Mass Effect 3 (Spoilers)

[Grumman]

Faraborne wrote...

I received this from a friend who just beat ME3. This was his solution to the ending problem:...

That's a hell of a lot better than the ones we got, and making the originals non-compulsary makes them less bad as options into the bargain.

Unfortunately, I could definitely see Bioware revolting against any suggestion that they should add it as a DLC. In a way, the Guardian represents Bioware: handing the player three equally unappealing conclusions to Shepard's story and telling us that they think they are good choices. Faraborne's friend is asking for the game to reflect the fanbase's response: to let us say "Fuck you, we want an ending that doesn't suck."

[Ritterin Sophia]

They could have improved it by having better coordination between the writers or maybe a single team. Some of it, like Mordin is ok but Udina and Cereberus and the coup is just terrible.

What was wrong with the Cerberus takeover? Just Udina doing it or what?

[Ritterin Sophia]

ME2 had it at its most glaring when you go to the Geth world to fetch Tali ; Here is an awesome opportunity to go an explore the geth: who they are, what they are doing there, their relationship to the Quarians, everything, and go to great places with it ; Oh, sorry - you get the planet, then Tali's loyalty mission, you shoot Geth, the end!

Well, it's even worse than that: Legion gave Bioware ample reason to allow the player to explore the Geth a little bit more, instead our interaction with him amounts to recruiting him and then doing his loyalty mission where we learn fuck all about how the Geth operate except that they don't always agree.

[PeZook]

Oh? Legion's that Geth you pick up on the brain-dead Reaper, right?

I sold him to Cerberus

[PeZook]

By the way, they really screwed the pooch by making the Citadel sentient, because it means the first game shouldn't have happened.

Because...seriously, why the fuck did the little genocidal brat even need Sovereign for? He was right there, in the middle of the station. Just have him open the Genocide Gate and invite his pets through. He'd also be much closer to everything he'd need to figure out when to do it: Sovvie was stuck in the boonies analyzing radio traffic, while the brat could have keepers eavesdrop on the most important people in the galaxy, since they let the keepers walk anywhere they pleased and do whatever they wanted. Hell, they could probably gain access to the archives and computer systems and communications networks with trivial ease.

He'd also be able to just kill off the Prothean scientists that boarded the Citadel and began messing with its systems. Just have the Keepers release an insecticide into the air, or fit the station with an indoctrination mechanism, make them go insane and jump into protein recycling vats or something...

The Citadel being sentient makes the first game ridiculous, the second merely somewhat absurd. Possibly the third, too, but I'll learn that waaaaaay later

[Aaron MkII]

They could have improved it by having better coordination between the writers or maybe a single team. Some of it, like Mordin is ok but Udina and Cereberus and the coup is just terrible.

What was wrong with the Cerberus takeover? Just Udina doing it or what?

It kind of fits with what we know of Udina, he wants power. But there was almost no lead up and for him to do it with Cerberus is pretty fucked, he must be privy to the Intel from the front on what the IM has been up to.

[Stark]

Did you forget he is a giant retard?

[Tasoth]

So, as I pondered ME1's codex and the endings that have been reported, it dawned on me: Humanity has access to FTL outside of the Relays. Turns, the codex says it can do roughly a dozen lightyears in a day's cruise. I understand using the Relays for long distance travel to save on time, but destroying them doesn't seem particularly silly or threatening when viewed with that knowledge.

[Stark]

The civilization is over a third of the galaxy, dude. How does you 12 ly a day stack up to a 20,000 ly trip?

[Aaron MkII]

No, I know Udina is a tool Dan.

And yeah, I thought of the FTL thing, it would certainly require the civs to shrink and some systems may not be reachable at all given the need to discharge the drive every 20 lightyears or so.

[White Haven]

The trouble is that there's no easy way to dump the charge buildup in interstellar space. ME FTL systems build up an electrical charge over time, a charge that can grow to ruinous levels if there's nothing to discharge it into (like a convenient planet). They can do 12 light years in a day...but the charge issues mean that straight-line flight isn't necessarily practical.

[Stark]

The whole scam with the relays is to make he civilizations really spread out with thousands of light years between planets. If someone came up with a comparably fast non-relay drive th reapers would be fucked; but ME1 was all about how everyone is just too lazy to do so (even for some reason the guys who don't control he citadel). The plan working relies on everyone acting the same way all the time - which given how stupid people in ME are is perhaps not unfair.

[White Haven]

To be fair, the Reapers have an extremely high tech-base. If they've actively explored in an attempt to find fast, long-range non-relay FTL and haven't been able to, there's a reasonable probability that the ME universe's physics don't allow it, at least not at any tech-base likely to come up inside the cycle window.

[Stark]

I've never played the second two games so I hadn't heard it was impossible. I just got the impression the pre-existing and easy-to-use relay network was supposed to discourage it. The same way everyone ever just ignored what the citadel actually was and just based their society on it because ... It was easy.

[CaptHawkeye]

"The citadel is full of huge areas no one has been and knows what they do...so let's set our center of government here."

[PeZook]

Stars within 12.5 light years of Sol

Relays going boom isn't the end of the world ; At worst you'll just have to build some sort of "charge tender" that will follow a flotilla in FTL and take its charge until they can get rid of it.

Anyways, I had an opportunity to pay a bit of ME3 yesterday evening thanks to a friend who bought it on launch ; The opening sequence is just as bad as the demo. The changes are tiny, and the stuff like "Dear Shep, what does it mean that colonies are going dark?" and Anderson being shocked and amazed at power of superdreadnaughts who can't even blow up an office block remains.

It's just slightly better to actually play the sequence. Slightly.

Helmet shenanigans remain, of course. Implementing a "toggle helmet" button is apparently soooooo hard...

Characters narrate things a lot, and lots of dialogue is just painful Cerberus troops on Mars break a door down, Liara goes "They are here!". OBVIOUS Cerberus agent is on video. Kaidan goes "Hmm,who is that woman?"

Squad mates sulking about their failures in the middle of a mission is still there. It looks ridiculous.

Dialogue options are, as usual, ridiculously non-reflective of what Shep actually says...

I liked the fact your weapons have tactical flashlights now. Really, dudes. Two centuries into THE FUTURE, and you're still using flashlights when entering a dark room?

Of course you can't toggle them on and off, oh no.

Combat is dirt easy even on HARDCORE mode.

[Stark]

Dude if you never found the relays you'd be fine. But if your society and military relies on them and is spread out, you are fucked short term when the reapers show up. I guess there's just so many of them that everyone finds them and uses them to reach the reaper killzones and neglect their non-relay areas because writers fiat.

[PeZook]

Yeah, short-term it would be a massive pain. Especially since mass effect apparently makes gravity wells not a problem so it's economical to settle earthlike worlds for the free life support etc.

And if they spammed them in every system that has life-bearing planets, then not only do they get the civs that eventually spring up there to use them ; These same civs will naturally spread into other relayed systems. But the funny thing is that there's apparently a whole lot of civs that have nothing to do with citadel races so the reaper plan has kind of a massive flaw in it...

But...this ties into my earlier comment about the brilliance of "stopping chaos in one galaxy out of 400 billion". There's nothing stopping people from OTHER galaxies from discovering mass effect on their own (since the bullshit "element zero" is apparently a naturally occuring substance) and fucking the Reapers up with their galaxy-spanning empire.

[PeZook]

BTW, isn't it funny she-pard has a "makeup" category during character creation, which cannot be changed in game?

[Havok]

Thresher Maw Vs Reaper = Whole series worth it.

[Tasoth]

Yeah, the loss of the Relays would definitely ruin things in the short term, but as PeZook posted, there are a quite a few star systems within twelve light years of Earth. And of course you won't be making massive trips a crossed galaxy via FTL, but fours days, maybe a week before needing more supplies with the occasional discharge into a gas giant and travel isn't too terrible. If they can discharge the FTL engines into any atmosphere, then the travel routes are a bit more flexible. I also think they do set up mining facilities on gas giants to allow ships to refuel. ME1 also seems to be built on the 'take Mass Relay X to Mass Relay Y, FTL around the stars in the clusters'. It's an interesting conundrum, and makes you ponder if the cries of 'Sheperd induces a galactic dark age! Q.Q' are knee jerk or not.

[Aaron MkII]

Thresher Maw Vs Reaper = Whole series worth it.

I was hoping for a mass armour engagement but that scene was pretty cool.

[Stark]

Yeah, the loss of the Relays would definitely ruin things in the short term, but as PeZook posted, there are a quite a few star systems within twelve light years of Earth. And of course you won't be making massive trips a crossed galaxy via FTL, but fours days, maybe a week before needing more supplies with the occasional discharge into a gas giant and travel isn't too terrible. If they can discharge the FTL engines into any atmosphere, then the travel routes are a bit more flexible. I also think they do set up mining facilities on gas giants to allow ships to refuel. ME1 also seems to be built on the 'take Mass Relay X to Mass Relay Y, FTL around the stars in the clusters'. It's an interesting conundrum, and makes you ponder if the cries of 'Sheperd induces a galactic dark age! Q.Q' are knee jerk or not.

So with no economy and a spread out population you think digging around the back yard - and knowing you'll never be in contact wih xyz again - isn't a big deal because other less desirable places are nearby and might be useful in a decade or two?

Frankly anyone asking it bioware plotting is overblown hyperbole needs their fucking head examined. how do you he to the end of these 3 games and think 'wow his might not be such good writing'?

[Darksider]

It's hilarious to see people rage at bioware over ME3's "ending." I fully expected it to be a bunch of pretentious sheppard-jesus bullshit with him being the galactic messiah and everything, but one thing I honestly didn't expect was how vague it was. They put so much effort in to trying to get players emotionally invested in the characters, storyline, and universe, and then they don't show you what happens to it in the end.

[Havok]

How the fuck do I get the Prothean? Or should I say when?