real agendas). The game has shown you how cyborgs have ridiculous power and a tendency to psychosis, but it also shows you that they're real people as well.

Also, the rejection ending isn't a big, fat middle finger here (nor made far more blatant by Word of God). Adam's ending isn't a loss, he just doesn't feel he should be making major decisions for the whole world. It's a completely valid and noble way to go.

* I think. It's been a while since I played. It was definitely an option that made cybernetics and humanity mesh better, though.


DE:HR's ending is a ham-fisted switch-up from the game you played to get there, but it did everything ME3 does - even with EC - and does it better. This is in no small part because the ending is part of the story and the story is part of the ending, rather than isolated plots that coincidentally happen to be on the same disc.

[Landis963]

The three choices are: Transmit the truth, leading to a backlash against augmentation tech, blame a known anti-aug organization, leading to a corporate renaissance, or blame it on something else entirely, leading to UN reform and greater control over augments.

EDIT: everything else is right though, especially your analysis of the "Refuse" ending.