The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

I think it's far more likely that the IT was just one of several ideas they had for development. Considering what a mess ME3's narrative is, they probably had no idea how the game was going to end during pre production, so they just planned out a bunch of set pieces that could be put together in any order with minimal changes and then wrote the beginning and ending during development. That explains why the beginning and ending are such a fucking mess, why the various missions for the most part have nothing to do with each other, etc. The game is a mess because they couldn't figure out how to satisfyingly end the series.

If they were really going to do the IT, it's also pretty likely it would have been the standard Bioware end of act 2 twist and would have been completely resolved at the beginning of act 3.

Also, they wouldn't get into legal trouble for changing the series from 3 games to 4. That's fucking stupid.

 

Yeah.

ME3's ending didn't bother me much because I honestly didn't see a drop in quality. It seemed to be the same mediocre sci-fi fapping from all of ME2 and ME3. The original game was considerably better to my mind, but that might be because I'm a sucker for the music.

 

It sounds stupid because it fucking is stupid. Your understanding of the law is so egregiously wrong that I don't even know what to say.

 

Stupid as it is, they did get sue for false advertising, and IT would have made a really strong case in court, plus the people that would have felt cheated out of their choice at the end because they picked another "color" would have been yet another mess they would have had to clean up. Thats why they debunked it themselves.
The only reason the IT made it was because the lead writer was given complete creative freedom to write it, Bioware would have never approved a thing that would have left so many people out.
There is no denying its there unless you didnt play the game or werent paying attention, i meant its RIGHT THERE. the visual effects, the matching descriptions that wouldnt have been added otherwise, the whole plot set up, everything.

Night Goat Its not my law to understand you laughable piece of shit (i still love you tho <3). But if they say "this is green", and you buy it because they told you it was green, and then it turns out its red, it is, in fact, false advertising/fraud.

 

Not saying it would have a shot in court, but i doubt that was the intent, it was probably to raise awareness, which does have a bite.

 

Sued for not finishing a story arc? If that's is true, I wonder when the Firefly fans will get a clue.

 

Bioware PR outright promised a lot of stuff, it turned out to be word by word a lie, down to the description of the ending, saying it wouldnt be like it ended up being, textbook false advertising.

Not even sure if the law punishes that sort of thing in kwa, but thats pretty much what happened. Of course it was out of incompetence, misinformation or both and a lot of bad luck and not out of malice, but shit happened.

 

I'm sure that the first thing the Judge will say right before dismissing the claim is 'Its just Videogames, bra'.

 

Plus you can never tell when a judge son is a mass effect player, a codexer, or worse, smudboy.

 

First of all, how many game companies do you see getting sued for not delivering things they stated in their marketing? Because game companies lie in their marketing all the fucking time. Gamers don't give a fuck about this stuff, and I doubt you'd even be able to find a lawyer willing to go to court over something like this.

But really, take a step back from this lawsuit stuff for a second. Why the fuck would Bioware plan the plot of the 3rd game intending to extend the trilogy if they weren't going to be able to release the game in that state? Or do you really think Bioware's management and legal department wouldn't be aware of the writers' plans until it was too late? And beyond that, if they had really wanted to go with the IT, why would they have to leave the story unfinished? If it was so important that they had this grand vision, why didn't they just change the 3rd act to reveal Shepard was indoctrinated and have the characters overcome the problem in the 3rd act?

There is no direct ingame evidence in ME3 that Shepard is indoctrinated, just a few unexplained things like the dream sequences, and when you step back and look there's actually a bunch of evidence that Shepard isn't indoctrinated. Face facts - Bioware's writers are hacks. You are defending people who don't deserve it. I don't expect much more of you, though. Anyone self deluded enough to actually believe in the indoctrination theory has a tenuous grasp of reality themselves.

 

If anything, I thought the fact that the prothean AI on the Asari homeworld was able to detect whether or not someone was indoctrinated (since it outright stated so and shut down in response to the arrival of Kai Leng) would outright disprove this.

I've heard people try to excuse this through some bizarre argument of "He's only partially indoctrinated so it didn't notice", which only really shows to me that all Indoctrination theory really is is a blanket excuse to try and hide all of Bioware's poorer writing decisions in the later games. Since the indoctrination process itself is fairly vague and not well explained in any of the games, you can just plop it over all the plot holes in the series and just say "Indoctrinated!". It's basically just a sci-fi equivalent to "It's magic, I don't have to explain shit".

 

Hey the indoctrination theory at least seemed like a fun way to justify Bioware's ineptness over the fact that the ending sucked.
Its like the people claiming that Elvis is alive...

 

But you werent even close to being indoctrinated at the asari world, you just had the early signs of being so in occasional nightmares. Ninja boy was indoctrinated.
And it is fairly well explained, either tru datalogs, the bug queen, etc. Every sign being present there, the fact that they forced the dlc into being an important piece of the third game when it literally brought nothing but the possibility of an indoctrinated shepard. Its just too easy to say yes to that theory because it has strong basis, when the reasons for saying the opposite are weak as fuck.

Xor As i said, the lead writter had complete and total creative freedom, they didnt even knew what the ending was going to be like at release, they didnt care, the dude made them tons of money and they trusted him.
As for companies getting sued for no reason, granted, its true, but its a matter of image, a lot of those companies are small, indie and players dont give a fuck. bioware is big, had a lot of expectations hanging on their shoulders and their whole value literally comes from their renown as good writers (as fucking funny as that may be). Now add revolting writing to false advertising into their biggest title ever, and it does not look pretty.

As for IT, name shit that debunked it before the extended cut. give me a list, something as big as the whole world around sheppard shifting a bizzarro nonsensical dreamlike thing that was described before by in game documentation and interactions. Extended cut was just a bandaid to prevent further loses.

 

We see several indoctrinated characters in the series. Some of them seem to act normally except that they're working toward the reapers' ends, and some are little more than zombies. But the fact is, we never see indoctrination from the perspective of the victim, nor is it really clear what goes on in their heads, so we don't know what it would look like.

From the codex entry on indoctrination:

These are all so vaguely worded that you could attribute anything to them. I have stress-related headaches and tinnitus, I must be getting indoctrinated!

As far as I remember, Shepard never had feelings of being watched or hallucinations of ghostly presences, unless you think a completely ordinary-looking kid as being "ghostly". And please don't say "but the dreams", as hallucinations are by definition not dreams.

Shepard never did any of this, that we saw. You can argue unreliable narrator all you want, but if we're going that route I could make a much more convincing argument that Shepard was injured when he was buried under rubble at the end of the first game and the entire rest of the series was just his coma dreams. Hey, it explains away pretty much all the plot holes in the series, so it's obviously it must be true!

Beyond that, every case of indoctrination we saw in the series occurred with people who were in reapers or near reaper artifacts. Shepard wasn't near a reaper long enough to actually be indoctrinated any time during ME3. Unless you think someone can be partially indoctrinated and then set loose for the process to finish on its own, but not only is there no evidence of that whatsoever, it also directly contradicts how indoctrination is described to actually work.

You're not making any sense. The lead writer had complete creative freedom, so they wouldn't let him do the game with the IT as the plot? Or did the other writers want to do the IT and the lead writer came in and stopped them? I think it's pretty naive to assume that the higher-ups wouldn't be aware of what the game's plot was at every stage of development. EA isn't exactly famous for their hands off style of management when it comes to a game's content.

I still don't buy your reasoning about changing the game's plot based on legal fears, by the way. Not only is there no real world evidence the game's plot was changed from the indoctrination theory to something else, but there's no evidence EA ever had legal concerns about ME3's content, or that Bioware was ever considering trying to release a 4th mass effect game continuing the story. Your entire reasoning for the plot to be changed is nothing but pure conjecture, not supported by any real world facts and built around the myriad of inconsistencies and plot holes ME3 is littered with because it's a half-finished half-assed game made by hacks with delusions of grandeur.

And that's why the indoctrination theory is bullshit.

 

Shepars wasnt indoctrinated, he fought it, for months, slowly messing with his mind. Yeah, the boy was an hallucination, unless you believe in teleporting brats besides space magic that is stablished 5 minutes before the end of the game, or psychic holograms that take the form of your darkest deepest fears along with visions of an impossible escape from an all desctructive magical force. And this is right after shepard shoots Anderson and is wounded in exactly the same place for no reason.

The Rachni queen talked about the oily figures that shepard saw, which were a dead giveaway. Shepard never betrayed his friends because he was too strong to simply be indoctrinated, and that strenght takes him into the final fight. gravely wounded, with all hope lost his will falters, and thats when the conversion kicks in, and the only way to avoid it is to fight it with every fiber of your being, both green and blue where about what had tempted Saren and Tim, red was about resisting them no matter what.
It is also stablished that indoctrination can work on a long term, and the slower it is the more time it allows the victim to...
Fuck it, i just found a video, watch it if you want to waste more time on the stupid franchise, i be done. I really dont care about what you retards chose to think or not.



PS: Bioware writers are bad, they are not infinitely stupid. How could they make more mistakes on the last 15 minutes of the final game than in the entire trilogy.

 

And that's why I love ME3 ending. It's bioware-bad as it is, yes. But it raises discussions, all those indoctrination theories and others. ME3 is rather interesting, sometimes in butthurt ways, big ending for banal shit boring ME1 and console popamole ME2. Overall it's a nice interactive B-movie, I think.

 

My indoctrination theory:
EA flagship (Developer Devourer I) parks over planet Bioware and send a subliminal message: Mass Effect 3 will start on earth for marketing reasons. Illussive man and space ninja are going to be main villains for marketing reasons. The plot will be about saving earth for marketing reasons.There need to be a boy dead for Marketing reasons. Focus groups are always right.

People on the Bioware planet: Thanks EA for giving us creative freedom and allowing us to make a great game. We had a great idea, Mass Effect 3 will start on earth, a boy will die then you save the earth and the Illusive man will be the end villain. Thanks for giving us creative freedom, we love you.

 

Sued over not providing the expected story =DDDDDD.

As for the ending of Mass Effect 3, that was an absolute classic. Almost as good the "then you wake up and it is was all a dream" ending. Space ghosts and machine gods who decide to have a chat with the chosen one

 

Suing for storyline seems unlikely to succeed - Bioware never stated that they were using a particular ending, and the promises they did make 'your choices count' are vague enough to not amount to anything. It's like the woman who tried to sue the movie studio who made 'Drive' because the film wasn't actually a car racing film like the Fast and the Furious.

But more broadly, gaming has got a hell of a free ride (compared to other industries) when it comes to misleading and deceptive conduct, largely because consumers haven't known their rights, those that do take legal recourse tend to be nutters suing over not getting the story ending they wanted, and fair trading prosecutors who don't understand the games. But they're getting a lot more conscious of this than they once were. Remember when it wasn't 'that' uncommon for a game box to blatantly promise something like multiplayer and leave it out completely, or post recommended specs that were utterly inadequate? Now that's something you could easily sue over (though there'd be no point for an individual gamer - at most you'd get a portion of the purchase price back; if a fair trading prosecutor took it up though, the company could get hurt).

 

This shit still happens. It's not uncommon even now for big publishers to release completely broken buggy games and make vague promises to fix their shit with patches over an unspecified period of time. Look at Rome 2, or Colonial marines. That's not even mentioning the crap indie developers can pull, releasing alpha games with malware attached then going out of business before anything is "fixed".

 

It's been what, 2 years since the ME3 debacle? All I remember was that the indoctrination theory not only required a lot of wishful thinking and confirmation bias, but even if you were willing to do all the mental gymnastics needed to accept it, you still ended up with something far worse than the shitty ending taken at face value.

 

This thread needs moar lulz.

How about this:
It's called "Mass Effect" because the writers all have brain tumors.

OLOLOLOL

 

Actually, this Indoctrination Theory Documentary video makes more sense and is made better than the ME3 extended cut DLC.