Baron_Calamity
Member
That is so awesome!
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Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread |OT2| Taste the Rainbow
- Thread starter Patryn
- Start date
That is so awesome!
Felix Lighter
Member
I want to know it all. I want to know how it all came down to this. Was it somehow influenced by the earlier leaks? Did the budget just dry up and the only solution was to funnel everyone down the same shitty path for the last 10 minutes? Did the writer who came up with the ending just not have a grasp on the franchise and everyone else was afraid to speak up? If their intentions were to kill the franchise did they just not care how it was killed? These are the questions I'll never know the answers to but I desperately want to know.
Ciastek3214
Junior Member
I think we agree. Well not exactly about Bethesda's locations, but I guess that's a matter of opinion. Thank you for this conversation.
Apparently no one but Hudson and Walters was even in on the ending.
"I made a mistake!" And then he crawls to the console after Renegade Shep shoots him in the back. Shep also chucks his pistol to the side as he walks away. He himself doesn't feel too great about doing that either. Great scene all around, in either scenario.
Wrex was dampened a bit by him not having his shields up and everything. Shep's comment to Bailey stung badly though.
Interfectum
Member
I agree with this.
The scenes with Garrus, the death of Mordin (renegade) and the final push to the beam (right before it all went to shit) are some of the most memorable moments I've had in a video game in a long time.
Mutanthands
Member
Once the principal people involved eventually migrate away from Bioware or the industry, and some time passes, we'll find out. This has been such an unprecedented shitstorm, there's no way that the questions won't keep coming up. The ultimate post-mortum will be epic.
I could just imagine the pair of them giggling to themselves as they pasted everything from the god-elevator onward onto the ending of ME3 when it came off the cutting room floor.
AdmiralSnackbar
Member
If only Bioware was clever enough to rip off (or at least take inspiration from) the halo ending. The trilogy ends with all the major conflicts ending in a believable way and the protagonist is only kind of dead. The Halo series could have ended with 3 (obviously it wouldn't) and everyone would had been happy.
Instead someone said "hay Mass Effect is about decision making, Deus Ex ended with some big decisions, lets look at that!".
I'm sure they ran out of time and had budget issues for the final mission. You can see a lot of cut dialog and plot stuff on reddit, it seems there was going to be a part where your choices in who you got to come to earth (for example geth primes, asari commandos, major kirrahe) actually played out in the ground battle and Joker was supposed to bring the SR2 in at some point during the run to the beam.
As for the last 10 minutes, Patrick Weekes basically confirmed that it was only Hudson and Walters writing that portion unlike the rest of the game which was peer-reviewed. I'm pretty sure we can solely lay the blame for the kid and starchild on Mac Walters.
UnluckyKate
Member
Does weapons can go over level V if I import a ME3 character ?
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
And this is why vanguard is best class:
I think the limitations had a lot more to do with needing to put out all three games back to back and thus imposing some limitations on where they could take the technology they began with circa 2005-2007 (part of that may even be down to the customizable Shepard and needing to make sure the automated facial animation works). There is a shit ton of work that needs to be streamlined on the animation side so they can hit the 2 year development cycle, and let's not forget that they essentially added +1 platform in-house with each sequel - ME1 was 360 only (PC version outsourced), ME2 was PC/360 and so on. It's really not just "recompile" at the press of a button. And FWIW, I have found ME3 to be the buggiest and least polished of the three games (it has crashed a lot more, and there are the numerous conversation bugs for example).
The CDP folks had the benefit of much longer dev time whilst only focusing on one platform at a time. Even still, the engine is largely DX9 and they did make improvements on top of the PC edition for the 360 - I think it's a bit too easy to just blame the console hardware solely. The situations between the developers are completely different.
Are we talking pure assets/engine alone or are we talking the studio as a whole? If it's the latter then I strongly disagree.
PinkCrayon
Member
Yup.
Felix Lighter
Member
Yeah that's what I've heard. It blows my mind that 2 people heavily involved in the project since the beginning could have come up with that ending and didn't recognize at least a couple of the planet sized plot holes, not to mention, the complete abandoning of the franchise's themes.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Just the Mass Effect team and their assets. A huge draw to the franchise, for me, is the Mass Effect team's artist. They do a consistently excellent job of realising the game universe, in my opinion, even with the limited technology taken into account. They don't 'need' anybody else designing their worlds.
Yeah, you're probably right. As a PC gamer though I always have that "what if" scenario in my head. I'd adore a Mass Effect game that really takes advantage of the kind of hardware power we have on PC.
UnluckyKate
Member
Oh god I lost it
In NG+, you can buy up to level VII and you'll get VIII, IX and X when you pick up the weapon again.
Confidence Man
Member
It's not like the rest of the game was any better. The entire plot is crap. Peer-reviewed crap, but crap nonetheless. The crucible & catalyst are terrible ideas to begin with.
Honestly, the only thing I think Bioware really needs is someone else to come in and pen the overarching framework stories of their games. The ones I've played have all been bad to passable and never really better than that. They shine on the micro scale with the smaller stories, missions, and characters, but everything above that is either bland and boring or stupid. That's partially why the ending didn't bother me so much. I've learned I really don't play Bioware games for that.
Well at least it would've been consistent with the rest of the story instead of the "high level" crap we got.
kinoki
Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
I would't be mad if BioWare made a ME4 and decided that full paragon was canon saying it's what they wanted to see options available. And continue the story à la worst ending ME2 so that no one else lives to tell a story.
i dont think there are a trillion asari. also I think 1% have the gene and maybe most dont show symptoms
WrenchNinja
Member
The crucible should have been a reaper trap. A planted reaper trap, a weapon of mass destruction that does absolutely nothing. It work as a way of distracting the galaxies best scientists from the war with them, which makes it even easier for them to harvest.
As for the catalyst, well he should have just been an AI the reapers planted on the citadel that couldn't really do anything, but should the crucible ever be completed and docked onto the citadel, the catalyst should just come in and tell anyone there that they have been trolled.None of the explanation shit toward the reaper motivations, just tell them that you've wasted your time and hope on a device that has no purpose but to distract the galaxy.
Apophenia Overload
Member
I thought the unofficial consensus was that Halo 3's ending was okay?
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
you do know about the 'extra' after destroy with very high EMS right?
Going with the series, renegade being canon (which might explain the weird color coding) would make sense. Not that it would mean anything at this point though.
Apophenia Overload
Member
You and most of the internet except for gaming critics. Chalk it up to another consequence of their ivory tower out-of-touchness.
KingItachi
Member
Good question this had me really thinking about what wowed me over the years in gaming, as for the mass effect series I have no wow moments. I have a few scenes from 1 and 2 that I like, shep getting owned by the collectors is one of them as for other games Shadow of the Colossus come to mind seeing and killing my first Colossus was a wow moment for me. how could I forget to fighting Physco Mantis for the first time in MGS on the PS1.
Confidence Man
Member
There shouldn't have been a crucible or a catalyst.
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
The only REAL problem with the crucible and the catalyst are introducing them out of the blue in the third game, or at least the crucible.
Introducing something that 'beats the reapers' in the third act of the game because 'no one thought to look in the prothean archives in Mars' is just silly, especially in the third act of a trilogy when there are already tons of other plot threads to wrap up.
It's too bad Bioware was making up the story as they went :/
As to the art, I miss ME1's slightly campy 70's-80's overtones and aesthetic style. ME2 changed everything to grim/dark.
Introducing something that 'beats the reapers' in the third act of the game because 'no one thought to look in the prothean archives in Mars' is just silly, especially in the third act of a trilogy when there are already tons of other plot threads to wrap up.
It's too bad Bioware was making up the story as they went :/
As to the art, I miss ME1's slightly campy 70's-80's overtones and aesthetic style. ME2 changed everything to grim/dark.
Apophenia Overload
Member
Let's make a list of things Bioware should have introduced in ME 2 instead of cramming it into ME 3:
* Crucible/Catalyst
* Kai Leng
* EDI's body (as post-suicide mission DLC)
* trying to introduce new gamers (including CoD shooter-types) to Mass Effect
* Crucible/Catalyst
* Kai Leng
* EDI's body (as post-suicide mission DLC)
* trying to introduce new gamers (including CoD shooter-types) to Mass Effect
AdmiralSnackbar
Member
I got really exited when the catalyst was the citadel, thinking there would be some awesome reference to ME1 (maybe the keeper scanning guy).
But nooooooooooooo.....
I don't like that the Crucible was designed and aggregated miraculously over the ages. That alone doesn't make sense.
I thought that's what they intended with ME2.
Empty Space
Member
I still think not making the Crucible the thing that killed the Reaper you get the IFF in ME2 was a missed opportunity. Make it a powerful weapon when not connected to the relay network and the super world altering device when hooked up to the citadel.
EmCeeGramr
Member
you know what another game is, where you get good, neutral, and jerk choices, and at the end you fight an alien group invading earth who claim to be doing it for the good of mankind is
Sapphire Dreams
Member
Also guys, am I the only that felt that Liara's abilities as the shadow broker were underutilized ? I mean we could have got a lot more quests and information from her.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Confidence Man
Member
The magic solution is just predictable and poorly handled, and it the whole idea of cycle after cycle building it and yet no one knows what it does makes no sense.
I think they should've used the relays against the reapers, detonate them once the reapers come through. The cost of taking out the reapers is wiping out the systems they're in, and the background of the game would be a massive evacuation effort instead of a construction project. No Deus Ex Machina, no RGB choice, and they still get their galactic reset as far as mass relay travel.
Layer Of The Shadow Broker 2.
Apophenia Overload
Member
Would've been better (but contrived) if there was some even older proto-elder race that possibly created the Reapers or fought them first and released fragmentary plans for their super Device, and so every cycle is the surviving races desperately turning to this potential dud in the hopes that it actually does something.
Shepard's cycle is the first one that makes it so far because they were using research yielded from aeons of attempts to build this elder race's superweapon. Point is that in this case instead of merely building upon each other randomly, all of the cycles were following the original manufacturer's (distorted and lost in pieces) manual.
Shepard's cycle is the first one that makes it so far because they were using research yielded from aeons of attempts to build this elder race's superweapon. Point is that in this case instead of merely building upon each other randomly, all of the cycles were following the original manufacturer's (distorted and lost in pieces) manual.
Felix Lighter
Member
I know it's not the most interesting way to end the trilogy but, I would have much rather seen the ending come down to the obvious, battle between alliance of spacefaring species with their full military might vs. the Reapers. No Crucible. The Reapers could have been weakened by the long journey they had to take to return from dark space so that the protheans' efforts would have done more than delay the inevitable. The final endings would have been determined by the players readiness meter and alliances. Yeah it wouldn't have been high concept but it would have been damn satisfying.
Photolysis
Banned
Better still, if they had just downloaded Reaper plans from the Collector base in ME2, and found out a weakness or something. Good enough for the original Star Wars and it's better than what we got. Have the data get analysed to allow a weapon to be built that would even the odds and give the fleets/allies you've gathered a chance to win the battle.
Ditch the shitty synthetics/organics plot in favour of the original dark energy plot and you have a series that ties together without being too contrived.
Bioware, you can send me a large cheque now.
Psychoward
Banned
Never invaded when?
Ciastek3214
Junior Member
Well... never.
You see them landing on Mars as you leave.
bonesmccoy
Banned
Was there a moment in ME1 or ME2 that had you discovering a massive crater on a planet? And some kind of dialogue that an ancient species took a 'big shot' at the Reapers, but missed?
I seem to recall that there was. This memory was large in my mind as I patiently awaited the Crucible activation moment; I had pictured a 'Destroy the Reapers now, but completely obliterate Earth in doing so (paragon), or control the Reapers, and establish humanity and your chosen allies as the ubermenschen of the galaxy (renegade)" final mission decision. I mean, wasn't that what we were being driven towards by the whole Cerberus sub plot?
I seem to recall that there was. This memory was large in my mind as I patiently awaited the Crucible activation moment; I had pictured a 'Destroy the Reapers now, but completely obliterate Earth in doing so (paragon), or control the Reapers, and establish humanity and your chosen allies as the ubermenschen of the galaxy (renegade)" final mission decision. I mean, wasn't that what we were being driven towards by the whole Cerberus sub plot?