Mass Effect 3

[BobSmith101]

I think what the guy is in the article is missing , is that there are two parts to Mass Effect. The plot, and the game mechanics. While there was no need to "rewrite" Shepard from the plot aspect, from the game mechanics in ME left no such "wiggle room" as he puts it. When they wrote Baldurs Gate the first chapter was capped in ME I think you could get to level 40 , not really a good posistion for a planned trilogy.

[Janmanden]

I don't think there is any level limit to ME. I've got an old game where I imported my ME character and continued to level 58.. Nice thing about ME is that the import is as is, completely as it was, except for Renegade/Paragorn points being nullified, but then again dialogue is not tied to the RP meter, but to the Charm and Intimidate skills.

 

---

 

I don't really mind that you start from scratch in a new game and that it's only the choices of past games that is carried over, but it would be nice if you could skip the tutorial each time or maybe have some CHOICES.

 

---

 

I wonder would it really be so hard to be able to choose between different HUD's and skill layouts of past ME games.. So you could play with the skills and setup of ME, ME2 or ME3 in later games, thus choose the design you liked.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Janmanden

[Enoch]

ME2's strenght was in the quality of the polish, the gunfights were fun, even if cover was grotesquely misused. Other than that a space opera, awkward romancing, some small semblance of a plot, nothing worth analysing though.

I think you're selling some of the writing short. The plot-heavy stuff was indeed dire, but the character writing had its high points. Mordin and Legion were interestingly written. Garrus, Grunt, and Samara were largely cliches, but they were well executed cliches that fit well with the overall space-opera mileu. Even some of the more minor characters managed to be memorable, like the cops you meet on the citadel in the missions for Samara and Thane.

[BobSmith101]

Heres the running animation set to music.

[Morgoth]

Heres the running animation set to music.

 

Holy **** this made my day!

[Janmanden]

That's bloody hilarious.

[BobSmith101]

ME2's strenght was in the quality of the polish, the gunfights were fun, even if cover was grotesquely misused. Other than that a space opera, awkward romancing, some small semblance of a plot, nothing worth analysing though.

I think you're selling some of the writing short. The plot-heavy stuff was indeed dire, but the character writing had its high points. Mordin and Legion were interestingly written. Garrus, Grunt, and Samara were largely cliches, but they were well executed cliches that fit well with the overall space-opera mileu. Even some of the more minor characters managed to be memorable, like the cops you meet on the citadel in the missions for Samara and Thane.

 

I think ME2 makes sense IF you accept the premise that the purpose of the Reaping is to create another Reaper. Had things gone to plan, the majority of the galaxy would have been wiped out, some retained and liquidised as Reaper "fuel" and the rest husked and or turned into the next version of the collectors.

In a way this is smart. We can call the collectors "plan B" in case the Citedel gambit fails for some reason.

 

What makes it utterly pointless though is the time scale. Plan A and plan B have failed and plan C is to just gather up and take an extra 3 years to get to the point where they would have been if the citdel plan had worked. For an immortal race that's nonsensical , why go through all the trouble of A and B when C works and is far more direct.

 

Had the game been about the story and not about Shepard the super human bad ass, then ME and ME2 would have bought the galaxy the time it needed to prepare (maybe 100 years or so making ME3 VERY different) But in ME3 no preperations just "oh look the Reapers are here". You're in no better position at the begining of ME3 than you would have been had Sovereign won and the Reapers come through 3 years ago.

[Janmanden]

Plan C.. I think you forget that it's vital to the Reapers that they manage to erase all traces of their master plan and leave no witnesses alive to record the horrors of it. I guess the Reapers somehow exploit the fact that all spacefaring races use their technology and they are thus somehow able to quarantine and isolate each harvest zone during the raid. Using the Mass Relays to swiftly conqueror and annihilate each system is proabably a vital part of that plan. If they had to travel from system to system wihout the use of the Mass Relays there would be too much time left for the affected systems to sound the alert and make preparations for an escape or hide records of the imminent doom for future generations.. Like the Protheans somehow managed to do with their Beacons and sanctuary on Ilos..

 

The Reapers may be able to track any spacecraft by a Mass Effect signature, but considering the existence of the Prothean ruins on Ilos they do have some limitations.

 

But.. Considering the premise of ME3, as shown by the demo so far, it seems that careful planning of the harvest have failed already. Maybe this is the first time that humanity is reaped and thanks to Shepard we seem like such a sweet treat that all the Reapers hurry beyond reason and caution in a bid to get a fair share of the human goodies, before it's too late.. They are just machines, but they are also AI's and broken. Sovereign was both delusional, suffering from visions of grandeur and having a grudge with Shepard. That's pretty broken up for a machine.

 

Shepards problem is that he is the only one who have had any dealings with the Reapers and since he can't prove their existence (and as long as none of the crew members count in any way; they have experiences and could offer testimony too) he just seem like a madman to the rest of the galaxy.. until it's too late, but maybe it isn't this time.

 

Yawn. Just reaching for straws..

[Maria Caliban]

Mass Effect 2: Plot analysis 1 of 3

 

From link:

I

Edited February 16, 2012 by Maria Caliban

[HoonDing]

But.. Considering the premise of ME3, as shown by the demo so far, it seems that careful planning of the harvest have failed already. Maybe this is the first time that humanity is reaped and thanks to Shepard we seem like such a sweet treat that all the Reapers hurry beyond reason and caution in a bid to get a fair share of the human goodies, before it's too late.. They are just machines, but they are also AI's and broken. Sovereign was both delusional, suffering from visions of grandeur and having a grudge with Shepard. That's pretty broken up for a machine.

 

Shepards problem is that he is the only one who have had any dealings with the Reapers and since he can't prove their existence (and as long as none of the crew members count in any way; they have experiences and could offer testimony too) he just seem like a madman to the rest of the galaxy.. until it's too late, but maybe it isn't this time.

They are not just machines, though, they're more a hybrid of organics and machine. They've been harvesting organic life for millions of years like the Borg from Star Trek (the first harvested race probably the one that created them in the first place). With the knowledge of all these highly advanced civilizations they wiped out (compared to which humanity are just a bunch of hicks in comparison) one'd expect them to be have several contingency plans available if plan A, B or C backfires.

 

For instance, since the Reapers originally built the mass relays, wouldn't they be able to shut them all down if necessary, winning immediately? Yet they attack Earth directly and come off as simply attacking Earth because they have a grudge against Shepard.

[Morgoth]

How can a supreme machine entity even have a grudge against a meatbag? Either way, BioWare certainly didn't really think that that whole trilogy story arc through from the start.

[HoonDing]

They shouldn't have made the Reapers that powerful to begin with. Sovereign soloed the entire Citadel Fleet in ME1, and was only destroyed because he turned into an evil Kermit the Frog.

 

Now there's hundreds of Reapers in the galaxy, they could easily take the entire galaxy by sending one each to each star system. If they weren't severely powered down, that is.

 

Then again, one should wonder why the Reapers bother anyway. The Protheans had a galaxy spanning highly advanced civilization that unlocked the mystery behind the mass relay technology, humanity/asari/salarians/etc. are nothing in comparison. Yet humanity gets handpicked because Shepard is so awesome.

Edited February 17, 2012 by virumor

[Morgoth]

If the Reapers are so supreme and powerful to begin with, they sure like to waste their time wiping out galactic civilizations by dropping their asses down on the planet and laser-shoot each target individually.

 

I would have done it differently, but hey...

[Gorgon]

ME2's strenght was in the quality of the polish, the gunfights were fun, even if cover was grotesquely misused. Other than that a space opera, awkward romancing, some small semblance of a plot, nothing worth analysing though.

I think you're selling some of the writing short. The plot-heavy stuff was indeed dire, but the character writing had its high points. Mordin and Legion were interestingly written. Garrus, Grunt, and Samara were largely cliches, but they were well executed cliches that fit well with the overall space-opera mileu. Even some of the more minor characters managed to be memorable, like the cops you meet on the citadel in the missions for Samara and Thane.

I do kindof hope Col. Tigh makes a reappearance.

[Janmanden]

Well Morgoth, for the indoctrination effect of the reapers to have an effect they probably need to rub their 'asses' on the ground.. To wipe their backsides with a few million people.. As mentioned somewhere in the game those indoctrinated people also serve to catch those that remain in hiding.. So the plan is probably to grind Earth into organic paste and get the humans to reap and heard themselves as well..

[WorstUsernameEver]

ME2's strenght was in the quality of the polish, the gunfights were fun, even if cover was grotesquely misused. Other than that a space opera, awkward romancing, some small semblance of a plot, nothing worth analysing though.

I think you're selling some of the writing short. The plot-heavy stuff was indeed dire, but the character writing had its high points. Mordin and Legion were interestingly written. Garrus, Grunt, and Samara were largely cliches, but they were well executed cliches that fit well with the overall space-opera mileu. Even some of the more minor characters managed to be memorable, like the cops you meet on the citadel in the missions for Samara and Thane.

I do kindof hope Col. Tigh makes a reappearance.

 

Will he

discover he's actually a Geth?

 

[Gorth]

Well if the auto switching is well thought out you will always be in the POV you wanted. Not likely, but possible.

 

I'm not sure there is any. Unless they are very careful with what screenshots are released it's something that people will easily be able to see prior to release and judge themselves.

 

Came across the orginal post make of it what you will.

 

"It's a runtime memory cost, not a disk space issue. You need those anims for the non-combat areas... so they're going to be on disk regardless.

 

In order to support exploration in the combat areas, you'd need to have all the anims loaded in memory... so that would be things like the 8-way walks, runs, incline anims, idles, idle twitches, male/female variant overrides, eye noise... etc.

 

All in all (iirc) it came out to around 2-4MB, which is relatively significant. Also, as you've guessed, yes - I'm referring to the main game (as well as the demo"

A shame there is no source for the above. Otherwise I would point at that next time somebody claims the game isn't aiming for lowest common denominator when developing for multiple platforms

[Deraldin]

A shame there is no source for the above. Otherwise I would point at that next time somebody claims the game isn't aiming for lowest common denominator when developing for multiple platforms

 

You mean like this?

Edited February 17, 2012 by Deraldin

[Gorth]

A shame there is no source for the above. Otherwise I would point at that next time somebody claims the game isn't aiming for lowest common denominator when developing for multiple platforms

 

You mean like this?

Yes

[BobSmith101]

Well if the auto switching is well thought out you will always be in the POV you wanted. Not likely, but possible.

 

I'm not sure there is any. Unless they are very careful with what screenshots are released it's something that people will easily be able to see prior to release and judge themselves.

 

Came across the orginal post make of it what you will.

 

"It's a runtime memory cost, not a disk space issue. You need those anims for the non-combat areas... so they're going to be on disk regardless.

 

In order to support exploration in the combat areas, you'd need to have all the anims loaded in memory... so that would be things like the 8-way walks, runs, incline anims, idles, idle twitches, male/female variant overrides, eye noise... etc.

 

All in all (iirc) it came out to around 2-4MB, which is relatively significant. Also, as you've guessed, yes - I'm referring to the main game (as well as the demo"

A shame there is no source for the above. Otherwise I would point at that next time somebody claims the game isn't aiming for lowest common denominator when developing for multiple platforms

 

Well as an ex PC gamer there is no way I would bother spending the money on what passes for a PC game now. I'm not saying console games (at least those not from Japan) are any better quality wise, but they have the advantage of being easy to return and or rent.

 

This overly long console cycle is mostly the fault of the publishers. One of the main culprits being EA. Obviously they make more money in an established console market, than one "starting over".

There is also a wide gulf in the talents of developers in just what they can make a consoles limited hardware do. In many ways thats a flaw in PC gaming since developers will always take the easy option and push the upgrade costs onto the user.

 

In the end it's a silly sort of arguement obviously PCs are "better" but that wholly depends on what you are willing to pay and that will ultimately be many times the cost of a console over the course of 5-6 years.

Edited February 17, 2012 by BobSmith101

[BobSmith101]

Plan C.. I think you forget that it's vital to the Reapers that they manage to erase all traces of their master plan and leave no witnesses alive to record the horrors of it. I guess the Reapers somehow exploit the fact that all spacefaring races use their technology and they are thus somehow able to quarantine and isolate each harvest zone during the raid. Using the Mass Relays to swiftly conqueror and annihilate each system is proabably a vital part of that plan. If they had to travel from system to system wihout the use of the Mass Relays there would be too much time left for the affected systems to sound the alert and make preparations for an escape or hide records of the imminent doom for future generations.. Like the Protheans somehow managed to do with their Beacons and sanctuary on Ilos..

 

The Reapers may be able to track any spacecraft by a Mass Effect signature, but considering the existence of the Prothean ruins on Ilos they do have some limitations.

 

But.. Considering the premise of ME3, as shown by the demo so far, it seems that careful planning of the harvest have failed already. Maybe this is the first time that humanity is reaped and thanks to Shepard we seem like such a sweet treat that all the Reapers hurry beyond reason and caution in a bid to get a fair share of the human goodies, before it's too late.. They are just machines, but they are also AI's and broken. Sovereign was both delusional, suffering from visions of grandeur and having a grudge with Shepard. That's pretty broken up for a machine.

 

Shepards problem is that he is the only one who have had any dealings with the Reapers and since he can't prove their existence (and as long as none of the crew members count in any way; they have experiences and could offer testimony too) he just seem like a madman to the rest of the galaxy.. until it's too late, but maybe it isn't this time.

 

Yawn. Just reaching for straws..

 

The issue was really not so much in what they do when they get there, but rather how they get their within a specified time frame. It's clearly not the Reapers goal to wipe out all organic life. If that were the case , they could easily have done so. The Reapers are more like farmers (maybe thats the reason for the name :D) they let the Galaxy fatten up for 50k years, then go reap the results. They always leave behind the non advanced races so the cycle can continue next time.

 

Since it's not an exact sceience, there is always a chance that a civ discovers something, or a remarkable individual appears and throws a spanner in the works. Perhaps that is the reason for the citadel gambit. Or maybe initially when there were few Reapers , that was the only viable strategy (that certainly makes sense).

 

With the numbers the Reapers have now and with the intel. from the advanced scout (Sovereign) the whole citedel thing, which only appears to shave 3-5 years off the arrival time seems like a giant waste of time.

 

That is what leads me to believe that the Reapers have a set of directives. Which they follow in order much like a program.

 

1. Citadel Gambit

if 1 fails then

2. Enslaved/changed organics from previous cycle (collectors).

if 2 fails

3 Mass invasion

 

Quite why the reapers need to do this, I've only got 2 theories.

 

1. They need the organics as some sort of "fuel"

2. They are corrupted AI and are just doing it because they have no choice.

 

Ulitmately if the answer is 1 then the most effective way to beat the Reapers is to eradicate all Organic life in any particular cycle. It's extreme, but it would end the threat once and for all because without the Organic fuel the Reapers would be about as useful as a car with no gas.

Edited February 17, 2012 by BobSmith101

[Raithe]

Now there's hundreds of Reapers in the galaxy, they could easily take the entire galaxy by sending one each to each star system. If they weren't severely powered down, that is.

 

Something from the Art of the Mass Effect Universe book - The "Reaper Destroyers" that are actually doing most of the "landing on planets" in ME3 are actually only around 160 meters tall/long. As compared to Sovereign's 2km.... So there's possibilities on just how Reapers are divided into what sort of categories/purpose, and how powerful or not.

 

I would imagine that Sovereign might be an ultra-powerful Reaper because of the role he was supposed to play in regards to the Reaper-Plans... We don't know how Harbringer relates to Sovereign, since he was only around as a presence possessing Collectors..

[Janmanden]

Plan C.. snip-snip-snip-snip

 

The issue was really not so much snip-snip-snip.

 

Since it's not snip-snip-snip.

 

With the snip-snip-snip.

 

That is what leads me to believe that the Reapers have a set of directives. Which they follow in order much like a program.

 

1. Citadel Gambit

if 1 fails then

2. Enslaved/changed organics from previous cycle (collectors).

if 2 fails

3 Mass invasion

 

Quite why the reapers need to do this, I've only got 2 theories.

 

1. They need the organics as some sort of "fuel"

2. They are corrupted AI and are just doing it because they have no choice.

 

Ulitmately if the answer is 1 then the most effective way to beat the Reapers is to eradicate all Organic life in any particular cycle. It's extreme, but it would end the threat once and for all because without the Organic fuel the Reapers would be about as useful as a car with no gas.

 

Oh, I.. snip-snip-snip.

 

---

 

Ahem, well, yeah, okay, long version, the Reapers.. Or just Sovereign are definitely broken machines, erm, AI's. The only reason the Alliance fleet were able to beat Sovereign, as Virumor also mentioned, was because it had a moment of weakness, when it assumed control of Saren, was beaten and left itself vulnerable to attack.. Seems a bit weird that this AI is so slow, stupid and single-threaded.. Only capable of controlling one entity at a time and with a massive delay in context switcing.. Huh?! I though Legion said that each Reaper was like a nation of millions of independent programs, maybe they need 50.000 years to process them all, before they can return.. Okay, erm.. that's.. just.. Silly. I guess in that light it might be quite possible that the Reapers got some pretty simple conditional statements for event handling. I just hope that Shepard finds a Div By Zero command to beat the reapers.. Hehe.

 

I think, that the Reapers need advanced civilizations that have evolved using Reaper technology to ensure compatibility of the raw materials that the Reapers need to grow as 'individual' nations.. The Reapers, being machines and all, have some obvious limitations for growth.. They need Mass Effect fuel and resources or they begin to rust or something..

 

Maybe that piece of Mass Effect technology that was discovered on Mars was just a Mass Effect seed that the Reapers had planted, thus waiting for Earth to advance to such a level that they would know how to use it, care for it, and in by doing so, they are now part of the menu, humanity is food, because it's spiced up with Reaper Tech. The ME seed has turned into a nice little flower.. So when someone says that they consume all organic life, they just mean any Mass Effect powered civilizations who has reached that level of technological advancement that the Reapers need, I presume.

 

There is a lot of things that doesn't make sense in Biowares tale like the 50.000 year cycle. I wonder if Bioware assumes that 50.000 years is plenty of time for any microbe to evolve into a space-faring nation.. Unless the Reapers sow new humans or other forms of life our civilization will be lost forever.. Just like the Protheans.. Aha.. I guess the Reapers don't sow anyone.. That's why they look like erm, some omnivorous insect.. They just plant that ME seed and wait for someone to make it grow and then they swoop in and scoop it all up and put a big X on the planet and move on. Well.. hm.. The part of infinite space where this game takes place must be a cornucopia of organic sentient lifeforms, because otherwise I think it would have been depleted by now.. Space would be littered with galaxies full of old and forgotten Mass Relays and Citadels.. It would take billions of years before there would be life on earth again and it's more likely that the sun will go nova and obliterate it all before that happens, I guess, but I wasn't paying as much attention in Biology and Geology as I should have so I could easily be wrong of course.. It's also a bit weird that 'lesser' civilizations who hasn't found the ME seed yet haven't been scooped up by other slawe-trading races like the Batarians.. Maybe the Mass Relay to the milkyway or just Earth needs to be activated by the ME seed, before it's ready.

 

My head hurts.

[Hurlshort]

I can't believe you guys are still overthinking this stuff. It's just a game, yo.

[Janmanden]

There is no spoon.. but this is a game.. should it be a reaper spoon and how big should it be.. and blah-blah-blah.