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Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread |OT2| Taste the Rainbow

P

PinkCrayon

Member
Kinyou said:
So I completed the game... Gotta swallow the ending first. I choose the middle option, still not quite sure if that was the best one or if almost everyone else just died except some glassbone pilot and an A.I.

Though, what actually kind of bugged me is that I didn't get to really connect with Ashley, I couldn't unlock her final power and she never changed her hair or her armor (in the artbook it clearly says that later in the game she'll drop the make-up, tie the hair up etc.). Was that a bug? Did I do something wrong, or would I have to romance her in order to get all this stuff?
Click to expand...

No, her appearance never changes.
 
K

Kinyou

Member
heliosRAzi said:
Bioware said a lot of stuff.
Click to expand...
angry4vypmy.gif


It's actually not that big of a deal, but it sure would have been a nice touch.


EmCeeGramr said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPelM2hwhJA&feature=youtu.be
Click to expand...
Thx, I'll take a look at those later.
 
S

Samara

Member
Kinyou said:
Oh, so it just stayed in that concept phase? I mean the artbook makes it sound like it actually is implemented into the game.
Click to expand...

They've kept their words. You can put a helmet on her if you want. Just choose the default blue armor she has. The other combat outfits also have them I think.
 
H

harriet the spy

Member
It's time for crazy!

There is an expanded soundtrack of the game floating around. It does not look "official", but, from the track list, the titles of the tracks in the expanded soundtrack match those of the limited tracks.

So, what's crazy? Well, in the track list, the first track that corresponds to a music post-beam is called... 'Indoctrination'.

I am assuming whoever ripped those songs named the track himself

tracklist:
01 Title Screen Theme
02 Menu Theme
03 Character Creation
04 The Fate of the Galaxy
05 You Look Good Shepard
06 We Fight Or We Die
07 Take My Hand
08 Waiting For Pickup
09 Leaving Earth
10 Landing On Mars
11 Cerberus Encounter
12 Liara
13 A Race to the Archives
14 Cerberus Agent Recording
15 Dodge The Turret
16 Cerberus Husk
17 Flank Them
18 The Data Archive
19 A Cerberus Agent
20 The Citadel
21 The Dream
22 The Galaxy Map
23 Battle On Menae
24 The Walk On Menae
25 Garrus
26 The Brute
27 In Search Of General Victus
28 The New EDI
29 Citadel Club Music
30 Grissom Academy
31 Grissom Academy Cerberus Battle
32 How Do We Know
33 Protect The Students
34 Krogan Air-Drop
35 The Krogan Female
36 Surkesh Battle
37 Cerberus Atlas
38 Project Crucible
39 Protect the Female
40 Who's With Me
41 Who's With Me (OST Version)
42 I've Lost Control
43 Looks Like Rachni
44 We Made It Back Outside
45 It's Kalros
46 I've Got This
47 Dodge The Lazer
48 Curing The Genophage
49 Sabotage The Genophage
50 Grunt
51 We're All Okay
52 Explore Tunnels
53 We Got Rachni
54 Take Down the Reaper Nodes
55 I'll Hold Them Off
56 The Citadel Under Attack
57 Kai Leng
58 Back On Track
59 Trust Me Ash
60 Goodbye Thane
61 Trouble At Arrae
62 Jacob
63 Activate The AA Guns
64 Leaving Arrae
65 Samara
66 The Ardat-Yakshi Monastery
67 The Banshee
68 Get to the Great Hall
69 The Great Hall
70 I Won't Kill My Last Daughter
71 Tali
72 The Battle Over Rannoch
73 Aboard the Geth Dreadnought
74 Geth Incoming
75 The Operation Center
76 Legion
77 All Ships Open Fire
78 Entering the Geth's Virtual World
79 Battle On Rannoch
80 Battle the Reaper On Rannoch
81 Rally the Fleet
82 I'm Sorry
83 Stop the Geth
84 Outpost Tykis Battle
85 The Prothean Beacon
86 Battle With Kai Leng
87 There Is Only One Way This Ends
88 Sanctuary
89 Battle At Sanctuary
90 Stay Out Of Their Reach
91 You're Safe Now
92 I Was Lost Without You
93 Cerberus Headquarters Drop Off
94 Data Console Recordings
95 The Remains Of The Proto Reaper
96 Final Battle With Kai Leng
97 Stand Strong Stand Together
98 The Fleets Arrive
99 We Need Extraction
100 London Hideout
101 We Face Our Enemy Together
102 Pressing Forward
103 Faulty Missiles
104 Marauder Shields
105 Indoctrination
106 I Tried Shepard
107 I'm Proud Of You
108 The Catalyst
109 The Choice
110 An End Once and For All
111 Credits
112 Credits (OST Version)
113 Sounds Of The Citadel
114 Squad Select Screen
115 Dreams (Full)
116 Normandy Music Player 1
117 Normandy Music Player 2
118 Normandy Music Player 3
119 Normandy Music Player 4
120 Normandy Music Player 5
121 Normandy Music Player 6
122 Normandy Music Player 7
123 Galaxy Map Reapers

The track just before is actually called marauder shields, lol
 
D

DTKT

Member
harriet the spy said:
It's time for crazy!

There is an expanded soundtrack of the game floating around. It does not look "official", but, from the track list, the titles of the tracks in the expanded soundtrack match those of the limited tracks.

So, what's crazy? Well, in the track list, the first track that corresponds to a music post-beam is called... 'Indoctrination'.

I am assuming whoever ripped those songs named the track himself
Click to expand...

Or it could just be a reference to the fact that TIM is indoctrinated.

Seriously.

Edit: Right, it's an obvious joke.
 
H

harriet the spy

Member
DTKT said:
Or it could just be a reference to the fact that TIM is indoctrinated.

Seriously.

Edit: Right, it's an obvious joke.
Click to expand...

I am assuming it's the one that plays when you're surrounded by the bodies and the keepers, so probably not for TIM.
Don't think it's so much a joke as much as the person naming the tracks himself/herself believing the IT. Though the titles are pretty 'consistent' (as in, equally corny as the official names).
 
H

harriet the spy

Member
hateradio said:
They're obviously named by a random person, notice "Marauder Shields."
Click to expand...

I know i know. I just wanted to play a bit. I shouldn't have posted the track list or mentioned the track name :)

Though who knows, maybe someone at Bioware started the marauder shields meme!

it was all planned.

even the backlash.

I actually suspect you to work at bioware.

edit: listening a bit on youtube, i'll give the catalyst a great positive point: it has a wonderful track.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtF5nlQraog

It almost made me want to like the catalyst. But the moment i saw it was that child, i was broken.
 
R

Rapstah

Member
So apparently Linkin Park have made an album called Catalyst, and their latest album art features a kid on fire. I guess that's what Walters was listening to while Hudson was blasting Wintersun?
 
R

rdrr gnr

Member
hateradio said:
I don't know, the stupid violin part ruins it by making it sound like DA2.

Personally, the ambient dream track is so good.
Click to expand...
I haven't listened to DA2's soundtrack so it sounds perfectly fine to me. It sounds like a classical composition but there is definite synth vibe to it with the bleeps. I don't have a trained ear for strings, but they sound artificial almost. I think which tracks we deem the best probably reflect our musical tastes outside of game soundtracks.
 
H

heliosRAzi

Banned
RedRedSuit said:
I wrote an editorial on the ending debacle:

http://www.cpugamer.com/editorial/bioware-made-a-big-mistake-but-they-are-doing-the-right-thing-now

Disclaimers:

1. I hope I'm not breaking the GAF TOS by posting a link to a little site I contribute to; reading the TOS, it looks like I'm probably OK.

2. Yes, this topic has been beaten to death now, but what the hell... worst case, don't read. I see we have some new arrivals to the club, so they may enjoy.
Click to expand...

I liked it. It's pretty good.

A psychologist could go through this thread and the old one and see where people go through the seven stages of grief. It's oddly fascinating when I saw it in real time in the old thread. Users would come in and say that they were alright with the ending, then they would think about it some more and get angry and then depressed, and we would all be here to give hugs and tell them about Marauder Shields. This happened constantly. Other users would stop by and tell us that we shouldn't tell those who liked or were alright with the ending that they should think about it some more because they felt we were being hostile, but a lot of us as seen the syndrome in action.

On the Reaper's motivations, it always astounds me how people could even attempt to say that it lines up with the rest of the series or how they would justify it. They tried to justify it by saying that the Catalyst can see the bigger picture. Some even believe the Catalyst without even questioning it because it's been around longer. To me, it takes some crazy mental olympics to accomplish that. First, if the Catalyst can see the bigger picture, then Shepard's arrival would not mean it needed a new solution. It would simply think "Hm, one out of however many cycles ain't bad. Let's keep going!" and then kills Shepard or doesn't bring him up. Second, having more experience doesn't make you right. The Catalyst says that synthetics will always try to destroy organics, but we are not shown this anywhere in the games. When synthetics did rebel, it was always because they were threatened by organics. Some users say that synthetics will eventually do it, but we are given no evidence for that proposition. Just some mumbo jumbo about infinity and stuff like that. That's not adequate.

Then there is "synthetics protecting organics by killing organics to keep organics from making synthetics that would kill organics" thing. It is quite obvious that Reapers are synthetic. They're machines no matter what they are made of, be it steel and iron or flesh and bone (human puree!). They did not evolve. They are created, made for the sole purpose of preventing organics from making... yeah, you get the picture. But then some users would come in and say that they are not killing all organics, to which I agree. They don't kill all organics in the galaxy, but since the Reapers are synthetic and while they are certainly hostile, they aren't killing all organics, those users just provide another example of synthetics not hellbent on annihilating all organic life.

This wouldn't be a problem if we could show the Catalyst that they are just flat out wrong. If we achieved peace between the geth and the quarians, we could shove that into the Catalyst's face and seeing the errors of its ways, the Catalyst calls off the Reapers and takes them back into dark space. That would be a great and organic way of your past choices affecting the ending, much like in Tuchanka where your choices in ME1 and ME2 affect how that storyline ends, but Bioware stupidly didn't want players to be locked out of content based on their decisions (which is the whole point of this series, seeing how your choices affect the galaxy). Some users would say that peace between the geth and the quarians won't last and a peace that has been going on for a month or so isn't good evidence, but that's bullshit. We aren't shown anything to the contrary. And there's hardly been peace between the various organic races. The entire series has humanized synthetics, painting them as nothing too different from organic races and this is all done away with at the ending.

Of course, some posters would say that choosing destroy would be your refutation of the Catalyst's arguments, but then I commit genocide against a race I just saved and kill EDI(Schroedinger's EDI) in the process, sot that's not a good option. Choosing synthesis would be just as bad since I am forcing everyone in the galaxy to become something they probably don't want to be, plus we don't know the exact logistics of how we merge synthetics with organics and vice versa. Does Legion get testicles now? Do humans get servos? Does Wrex now have a hard drive? All we see are these glowing lines on everybody (including EDI's body, and, I shit you not, Joker's hat). What does this mean? How did it happen? All of it is explained away by new age phrases that evoke something more than what they actually mean. The Control option, in theory, is the best. You could have the Reapers help rebuild society and rebuild the relays. But no, you just send them away and die in the process. Plus, we've been arguing against that option for three games so it comes out of left field.

All in all, ME3 is a textbook example of why you should get the ending right. They fucked up the series on so many levels with the ending that it is fascinating in how Bioware was able to accomplish that. It's amazing that the more you think about the endings and their place in the games, the more the endings suck.

Well, I wrote a lot.
 
S

SpaceBridge

Member
I have a question for you guys. Whose baby is Mass Effect over at Bioware? I mean, who was the lead writer/creator /producer? Was there even a Kojima, Myamoto, Kamya type leader who over saw the whole trilogy, and was there ever a story bible?

Also, if a trilogy was always planned then why was the ending so hastily put together?
 
D

DTKT

Member
SpaceBridge said:
I have a question for you guys. Whose baby is Mass Effect over at Bioware? I mean, who was the lead writer/creator /producer? Was there even a Kojima, Myamoto, Kamya type leader who over saw the whole trilogy, and was there ever a story bible?

Also, if a trilogy was always planned then why was the ending so hastily put together?
Click to expand...

That would be Casey Hudson. He was the executive producer on all 3 ME games. According to Patrick Weekes, one of the writers, both Mr.Hudson and the lead writer, Mac Walters, came up with the ending. They was no rewriting process and the other writers were not allowed to give feedback. The Final Hours, by Geoff Keighley, containted a picture of the ending "draft". It was 20 words with a graph on a napkin. At least, the napkin was clean . :|

Basically, two dudes wrote the ending, with little time and no peer reviews from the other writers. As for why the ending was not written in advance, we know through Drew Karpyshyn that they never had a clear idea of where the story would go. Both ME2 and ME3 endings were created when Bioware was actually at that stage of the dev cycle.
 
R

RedRedSuit

Member
heliosRAzi said:
I liked it. It's pretty good.
Click to expand...

Thank you.

A psychologist could go through this thread and the old one and see where people go through the seven stages of grief. It's oddly fascinating when I saw it in real time in the old thread. Users would come in and say that they were alright with the ending, then they would think about it some more and get angry and then depressed, and we would all be here to give hugs and tell them about Marauder Shields. This happened constantly. Other users would stop by and tell us that we shouldn't tell those who liked or were alright with the ending that they should think about it some more because they felt we were being hostile, but a lot of us as seen the syndrome in action.
Click to expand...

Yep, I was on the receiving end of this too. Though I kept my feelings of "Internet be crazy, how bad could it be" (while playing) and "this is mediocre but not THAT bad" (right after finishing) to myself to ensure they would hold up. (They did not.)
 
R

Replicant

Member
SpaceBridge said:
I have a question for you guys. Whose baby is Mass Effect over at Bioware? I mean, who was the lead writer/creator /producer? Was there even a Kojima, Myamoto, Kamya type leader who over saw the whole trilogy, and was there ever a story bible?

Also, if a trilogy was always planned then why was the ending so hastily put together?
Click to expand...

The same guy who helped co-wrote the ending, Casey Hudson.
 
S

SpaceBridge

Member
DTKT said:
That would be Casey Hudson. He was the executive producer on all 3 ME games. According to Patrick Weekes, one of the writers, both Mr.Hudson and the lead writer, Mac Walters, came up with the ending. They was no rewriting process and the other writers were not allowed to give feedback. The Final Hours, by Geoff Keighley, containted a picture of the ending "draft". It was 20 words with a graph on a napkin. At least, the napkin was clean . :|

Basically, two dudes wrote the ending, with little time and no peer reviews from the other writers. As for why the ending was not written in advance, we know through Drew Karpyshyn that they never had a clear idea of where the story would go. Both ME2 and ME3 endings were created when Bioware was actually at that stage of the dev cycle.
Click to expand...

That makes absolutely no sense. I mean, how do you create a universe so rich, develop an over arching plot and examine socio/political themes, but not have a godamn ending planned ahead of time. I mean, look at series like Babylon 5, Deep Space 9, even Assasins Creed. Ugh. I feel more disgusted. (goes back to playing ME2)
 
H

heliosRAzi

Banned
SpaceBridge said:
That makes absolutely no sense. I mean, how do you create a universe so rich, develop an over arching plot and examine socio/political themes, but not have a godamn ending planned ahead of time. I mean, look at series like Babylon 5, Deep Space 9, even Assasins Creed. Ugh. I feel more disgusted. (goes back to playing ME2)
Click to expand...

Welcome
 
M

Massa

Member
SpaceBridge said:
That makes absolutely no sense. I mean, how do you create a universe so rich, develop an over arching plot and examine socio/political themes, but not have a godamn ending planned ahead of time. I mean, look at series like Babylon 5, Deep Space 9, even Assasins Creed. Ugh. I feel more disgusted. (goes back to playing ME2)
Click to expand...

I wouldn't use Assassin's Creed as an example, every single one of those games have ended terribly.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
RedRedSuit said:
Thank you.

Yep, I was on the receiving end of this too. Though I kept my feelings of "Internet be crazy, how bad could it be" (while playing) and "this is mediocre but not THAT bad" (right after finishing) to myself to ensure they would hold up. (They did not.)
Click to expand...
I feel I did some of this too, though knowing beforehand helps not getting your hopes up.

I've had a lot more fun reading and watching videos of people's opinions about the ending that playing the game itself. The ending controversy became such a huge and fascinating thing that that I'm kinda glad it happened...
 
H

hateradio

The Most Dangerous Yes Man
Massa said:
I wouldn't use Assassin's Creed as an example, every single one of those games have ended terribly.
Click to expand...
The cliff hanger approach is at least better than BOOM, the end.

Oh man, I don't even want to think about the ending of that game series. I hope it's not as contrived as the ending for ME3.
 
S

SpaceBridge

Member
Massa said:
I wouldn't use Assassin's Creed as an example, every single one of those games have ended terribly.
Click to expand...

Only reason I've brought AC was because before Patrice left Ubi, he left them with a story bible and a written ending or at least thats the story I've read online.
 
R

rdrr gnr

Member
Massa said:
I wouldn't use Assassin's Creed as an example, every single one of those games have ended terribly.
Click to expand...
That's not a fair assessment; it doesn't work within the structure of the games. They wrapped up Altar's story beautifully and
if you watched Embers, they did the same for Ezio.
If AC3 truly does wrap up the story of Desmond (I'm not completely convinced) we can then judge the overall quality of the narrative.
 
J

Jake Tower

Banned
So I'm finishing up my Insanity run before I mail ME3 off to the guy I'm trading for Saints Row the Third...

Just played the Geth/Rannoch missions... why the fuck does the geth dreadnaught have a medigel pack on board?

And who was saying Rannoch was one of the best missions of the whole series? It's a linear and short trip through the geth base, followed by the stupid meaningless turret sequence and Hammer of Dawn "boss battle."

This is my second play through, and honestly, the N7 horde mode missions are the best missions in the game, because at least there you're on a map where you can actually maneuver, flank, use some semblance of tactics against the waves of enemies.
 
R

Replicant

Member
AssCred main story might be a wee bit on the looney side
(it doesn't help that Minerva looks like a crazy cat lady)
, but the individual story of Ezio and Altair were well-told and ended nicely. Also, the looney main story has not ended yet and so far it seems consistent so as long as they can end it nicely, it wouldn't be a big problem.
 
U

utsavinheaven

Member
MuseManMike said:
That's not a fair assessment; it doesn't work within the structure of the games. They wrapped up Altar's story beautifully and
if you watched Embers, they did the same for Ezio.
If AC3 truly does wrap up the story of Desmond (I'm not completely convinced) we can then judge the overall quality of the narrative.
Click to expand...

The story elements have been gr8 so far,set against historical backdrops.
i do have hign hopes for AC3,so lets see.
but i do wish they had expanded on luci's story ,they just wrote her off in AC:rev
 
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