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[Sotha Sil]

Damn. Hahahaha

 

[Rapstah]

ME3 is not a B tier game. Not many games this gen could even hold up to the first 40 hours of it.

How much scanning did you have to do to get to 40 hours? i beat it in 34 with all missions beaten. Many of those hours were easily beaten by many 2012 games, mostly the scanning hours.

 

[inky]

It hurts because it's true.

Bioware is just a shell of what it once was. It's a name that will be used with franchises that are bound to be B-tier games.

That's not fair. Dragon Age is like D tier at this point.

 

[Moaradin]

How much scanning did you have to do to get to 40 hours? i beat it in 34 with all missions beaten. Many of those hours were easily beaten by many 2012 games, mostly the scanning hours.

Scanning for every single side quest only took 30 minutes at most. They all tell you exactly where the artifact it. My game took 44 hours to beat on Hardcore. I missed out on a few of the bigger side quest due to bugs also.

 

[Deleted member 13876]

How much scanning did you have to do to get to 40 hours? i beat it in 34 with all missions beaten. Many of those hours were easily beaten by many 2012 games, mostly the scanning hours.

I think if I pieced together all my scanning it'd maaybe add up to an hour. In 2 it would've been longer but the minerals thing made more sense than probing up whatever race's bible in a logical context.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

That's not fair. Dragon Age is like D tier at this point.

I lolled.

 

[Papercuts]

How much scanning did you have to do to get to 40 hours? i beat it in 34 with all missions beaten. Many of those hours were easily beaten by many 2012 games, mostly the scanning hours.

Scanning really doesn't take long at all here. I cleared the scanning missions all at once just going through all the systems to 100%, and it took about an hour when my playthrough itself was 44 hours. That isn't counting the MP which I've surprisingly been playing a lot of, all in all the actual time spent on ME3 has been my most enjoyable in a long time. I felt the same about ME2 as well, so these are hardly b tier games to me. Though in 2 which I beat around 40 hours as well, a lot more of that time was spent scanning.

 

[Bowdz]

Scanning for every single side quest only took 30 minutes at most. They all tell you exactly where the artifact it. My game took 44 hours to beat on Hardcore. I missed out on a few of the bigger side quest due to bugs also.

My first playthrough was on Insanity with 100% galactic readiness, 100% in every system, and all missions completed and it only took me 37 hours.

 

[Moaradin]

My first playthrough was on Insanity with 100% galactic readiness, 100% in every system, and all missions completed and it only took me 37 hours.

Playtime always varies in the ME games. It's longer than ME1 and probably about the same as ME2. They can all be finished pretty quickly though.

 

[Lime]

Evilore posted this in another thread, but it really astounds me how EA or Bioware can charge 60 USD for ME3, considering they pulled Javik out of the release and made him day-1 DLC, they copy-pasted the 360 code and assets, no gamepad and mod support, tied to Origin, and it is digitally distributed.

I've provided an exclusive one-of-a-kind digital lithographic artwork print, I mean a jpeg, for illustrative purposes:

Blockbuster mainstream gaming in 2012:

 

[Dresden]

I think the only thing of significance is Javik. All the other stuff is typical useless shit that CE collectors eat up.

 

[Lime]

I think the only thing of significance is Javik. All the other stuff is typical useless shit that CE collectors eat up.

Story-wise, yes. But adding 10 dollars on the original MSRP for a usual PC release, as well as failing to support the PC platform at all (360 assets, no gamepad support, no mods, lack of graphical options, terrible animations, etc.), while tying the release to their shitty DRM.

It's extremely anti-consumer behaviour towards PC players. Fuck EA.

 

[firehawk12]

Saw this earlier. It might be factually incorrect (Bioware have always wanted to go in this direction), but at least it reminds us of the death of Bullfrog, Maxis, Origin and Pandemic:

http://i.imgur.com/zFrTB.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

What does it mean that the doctors are like top execs at EA now?

 

[daedalius]

I watched all 39 minutes of the nerdrage video.

Pretty much how I feel.

 

[- J - D -]

Evilore posted this in another thread, but it really astounds me how EA or Bioware can charge 60 USD for ME3, considering the pulled Javik out of the release and made him day-1 DLC, they copy-pasted the 360 code and assets, no gamepad and mod support, tied to Origin, and it is digitally distributed.

Were you surprised? This astounds me.

 

[inky]

But what happens to my LI

?

She's with me now.

 

[Lime]

Were you surprised? This astounds me.

Not astounded as in surprised by the fact that they did it, but as being impressed by their moral bankruptcy.

 

[Divvy]

Speaking of synthetics. What happened to all the synthetics from previous cycles? Did the Reapers wipe them out or preserve them in any way? I can't imagine the ravages of time just wiping them away like it would organic life.

As for the explosions, I don't think we were ever meant to believe those in the ending wiped out entire planets. Doesn't require as much suspension of disbelieve to think that what amounts to blowing out the fuse of a relay or whatever it is that happened here provides different results.

I missed your post earlier and I'd like to respond to it.

I think it's perfectly okay to have a suspension of belief towards the end that the relays didn't blow up everyone. But that's the red herring argument. The real salient problem is why Shepard didn't think this through.

Let's go back to on top of the Citadel with the starturd.

Starshit: "You're here so my solution won't work for some reason, idk, whatevs.

Anyways here's your three options:"

Control the Reapers, but you die

Destroy all the synthetics everywhere

Or merge all organics with the synthetics

Shepard: Okay, those are some pretty shitty choices, but fine, I'm on board.

Starchild: Oh and all of those options will destroy all the mass relays.

It is at this point that Shepard would have stopped and said,

"wait, what was that?"

because all of this:

Control the Reapers, but you die

Destroy all the synthetics everywhere

Or merge all organics with the synthetics

Is meaningless, it's another red herring, especially since they lead to identical endings. The real thing that should have struck out at him would be the destruction of the relays. Remember that the only other time that a relay was destroyed resulted in the complete and utter annihilation of the Batarian solar system. The scientist there even explicitly states that when a relay is destroyed, it unleashes a supernova. This is all the information Shepard has at this point.

Now the player can say "oh well maybe it's a different kind of explosion because we see Joker and the Normandy all perfectly fine on some tropical planet." but Shepard does not have the benefit of hindsight in this situation.

As far as Shepard knows at this point is that a) all three "choices' blow up all the relays in the galaxy and b) a relay explosion wipes out everything in a solar system. When you add a and b together, what the Starpoo is actually suggesting as far as Shepard knows, is that all three actions will basically kill all civilization in the galaxy since there is mass relay wherever there is potential for life to form.

So basically everything Shepard has fought to protect, Earth, Palaven, Tuchanka, Thessia, etc... would be wiped out

At this point Shepard should at least be asking for clarification on whether everything will actually get wiped out or not, but nooo, not even the slightest twitch of an eyebrow. He would absolutely not take some magic hologram kid that he just met's word on it. Especially since the kid had just admitted to creating the reapers. This is absolutely something that Shepard would not do.

 

[LightofRohan]

Evilore posted this in another thread, but it really astounds me how EA or Bioware can charge 60 USD for ME3, considering the pulled Javik out of the release and made him day-1 DLC, they copy-pasted the 360 code and assets, no gamepad and mod support, tied to Origin, and it is digitally distributed.

Eh, I'm actually in the unpopular camp that I think that game pricing should be adjusted and games like ME should cost more ect. but it's impossible to judge which game should cost more ect. So substituting DLC helps alleviate some of the cost of development. Game development is a shitton more expensive then it has ever been and games relying generally on the sale of the game only, is making it tougher to make these huge games at the same price/less as they were 10-20 years ago.

 

[firehawk12]

Eh, I'm actually in the unpopular camp that I think that game pricing should be adjusted and games like ME should cost more ect. but it's impossible to judge which game should cost more ect. So substituting DLC helps alleviate some of the cost of development. Game development is a shitton more expensive then it has ever been and games relying generally on the sale of the game only, is making it tougher to make these huge games at the same price/less as they were 10-20 years ago.

I don't think they have any right to complain about used game prices now if they keep pushing up the real cost of games via DLC.

 

[Deleted member 13876]

At this point Shepard should at least be asking for clarification on whether everything will actually get wiped out or not, but nooo, not even the slightest twitch of an eyebrow. He would absolutely not take some magic hologram kid that he just met's word on it. Especially since the kid had just admitted to creating the reapers. This is absolutely something that Shepard would not do.

I see what you mean. Also was it me or did anyone else have the impression that in the way Starchild worded things that certain choices would not also include the destroy all relays clause? I think that was even one of my motivations for choosing sythesis and being surprised when the relays blew up for me. Could be totally wrong here though.

 

[Bowdz]

Is meaningless, it's another red herring, especially since they lead to identical endings. The real thing that should have struck out at him would be the destruction of the relays. Remember that the only other time that relay was destroyed resulted in the complete and utter annihilation of the Batarian solar system. The scientist there even explicitly states that when a relay is destroyed, it unleashes a supernova. This is all the information Shepard has at this point.

Now the player can say "oh well maybe it's a different kind of explosion because we see Joker and the Normandy all perfectly fine on some tropical planet." but Shepard does not have the benefit of hindsight in this situation.

As far as Shepard knows at this point is that a) all three "choices' blow up all the relays in the galaxy and b) a relay explosion wipes out everything in a solar system. When you add a and b together, what the Starpoo is actually suggesting as far as Shepard knows, is that all three actions will basically kill all civilization in the galaxy since there is mass relay wherever there is potential for life to form.

So basically everything Shepard has fought to protect, Earth, Palaven, Tuchanka, Thessia, etc... would be wiped out

At this point Shepard should at least be asking for clarification on whether everything will actually get wiped out or not, but nooo, not even the slightest twitch of an eyebrow. He would absolutely not take some magic hologram kid that he just met's word on it. Especially since the kid had just admitted to creating the reapers. This is absolutely something that Shepard would not do.

Indeed. The scene runs contrary to everything the player has learned about Shepard's character (regardless of Paragon or Renegade actions). Even if Shepard knew that the Crucible would only disable the relays and not cause them to go supernova, I can't imagine he/she wouldn't question the action. Knowing that what you are about to do is going to plunge the galaxy into a dark age (a 10,000 year dark age according to in game text notes), it is hard to imagine anyone just going along with it without saying "Wait, why do the Relays have to be destroyed? Is there another option? Go to hell, we will find another way, we have done the impossible before and we will do it again."

 

[Divvy]

I'm just quoting Divvy as he summed up all the other points. Also, keep in mind that I'm not trying to dis anyone, this is all in fun for me as I enjoy the universe and talking about it.

- totally agree with the Normandy & crew scene, especially since the squadmate I took with me showed up in the end scene. Although, one could argue that Joker was back up in space during the final fight, and started to run when the Citadel opened up. But that's a bit of a stretch.

- Was the starchild ON the Citadel? In my 2 viewings, he said he WAS the Citadel. So if the Protheans altered the Keepers, would they not have also altered the Citadel and subsequently the starchild? Maybe the starchild race 'ascended' themselves into the Citadel after creating the Reapers and then sat back and took a passive role throughout the cycles?

I'm not sure, maybe? That could be plausible. It's kind of shitty that we don't have enough information to figure it out.

- good question, why did Harbinger fly off?

- Just to nitpick: Reapers are not pure synthetics, they are created from organics, so they are a hybrid (intermediate step in the evolution that the Starchild talks about?) Another good question re: why not just destroy synthetics? Well, what good will that do if it's inevitable that synthetics will be re-created again anyways? The cycle has been going on for at least 37 million years (740 cycles), and presumably organics have created synthetics that brought them to the verge of total annihilation every time.

But everything is inevitable. Things will most certainly repeat themselves again. But if you're goal is to protect organics from the repeated uprising of the synthetics, then why would you destroy the organics?

- Shepard was the first organic to reach the inner sanctum of the Citadel. Ever. In 37 million years. Once the cycle was 'broken' a new contingency had to be accounted for.

But why? Why does Shepard being there break any cycle? The cycle of Reapers harvesting organics doesn't stop because Shepard talked to the kid.

- People make alot of things that they don't know what the full repercussions are. Take a look at nuclear weapons in our own history. If we are also to believe that organic evolution was 'guided' somehow by Reaper/Starchild technology, maybe it was inevitable that organics would eventually construct a Crucible-like countermeasure. Remember, organic = chaos, and that's hard to predict.

I suppose the reapers themselves influenced the races to build the thing. But then why were they so afraid of the Crucible that they withdrew the citadel back to Earth to protect it? It's hard to discuss this because I still don't know what the Crucible does.

- Yeah, the relay destruction is tricky, the only thing I came up with is that the only relay destroyed to date was by a ginormous asteroid colliding with it. Perhaps the Crucible induced deactivation is less destructive, and only affects the lifeforms that you chose to save/destroy?

I already talked about this above

- Well, I dunno if the theme of the entire series is about 'United Colors of Benetton'. I saw it more about order vs. chaos, creator vs. creation. And are they all 'the same' now? They are all similar being that they are fused with synthetics, but does that mean Turians can eat human food now? Will Volus no longer need pressure suits? Will I finally be able to pro-create with a Hanar?

This is a fair point. Who knows. It would have been nice to show what happened beyond Joker have shiny eyes! lol

- I never got the impression that the Geth were ever assessed to be 'ascended' by the Reapers. I only saw they were being used as tools by them. Keep in mind that Nazara (aka Sovereign) came to them and offered them technology to further their own goals, and that caused the schism.

I believe Sovereign explicitly says at one point that the geth were assessed for assimilation but were deemed unworthy. Will have to check on that. Maybe it was a lie. Sovereign and Harbringer had to have lied a lot for the ending to make sense.


- not sure I understand that last question. They were pretty far along creating a human Reaper at the end of ME2, so at that point, who cares how many more of them die? They were making husks, cannibals, ravagers, brutes, banshees and marauders too. Maybe instead of making multiple Reapers from a wide variety of lifeforms, they make multiple Reapers from the dominant one.

Well I meant that the kid states that the Reapers are there to archive all the organics in each cycle by processing them into Reapers. They do this to store the collective information on these races. But with each cycle, a good amount of reapers wind up dead, and all this information is thus lost.

Has anyone touched on the obvious Lovecraftian influences on ME? I had read a bunch of his works, but never made the connection until recently. His whole philosophy was that humans are totally inconsequential in the cosmos, and that the workings of the universe are unfathomable to us. Also, a race of super beings from outer space that come every now and then to wreak havoc on us sounds a bit familiar no?\

Yup, Mass Effect does draw a great amount of stuff from Lovecraft. That and Star Trek.

So maybe I made some salient points, maybe I didn't. And I'm not outright dismissing all the points that you made either. The indoctrination theory definitely holds water in my book, I'm just not entirely convinced it's THE answer.

Regardless, as I said, it's all in fun for me to discuss these things. I read the ME wiki alot too, so I'm probably picking up some details that aren't in the game. If there's something I'm missing - and there probably is, because there is so much stuff in the ME universe - let me know.

I totally agree that it's a lot of fun discussing these points. It's the natural outcome of a techy/lore type universe like Mass Effect.

 

[Psychoward]

It hurts because it's true.

Bioware is just a shell of what it once was. It's a name that will be used with franchises that are bound to be B-tier games.

It's actually kind if sad thinking about BW's future.

Dragon Age is pure shit, Mass Effect doesn't look too bright, it's just, bleh, it sucks.

 

[RedRedSuit]

Yeah, a sometimes overlooked shittiness aspect is that Shepard suddenly turns into a total subservient unquestioning wuss.

And it's not an oversight either... it's intentional. They had a dialog wheel but TOOK IT OUT to keep things "high level." Just....

 

[Escape Goat]

- good question, why did Harbinger fly off?

Wild speculation from everyone (is it still funny?)

or

buy the DLC to find out

 

[heliosRAzi]

- Was the starchild ON the Citadel? In my 2 viewings, he said he WAS the Citadel. So if the Protheans altered the Keepers, would they not have also altered the Citadel and subsequently the starchild? Maybe the starchild race 'ascended' themselves into the Citadel after creating the Reapers and then sat back and took a passive role throughout the cycles?

You're reading way too far into it. We have no evidence, no hints at what the starchild is besides an AI construct.

- Just to nitpick: Reapers are not pure synthetics, they are created from organics, so they are a hybrid (intermediate step in the evolution that the Starchild talks about?) Another good question re: why not just destroy synthetics? Well, what good will that do if it's inevitable that synthetics will be re-created again anyways? The cycle has been going on for at least 37 million years (740 cycles), and presumably organics have created synthetics that brought them to the verge of total annihilation every time.

Anyway you slice it, they are synthetics. A single command can force them to whisk them away.

And no one should readily accept that synthetics will destroy all organic life when we have 3 instances of them not doing so: EDI doesn't vent the entire crew of the Normandy; the geth could have annihilated the quarians when they first rebelled (and they were acting in defense) and are now helping to rebuild the quarians' immune systems; and the Reapers are synthetic (I don't see how mushing organics into a paste makes them a hybrid) and they don't cull all of organic life, just the advanced ones.

The Reapers also help the geth in this cycle. Some people argue that the Reapers will use whatever tools they have in order to stop organics from making synthetics, which I believe is plausible, but upgrading them so that each geth program is sentient? Isn't that just asking for trouble?

As for the synthetics being made to be stronger than the Reapers: does that still mean that they would destroy all organic life? Nope. Sure, you could hypothesize that that they could. But when you start going into that territory, it gets all nebulous and abstract. A virus could evolve that can eat through all kinds of matter. It would be just as bad as synthetics destroying all life.

- Shepard was the first organic to reach the inner sanctum of the Citadel. Ever. In 37 million years. Once the cycle was 'broken' a new contingency had to be accounted for.

1 out of how ever many cycles ain't bad. They should've killed Shep, destroyed the Crucibile, upgraded the Catalyst and continued on with the cycles. Shepard reaching the Catalyst doesn't mean that their solution is broken.

- Yeah, the relay destruction is tricky, the only thing I came up with is that the only relay destroyed to date was by a ginormous asteroid colliding with it. Perhaps the Crucible induced deactivation is less destructive, and only affects the lifeforms that you chose to save/destroy?

This is one of the things Bioware should have spelled out in the game. If you introduce a piece of technology and says that it will do A when activated and if it explodes, B occurs, people will accept that. When you suddenly change it up, it will cause confusion unless it is explained. Just a single line that says that the relays will be deactivated.

Although I prefer that they are simply deactivated, I can't help but feel that Bioware simply overlooked what happens when a relay explodes especially given their laziness in parts of this game.

- Well, I dunno if the theme of the entire series is about 'United Colors of Benetton'. I saw it more about order vs. chaos, creator vs. creation. And are they all 'the same' now? They are all similar being that they are fused with synthetics, but does that mean Turians can eat human food now? Will Volus no longer need pressure suits? Will I finally be able to pro-create with a Hanar?

There are multiple themes in Mass Effect: overcoming the impossible, fate vs. self-determination, what constitutes life, synthetics vs. organics, second chances. The main one, exemplified by Shepard herself, is overcoming the impossible. She kicks reason to the curb, sees the invisible, breaks the unbreakable, and touches the untouchable. When told that going through the Omega-4 relay was a one way trip, she said fuck that and came back along with all of her crew. When told that she couldn't defeat Soverein, she said fuck that noise. When told that united the various races of the galaxy was impossible, she said Ima fuck do it.

Then we get into the lesser themes of second chances and such. The krogan and the rachni and even the geth represent getting a second chance. You can cure the genophage, save the rachni queen, and achieve peace between the geth and quarians. The geth and EDI fulfill the "what constitutes as life" theme perfectly as do the synthetics vs. organics theme.

The ending is an out of character moment for us. Our Shepards, no matter how you played, would not sit idly by while the Catalyst permitted us to take a choice. No, she would have put three differently colored bullets right between his glowing eyes. But, in the game, she just accepts it all. We not given any dialogue choices and no real explanation. After all of this time shaping Shepard's story throughout these games, in the end we can't shape anything.

Add I do enjoy having this discussion. It's fun.

 

[RedRedSuit]

The music during the ending is so good. It hurts. It hurts.

Hold me.

4 days later... still hurts.

 

[Pancho]

Sucks that this ending totally ruined my FemShep Insanity run. After I finished the game with MaleShep, I haven't touched my insanity run in ME2...what's the point?

 

[Bowdz]

The music during the ending is so good. It hurts. It hurts.

Hold me.

4 days later... still hurts.

I think Bioware subconsciously knew that the beginning and ending were terrible, so they contacted Mansell specifically to lessen the pain in both scenes. Both Leaving Earth and An End, Once and For All are such great tracks that was tacked onto pretty disappointed scenes.

 

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

You're reading way too far into it. We have no evidence, no hints at what the starchild is besides an AI construct.

So did it take the form of the kid from Shep's nightmares or did it plant the nightmares?

 

[brandonh83]

ok, want to ask how far I am into it: I've did pretty much everything available to me up to the cure the genophage mission on Tuchanka

I'm hoping the game opens up a lot more because so far it has felt very sterile and streamlined.

edit: annnnd this would be the spoiler thread.

 

[Pancho]

ok, want to ask how far I am into it:

Spoiler

I've did pretty much everything available to me up to the cure the genophage mission on Tuchanka

I'm hoping the game opens up a lot more because so far it has felt very sterile and streamlined.

I'd say you're about halfway through the game.

 

[brandonh83]

I'd say you're about halfway through the game.

...then I pray it gets better. A lot better.

 

[Bowdz]

...then I pray it gets better. A lot better.

Mission structure and freedom will not change much from that point on. I loved post Tuchanka missions, but I also enjoyed everything after you left Earth.

 

[Minion101]

I liked Muju's paintings so much, I fiddled around to make two 1080p desktop backgrounds:



Shepards
Shepard alone

This was a quick job with content-aware fill for the edges and blank space. Please, make a better job of it if you can.

Here's my attempt to touch this up with paint.net and It looks kinda crap. If I had photoshop installed I could do a better job. If some of the patterns were taken out it'd be a great piece for wallpaper.

 

[heliosRAzi]

So did it take the form of the kid from Shep's nightmares or did it plant the nightmares?

It took the form of the kid from Shep's dreams, but it first wanted to appear as Casey Hudson

 

[brandonh83]

Mission structure and freedom will not change much from that point on. I loved post Tuchanka missions, but I also enjoyed everything after you left Earth.

I just feel like it's kinda repetitive so far. The gameplay isn't doing anything for me at all, but then again it didn't in ME2 either. I'm definitely a bigger fan of the original game than its sequels...

but anyway, yeah, I'll move the rest of my thoughts over to the non-spoiler OT as I shouldn't even be here yet

 

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

...then I pray it gets better. A lot better.

Spoiler

Nope...................................................................... !

 

[Bowdz]

I just feel like it's kinda repetitive so far. The gameplay isn't doing anything for me at all, but then again it didn't in ME2 either. I'm definitely a bigger fan of the original game than its sequels...

but anyway, yeah, I'll move the rest of my thoughts over to the non-spoiler OT as I shouldn't even be here yet

God speed. We look forward to seeing you after you finish the game.

 

[Moaradin]

The Tuchanka Mission is one of the highest moments in the series

 

[Lothars]

...then I pray it gets better. A lot better.

I think it stays pretty high quality up until the end.

 

[brandonh83]

God speed. We look forward to seeing you after you finish the game.

do you guys hate the game so much that you're anticipating even more hate?

 

[RedRedSuit]

do you guys hate the game so much that you're anticipating even more hate?

Most of us love the shit out of 0.99 of this game.

 

[Moaradin]

do you guys hate the game so much that you're anticipating even more hate?

Most of us love the game up until the very last minutes. If you don't like the Tuchanka mission, which is considered to be very good, then you probably won't like most of the game and especially the ending.

 

[- J - D -]

Tuchanka is ME3's Virmire.

 

[daedalius]

- Shepard was the first organic to reach the inner sanctum of the Citadel. Ever. In 37 million years. Once the cycle was 'broken' a new contingency had to be accounted for.

 

[Moaradin]

Tuchanka is ME3's Virmire.

ME3 has 2 Virmires. I would say

Spoiler

Rannoch

(spoilers since that guy hasn't beat the game yet) is the hardest choice in the series if you didn't get the perfect paragon option.

 

[heliosRAzi]

ME3 has 2 Virmires. I would say

Spoiler

Rannoch

(spoilers since that guy hasn't beat the game yet) is the hardest choice in the series if you didn't get the perfect paragon option.

You spoilered Rannoch in the spoiler thread?

Brandon, if you don't want to be spoiled on the story leave this thread and ask your questions in the vanilla thread

 

[Moaradin]

You spoilered Rannoch in the spoiler thread?

Brandon, if you don't want to be spoiled on the story leave this thread and ask your questions in the vanilla thread

Yea idk why that guy was in the spoiler thread when he could ask the same thing in the OT but I was being safe anyways.