Ganzlinger
Member
Saren was right then. Always destroy the reapers. lol
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The Mass Effect Community Thread
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Saren was right then. Always destroy the reapers. lol
What happens when the next AI rises to prominence and finds out you destroyed all AI?
You've sealed your own fate. Just like the Quarians.
Geth got my back.
Heretic destruction was proposed by the Geth in the first place, they would approve. In fact, controlling them by rewriting them ends up backfiring in ME3 iirc.What happens when the next AI rises to prominence and finds out you destroyed all AI?
You've sealed your own fate. Just like the Quarians.
Geth got my back.
Ganzlinger
Member
What happens when the next AI rises to prominence and finds out you destroyed all AI?
You've sealed your own fate. Just like the Quarians.
Geth got my back.
That's good cause they will be already warned. Don't fuck with organics. xD
They will understand, organics were fighting against extinction.
Saren's solution wasn't destruction, it was the green option - synthesis. He was quite clear about that in the original game, and that the way to survive the incoming destruction was to merge with the Reapers.
Personally, I don't see how any option other than destruction is the correct one. Control is literally making yourself God Emperor of the galaxy, and whilst that might be fun for an ego boost it's totally out of character for Shepherd and you literally cripple every species development and growth forever after. And the less said about synthesis the better - making that choice for every living being in the galaxy is monstrous, and also insane because it doesn't address any of the problems. Although it does give Joker a cool hat.
I went into the last battle ready to sacrifice Earth and billions of lives to finally end the cycle. Whilst the price was high (Geth and EDI were some of my favourite characters), I made the decision in a heart beat - had the price been humanities extinction I would have chosen it just as fast.
(It's why the joke ending added into the game with the patch makes no sense - you can either chose to kill the Geth and EDI now and defeat the Reapers, or kill the Geth, EDI, and every other species and hope that the next cycle manages to do it. )
Personally, I don't see how any option other than destruction is the correct one. Control is literally making yourself God Emperor of the galaxy, and whilst that might be fun for an ego boost it's totally out of character for Shepherd and you literally cripple every species development and growth forever after. And the less said about synthesis the better - making that choice for every living being in the galaxy is monstrous, and also insane because it doesn't address any of the problems. Although it does give Joker a cool hat.
I went into the last battle ready to sacrifice Earth and billions of lives to finally end the cycle. Whilst the price was high (Geth and EDI were some of my favourite characters), I made the decision in a heart beat - had the price been humanities extinction I would have chosen it just as fast.
(It's why the joke ending added into the game with the patch makes no sense - you can either chose to kill the Geth and EDI now and defeat the Reapers, or kill the Geth, EDI, and every other species and hope that the next cycle manages to do it. )
Yeah, but that was imposed upon them without their knowledge or consent. TOTALLY different when YOU impose synthesis upon the galaxy without their knowledge or consent.
How so? Shepard spent a decade dictating terms to others while trying to save as many lives as possible. Destroy cripples the relay network (thank you updated ending lol) sending the current cycle into a dark age from which it may never recover. Control at least offers the chance for valuable post-Reaper* assistance repairing the catastrophic damage of a halt to interstellar commerce.
There's no reason to believe the Crucible would spare our cycle. The Crucible was developed for eons with the sole purpose of ending the Reaping.
Shepard sees through the Starchild lies just as easily as Reaper lies.
Admit it. You people destroyed us all without thinking it through.
*Once the Reapers are freed they will no longer be known by that name. While inhabiting the same shells (for now) their constituent species will detest the name, 'Reaper.'
How so? Shepard spent a decade dictating terms to others while trying to save as many lives as possible. Destroy cripples the relay network (thank you updated ending lol) sending the current cycle into a dark age from which it may never recover. Control at least offers the chance for valuable post-Reaper* assistance repairing the catastrophic damage of a halt to interstellar commerce.
There's no reason to believe the Crucible would spare our cycle. The Crucible was developed for eons with the sole purpose of ending the Reaping.
Shepard sees through the Starchild lies just as easily as Reaper lies.
Admit it. You people destroyed us all without thinking it through.
*Once the Reapers are freed they will no longer be known by that name. While inhabiting the same shells (for now) their constituent species will detest the name, 'Reaper.'
There is a huge difference between one man persuading the races to unite (and often failing at doing that!), and an immortal God Emperor with the power of life and death over every species in the galaxy. Men eventually die - Shepherd in the form of the Reapers would be an everlasting inhibitor on all the races development.
And yes, it's worth destroying the relays to end the cycle and free the races from it. I'm very much in the Babylon 5 camp here - it's time for the younger races to stand on their own two feet, and for the Reapers to get the hell out of our galaxy. The entire point of the series was to break that cycle - not replace it with Shepherd as literal God.
Yeah, he gets indoctrinated during the First Contact War, actually. But only mildly or something. It's weird.
And Mass Effect 2 Cerberus was always the odd duck out.
In Mass Effect 1 they were mustache twirling villains.
In Mass Effect 2 they were morally ambigious
In Mass Effect 3 they're back to mustache twirling villains.
So it kind of fits that they were evil all along.
Ganzlinger
Member
I think we can all agree that BioWare messed up the consistency.
I was also pro-destroying the the relays until Arrival made us believe that destroying a relay would destroy an entire system. Then it turns out we were just confused by the strikingly similar imagery... The responsible thing to do is to ween the races off relays.
My Shepard isn't an immortal god emporer. My Shepard freed the Reapers then putted off to explore lands beyond. The point of the entire series is to break the cycle and not start a new one. Destroying is flipping the hourglass until the next AI rises up to kill everyone again. Oh and we're undoing the stupid Reaper 'upgrade' to my Geth as well.
My universe is pretty great. It's still Babylon 5, but instead of the end of the main series the War of the Ancients is just starting. All of the older races are rushing to fill the Reaper power gap with the younger races caught in the middle.
In my Mass Effect 4 (years after the first game) the readiness rating you finished with determines your initial outlay of resources to rebuild the younger races while fending off ancient monsters.
Below a certain readiness rating you can not import your save.
At minimal readiness rating Earth is devastated and you must first focus on rebuilding your base of operations.
At maximum readiness rating you have limited contact with multiple worlds and map awareness of multiple resources and threats.
Destroy ending has its own obvious consequences and devastates friends and foe alike.
Control ending rolls a die (different start every time) with random enemies and allies that must be dealt with immediately, but infrastructure much more intact. Shepard Reaper is never heard from.
Synthesis ending is disregarded out the airlock. You have failed.
My Mass Effect 4 is basically Andromeda, but without dumping all of the old races.
Except the Quarians. Quarians are dead.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Not really. It just shifts the assets from Quarian to Geth.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Is it too late to retcon the Asari out of existence while we're at it
Get rid of the Yahg too.
This is such a great idea. They could've done it like Fallout, where you start allying yourselves with a faction depending on how you handle quests/what you do. TIM could have you sabotage the Genophage cure and let the Quarians die, which locks you into the Control ending
I still fail to understand why Bioware didn't take the obvious path of possibly having one last major decision at the end: Do you go along with the Reaper's plan because they have JUSTIFIABLE REASONS blah blah or do you kill their asses. If you choose to kill their asses, your ending is dependent on your earlier choices and your war assets levels.
Thus, your decisions would have affected the ending, just not in the context of a single choice at the end.
But, no. That's too obvious, and they probably feared that people wouldn't like that they'd have to replay a whole game/series for a radically different ending.
Thus, your decisions would have affected the ending, just not in the context of a single choice at the end.
But, no. That's too obvious, and they probably feared that people wouldn't like that they'd have to replay a whole game/series for a radically different ending.
Yeah, instead it took very little effort to get any of the three virtually identical endings. Woo.
This is what happened, though. You could argue the thresholds for the ending tiers are way too low EMS-wise, of course, but the structure you described is in place. Save the Cerberus base and Control is your only option at low EMS, for example, whereas Destroying it means Destroy is.
I suppose I was looking for something more akin to the Dragon Age: Origins endings, where you get more of a writeup about what happened based on your actions, as opposed to three very similar paths.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Yep, Fallout New Vegas did this quite well.
shinobi602
Member
Preorder cancelled.
Oh look. Nothing about Mass Effect at the Game Awards tonight. Didn't Bioware said we'd get more details by the end of the year? I don't expect them to do anything out of nowhere for the following weeks. And I surely don't count that N7 teaser as "content".
Well... I mean, that's on you.
You don't, they do. Shinobi already said the full marketing plan goes into effect in 2016. Likely starting at GDC.
There's the PlayStation Experience on Saturday.
And I don't know why people keep expecting big announcements at the Game Awards. There was big announcements when they were the VGAs airing on Spike, because that's a national cable channel.
Big game companies don't care to reveal shit at streaming only events unless it's their event.
I guess, it's just I was expecting more than a teaser that just showed a big ass ship with the way it was told back in E3.
I'd be disappointed if the only new footage we got for this game came from a console tbh. Beggars can't be choosers I suppose.
PC will undoubtedly remain an afterthought for this series. I don't think they've ever in the history of the series really pushed the PC version above console during marketing.
I only say it because all of the Frostbite titles I've seen thus far, are fucking astonishing on PC. I mean, look at Battlefront, I want that 1080p 60fps gameplay footage, I don't care that it's probably going to be 30fps on console.
Oh, I'm sure you'll get your super pretty footage and great running version, I'm just saying that you shouldn't expect them pushing the PC version. Undoubtedly the marketing will push whichever of the two companies signs a joint marketing agreement.
Ftfy
The Artisan
Member
that easter egg never made it to the Ps3 version I don't think
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Tying in the decisions at the end (Control v Synthesis v Destroy) to your trilogy choices feels like it should have been the bare minimum of what ME3's ending should have been. In an ideal world they would have gone much further, actually having a few different "solutions" or endgames to ME3 that diverge the game a fair degree.
The war effort in ME3 should have had multiple layers of planning going on, including a variety of contingencies. One contingency could have been the pathfinder initiative that leads into ME: Andromeda (assuming they're connected). You're trying to stop the Reapers but maybe you can't. One ending, the worst, where you can't actually overcome the reapers, might see Shepard and co going out in a blaze of glory running interference for a human or council version of Ilos / Eden Prime, the establishment of a vault with a few hundred humans in stasis pods and a couple of VI's hoping to reestablish a human civilization in the next cycle. The best ending might have been an actual military victory over the Reapers.
Fear of alienating new players completely paralyzed their ability to give long time fans a really satisfying, replayable experience that drew on the series as a whole.
I normally don't vilify EA but, given the way they tried marketing it as "the perfect place to start your Mass Effect adventure" to the point they tried getting reviewers to not load saves, I suspect that a mandate came from above that they couldn't tie anything too big behind loading saves.
DA:I did this twice and people here still argue it ain't good enough.
Blue Ninja
Member
Finally got my three PC versions set up with controller support. Such a hassle, wish we'd get that damn remaster already.
Never happening.
Blue Ninja
Member
I know, but one can hope.
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WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
"Ask us anything except the only things people really want to know. We're happy to open the floor to 4 dozen sycophantic questions that start with 'I'm a big fan' or 'BioWare, Jade Empire saved my life.' Please be respectful."
Nah.
Nah.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I like how you conflate sycophancy with showing a modicum of respect.
That's fun.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
This is worse fiction than anything Dietz ever wrote.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
There was an individual who had prepared an excellent MOD for the PC versions that was pretty much a perfect copy of the Xbox 360 UI and performed as well.
However, he stopped working on them after his laptop went down. People on GAF arranged a fundraiser to help him get a new one.
Afterwards he disappeared.
The Artisan
Member
that's all we have been doing for years. some say wait till e3 but I think the dream is over.
shinobi602
Member
Blue Ninja
Member
He finished the mods. Those are the ones I have installed now. That's what I'm referring to when I say it's "such a hassle".
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