I knew enough to stay away from the game once I found out Karpyshyn was not involved in the story.
Giant Bomb Thread The Third: #TeamBrad
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I knew enough to stay away from the game once I found out Karpyshyn was not involved in the story.
slightconfuse
Banned
Virtues Last Reward. 2013 2012 game of the year. BOOK IT!
eot
Banned
I don't think a lot of people actually thought that the Indoctrination Theory was aligned with BioWare's intent. People just thought it made more sense than a literal interpretation of events, which I can agree with to some extent since it was basically people trying to fill all the plot holes in a not too contrived manner.
ColonelColon
Member
Why is there such an over-the-top hatred toward the
from some people? If you deny that it makes some sense, then why do the
It's weird that people act like this theory is completely off the wall and makes no sense. The intention of the writer isn't even relevant here;
would have fit the established lore and it would have given Bioware an opportunity to retcon the shittiest part of the ending.
indoctrination theory
the dream sequences have imagery that matches the description of Reaper indoctrination given by the Rachni queen? Why do the whispers in Shepard's dreams sound so similar to the whispers heard during scenes where mind control/indoctrination is being used? Why are the ending choices presented to you by the boy whose death is haunting Shepard and who appears in Shepard's nightmares throughout the game? Why is the player expected to passively accept universe-shattering choices from an agent of the series' antagonists, who are known to exert mind control?
indoctrination
Minerva's Den: Brad was Right.
What are the "rules" of the Mass Effect universe that people seem to think the ending violates? I've seen this comment made over and over, but I can't figure out what specifically it's referring to.
Keep in mind I only have the perspective of having played the amended ending with all of the necessary DLC that makes it a better and more sensible game.
Keep in mind I only have the perspective of having played the amended ending with all of the necessary DLC that makes it a better and more sensible game.
I sort of thought the same thing, until I realized his concept for the ending was arguably worse, and the giant Terminator baby from the end of ME2 was his idea.
EmCeeGramr
Member
I didn't really like it either, but at least it sorta tied into dangling plot threads from ME2.
Then again, the "humanity is super special!" aspect really soured the whole thing, and that was one of the worst aspects of ME2's plot.
Meatvillain
Banned
Sucks that there'll be next to no content this week - the fact that there are no games doesn't help, but it's still a huge bummer.
At least that ILM was the most fun Mass Effect 3 ending talk I've seen, where normally it's just depressing/frustrating (particularly as someone who enjoyed the ending in spite of some of its problems, but that makes me a crazy person).
At least that ILM was the most fun Mass Effect 3 ending talk I've seen, where normally it's just depressing/frustrating (particularly as someone who enjoyed the ending in spite of some of its problems, but that makes me a crazy person).
slightconfuse
Banned
in the arrival DLC you blow up a mass relay which causes a supernova that destroys a star system. in the ending of Me 3 you destroy every mass relay
that is the one that comes to mind.
The
indoctrination theory
For one, the
mass relays used to violently blow up, which is said in the codex to always destroy the solar system in question. The EC changed it to basically have them shatter peacefully, and they're rebuilt in several (all?) of the endings as you've probably seen. The explosions in question could be seen on the "galaxy map" zoom-out, I'm sure it'd be visible in one of those ending comparison videos from March. Bioware later clarified that they did in fact not blow the solar systems up (at PAX, I think).
Edit: To clarify, the fact that they retconned the relays into not exploding like they used to seems like admission that they'd forgotten about the whole Arrival thing and its mentions in the codex.
Edit: To clarify, the fact that they retconned the relays into not exploding like they used to seems like admission that they'd forgotten about the whole Arrival thing and its mentions in the codex.
eot
Banned
Did you watch the Plinkett ripoff video?
The Crucible / Citadel / Catalyst / whatever is never justified in the fiction. They introduce, in the last 10 minutes of the game, the concept of a machine that can rewrite the DNA of every living being in the galaxy. It's nonsense, it might as well be magic. Science fiction is interesting because its universes abide by rules and have internal consistency. If anything is possible then what happens can't be meaningful.
darkressurection
Banned
For me (as someone who played the game day 1, no DLC) it was just this weird disconnect for this universe where pretty much everything was grounded in some sort of science
then all of a sudden, fucking shitty space wizard kid out of nowhere who is for some reason the form of this kid that has been haunting Shepard. Then of course the whole, all of these endings are the same thing issue.
Meatvillain
Banned
Because the Mass Relays blew up in the same way, right? Mass Relays have always been goddamn space magic, doesn't bother me that they would blow up in space magic.
I think it's related to the over the top hatred to the ending in general, There were going to be people that hated the ending no matter what it was. is the
indoctrination theory
I still don't hate the ending and think the reaction to it was massively overblown but I certainly think they could have done a better job with it.
jediyoshi
Member
There's some pretty overt nuggets they dropped to lead a player down that line of thinking, regardless of how ambiguously it was originally handled. Obviously people ran away with it, but it's not exactly a product of completely idle speculation that bioware doesn't have some part in.
Meatvillain
Banned
This sums up the series in general, really. As much as I love the games we wound up with (they are all some of my all-time favourites), Mass Effect is a series of consistently wasted potential.
EmCeeGramr
Member
The "rules" thing is more like a tone shift in the last 10 minutes, I think. You could justify it by with "But other sci-fi series go into that territory, sufficiently advanced technology, etc." but I suppose the difference is that Mass Effect mostly stayed out of that territory or went to pains to justify anything that came close.
It's not like 2001 where the Monolith appears in a religiously framed fashion at the outset, or Star Trek TNG where the very first episode involves Q and a psychic reality altering jellyfish and Jonathan Frake's supernaturally terrifying shaved babyface.
It's not like 2001 where the Monolith appears in a religiously framed fashion at the outset, or Star Trek TNG where the very first episode involves Q and a psychic reality altering jellyfish and Jonathan Frake's supernaturally terrifying shaved babyface.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
Even though I think it's unoriginal and pretty boring to have humans as "the chosen race" despite setting up this whole sci-fi universe, supposedly it actually had a purpose in Drew Karpshyn's storyline, which was why the Reapers came after Earth. But apparently it was too late to step away from "Take back Earth" by the time Karpshyn left, so now we have a completely nonsensical plot from the very start, where Reapers are suddenly petty, easily-frightened, and attacking Earth because fuck you Shepard, also players must be too stupid to want to play a game where you don't get to save Earth.
funkystudent
Member
Ok this thread is getting dangerous.
Ok I'll bail out for a while but as someone playing through ME 1 and 2 I want to know from a ME3 perspective which character should I bring forward, Kaiden or Ashley.
I know they return as playable characters in 3 but I never really liked ether when I first played it. Ash because she is space racist and Kaiden because he had all the personality of a rock
Ok I'll bail out for a while but as someone playing through ME 1 and 2 I want to know from a ME3 perspective which character should I bring forward, Kaiden or Ashley.
I know they return as playable characters in 3 but I never really liked ether when I first played it. Ash because she is space racist and Kaiden because he had all the personality of a rock
Arlecchino
Member
ME3 GOTY 2012. I believe in you Brad.
slightconfuse
Banned
Someone photoshop an indoctronated brad.
@funkystundent. Ashely always and forever
@funkystundent. Ashely always and forever
Jibbajabbawockky
Member
Yeah, I think that's sort of where a story heavy game like The Walking Dead does things right- it absolutely nails the ending, which makes you more likely to view the whole game in a more positive light, since it ends so strongly. ME3 has some nice moments within, but it just has such a nonsensical and contrived ending that leaving the ending as the last impression you have of the game is not a good thing, and makes you more apt to view the whole game in a more critical/negative light.
Its just a matter of at least trying to pay attention to your own details and lore that you've established up to that point. And BioWare couldn't even do that with the original ending, either willfully or just as an oversight. The whole "Space Kid Explains the Universe in 5 Minutes!" bit just felt bizarre considering everything that comes before it. And even if you accept the Space Kid trying to explain everything, the original ending becomes even more frustrating because you had so many unexplained, bizarre plot holes within the ending, like what the Normandy was running away from, where it landed, how your crew on Earth got on the Normandy, why the whole universe didn't explode with the relays, why anything you did mattered with the relays gone and everyone stuck, and so forth. Why bother trying to explain everything with Space Kid if you're just going to be lazy with the details with the rest of the ending?
My twist in the envelope would have been that
the Crucible was in fact the triggering factor of the end of the galaxy and that the plans had been planted by the Reapers in the first place. In my mind, that was an amazing plot twist.
I laughed.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
It's funny, because the ending tries to explain all the plot holes that people had with the game.
You never see the Normandy lift off after crashing, so Garrus and Tali will have died on that planet of starvation. The mass relays exploding would have stranded every alien ship in Earth orbit, so they would have starved to death as well. Beyond the practical stuff, there's the things other posters have explained - including the fact that, before Leviathan, it makes no sense that you would create robots to fight other robots. The fact that the Crucible is a horrible macguffin doesn't help either.
Maybe the whole thing would have been better if they shipped a complete game rather than try to sell it in pieces. But the experience you had was not the experience that people who played it in March had... so, yeah.
ShockingAlberto
Member
It genuinely does not matter.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
I'd say I preferred Skyrim over Saints Row 3. Sure, SR3 is fun and different, but there's nothing inherently incredible about it compared to the rest of this generation.
I always liked Kaidan just because of the camaraderie between him and male Shepard, even if his personality isn't very exciting. Whereas Ashley is just... poetry and trying to justify her suspicion of aliens. Mass EFfect's human squadmates are kind of boring, which is why it's baffling that we got another one even more uninteresting than the rest for ME3.
I always liked Kaidan just because of the camaraderie between him and male Shepard, even if his personality isn't very exciting. Whereas Ashley is just... poetry and trying to justify her suspicion of aliens. Mass EFfect's human squadmates are kind of boring, which is why it's baffling that we got another one even more uninteresting than the rest for ME3.
For now, just download Arrival.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
It seems like Ashes and Leviathan (Leviathon?!) are the ones to get.
Honestly if you have read Drew's book Revan, I doubt people would have the same faith in his ending beeing so much better. The way he
felt like a much bigger kick in the jewels then the way Bioware chose to finish Mass Effect.
I guess the main lesson is that definitive endings of epic stories are almost impossible to truly master.
You can argue that the whole
ending feels like a cheap cop out. Then again I still feel they could have done alot worse.
ends the story of Revan in that book
I guess the main lesson is that definitive endings of epic stories are almost impossible to truly master.
You can argue that the whole
spacemagic, Shepard is the chosen one
slightconfuse
Banned
From ashes and Leviathan.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
Not to mention planets like Illium that completely rely on commerce throughout the galaxy will completely fall apart.
eot
Banned
Yeah it's just not in keeping with the genre conventions they deliberately abided by throughout the rest of the series. To be honest though, after ME2 I was worried they wouldn't be able to resolve the Reaper situation in a plausible way just because of how little happened with regards to that in ME2.
Building a machine that was designed by some unknown entity who couldn't have had knowledge of what they were actually designing is implausible enough and it doesn't get better from there. The ending of the game doesn't even feel like it follows from the rest of the story. As has been said Shepard doesn't have any agency at the end, the starchild basically just lets you destroy the Reapers if that's what you want. The fleet you assemble in ME3 plays no part in your victory, and stopping Sovereign in ME1 doesn't even make sense in retrospect since starchild controlled the Citadel all along.
ME3
The Array explosion discrepancy complaint in particular always struck me as people being pissed off in general and then aggressively nit picking every possible thing about the ending. I never really saw why hitting an array with an asteroid and hitting it with space magic would have to have the same effect.
Omega no good? Just looked up the list. Rest seems to be multi stuff.
He indoctrinated them.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
In fact, nothing that happens in ME3 matters since the
Crucible is constructed even if you have 0% readiness. 
Yeah, really.
There's also silly stuff like Joker looking over his shoulder, as if the Normandy has a blind spot and he's trying to change lanes. They took that out in the Extended Cut ending as well. lol
You see them literally explode. What conclusion can you come up with based on your knowledge of Arrival?
slightconfuse
Banned
From general impression its not worth 15 bucks.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
Omega just sounds like a couple hours of combat, and then back to the rest of the galaxy with no impact.
It's not exactly
space magic when there is some sort of explanation on how do they work established beforehand, that is how sci-fi works. In any case, the outcome of them blowing up at the very least was that a shitload of races were stranded on Earth or on other places (like Tuchanka) with limited to almost depleted resources. Others like Quarians and Turians would starve to death with no intergalactic travel. Space travelling between systems is done. When people brought this up (after all the endings showed the same scene of the relays exploding) Bioware denied that was what happened. They explicitly said that in fact the relays didn't blow up, and retconned it in the Extended Cut, realizing that they in fact fucked up when they showed what space magic did in the first place.
The fact that a previous outcome was presented via the codex and a piece of DLC is where people believed there were some rules to how the relays work, and then Bioware denying that they blew up in the first place (while the images showed otherwise) led people to believe that they were not paying attention to the universe they had created.
The fact that a previous outcome was presented via the codex and a piece of DLC is where people believed there were some rules to how the relays work, and then Bioware denying that they blew up in the first place (while the images showed otherwise) led people to believe that they were not paying attention to the universe they had created.
ColonelColon
Member
Jibbajabbawockky
Member
Just end the game with
Shepard and Anderson looking out on the space battle, then cut to earth and see the catalyst/citadel do its thing and destroy the Reapers, and your teammates maybe looking up and happy that they've won, yet sad that Shep died.
I don't think they needed Space Kid or even giving people those red, blue, green choices. That bit felt like somebody said "We need a big decision at the end!" when keeping things simple yet executing on that simplicity would have possibly been more rewarding.
I don't think they needed Space Kid or even giving people those red, blue, green choices. That bit felt like somebody said "We need a big decision at the end!" when keeping things simple yet executing on that simplicity would have possibly been more rewarding.
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