MissyElliottSmith
Member
Can I play this game without Origin, or do I need origin at all? If so, then that would be a great idea. Currently, my experience with Origin has just been soured completely.
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Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread |OT2| Taste the Rainbow
- Thread starter Patryn
- Start date
Giving you your money back on a game you've finished, a game that they can't then turn around an sell to someone else to dampen the loss is pretty fucking accommodating, to be honest. They don't have to do that.I was also able to get a refund for Mass Effect 3, via Origin Live Help/Live Chat. It took a while, but I was able to get across my complete dissatisfaction with the game. First, I got an offer to "trade" Mass Effect 3 with another game at similar or cheaper cost. Some more civil arguments later, and I was asked for my order number along with my credit card info.
The Catch: I bought ME3 and Batman: Arkham City at the same time, and to refund ME 3 requires me to refund Batman: AC also.
The reasoning is that because I bought Batman at a discount, due to buying ME3 via Origin, for 10 bucks, that I shouldn't keep access to Batman. It was a promotional offer, and in refunding ME3 I have to refund Batman also.
I understand the corporate thinking behind this, but from a consumer perspective this is both devious and terrible. Batman was a fun game too, and it sucks balls. Lesson learned....
I'm not one to play corporate apologist usually, but in this case they are being nicer than they have to. They'll learn from this too.
No need to buy it from Origin or use Origin to launch it. GameFly (formerly Direct2Drive) is selling it for $15 right now: http://www.gamefly.com/Download-Batman-Arkham-City/158465/
MissyElliottSmith
Member
It's a fair point, but I also bought the digital version through Origin. I was told that the refund was possible, and it proved to be true. I am glad I got a refund, but sadden it also cost loosing "access" to batman.
It seems very easy for them to do this through a digital service. Had these been physical games, I don't think a company would risk asking for the other game as well.
Thanks! I will do that
Surprised this didn't make it to the thread -
This is dumb. I'm not even that religious anymore but I know there's a follow-up on what happen to Christ and his disciples on the bible.
Draf said:
Fixed it for you there.
...amazing.Surprised this didn't make it to the thread -
AuthenticM
Member
Surprised this didn't make it to the thread -
I don't understand. What's the context? And who is this guy?
I just beat ME3 for the third time. The ending makes no fucking sense at all. I cannot imagine someone actually wrote that and the higher-ups, after seeing it, nodded their head in agreement and amazement. What the fuck.
Surprised this didn't make it to the thread -
Isn't his job to maintain public relations? If so, why does he troll/badmouth Bioware's fanbase as much as possible and still keep his job?
So how does someone who killed Kaiden in each of his playthroughs obtain Reave as a potential bonus power?
Do I need to start a brand new game without importing and choose Kaiden to live get up to the point where it unlocks (and then it is available on all subsequent playthroughs)?
Do I need to start a brand new game without importing and choose Kaiden to live get up to the point where it unlocks (and then it is available on all subsequent playthroughs)?
notworksafe
Member
Surprised this didn't make it to the thread -
Didn't this guy get the Resurrection Epilogue DLC? What a noob.
Surprised this didn't make it to the thread -
What a fucking idiot.
His excuse is that its his personal twitter, you don't have to follow him, deal with it, etc.
Or at least thats how he seemed to be responding to criticisms of that post.
HadesGigas
Member
Personal twitter that has the name of the company he represents in it's handle. Brilliant.
You need Kaiden to get reave.
Shut up you EA plant.
A terrible one. smh worthy.
I was also able to get a refund for Mass Effect 3, via Origin Live Help/Live Chat. It took a while, but I was able to get across my complete dissatisfaction with the game. First, I got an offer to "trade" Mass Effect 3 with another game at similar or cheaper cost. Some more civil arguments later, and I was asked for my order number along with my credit card info.
The Catch: I bought ME3 and Batman: Arkham City at the same time, and to refund ME 3 requires me to refund Batman: AC also.
The reasoning is that because I bought Batman at a discount, due to buying ME3 via Origin, for 10 bucks, that I shouldn't keep access to Batman. It was a promotional offer, and in refunding ME3 I have to refund Batman also.
I understand the corporate thinking behind this, but from a consumer perspective this is both devious and terrible. Batman was a fun game too, and it sucks balls
This is common practice for deals like this. For example, I just dove in on the buy 2 get 1 free sale that Gamestop is having this weekend. I cannot return just one of the games I got because it was part of a package deal. I either return all 3 games, or none at all. It has nothing to do from a consumer perspective, but rather a reasonable perspective.
If you sold someone a 2-4-1 deal, and then after they used half of the product wanted a full refund, your reaction would be the same. It has less to do with customer satisfaction than people taking unfair advantage of a situation. And considering you did a digital download, you're pretty lucky to get any refund at all.
Not defending EA, but just trying to look at it from a business standpoint.
A joke is supposed to be funny. I don't see the funny here, EA/Bioware plant!
Also, we need a name for this travesty of incident. BioGate 2012 or something.
SpaceBridge
Member
Is it bad that even after the shit ending Im still hungry for more Mass Effect? I even rebought ME2 for PS3 with all the DLC bonus. And now Im trying to track down a copy of ME1 again to rebuy.
It's not a bad series, at all. The end and the media response may have soured it a bit, but it's still good.
I want to make a let's play thread sometime.
make sure you do it before 2014
SpaceBridge
Member
Okay. Cuz I really want to revisit the magic of the earlier games. Man that battle with Sovereign on the Citadel is still so amazing.
BJK
Member
Same here.
I had plans to go back through as FemShep, starting with ME1.
After seeing how it all ends, there's no fucking way.
(So glad I didn't force myself to play the multiplayer or pay for any of the DLC / 'galactic preparedness' BS. By the way, if you have a green bar, and that bar is full hours before the end of the game....and the character still keeps scanning planets for your galactic fetch quests, that should be enough to get the 'Shepard lives' ending.)
Surprised this didn't make it to the thread -
Wow...what a dummy.
Typographenia
Member
Zing..?
You sure showed us?
LightofRohan
Member
Lol, Chris trolling is making me like him more. I actually really disliked him before ME3 was really shown. I was at E3 waiting in line to see the ME3 gameplay demonstration and he tried to kick me out, even though I had previous reservations. We argued for a while. He was such a dick. He's slowly redeeming himself.
LightofRohan
Member
Yea, at least I know he's always a dick. And making bad Christian jokes on easter is great.
EmCeeGramr
Member
So the guy on SA feels real bad right now because Jessica Merizan is essentially calling his paraphrased Q&A from PAX a bunch of lies and negative spin.
What was negative about it? And who cares what she thinks?
))))))Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
Well, she clarified that she's "defending Patrick Weekes".
Apparently, the SA guy didn't technically ask Patrick for permission to relay the info. I guess relaying info given to a fan at a convention like PAX is done in confidence and not to be relayed to the internet?
That honestly seems fairly unrealistic to me, especially with something as divisive as the ME3 endings right now, but w/e.
What was negative about it? And who cares what she thinks?
Technically, it changed the wording of James and EDI to potentially sound like Patrick was bashing them when he wasn't (he called James ignorant, which was in regards to the whole reaper/ME universe situation and got paraphrased as calling James "dumber than the player", and wasn't sure on EDI's character arc, but he thought her writer did an amazing job), which he clarified on Twitter. Incidentally, he personally didn't seem to mind the info itself getting out there, again going by twitter.
What was negative about it? And who cares what she thinks?
Didn't find it negative either. We know they are sticking to the current ending, so it was obvious they were going to have to change some interpretations to try and "satisfy" the fans.
But hey, it was an unfiltered (even if paraphrased) response from one of the writers. The PR department can't have that!
She's an expert on lies and spin.
EmCeeGramr
Member
The guy on SA said that Weekes said himself at PAX that he didn't care if/when it got posted online.
Can't you carry it over from Samara in 2?
Ogrekiller
Member
Start a new female default game and visit Kaiden in the hospital and buy him a whiskey from the hospital shop.
Once when you first get to the citadel and the 2nd time when you get the message about him becoming a spectre. Either after palevan/ surkesh.
After you retake the citadel spare him and get him onto the ship. talk to him asap and he will talk about his parents and you unlock reave.
Oh, right, so it works like 2 in that way then. No way to get Dominate then?
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
Nope. and Bonus powers don't carry through save files anymore (AFAIK, someone please tell me otherwise if it's not true. The only time I touched a second save was to check the difference in the import/no import starting sequence), so it's only good for one Shepard.
I've heard it's not as OP as it was in ME2, though.
TBH, hearing non PR-speak was really, really refreshing. It was nice to know that someone from Bioware "gets it", (at least to some degree), and will be doing what they can.
Then I have no idea, as is the case with most of Bioware's PR-related decisions regarding the ending.
LightofRohan
Member
What are you talking about? The panel? Did you watch it? I wana see!
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
Panel was meh. Good discussion on Tuchanka and how it tied decisions of ME1 and 2 in, along with character arcs, but basically ignored the ending.
Only had like 5 minutes of Q&A, no questions about the ending beyond learning that the citadel population purportedly isn't decimated like Mac walters tweeted, they have individual barriers for atmosphere and such.
We were discussing this, an unofficial Q/A with Patrick Weekes after the panel
It generated a lot of interest by the fans, but then Jessica Merizan tweeted something to the notion of "that Q/A session posted is filled with inaccuracies and bias, it makes me angry". That particular tweet looks to be gone now.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
They're at the stage (if they weren't already) where they're well and truly convinced that the ending was brilliantly written, thematically relevant, and a beautiful end to the trilogy, with the only valid complaints being maybe a lack of exposition and closure, which will be corrected in additional scenes via the free DLC.
I mean, you gotta step back and look at what we have here: a creative work the creators are probably very proud of. It's hard to suck it up and realise what you created sucks, because a part of you fears admitting it (due to how much time, money, work and emotion was invested in production), and another part just has really bad taste.
It's like trying to tell a director his popular film sucks. Or a writer. Or artist. Or whoever. This is the clash between criticism of creative work and the creator. And thus why I never expected any of ME3's ending problems to be actually fixed. To fix it, they can't admit it lacked substance and content. They have to admit it was badly written tripe, scrap a chunk of creative work and start from scratch. I can't think of anybody who has actually done that.
"That ephemeral tweet is filled with rage, and it pleases me."
You can see the panel someone recorded on YT. I stored all the links on the tumblr.
http://massdeflect.tumblr.com/
To fix it would require an apology of some sort, and that won't happen for at least a year (probably never).
By apology I mean something along the lines of, "We were rushed so we vent kid."
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
They've actually full-out admitted they were rushed, both in Weekes' QA session thing, and posts from Mike Gamble on the BSN.
Of course, it's more the "in a perfect world, we wouldn't have to rush" type of admitting, rather than the "we didn't know how to do this within the deadline" admitting, but it's out there, I guess.
To be fair, they've probably taken an internal assessment at some level and determined redoing the entire ending is unfeasible, be it man hours, quelling fans, or what have you. But we'll never get any evidence of it.
On another note, their "we don't want to prescribe the fans on how the story ends", now that I think about it, is rather silly.
For one, closing a series' trilogy in 3 seperate ways that are thematically inconsistent from each other (destroy, control, synthesis), leaves so much room for holes it's no wonder Starkid caused so many problems.
For another thing, isn't the clarifying/closure DLC eventually going to do just that: be prescriptive? Be it IT, digging out of plotholes, questioning the Starkid, etc. Bioware is going to tell you more of how each particular 'ending' is affected by your choice, thereby leaving less room for interpretation.
And technically, by the nature of clarification, if you have to clarify, you're already compromising your 'artistic integrity' in order to make things clearer, no?
I'm aware that they've said they were rushed somewhat, but they haven't linked that to the vent kid fiasco. I know it won't make a difference if they actually did admit it, because as a fan I, and I'm sure most others, have deduced that corners were briefly cut; parts of the mechanics, writing, and design show it. It's something that affected the whole.
We can't do anything but wait on their clarifications. We know how bad things can get, because we've interpreted them to be fairly awful from the end we saw. There's very little hope in the endings -- though that can change depending on the interpretation. The universe of ME is completely changed in an instant, and it's difficult to cope with that so suddenly; and that's without taking the three different possibilities into account.
If they decide to show Tali's epilogue three weeks later in a bikini on Rannoch, for the Talimancers, I'm sure that would be great for them. But the Animal House gag reel ME3-style is not going to be fun five months from now.
They'll make it blatantly obvious that they wanted to go with technological singularity at the end. That's all I'm really counting on.
See humans (and you aliens, too), we are protecting you from synthetics.
I know you think that we Reapers are synthetic, but we are not really synthetic.
We are made from organic beings like yourself, remember ME2?
Well, anyway. Basically we don't want a super evil AI to kill all organic life in the galaxy/universe.
So our plan, the Catalyst's plan, is to prevent that from happening by preserving your in Reaper form.
Now, I know you can't understand that so simply because it's a lot to take in.
(Insert clip of Reaper logic in 50s-style animatic.)
Catalyst: So you see, we were really on your side all along.
(Cue laugh track.)
Harbinger: Oh, Shepard. How I told you I would assume control.
Shepard: So you guys were really on my side all along? Why didn't you just say so?
Harbinger: We didn't want to make it so easy for you.
Shepard: Harbinger, you lovable bastard, you. (Big smile.)
Harbinger: Assuming control one last time.
(Cue sad music.)
Fin.
(Audience sheds tears.)
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Man...
The scenes of Shepard and Garrus on top of the Presidium is pitch perfect. It gave off such an incredible feeling.
Also the scenes right after Shepard brought forth the wrath of the Quarian forces on the Rannoch Reaper... especially if he romances Tali.
How those two scenes are in the same game that contains an incredibly idiotic ending is extremely, extremely saddening.
The scenes of Shepard and Garrus on top of the Presidium is pitch perfect. It gave off such an incredible feeling.
Also the scenes right after Shepard brought forth the wrath of the Quarian forces on the Rannoch Reaper... especially if he romances Tali.
How those two scenes are in the same game that contains an incredibly idiotic ending is extremely, extremely saddening.
HadesGigas
Member
Pretty much all the character interactions are really well done. Though a lot of the ME2 squad ones are too brief.
It's mostly just the enemies that are horribly written. I mean... Kai Leng...
I don't know... I guess it depends on exactly how much content they're producing for this "extended" ending and what one expect to be fixed. Removing everything past the elevator and making some simple epilogues that reflect my choices during the game would be enough for me, and it certainly is "doable" on a restricted budget. Not perfect by a long shot, but I think a lot better then what we got now.
But I agree with EatChildren in that they're stuck at "our ending is brilliant" mode. So all we are getting is some bullshit explanations to make the ending seems more satisfying. Not everyone dies at the blown up Citadel, Jokes had some really good reason to turn coward and Garrus and Tali somehow manage to find something to eat. But the damn kid his incredible logic are staying put.
EDIT: Oh, and I have given up understanding Bioware PR ever since the "this is the new shit" Dragon Age trailer... but it really is amazing how much they screw up the response here.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
I edited my post. I supposedly put ending there, don't know why I put game instead, hahaha.
Yeah, I mean, all of a sudden there's this sudden super powered villain that becomes Shepard's rival? Like... what? Not to mention many of scenes are just borderline idiotic too, like Shepard and Co just standing there like an idiot when he fought Thane.
So, I just realized that I missed out on some dialogue with Liara due to a bug. For those interested check here: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/345/index/9688564/1
The game fails to pick up on events that happened with my playthrough of LotSB. From what I've gathered this slightly affects dialogue after Mars, before the attack on Cerberus and in London. Nothing too major, but it's annoying when you miss dialogue that you're supposed to get due to a bug. Limited resources, I guess.
The game fails to pick up on events that happened with my playthrough of LotSB. From what I've gathered this slightly affects dialogue after Mars, before the attack on Cerberus and in London. Nothing too major, but it's annoying when you miss dialogue that you're supposed to get due to a bug. Limited resources, I guess.