472 réponses à ce sujet

[DiegoProgMetal]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

iakus wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I think that this is actually a different issue.  I can understand the idea of player reactivity.  My big problem with the ME2 ending is that it's almost trivial to satisfy the prerequisites to achieve the perfect ending.  Even then, ultimately my first ending where Thane died was significantly more satisfying to me, even knowing that I can accomplish a superior ending, because to me the superior ending just comes across as being TOO badass.  It's too perfect which, for me, actually compromises the narrative because the variability of the ending ends up coming across as more "Did you play the game right" as opposed to "did you make difficult choices."

Ah but the problem here isn't that you can get a perfect ending, but that it's too easy to do so, yes?  I don't particularly disagree with that sentiment, but I do like that it's possible to keep everyone alive.

I'm certainly more receptive to a perfect ending if it's difficult to achieve.  At the same time, though, I was more defining the perfect ending as the crew all surviving, which wouldn't exclude a prerequisite of having to make a very hard choice affecting a non-party member (or something on a larger scale) in order to happen.

Remember, I'm the guy that finds the Virmire more interesting if it required you to choose between your two favourite party members (determined by some metric such as most frequently used).

I think what I've kind of noticed while talking with people is many people like their choice to be purely the ability to drive the narrative.  Meaning, if they want to make a "suboptimal" choice, then it's interesting for them to have that narrative flexibility.  What I look for in choice is more along the lines of "provide me with a choice where the outcomes are unclear, or at least evaluated to be equivalent."  Which I think is just a difference in what I like out of an RPG narrative.  (I'm not all nihilist and am totally okay with a standard heroic romp Baldur's Gate style though haha).  

Allan, first, I'd like to tell you that it's great to have a ME fan just like the rest of us, that happens to work at Bioware, talking to us on the same level. And I thank you for that.

Now, about the endings and the thread. I didn't even want those "choices" existed... IMO, the main problem with the endings was that (my guess) many people (me included) expected a galactic version of the Suicide Mission. I think the Crucible should just take the Reapers shields down, and let them vulnerable. Sovereign was destroyed (if I remember well, cut in a half) with 2 shots from the Normandy, before the Thanix Cannons. Then, we would see the outcome of our EMS. Low EMS, total loss. High EMS, total win.

I don't mind some losses. Legion was my second favourite character,and his death, although a little "meh" for me (I'd like something more epic than a few words and shutdown), was still glorious. His death wasn't in vain. It'd be beautiful if in one (as in one out of many) ending, the only ship left was the Normandy against the only Reaper left (Harby?), and the only way to defeat him was "Independence Day like" throwing the Normandy against him, with Shepard on the bridge with Joker, EDI, and LI, saying his last words for the crew: "It was an honour to have all of you at my side". I'd love to have one Shepard just for this ending. As I would also love to have one Shepard that manages to get most of his crew and himself alive after a full victory against the Reapers.

I have to admit, I think you are a bit sadistic with games, lol. I don't think games should make you feel bad (unless the game is marketed as a dark, violent, dense, etc...). Real life is enough to make most of us feel bad. And I'm sure a good ammount of people play games to escape reality for sometime. To be the hero of the galaxy instead of the grunt in a sh*t*y job. Mass Effect 3 was sold as "Take Earth Back", not as "Experience the doom of the galaxy". On the other side, the Dead Space series, which I love, already tell us what it is about in the name. The main character, despite getting out alive in both games, is pretty much effed up too. But Dead Space is called this way for a reason. From the moment you start the game you already knows it will be a grim experience. And I'm looking forward for Dead Space 3. In this case, it would be a huge letdown if in the end of the third game, you just wake up and finds out that it was just a nightmare, and everything is alright.

Mass Effect was always about hope, and overcoming impossible odds. You cured the Genophage and made Turians and Krogans fight side by side, you solved the geth/quarian conflict and got them fighting side by side too, at YOUR side, you faced a reaper on foot and won the battle! Then the "almighty" Shepard turns into a passive idiot who takes the words of something he just met at face value to choose the fate of the galaxy. Why change things in the last 10 minutes?

I felt like watching a great movie and then on the last scenes, instead of resolution, I got rickrolle'd. Like when a big dream of yours is about to come true, but then something happens and everything goes fubar. Like when that beautiful girl you wanted on high school, and you always thought was way out of your league, says she wants you, but when you are about to kiss her she changes her mind. Like in the final game of the world championship of your favourite sport, your favourite team is almost winning, but then they just "forget" how to play, and the other team wins the championship. That is the only feeling I could/can get from the endings. BIG, major, incredible frustration.  And, at the end of the day, I still have to read people saying that we are "entitled brats", even if I'm a 28 years old guy who works full time to provide for him and his wife, and have in games, his only way of venting.

About the hypothesis of EDI instead of Catalyst, at least for me it would su*k just as bad, because my hatred goes for the RGB ending, not the Catalyst.

Well, I got to go, I think I already wrote too much. 

Modifié par DiegoProgMetal, 28 avril 2012 - 11:13 .

[Noelemahc]

On the other side, the Dead Space series, which I love, already tell us what it is about in the name. The main character, despite getting out alive in both games, is pretty much effed up too. But Dead Space is called this way for a reason. From the moment you start the game you already knows it will be a grim experience. And I'm looking forward for Dead Space 3. In this case, it would be a huge letdown if in the end of the third game, you just wake up and finds out that it was just a nightmare, and everything is alright.

Not unless it was a nightmare shared with others. DS Extraction had several different protagonists, and it's rather unlikely that Isaac hallucinated ALL of them. Although they DID follow him to Earth...

DS Extraction, by the way, had the scariest "indoctrination-friendly" scenario -- the tutorial level is one big mind-frak that leaves you going "whatever the hell just happened, it was awesome". Perhaps Visceral will some day do an ME spinoff? I'd love to see what they can do with the setting.

An interesting aspect is that ME3, while seemingly large and epic, feels constricted and theatrically compact. ME2 had that, too, but less constrictively. DS2, on the other hand, takes what little of the gameworld we could infer from our wanderings out on the Ishimura, and draws a humongous (if slightly retconnned) picture of a vast and believable, although pants-crappingly scary even without the Necromorphs, world.

Like when that beautiful girl you wanted on high school, and you always thought was way out of your league, says she wants you, but when you are about to kiss her she changes her mind.

I've had a worse experience. She did want me. And after it happened, I've had several startling realizations.
1. I did this for a notch in the belt.
2. She only needed a rebound.
3. Most important of all: I've had better.

Scarily enough, ME3 left me with almost the same experience.

Modifié par Noelemahc, 28 avril 2012 - 06:14 .

[SpartanCommander]

I wouldn't. I would have prefered that the Starchild was the end boss and we get to fight him. (the core of the catalyst that would be pretty awesome)

[Ariq]

Aquilas wrote...

Just because a thing is possible or probable doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. If the Catalyst were basing its assertion on experience, then it has already witnessed synthetics destroying all organic life. If that’s the case, Shepard and his allies wouldn’t exist—the Catalyst and the Reapers would have no reason for being. That is, unless the Catalyst re-created organic life so it and the Reapers would have something to do. So we’re looking at some form of Supreme Creator.

I dislike the Catalyst as much as anyone, and I disagree with the inevitable conclusion it draws, but I don't follow this line of argument you're offering here. It is completely possible that the Reapers have seen galactic organic life extinguished in the past. We already know that abiogenesis has happened on many worlds (Rannoch, Earth, Palavan, Thessia, amongst others). Why try to exclude it happening on more than one time-scale? The universe is 15+ billion years old, life on earth a 'mere' 3.5 billion. There's plenty of time there for life to have arisen and gone utterly extinct only to appear again elsewhere. More than once, for that matter. Of course, that makes the Reapers much older than anyone has hypothesized, and its pure speculation, but I don't see how it can be ruled out as impossible.

[-D-C-D-]

Re Allan's post above on having a "Reapers win" outcome, that was one of the things which actually surprised me the most about the endings. I mean, ME2 really set the bar for that by making it actually possible for Shepard to die, had he not worked hard enough to ready his squad.

Throughout the entire game, I'd been looking at my EMS bar, working so hard to get it maxed, worrying what the consequences would have been had I not done so, and to find out that ultimately the Reapers would still have been destroyed, albeit with "consequences," I felt really undermined by the whole thing.

Essentially, nothing I did over three games, and five years, even made that much of a difference.

[Aquilas]

Ariq wrote...

Aquilas wrote...

Just because a thing is possible or probable doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. If the Catalyst were basing its assertion on experience, then it has already witnessed synthetics destroying all organic life. If that’s the case, Shepard and his allies wouldn’t exist—the Catalyst and the Reapers would have no reason for being. That is, unless the Catalyst re-created organic life so it and the Reapers would have something to do. So we’re looking at some form of Supreme Creator.

I dislike the Catalyst as much as anyone, and I disagree with the inevitable conclusion it draws, but I don't follow this line of argument you're offering here. It is completely possible that the Reapers have seen galactic organic life extinguished in the past. We already know that abiogenesis has happened on many worlds (Rannoch, Earth, Palavan, Thessia, amongst others). Why try to exclude it happening on more than one time-scale? The universe is 15+ billion years old, life on earth a 'mere' 3.5 billion. There's plenty of time there for life to have arisen and gone utterly extinct only to appear again elsewhere. More than once, for that matter. Of course, that makes the Reapers much older than anyone has hypothesized, and its pure speculation, but I don't see how it can be ruled out as impossible.

The Catalyst asserts synthetics inevitably will rebel against their creators, destroy them, and then eradicate all organic life. It's not describing a natural process--it's describing an active process undertaken by agents the organics create and unleash upon the galaxy.  According to the Catalyst, that's the process the Reapers prevent via the Harvesting Cycle.  Essentially, the Reapers are saving us--in the macro sense, us organics--from ourselves.

If the Reapers have seen, actually witnessed, all galactic organic life extinguished by synthetics over billions of years, then they've failed repeatedly.  And remember, the Catalyst asserts its Solution has always worked--always--until the moment Shepard appears on the Crucible.  So again, the Catalyst is speaking in absolutes that stretch through all times past and all times future.  Sounds like a god to me.

[ArchDuck]

Me. I would rather have the option to die than give in to the choices of Genocide, Slavery or Assault and Rape.

[Bill Casey]

If the Catalyst was a god, couldn't he just make the Crucible vanish and the Reapers invincible?

[Deepo78]

 
Last time I tried playing through the ending, I just spent a minute shooting Starbrat in head before turning off my game.

[Ariq]

Aquilas wrote...

If the Reapers have seen, actually witnessed, all galactic organic life extinguished by synthetics over billions of years, then they've failed repeatedly.

Scenario: 

4 billion years ago, a Synthetic race rose up and detroyed *all* organic life in the galaxy down to the last amoebae and proto-bacteria, maybe they even cook the amino soup with hard radiation and salt the gardens of a thousand worlds. This was witnessed (or perhaps perpetrated) by the Reapers / Catalyst. They determine to never allow this to happen again in the future. This allows the Reapers to have witnessed just what they claim to know is inevitable (though I argue such a prior incidence does not predict future events.)

Over the next 3 billion years, life begins to evolve on various worlds via abiogenesis.

Circa 1 billion years ago, civilizations begin to rise that have the capacity for space faring and the creation of AI / Synthetic intelligences. The Reapers begin harvesting every ~50,000 years to prevent the technological singularity. This coincides with what we know of Reaper cycles and even fits with the expected time scale for the evolution of megafauna to reach apex, sentient species.

This refutes your hypothesis that the Catalyst could not have seen galactic extinction at the hands of Synthetics. Said extinction happened a very long time ago (the Reapers being at least 1 billion years ago). It need not have been repeated even once since for it to still form a decision point in the consciousness of the Reapers. In the intervening timeframe, life has evolved on myriad other worlds, indeed it has done so several times staggered throughout galactic history, giving us cycles of civilizations.

Modifié par Ariq, 28 avril 2012 - 07:59 .

[Noelemahc]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

For example, imagine the Crucible has been hooked up, and EDI analyzes it and determines the three choices that Shepard can make with the Crucible?

Continuing from my earlier point that discussing it with EDI would've made the entire scene work differently:

I've been playing the game for the turn on/turn off campaign, and noticed a wonderful bit that EDI herself says the moment she takes control of Dr. Eva's body.

"But moral decisions should not be made in a vacuum. If I do not ask the crew for their opinion, I could miss crucial context."
EDIT: Further on, on the Citadel:
"So you're saying the outcome is an unknown quantity... but I should attempt it anyway?"

Seriously, her Pinocchio story is practically a roadmap on how to unfrell the Catalyst in the unfortunately likely situation that the Crucible's function is not retconned.
[/thread]

Modifié par Noelemahc, 28 avril 2012 - 08:52 .

[Rm80]

I choose the destroy ending no mather what the cost....
if I have worked for three full games (countless of playthroughs) to destroy the reapers then nothing will stop me of achieving this,

If the choice would have been wipe out every specie in the whole galaxy plus the reapers I would still have picked that choice. Just hoping that harbinger cried a little before dying...


edit: just so you know; I dislike the ending aswell

Modifié par Rm80, 28 avril 2012 - 09:00 .

[Arisugawa]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

How would your renegade Shepards have approached the choices if they were presented by some other means than the Catalyst.

For example, imagine the Crucible has been hooked up, and EDI analyzes it and determines the three choices that Shepard can make with the Crucible?

.....

Seriously though, I pose the question because I think that when people are upset about a certain aspect, they become more critical about other aspects.  Many people find the Catalyst jarring and I'm curious how many people carry over the interaction with the Catalyst onto other aspects of the ending, and even the entire game.

By imagining the exact same choices and exact same outcomes presented to the player through different (and perhaps more agreeable) means, we can start to examine whether the choices themselves are intrinsically bad or if other aspects help sour you on them.

You discuss how the choices trample any notion of free will, and how your renegade shipeards would have flipped the Catalyst the bird, and I'm curious if you feel your convictions would still be as strong if the choices were presented in a different way.  Just digging deeper to see if there's some conflation going on or if it's the choices themselves, as they stand, that our found abhorrent.  (Note: I understand that this is purely hypothetical, and I'm not asking anyone to "excuse" the choices or anything since, as they are presented in game, the Catalyst is what presents them to the player)

HI Allan,

This would be my reaction to having EDI tell me what the Crucible could do:

Why did it take hooking it up to the Citadel to determine this?

Any explanation given by EDI (or whomever) would have been interpreted by me as the writer deflecting the key issue, which, in my opinion, would still exist.  How could the brain trust who built the Crucible have no idea how to activate it, or any inkling of what it would do, prior to hooking it up to the Citadel and yet the moment it is, suddenly EDI (or whomever) has an epiphany.

If it's the Crucible itself that allows for these three options and not the Citadel, we should have known something about what it was capable of prior to hooking it up to the Citadel. And having EDI give me this information doesn't make it any less of a deflection than having the Catalyst do it. Why does suddenly hooking it up give you more insight into what it does? Are we honestly that ignorant of the science we used in its construction that it took hooking it up to the Citadel to finally figure it out? Could no one have THEORIZED these outcomes once Vendetta told us it had to be hooked up to the Citadel. We had time before assaulting Earth to piece that together, and still nothing more than "We still have no idea what it will do?'

It alleviates the disgust I would feel at having the Catalyst be a seemingly sentient contstruct who I must interact with in order to active the Crucible, but my dislike of how the game concludes is in no way lessened. In some ways, I'd probably be angrier as a player about having EDI deliver the news to me for this reason. At least when it's the Catalyst, it's handwaved away by the poor explanation that without the Catalyst, these options weren't possible.

Back on topic..

As Shepard speaking to EDI (or whomever), I would want to know what guarantees she has the Crucible would perform as her scans indicate. Because it is EDI (or whomever), I could ask her with some higher degree of trust whether or not the Control and Destroy options would have the repercussions that the Catalyst claims they will, and I would be more inclined to believe her as a result.

So...if this was the case, and knowing if the Crucible was going to destroy sentient sythentics if that news came from EDI, Destroy is almost certainly off the table.

Which leaves me with Control or Synthesis.

At that point, I'd want to radio Hackett and see if anyone still alive actually considers synthesis a viable option. I'm guessing....NO. Transform all life in the galaxy into some manner of hybrid? And no one understands the mechansim by which this is going to occur? I can't see anyone accepting this as a valid option.

If it is impossible to radio Hackett or anyone else, and it's up to Shepard to make this decision, then Control is the only option left. Which is .... essentially proving the Illusive Man right. Not just acknowledging the fact that the Crucible could control the Reapers, but that trying to destroy them would be a mistake. What a terrible realization that would be, and it would be an even bigger issue with the players who wanted to side with Cerberus since ME2 and were forced against their will to fight against them in ME3.

If EDI (or whomever) confirms that Control would actually allow Shepard to control the Geth and her...that leaves only Synthesis. Which, I suspect, is what was intended in the current scheme of things anyway.

Had the fourth option existed of saying "Screw it, the Crucible is a no-go. We either win the old-fashioned way, or we don't win at all," I suspect I would have chosen that regardless if it was EDI or Tali or whomever that deduced what the Crucible could do.

This changes things slightly, as my only real desire when speaking to the Catalyst is Destroy. Part of that might be rage on the side of the player and not taking Shepard's feelings into account. But speaking to this entitiy, and listening to the options and arguments presented, all I want to do is destroy IT and the hoardes it has brought to bear on the galaxy. But even then, I'd prefer the fourth option over what the Catalyst presents, so not much changes in the grand scheme of things, except that I don't have to feel the rage and disgust that overwhelms me when the Catalyst appears on screen.

Modifié par Arisugawa, 28 avril 2012 - 09:28 .

[hippanda]

Another character (like EDI) explaining the options of the crucible would certainly fix the problem most people have with spacechild, but I don't think it would fix the problem most people have with the choices, themselves (synthesis, in particular).

If anything, my ideal solution would be to remove synthesis from the game entirely while retooling the Anderson/TIM conflict into an explanation of the control and destroy options. But I know that's off the table, because, for reasons I'll never understand, there are actually a rare few who like synthesis.

Modifié par hippanda, 29 avril 2012 - 02:57 .

[Aquilas]

Ariq wrote...

Aquilas wrote...

If the Reapers have seen, actually witnessed, all galactic organic life extinguished by synthetics over billions of years, then they've failed repeatedly.

Scenario: 

4 billion years ago, a Synthetic race rose up and detroyed *all* organic life in the galaxy down to the last amoebae and proto-bacteria, maybe they even cook the amino soup with hard radiation and salt the gardens of a thousand worlds. This was witnessed (or perhaps perpetrated) by the Reapers / Catalyst. They determine to never allow this to happen again in the future. This allows the Reapers to have witnessed just what they claim to know is inevitable (though I argue such a prior incidence does not predict future events.)

Over the next 3 billion years, life begins to evolve on various worlds via abiogenesis.

Circa 1 billion years ago, civilizations begin to rise that have the capacity for space faring and the creation of AI / Synthetic intelligences. The Reapers begin harvesting every ~50,000 years to prevent the technological singularity. This coincides with what we know of Reaper cycles and even fits with the expected time scale for the evolution of megafauna to reach apex, sentient species.

This refutes your hypothesis that the Catalyst could not have seen galactic extinction at the hands of Synthetics. Said extinction happened a very long time ago (the Reapers being at least 1 billion years ago). It need not have been repeated even once since for it to still form a decision point in the consciousness of the Reapers. In the intervening timeframe, life has evolved on myriad other worlds, indeed it has done so several times staggered throughout galactic history, giving us cycles of civilizations.

The Catalyst speaks in absolutes.  It says it has never failed; the Cycle has prevented ultimate organic extinction at the hands of synthetics.  It says that if it fails, synthetics will destroy all organic life--as you note above.  All organic life will end.  Finito.  Period.  Dot.  There's no room for interpretation here, no appeal to abiogenesis.  If the Cycle fails, it's The End. 

Oh wait...it won't actually be The End, per se.  The galaxy won't be devoid of life.  It'll be devoid of organic life.  The victorious synthetics will reign supreme--it's they who'll be policing the galaxy, cooking the amino soup with hard radiation and salting the the gardens of a thousand worlds.  The synthetics, eternally vigilant, endlessly replicating, needing no food or drink or sleep, watching for the slightest sign of any abiogenesis whatsoever so they can ruthlessly, efficiently halt the process before those damned organics become a problem again...it's they who'll ensure organic life never returns.  Again I say, this is not a natural process; it's an active process.  Extinction takes work, but synthetics have all the time in...all of time.

Oops...hmmm....maybe the Catalyst is right!  Maybe we need to be saved from ourselves!  Except we know we don't.  Depending on how a player's game develops, we see Shepard reconcile the Geth and Quarians, and we see EDI following her own moral compass and self-determining her reason for being--which includes affirming self-sacrifice to save her crew mates...you know, those organics.  We have evidence that synthetics and organics can co-exist in mutually beneficial, almost symbiotic relationships (the Geth helping the Quarians adapt to Rannoch's environment).  Javik never mentions anything occuring in his cycle like the rapprochement between the Quarians and the Geth.  We know Shepard's cycle is different--Shepard's presence on the Citadel-Crucible proves it.  The Catalyst says so.

You're not refuting my hypothesis--you're trying to refute the Catalyst's assertions.  Unfortunately, the BioWare writers don't leave us with that option.

Modifié par Aquilas, 29 avril 2012 - 03:32 .

[cindercatz]

We should definitely have a rejection option (as part of IT), all options leading to real endings that change both according to all your prior decisions, and also that Indoc sequence choice. Hopefully, that's what they'll do.

Just a quick note:
Javik does actually mention a cautionary tale similar to the Quarians and the Geth, where a certain species (forget the name) lived in symbiosis with their AI creations, then became dependent on them, then were slowly co-opted and replaced. Slightly different, there's no war and no forgiveness in his story that I remember, but similar enough. Still the one happening in the past is no guarantee that the story would repeat in the future with the Quarians/Geth.

Second note:
I never had a problem with Starchild the character. I always took him as a projection of the Reapers either taken from or inserted whole cloth into Shepard's mind. He's a mental construct used to attempt to manipulate Shepard. That's the only way he makes sense. I took his reference to the Reapers as "We" to confirm this. The fault really is intrinsically with the thematically antithetical choices themselves and their (lack of any real) outcome. That and how the game totally disregards everything you've ever done in the last five minutes (as it stands).

Modifié par cindercatz, 29 avril 2012 - 05:39 .

[SmokePants]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I don't trust him though, and I am leery about Control and Synthesis as being traps.

Why doubt those two in particular and not Destroy? He told you how to straight-up murder him! If his goal was to trick the player, wouldn't he be better served to go, "Yeah, just stay away from that Red contraption -- it lowers sperm count/fertility."

The argument for Destroy being the one true ending drives me batty. It reminds me of the scene earlier in the game where Wrex is distrustful of Mordin, whose argument was that he never would have known about the Krogan female if not for him. On that basis, trust should be somewhat implicit.

The Destroy ending is the same thing -- you wouldn't have known about it if not for the Catalyst, so it is crazy to assume that he's trying to pull the wool over the player's eyes with the other choices.I mean, if you were trying to trick someone into taking Poison Pill A or Poison Pill B, would you also hand them a gun with which to shoot you as a third choice?

Modifié par SmokePants, 29 avril 2012 - 06:12 .

[thefallen2far]

Ariq wrote...

I, dislike the Catalyst as much as anyone, and I disagree with the inevitable conclusion it draws, but I don't follow this line of argument you're offering here. It is completely possible that the Reapers have seen galactic organic life extinguished in the past. We already know that abiogenesis has happened on many worlds (Rannoch, Earth, Palavan, Thessia, amongst others). Why try to exclude it happening on more than one time-scale? The universe is 15+ billion years old, life on earth a 'mere' 3.5 billion. There's plenty of time there for life to have arisen and gone utterly extinct only to appear again elsewhere. More than once, for that matter. Of course, that makes the Reapers much older than anyone has hypothesized, and its pure speculation, but I don't see how it can be ruled out as impossible.

I think he's talking about the established cycles it goes through.  By conventional logic, if it always uses the same cycle pattern using time as a measuring tool instead of an actual state of advancement and then using judgement of a state of advancement for when they are considered too primative to be culled, at any given moment in time during the cycle follows the same stage.  Making the assumption the first cycle was equal to the other cycles and they are rigorous at 50,000 years or that the Reapers deem the same level of advancement from the first cycle, then life had to be preserved and/or spared during the first cycle to gauge these seemingly arbitrary parameters.   If they harvested all the organics that existed at the beginning of the first cycle, how would they know to come back every 50000 years?  And also, what would be the purpose of coming back?  If they wiped out all life in the first cycle, then there was no life to preserve, and so have no reason to wipe the next wave of life forms and then suddenly one year decide to allow some species to live depending on their technological advancement. 

It's like cultivating seperate cultures in different stages in that if you cultivate all of it at the same time regardless of stage, then you'd have to gauge for timeframe to judge when start the cycle of sampling instead of maturity.

Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand.... yeah, the endings were bad.

[DannieCraft]

 Well, I wanted to destroy the reapers, so red option was natural for me. Was just pissed that it would kill the Geth too, because that conflict was a pain to put together.

Third time I replayed the ending, I tried to shoot the kid and walk the other way.

[GuardianAngel470]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Aquilas wrote...

Most of my Renegade Shepards--and even a few of my Paragons--would tell the Catalyst to stuff its crap sandwich up its glowy little nose.

My Renegades wouldn't eat the crap sandwich with any of the condiments offered: ketchup, lettuce, or bleu cheese. They'd let the bet ride and roll the cosmic dice. Just because the Reapers had always won before doesn't mean they'd win this time. Probabilities don't cut it. Remember Mordin and the genophage? The Catalyst itself notes Shepard's presence as unique, an event which invalidates a solution that has worked for eons.

As Emiliano Zapata said, "It is better to die upon one's feet than to live upon one's knees!" Shepard tells Saren as much a couple of times. Shepard even says a version of that to the Catalyst.

The fact that Shepard doesn't have the option to do nothing at all tramples the notion of free will, of making choices with cosmic significance--literally, in this case--and being willing to live with the consequences. And I'm not talking about standing around and waiting for the event timer to expire. I'm talking about giving Star-jar the finger. That precept has underpinned Shepard's character throughout the trilogy. Except in the last 10 minutes. Huh?

How would your renegade Shepards have approached the choices if they were presented by some other means than the Catalyst.

For example, imagine the Crucible has been hooked up, and EDI analyzes it and determines the three choices that Shepard can make with the Crucible?

Making it EDI that presented the choices instead of the enemy would fix most of my problems with the ending. Even if each choice was terrible, my biggest issues with the ending are 1) the starchild's logic and 2) Shepard's passive submission to said logic.

Cut out that logic and cut out that submission and the ending is almost fixed. I still would be upset that Bioware decided to nuke their and our universe and I would still be annoyed by the war crimes Shepard is forced to choose between, but it would be significantly better than it is now.

Word of advise: Don't repeat this mistake in future games Allan. Point these things out to your coworkers and superiors. People don't want to feel like they gave in to the antagonist at the end of a series. It's unsatisfying.

[Eain]

-D-C-D- wrote...

Re Allan's post above on having a "Reapers win" outcome, that was one of the things which actually surprised me the most about the endings. I mean, ME2 really set the bar for that by making it actually possible for Shepard to die, had he not worked hard enough to ready his squad.

Throughout the entire game, I'd been looking at my EMS bar, working so hard to get it maxed, worrying what the consequences would have been had I not done so, and to find out that ultimately the Reapers would still have been destroyed, albeit with "consequences," I felt really undermined by the whole thing.

Essentially, nothing I did over three games, and five years, even made that much of a difference.

Quoting this for truth. You can play through the entire trilogy like an absolute gimp and you still end up acquiring a reaper destroying superweapon and thats completed with at least the functionality to destroy the Reapers, no matter what.

In a series where choice is supposed to matter, it turns out that choice doesn't matter. Well yay.

[Ariq]

thefallen2far wrote...

I think he's talking about the established cycles it goes through.

Something established the cycles, barring the creatio ex nihilio appearance of the Reapers moments after the Big Bang. Prior to the establishment of the cycles (5 billion ya, or whatever), the Catalyst or its creators could have witnessed the extinction of all organic life in the galaxy. The current existence of organic life doesn't refute this, which was the assertion I responded to earlier in this thread. This observation of galaxy wide extinction then prompted the Catalyst to begin the cycle to prevent such future xenocides.

Making the assumption the first cycle was equal to the other cycles and they are rigorous at 50,000 years or that the Reapers deem the same level of advancement from the first cycle, then life had to be preserved and/or spared during the first cycle to gauge these seemingly arbitrary parameters.

This is false from ingame information. The Inusannon Cycle was 70,000 years prior to the Prothean Cycle. There is no rigorous adherence to 50k years. An observer remains to trigger the Cycle when a species has reached a proscribed technological level. In the current cycle, Sovereign was that observer. In point of fact, Sovereign attempted to initiate the Cycle several thousand years ago, resulting in what became known as the Rachni Wars. This was provoked by the Asari contact with the Citadel.

  If they harvested all the organics that existed at the beginning of the first cycle, how would they know to come back every 50000 years?

As I mention, the remaining observer periodically assesses the state of galactic civilizations. The time frame given is a rough approximation, not a rigid timetable. Also, we know they ignore many pre-space flight species. Javik mentions being aware of Humans, Asari, Quarians, and Salarians, yet all of those cultures survived the Prothean Cycle.

And also, what would be the purpose of coming back? 

You seem to be confusing the Reaper Cycle with the event which provoked that Cycle. Now, I don't like the Catalyst's justification either, but you're offering a very a poor argument against it. The Reaper Cycle only harvests advanced species. Not all of them. The question I was addressing was in reference to a hypothetical Synthetic driven extinction event that predates the Reapers' Cycle of harvesting. We know Reapers don't wipe all organic life, that isn't under dispute.  

The question was: could a pre-Cycle event have occurred which eliminated all organic life in the galaxy? The answer is "yes". The current existance of life does not refute the previous extinction of all organic life as the cosmological time scale is significantly larger than known evolutionary time scales.

[hippanda]

cindercatz wrote...

Just a quick note:
Javik does actually mention a cautionary tale similar to the Quarians and the Geth, where a certain species (forget the name) lived in symbiosis with their AI creations, then became dependent on them, then were slowly co-opted and replaced. Slightly different, there's no war and no forgiveness in his story that I remember, but similar enough. Still the one happening in the past is no guarantee that the story would repeat in the future with the Quarians/Geth.

The reapers caused that.