Mass Effect 3 SPOILER THREAD: LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE

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Vega is the only survivor cementing the 'worst possible ending' status.

All alone, with himself. Talking to plants.

hmm.

Yea the part where it turns to look at you when you first show up, almost like he was saying "Hey man!" then went right back to work.

as far as I can tell:

The conclusion you're supposed to draw at that moment is that the Citadel is where the Reapers make new ones, and where (by extension) they must all have come from. The dialogue just doesn't acknowledge it, but looking at Casper, that is what you are supposed to realize.
(there is also a somewhat similar design to the collector base and the citadel)

The keepers are working on the bodies, but they didn't have a different animation for them (those running animations are a hint of that). Basically, the keepers, much like their surrogates the Collectors, build reapers. They may even be the original race that build the Citadel AI or the first race to be used by it, as implied by Javik's description of the synthetics in their cycle.
 
what would you do?

i felt like the choices were fine. Hell even the reasoning was fine. The little kid bullshit was dumb though, but i can forget him as some ai guardian thing that probably only took the form of a human kid to relate to shepard.

My Shepard would have let the Reapers fuck everything up, he doesn't care.

It also seemed bad with the kid, but I had my little fanfic to retcon that up.
 
what would you do?

i felt like the choices were fine. Hell even the reasoning was fine. The little kid bullshit was dumb though, but i can forget him as some ai guardian thing that probably only took the form of a human kid to relate to shepard.
What reasoning?
 
I find that aspect of ME3 is BS. I was carrying around similar weapon with me back in ME2. But now all you get is a shotgun. Where's that collector's ray beam gun too? I love that gun. The laser cuts like a knife.

Javik comes with the beam gun. It works like ME1 and recharges and stuff.

Damn near every time I found a heavy weapon lying around it wasn't until I already killed everyone. I was so pissed when I saw that on Earth after I killed a bunch of banshees, lol.
 
Things that bother me aside from end choices themselves..

- The stupidity of quarians is not believable. The game goes on and on to show how dumb and ignorant these MF's are. They are flying spaceships and created a sentient AI, they should be a lot smarter than what they are portrayed as in the game.
- I did not care about the kid and thus the dream sequences were really lame. How about getting nightmares about lost crew members for example?
- Having a choice of three options that determine 90% of the ending right at the end of the game is lame and feels primitive. It would be much cooler if the ending was determined mostly by decisions made throughout the game/series and the end game was just more about experiencing those consequences made previously rather than getting to choose how the game ends as a last act.
- Effective military strengths effect the ending does not make a lick of sense. Why does it effect weather or not earth gets destroyed? What war asset prevents this from happening? How does it alter this magic explosion of destroying the earth? Or why does it help Shepards chances of surviving the ending when he/she is away from everyone?
 
Do they ever say why Joker was still in the Alliance? That seemed a bit strange, since Shepard was removed from duty, and Kenneth and Gabby were arrested.
 
I finished the game this afternoon. I won't share too much of my distaste for the ending, as it mirrors most of what everyone else has said. I was pleased with the ending right up until the star child, where everything fell apart. I went with the blue ending, as it seemed to accomplish my mission, but it still didn't make much sense.

What was the most jarring for me--even more so than the poor voice acting of the grandpa scene--was what happened directly after that grandfather scene: the game returns with me on the Normandy, with everyone alive. Why do that? Why take an already poor ending that ruins all the efforts I made in fighting for global peace, and then suck the consequence from that by allowing me to continue to play as my character that should be dead?
 
Do they ever say why Joker was still in the Alliance? That seemed a bit strange, since Shepard was removed from duty, and Kenneth and Gabby were arrested.

Basically, EDI claimed she would only take orders from him so the Alliance had to keep him around, and then he just happened to be on the ship when the Reapers attacked and suddenly there was more important stuff to worry about.
 
Save the races of the galaxy

by committing genocide
They did it for the greater good.

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Got repurposed as the particle beam rifle.

Javik comes with the beam gun. It works like ME1 and recharges and stuff.

Damn near every time I found a heavy weapon lying around it wasn't until I already killed everyone. I was so pissed when I saw that on Earth after I killed a bunch of banshees, lol.

Hmm, delicious. May have to try them on my Sheploo playthrough. If I have the motivation to do so....

What was the most jarring for me--even more so than the poor voice acting of the grandpa scene--was what happened directly after that grandfather scene: the game returns with me on the Normandy, with everyone alive. Why do that? Why take an already poor ending that ruins all the efforts I made in fighting for global peace, and then suck the consequence from that by allowing me to continue to play as my character that should be dead?

Well, they have to sell some DLCs. Most likely set before you storm the Collector's base. What a BS!
 
What reasoning?

the entire reasoning of the cycle and the reapers existence was interesting imo...i just didn't like the way this was revealed to the player. the reasoning behind some of the choices was ok. as someone pointed out above, another choice could have been to work with the reapers and somehow allow them to do what they needed to do...this option wasn't available. I can't think of many more grand solutions. the execution wasn't perfect, but there always had to be some type of big solution.
 
Huh. Those sort of make sense (less EMS = the Reapers can do more damage and off your squadmates/Big Ben, the Crucible didn't have the proper research/resources to properly fire)
I hadn't thought of that last part; it's the only way the effects on Earth could make any sense. Lowest EMS makes the Crucible ignite Earth's atmosphere, and low EMS makes the explosion destroy Big Ben. The Reapers and military are entirely inconsequential in every case.
 
Do they ever say why Joker was still in the Alliance? That seemed a bit strange, since Shepard was removed from duty, and Kenneth and Gabby were arrested.

I think he says something about how he told the Alliance that EDI mostly only responds to his commands or something.
 
Hey Bioware, are you listening? Here's how I think the ME3 ending can be saved:

In a failed attempt to indoctrinate Shepard, the Reapers made up a fake sob story about needing to eliminate organic life to stop the cycle of organics and synthetics killing each other. The real Shepard did not fall for this and made the right choice by activating the crucible and shutting down the Reapers. Shepard survives. (the other endings were just indoctrination fantasies)

With the Reapers defeated, organics began to study their remains. A team of Asari and Salarian scientists study their data drives and discover the true reason that they have been harvesting organic life every 50,000 years. It's because the Reapers have been engaged in a stalemate war of attrition for thousands of years in another undiscovered galaxy against a species of organics that are far more advanced than the organics of Shepard's galaxy. The Reapers themselves came from this galaxy. Harvesting advanced organic life was war research to better understand their enemy.

When this species discovers that the Reapers no longer exist they send scout ships to go looking based on the last traces of Reaper activity and discover Shepard's galaxy. Something along the lines of the first contact war then ensues. But by the time the war is underway the species of Shepard's galaxy have advanced immeasurably. Due to studying Reaper tech and learning the secrets of the keepers they are able to rebuild the Mass Effect relays and make significant technological advances so they aren't overmatched by this new species. ME4 is the story of this second first contact war.
 
Doesn't help each of the games does a terrible job at showing what the classes are capable of from the beginning, especially the first with the first games slow ass cooldowns on some of the powers making it more boring than tactful.

I always thought they should have some sort of minigame that let you test each class at their height so you would know what you were getting yourself into, kinda like Path of Neo did where the first level was really just a test of how well you played and gave you some of the moves and the difficulty was suggested to you depending on how you did.

Yeah, the games never did get past the whole 'select now and regret it later' point.

So I troopered through all of them with Soldier. Thought it would also be more fitting if characters called me soldier, I would actually be one. Oh, and I had Ashley killed, so there was a niche available.
(just bring Liara along, between all the flopping around, those ragdolls have it hard enough as it is)

The only thing that totally fucks up soldier class, are turrets. Can't whack them, grenades don't do shit, everything else required coming out of cover. So entertaining when you are death on two legs UNTIL some asshole drops a turret.
Even banshees are pussies compared to that. Wait, no, forget I said that.
 
Save the races of the galaxy

by committing genocide
if you could kill off an entire species of animal on the planet or even an entire race/nationality of humans to save all mankind or all other living beings...would you? Is this really a tough decision? no it isn't. you do what you must. If killing the reapers means killing the geth then you do it to save everyone else.
 
What was the most jarring for me--even more so than the poor voice acting of the grandpa scene--was what happened directly after that grandfather scene: the game returns with me on the Normandy, with everyone alive. Why do that? Why take an already poor ending that ruins all the efforts I made in fighting for global peace, and then suck the consequence from that by allowing me to continue to play as my character that should be dead?

That really caught me off guard as well, I was so confused, I thought there was an epilogue or something, then it hit me...it was so you can do dlc with the same character without having start all over :( (my hopes were shattered)

Derrick01 said:
There's one where he reacts to the ending. It was pretty good lol

This one? When ever I watch The Downfall again, I will never be able to take that scene seriously.
 
the game returns with me on the Normandy, with everyone alive. Why do that? Why take an already poor ending that ruins all the efforts I made in fighting for global peace, and then suck the consequence from that by allowing me to continue to play as my character that should be dead?

why? DLC content.
 
if you could kill off an entire species of animal on the planet or even an entire race/nationality of humans to save all mankind or all other living beings...would you? Is this really a tough decision? no it isn't. you do what you must. If killing the reapers means killing the geth then you do it to save everyone else.

Then why did I put effort into saving the geth earlier? Next playthrough, I'm not gonna do it simply because it doesn't matter in the end.
 
Basically, EDI claimed she would only take orders from him so the Alliance had to keep him around, and then he just happened to be on the ship when the Reapers attacked and suddenly there was more important stuff to worry about.

I think he says something about how he told the Alliance that EDI mostly only responds to his commands or something.

Thanks. I had completely forgotten about that.
 
the entire reasoning of the cycle and the reapers existence was interesting imo...i just didn't like the way this was revealed to the player. the reasoning behind some of the choices was ok. as someone pointed out above, another choice could have been to work with the reapers and somehow allow them to do what they needed to do...this option wasn't available. I can't think of many more grand solutions. the execution wasn't perfect, but there always had to be some type of big solution.
The cycle didn't have an interesting point. It was filled with circular logic that could have easily have been refuted -- transmogrifying a species into a Reaper is not what anyone would call preservation. The reveal was weak. We already knew what they did since ME2.

The only option to work with them is Control, you accept their need and you decide to control them. Then you could continue Reaping if you wanted, or who knows what.
 
if you could kill off an entire species of animal on the planet or even an entire race/nationality of humans to save all mankind or all other living beings...would you? Is this really a tough decision? no it isn't. you do what you must. If killing the reapers means killing the geth then you do it to save everyone else.

I played Mass Effect 2: The Arrival, and I ended up choosing to sacrifice the batarian colony to delay the reaper invasion, so choosing to allow some to die to let others live isn't a choice I was unwilling to make. The story in The Arrival was plausible enough to me to make the decision a viable one, in my mind; the decisions in the final moments of Mass Effect 3, however, were based off a silly plot reveal that didn't follow the logic of the rest of the game, and therefore made the decision to kill off the geth a less logical conclusion. I spent time reeling with the realization that the game diverged from the very telegraphed ending that the crucible was intended to simply kill reavers, and had to find a solution from those presented to me that seemed the least damaging to the story I had been playing.

By the time I grabbed the pylons to merge with the crucible/citadel, I had already dissolved most of my interest in the game's conclusion, because none of the options presented to me were choices that I thought were logical. Throughout the trilogy, I have encountered situations where the choices presented to me were not ones I would likely make, but they weren't so divergent from the logic of the game's universe to make me not want to continue to play the game. In the final moments of Mass Effect 3, I felt the choices available to me were in great disservice to the plot. I felt that making the hard choice to kill the geth was no longer an option for me, because I was no longer playing the game's story, but was rather actively working against it to try to find a way to repair the story.
 
What was the most jarring for me--even more so than the poor voice acting of the grandpa scene--was what happened directly after that grandfather scene: the game returns with me on the Normandy, with everyone alive. Why do that? Why take an already poor ending that ruins all the efforts I made in fighting for global peace, and then suck the consequence from that by allowing me to continue to play as my character that should be dead?

They put you just before the point of no return so that when you buy their DLC you can play it from there. It's actually funny, I thought the image before that, the one that says:

"Commander Shepard has become a legend by ending the reaper threat. Now you can continue to build that legend through further gameplay and downloadable content"

was just how a typical shit NES game would end, just with two nonsensical, insulting lines about how all is fine in the end (and a shameless plug-in) when in fact you don't know shit. I found it a very fitting finale tbh.

The Angry Video Game Nerds of the future are going to have a field day with this one.
 
why? DLC content.

I realize that the return to Normandy is to allow for DLC content: my question was rhetorical, but I failed to mention that in my original post. I'm not really disturbed by the option to continue the story in DLC using a living Shepard: rather, I'm shocked that the developer didn't consider returning me to the menu screen and allowing me to choose to return to the game, rather than transferring me back into the restored Normandy, with the camera focused on the back of my living Shepard character standing in front of the galaxy map. I don't think it was appropriate to handle the conclusion of a series in such a careless fashion.


"Commander Shepard has become a legend by ending the reaper threat. now you can continue to build that legend through further gameplay and downloadable content"

That was pretty horrible too, but for some reason returning to Normandy disturbed me more than that message.
 
Gonna be honest.

I'd totally play Mass Effect 4 if it was about populating that planet the Normandy falls in, with only the surviving crew.


e:a prequel would be the lamest.
 
The poll on the app.

Where should ME go next?

64% ME4

10% MMO

19% Prequel

2% Space Flight Sim

2% RTS

Am proud to be part of the 2% for space sim. Mass Effect: Freelancer.
 
So I know I said I was abandoning this thread earlier. And I have, my first time in here since.

I just wanted to say that my first reaction to Bioware is now complete, as I have packed up and am ready to mail my copies of ME1-3 to my brother so that he won't buy them.

edit: And Retake is now at 65,000, or an average of 20 dollars per donor. That is two pieces of DLC each!
 
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