Mass Effect 3

[Volourn]

"BUT, I also see where everyone else is coming from. When 90% of the fans of a 50K poll stand up and say...this is soooo Volourn....I'd say anyone in their right mind should probably stand up and listen. Even if I think I know where bio was coming from with the ending, I also agree the ending was handled pretty badly. That Bio has acted so arrogantly thus far in regards to their fans is even more infuriating however...and seems pretty awful. "

 

I don't give a crap about what the amsses think. I'm not a lemming. Espciaily since I've played a ton of BIO games and this is ending isn't even in the top 5 worst ones for them. L0L

 

It's one thing to say the ending was 'dissapointing' but the garbage speweed is beyond stupid.

 

 

P.S. Like the game or not, like the ending or not; the game is 100% complete. Why do people say silly stuff? Reminds of the NWN2 OC/KOTOR2/ETC garbage. these are complete games whetehr you like them or not.

[Calax]

You want nerdrage? Forumites have decided to go to the FTC and file false advertizing complaints against Bioware over it's treatments of the ending.

[Volourn]

I know. And, it's pathetic.

[Bos_hybrid]

If that's the case we're suffering a serious drop in standards and expectations. At the same time PST, BGII and the rest turn in their grave.

 

ME 1,2 & 3>BG 1&2

 

m about 4 hours into ME3 and so far... its much worse than me2. does it get better or is this game considered way worse than the second?

 

To me, it's better than ME2 in most ways apart from the ending. (Characters could be another one depending on taste)

 

Forumites have decided to go to the FTC and file false advertizing complaints against Bioware over it's treatments of the ending.

 

Some people have too much time on their hands.

[Morgoth]

All this rage only proves one thing: That the fanatics do care about BioWare and despite all the threats they're making (that was the last Bio game I ever bought!), it will only further serve BioWare to create more hype and awareness and therefor more sales.

 

Heck, they even make a movie about it.

 

Is gonna be fun when the DA2 haters crawl out of their holes once DA3 is gonna get announced.

[Drowsy Emperor]

ME 1,2 & 3>BG 1&2

 

Volourn hijack your profile?

[Gorth]

ME 1,2 & 3>BG 1&2

 

Volourn hijack your profile?

Doubtful. There was no NWN in there.

[Bos_hybrid]

ME 1,2 & 3&--#62;BG 1&2

 

Volourn hijack your profile?

 

Them's fighting words.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Bos_hybrid

[Giantevilhead]

It's funny how people complain about the ending nullifying all your choices but ignore the fact that the game already makes ME 2's main plot pointless. Think abou it.

 

1. Collectors were a major asset to the Reapers and stopping them would seriously hurt the Reapers, right?

 

Nope, there's nothing in ME 3 to suggest that the destruction of the Collectors was a big setback for the Reapers. In fact, the Reapers arrived just a few months after the Collectors were destroyed.

 

2. Destroying the Collectors made Shepard an even bigger hero, helped bring more attention to the Reaper threat, brought the different races together, and gave the galaxy a much better chance against the Reapers, right?

 

Nope, "The Arrival" completely wiped out all the goodwill Shepard got from destroying the Collectors. People continue to ignore Shepard's warnings and remain ignorant of the Reapers. Everyone is still unprepared.

 

3. This awesome team you gathered against the Collectors will be a huge asset and continue to fight with you against the Reapers, and that gives me an extra incentive to keep them alive, right?

 

Nope, the whole team disbanded and went their separate ways after "The Arrival" DLC. A few of your team members do some cool stuff but most of them have other stuff to do and can't/won't fight alongside you.

 

4. Surely, the decision to keep or destroy the Collector base was significant, whether or not Cerberus is still on my side no doubt depends on it, right?

 

Nope, Cerberus becomes evil. Destroying the Collector base has no real consequences. Keeping it gives you access to a different ending that's mostly same with the "best" ending.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Giantevilhead

[Raithe]

Throwing in a mix of devil's advocate here..

 

1. Collectors were a major asset to the Reapers and stopping them would seriously hurt the Reapers, right?

 

The Collectors were an asset, in that they do genetic profiles of the alien races - They kidnap various creatures and perform experiments on them over the years that the Reaper's are in Dark Space. Thus providing intelligence that the Reapers use to plan their "invasion sweeps". Also highlighting which races are suitable for uplifting to "full Reaper", which to send to the lesser reapers, and which to use just for the various Husk models.. Plus they can act as a form of early "fifth column". Since they had already provided the majority of that data to the Reapers, the only thing you get by wiping them out is stopping their "early collection" of humanity and removing the potential fifth column aspect.

 

 

2. Destroying the Collectors made Shepard an even bigger hero, helped bring more attention to the Reaper threat, brought the different races together, and gave the galaxy a much better chance against the Reapers, right?

 

It made Shepard a bigger hero to the human alliance, and not even all of them. Half the universe couldn't really be bothered, and how many of them actually heard about it? It's not as if it made the Galactic News, to most people outside the Terminus the Collectors are pretty much an Urban Myth. And for the majority of the game, people thought Cerberus might be behind the missing colonies. Whilst Shep might have been willing to work with them over it, everyone else still saw Cerberus as that shady, terrorist organisation.

 

3. This awesome team you gathered against the Collectors will be a huge asset and continue to fight with you against the Reapers, and that gives me an extra incentive to keep them alive, right?

 

The team wasn't gathered to fight the Reapers later. They were brought forth as being uniquely skilled, that could potentially be useful on a suicide mission.

None of them really expected to make it out alive. So seeing as you likely solved a lot of their personal issues, as well as keeping them alive - They needed time to unwind and figure out where/who they were in the galaxy after it. Combien with Shep most likely dropping them off before he handed himself over to the Alliance. Since pretty much most of the team have criminal pasts and he couldn't be guaranteed they'd be let free on his say so.

 

Although, when you get down to it, each Loyal Crew member who is alive is worth 25 War Assets. Hell, some entire fleet's are only worth a couple of hundred.. I'd say that's going to count for something. Just because their skills might be more useful in not-quite-so-direct ways. Such as Kasumi's technical knowledge helping the Crucible Project (and her ability to find/acquire useful items that might not be shared otherwise).

 

4. Surely, the decision to keep or destroy the Collector base was significant, whether or not Cerberus is still on my side no doubt depends on it, right?

 

Partly that comes down to more of a roleplaying choice. What type of person your Shepard is. Does he think the shortcut and potential dangers are worth it? Will he put principles first and not worry about whether he can trust the Illusive Man?

Although on a strictly numbers game, the Collector base can provide a couple of nice boosts to your War Assets if you saved it. If you don't, you only get access to the.. Reaper Heart I believe, which is about 100 War Assets worth. If you saved it, there's about triple the War Assets in Reaper-tech of some sort.

[Guest Slinky]

While I'm sure the story has it's share of plot holes, just one has been bothering me. How exactly the reapers showed up so fast in the galaxy? Did it take them, what, two and half years after ME1?

 

Where they even needed the citadel then if they could just joyride in to galaxy when they felt like it?

[Nepenthe]

While I'm sure the story has it's share of plot holes, just one has been bothering me. How exactly the reapers showed up so fast in the galaxy? Did it take them, what, two and half years after ME1?

 

Where they even needed the citadel then if they could just joyride in to galaxy when they felt like it?

They actually only take off at the end of ME2, so less than that.

 

The Citadel's purpose is twofold, first it allows them to decapitate the society with a surprise attack to its nerve centre, second it gives them control of the mass relays. So the difference this time is that they can't wipe out the council and everybody else before anybody has realised they exist and that Shepard can travel around gathering forces for a single attack instead of allowing the reapers to destroy spacefaring races system at a time.

[Guest Slinky]

Oh, right. That was explained in ME1 wasn't it. Been a while.

[Nepenthe]

Oh, right. That was explained in ME1 wasn't it. Been a while.

I'm pretty sure Vigil explains it towards the end.

[Giantevilhead]

Throwing in a mix of devil's advocate here..

 

1. Collectors were a major asset to the Reapers and stopping them would seriously hurt the Reapers, right?

 

The Collectors were an asset, in that they do genetic profiles of the alien races - They kidnap various creatures and perform experiments on them over the years that the Reaper's are in Dark Space. Thus providing intelligence that the Reapers use to plan their "invasion sweeps". Also highlighting which races are suitable for uplifting to "full Reaper", which to send to the lesser reapers, and which to use just for the various Husk models.. Plus they can act as a form of early "fifth column". Since they had already provided the majority of that data to the Reapers, the only thing you get by wiping them out is stopping their "early collection" of humanity and removing the potential fifth column aspect.

 

 

2. Destroying the Collectors made Shepard an even bigger hero, helped bring more attention to the Reaper threat, brought the different races together, and gave the galaxy a much better chance against the Reapers, right?

 

It made Shepard a bigger hero to the human alliance, and not even all of them. Half the universe couldn't really be bothered, and how many of them actually heard about it? It's not as if it made the Galactic News, to most people outside the Terminus the Collectors are pretty much an Urban Myth. And for the majority of the game, people thought Cerberus might be behind the missing colonies. Whilst Shep might have been willing to work with them over it, everyone else still saw Cerberus as that shady, terrorist organisation.

 

3. This awesome team you gathered against the Collectors will be a huge asset and continue to fight with you against the Reapers, and that gives me an extra incentive to keep them alive, right?

 

The team wasn't gathered to fight the Reapers later. They were brought forth as being uniquely skilled, that could potentially be useful on a suicide mission.

None of them really expected to make it out alive. So seeing as you likely solved a lot of their personal issues, as well as keeping them alive - They needed time to unwind and figure out where/who they were in the galaxy after it. Combien with Shep most likely dropping them off before he handed himself over to the Alliance. Since pretty much most of the team have criminal pasts and he couldn't be guaranteed they'd be let free on his say so.

 

Although, when you get down to it, each Loyal Crew member who is alive is worth 25 War Assets. Hell, some entire fleet's are only worth a couple of hundred.. I'd say that's going to count for something. Just because their skills might be more useful in not-quite-so-direct ways. Such as Kasumi's technical knowledge helping the Crucible Project (and her ability to find/acquire useful items that might not be shared otherwise).

 

4. Surely, the decision to keep or destroy the Collector base was significant, whether or not Cerberus is still on my side no doubt depends on it, right?

 

Partly that comes down to more of a roleplaying choice. What type of person your Shepard is. Does he think the shortcut and potential dangers are worth it? Will he put principles first and not worry about whether he can trust the Illusive Man?

Although on a strictly numbers game, the Collector base can provide a couple of nice boosts to your War Assets if you saved it. If you don't, you only get access to the.. Reaper Heart I believe, which is about 100 War Assets worth. If you saved it, there's about triple the War Assets in Reaper-tech of some sort.

 

But none of that addresses the fact that the main plot of ME2 had very little if any impact on ME3.

 

The premise of the Mass Effect 2 is that the Collectors are a big threat tied to the Reapers, destroying them is of the utmost importance, the future of the galaxy may depend on it, blah blah blah. Well, ME3 tosses all that out the window and ignores the premise of that game. You gave some reasonable explanations for why ME2's main plot didn't have an impact on ME3, but that's not the point. The point is that it didn't have an impact, the why is not relevant.

[BobSmith101]

While I'm sure the story has it's share of plot holes, just one has been bothering me. How exactly the reapers showed up so fast in the galaxy? Did it take them, what, two and half years after ME1?

 

Where they even needed the citadel then if they could just joyride in to galaxy when they felt like it?

They actually only take off at the end of ME2, so less than that.

 

The Citadel's purpose is twofold, first it allows them to decapitate the society with a surprise attack to its nerve centre, second it gives them control of the mass relays. So the difference this time is that they can't wipe out the council and everybody else before anybody has realised they exist and that Shepard can travel around gathering forces for a single attack instead of allowing the reapers to destroy spacefaring races system at a time.

 

Then you have to wonder if they are as strong as they make out why the need for subterfuge? The problem with ME as a whole is tiime has no meaning,nor does anything you accomplish in any of the games. Both ME and ME2 were relying on ME3 to give shape to those earlier actions.Something ME3 failed to do.

 

You had the perfect X-com type scenerio in the making.At the start of ME the enemy was an unknown factor, through the game you fill those blanks and at the end you even aquire a Reaper to reverse engineer. The Reapers plan A fails and they are stuck where ever they hang out.

ME2 becomes the Reapers plan b. At the end of ME2 you have even more stuff you could reverse engineer and more Reaper data , plus you added some more Reapers to the kill count.

I skipped arrival,so I can't really comment too much on it. But it looks like another delaying action.

 

Cue ME3 , where you are now tooled up to fight the Reapers but you still have to convince everyone to aim in the same direction. Not disimiliar to FFX-2 where you have the threat of Vendagun but people are still caught up in their squabbles. We see through the game that the Reapers are not that strong at all and we discover a key structural weakness. But we are not allowed to do anything with it. Only follow the pre-set path and pick a colour,which renders anything we did before pointless and arguably leaves things worse than if the Reapers had "won".

[Nepenthe]

... overanalysis...

[Raithe]

And for those who might have missed it.

 

Casey Hudson's letter to the ME community:

 

There

[BobSmith101]

And for those who might have missed it.

 

Casey Hudson's letter to the ME community:

 

There

[Raithe]

Could someone point out the sweet bits ? I seem to have missed them.

 

I thought the whole Tuchanka: Shroud mission was really well done. The mix of humour from Wrex, the bittersweet nature of Mordin, the well-paced action sequences between the two moods..

 

The way they wove in previous squad mates into the story depending on whether they survived/were loyal or not was nicely handled. I might have wished for more, but what was there was quite smoothly done.

 

Dealing with the Quarians and Geth felt quite satisfying. Well, right up until the ending made it feel there was no real point to having done it..

[Nepenthe]

There are no sweet bits there, the attempt is to make some of the uproar calm down. As someone pointed out, some of the more visible criticism towards the ending (Forbes) is starting to leak to the front pages in search engines even in general searches for Mass Effect 3, and not just Mass Effect 3 Endings. I think it's slowly dawning on them that a big part of their good customers are now spitting mad, and this isn't just a vocal minority making waves. I'm sure their assessment of the situation is still "oh, it'll blow over, it always does", but there are starting to be aspects that are difficult to ignore. Frankly, if they don't grab this opportunity to make a DLC/"Enhanced Edition" that's gonna sell like hotcakes, they are more arrogant and less cynical than I'd dared assume.

 

Edit: Fail on my part, I assumed sweet bits in the post. Raithe points out the sweet bits in the game, but the ending is indeed devoid of them.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Nepenthe

[BobSmith101]

Could someone point out the sweet bits ? I seem to have missed them.

 

I thought the whole Tuchanka: Shroud mission was really well done. The mix of humour from Wrex, the bittersweet nature of Mordin, the well-paced action sequences between the two moods..

 

The way they wove in previous squad mates into the story depending on whether they survived/were loyal or not was nicely handled. I might have wished for more, but what was there was quite smoothly done.

 

Dealing with the Quarians and Geth felt quite satisfying. Well, right up until the ending made it feel there was no real point to having done it..

 

Sorry, I meant in the endings.

[Raithe]

Ah well.

 

In the endings.. yeah. I can't really say.

 

Hm, the music isn't half-bad for what they're attempting to do. But there's no sense of closure (at least, none that I really picked up) and it pretty much seems to invalidate all the sacrifices you made getting there.

[Guest Slinky]

Casey Hudson's letter to the ME community:

 

We always intended that the scale of the conflict and the underlying theme of sacrifice would lead to a bittersweet ending

[Raithe]

I can deal with the whole "sometimes crud happens, no matter what you do." and having dark endings. What I find horrible is the fact that your choices don't actually play into it in anyway, and you get no closure or sense of what happens after the events.

 

If only they'd done one of their epilogues that gave some rough sketches of how people/events shaped because of your choices, even after giving you a blue/orange/green ending.