The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9809289/2

BSN are grasping at straws so hard that they're hoping that Shepards dreams and exposure to reapers are all building up to the "real" ending in which the god kid reaper was trying to indoctrinate Shepard. In his mind, Shep was hallucinating that he was on the citadel and the fans are speculating that the destroy ending means that Shep overcomes the indoctrination because the other endings all kill Shepard regardless of EMS count. In other words BSN are denying the ME3 ending and substituting it for Peter fucking Chimaeras Doom fanfic.

John Shephard waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were reapers in the base. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to council were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
John was a space marine for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the spaceships and he said to dad "I want to be on the ships daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY REAPERS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the citadel he knew there were reapers.
"This is Anderson" the radio crackered. "You must fight the reapers!"
So John gotted his palsma rifle and blew up the wall.
"HE GOING TO KILL US" said the reapers
"I will shoot at him" said the harbinger and he fired the laser. John plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.
"No! I must kill the reapers" he shouted
The radio said "No, John. You are the reapers"
And then John was a reaper.

 

[Father Walker]

Given all this I'd say Bioware's writing ability is not overrated but rather a farce perpetuated by it's drone fans who want to believe their precious series is anything more than 1930s pulp grade fluff at best.

STOP RIGHT THERE. 30's pulp is WAAAAAY out of reach for Bioware's writers. If they did anything nearly as good as Howard/Lovecraft/etc. I'd be cumming buckets over BSN.

*sees shower scenes*

How the fuck do you make lesbians BORING?

Also, why no gay shower scene?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Just putting it out there, but the recurring thought I've had throughout the franchise's development was that they've never had a single idea where to take it and just hastily pulled the first thought out of their deluded asses whenever a deadline hit it with a smack. No planning ahead, just winging, then making up some insane shit when called out on their incompetence... or ding dong bannu'ing, as it were.
Looking at the bigger picture, what shitty excuses for human beings...

It's obvious they planned absolutely nothing. There's countless plot points and foreshadowing that go nowhere, characters and organizations (Liara and Cerberus) who make dramatic changes on a whim and things that come out of nowhere and then as quickly as they come disappear(Collectors).

Have to bring out my Blazblue/Mass Effect comparison again for this:

Since we're on the subject of writing,one of the most embarrassing things about Bioware and it's alleged "great writing" is that a fighting game developer like Arc System Works has proven to be more capable at planning out a more cohesive story with their Blazblue series than they have with ME.

Here's an example,

Blazblue 1's ending: Establishes Hazama/Terumi as the main antagonist of the next game with Tsubaki(another future playable character) as his subordinate tasked with assassinating members of the NOL(the organization they both work for) who happen to also be her friends.

Blazblue 2: Low and behold Hazama/Terumi is the main antagonist of the game and Tsubaki is out attempting the assassinations.

Now let's compare this to Mass Effect.

Mass Effect 1 ending: Establishes that the council and/or Udina/Anderson recognize the Reaper threat and are preparing for war.

Mass Effect 2: Council and Udina go full retard with "ah yes reapers" and now Shepard is out fighting a new enemy that has never been mentioned before and is working with a near-nonexistent developed irrelevant side quest faction from the first game.......what the?

Another amusing thing is that Blazblue's characters have far more dialogue than Shepard's squadmates do with each other. Yes, a fighting game excels at character interaction over an "RPG" that's sold on having an in-depth story.

Given all this I'd say Bioware's writing ability is not overrated but rather a farce perpetuated by it's drone fans who want to believe their precious series is anything more than 1930s pulp grade fluff at best.

Not to mention that BlazBlue is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy better at "emotional engament" than Bioware has ever been. For starters, there's the scene where Hakumen meets Tsubaki (again).

 

[racofer]

Just finished the game. Insanity, level 60 adept, paragon.

Fun pop-a-mole like the second, a little better actually on the gameplay part. I picked the synthesis ending where Shepard jumps into the beam of light and fuses his dna with synthetics to create a new form of life throughout the galaxy.

Green exploshun, Reapers leave Earth, relays explode, Normandy gets stranded into a remote planet. However, this ending presented something I had no seem in any other discussion.

The Normandy door opens, Joker steps out of it with glowing green eyes, lots of green "tech" on his skin. He's walking normally and doesn't seem to be affected by his bone disease anymore. EDI comes right behind him, they hold hands and look towards the sunset.

Then Ashley also steps out of the ship and the game ends with that derpy planet scene with Stargazer speaking to the dwarf. I didn't see that last cutscene where Shepard's body is shown and he takes a breath though.

did you miss the parts of the game where joker and EDI go out on dates at the citadel, dancing and shit? theres even a whole conversation about how joker and EDI are in an official relationship. this is all way before the synthesis ending too

Nope, I saw that. I even motivated them to get together.

 

[Xor]

Yeah, to be fair, there were a few characters that I liked in ME3. EDI is visually designed as fap material (like all female characters in the ME series aside from chakwas), but conversations with her were always interesting. Garrus had some great bro moments, especially this conversation he has with guido marine on the Normandy. Ash's new look is dumb but she was still fun to talk to.

Also, I thought the non-combat areas (by which I mean the citadel) were done well, with all the refugees crowded everywhere and all the people having random conversations as you walked by.

Maybe there are at least one or two good decent writers left at Bioware.

 

[Toffeli]

Tali getting drunk was also pretty fun. Happens after the mission on horizon.

 

[Azalin]

The discussion between Joker and Garrus was pretty good too,oh and the part where Joker asked Liara if Asari hair tentacles moved

 

[Xor]

Tali getting drunk was also pretty fun. Happens after the mission on horizon.

Ah, yeah, I forgot about that one. Doesn't really make up for the nonsensical suicide scene, though.

 

[Father Walker]

It's kinda funny that both Krogan are among most interesting and decently written characters in ME

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Not really fun but Emotionally Engaging(tm): Kelly the "secretary" from Me2 aids the refugees at the citadel. You can talk to her a bit and encourage her to stay. Later during a raid she gets executed by a random Cerberus soldier who asks her what her name is and just shoots her in the head when she does. You hear some refugees talking about that later.
I guess she never was the brightest.

 

[Commander Xbox]

Not really fun but Emotionally Engaging(tm): Kelly the "secretary" from Me2 aids the refugees at the citadel. You can talk to her a bit and encourage her to stay. Later during a raid she gets executed by a random Cerberus soldier who asks her what her name is and just shoots her in the head when she does. You hear some refugees talking about that later.
I guess she never was the brightest.

you can save her if you tell her to get a new identity, but its a renegade option

 

[Mrowak]

Yeah, to be fair, there were a few characters that I liked in ME3. EDI is visually designed as fap material (like all female characters in the ME series aside from chakwas), but conversations with her were always interesting. Garrus had some great bro moments, especially this conversation he has with guido marine on the Normandy. Ash's new look is dumb but she was still fun to talk to.

Also, I thought the non-combat areas (by which I mean the citadel) were done well, with all the refugees crowded everywhere and all the people having random conversations as you walked by.

Maybe there are at least one or two good decent writers left at Bioware.

Yeah, the middle of the game was the area when most logical stuff happened, even if half of it was against cannon creating plothole the size of New Jersey. If you forgot that the story demanded from you to be in a hurry and fuck everything else, that is. They really dropped the ball by starting with Reaper invasion on Earth, and then continuing it on other planets with them falling before our own world. Derp.

BTW Xor, can I use your findings on ME clusterfuck lack of cohesion next time I turn up on Bio boards?

 

[Toffeli]

I was somewhat amused by this also

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Damn Femshep has a gigantic ass.

 

[Toffeli]

Aside from the humours gags (I have to stay there were more than few of them), the only memorable moment was with Mordin. The finale scene with him did bring a genuine smile to my face, especially when he started to hum his song from ME2.

Also this
http://social.bioware.com/forum/Mas...in-Should-Have-Written-the-End-9815218-1.html

 

[DwarvenFood]

So close yet so far.

The guy misses the mark by just a bit. The truth is, the entirety of Mass Effect after Shepards got hit by a Prothean mind beam back on Eden Prime has been a dream... or rather, a fantasy. He nearly died, and since humans couldn't take the stress of comprehending a direct alien imprint on their nervous system it scrambled his brain and left him delusional and paraplegic. Losing all your SAN points, one might say. The Sovereign he saw on the planet was a geth warship. Saren did betray the Council. But the role of Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance, in stopping the second Geth incursion and Saren's betrayal ended that fateful day on Eden Prime when his mind was fried by the Prothean beacon.

All the players had seen and played through were events in a medical center that had been filtered through the character's addled brain, aided by the lingering effects of the Prothean beacon. Imagining hospital staff as the members of his party. Getting transferred to another medical center (The Cerberus Center for Rehabilitation of Orphans) for surgery to try to repair both his mind and body (didn't work, but he had a near death experience). Imagining 'Collectors' when in truth they were just a projected metaphor for his caged mind (all those frozen colonists mean something) which is unable to collect its thoughts.

By the time the third game rolls around, his subconscious has begun slowly knitting itself together and emerging as the form of the child (it's a white boy even if you are playing EXTREME Shepard/Femshep because fucking Jung or something). The Reapers are constructs of his mind that are controlled by his subconscious and given power by the Prothean beacon's effect on his mind. They are there to keep him fried (or indoctrinated, which is a big, big hint in the games that all is not what it seems) because deep down he doesn't want to regain clarity, he's afraid.

Therefore the 'Destroy' ending is the best ending because he overcomes those mental blocks and begins his way to recovery (he survives). If he becomes an AI he will succumb and not even be able to perceive the fantasy world he has set up - he'd go comatose, his mind truly no more - this is the worst ending. Synthesizing allows him to continue living in his fantasy world as a literal god as he recognizes his own power over his fictional creation, symbolized by jumping into the beam and becoming part of everything in a wave of energy; combining events of the real world and his own desires, adding his filter of bias, and synthesizing the story that we see in Mass Effect - that is the meaning of synthesis.

The DLC will only be tagged onto the Destroy ending and it will depict Shepard not being a drooling retard anymore and you have QTEs to help him with his physical rehabilitation.

This is some epic stuff, did you get any job offers yet ? Combining Inception and Shutter Island in a way I would have never imagined, please explain to me the upcoming DLC that will reveal who of the characters is an imaginary friend.

 

[CROmagnon]

Damn Femshep has a gigantic ass.

Speaking of asses....

DAT ASS, DAT ASS never changes.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The thing is, Femshep's ass looks pretty grotesque.

 

[CROmagnon]

Her hips are too wide/big for someone that is suposed to be very fit and thin. It looks OK when she has body armour on because the torso piece is pretty bulky, but if you put her in an evening dress she looks ridiculous.

 

[Achilles]

Maybe she's hiding something between those hips.

 

[Xor]

That's the scene I was talking about a few pages back. DAT ASS Effect. I don't remember the camera doing that in ME2; maybe because I didn't talk to Miranda very often, she's hardly a compelling character.

The genophage cure mission was probably the best in the entire game. In retrospect it shouldn't have surprised me that everything went downhill after Mordin died.

BTW Xor, can I use your findings on ME clusterfuck lack of cohesion next time I turn up on Bio boards?

Sure, although you'll probably only get banned DING DONG BANNU'D for your trouble. And I have a feeling the conversation would end up being dominated by lore-obsessed fanboys dismissing one or more of the plot holes, pretty much missing the point of the list entirely.

Also, I added this point to the list after a comment several pages back.

-Way back in ME1, the counsel took the witness testimony of Shepard along with a single recording that could have easily been faked recovered from a race of sentient machines that nobody trusted, and that was all it took to convict one of their most trusted special agents. If a simple recording can have that much impact, why didn't Shepard or any of the Normandy crew record any of the conversations with Saren, Benezia, or Sovereign?

 

[dextermorgan]

BTW Xor, can I use your findings on ME clusterfuck lack of cohesion next time I turn up on Bio boards?

Sure

Coming up: Mental Gymnastics World Championship 2012

I can't wait.

 

[sea]

No offense, but I don't think you understand why some people think Mass Effect 1 is the best in the series. It's not a case of rose-tinted glasses, it's that you're focusing on the aspects of the game that really don't matter that much to ME1 fans.

So what is it? Because honestly, aside from the more coherent plot (that is, it has one and it mostly makes sense), lack of constant melodrama/romance everywhere, and decent world-building, pretty much everything is worse in Mass Effect 1. Most people say "the decisions you make matter" but honestly, there aren't really any more than Mass Effect 2 and 3.

 

[Toffeli]

 

[Xor]