Mass Effect 3 - Mark Meer will continue to be rubbish

[van HellSing]

synthesis

You misspelt SPACE MAGIC.

The only way the endings are worth anything is if they're not real.

[Jason Moyer]

I don't really mind the ending in terms of the variables/etc that go into deciding which of the endings you get; what I find incredibly shit is that they're all just slight variations on the same cutscene. If they do change anything, IMHO, they should just make new ending scenes for each of the possibilities. As far as relationship closure goes (which I've also seen people complain about) I thought having an entire level dedicated to nothing but talking to people before the final mission was sufficient.

[Trance]

Bit of inside information from someone on Bioware's writing staff. Apparently the ending was the work of only two people: Mass Effect 3's lead writer Mac Walters, and executive producer Casey Hudson.

http://www.gamesthirst.com/2012/03/2...-casey-hudson/

I have nothing to do with the ending beyond a) having argued successfully a long time ago that we needed a chance to say goodbye to our squad, b) having argued successfully that Cortez shouldn’t automatically die in that shuttle crash, and c) having written Tali’s goodbye bit, as well as a couple of the holo-goodbyes for people I wrote (Mordin, Kasumi, Jack, etc).

No other writer did, either, except for our lead. This was entirely the work of our lead and Casey himself, sitting in a room and going through draft after draft.

[Malf]

Nice to see some honesty from one of the writers, but you don't shit where you eat in the games industry. He's at the very least facing disciplinary action and at the worst out of a job with no prospect of being hired thanks to all other developers losing trust in him.

[Trance]

To be fair, the possibility has not been completely discounted that the post was made by someone other than Weekes like a hacker or another Bioware employee gaining access to his account. One of Bioware's community support reps supposedly asked Weekes about the post and Weekes denied making it.

It's far more likely, though, that Weekes wrote it up and then realized what he could be doing to himself, and so the denial and the deletions meant he preserved his employment.

[Avalon]

I don't really care about what happened with the people, so much as maybe an epilogue about what happened to the galaxy as a whole immediately following your choice. Something other than a "infer what you will from our complete lack of anything to infer things from." (Completely ignoring that the whole bit at the end was a "wait, what?" moment)

It's kind of like, what if the Harry Potter franchise ended in the same sentence that Voldemort died without even finishing up the chapter, following up in an epilogue, or even really explaining the cause of his death.

I really like the indoctrination theory, but I think it's one of those things that probably never even flashed through the writers minds and is presuming a lot more thought went into the game than we actually saw portrayed.

[Jason Moyer]

One thing that would make the ending more satisfying for me is if it were different based on how you resolved the Quarian/Geth Conflict. If the Catalyst is really an ancient AI that was tasked with solving the organic/synthetic problem then your options at the end should reflect whether you've fought for the co-existence of organics and synthetics, sided with synthetics against organics, or sided with organics against synthetics. I don't know if the massive changes to the last part of the game would be feasible given how much would need to go into it, but at least it would give you some feeling that your previous choices had an impact on the final outcome. They could pretty much remove the entire 'pick a button' aspect of the ending and have the resolution come from your interaction with him, which could either be in the form of negotiation or some sort of massive boss fight depending on your previous choices. There could also be hard charm/intimidate options to let you peacefully/deceptively talk your way out of whatever choices you had made previously. Or they could just call Obsidian and have Avellone rewrite the ending.

[Jason Moyer]

Ok this is me re-writing the ending:

Everything is the same up to and including the point where you talk to the catalyst.

Conversation stuff should be over-ridable with hard speech checks:

1.) If you eliminated the Geth (or choose to eliminate all synthetics), you're forced into an unwinnable boss fight where you attempt to disable the citadel manually from inside. After the fight, Shepard radios the fleet and tells them that the Catalyst/Citadel must be destroyed (in a move that would obviously be suicidal for him). War assets come into play (and actually make some sort of logical goddamn sense), as well as whether or not the geth are part of your forces as they will refuse and attempt to defend the citadel (which would serve as a modifier to your war asset score). Either a.) the citadel is destroyed, shepard dies, the reapers are weakened and vulnerable, AMERICA WINS!!!! and some sort of reflective cutscene with the major NPC's amidst the rubble of earth, possibly mourning the deaths of shepard/anderson/final squadmates and honoring them for their sacrifice b.) the citadel is destroyed, shepard dies, the repears are weakened but the allies took too many losses and have to abandon earth, which is completely harvested, reflective scene showing that shepard gave organics a chance to win the war c.) allies are thoroughly defeated, shepard is alive but indoctrinated, EVIL WINS!!!! reflective scene of barren worlds post-harvesting as reapers retreat to darkspace

2.) If you supported a peaceful co-existence solution to the Geth war the Catalyst sees the flaws in its system and blah blah blah hippie new age synthesis ending basically as it is now.

3.) If you supported the geth, the Catalyst offers you control of the reapers. This is deceptive and Shepard shares the same fate as the Illusive Man and is indoctrinated. The Catalyst uses him as a general to lead the organic submission to the reaper harvest. Similar ending to 1c, although I'd add a shot of Shepard on some unknown planet with his eyes glowing collector-style, a voice saying 'releasing control' and then Shepard looking around a barren wasteland as he realizes the horror of what happened

[N'Al]

I haven't actually played any of the Mass Effect games yet, but I'm nevertheless all too aware of the controversy around the ending. On that note: LOL.

[Jason Moyer]

Awesome. That's pretty much exactly what I was hoping they'd do.

http://blog.bioware.com/2012/04/05/m...-extended-cut/

[Ulukai]

Just finished ME3 and hurrrrrrrrr.

I don't really see what the additional DLC post-extended cut is going to offer -

spoiler:

my Shepard is dead and Liara is stuck on a rock with Joker. I pretty much managed to kill or alienate everyone else possible except Garrus.

Maybe I'm a bit too much of a romantic, but Shepard should still be able to win the day and get the girl. I invested 90 hours of my life in this relationship, Shepard deserves the blue woman ffs

Having said that, although the ending was incredibly frustrating, it was also pretty powerful and it took me a while to choose the fate of the galaxy. But I still don't like it. Still, these are three of the most enjoyable games I've played in recent times.

[DaBeast]

This is pretty much going to be all spoiler

Why does Ashley look like a slut?

Zaeed gets like 3 lines of dialogue

The reporter was a waste of space

Mordin died, for the story I'm ok with it, but I'd have preferred that he lived.

Grunt line after his mission "Anybody got something to eat?" - An example of bad writing, just one among many that would not have made the grade of the other two games. A simple cheese filter would have seen it removed.

For some reason my dialogue options in the Illusive Man/Anderson scene were greyed out despite me having max everything. Anderson still lived, briefly, but the ILM didn't shoot himself.

I didn't see what happened to Garrus & Javik, my team buddies. I saw a deleted scene where they die in the rush to the conduit, but not in my game and no mention is made of them.

Tali was on earth, since my Shepard was sexing her. How did she end up on Normandy and why was Normandy in a warp jump in the middle of bumble fuck nowhere?

Lastly, the 3 choices were copy pasted from DX. There is no avoiding that comparison, regardless of what "insiders" have said. In this case we don't quiet get what DX offered (the FUCK YOU choice from Escape from L.A.) or anything resembling closure on the story. Instead we can kill the bad guys and the good guys (geth), blow up all the Mass Relays, or do some synergy shit. IIRC ME had a thing for presenting users with hard choices, but they pretty much always had some sort of good side.


Pretty much everything about the game suggests it was rushed, and instead of spending money on developers they spent it on advertising. Really a dick move.


I think most of all though, I'm just pissed that it's all over. Barring the inevitable sequels which will be made for a different target demographic, it just won't be the same without the original crew. Mass Effect has become one of my favorite franchises and I'm actually saddened to see that it's best is behind it. Even Resident Evil managed 4 games before turning into shite.

This made me feel a little better (slight spoilers)

[Boxsmith]

Mordin died, for the story I'm ok with it, but I'd have preferred that he lived.

For some reason my dialogue options in the Illusive Man/Anderson scene were greyed out despite me having max everything. Anderson still lived, briefly, but the ILM didn't shoot himself.

That's exactly how it went down in my playthrough, but my understanding is that Mordin can survive if you killed Wrex back in ME1, and the extra dialogue options with the Illusive Man show up if you handle your previous conversations with him a certain way. I think you have to maintain a consistent attitude in talking to him or something.

Having said that, although the ending was incredibly frustrating, it was also pretty powerful and it took me a while to choose the colour of the galaxy.

Fixed that for ya.

[Jason Moyer]

Extended cut is apparently out today, if I remember correctly. It doesn't appear to be on Origin yet though.

[Sulphur]

Out now on Origin, folks. For whomever has Origin, anyway. Go to Game Add-Ons and get your download on. Now I can finally continue from where I left off, which was the start of Act 2.

[Jason Moyer]

I didn't start the final missions again to see all of the changes, but I took all of the endings to watch the 15 minutes of slightly-varied cutscenes. I'm not really sure if they're good or bad, but they remind me of the part where Conrad Verner explains why he was being a dick in ME2 and it's the most awkward, fan servicing dialog ever. I'm glad they stuck to the original creative vision more or less but sometimes it's better to just keep things ambiguous and ignore your idiot fanbase while they debate/complain/masturbate furiously over it.

[Eldron]

I'm glad they stuck to the original creative vision more or less but sometimes it's better to just keep things ambiguous and ignore your idiot fanbase while they debate/complain/masturbate furiously over it.

What are you talking about, they retconned the teleportation-abilities of your two allies at the end.

spoiler:

And magically rebuild the relays in every ending because they couldn't explain their way out of that one otherwise.

There's no creative vision in the ending, only budgetary compromises. The original creative vision for mass effect as a trilogy was already thrown in the trash to make way for the new one in ME3,
what's left are promises to customers that one shouldn't make in the first place when selling a product.

[Volitions Advocate]

I finally just got around to starting this up, and it's interesting playing it directly after the first 2 installments.

Right off the bat there are 2 things that annoy the crap out of me.

I can't import Shepards face. And my recreation of my old creation is almost there but not quite. Its aggravating.

And the not being able to holster my weapon during missions. What a cop-out that was. The only reason I read on the web was something about memory problems. Whatever, sounds like sloppy design or programming or something or other to me.

The enhanced focus on combat is both great and not so great. The Infinite sprint seems a little bit pandering to action fans, and yet I find that I spam it constantly. I LOVE the actual fighting though. ME1 and 2 was the smattering of chest high wall cover based combat that made GOW so boring. But it seems to work on this one because I find myself only using cover to recharge my shields, and most of my actual fighting is done stand up in the open with a badass assault rifle bearing down on my target, it's quite satisfying in way I thought an ME game could never deliver. I think the heavy pistol is my favorite weapon now.

I've also noticed that the animations are much better, especially in combat. I ran into my first marauders on the Turian moon, and that fight was nuts. I kept seeing things out of the corner of my eye that I did not fully understand and it makes the secrecy of the reaper indoctrinated enemies that much more frightening.

I'm still trying to figure out the new space mini games and the scanning and war preparation. Although the story and dialogue seems to sweep by so quickly and its so action packed that sometimes I really dont' want to go do all that stuff, which sucks because I actually enjoyed all the extra mini games in the first 2 games.

from a technical standpoint. I really like the hassle free, no HUD-stretched, no hack/crack multimonitor support. It just works, and it works flawlessly. The game even darkens the outer monitors at the proper times for dialogue and FMVs. My framerate takes a bit of a hit with the exploded resolution, which gives me mouse acceleration problems, But i'm dealing with them because I don't want to turn the detail down. Its a very nice looking game, Bio ware has definitely improved on UE3 a bit to satisfy their own needs.

Sorry if I have repeated anything already said, but I haven't been reading the thread because I'm terrified of spoilers.


Also. WTF Bioware. what is up with Liaras boobs? I saw what you did there and I'm not buying into it. I'm not a 12 y/o boy. Disappointed.

[Jason Moyer]

I thought the patch was supposed to fix the 'importing Shephard's face" bug.

[nicked]

I imported my Shepard absolutely fine through all three games. Are your saves etc. in the right place?

[Volitions Advocate]

Origin says there's a patch, but it wont download, just sits at 0%

if it would fix the bug I'll start over, not kidding.

I understand the original bug was only with characters that were created in ME1, even if you imported them into ME2 later and didn't modify them.

If your shepard was created in ME2 apparently there weren't any problems.

I did have one awkward moment. Receving an email from both Kaiden and Thane at the same time saying they were in the same hospital and both wanted to have some alone time.
errrrm... awkward. Should have abstained in ME2.

[Jason Moyer]

I just tried importing my ME1-->ME2 save again and it works now, so the patch seems to fix the import bug. It didn't work when I played through the first time.

[Volitions Advocate]

Yeah, It finally patched and worked for me. Shep still looks a bit weird, it didn't translate over very well compared to the me1 - me2 transition, but its fine, at least she doesn't look pissed all the time anymore.

[Jason Moyer]

I think the overall look of the game is a little weird, especially if you've just played ME1 and ME2 which were fairly consistent in their presentation. I dunno what they changed exactly besides not having film grain, but overall I don't think it's a very good looking game compared to the first two.

[Volitions Advocate]

I gotta say, I am loving the shit out of this game. A few minor script related issues, but other than that I"m surprised to find that I am enjoying it more than either of the previous two.

It sucks that everybody is dying. Mordin's death was definitely my favorite so far. Thane dying was a little underwhelming considering the history he has with my femshep but truthfully I liked mordins character better.

Teaming up with Wrex and possibly Kirrahe is/was a fun moment and I find myself emotionally involved in the story. Maybe its because I've played all 3 games back to back now, but when I go up against cerberus, I play very aggressively compared to any other times. I hate those guys.

I don't know how this is all going to end, and I'm reserving judgement despite of all the complaning. But whatever happens, getting there is fun as hell.