The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

[Achilles]

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.

I'll try to describe in brief the things that I liked in Mass Effect 1:

- It had a pretty cool sci-fi plot, one that had a clear beginning, middle and end, with decent escalation towards a good finale.

- It had great villains. Sovereign was the unknown factor, full of mystery. Saren, honestly there were times where you could sympathize with the guy and feel kinda bad for him.

- The story was full of promise. It's kinda like the Matrix, the first one was great but the sequels never lived up to that promise.

- I thought the main characters were great.

- It had more variety. In Mass Effect you had a mix of exploration, talking, learning about the galaxy lore, shopping/customizing your equipment, Mako segments and of course combat. In ME2 it's just mission-talk-mission-talk-sex-mission etc.

- It was more of an action-RPG than a shooter with perks. Not only because your accuracy was partly determined by stats, but also because the mix of percentage of combat to non combat content was different than the sequels.

There are tons of other nitpicks I have but I don't want to bore everyone with them. You'll notice that at no point do I mention combat, it's because I don't care at all how good the combat is. I hate, I loathe, I despise cover-based shooting. The rest of Mass Effect 1 was good enough for me to endure the combat system in order to get to the good parts. In ME2, it wasn't. I'm guessing it's the same for ME3.

TL;DR I'm a sci-fi storyfag people, move along, nothing to see here.

 

[Xor]

... an alternate ending written by a fan.

Bioware's fans confirmed for better writers than Bioware.

Also,

Shepard looks down at her bleeding side, then up at the raging battle above her head.

Femshep is the only shep.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

BIOWARE IS BEST KOREA!

 

[Grimlorn]

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.

I'll try to describe in brief the things that I liked in Mass Effect 1:

- It had a pretty cool sci-fi plot, one that had a clear beginning, middle and end, with decent escalation towards a good finale.

- It had great villains. Sovereign was the unknown factor, full of mystery. Saren, honestly there were times where you could sympathize with the guy and feel kinda bad for him.

- The story was full of promise. It's kinda like the Matrix, the first one was great but the sequels never lived up to that promise.

- I thought the main characters were great.

- It had more variety. In Mass Effect you had a mix of exploration, talking, learning about the galaxy lore, shopping/customizing your equipment, Mako segments and of course combat. In ME2 it's just mission-talk-mission-talk-sex-mission etc.

- It was more of an action-RPG than a shooter with perks. Not only because your accuracy was partly determined by stats, but also because the mix of percentage of combat to non combat content was different than the sequels.

There are tons of other nitpicks I have but I don't want to bore everyone with them. You'll notice that at no point do I mention combat, it's because I don't care at all how good the combat is. I hate, I loathe, I despise cover-based shooting. The rest of Mass Effect 1 was good enough for me to endure the combat system in order to get to the good parts. In ME2, it wasn't. I'm guessing it's the same for ME3.

TL;DR I'm a sci-fi storyfag people, move along, nothing to see here.

Yeah this is what I remember liking about it, but I haven't played it since it was released. There aren't a lot of future sci-fi setting RPGs out there and I haven't read a lot of Sci-Fi novels. So I heard it was based on some kind of novels but it was pretty new to me and I thought that created a pretty interesting setting and races too. I tend to be a storyfag when it comes to RPGs anyways and I could be just viewing this from rose tinted glasses since I haven't played it since it was released.

 

[Angthoron]

What constitutes as a "Synthetic" anyway? Just the AI? Or the VI as well? Or anything that's "synthetic", like prosthetic limbs, complex microchip-driven machinery, computers etc? If it's something specific, like just the AI, how exactly does an energy blast wipe out AI only? And if it's everything, then why not weaponize the tech and bombard planets with it? Send in a drone with a bomb, mask it as some asteroid or whatever, then detonate it and enjoy the REAPENING with zero resistance. This is supposed to be a super-logical synthetic/organic "alloy", right? Did they ever hear about things like path of least resistance over all the cycles? Is the idea behind the SUPER MAGIC SYNTHETIC WIPE SPELL ever explained? Or is it basically a Wizard In Space scenario?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

There's only one way to fix the ending, and that's by ripping off the source material some moar.

After the stupid kid starts monologuing, Shepard pulls out a weird orange sunglass-thingie, calls bullshit, and tells he'll collar-grab the heavens and make his own future.

 

[Xor]

Why not. They already ripped off the epilogue conversation from Gurren Lagann (where it was done better).

 

[Ion Prothon II]

Whoa, they're trying hard.
Too bad player would have to listen all of this voiced by a fucking retarded brat.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

In conclusion, once again: Shepard isn't enough of a man to do the impossible and fight the power.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

http://kotaku.com/5892526/if-games-can-be-patched-why-cant-their-stories?popular=true

Who controls the story of a video game—its writers or its players?

The obvious answer—that a storyteller is a storyteller, end of discussion—has driven some reporters (including me) to condemn and dismiss the widely-circulated fan petition that asks BioWare to change its ending for Mass Effect 3, the popular sci-fi roleplaying game that came out last week for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

But by cutting all discussion and discarding the question as if it were some mathematical equation with an immutable answer, maybe we're doing a disservice to the entire medium. Maybe games can be more than just expressions of auteur theory. Maybe video games can be the first form that allows for the democratization of storytelling.

The only people that think then ending has plotholes are people who know nothing about story telling and the essence of Mass Effect.

You guys have said that the story is Bioware's, and that's bullshit. If it were a petition to change a game like Halo, than I wouldn't support that. You aren't the character, you're simply playing as the character.

But in a game like Mass Effect, where you've played as a custom built character, made decisions that affected the game's story, you've pretty much shaped the story your way. And for it to come to an end, which is ridiculed with inconsistencies, has no true choice(in a game that is all about choice), and simply throws everything you've done out the window, that to me isn't doing justice to my story.

Wait for future dlc to explain that.

Read this. It might clear things up. I'm less upset at the ending looking at it from this perspective.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9727423/1

too be honest if this is the case then i would humbly apologize for the various things ive said about that ending cause i think that is awesome. it would be like receiving hay as a Christmas present at first your like WTF but then your parents tell you that its to feed the hoarse they got you that's out back.

I'm looking forward to a world where fanfics become official content.

 

[Sceptic]

I'll try to describe in brief the things that I liked in Mass Effect 1:

Honestly, your first 4 points look like you're trolling. I mean aside from "sci-fi plot that had a clear beginning, middle and end", which is objective fact, but then I am a little harder to impress than this. The rest however: cool plot? story full of promise? great villains? The setting was pure space opera generica with (almost) every trope played in the most painfully boring way. All relevant aliens are humanoid? check. All alien cultures are stereotypes of pre-existing human traits? check. Every single technological marvel waved away by a single Unobtainium with no regards for what effect any of this shit would have on anything else? check. Oh yeah, and space zombies, because there weren't enough cliches in this plot. It wouldn't have been half as rage-inducing if they hadn't blatantly ripped off Frederick Pohl for the bulk of their story, except that due to transposing it into a generic space opera setting it's all ends up being much more retarded. As for the villains they're among the worst I've seen, and would've definitely been Bioware's worst if they hadn't then gone and released DAO. Saren was a disaster, they couldn't decide whether he was truly MWAHAHAHA evil or just "misguided" so he's just schizophrenic instead, as justified by the most overused, most contrived and stupidest plot cliche ever - mind-control! TNO dissected this in his review pretty well too, and mentioned the biggest problem with Saren: he's just not a compelling villain that you learn to hate, or respect, or just feel you WANT to take down, he's just another obstacle the game throws at you and that you defeat with about the same involvement as the typical geth. Sovereign is another failure, you can see what they were attempting with him (vastly alien intelligence that is beyond humans to comprehend) but bad writing reduces him to just another stupid plot point.

- It had more variety. In Mass Effect you had a mix of exploration, talking, learning about the galaxy lore, shopping/customizing your equipment, Mako segments and of course combat. In ME2 it's just mission-talk-mission-talk-sex-mission etc.
- It was more of an action-RPG than a shooter with perks. Not only because your accuracy was partly determined by stats, but also because the mix of percentage of combat to non combat content was different than the sequels.

These I can agree with however. They don't necessarily make the game great, but it's what makes it more bearable than ME2. And I'm apparently one of the very few people on the internet who realized that most of the planets weren't randomly-generated terrain at all, and learned to use the terrain to get to points of interest without climbing steep mountains, which makes these segments far more enjoyable. Also, ME1's cover mechanics (well not the mechanics per se, but rather the combat mechanics that rely on cover use) are very different from ME2's. In ME1 you can go all guns blazing for most of the game, cover's there for just when you need a breather. In ME2 you HAVE to use cover ALL THE TIME and it's fucking BORING. ME3 seems like a mixture of both actually; I'm not spending as much time in cover as ME2, but it's much more part of the regular gameplay than it was in ME1. Which automatically makes ME3 combat > ME2 combat. Also, more powers, and more things you can do with each power.

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.

Yeah I was surprised by this. The whole Citadel feels much more like a dumbed-down adventure game than an action/RPG or a shooter, but it was well done in terms of how things change after the attack, both visually, in some of the sidequests offered, and in terms of the random chats you hear. It does a MUCH better job at giving the impression that things are getting worse and that there is a war out there, especially compared to say Oblivion. There are also some pretty good bits of characterization, especially with Garrus, Chakwas, Jack (much to my surprise, since I hated her guts in ME2), Liara, and surprisingly even Kaidan (fuck you haters, Kaidan > Ashley). Garrus bromance is well-written, and as much as I hate "character development" I have to admit they pulled it off with Liara and Garrus, and even moreso with Mordin. Chakwas is still a good character, and I'm actually glad they didn't cave in and make her romanceable (ugh. Keep your shitty romances away from good NPCs please). Too bad none of this matters because EVERYTHING to do with the MQ, the Reapers and Cerberus is so utterly, utterly retarded, even by Bioware standards, even by "human reaper" standards. And I haven't even seen the ending yet.

 

[Angthoron]

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over one particular Quarian showing me her face and more,
While I nodded, nearly fapping, suddenly there came an ending,
And my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my lost amour
"'Tis not possible", I muttered, "Shepard would be yet to score!"
Quoth the Dev Team, "Buy some more"

-EA. Poe, "It's In The Game"

 

[CrustyBot]

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over one particular Quarian showing me her face and more,
While I nodded, nearly fapping, suddenly there came an ending,
And my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my lost amour
"'Tis not possible", I muttered, "Shepard would be yet to score!"
Quoth the Dev Team, "Buy some more"

-EA. Poe, "It's In The Game"

 

[Clockwork Knight]

http://kotaku.com/5892493/unlikely-fan+fiction-crossover-battle-commander-shepard-versus-sephiroth

Through the door came a man with spiky blonde hair, a blue uniform, and carrying an enormous sword on his back. But what drew Shepard's attention were his eyes. They were the same glowing green as the enemy's.

"The man you encountered, the one with the black coat and giant sword, is named Sephiroth, and he is far deadlier than anything you've ever encountered."

oh, fuck yes.

 

[racofer]

I'm looking forward to a world where fanfics become official content.

http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/

 

[Volourn]

"Who controls the story of a video game—its writers or its players?

The obvious answer—that a storyteller is a storyteller, end of discussion—has driven some reporters (including me) to condemn and dismiss the widely-circulated fan petition that asks BioWare to change its ending for Mass Effect 3, the popular sci-fi roleplaying game that came out last week for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

But by cutting all discussion and discarding the question as if it were some mathematical equation with an immutable answer, maybe we're doing a disservice to the entire medium. Maybe games can be more than just expressions of auteur theory. Maybe video games can be the first form that allows for the democratization of storytelling.​

The only people that think then ending has plotholes are people who know nothing about story telling and the essence of Mass Effect.​

You guys have said that the story is Bioware's, and that's bullshit. If it were a petition to change a game like Halo, than I wouldn't support that. You aren't the character, you're simply playing as the character.

But in a game like Mass Effect, where you've played as a custom built character, made decisions that affected the game's story, you've pretty much shaped the story your way. And for it to come to an end, which is ridiculed with inconsistencies, has no true choice(in a game that is all about choice), and simply throws everything you've done out the window, that to me isn't doing justice to my story.​

Wait for future dlc to explain that.​

Read this. It might clear things up. I'm less upset at the ending looking at it from this perspective.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9727423/1​

too be honest if this is the case then i would humbly apologize for the various things ive said about that ending cause i think that is awesome. it would be like receiving hay as a Christmas present at first your like WTF but then your parents tell you that its to feed the hoarse they got you that's out back."
​

STUF STFU STFU STFU

 

[LoPan]

Hay is only gonna make the hoarse worse.

 

[racofer]

ME3's ending is open to interpretation. Bioware now = master story tellers.

 

[CROmagnon]

This ending could have worked O.K. I guess

At least the Biodrones would have slit their wrists.

 

[racofer]

This is it. Shepard was indoctrinated.

There are two major signs of indoctrination. Nightmares and hearing voices in your head. Shepard has both of those in ME3. There is also a third sign in ME3, introduced via the Rachni Queen. She claims that the color of the noise of indoctrination is an oily black. During the final conversation with Illusive Man, the edges of the screen show an oily black.

I also remember that at some point, close to the end of ME3, Vega mentions that he's hearing voices in the hangar bay, another sign of indoctrination.

Shepard's implants are probably Reaper tech as well.

 

[CROmagnon]

Who knows. There are elements that point to that conclusion but if true it's the most half-assed mindfuck attempt I ever saw. It would be actually cool to have Shepard indoctrinated, to have him kill most of his crew and friends while having visions of fighting husks or whatever.

But I think we are reading too much into it. They probably just wrote themselves into a corner and tried to be deep and wanted to have some kind of twist but pussied out and cut it in the end. Now that I think about it, the ending comes so out of nowhere and is such a hackjob, it reminds me a little of the KOTOR II ending. Not in terms quality or theme just incomplete and rushed.


Also..

I know this is from a couple of pages back but i can't resist

Anderson jokes about Shepard putting on a few pounds at the beginning of the game.

 

[racofer]

Biodrones are now going crazy over this: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26913187/end003_catalyst_m_D_Int.033.ogg

You can clearly hear male/fem shep's voice along with the child's.

The whole ending was an illusion!

 

[Grimlorn]

I'm looking forward to a world where fanfics become official content.

With DA2 and ME3 aren't Bioware writers just fanfic writers? I bet some of the fanfics are even better than what Bioware has been writing.

 

[treave]

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.

Still waiting for dgaider to PM me an offer, it would be a delight to work with the inspirational Bioware writing team.

Off the cuff, one could actually flesh it out by saying the Prothean beacon is the equivalent of a computer game which is played mentally. Tailors its plot around settings the player lives in/is familiar with for maximum immersion.. Humans can't handle the stress, so Shepard's nerves are fried and he's trapped within the hallucination without knowing it and with no way to get out.

Would also explain the similarity of characters in every Bioware game. Kaidan was never actually a Carth type in the real Mass Effect world, he just develops that way in Shepard's mind because the beacon has a limited assortment of characters, personalities and backstories with which to populate its world.

Wow, Bioware are best writers ever.

This is it. Shepard was indoctrinated.

There are two major signs of indoctrination. Nightmares and hearing voices in your head. Shepard has both of those in ME3. There is also a third sign in ME3, introduced via the Rachni Queen. She claims that the color of the noise of indoctrination is an oily black. During the final conversation with Illusive Man, the edges of the screen show an oily black.

I also remember that at some point, close to the end of ME3, Vega mentions that he's hearing voices in the hangar bay, another sign of indoctrination.

Shepard's implants are probably Reaper tech as well.

I haven't played the ending myself but the evidence they present for the theory is quite convincing. I was wondering if Bioware have abandoned the tried-and-tested, extremely popular 'ending slideshow' in favour of cinematic endings, but this means there's still a chance they'll sell that as "FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO EVERYONE IN MASS EFFECT" DLC and make a huge bundle out of it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You mean there's a chance? You can bet your ass they're going to sell an epilogue DLC.