131 réponses à ce sujet

[lordnyx1]

dekkerd wrote...

Hackett states early in the game to think of the fleets as an escort for the crucible. Not ideal, granted, but it's there.

Which just shows Hacketts an idiot since just about any and all previously suddenly discovered tech has been a reaper trap, mass realys? trap to have organics develop along reaper's path, citadel? place for organics to place their goverment and then get killed off. Heck the reapers almost certainly left the mars achives largely intact so humans would be suitably developed for harvesting and/or developed along a set tech path.
sigh

[Jog0907]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Cucobr wrote...

OK.

Can you please show me the moment IN GAME when the Crucible was damaged for our lack of EMS?

It's not.

My deduction for it comes from a rationalization of how the military assets can still logically contribute to the effectiveness of the Crucible.  Part of that deduction comes from the fact that the Crucible can be destroyed while you're on it (i.e. the Reapers recognize it's a threat and are in fact targeting it), on top of the realization that Hackett orders Sword Fleet to protect the Crucible at all costs when it's being brought in.


If you want me to say that it's not represented explicitly in game, then I guess you can tell your friends you've beaten me.  It's not represented.  I already stated that it's not represented very well in the game earlier in this thread..  If you choose to believe that it's completely illogical and makes no sense for military assets to have an effect on the Crucible's capabilities at end game, then that's the way it is for you.

In regards to the first point, (reapers destroying the crucible while shep talks with the catalyst) you do know that by the time that happens you've already met the catalyst (the master of the reapers) and thus it makes no sense for that to happen, since the catalyst kinda says that you deserve to be there to shape the galaxy.
Why would reapers destroy the crucible if their master decided that shep should not be killed yet and allowed to make the decision first?

Other than that, I like you I've read your recent posts and you seem to actually try to understand why people are upset and to admit what seems flawed in the game, so +1.

Modifié par Jog0907, 21 avril 2012 - 03:54 .

[Cucobr]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Cucobr wrote...

OK.

Can you please show me the moment IN GAME when the Crucible was damaged for our lack of EMS?

It's not.

My deduction for it comes from a rationalization of how the military assets can still logically contribute to the effectiveness of the Crucible.  Part of that deduction comes from the fact that the Crucible can be destroyed while you're on it (i.e. the Reapers recognize it's a threat and are in fact targeting it), on top of the realization that Hackett orders Sword Fleet to protect the Crucible at all costs when it's being brought in.


If you want me to say that it's not represented explicitly in game, then I guess you can tell your friends you've beaten me.  It's not represented.  I already stated that it's not represented very well in the game earlier in this thread..  If you choose to believe that it's completely illogical and makes no sense for military assets to have an effect on the Crucible's capabilities at end game, then that's the way it is for you.

My intention is not to beat you and show it to my friends ... LOL .... take it easy Allan.


My intention is to show that you can not tell for sure, because the ending makes no sense.

There is nothing IN GAME that supports your theory.

So any theory is as good as yours or mine.

you can not deny mine, as I also can not deny yours.


Do not think I'm happy with it ... you do not know how much I wanted a simple, direct and objective answer.

[knight56]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

But you might not have any of those Crucible war assets and still have the required EMS for Earth to be perfectly fine. You might not have any of the protective fleet assets and still have the required EMS for Earth to be perfectly fine.

You could, in theory, have your entire war score composed of the absolute minimum required assets for doing only the mandatory missions with the rest made up of a super duper N7 team from multiplayer.

That is where the abstraction falls apart. Basing it on a number value is an abstraction (just like basing the Geth-Quarian peace opportunity on a number value is), but within a video game I come to expect it on some level.  Doing a gradiant, probabilistic shift becomes a lot more complicated to test, and a lot less predictable for gamers, which is arguably limiting the benefit for making a more complicated system.

Assuming that the assessment of EMS is what I described, do you have any idea on how to represent it without an abstraction down to numbers?

I'd say the way to do it would be to have the Earth mission be its own mini-campaign of missions. Play it like the suicide mission in ME2. Specifically the hold the line portion. All the squad mates were given some abstract number on how well they can cover your back with a +1 for loyalty, even though we were never told what those were. Do something similar. Give the war assetts a number, just don't tell the player what it is and what modifies it positively or negatively.

Hypothetical numbers and examples:
1. Part of a hypothetical Earth mission requires a team to go behind enemy lines and shut down a giant barrier engine in Shepard's way. Hackett organizes a strike force that's the 103rd Marine Division + Jacob Taylor + Zaeed Massani + Major Kirrahe + Geth Primes + the Spectre Team + the volus bombing fleet. If their combined values isn't above X value it starts dramatically killing people. But they still get the job done for the sake of gameplay,
2. When it comes time for the Crucible, the Crucible assetts determine what condition it's in. If the combined assetts are >= x you can get the destroy ending with Shepard alive. (And maybe higher than that the Geth alive too, hypothetically)
3. You can still use the ultra combined value to determine the final outcome/state of the Earth after it happens in an epilogue scene.

I kinda just splurged on my fantasies/expectations for the game. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that the War Assetts, if they had to be a simple number, should have been more explicit on what the numbers meant.

So I guess there were a few things that should have been done. Either it should have said "These assets are for THIS project or for THIS area (fleets, crucible, ground troops) etc. Or someone narratively said that "The war assets are exclusively for protecting and constructing the crucible and will determine how effective it is". Because the way war assets are setup in that interface it looks like the Crucible is PART of what you're doing not THE central focus. If anything, given the state of the last half of the game, the war assets are just glorified codex entries.

[WeAreLegionWTF]

It could have been a really interesting dynamic. but unfortunately it feels like its just a number on a console. You should have been able to visit the fleet and look at a window at the crucible in various states of construction, could have been some good easter eggs looking at different ships flying in formation hearing radio transmissions and etc. I think the spaceship version of the DA campsite.

It would have had even more of an impact if in priority:earthy you got to make choices with the assets like in the suicide mission. but sadly all the assets do is change some video clips and decide whether space kid is mean to you or not.

[Cirreus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Velocithon wrote...

But the problem is how does having a higher EMS, which allows for better construction of the Crucible, somehow allow Shepard to survive in the end? The same explosion happens every time, it isn't like in the "best" ending no explosion happens where you could draw the conclusion that Shepard lives because of this.

There is a conversation (I think with Hackett but it's been a while now so it might be with someone else) discussing concerns about how we aren't even sure if the beam will only attack the reapers.  So the idea that the crucible might target more than just the reapers is present.

On top of that, if you look at the lower EMS destroy endings, you'll get some where the buildings are destroyed (but humanity survives... they don't cheer though), as well as one where the soldiers on the battlefield are literally vaporized.  So the differences in the EMS will lead to a pulse that has very different effects on people, buildings, etc..  Presumably with a much higher EMS, Shepard is spared because the pulse doesn't affect him as strongly as he would otherwise.

That may be all well & true, but like many problems in this game, it's so poorly executed it doesn't matter. The main theme repeated over & over again is that "no one" knows what the Crucible does. Nothing is explained about it's potential in the core theme (like is it a varient on a mass engine ? which could have tied in with the Citadel). Also you can't ignore that the Crucible gets built no matter what. It always get's built. I didn't see any "here is your progress & quality assurance" bar for the Crucible. But I'm damn well slapped in the face with my EMS decay each time I fire up ME3.

It "could have" been a cool RPG element, but since multiplayer can bypass all secondary & tertiary quests in the game (non plot war assests), there is no point. Why wasn't the iOS data pad Galaxy at War implemented in the War Room ? Sending in fleets of acquired "war assests" around like some old maritime admiral might have made that war room worth the effort of using the elevator passing through the TSA check point.

This is never brought up enough. EMS = DRM. It's not possible (without Gibb's ME3 editor) to achieve all ending options (from Harbinger beam onward) without an online EA pass & multiplayer. So all that cool stuff suggested is nothing at the end of the day. It's just a contrived, half baked form of DRM to hinder used game sales at Gamestop or discourage pirates.

[fluffywalrus]

I just wish I didn't need to play multi-player in order to have a reasonable EMS. No reason why I should have to separate myself from the final act of a narrative to do some hollow, non-canon, soulless survival mode gameplay with nameless characters I don't care about, in order to expose myself to the full selection of endings. That was my biggest concern prior to the game, and it wound up coming true.

I certainly don't mind that a higher EMS leads to more options or better options, I just think the delivery method/multiplier of EMS is rather absurd

[PsyrenY]

Cirreus wrote...

This is never brought up enough. EMS = DRM. It's not possible (without Gibb's ME3 editor) to achieve all ending options (from Harbinger beam onward) without an online EA pass & multiplayer. So all that cool stuff suggested is nothing at the end of the day. It's just a contrived, half baked form of DRM to hinder used game sales at Gamestop or discourage pirates.

Look, I think it was a dick move for them to put less than 8000 WA in the singleplayer game too, but you're talking about a 5 second scene that anyone can watch on Youtube for free. It's hardly SecuROM, you know?

[fluffywalrus]

Jog0907 wrote...


In regards to the first point, (reapers destroying the crucible while shep talks with the catalyst) you do know that by the time that happens you've already met the catalyst (the master of the reapers) and thus it makes no sense for that to happen, since the catalyst kinda says that you deserve to be there to shape the galaxy.
Why would reapers destroy the crucible if their master decided that shep should not be killed yet and allowed to make the decision first?

Other than that, I like you I've read your recent posts and you seem to actually try to understand why people are upset and to admit what seems flawed in the game, so +1.

I'll take a wild guess and say that "the created always rebel against their creators". Their bogeyman through the series is getting prominence over them at the hands of their creator, putting their existence in danger? Survival mode activated, attack creator and threat to ensure existence.

Modifié par fluffywalrus, 21 avril 2012 - 05:03 .

[pistolols]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I don't feel that any of the choices are necessarily better than the others, just that they may require a better constructed Crucible in order to happen.

This.  EMS dictates the quality of it's construction and possibilities it can bring via the quality of parts / scientists shepard acquires for it.

[mesmerizedish]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

But you might not have any of those Crucible war assets and still have the required EMS for Earth to be perfectly fine. You might not have any of the protective fleet assets and still have the required EMS for Earth to be perfectly fine.

You could, in theory, have your entire war score composed of the absolute minimum required assets for doing only the mandatory missions with the rest made up of a super duper N7 team from multiplayer.

That is where the abstraction falls apart. Basing it on a number value is an abstraction (just like basing the Geth-Quarian peace opportunity on a number value is), but within a video game I come to expect it on some level.  Doing a gradiant, probabilistic shift becomes a lot more complicated to test, and a lot less predictable for gamers, which is arguably limiting the benefit for making a more complicated system.

Assuming that the assessment of EMS is what I described, do you have any idea on how to represent it without an abstraction down to numbers?

Distilling the abstraction to numbers isn't inherently bad. The issue I raised (just in these few specific posts though, I'm not trying to make any general statement applicable to everything) is that the number, EMS, represents too much in and of itself. It's presented as a composite of lots of components, but those individual components lack any idnividual significance. 5000 points of N7 team has the exact same effect as 5000 points of Crucible data.

That's the issue here. If we consider your suggestion that perhaps lower EMS wiping out Earth is a result of scientists not building the Crucible as perfectly as they could have, then that result should be based on your Crucible score. As it stands, that it's your Crucible score instead of your Turian Fleet score is entirely irrelevant, and it introduces logical inconsistencies.

Now, inconsistencies and fallacies are always going to be there, and I accept that. But this is one that requires only a little thought in order to present itself, and only a little more to begin presenting some possible solutions. If the already existing discrete EMS categories affected those parts of the ending sequence (or the whole game, whatever) that they logically would, then it becomes much more interesting and much more variable.

[Cirreus]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Cirreus wrote...

This is never brought up enough. EMS = DRM. It's not possible (without Gibb's ME3 editor) to achieve all ending options (from Harbinger beam onward) without an online EA pass & multiplayer. So all that cool stuff suggested is nothing at the end of the day. It's just a contrived, half baked form of DRM to hinder used game sales at Gamestop or discourage pirates.

Look, I think it was a dick move for them to put less than 8000 WA in the singleplayer game too, but you're talking about a 5 second scene that anyone can watch on Youtube for free. It's hardly SecuROM, you know?

5 Seconds or otherwise, some "new guy"  d*cking around in MP can Vanguard promote there way to more ending options than the most die hard RPG completionist. I think it's the worse than SecurROM. What happens when EA shuts off the servers. I can't access my ME2 DLC on Xbox without being online to EA. How is this going to work in 5 years ? 10 years ?

pistolols wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I don't feel that any of the choices are necessarily better than the others, just that they may require a better constructed Crucible in order to happen.

This.  EMS dictates the quality of it's construction and possibilities it can bring via the quality of parts / scientists shepard acquires for it.

But it's not a core theme. One has to jump to conclusions to make these "speculations" about the Crucible. The core theme with EMS is "Effective Military Strength", not scientific R&D, resource management. Since multiplayer can bypass half the game (and the need for the war assets from them), I don't by this explanation one bit. Sure, building a strong military alliance to protect the construction of the Crucible makes sense. But I didn't do anything (other than the Mars mission) to directly contribute to make the Crucible thing happen. There isn't even a discussion anytime about "you'd better save [insert alien home world] or we won't help you build the Crucible". It's all about the conventional war effort. If you skipped the hologram crap from Hacket, you'd never know the thing was being built. As many people have said before, it get's built no matter what. If it was an option to build Crucible, I'd be on board with EMS effects the quality of the Crucible "theory". But it doesn't.

[chemiclord]

I play Multiplayer because... well, I find it quite fun. Having 100% Readiness is simply an added bonus.

[DJBare]

The options at the end were not rewards, while I do not support the ending to this game, I do get that those were presented by the catalyst to fool Shepard.

Control for those with large ego's
Synthesis for those who see Eden.

EMS is about "destroy", with high EMS destroy does not kill those soldiers or destroy big ben, or fry the earth to a crisp, and with a high enough EMS Shepard gets to breath, those are the rewards, not the options presented by the catalyst.

Modifié par DJBare, 21 avril 2012 - 06:06 .

[Raiil]

DJBare wrote...

The options at the end were not rewards, while I do not support the ending to this game, I do get that those were presented by the catalyst to fool Shepard.

Control for those with large ego's
Synthesis for those who see Eden.

EMS is about "destroy", with high EMS destroy does not kill those soldiers or destroy big ben, or fry the earth to a crisp and with a high enough EMS Shepard gets to breath, those are the rewards, not the options presented by the catalyst.

I really wish people would stop trying to equate the different choices with some of personality problem. All three are ethically horrific and everyone choses them for a different reason, not because they have some sort of God complex. 

[DJBare]

Valentia X wrote...


I really wish people would stop trying to equate the different choices with some of personality problem. All three are ethically horrific and everyone choses them for a different reason, not because they have some sort of God complex. 

All three maybe ethically horrific, but destroying the reapers has been the goal of Shepard throughout the series, personally I consider it a mercy killing considering what's inside those reaper shells.

[Phydeaux314]

5 Seconds or otherwise, some "new guy" d*cking around in MP can Vanguard promote there way to more ending options than the most die hard RPG completionist.

This... isn't really the case. Each promotion requires a level 20 character, each level 20 character requires at least an hour or two to get. Each promotion nets you 75 points. It'll take you quite a few promoted characters, even at 100% effectiveness, to offset missing a bunch of quests.

I think it's the worse than SecurROM. What happens when EA shuts off the servers. I can't access my ME2 DLC on Xbox without being online to EA. How is this going to work in 5 years ? 10 years ?

This is a fairly serious concern of mine. I suspect one of two things will happen:
1. EA will take the path Valve has said they will take in the event of server outage, and release unlock patches for their content. In the event that they do shut down their servers, they're probably not expecting to sell a lot more copies of the DLC or game, so the gain in fan respect probably offsets the tiny loss of income from people pirating it a decade down the line.
2. The pirates will beat them to the punch and reverse engineer the authentication system to allow people to play through on their own.

If ME weren't as well-played a series, I'd be more worried, but given the attention I imagine one (or both) of those outcomes is fairly likely.

As for EMS... I find it to be a clunky abstraction put in place to solve two issues. The first is that some people probably complained that they didn't have a good way to figure out if they were ready for the suicide mission in the second game. I can understand that grievance, even if I disagree with how they chose to address it. The second is that it allows them to abstract away a lot more of the little side pieces they put in the game. Let's take a sidequest where you find a small prothean relic to help with translation efforts. There are a few ways they can handle the impact of that minor sidequest on the end game:

1. It can have no appreciable effect. Basically, the quest is only there to flesh out the world. This is okay some of the time - after all, not everything you find is useful - but if every sidequest is like this, only netting experience and maybe credits, you really have no reason to do them.

2. They can write in a specific triggered cutscene noting the impact of said sidequest. Remember Conrad's sidequest on the citadel? Basically like that. Since it's a sidequest of no real note, it can't be a game-changer - perhaps it allows them to translate some details on a defense mechanism that might remove a few enemies from a tough fight in the final run, or something - but nonetheless, said quest would have a concrete effect on the game in some way. The advantages of this is that it makes the player feel very invested in the world, and that there are consequences to your actions. The downsides of this are that it takes a TON of developer time, and if every little thing you do has an obvious effect in the end game it can make the world feel much smaller.

3. You can have each sidequest feed into an aggregate score, which has several breakpoints. This is basically what they did: Your sidequests matter, but you can pick and choose how you want to go about setting them up. The advantage is in player flexibility - they will never feel obligated to do something - but the downside is that it feels artificial. Why should getting four hundred pieces of prothean wreckage be the same as building a giant army? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense under close examination.

Were it up to me, I would have taken a hybrid approach: Rather than a single aggregate EMS, there would be a "crucible progress," "army strength," "morale," and possibly other categories of readiness. You'd then have a lot of either/or missions: You could do an operation to rescue an army, increasing your military might, but at the cost of not retrieving some piece of important research data. The endgame would then play out differently depending on whether you went for a large conventional force (saved a lot of people, but threw them into a meat grinder to win) versus a more ruthless solution (left people to die or be taken in order to complete and perfect a superweapon). Either way, people are going to end up dead, the reapers would end up dead, but how you went about it would say a lot about who you were.

Ah, well. What could have been...

[Cirreus]

ChookAttack wrote...

chemiclord wrote...

I play Multiplayer because... well, I find it quite fun. Having 100% Readiness is simply an added bonus.

I have not the slightest doubt that there are thousands upon thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people who played MP simply for the fun of it.  I should have explained my opinion better.  I don't think it was intended to get those who would have played MP anyway to play more, it was intended to get those who may not have played MP at all to try it.  Anyone who is a completionist player would be tempted to play MP if only to get that 100% on the readiness metre.

It's just my opinion, but as I said, I would very much like to see a poll of the reasons people played MP.

Otherway around. (Not that I take what EA/Bioware says without a 5 pound bag of salt), the Brass at Bioware HQ said during it's MP announcement that MP's tie to EMS & single player was to allow the "lay man" to play the central parts of ME3 without being burdened by all the things those RPG'ers do (fetch quests). So EA/Bioware's reasoning for the link between everything is not to hurt the online "CoD" customer's experience in single player ... as if "action" mode didn't do that already.

I'm sure (cause I'm one of them) that the hardcore RPG player does play MP for promotions & 100% EMS, but I'd think that internal stats would show an even mix of RPG (for 100%), 50/50 crowds doing it for a bunch of reasons & the COD/GoW online MP only people (which I've run into alot lately, they haven't even touched the single player of any ME game).

Modifié par Cirreus, 21 avril 2012 - 06:39 .

[Ravennus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Cucobr wrote...

OK.

Can you please show me the moment IN GAME when the Crucible was damaged for our lack of EMS?

It's not.

My deduction for it comes from a rationalization of how the military assets can still logically contribute to the effectiveness of the Crucible.  Part of that deduction comes from the fact that the Crucible can be destroyed while you're on it (i.e. the Reapers recognize it's a threat and are in fact targeting it), on top of the realization that Hackett orders Sword Fleet to protect the Crucible at all costs when it's being brought in.


If you want me to say that it's not represented explicitly in game, then I guess you win.  It's not represented.  I already stated that it's not represented very well in the game earlier in this thread..  If you choose to believe that it's completely illogical and makes no sense for military assets to have an effect on the Crucible's capabilities at end game, then that's the way it is for you.

Hey Mr. Schumacher,

Would it be possible to get a comment from you regarding the amount of EMS available in only Single Player without any influence from Multiplayer or iOS Apps?

It was advertised and even said on these very forums many times that there would be MORE than enough war assets to give us the highest achievable ending so long as we did everything in single player (quests, scanning, importing, etc).

However, it's been over a month since launch and currently not a single player can get over 4000 EMS (and thus over 8000 TMS due to the 50% galactic readiness) in order to get the 'breath' Destroy ending.

Some speculated that Bioware only meant the Green Synthethis ending, but that was debunked from various EA/Bioware employees who have told us repeatedly that they can get the 'breath' Destory ending (and thus over 4000 EMS) in their own playthroughs without touching multiplayer.

However, this is simply not possible with the game we were shipped.
Myself and many others have actually gone into the game code and looked at all the possible war assets, and even with the most optimal playthrough of all 3 games you can only get around 7500 TMS in only single player.
Without multiplayer or iOS apps.... the galactic readiness will always be at 50%, so that means the most EMS we can get is around 3750....  not enough to get the 'breath' ending.

The 'breath' destroy ending requires either 4000 EMS before the Cerberus Base, then charming/intimidating TIM into not shooting Anderson a second time..... or 5000 EMS if you aren't able to do that.

Both outcomes are currently not possible in Single Player alone, which contradicts everything we were told in pre-release interviews, articles, and even a sticky from Jarret Lee in the General Discussion forum.

A 67 page thread is available on the topic here...
http://social.biowar...662/67#11577076

It contains a lot of good info and all our testing and resources.

Any comments would be appreciated, especially as we haven't heard anything about it since the problem was discovered over a month ago.
I'm sure you can understand that this issue will become more serious once the 'Extended Cut' nears completion and players want to see the result of that particular ending.

Thanks.

[tybbiesniffer]

Ravennus wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Cucobr wrote...

OK.

Can you please show me the moment IN GAME when the Crucible was damaged for our lack of EMS?

It's not.

My deduction for it comes from a rationalization of how the military assets can still logically contribute to the effectiveness of the Crucible.  Part of that deduction comes from the fact that the Crucible can be destroyed while you're on it (i.e. the Reapers recognize it's a threat and are in fact targeting it), on top of the realization that Hackett orders Sword Fleet to protect the Crucible at all costs when it's being brought in.


If you want me to say that it's not represented explicitly in game, then I guess you win.  It's not represented.  I already stated that it's not represented very well in the game earlier in this thread..  If you choose to believe that it's completely illogical and makes no sense for military assets to have an effect on the Crucible's capabilities at end game, then that's the way it is for you.

Hey Mr. Schumacher,

Would it be possible to get a comment from you regarding the amount of EMS available in only Single Player without any influence from Multiplayer or iOS Apps?

It was advertised and even said on these very forums many times that there would be MORE than enough war assets to give us the highest achievable ending so long as we did everything in single player (quests, scanning, importing, etc).

However, it's been over a month since launch and currently not a single player can get over 4000 EMS (and thus over 8000 TMS due to the 50% galactic readiness) in order to get the 'breath' Destroy ending.

Some speculated that Bioware only meant the Green Synthethis ending, but that was debunked from various EA/Bioware employees who have told us repeatedly that they can get the 'breath' Destory ending (and thus over 4000 EMS) in their own playthroughs without touching multiplayer.

However, this is simply not possible with the game we were shipped.
Myself and many others have actually gone into the game code and looked at all the possible war assets, and even with the most optimal playthrough of all 3 games you can only get around 7500 TMS in only single player.
Without multiplayer or iOS apps.... the galactic readiness will always be at 50%, so that means the most EMS we can get is around 3750....  not enough to get the 'breath' ending.

The 'breath' destroy ending requires either 4000 EMS before the Cerberus Base, then charming/intimidating TIM into not shooting Anderson a second time..... or 5000 EMS if you aren't able to do that.

Both outcomes are currently not possible in Single Player alone, which contradicts everything we were told in pre-release interviews, articles, and even a sticky from Jarret Lee in the General Discussion forum.

A 67 page thread is available on the topic here...
http://social.biowar...662/67#11577076

It contains a lot of good info and all our testing and resources.

Any comments would be appreciated, especially as we haven't heard anything about it since the problem was discovered over a month ago.
I'm sure you can understand that this issue will become more serious once the 'Extended Cut' nears completion and players want to see the result of that particular ending.

Thanks.

Oh, yes please.  How can we be denied content (however minimal) in a previously SP franchise if we don't play MP?  This is just....insulting.

[oothal]

I think the EMS system is only there to force people to go online and play. It really doesnt add anything to the story at all.

I want to know why the Reapers let the organics attach the Crucible in the first place. There are many Reapers protecting the Citadel and they all just go off to the side and let the Crucible be attached. Reapers can crash through ships like they were not there. So why didnt the entire Reaper force just sweep through and crush the Crucible in about 5 seconds?

[Allan Schumacher]

Jog0907 wrote...

In regards to the first point, (reapers destroying the crucible while shep talks with the catalyst) you do know that by the time that happens you've already met the catalyst (the master of the reapers) and thus it makes no sense for that to happen, since the catalyst kinda says that you deserve to be there to shape the galaxy.
Why would reapers destroy the crucible if their master decided that shep should not be killed yet and allowed to make the decision first?

It makes you wonder how much control the Catalyst actually has, I agree.  Are the Reapers sentient and able to determine self-preservation?