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[AlienShagger]

3DandBeyond wrote...

...

If you think that Bioware really did this so people could talk to one another (I don't think you think that), then I guess you don't get the whole idea behind the packs for credits thing.  They work to get you to buy them.

Now, here's the perfect example of people just taking things for granted and judging based on misconception - I totally forgot that I spent like a 1000 BioWare points on MP. And the stuff about people not having good enough connection for it everywhere is spot on. Actually, some people who bought the hard copy may not even have connection at all.

BioWare deserves the **** storm just for that, regardless of their intent with the ending. Thanks for reminding me.

[3DandBeyond]

Here's an interesting quote from Game Informer's Jan. interview with Casey Hudson,

INTERVIEWER:
"One of the few criticisms that I saw thrown around for Mass Effect 2 – and I should note that I did not view this as a problem, but I know that some people did – was the lack of a distinct bad guy or a real face to the enemy the way you had in Mass Effect 1. The final boss fight in Mass Effect 2 kind of comes out of nowhere. Is that something that you’ll be changing in Mass Effect 3? Is there a more specific villain or is it still just kind of the general threat of the Reapers?"

CH:
"In the first one we had Saren. In the second one, we wanted to introduce some mystery into who’s doing what, and that was supposed to be the Illusive Man. In the third game, yeah, I think we’re introducing a clearer target for Shepard, a clearer foil."

[BlueStorm83]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Here's an interesting quote from Game Informer's Jan. interview with Casey Hudson,

INTERVIEWER:
"One of the few criticisms that I saw thrown around for Mass Effect 2 – and I should note that I did not view this as a problem, but I know that some people did – was the lack of a distinct bad guy or a real face to the enemy the way you had in Mass Effect 1. The final boss fight in Mass Effect 2 kind of comes out of nowhere. Is that something that you’ll be changing in Mass Effect 3? Is there a more specific villain or is it still just kind of the general threat of the Reapers?"

CH:
"In the first one we had Saren. In the second one, we wanted to introduce some mystery into who’s doing what, and that was supposed to be the Illusive Man. In the third game, yeah, I think we’re introducing a clearer target for Shepard, a clearer foil."

\\

Well, at least they delivered on that promise.  The Catalyst was a really "clear" villian.  I could see right through him.  (In the sense that he was transparent, and also that his bull**** wasn't fooling anyone.)

[3DandBeyond]

AlienShagger wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

...

If you think that Bioware really did this so people could talk to one another (I don't think you think that), then I guess you don't get the whole idea behind the packs for credits thing.  They work to get you to buy them.

Now, here's the perfect example of people just taking things for granted and judging based on misconception - I totally forgot that I spent like a 1000 BioWare points on MP. And the stuff about people not having good enough connection for it everywhere is spot on. Actually, some people who bought the hard copy may not even have connection at all.

BioWare deserves the **** storm just for that, regardless of their intent with the ending. Thanks for reminding me.

Of course, the main reason I realize this is because it took ten years of living where we are to get any kind of high speed internet and I don't live too far from Detroit-it's just it's the country and it's in between areas.  No cable and only one source.  I've also talked a lot online with people from other countries and one kid from France was playing MW2 and Killzone 2 on a 13 inch tv.  I fully realize not everyone has it even as good as I do.

Consider also that even one vo actor said the ending doesn't really provide closure (I'm paraphrasing here) and so the EC makes sense.  What then about those people who can't get it?  But, this doesn't exist in a vacuum.  There are more games today that are starting to be released with endings that must be bought as DLC.

And the trending is towards trying to get you to download the games themselves in order to limit your ability to play the game on more than one console.  Buy a used hardcopy that has online play, and you must pay for the online code to play.  They are squeezing every penny they can out of you.

The MP packs are made to make you want to buy them instead of being patient to earn the credits, so of course they want you to play MP.

[BlueStorm83]

But in all seriousness, I think that the Illusive Man, and Kai Lang, made for good villians. I'd have introduced Kai Lang earlier in the story, maybe had him on the Mars Base and had him show up here or there, personally. Made him guilty of more than taking out Thane, sadly. The Illusive Man could have played a more Saren-Like role, showing up more and more powerful throughout the game. But in the end, I'd have liked to give him a proper redemption. Convince him that once the Reapers are dead he'd be in control of his own mind again. Would have been nice to see him get some sort of peace in the end, in jail, knowing at least that Shepard (or his surviving allies, if Shep's dead) were tough enough to keep humanity safe.

[daveyeisley]

Thanatos144 wrote...

And what does it say? That I think everyone sounded like a whiney kid????Thats a opinion not being rude.

ROFLMAO

[BlueStorm83]

CHAIRMAN Roflmao.

[3DandBeyond]

And another thought. If you replay the game, you basically always get the same exact choices with some minor variance depending upon EMS-really low and you might get less than 3 choices and Earth vaporizes. High and you may get the gasp ending. So, each time you play it's the same thing.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Replayability. It is part of what game developers use to sell a game.

[BearlyHere]

AlienShagger wrote...

Redbelle wrote...


Do you think BW will fix up the gun mechanics in the ending? I was able to swallow much of the ending on the first playthrough up to the point where he essentially said, 'synthetics will always destroy organics', but after uniting the Geth and Quarians and hearing about how they had begun a symbiotic relationship that would shave decades off of rebuilding their homeworld my suspension of disbelief collapsed in on itself and things I'd let slide like infinite ammo became a pressing question with no answer.

I didn't see an infinite ammo bandanna like Solid Snakes......... How'd Shep do it?

ECDLC, I'm counting on more than clarity, got a few oversights to fix too.

All guns in the game have infinite ammo, they just have cooling issues. Those are heat sink clips you put in them. Shepard is just a super-cool guy at the end, so his gun doesn't need further cooling.

OOOooor he is passed the **** out and in his dream he could be carrying a badger as a weapon.

My first thought was that it was a dream too. For one thing, where's that 50K Inferno armor Shep spent his Alliance funds on? Where's Shep's never-ending supply of Medi-gel?  Where's his favorite assault rifle? I've been won over to the Indoctrination Theory too. Bioware should really pay attention to the players and not just give us lip service. They've come up with better stuff than the professional writers did.

[3DandBeyond]

AlienShagger wrote...

You are right to a degree. Look, I ****ing hate the movie Requiem for a Dream because it is so ****ing brilliant and I am completely unable to see it again. I feel somewhat like that with ME3. But a good ending isn't supposed to be a sandbox for my jerking off. Get my point?

I think I can replay the whole thing if I convince myself that they will do the EC properly. And bone Ash, have to do that this time.

But my point is exactly that-you pay for replayability just as you do for hours of play that they advertise for a game.  They often artificially pump up the hours of play numbers to make it seem like you get more "bang" so to speak for the buck.  They have you do things that take longer to do.  Why was ME1 longer?  Partly because a lot of the time was spent running and searching dead space in the Citadel or doing Mako missions where you got stuck on fractal landscapes.

But replayability is often more subjective, except when it isn't.  These games have always been specifically hyped this way:

"Play the game again and again as a different Shepard for a different experience".  That's said again and again.  In fact the games even tell you you can start the same character and play again for a bonus or play as a different Shepard for a whole new experience.  In ME3 they took it further to mean a different ending-one that does not exist.

And another thought is that business-wise this is not a good decision.  The real trend for blockbuster movies is not sacrificial and depressing or intellectual to the extreme where only a select few are in on the secret (using their decoder rings).  The trend, especially in troubling times is something that appeals to one in an emotional way, but a heartwarming victorious way.  It's one reason Star Wars helped to bring people out of a bit of a malaise in 1977.  And it hit a right note.  I do think ME could have done it differently because they could offer truly different endings that appeal to different types of fans.  Sad, dark, sacrificial.  Happy, victorious, super happy.  All of those were there waiting.  And they could have pulled every single fan in.

They decided not to.  It's their right, but it isn't necessarily a winning business strategy.

[BlueStorm83]

BearlyHere wrote...

AlienShagger wrote...

Redbelle wrote...


Do you think BW will fix up the gun mechanics in the ending? I was able to swallow much of the ending on the first playthrough up to the point where he essentially said, 'synthetics will always destroy organics', but after uniting the Geth and Quarians and hearing about how they had begun a symbiotic relationship that would shave decades off of rebuilding their homeworld my suspension of disbelief collapsed in on itself and things I'd let slide like infinite ammo became a pressing question with no answer.

I didn't see an infinite ammo bandanna like Solid Snakes......... How'd Shep do it?

ECDLC, I'm counting on more than clarity, got a few oversights to fix too.

All guns in the game have infinite ammo, they just have cooling issues. Those are heat sink clips you put in them. Shepard is just a super-cool guy at the end, so his gun doesn't need further cooling.

OOOooor he is passed the **** out and in his dream he could be carrying a badger as a weapon.

My first thought was that it was a dream too. For one thing, where's that 50K Inferno armor Shep spent his Alliance funds on? Where's Shep's never-ending supply of Medi-gel?  Where's his favorite assault rifle? I've been won over to the Indoctrination Theory too. Bioware should really pay attention to the players and not just give us lip service. They've come up with better stuff than the professional writers did.

---  I'll tell you where the Infinite Ammo came from: All the guns have infinite ammo.  Codex in ME1 stated that firearms now shear off incredibly small projectiles froma  solid block of some metal within the gun.  The only real reason you can't fire forever is overheating.  Thermal Clips are commonly called Ammo (introduced in ME2, based on Geth Technology) but they're actually just heat sinks that can be ejected to rapidly cool a fire-arm.  Also in ME2, you can converse with Zaeed about his favorite (now non-functional) rifle.  He tells you that before it broke, the damn thing were WAY beyond its normal heat capacity, and he just kept firing like a madman.  Now, maybe this was just an old war story, but it DOES set a precedent for Shepard's now effed-up gun to keep on firing.

Conclusion: Infinite Ammo is a minor quibble.  It took me a second to think about, but it's not IMPOSSIBLE, based on in-game information.

[AlienShagger]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

---  This would all be valid and if it's true then it's well thought out.  But:

1) Its not explained in the game, and therefore it's coming from outside, and I paid 70 dollars (From Ashes was NOT "optional" or "extra" it was the best part of the game,) for a complete game, not one where the ending has to be built in my head.

2) Not in keeping with the tone, mode, goals of the game itself, and-

3) Not what BioWare said we would get in the press releases.

---  Having said that, if they indeed did go for what you say you think they did, then they had high goals and absolutely positively fell on their faces in the timing, delivery, and company to begin such a discussion.  Gamers are gamers for a reason: they like games.  We're not Philosophers.  Okay, from reading this thread I can say that at least SOME of us clearly ARE Philosophers, but we were acting in our Gaming Capacity at the time.  If the game were a philosophical experiment from the beginning to the end, and this were the ending, I'd applaud it.  But it wasn't.  It was a rip roaring, take no prisoners (unless you want to!) make war, not love (unless you want to!) Be a badass (or a saint!) get what you want (or work for others!) war story where you determined what happened, made your own way, and in the end felt like you were shaping a universe by your own determination.  Until, in the end, you felt like you were being shaped by something totally new and troubling, that just didn't jibe with what you had become accustomed to.  To quote Riley Freeman from The Boondocks, "Man, it's like goin' to heaven and findin' God smokin' crack!"

I know, you make very good points. They remind me of a guy, a native american activist, whom I heard speak about activism almost a decade ago. I have tried to find that audio several times, but I cannot for the life of me remember the name.

Anyway, I remember him for one single exchange he had with a student at some college. The student asked if it isn't hopeless this activism, because things have to get much worse before people turn away from their TVs and their sports etc., and the conversation went something like this from that point on:

Man: we go to them and we talk to them. We befriend these people, because they are the ones we are doing this for in the first place. What have you got here? A stadion? A bar?
Crowd: Stadion has localities.
Man: excellent, go to them right after we're done here.
Student (explaining): but they are not my crowd and you don't go to a bar to talk to jocks...
Man: why are you here, young man?
Student (confused): to share my views and learn more about activism.
Man: Excellent. Is sharing your views with us very effective activism do you think?
Student (sensing-a-trap kind of voice): it's where I do my best work...
Man: But that's preaching to the quire. All of us here agree pretty much on everything. We have to go where people are.
Student (now indignant, interrupting): Isn't it better to do some activism than none? Me and my friends are not accepted with the crowd and they often are rude, they are just not our crowd...
Man: That is all well and good, but TV and sports and Jeopardy will not go away; we have to go to them, because we do this for the average guy; am I right?
Student (still indignang, still interrupting): No, I do this for me and people who think like me.
Crowd loudly disagrees.
Man: Fine, but either way, if we want to do whatever we do effectively, we have to go to the ordinary people. People like jocks. They like to talk sports with them. They like to drink with them. We should be where people are, so go and be honest to God friends with them.
Student: I don't like sports.
Man: Doesn't matter. Learn to like sports. Play sports, watch sports, talk about sports, be a real friend to them, that's when activism happens.

And the exchange continues for a few; the student gets even angrier, the crowd disagrees with him etc. In any case, those words really ring true to me, especially because corporations and their marketing and PR seem to think that the people is where it's at and they don't give a flying **** what they interrupt with their little obscene announcements and witty/bizzare appeals. Same is with the government; they will interpret history for us if necessary. Not even kidding. Southern states are tossing Mexican, Native American and civil rights era authors out of public education; fairly scary stuff. So the real players go where people are.

And we're people. We like our games, millions of us. We like to be a badass (or a saint!) get what you want (or work for others!) war story where you determined what happened, made your own way, and in the end felt like you were shaping a universe by your own determination. So that's where it's at. Not the evening news. Not the charity faire. Not the occupy wall street.

Anyway, I take a year to get to the point. If I get interrupted in my game to get something good out of it in real life, I'll take it. Thanks to the (possibly totally unwitting) activist.

And you for listening to my BS Off to bed, 4am here. Will check in again tomorrow.

Modifié par AlienShagger, 24 mai 2012 - 01:54 .

[BlueStorm83]

--- Alienshagger: Very interesting, and also very true. I'm reminded of Paul (The Apostle) when he said "I am all things, to all people, that I may win some to Christ." It's the same principle, you go where people are if you want to reach them.

Of course, it still is a radical departure from the mode of the game up to this point.

Intentional or not, the horrible ending and the horrible way it's tied into the multiplayer and the horrible way that BioWare's statements lied about it all have, at the very least, forced me to think, now that I'm here talking to you and all the others. Do I THANK BioWare for this? Nah. (That's more like my Origin Story, where some stupid **** wanted to score with a gullible girl, and BAM, nine months later the greatest human ever was born.) But the circumstances have worked out in a bit of a way.

All that said, BioWare STILL owes me a VIDEO GAME ENDING.

--- And besides, our real history is actually buried already. It's a modern idea to divide people and pretend that we never had any unity. I don't give a crap what anyone looks like or comes from, if you're an American then you're the same as I am. If you're NOT an American... well, I suppose that, as an American, I can forgive that. Smiley face.

[BearlyHere]

Voodoo-j wrote...

Yes!!

And that's why I nearly go into shock when someone says they like the ending.. They obviously do not want to replay, they obviously are not in touch with what Bioware has been telling us all along.

So I instantly have to think they are trolling, it's the only thing that makes sense, lest they have some sort of psychotic issues and they like it when everyone just dies.

I agree. I have to wonder if he is a troll, or if he actually hasn't played through to the end. I also bet he hasn't played 1 and 2.

I know someone who bought ME3 on my recommendation (to my shame) when it came out, and he's played it four times even though he didn't like the ending, trying to get a better one. He's disappointed, but not as much as me or anyone I know who has played 1 and 2 several times. I know one guy who was so disgusted he sold all three as well as the guides for whatever he could get for them. 

I think it's the emotional involvement with a character played over probably a hundred hours or maybe more that Bioware hasn't taken into account. They've marginalized the players and the players' character in favor of their own favorites. It reminds me of back in the day when I played PnP DnD, and one of the things you learned from other gamers was to be wary of a DM who was trying to write a book, and to run away if you found out all  the NPCsin your games  were his old characters.

I think  this is a similar situation. In this case, we are tolerated as a means to an end of them getting to tell their story of how cool Joker and Liara are. I wonder if they want to get rid of us altogether and focus on the books, graphic novels, and the anime.

[AwefulShot]

Mass Effect has ended up like a Roller Coaster ride for me, one that ends in a brick wall. You get on at ME1 starting smiling, at ME2 starting laughing, at ME3 start screaming with joy... then at the end of the ME ride some arse put a brick wall to stop you - you start screaming for a very different reason.

I would love (really, really) to replay the whole series again but I just can't face the ME3 ending(s) again. Is that is what BioWare meant by a bitter-sweet ending?

Modifié par AwefulShot, 24 mai 2012 - 03:06 .

[breakdown71289]

AwefulShot wrote...

Mass Effect has ended up like a Roller Coaster ride for me, one that ends in a brick wall. You get on at ME1 starting smiling, at ME2 starting laughing, at ME3 start screaming with joy... then at the end of the ME ride some arse put a brick wall to stop you - you start screaming for a very different reason.

I would love (really, really) to replay the whole series again but I just can't face the ME3 ending(s) again. Is that is what BioWare meant by a bitter-sweet ending?

We'll see after the EC is out.....just hold on tight guys, it's coming.

[BearlyHere]

AwefulShot wrote...

Mass Effect has ended up like a Roller Coaster ride for me, one that ends in a brick wall. You get on at ME1 starting smiling, at ME2 starting laughing, at ME3 start screaming with joy... then at the end of the ME ride some arse put a brick wall to stop you - you start screaming for a very different reason.

I would love (really, really) to replay the whole series again but I just can't face the ME3 ending(s) again. Is that is what BioWare meant by a bitter-sweet ending?

I was still playing another game when ME3 came out, and I wanted to finish that first. I know one guy though who took his vacation release week so he could play ME3 non-stop. I know others who took release day off. We were counting down the days on Facebook. One by one they started reporting that the game was epic, but only up to the last 15 minutes when it turns to crap. I was skeptical, thinking that it couldn't be that bad. But it was.

I would have definitely played through all three again with a new character if it had been worth it. As it was, I abandoned the game with my first character because being the first, she had missed out on too much.  played through with a renegade because I could see that Shep dying, pausing to flip off the Starbrat before he dragged himself up the red ramp. I played my third character just to get enough assets to see that breath.

I am playing again, but only to hold my nose through MP sessions so I can get the readiness up to 100%. That and I wanted to see how much someone starting from 3 misses out on (a lot) and Kaidan flirted with him, so now I want to see how that turns out. But he's not going anywhere near the Starbrat.

[Archonsg]

BearlyHere wrote...

AwefulShot wrote...

Mass Effect has ended up like a Roller Coaster ride for me, one that ends in a brick wall. You get on at ME1 starting smiling, at ME2 starting laughing, at ME3 start screaming with joy... then at the end of the ME ride some arse put a brick wall to stop you - you start screaming for a very different reason.

I would love (really, really) to replay the whole series again but I just can't face the ME3 ending(s) again. Is that is what BioWare meant by a bitter-sweet ending?

I was still playing another game when ME3 came out, and I wanted to finish that first. I know one guy though who took his vacation release week so he could play ME3 non-stop. I know others who took release day off. We were counting down the days on Facebook. One by one they started reporting that the game was epic, but only up to the last 15 minutes when it turns to crap. I was skeptical, thinking that it couldn't be that bad. But it was.

I would have definitely played through all three again with a new character if it had been worth it. As it was, I abandoned the game with my first character because being the first, she had missed out on too much. played through with a renegade because I could see that Shep dying, pausing to flip off the Starbrat before he dragged himself up the red ramp. I played my third character just to get enough assets to see that breath.

I am playing again, but only to hold my nose through MP sessions so I can get the readiness up to 100%. That and I wanted to see how much someone starting from 3 misses out on (a lot) and Kaidan flirted with him, so now I want to see how that turns out. But he's not going anywhere near the Starbrat.

Now, here's the down side to the current MP requirement, they put in several "gotcha" time bombs in the game.

1) Your readiness will drop, regardless of activity every day for about 3%-6%. Not much really, nothing 2-3 MP runs won't fix, but consider this, it'll go back to 50% if you take a leave of absence or a vacation where you are away for more than a week. All that "hard-earned" readiness, down the drain.

2) Supply packs are a joke. Now, I know this may come as strange from someone who practically already has most of his equipment at level 10 and owns all the "good stuff", but seriously, it's designed to make get a player frustrated and "buy" with Bioware points in hopes to get the stuff he / she wants. DO NOT DO IT. If you really want "stuff" just grind mp, farm in game credits doing bronze challanges.

3) EMS is a sham. Seriously. Does NOTHING worth while in-game. It is an arbitrary number that is the be all, end all in regards to what choices you get and what the Starbrat says to you in the end run. Seriously though, Starbrat's change in convo is really just paraphrasing what he says in another "softer" way that still means the same thing but with a little more vagueness (need we need more of that) so that you can make assumptions.

Now, I pretty good at MP, but I still think its RETARDED to tie in MP with the solo game WITHOUT giving the solo gamer any way to get more than 5000 ems and 100% readiness.

As with the ending, THERE WAS NO REAL CHOICE.
I know, recurring theme here with ME3.
There wasn't any real choice in the ending for ME3, and no, they are not noble sacrifices but fracking death sentence suicides, and no, you don't have a choice if you want 100% readiness and EMS past EMS past 5000.

And in case anyone doesn't think MP skews the game so one-sided towards MP;



This is just wrong.


ps: I forgot to add in one last "time bomb" that few have mentioned but not many seem to pick up on, is that with MP tied to closely to solo play, there is a definite "shelve life" of the game. A year or two from now, think any one will still be playing MP?

Even now, current day, just a few months from release date, I am finding it harder to get MP running because unlike during the "early" days, where I could just click on "search" and almost immediately get a public group of 4 rearing and ready to go, I noticed that it takes longer, and harder to get a group running. Less people playing probably. What happens when those numbers drop below a certain threshold, EA closes the ME servers like it did with ME2? 

Modifié par Archonsg, 24 mai 2012 - 06:08 .

[Archonsg]

About that indoc theory again. People keep thinking its "awesome" and the current trend is to believe that you take the "red" pill, uhhh... destroy option you "win".

Please remember that you *are* still accepting a order to die from the being who is controlling, at that very moment, huge big ass machines, which are killing and turning organics to sludge as you and this entity speak.

Why anyone would think it its a good idea to even accept any directives this entity gives you, any reason at all, is yet forth coming.

If anything, I would agree that it is more then possible that last 10 minutes was an ATTEMPT to indoc Shepard but they left out the vital and necessary, fourth choice. To tell the starbrat to shut up, that Shepard realizes this as an indoc attempt, fights a mental fight of his life, somehow finds a way to break indoc and carry the REAL fight, bring it home so to speak and kick Harbinger and the reapers in their mechanical daddy bags.

[TheOriginalDawg]

Archonsg wrote...


 A year or two from now, think any one will still be playing MP?

The faithful will still play...

Modifié par TheOriginalDawg, 24 mai 2012 - 06:29 .

[yukon fire]

No, your not. And with each passing day I find myself rooting for the day EA takes you apart, if only so you can never hurt anyone ever again.

[Redbelle]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Here's an interesting quote from Game Informer's Jan. interview with Casey Hudson,

INTERVIEWER:
"One of the few criticisms that I saw thrown around for Mass Effect 2 – and I should note that I did not view this as a problem, but I know that some people did – was the lack of a distinct bad guy or a real face to the enemy the way you had in Mass Effect 1. The final boss fight in Mass Effect 2 kind of comes out of nowhere. Is that something that you’ll be changing in Mass Effect 3? Is there a more specific villain or is it still just kind of the general threat of the Reapers?"

CH:
"In the first one we had Saren. In the second one, we wanted to introduce some mystery into who’s doing what, and that was supposed to be the Illusive Man. In the third game, yeah, I think we’re introducing a clearer target for Shepard, a clearer foil."

I think he was referring the Kai Lang

[YouHaveAProblem]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

But in all seriousness, I think that the Illusive Man, and Kai Lang, made for good villians. I'd have introduced Kai Lang earlier in the story, maybe had him on the Mars Base and had him show up here or there, personally. Made him guilty of more than taking out Thane, sadly. The Illusive Man could have played a more Saren-Like role, showing up more and more powerful throughout the game. But in the end, I'd have liked to give him a proper redemption. Convince him that once the Reapers are dead he'd be in control of his own mind again. Would have been nice to see him get some sort of peace in the end, in jail, knowing at least that Shepard (or his surviving allies, if Shep's dead) were tough enough to keep humanity safe.

Respectfully, I disagree 100%. Aside from the whole Crucible/ending-thing, the treatment of Cerberus in ME3 is my biggest problem with the series.

Kai Lenge and the phantoms should, IMO, been cut completely. I could never take that guy seriously at all.

And TIM, he was the best character in the series, there was so much debate on wether what he did was justifiable, and everybody had different ideas about him. He was placed perfectly in the gray shades of morality.

But in ME3, BioWare just went out of their way to make him a villain, ironically as they "devillainized" the reapers..

And almost worse, they completely ****ed up the lore by making him suddenly have a galaxy-wide army and unlimited resources. 

[Ben20530]

As daft as it sounds, the three choice ending would have been great - if it wasn't the ending.
That is to say, you fight through three games, countless decisions, see friends die and get to what you think is the giant anti-reaper spray can....
Then Avina's great grand-daddy tosses a Kobyashi Maru grenade at you.
In desperation you choose what you think is closest to what your shepard would choose and you watch as your hopes for Shep burn in front of your eyes.

This choice 'should' have been your final added war asset. A weakening (maybe strengthening depending on choices) not a defeat of the reapers. And not always death for Shepard.

No breath. No fleeing Normandy. No relay explosion.

What follows would not necessarily need to be playable or happy (though I'd like the possibility). A series of cutscenes showing the impact of your choices, assets and squad strength on the reaper fleet following whatever effect the crucible actually has. This would end up in one of several endings. Again not necessarily happy endings, but satisfying ones.

Depending on what assets you have, and the cutscenes associated to them, you would have a lengthy end sequence/epilogue. The more combinations of cutscenes or even endings that are possible the more the 'replayability'.

I still want my happy ending. But I'd go back to all three games again and again for all the endings.

Wishful thinking but this is the place for that...

[Holger1405]

Voodoo-j wrote...

Think of this from a work perspective.

Your boss asks you to come up with 3 different ideas,
You create 1 idea copy the presentation and change 2-3 sentences between all 3.
Same powerpoint for each one with different colors.

How secure do you feel in your job?

Are you starting to see it yet?  
It's not really anything but 1 ending with a few lines of text and color that changes.
They are not seperate endings.

You are right, I said it before, about how they executed the endings, still, imho there are big differences in the consequences of the 3 choices. (and when Bioware had adjusted EMS better, it would be even more.)

Voodoo-j wrote...
And that's why I nearly go into shock when someone says they like the ending.. They obviously do not want to replay, they obviously are not in touch with what Bioware has been telling us all along.

Sorry, I don't get you here. I have my issues with the endings, I think Bioware could do better, but altogether, I don't hate them, there are even parts I like.  So I can live with them.

And that's why I have no problem to replay. (Just finished my third play through.)  It seems that hating the endings is a reason, at least for many People, not to replay.

Voodoo-j wrote...
So I instantly have to think they are trolling, it's the only thing that makes sense, lest they have some sort of psychotic issues and they like it when everyone just dies.

Well, I had this debate a few sides back. A statement like this lacks all respect for a different opinion, (and it is always a matter of opinion.) especially paired with a statement that reflects only the worst possible outcome.