The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

[861129]

Haven't played ME3 and haven't read much about it, though from playing the demo it seems Bioware sadly went back to its roots. In any case I was specifically talking of ME2. Following that, I also don't know if there is any change to the concept of death in ME3, but it is quite clear in ME2 that despite Shepard's resurrection death is in no way made trivial. The specific goal of the Lazarus project was to revive Shepard and no one else, which drew considerable means and ressources, enough so that a shady organisation like Cerberus with seemingly unlimited ressources at its disposal is said to have taken a huge gamble with it. No one outside of Cerberus appears to know about it, it is unknown if it could be run again on someone else but it would likely be unpractical, and then there are many clinical conditions that may need to fulfilled to apply to the project because for all we know the whole thing was custom-made for Shepard. As far as I know, it was humanity's one-time shot to bend the rules and bring back their hero, and it likely won't be repeatable anytime soon and not for just anyone.​

​

The story devolves into frivolous walking in and out of rooms the moment Sherpard's death is used purely as a device to cancel out the previous game and its weight as a theme shrugged off. I don't know if that's enjoyable, especially as the main plot is a goddamn shambles in every other way as well.

Come to think of it, why couldn't the Lazarus project be run on someone else as well (other than the fact that Miranda chooses to kill the Lazarus guy in cold blood despite his immense value as a scientist and without giving him a chance to explain his nonsensical betrayal)? Shepard's body must have been ruined by crashing through the planet's atmosphere and onto the surface. If they can resurrect Shepard, it seems the method could at least be developed for use with other patients.

 

[DragoFireheart]

The butthurt on BSN is fantastic and hilarious! This is getting even more entertaining than the game itself

- Perhaps this is a secret decline: as game companies become more shitty, more drama from moronic fans is the end result. And it's free.

So, the decline of gaming = free entertainment?

 

[racofer]

For us, at least.

 

[Rhalle]

ME1 actually had a pretty strong ending.

Of course it's not usual to kill a character so you can ressurrect him in the first ten minutes of an installment; the death part would be the end of the first installment, and the resurrection would come at the beginning of part 2.

I'd guess they did it for the new players, and because they wanted to avoid the Reapers for the second part.

Anyway, the IT is fucking dumb Biodrone shit, of course. But for all the attention I've paid to ME lately, I only finally stumbled on the "Beings of Light" theory yesterday, which explains the ending of ME3 conclusively, so I shall make a big-ass post about it.

In ME1 there's a planet description that states that an eccentric Volus billionaire had visions of a planet on which were buried "beings of lIght"; in his visions they told him that they had existed since the beginning of time to protect humans against "devil machines". He goes to this planet and spends a zillion credits excavating it and building a mercenary army to fight the machines he thinks are coming.

The entries describe "crypts of the beings of light":

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Klencory

Also of note is that in ME1, when talking to Wrex after picking up Liara, he will mention having done a mission for Saren, who at that point appears already indoctrinated:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QuAjnrpf64

He says the mission was in the Terminus System, and it was to hit a massive cargo freighter. Not long after the ship was taken, Saren killed all the mercenaries he had hired. Wrex doesn't go into any details, apparently getting such a bad vibe from Saren that he left without even getting paid, so he has no idea what Saren found. The idea, of course, is that Saren was out there looking for whatever the Volus might have dug up, sort of like he was doing on Eden Prime, and the volus trading vessel you find scanning was the cargo ship that Wrex attacked.

For full disclosure: Klencory is in the Kelper Verge, which is apparently not in the Terminus System.

So maybe Wrex's story is relevant; maybe it isn't. The nail in the coffin, however, is a Tweet from the Bioware community manager, Jessica Merizan, who was asked on Twitter if Star Brat was a VI:

"its presumed to be a being of light (see ME1 lore)"

So that's it. Game Over. Not if you are a baindead Biodrone , I guess, but that's it. Can't be much clearer than that.

The big question is, then: who are the "devil machines"? Seeing that Star Brat made the Reapers, who are synthetics, to save humanity, there must be another big bad machine race out there in the galaxy-- unless one assumes that the "devil machines" are whatever machines rise up during every cycle, which seems unlikely. So there's your enemy for post-ME3 gaming.

Here's a recent article from Kotaku:

http://kotaku.com/5897486/was-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-telegraphed-five-years-ago

And the answer to the article's question-title is: not really. But when Bioware picked through ME1 lore for something to use a few months back while writing the ending, it made it look like they had planned far ahead.

Also, this may reveal why the ending was near-incomrehensible and why people instinctively rebelled against it: The Klencory mission in ME3, which would explain much of this, was cut for DLC. Bioware expected players just to "speculate" over the ending, and then Bioware would sell players the solution in the form of "Beings of Light" DLC. But it didn't quite work out like they had planned.

I wonder if Bioware will include this cut Klencory content in the EC material-- assuming it exists, of course. I doesn't seem possible that, if it exists, you could sell such a DLC to players anymore. (And you sure as hell couldn't have tried to sell it a couple months ago.) From the Cerberus Base mission forward, it seems a little late in the game to go visit the Volus prophet, maybe. But it would be a sort of corollary to ME1, in which the penultimate mission was an massive ancient crypt full of folks who had fought the machines and a single being explained a whole bunch of plot shit. Bioware is big on those kinds of paralells in ME3, patterning sections of plot on the first game.

And maybe there was no "Klencory DLC". Maybe there wasn't enough time for it. Or maybe they thought a couple Codex entries would be enough to explain it all...

Anyway, there you go. "Beings of Light".

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Umm, that's pretty far fetched.

 

[Rhalle]

The Community Manager tells us flat-out, when asked what Star Brat is, that Star Brat is a "Being of Light" and that "Beings of Light" are found in ME1 lore.

Star Brat is a "Being of Light". Maybe there is no "Klencory DLC" or unfinished Klencory mission. That's possible.

But I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see Klencory-- in some form or another-- in the EC. If it exists, and somewhere down the line they still try to sell it, that would take real balls on Bioware's part. Suicidal balls.

Edit: I edited myself in both posts because the ME1 entry (like the ME3 entry) actually does say "beings of light". "Crypts of the beings of light" is the full quote for ME1. Anyway, there it is.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Who cares now except Volrun?

 

[circ]

Post some BSN snippets someone?

 

[Oriebam]

wait, isn't the Star Brat also Harbinger? Rhalle

It's free for those who get it within two years.

The downside? It's downloadable content. I've got a family member who's a pretty big Bioware fan (I know, I know) who was pissed as FUCK at Mass Effect 3. As in goddamn furious. He won't be able to play this though since he hasn't got broadband, so his console is offline. Also means he misses out on "On disc" DLC like the brothean.
Kinda feel bad for him since he's all storyfag and mostly not a combatfag (Tends to skip Bethesda RPGs since the story and dialog is so shit and barebones, whereas I prefer them because I just ignore that and fuck around) and Bioware promised him the moon with a game that would react to his choices and failed to deliver on that at all.

FUCKIN BIOWARES MAN FFS

Sorry, but unless he lives in North Korea I don't understand how he doesn't have broadband.

don't talk about what you don't know, nigger

 

[Wulfstand]

Nothing new on the ending dlc?

 

[Excidium]

Yeah, nothing I think. They must be preparing the incredible marketing campaign.

 

[DraQ]

Shepard's body must have been ruined by crashing through the planet's atmosphere and onto the surface. If they can resurrect Shepard, it seems the method could at least be developed for use with other patients.

Also this.

It's not that Shepard died. If Shepard was found in space as dried out, frozen chunk of meat or better yet purposefully killfrozen himself somehow then with sufficiently high tech reviving him would be possible - pretty monocled sci-fi writers like Lem or Clarke have done just that.

The problem is that Shepard died, *then* reentered the atmosphere in just his damaged suit (no hermetic seal!) at orbital velocity, *then* cratered at at least terminal velocity.

Reviving him would be comparable to reviving a badly charred kotlet mielony.

I don't know the amount of time passing between formation of the Shepard crater and his retrieval or whether the planet was life bearing, but life bearing world would make it even worse - comparable to reviving mielony that has been rotting in the dumpster for some time.[/quote]

 

[circ]

Reviving him would be comparable to reviving a badly charred kotlet mielony.

That's really not the problem. Better sci-fi, which is just about everything, has revived humanoids from far less, and even managed to reconstruct memories (Dune and others).

It's just that BW's execution is so pathetically crap.

 

[DraQ]

Reviving him would be comparable to reviving a badly charred kotlet mielony.

That's really not the problem. Better sci-fi, which is just about everything, has revived humanoids from far less, and even managed to reconstruct memories (Dune and others).

It's just that BW's execution is so pathetically crap.

I don't consider Dune particularly good sci-fi because it's rather liberal with the sci part. Good space fantasy, maybe, but not good sci-fi.

Good sci-fi can involve cloning from just as little as some genetic material, but with no pretence of clone being in any way the continuation of the original or retaining memories.

Good sci-fi can also involve reconstructing a person from badly butchered remains, but it needs to be really high tech sci-fi and it needs to consider implication of such tech. Good example would be Dukaj's "Ideal Imperfection", which also involves regular backups (with veiled implication of lack of actual continuity), and problems arising from recovering the original after already restoring backup.

It needs to be noted that Ideal Imperfection also deals with with tailoring universes with constants fine tuned to allow better computation, individuals hosted in such dedicated universes, predicting behaviour of a person via running their model in an universe with faster possible computation and exhaustive search (if that doesn't make you scream, you don't get it) or acccidentally the whole galaxy as a colateral wartime damage. It's the universe where massed RKV spam would be considered as quaint a weapon as a stone axe is today.

Contrast relatively low-tech ME-verse where somehow rebuilding a 2m long piece of meat somehow (how?) consists of such a massive and resource consuming effort that it's effectively one shot. And it's being used to effectively rebuild a single glorified mehreen.

BW cannot into sci-fi (as if ME3 endings allowed any doubt in this matter).

 

[Xor]

It's not that Shepard died. If Shepard was found in space as dried out, frozen chunk of meat or better yet purposefully killfrozen himself somehow then with sufficiently high tech reviving him would be possible - pretty monocled sci-fi writers like Lem or Clarke have done just that.

The problem is that Shepard died, *then* reentered the atmosphere in just his damaged suit (no hermetic seal!) at orbital velocity, *then* cratered at at least terminal velocity.

Reviving him would be comparable to reviving a badly charred kotlet mielony.

I don't know the amount of time passing between formation of the Shepard crater and his retrieval or whether the planet was life bearing, but life bearing world would make it even worse - comparable to reviving mielony that has been rotting in the dumpster for some time.

According to the ME wiki,

Alchera's crust is composed of carbon and water ice. While low density, its large size allows it to retain a thick atmosphere of methane and ammonia.

So yeah. I don't know what methane and ammonia do to exposed decomposing human flesh, but I imagine it isn't good.

Yeah, nothing I think. They must be preparing the incredible marketing campaign.

I suspect they correctly realize that whatever they do won't please everybody, so they're hoping to sweep the DLC under the rug and release it with minimal fanfare. That way they'll minimize the shitstorm that will inevitably follow from the people who still aren't satisfied.

 

[Gragt]

Shepard's death and rebirth is a non-issue. It is is consistent with the "reality" of the serie (up to the second episode anyway) and works within the story. It needs a bit of suspension of disbelief but what doesn't? Yeah, it's not hard sci-fi but saying that is on the same level as "Das ist kein Mann!". Besides where is the information that Shepard's body crashed on a planet? All we see when he dies is that his suit looses pressure and the camera shows him floating towards a planet as the sun rises but then cuts before we can see anything else, and later Liara says that his body was recovered by the Shadow Broker and then passed to Cerberus. There is little information about the whole thing, and it works better that way since it's not the focus of the story.

 

[Xor]

You see Shepard's body entering the atmosphere of the planet in ME2's opening. There's not really many possibilities other than crashing once Shepard is in the planet's gravity.

Suspension of disbelief can only go so far when we're talking about something like crashing on a fucking planet. I mean, if this was, say, Red Dwarf I'd probably let it slide, but ME isn't a low budget British comedy. It at least attempts to be superficially realistic, with explanations for the mass effect itself and all the technology based on it. They don't always make a lot of sense, but the fact that Bioware put effort into giving explanations suggests that they want their game universe to be taken at least somewhat seriously.

 

[Angthoron]

Perhaps in the extended director's cut, Shep should go all Max Payne-like:

Maybe if you picked the GREEN ending.

Edit: Ffffuuuuu, imgur fucking up img hotlinking again. What the hell is up with that. Oh well, whatevs.

 

[DraQ]

According to the ME wiki,


So yeah. I don't know what methane and ammonia do to exposed decomposing human flesh, but I imagine it isn't good.

Well, the more hostile environment, the better as long as it doesn't corrode, dissolve or burn the body on its own, as it would kill the microbes and stop decomposition.

Still, we have a body heating up and partially ablating on reentry then crashing into a fucking glacier at pretty much Earth's terminal velocity, assuming it has braked enough (surface gravity and atmospheric pressure of the planet are approximately Earth-like).

That's pretty harsh.

And even without oxygen (so no actual burning), getting cooked in at least several hundred Celsius (generously assuming that hardsuit keeps most of the heat out even after loss of hermetic seal) is pretty bad for the revival chances, especially when followed by pancaking on glacier.

You see Shepard's body entering the atmosphere of the planet in ME2's opening. There's not really many possibilities other than crashing once Shepard is in the planet's gravity.

Shepardcopter?

 

[Valestein]

Shepard's death and rebirth is a non-issue. It is is consistent with the "reality" of the serie (up to the second episode anyway) and works within the story. It needs a bit of suspension of disbelief but what doesn't? Yeah, it's not hard sci-fi but saying that is on the same level as "Das ist kein Mann!". Besides where is the information that Shepard's body crashed on a planet? All we see when he dies is that his suit looses pressure and the camera shows him floating towards a planet as the sun rises but then cuts before we can see anything else, and later Liara says that his body was recovered by the Shadow Broker and then passed to Cerberus. There is little information about the whole thing, and it works better that way since it's not the focus of the story.

The thing is, there was never a need for Shepard to die and be revived to begin with. It shows how uncreative EAware's "writers" are that they need Lazarus and the council to go full retard with "ah yes reapers"(this contradicts ME1's ending) in order to get Shepard to work with Cerberus and operate in the Terminus.

 

[Outlander]

BioWare's 'writers' couldn't write their way out of a paper bag if their lives depended on it. More news at 11.

 

[Gragt]

You see Shepard's body entering the atmosphere of the planet in ME2's opening. There's not really many possibilities other than crashing once Shepard is in the planet's gravity.

Does it clearly enter the atmosphere? The camera zooms out and pans at that moment, and the glare from the sunrise makes it harder to see. It's also possible that agents of the Shadow Broker monitored the whole thing and salvaged the body before it crashlanded (if it was going to crashland) when they saw Shepard got ejected. Or maybe he did crashland after all. It's just fun to think about when there is no definite proof.

Suspension of disbelief can only go so far when we're talking about something like crashing on a fucking planet. I mean, if this was, say, Red Dwarf I'd probably let it slide, but ME isn't a low budget British comedy. It at least attempts to be superficially realistic, with explanations for the mass effect itself and all the technology based on it. They don't always make a lot of sense, but the fact that Bioware put effort into giving explanations suggests that they want their game universe to be taken at least somewhat seriously.

Let's leave intent aside because it means shit as usual. The universe is consistantly over-the-top, so it's not too difficult to accept a body that crashlanded on a planet could still be brought back to life without any major drawback in these conditions. And again that's assuming it crashed. It is simply part of the narration. Artists have immense freedom in making the rules for any of their work; their only constraint is that they then stay consistent with these and do not break them lightly. The way the death and resurrection is handled fits the tone of the serie and is pretty much only a detail in the whole story.

The thing is, there was never a need for Shepard to die and be revived to begin with. It shows how uncreative EAware's "writers" are that they need Lazarus and the council to go full retard with "ah yes reapers"(this contradicts ME1's ending) in order to get Shepard to work with Cerberus and operate in the Terminus.

There's no need for the death but no reason to avoid it either, and it works. It's certainly dramatic though, and that goes back to what I said about fitting the tone of the serie. As for the Council, they do not openly recognise the existence of the Reapers in the ending, only that "Sovereign and the geth" as well as Saren were responsible for the attack on the Citadel. Only Shepard and Anderson state that the Reapers are still a threat. Besides the Council members are shown to be caricatures of politicians, so it should come as no surprise that had they recognised the existence of the Reapers they would go back on this once the immediate threat is over.

Seriously, there are a lot of questionable things in the ME serie and Bioware games in general but this is minor quibble at best.

 

[861129]

Does it clearly enter the atmosphere? The camera zooms out and pans at that moment, and the glare from the sunrise makes it harder to see. It's also possible that agents of the Shadow Broker monitored the whole thing and salvaged the body before it crashlanded (if it was going to crashland) when they saw Shepard got ejected. Or maybe he did crashland after all. It's just fun to think about when there is no definite proof.

I think the cinematic of project Lazarus has a shot from the perspective of the machine peeling Shepard off the side of the planet.

 

[Rhalle]

They must be preparing the incredible marketing campaign.

I don't know if it's this forum or the user, but I ain't uploading this shit again, even if it is too small.

 

[Ion Prothon II]

They must be preparing the incredible marketing campaign.

I don't know if it's this forum or the user, but I ain't uploading this shit again, even if it is too small.

A gay parade pic would be more appropriate