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[3DandBeyond]

Paulomedi wrote...

Dr_Extrem wrote...

Paulomedi wrote...

I judge ME3 for its overall quality.

Tuchanka: stellar

Rannoch: good

All the rest: varies from good to mediocre.

endings (original): terrible

endings (extended cut + From Ashes + Leviathan): mediocre at best.




edit: expanding further, it's funny to see that half of the original writing team had left when ME3 was released. It's just not ME anymore. It's something related, similar, but not the same. Don't you people get this feeling of oddness while playing the game? I got it, and I think it was the writing shift that did it.

Funnier yet, Drew never played ME3.

I don't know if E'Toile played it, but it wuld be rather interesting if two of the best writers of the ME series haven't played the third installment of their own creationn.

this is the most interesting aspect.

the ending needed 3 alterations, to be passable (at best) and 2 of them are payed content.


if you have to pay extra, to get a slight clue wtf is going on, something went wrong. from ashes and leviathan should have been a part of the core game. they are too plot-relevant, to sell them as dlcs.

the ec did not change the ending - it only retconed the hell out of loved characters, added a painful and corny cliché-scene (that does not make any sense) and covered the original anti-climax with powder sugar.

Leviathan was never in their plans. They hastly came up with it after the ending fiasco.

Sure thing, they pulled magic boy out of thin air and when people said "for F's sake, where in hell did he come from" they decided to create something to explain him.  And it made him seem stupider.

[3DandBeyond]

silverexile17s wrote...

bazzag wrote...

I think its a shame that because of 5 mins at the end the ENTIRE game is treated as a plague. I love ME3 and although i wasnt a fan of the initial ending, and couldnt let that fault a game that i enjoyed and loved to play, and got engrossed in.

Exactally. SOMEONE should tell that to @KingZayd.

It's the fact that that more than 5 mins is the most crucial aspect of the game-it's the part that all of what we did before has come to.  It's where the viability of the galaxy will be decided and in movies and books and games it is where emotion and adrenaline are all amped up.  It's where conflict comes to a head and is resolved and then there's an epilog to explain why things may have happened, to answer questions that still exist and to give you a window onto the life that you helped create for the galaxy.  It also was supposed to be a war against the reapers.

The last part of this game, however, is like one big cutscene with button presses from time to time.  We get to hear a brand new, never before implied antagonist tell us how he just wants to be friends.  Forget about all that people sucking he's had his lapdogs (the previous super cool reapers) do.  They meant well so it's all good.  Oh and chaos (and evolution) bad, and order (and stagnation and perfection attained by tech) good.  And conflict bad (unless of course mindless reaper lapdogs are doing it in order to stop conflict).  Oh, and those things you call synthetics.  Well, they may have decided they didn't want to kill all organic life but you talked to Leviathan, so you know they do want to do that and one day they will do that.  The kid has seen the future as told to him by Leviathan and robot killers are in your future. So make a choice, f the galaxy, and get this over with. 

Yeah this is exactly how over 100 hours of gameplay and story should end with some new antagonist who had to be explained through paid DLC that makes him sound more idiotic.

The real impact isn't only in how bad the endings are (not emotionally rewarding, not thematically connected to the rest of ME, not coherent in whatever message they are trying to send, and ripped from other sources).  It's also that in trying to explain just how bad they were, one begins to see that other parts of the game weren't that good either.  And those other parts might have been mostly overlooked if the ending had been decent.  As it is now the endings don't even fit with a lot of what's just in ME3, let alone things in 1 and 2.  And they didn't do what endings should do-answer the relevant questions that are left.  But, gee don't those people look super happy in the slide shows?

[Necrotya]

@OP - well, I can't speak for others but I do like ME3. If I had to compare ME3 to ME2 and vanila I would say it not that good, but still a good game. No, I dont' like the brats logic and ending in general,but doens't mean I "hate/dislike" the game as a whole. Still playing MP and SP, friends list growing, having fun...can't wait for next DLC ( MP in this case ).

[silverexile17s]

Nightwriter wrote...

o Ventus wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

Yeah, there is really too much good drama in ME3 for it to be remotely justifiable to call it a mindless GoW shootout. People are perfectly valid in saying that auto-dialogue rendered the game into a movie, and that this shift is extremely objectionable, but the movie was too well written in too many places for it to be reducible to a shallow shoot-em-up.

Good drama? You mean like Legion's needless (and senseless) sacrifice on Rannoch? Or being forced into losing to Kai Leng on Thessia? Or Thane going full-retard during his battle with Kai Leng? How about the little boy dying in the beginning, because "you can't help me"?

It's drama, but it certanly isn't good (or intelligent).

Like making the player decide whether to place hope in the krogan and sacrifice Mordin, or embrace cynicism and sacrifice Wrex.

Like a batarian and a human bonding over war trauma over the course of ambient dialogue.

Like Joker losing his sister, and you finding out only later that the traumatized asari in the hospital is talking about how his sister died.

Like having to leave Earth behind while it was pretty much getting raped by Reapers.

Like Jack finding an endearing and in-character niche for herself, protecting her students.

Like Garrus talking about the ruthless calculus of war.

Like pretty much everything having to do with Eve.

Like the way Victus Jr. died.

Like EDI's ascent into personhood.

Like the way Udina tenses and looks away when the asari Councilor admits that humanity is now serving the sacrificial lamb role that Ashley prophesized two games ago. 

Like that Blue Rose of Illium krogan and his poem to his wife, about their child.

Like Anderson's entire death scene.

In fact, there are so many good dramatic moments in this game that I'm frankly dumbfounded that anyone could claim they don't exist. It's like saying Azula was a poorly written villain or Professor Umbridge failed to create feelings of dislike in the reader. The overwhelming response is "did you even read/watch/play this thing?"

Perhaps you think that any admittance that there was good writing in ME3 is somehow a threat to the assertion that the game royally f*cked up.

Well, allow me to reassure you: it isn't a threat to that. Not even remotely. You needn't feel insecure. The real truth is that the game did have dramatic worth, but the ending shot it in the head at point blank range. It is now a corpse. The corpse should be mourned. But you're not mourning it. You're saying it was never alive to begin with. That's whack.

I'll be the first to admit that ME3 made some writing blunders even prior to the ending, but it's hard for someone to say the game was made up of only writing blunders without discrediting themselves.

This. So much this. Thank you for that. It is indeed hard to say that the entire game was horrible, when it was the endings that were the worst. Sure there were some screw-ups, but nothing that trumped the ending fiasco.
Everyone remembers how bad the endings are, so they nit-pick everything else, till they can't even remember any good parts of the game. There WERE good parts. It would be a great game if not for that ending. Not the best of games, but still good.

[silverexile17s]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Paulomedi wrote...

Dr_Extrem wrote...

Paulomedi wrote...

I judge ME3 for its overall quality.

Tuchanka: stellar

Rannoch: good

All the rest: varies from good to mediocre.

endings (original): terrible

endings (extended cut + From Ashes + Leviathan): mediocre at best.




edit: expanding further, it's funny to see that half of the original writing team had left when ME3 was released. It's just not ME anymore. It's something related, similar, but not the same. Don't you people get this feeling of oddness while playing the game? I got it, and I think it was the writing shift that did it.

Funnier yet, Drew never played ME3.

I don't know if E'Toile played it, but it wuld be rather interesting if two of the best writers of the ME series haven't played the third installment of their own creationn.

this is the most interesting aspect.

the ending needed 3 alterations, to be passable (at best) and 2 of them are payed content.


if you have to pay extra, to get a slight clue wtf is going on, something went wrong. from ashes and leviathan should have been a part of the core game. they are too plot-relevant, to sell them as dlcs.

the ec did not change the ending - it only retconed the hell out of loved characters, added a painful and corny cliché-scene (that does not make any sense) and covered the original anti-climax with powder sugar.

Leviathan was never in their plans. They hastly came up with it after the ending fiasco.

Sure thing, they pulled magic boy out of thin air and when people said "for F's sake, where in hell did he come from" they decided to create something to explain him.  And it made him seem stupider.

Scratch that. Reverse it.

It gave him a premise that at least could be justified. We saw this kind of thing before in synthetics: protect life by taking over it's development. The one everyone likely remembers most for the was the Will Smith movie "I, Robot." It made more sense, NOT less. It was better then what we started with to be sure.

Modifié par silverexile17s, 04 février 2013 - 07:58 .

[silverexile17s]

3DandBeyond wrote...

silverexile17s wrote...

bazzag wrote...

I think its a shame that because of 5 mins at the end the ENTIRE game is treated as a plague. I love ME3 and although i wasnt a fan of the initial ending, and couldnt let that fault a game that i enjoyed and loved to play, and got engrossed in.

Exactally. SOMEONE should tell that to @KingZayd.

It's the fact that that more than 5 mins is the most crucial aspect of the game-it's the part that all of what we did before has come to.  It's where the viability of the galaxy will be decided and in movies and books and games it is where emotion and adrenaline are all amped up.  It's where conflict comes to a head and is resolved and then there's an epilog to explain why things may have happened, to answer questions that still exist and to give you a window onto the life that you helped create for the galaxy.  It also was supposed to be a war against the reapers.

The last part of this game, however, is like one big cutscene with button presses from time to time.  We get to hear a brand new, never before implied antagonist tell us how he just wants to be friends.  Forget about all that people sucking he's had his lapdogs (the previous super cool reapers) do.  They meant well so it's all good.  Oh and chaos (and evolution) bad, and order (and stagnation and perfection attained by tech) good.  And conflict bad (unless of course mindless reaper lapdogs are doing it in order to stop conflict).  Oh, and those things you call synthetics.  Well, they may have decided they didn't want to kill all organic life but you talked to Leviathan, so you know they do want to do that and one day they will do that.  The kid has seen the future as told to him by Leviathan and robot killers are in your future. So make a choice, f the galaxy, and get this over with. 

Yeah this is exactly how over 100 hours of gameplay and story should end with some new antagonist who had to be explained through paid DLC that makes him sound more idiotic.

The real impact isn't only in how bad the endings are (not emotionally rewarding, not thematically connected to the rest of ME, not coherent in whatever message they are trying to send, and ripped from other sources).  It's also that in trying to explain just how bad they were, one begins to see that other parts of the game weren't that good either.  And those other parts might have been mostly overlooked if the ending had been decent.  As it is now the endings don't even fit with a lot of what's just in ME3, let alone things in 1 and 2.  And they didn't do what endings should do-answer the relevant questions that are left.  But, gee don't those people look super happy in the slide shows?

The Leviathan Age has several races killed by their creations. The
Catalyst made sure this couldn't happen again, by never letting life get
to that point again. It may breed stagnation, but it constantly ensures
the survival of life by "preserving" all the races. It's something only
a computer could accept.

And your reasons? 
It's still no reason to disregard the ENTIRE game. That's just being butthurt over it. Journy AND destination matters. But just because ONE fails is ABSOLUTLY NO REASON to completely disregard the other if it's good. That's what people like you don't get. There is NO reason to hate and nit-pick the entire game JUST because the endings sucked.

[Killdren88]

Sure in some cases it is about the Journey. But To me the destination justifies the Journey. I want the destination to be worth the journey.

[Slashice]

silverexile17s wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

silverexile17s wrote...

bazzag wrote...

I think its a shame that because of 5 mins at the end the ENTIRE game is treated as a plague. I love ME3 and although i wasnt a fan of the initial ending, and couldnt let that fault a game that i enjoyed and loved to play, and got engrossed in.

Exactally. SOMEONE should tell that to @KingZayd.

It's the fact that that more than 5 mins is the most crucial aspect of the game-it's the part that all of what we did before has come to.  It's where the viability of the galaxy will be decided and in movies and books and games it is where emotion and adrenaline are all amped up.  It's where conflict comes to a head and is resolved and then there's an epilog to explain why things may have happened, to answer questions that still exist and to give you a window onto the life that you helped create for the galaxy.  It also was supposed to be a war against the reapers.

The last part of this game, however, is like one big cutscene with button presses from time to time.  We get to hear a brand new, never before implied antagonist tell us how he just wants to be friends.  Forget about all that people sucking he's had his lapdogs (the previous super cool reapers) do.  They meant well so it's all good.  Oh and chaos (and evolution) bad, and order (and stagnation and perfection attained by tech) good.  And conflict bad (unless of course mindless reaper lapdogs are doing it in order to stop conflict).  Oh, and those things you call synthetics.  Well, they may have decided they didn't want to kill all organic life but you talked to Leviathan, so you know they do want to do that and one day they will do that.  The kid has seen the future as told to him by Leviathan and robot killers are in your future. So make a choice, f the galaxy, and get this over with. 

Yeah this is exactly how over 100 hours of gameplay and story should end with some new antagonist who had to be explained through paid DLC that makes him sound more idiotic.

The real impact isn't only in how bad the endings are (not emotionally rewarding, not thematically connected to the rest of ME, not coherent in whatever message they are trying to send, and ripped from other sources).  It's also that in trying to explain just how bad they were, one begins to see that other parts of the game weren't that good either.  And those other parts might have been mostly overlooked if the ending had been decent.  As it is now the endings don't even fit with a lot of what's just in ME3, let alone things in 1 and 2.  And they didn't do what endings should do-answer the relevant questions that are left.  But, gee don't those people look super happy in the slide shows?

The Leviathan Age has several races killed by their creations. The
Catalyst made sure this couldn't happen again, by never letting life get
to that point again. It may breed stagnation, but it constantly ensures
the survival of life by "preserving" all the races. It's something only
a computer could accept.

And your reasons? 
It's still no reason to disregard the ENTIRE game. That's just being butthurt over it. Journy AND destination matters. But just because ONE fails is ABSOLUTLY NO REASON to completely disregard the other if it's good. That's what people like you don't get. There is NO reason to hate and nit-pick the entire game JUST because the endings sucked.

It's not just the ending that ruins the whole game and makes almost pointless the whole trilogy. First of all the Cruicible which they come up just now... seriously the Mars archives were there since the beginning. I doubt they couldn't find it before. Second during previous cycles the Reapers were shut down the whole relay network via the Citadel crippling the whole Galaxy, fighting any resistance from system to system. So why didn't they tried the same in ME3? It's not like they don't have their collective intelligence stationed in the Citadel.... next time Bioware should force their writers (especially their lead writer) to replay the previous games.... the retcons and story flaws and story inconsistences in ME3 is way too damn high!

[Indy_S]

silverexile17s wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

Sure thing, they pulled magic boy out of thin air and when people said "for F's sake, where in hell did he come from" they decided to create something to explain him.  And it made him seem stupider.

Scratch that. Reverse it.

It gave him a premise that at least could be justified. We saw this kind of thing before in synthetics: protect life by taking over it's development. The one everyone likely remembers most for the was the Will Smith movie "I, Robot." It made more sense, NOT less. It was better then what we started with to be sure.

Making something that can be justified isn't good world-building writing. The fact remains that, given the events in game, we see nothing about what this guy is saying. And then we're asked to solve it. Showing not telling, that's a part of good writing. I'll agree it's better than what we started with but that just makes the starting point look even worse rather than this looking better.

[Beeno4Life]

Auld Wulf wrote...

The ending of Mass Effect 3 proved it was an intelligent game, one written by a clever, progressive thinker, who clearly wanted the story to mean something. Not everyone's going to understand a story like that, but that says more about the reader than it does the story.

That's the biggest cop-out I've ever read/heard. That's like waving your hand and saying "It's art! You just don't get it." It is a video game with little to none of that feeling ever present before the ending. Nice ass-pull, though.

[d1ta]

Actually what kills me is Priority Earth. I love the good bye scene in the FOB, but not what happens next. This is the final push, so why not bring all the squaddies? What were they doing, the ones who didn't get to accomppany Shep on the beam run? Twiddling their thumbs? Leading a unit somewhere? What? Maybe I was kinda hoping for a SM 0.2 that you get to assign your crew to the various War Assets there.
My expectation bar was set pretty much high after Tuchanka and Rannoch, I admit. Those two missions are just tear jerking (in a good way)

And omg, the Normandy pick up XD. When Harbringer was swatting everything left and right, what a tolerant being he is when it comes to the SR2 (the source of many misery to their cause). Don't get me wrong, I love Shepard's good bye with her/his LI speach there, I just thought it's better if they'd used a shuttle instead. Seeing the Normandy hovering infront of Harby's nose (or what ever equivalent to it) without harbringer trying to destroy the ship seemed so.. Weird.

For me the ending itself was 'meh', I can't feel that "F***YEAH! That was AWSOME! Gonna start another PT again!" Kinda vibe. But that's been fixed by MEHEM

[KingZayd]

silverexile17s wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

2) Yes, he does break the lore. How were the Protheans able to sneak onto the Citadel, and hack into the Starchild and sabotage him
a) without him noticing?
and without having any foreknowledge of the Starchild.

3) I'm not smoking anything. I'm fully aware that a lot of people liked the EC.
a) it fixed the unexplained "teleporting squadmates" problem by adding nonsense. Not an improvement.
It made the Starchild make even less sense
c) Epilogues aren't important when the story remains in tatters
d) Saw the Normandy survive pre-EC. That said unimportant.
e) Fixed nothing important, while adding extra nonsense.

4) Only one of them looked seriously injured. And even then, there were others on the battlefield in worse condition who got no medevac. Secondly the priority should be getting to the Citadel. The lives of everyone in the galaxy depend on it. Those squadmates will die anyway if the Reapers aren't stopped.
As for your excuse for Harbinger: ridiculous. Blowing up the Normandy would not only destroy the ship but kill Shepard and anyone else too close to the explosion.

5) The husks themselves are not 50,000 years old. They are clones. They are not "growing" Reapers, but manufacturing them and storing the genetic matter within. It made sense within the context of the series, although not with real world science. I agree there were problems with the setting of ME2, but they still managed to make an excellent game from it without ruining the series.

As for those reviewers, they have their opinions, but they are their opinions and are in no way factual. They are not the opinion of "the average person" but of 2 average people.

6) The lore was broken by ME3, It's not at all headcanon. The Starchild destroys the lore. The Lazarus Project while being quite stupid, does not contradict the lore of the series, and also does not effect anything else significantly. All it does is have the galaxy waste 3 years without getting much more prepared against the Reapers, and have Shepad's crew spread across the galaxy again (due to his death). The Starchild on the other hand, ruins the Reapers and therefore due to their extensive history, basically the entire history of the Mass Effect Universe.

The outside signal does not trigger the Citadel Relay. It is sent to the Citadel, which then sends a signal to the Keepers (as they only respond to the Citadel) to then activate the Relay. If the Starchild was shackled, how did it create the Keepers and the Reapers in the first place? If it had the Keepers, why was it not able to unshackle itself? And I've covered the issues with the "Prothean sabotage" excuse already earlier in this post.

(2)...Did you NOT talk to Vigil? The protheans got onto the Citadel via the Conduit. He tells you this right up front.
And who says he didn't notice? You assume that he was unaware of it, when he may have simply been unable to stop it. And this all happened after the Reapers left for Dark Space again, so no back-up.
And they may have stumbled onto him. Or he was something discovered as they studied the signal over the decades of study they did on it after waking back up. We never DO learn what it was the protheans discovered that severed the Keepers from the signal.

(3) Not how you acted. And the Majority believed it was better then the original
(a) WHAT about the Normandy arriving is implausible? And is it any more so then hot-dropping the Mako into such a small area on Ilos? Or fighting the Human-Reaper on FOOT? It can be chalked up as a veriaty of things, from dumb luck to concidence to pilot skill. It's NOT implausible, so therefore, NOT GARBAGE OR NONSENSE. Not EVERYTHING has to be absolutly perfect in a game. Just LOOK at the Lazarus Project.
It least the Normandy's sudden arrival CAN be explained away, in many ways no less, compaired to the teleporting squadmates, which DOESN'T have a reasonable explination. A VAST improvement compaired to before, and ANYONE that examines it will tell you the same.
( The hell are you talking about? He had a reason now. Something that we could at least relate to. It's not that different then that V.I.K.I  computer in the "I,Robot" movie. Save life by taking over it's management. It's not original. It's not mindboggling. But it's something we've SEEN before, and makes more sense then BEFORE.
Nothing YOU'RE saying is making any sense. Everything your fussing about are things that EVERYONE consideres IMPROVED from the original. These are all things that are FIXED. And also, just saying "it's not good" then failing to point out spicific examples of it being not good, is just an asspull. Find a real point that supports your claim.
© The damn story ISN'T IN TATTERS till Priority: Earth. Even then, there isn't anything contridictory. Just a major lack of content. Lack of content doesn't equal broken lore. It's just an unanswered question. And the slides FIX most of the problems regarding the abrubt ending, by showing the fate of everyone else. It's not perfect, but I'd HARDLY call it "in tatters."
(d)Stranded and with no indication of whether or not they get off that world or not. Guess what happens to the crew doesn't matter to you, but the same can't be said for the rest of the BSN.
Now we can see their reactions to Shepard's death, and them actually leaving, with the Normandy surviving in working order if EMS is high. In the old one, the ship was fired to hell with little chance of it getting fixed.
(e) Teleporting squadmates: FIXED with plausible explination
No idea of what happens to the crew: FIXED with memorial scene and Normandy leaving
No idea of what happens to the races and galaxy: FIXED with slides showing them repairing
Catalyst haveing more believeable reasons: FIXED with a plot that while unoriginal, is still believable for a computer to think is right.
Endings have no variation: FIXED with slides that show the galaxy HAS changed based on the choice.

WHAT PART FAILED? You are the one that has failed to post anything that directly proves your point. You are just using asspulls, when any real fan of the game would tell you that the EC is a major improvement over what was there before.

(4)Don't you think Shepard would be tired of losing people. The Commander already has nightmares about everyone he failed to save: Mordin, Legion, Thane, the Virmire casualty. All these voices whisper in his/her dreams. It's human nature to not want to lose anyone else. Something the character template lacked before. These are Shepard's family, and no one would leave them behind if given the choice. If it was made a branch choice, I doubt ANYONE would elect to leave them.
Shepard's been in situations like that before. Look at all the people that died because you broke Jack out?
Look at Virmire. If what you said was true, Shepard wouldn't even bother trying to get to the AA tower to help the other squad-mate. They'd stay with bomb and that's that. Shepard has a bond with the Crew, and would naturally save them first over a faceless stranger. After all, if you had a choice between someone that close to you, and several namless strangers around you, who would you save?
And again, Harbinger is arrogant. It's a cliche'. You SEE this behaveior all the time: The villian considers himself as the winner prematurally, so he sees no need to dispose of the followers, since without their leader, it's just an amusing struggle. He probably  found it amusing that Shepard would save them when Harbinger thought that he'd already won. So he toys with them. He lets them go, thinking he'll have all the time in the universe to hunt them down at his convience.

(5) LOOK at the Human Reaper. It's made with injections of liquid DNA. They aren't BUILT. They're GROWN.
Prothean husks? Liquid DNA-grown Reapers? Shepard reveived from death? The main plot was a giant side-mission, and was completely detached from the main series.
And LOOK at how heavily the likes outweigh the dislikes on their respictive videos. I'd say that makes you dead wrong, AND in the minority.
And from the opinions on THIS PAGE ALONE, the EC is considered better then the original.

(6) Again, you are throwing out this and that with NO corroberating evidence. Just saying something without any proof doesn't make it true.
WHAT is your proof of the Crucible breaking the lore? Vigil? DOESN'T COUNT. He was programed AFTER Ilos went dark (he says he was spicifically programed to monitor the stasis pods), so NO INFORMAION ABOUT THE CRUCIBLE OR WAR. And any pre-programed information is long gone due to corruption in the memory banks.
WHAT is your proof of the Catalyst breaking the lore? ME1? DOESN'T DO SQUAT. The prothean sabotage could have rendered it inactive. Or, it's a shackled system that can't interact with any of the Citadel systems without outside interaction, explaining the signal sent out by the vanguards.
The Reapers are trying to preserve all life by a form of "transhuminasim": changing the physical body to the point that it no longer resembles the original orginisim from the exterior, and controled by the intelligence of a machine. It's harvest actually makes a grim sense. It didn't want the extinctions of the Leviathan Age's races repeating, so it harvests and preserves them before they can ever hit that point again. So NO, It DOESN'T kill the universe.

And how do you know that the Keepers weren't there from the beginning? Perhaps the signal goes through the Citadel to the Keepers directly, and therefore, the Catalyst is basically shackled and completely isolated after all. Unable to affect the Citadel systems. Perhaps the Keepers are automatic caretakers, like cells in a body, working autonomous.
And I countered your claims above in 3^

2) Yes, I did talk to Vigil. Vigil says nothing that excuses Starchild incompetence. Why should he be unable to do anything about it? The Citadel is his home. To not include any defences would be moronic.

3) Just means a lot of people are wrong, or don't care as much about the plotholes.
a)  the stuff  mentioned in 4, as well as the fact that if the Normandy is doing anything significant in that battle he should not be able to make it there so quickly without any trouble.  And yes, it's far worse.  The entire new scene is ridiculous. The Lazarus project wasn't intended to fix the game, and it doesn't break it (as stupid as it is)
He already had a reason. Just now he has stupid lines like  "When fire burns, is it at war?". VIKI made sense. Starchild was an "asspull". He wouldn't have been so bad if he wasn't located at the Citadel, yet had done NOTHING. Still would be pretty bad though.
c) It doesn't matter at what point the story is ruined. The story is still ruined. Abrupt isn't a problem.  It's just abrupt and terrible.
d) It wasn't massively important. The future of a broken universe is uninteresting for one thing. Secondly, that scene isn't "Fixed", it's rendered meaningless.  What purpose does that planet have now? All they did is change the story to appease people who were upset by the likelihood of characters dying if they weren't rescued (what happened to artistic integrity?)

e) Teleporting squadmates, was never a serious problem. It was already known that Coates had called a retreat. Just now instead of your friends abandoning the most important mission, perhaps due to orders from Coates, Shepard moronically orders them to desert. Not fixed at all. made worse.

No idea what happens to crew: What happens to Garrus then? or Tali? All I see is that they are alive. Not really a good fix.

Starchild is less believable due to poor quality of his new lines- not fixed, made worse.
The endings didn't show anything that wasn't already obvious for a literal interpretation,except for locking what Shepard would do if he chose to control the Reapers - Not fixed. And made worse for control playthroughs.

And you have shown your stupidity by playing the "true fan" card. If I wasn't a fan of the earlier games, I wouldn't be wasting my time on these boards posting these responses.

4) It's not several nameless strangers or a dear one in this case. It's all the nameless strangers + all the friends, vs 2 friends. The correct choice is obvious. Spacer Shepard is endangering his family (his mother), and everyone he cares about by making such a stupid decision. I would choose to leave them, because not doing so would be stupid.

As already stated, by taking out the ship, the "leader" would also have been killed. And if he really wanted to mess with them, blowing up the Normandy after it took off would hurt Shepard the most.  But that said, you can't use arrogance to defend every bit of stupidity that a character makes. If he's not firing on the ship that is potentially bringing more soldiers, there's not much point in firing at all those men.

5) I see a whole lot of metal, with organic material being put inside. It's still being constructed not grown. The main plot of ME2 was a side mission (and thanks to the character writing, and excellent one) but it didn't result in the ruining of the series. That was all ME3.

6)Why does the Starchild (of whom the Citadel is part of) need a reaper that it controls to stay behind and tell  it when the Harvest is ready [the organic races are on the Citadel (part of the Starchild)], so that it can send a signal to the Keepers so that they can open the Citadel relay (part of the Starchild)?

How do the Protheans sneak onto the Citadel (part of the Catalyst) and change it without alerting the Starchild?

When the Citadel receives Sovereign's signal, and the keepers aren't activated, why doesn't it let Sovereign know what's going on?
Why does Sovereign have to spend all that time figuring out by himself, and eventually using Saren to discover the truth?

Why does the Citadel (part of the catalyst) have a master control console that organics can use?

Why hasn't the Catalyst made the other reapers it controls who can enter the Milky Way using FTL drives, do so in all that time?

Why did the Starchild let us up in the first place? Shepard had failed. The Reapers had already won.

"Perhaps the signal goes through the Citadel to the Keepers directly"
Sounds like you're the one who hasn't talked to Vigil. Vigil tells us explicitly that the Keepers don't respond to the Reapers.

Modifié par KingZayd, 04 février 2013 - 09:43 .

[Robhuzz]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Paulomedi wrote...

Dr_Extrem wrote...

Paulomedi wrote...

I judge ME3 for its overall quality.

Tuchanka: stellar

Rannoch: good

All the rest: varies from good to mediocre.

endings (original): terrible

endings (extended cut + From Ashes + Leviathan): mediocre at best.




edit: expanding further, it's funny to see that half of the original writing team had left when ME3 was released. It's just not ME anymore. It's something related, similar, but not the same. Don't you people get this feeling of oddness while playing the game? I got it, and I think it was the writing shift that did it.

Funnier yet, Drew never played ME3.

I don't know if E'Toile played it, but it wuld be rather interesting if two of the best writers of the ME series haven't played the third installment of their own creationn.

this is the most interesting aspect.

the ending needed 3 alterations, to be passable (at best) and 2 of them are payed content.


if you have to pay extra, to get a slight clue wtf is going on, something went wrong. from ashes and leviathan should have been a part of the core game. they are too plot-relevant, to sell them as dlcs.

the ec did not change the ending - it only retconed the hell out of loved characters, added a painful and corny cliché-scene (that does not make any sense) and covered the original anti-climax with powder sugar.

Leviathan was never in their plans. They hastly came up with it after the ending fiasco.

Sure thing, they pulled magic boy out of thin air and when people said "for F's sake, where in hell did he come from" they decided to create something to explain him.  And it made him seem stupider.

I had this idea all the time when I talked to Javik. He seems hell bent on retconning earlier lore (fighting reapers throughout the galaxy even though vigil said there was no communication or transportation. Ranchi being their tools, having nothing to do with Reaper indoctrination, Javik being aware of Ilos... a super sectret research planet that nobody but a few individuals knew about). It really seemed most of ME3's writing team didn't have a clue what they were doing. Those that did were working on the Tuchanka storyline I suppose.

[Indy_S]

Silver, you're using hypotheticals in an argument as proof again. That's not how they're meant to be used. You're trying to say that these things don't break the canon, I get that, but it's not the audience's job to fill in the blanks, certainly not to this degree. These things you're debating over are some of the things that create a "Wait, what?" reaction from the audience and it doesn't appear to be intentional.

[Archonsg]

@D1ta

Yeah. MEHEM does take away the frustration but oddly enough for me, not because of it being "Happy" but because it removes the Catalyst sequence entirely.

Would prefer that Bioware themselves had endorsed this mod and/or improved and implemented it giving Mr Fobs proper dues.

That's besides the point though, unless Bioware officially do something to change Shepard's death from *suicide* to actual sacrifice in combat or the Gods willing, survival and LI reunion, its still just headcanon fan fiction.

Thus out of principal, I haven't bought any SP story DLCs. Simply because I don't see any reason to extend a journey that always end in suicide and sorrow.

[Hexley UK]

It's the last part to a trilogy and the ultimate culmination of everything that came before it....is it any surprise that it's judged by said culmination?

[Xamufam]

Robhuzz wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

Paulomedi wrote...

Dr_Extrem wrote...

Paulomedi wrote...

I judge ME3 for its overall quality.

Tuchanka: stellar

Rannoch: good

All the rest: varies from good to mediocre.

endings (original): terrible

endings (extended cut + From Ashes + Leviathan): mediocre at best.




edit: expanding further, it's funny to see that half of the original writing team had left when ME3 was released. It's just not ME anymore. It's something related, similar, but not the same. Don't you people get this feeling of oddness while playing the game? I got it, and I think it was the writing shift that did it.

Funnier yet, Drew never played ME3.

I don't know if E'Toile played it, but it wuld be rather interesting if two of the best writers of the ME series haven't played the third installment of their own creationn.

this is the most interesting aspect.

the ending needed 3 alterations, to be passable (at best) and 2 of them are payed content.


if you have to pay extra, to get a slight clue wtf is going on, something went wrong. from ashes and leviathan should have been a part of the core game. they are too plot-relevant, to sell them as dlcs.

the ec did not change the ending - it only retconed the hell out of loved characters, added a painful and corny cliché-scene (that does not make any sense) and covered the original anti-climax with powder sugar.

Leviathan was never in their plans. They hastly came up with it after the ending fiasco.

Sure thing, they pulled magic boy out of thin air and when people said "for F's sake, where in hell did he come from" they decided to create something to explain him.  And it made him seem stupider.

I had this idea all the time when I talked to Javik. He seems hell bent on retconning earlier lore (fighting reapers throughout the galaxy even though vigil said there was no communication or transportation. Ranchi being their tools, having nothing to do with Reaper indoctrination, Javik being aware of Ilos... a super sectret research planet that nobody but a few individuals knew about). It really seemed most of ME3's writing team didn't have a clue what they were doing. Those that did were working on the Tuchanka storyline I suppose.

[TheRealJayDee]

Auld Wulf wrote...

The ending of Mass Effect 3 proved it was an intelligent game, one written by a clever, progressive thinker, who clearly wanted the story to mean something. Not everyone's going to understand a story like that, but that says more about the reader than it does the story.

I'm not sure wether to  or  when I see posts like this.

[Maxster_]

[quote]The Interloper wrote...

[quote]Maxster_ wrote...
They could never finish said reaper, there is no point for Shepard to fight them other than to save some minor colonies(major like Terra Nova a protected by fleet). [/quote]

Not on their own. That's not the point. The point was that Shepard was looking for a way to stop the reapers and the collectors were the best lead (that the writers wrote into the story, anyway). It's true that ME2 mischaracterizes this quest somwhat as being all about "saving the colonies" and they should have had the crucible plans in the collector base or something to flesh it out, but from the standpoint of the core plot there's nothing wrong with Shepard pursuing the collectors.
[/quote]
Shepard was not looking to stop the reapers in ME2. Collectors were never a threat to Systems Alliance.
Harbringer is a moron, thinking one weak transport is enough to destroy SA fleets.
ME2 is just a meaningless asspulled filler, which adds completely nothing to a story. And raises some questions about overarching series plot - like why Collectors and Harbringer wasn't helping Sovereign.

Instead of finding a way to stop reapers, Shepard just fought a meaningless battle with a non-threating enemy. It could be just some mercs, same result.
Of course, there is nothing wrong for Shepard to shoot some mercs for no reason, other than self-defence. Or collectors for that matter. Of course, SA fleet could easily destroy said collectors, if SA leadership hasn't went full retard, but still... It is just a contrived nonsense, meaningless filler.
And there is no point for Shepard to fight collectors.
[quote]
[quote]Maxster_ wrote...
There is no Dark Energy plot.Stop presenting your headcanon as a fact.[/quote]

Lead writer Drew Karpyshyn explicitly stated in an interview (at strategy informer)that while they were writing mass effect 2, they had the dark energy ending in mind and thus put in things like Haestrom and the human reaper to set it up for ME3. That's not headcannon. Sorry.
[/quote]
Lol.
It is exactly is a headcanon. There is no plot related to a dark energy, only few mentions about dark energy. This way you can also say that dark energy was in ME1, because numerous mentions of dark energy in the codex.
And when you tried to "prove" your statement of dark energy plot being in-universe, with and out-of-universe "proof" - it shows.
[quote]
[quote]Maxster_ wrote...
Object to what, exactly? Your baseless statement that garbage writing in Tuchanka arc, which led to nonsensical exposition is insignificant?Same as is in Priority:Earth, so what's the difference? Because you like that mission, you are willing to ignore nonsense and garbage writing. [/quote]

Again, I explained in detail what the difference was. It's not a matter of exposition and detail. It's a matter of basic narrative consistancy, character-driven action and player choice. Good pacing helps. Tuchanka has these things. Priority Earth does not.
[/quote]
It does not matter for you. Suddenly retarded reaper destroyer, idiotic battle with worm, pointless air strike, which had no chance of succeeding from the start, Cerberus asspulled for completely no reason - for you, it is consistant and coherent narrative. But not for me
[quote]
And come to think of it... I believe it was you that said that "Derperus" had no reason to interfere with the genophage mission, but as both pro-human racists and as servants of the reapers they had every reason to not want the Krogan race to be cured and to enter the war. What gives?
[/quote]
Krogans are no threat to the reapers. They have no fleet. They could easily obliterated from orbit by a minor reaper task force.
There is no reason for reapers to even be there.
As for Cerberus - "lol-indoctrination" is not an explanation to anything. It is just a sign of bad writing. And for Cerberus being pro-human - krogans are no threat to humanity, reapers and council are. Former is a direct threat, council races - potential.
[quote]
[quote]Maxster_ wrote...
His base is not council chamber.[/quote]

Yeah, it basically is. He's trusted there. It's practically his home country.
[/quote]
Council chamber does not equals Citadel. Council chamber, as is presidium - are restricted area, protected by C-Sec.
[quote]
[quote]Maxster_ wrote...
And one spectre is not a threat to a C-Sec. He would be killed very fast.[/quote]

Lol, some street cops like Harkin and Bailey versus the most dangerous assassin in the galaxy, who can take on whole platoons of hardened combat troopers, who is legally considered to be above the law and thus C-Sec has no authority to stop him from going where he pleases anyway, and the cops think he's on their side to boot? That seems totally implausible to you? Plus he could smuggle mercs or geth onto the station to help. He's done it before. 
[/quote]
That nonsense comes right from comics.
What could one person do against batallion of Turians, with drones and heavy weapons? Exactly nothing, only a slight possibility to get away with his life.

I guess you never read codex about C-Sec branches.
link.
[quote] Divisions

• Enforcement: Uniformed officers who patrol the Citadel,
  dispense discipline for minor infractions, resolve disputes, and respond
  to emergencies.
• Investigation: Detectives who gather evidence, solve crimes, and bring their perpetrators to justice.
• Customs: Officers who screen the passengers and cargo
  that pass through the Citadel's ports, confiscate contraband, and arrest
  smugglers.
• Network: Technicians who deal with "cybercrimes", such as identity theft, copyright theft, hacking, viral attacks, and illegal AI.
• Special Response: Officers who deal with hostage
  situations, bombs, and heavily armed criminals. In the event the Citadel
  is attacked, they are the front line of interior defense, armed with
  military-grade weaponry.
• Patrol: The ships crewed by the Patrol division serve
  "coast guard" functions, such as search and rescue, piracy suppression,
  and interdiction of illegally transported materials. They are not used
  to defend the Citadel from naval attack; that task is left to the Citadel Fleet.

[/quote]
[quote]
As for the citadel fleet, you forget that the fleet Soveriegn fought was not the normal fleet; it was a special "joint-species" fleet assembled in response to the threat of Saren. Or if that joint-species fleet was the Citadel fleet, it still needed to be assembled, and it wouldn't have been assembled if Saren hadn't telegraphed his hostile intentions months in advance.
[/quote]
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Citadel fleet
[quote]

Citadel Fleet 
The Citadel Fleet is the main space defense force of the Citadel. The flagship of the fleet is the asari dreadnought Destiny Ascension, the most powerful ship of the Council races. The Citadel Fleet consists of a mixed group of turian, salarian, and asari vessels, though the greater number of them are turian, due to the turians' peacekeeping role.
The exact number of ships in the Council's fleet is unknown, but there were enough vessels to patrol every mass relay linking Citadel space to the Terminus Systems and still leave a force stationed to protect the Citadel. Ambassador Udina claimed that the Citadel Fleet was large enough to secure the entire Attican Traverse if the Council wished.

[/quote]
And about Council's actions in response to Shepard's warning.
[quote]
Battle of the Citadel 
In the aftermath of the battle on Virmire, the Council deployed its fleet to every relay in Citadel space, believing that Saren Arterius wouldn't dare attack the Citadel directly. This strategy proved to be ineffective when the massive dreadnought Sovereign and a fleet of geth
warships launched a surprise attack against the Citadel. During the
attack, the Destiny Ascension ordered Citadel control to close the
station's Wards, transforming it into an impenetrable fortress. Unfortunately, Saren had already used the Conduit
to infiltrate the Citadel and shut down both the Citadel and the mass
relay network, subjecting the diminished Citadel Fleet to the full force
of the geth attack and preventing any reinforcements from arriving.
Sovereign then broke through the fleet as the Citadel's Wards closed
behind it.
The Citadel Council was evacuated to the Destiny Ascension, but the ship was unable to fight her way through the hordes of geth ships accompanying Sovereign. Commander Shepard eventually reactivated the mass relays, allowing the Alliance Navy and the Normandy
to aid what was left of the Citadel Fleet. It was then up to Shepard to
decide whether to have the reinforcements save the Council and the
Destiny Ascension, or to let them die while they waited for the Ward
arms to reopen.
[/quote]
[quote]
[quote]Maxster_ wrote...
I don't enjoy garbage writing, that's for sure.[/quote]

What's the deal with Saren's plan, then? You seem to have enjoyed that.
[/quote]
If you have no idea about ME plot, Saren motives, C-Sec structure, and Citadel Fleet - that doesn't mean that ME1 was badly written. It means, that you either not paying attention, or, you just want to ME1 not to make sense, and thus deliberately ignore plot points and lore of MEU.
[quote]
[quote]Maxster_ wrote...
ME3 fails because it's story being pure nonsense, which dumbed down characters and destroyed overarching series plot. That is of course only part of the reason, other being horrible dialogues and exposition(like intro) aka bad writing, nonsensical garbage like Citadel coup, autodialogue, fetch quests, reaper-chase minigame(lore-butchering nonsense) etc. Ending, of course, is a whole other level of garbage writing, but ME3 is already horrible written and horrible designed long before that.[/quote]

Now you're just throwing out vague insults. "Pure nonsense." "Nonsensical garbage." And there's a distinction between "flawed" and "horrible." 
[/quote]
I can prove anything i said in this quote. In contrast to you
[quote]
[quote]Maxster_ wrote...
Reapers just sat in dark space for no reason for a thousands of years of Sovereign's machinations, when they could just fly into a galaxy in 0.5-3 years losing completely nothing.[/quote]

Wrong; they lose the element of surprise, and waiting for the Citadel relay to be activated gives them the ability to take control of the citadel and the relay network. Without that, the attack becomes much messier and they take much heavier casulties then they do in most cycles. Plus, the immortal machine gods are, as it turns out, fairly patient. This is all explained more than once.
[/quote]
Except if reapers can fly into a galaxy in 0.5-3 years, losing completely nothing - there is absolutely no reason for Sovereign to act.
Especially when you said that "immortal machine gods are, as it turns out, fairly patient".

I like how you disproving yourself
[quote]I don't know how you can sit there and talk about what is and is not nonsensical in this story when, in all honesty, you keep displaying gratuitous gaps in your understanding of series lore. Or my basic argument.
[/quote]
*facedesk*

Modifié par Maxster_, 04 février 2013 - 03:25 .

[knightnblu]

You know, I am sick and tired of the refrain that "it's not about the destination, it is about the journey." If you are supposed to be in school and you never get there because you are so focused on the "journey" and you fail your courses of study, do you really think it was about the journey or the destination? If you are bleeding to death and the ambulance takes the long route to the hospital and you die do you think it was more about the journey or the destination?

If you like standing in the middle of a field of daisies singing Kumbaya to the exclusion of all else, then I guess life is about the journey. If you actually want to accomplish something rather than wasting your time then it is about the destination. A story is no different. Tell a rousing tale of action and high adventure and then totally foul up the ending and people will not love you for it.

It is a failure. How many people read a book that draws them in chapter after chapter only to foul up the ending. Have you ever heard anybody say "chapters 1 through 22 were so excellent, I just loved it!" when there were 23 chapters and the 23rd one was a dog of an ending? No they just condemn it all. That's because the ending matters and it matters a lot.

[BD Manchild]

knightnblu wrote...

You know, I am sick and tired of the refrain that "it's not about the destination, it is about the journey." If you are supposed to be in school and you never get there because you are so focused on the "journey" and you fail your courses of study, do you really think it was about the journey or the destination? If you are bleeding to death and the ambulance takes the long route to the hospital and you die do you think it was more about the journey or the destination?

If you like standing in the middle of a field of daisies singing Kumbaya to the exclusion of all else, then I guess life is about the journey. If you actually want to accomplish something rather than wasting your time then it is about the destination. A story is no different. Tell a rousing tale of action and high adventure and then totally foul up the ending and people will not love you for it.

It is a failure. How many people read a book that draws them in chapter after chapter only to foul up the ending. Have you ever heard anybody say "chapters 1 through 22 were so excellent, I just loved it!" when there were 23 chapters and the 23rd one was a dog of an ending? No they just condemn it all. That's because the ending matters and it matters a lot.

This sums up my view of the matter. The destination is what ultimately validates the journey, and will likely leave the most lasting memory. I know it's been the case with me, as I can't bring myself to replay the series knowing that it's all building up to such a train-wreck of an ending, and I know I'm not alone in thinking this. "It's all about the journey" is a cop-out argument that's right up there with "God moves in mysterious ways".

Mind you, the ending wasn't my only problem with the game; the worthless journal, unnecessary streamlining and bizarre leaps in narrative and character development baffled and annoyed me throughout. It was nothing I wasn't prepared to overlook had the game overall been a satisfying experience, but the ending was the straw that broke the camel's back, bringing all the problems I'd had with the game into sharper relief.

Modifié par BD Manchild, 04 février 2013 - 03:53 .

[silverexile17s]

Slashice wrote...

silverexile17s wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

silverexile17s wrote...

bazzag wrote...

I think its a shame that because of 5 mins at the end the ENTIRE game is treated as a plague. I love ME3 and although i wasnt a fan of the initial ending, and couldnt let that fault a game that i enjoyed and loved to play, and got engrossed in.

Exactally. SOMEONE should tell that to @KingZayd.

It's the fact that that more than 5 mins is the most crucial aspect of the game-it's the part that all of what we did before has come to.  It's where the viability of the galaxy will be decided and in movies and books and games it is where emotion and adrenaline are all amped up.  It's where conflict comes to a head and is resolved and then there's an epilog to explain why things may have happened, to answer questions that still exist and to give you a window onto the life that you helped create for the galaxy.  It also was supposed to be a war against the reapers.

The last part of this game, however, is like one big cutscene with button presses from time to time.  We get to hear a brand new, never before implied antagonist tell us how he just wants to be friends.  Forget about all that people sucking he's had his lapdogs (the previous super cool reapers) do.  They meant well so it's all good.  Oh and chaos (and evolution) bad, and order (and stagnation and perfection attained by tech) good.  And conflict bad (unless of course mindless reaper lapdogs are doing it in order to stop conflict).  Oh, and those things you call synthetics.  Well, they may have decided they didn't want to kill all organic life but you talked to Leviathan, so you know they do want to do that and one day they will do that.  The kid has seen the future as told to him by Leviathan and robot killers are in your future. So make a choice, f the galaxy, and get this over with. 

Yeah this is exactly how over 100 hours of gameplay and story should end with some new antagonist who had to be explained through paid DLC that makes him sound more idiotic.

The real impact isn't only in how bad the endings are (not emotionally rewarding, not thematically connected to the rest of ME, not coherent in whatever message they are trying to send, and ripped from other sources).  It's also that in trying to explain just how bad they were, one begins to see that other parts of the game weren't that good either.  And those other parts might have been mostly overlooked if the ending had been decent.  As it is now the endings don't even fit with a lot of what's just in ME3, let alone things in 1 and 2.  And they didn't do what endings should do-answer the relevant questions that are left.  But, gee don't those people look super happy in the slide shows?

The Leviathan Age has several races killed by their creations. The
Catalyst made sure this couldn't happen again, by never letting life get
to that point again. It may breed stagnation, but it constantly ensures
the survival of life by "preserving" all the races. It's something only
a computer could accept.

And your reasons? 
It's still no reason to disregard the ENTIRE game. That's just being butthurt over it. Journy AND destination matters. But just because ONE fails is ABSOLUTLY NO REASON to completely disregard the other if it's good. That's what people like you don't get. There is NO reason to hate and nit-pick the entire game JUST because the endings sucked.

It's not just the ending that ruins the whole game and makes almost pointless the whole trilogy. First of all the Cruicible which they come up just now... seriously the Mars archives were there since the beginning. I doubt they couldn't find it before. Second during previous cycles the Reapers were shut down the whole relay network via the Citadel crippling the whole Galaxy, fighting any resistance from system to system. So why didn't they tried the same in ME3? It's not like they don't have their collective intelligence stationed in the Citadel.... next time Bioware should force their writers (especially their lead writer) to replay the previous games.... the retcons and story flaws and story inconsistences in ME3 is way too damn high!

The Crucible (a Dark Energy superweapon) was part of Drew's original Dark Energy plot. It was actually one of the drawing board ideas in ME1, and was likly finalized as a plot element in ME2. Although, im my opinion, ME2 is where the Crucible should have been introduced. But it doesn't break lore just by existing, no matter how akwardly it was introduced.

Second, unlike Sovergien, they don't have anyone inside to keep the station from sealing them out this time. Only after they DO have someone on the inside (The Illusive Man) do they take the station. Any prior indoctrinated spies they had were likely uprooted by Cerberus' brash coup attempt. So no, they weren't able to to jack about taking the station without the fear of being locked out. After all, the last thing they want is to damage the station.
The Catalyst itself seems to be shackled into the Citadel, isolated from it. Either that, or the previous Prothean Sabotage put it into stasis.

There weren't any retcons in the gameplay itself. Just unanswered questions. The ONLY things retconed were the endings, and not in a major way.

[silverexile17s]

KingZayd wrote...

silverexile17s wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

2) Yes, he does break the lore. How were the Protheans able to sneak onto the Citadel, and hack into the Starchild and sabotage him
a) without him noticing?
and without having any foreknowledge of the Starchild.

3) I'm not smoking anything. I'm fully aware that a lot of people liked the EC.
a) it fixed the unexplained "teleporting squadmates" problem by adding nonsense. Not an improvement.
It made the Starchild make even less sense
c) Epilogues aren't important when the story remains in tatters
d) Saw the Normandy survive pre-EC. That said unimportant.
e) Fixed nothing important, while adding extra nonsense.

4) Only one of them looked seriously injured. And even then, there were others on the battlefield in worse condition who got no medevac. Secondly the priority should be getting to the Citadel. The lives of everyone in the galaxy depend on it. Those squadmates will die anyway if the Reapers aren't stopped.
As for your excuse for Harbinger: ridiculous. Blowing up the Normandy would not only destroy the ship but kill Shepard and anyone else too close to the explosion.

5) The husks themselves are not 50,000 years old. They are clones. They are not "growing" Reapers, but manufacturing them and storing the genetic matter within. It made sense within the context of the series, although not with real world science. I agree there were problems with the setting of ME2, but they still managed to make an excellent game from it without ruining the series.

As for those reviewers, they have their opinions, but they are their opinions and are in no way factual. They are not the opinion of "the average person" but of 2 average people.

6) The lore was broken by ME3, It's not at all headcanon. The Starchild destroys the lore. The Lazarus Project while being quite stupid, does not contradict the lore of the series, and also does not effect anything else significantly. All it does is have the galaxy waste 3 years without getting much more prepared against the Reapers, and have Shepad's crew spread across the galaxy again (due to his death). The Starchild on the other hand, ruins the Reapers and therefore due to their extensive history, basically the entire history of the Mass Effect Universe.

The outside signal does not trigger the Citadel Relay. It is sent to the Citadel, which then sends a signal to the Keepers (as they only respond to the Citadel) to then activate the Relay. If the Starchild was shackled, how did it create the Keepers and the Reapers in the first place? If it had the Keepers, why was it not able to unshackle itself? And I've covered the issues with the "Prothean sabotage" excuse already earlier in this post.

(2)...Did you NOT talk to Vigil? The protheans got onto the Citadel via the Conduit. He tells you this right up front.
And who says he didn't notice? You assume that he was unaware of it, when he may have simply been unable to stop it. And this all happened after the Reapers left for Dark Space again, so no back-up.
And they may have stumbled onto him. Or he was something discovered as they studied the signal over the decades of study they did on it after waking back up. We never DO learn what it was the protheans discovered that severed the Keepers from the signal.

(3) Not how you acted. And the Majority believed it was better then the original
(a) WHAT about the Normandy arriving is implausible? And is it any more so then hot-dropping the Mako into such a small area on Ilos? Or fighting the Human-Reaper on FOOT? It can be chalked up as a veriaty of things, from dumb luck to concidence to pilot skill. It's NOT implausible, so therefore, NOT GARBAGE OR NONSENSE. Not EVERYTHING has to be absolutly perfect in a game. Just LOOK at the Lazarus Project.
It least the Normandy's sudden arrival CAN be explained away, in many ways no less, compaired to the teleporting squadmates, which DOESN'T have a reasonable explination. A VAST improvement compaired to before, and ANYONE that examines it will tell you the same.
( The hell are you talking about? He had a reason now. Something that we could at least relate to. It's not that different then that V.I.K.I  computer in the "I,Robot" movie. Save life by taking over it's management. It's not original. It's not mindboggling. But it's something we've SEEN before, and makes more sense then BEFORE.
Nothing YOU'RE saying is making any sense. Everything your fussing about are things that EVERYONE consideres IMPROVED from the original. These are all things that are FIXED. And also, just saying "it's not good" then failing to point out spicific examples of it being not good, is just an asspull. Find a real point that supports your claim.
© The damn story ISN'T IN TATTERS till Priority: Earth. Even then, there isn't anything contridictory. Just a major lack of content. Lack of content doesn't equal broken lore. It's just an unanswered question. And the slides FIX most of the problems regarding the abrubt ending, by showing the fate of everyone else. It's not perfect, but I'd HARDLY call it "in tatters."
(d)Stranded and with no indication of whether or not they get off that world or not. Guess what happens to the crew doesn't matter to you, but the same can't be said for the rest of the BSN.
Now we can see their reactions to Shepard's death, and them actually leaving, with the Normandy surviving in working order if EMS is high. In the old one, the ship was fired to hell with little chance of it getting fixed.
(e) Teleporting squadmates: FIXED with plausible explination
No idea of what happens to the crew: FIXED with memorial scene and Normandy leaving
No idea of what happens to the races and galaxy: FIXED with slides showing them repairing
Catalyst haveing more believeable reasons: FIXED with a plot that while unoriginal, is still believable for a computer to think is right.
Endings have no variation: FIXED with slides that show the galaxy HAS changed based on the choice.

WHAT PART FAILED? You are the one that has failed to post anything that directly proves your point. You are just using asspulls, when any real fan of the game would tell you that the EC is a major improvement over what was there before.

(4)Don't you think Shepard would be tired of losing people. The Commander already has nightmares about everyone he failed to save: Mordin, Legion, Thane, the Virmire casualty. All these voices whisper in his/her dreams. It's human nature to not want to lose anyone else. Something the character template lacked before. These are Shepard's family, and no one would leave them behind if given the choice. If it was made a branch choice, I doubt ANYONE would elect to leave them.
Shepard's been in situations like that before. Look at all the people that died because you broke Jack out?
Look at Virmire. If what you said was true, Shepard wouldn't even bother trying to get to the AA tower to help the other squad-mate. They'd stay with bomb and that's that. Shepard has a bond with the Crew, and would naturally save them first over a faceless stranger. After all, if you had a choice between someone that close to you, and several namless strangers around you, who would you save?
And again, Harbinger is arrogant. It's a cliche'. You SEE this behaveior all the time: The villian considers himself as the winner prematurally, so he sees no need to dispose of the followers, since without their leader, it's just an amusing struggle. He probably  found it amusing that Shepard would save them when Harbinger thought that he'd already won. So he toys with them. He lets them go, thinking he'll have all the time in the universe to hunt them down at his convience.

(5) LOOK at the Human Reaper. It's made with injections of liquid DNA. They aren't BUILT. They're GROWN.
Prothean husks? Liquid DNA-grown Reapers? Shepard reveived from death? The main plot was a giant side-mission, and was completely detached from the main series.
And LOOK at how heavily the likes outweigh the dislikes on their respictive videos. I'd say that makes you dead wrong, AND in the minority.
And from the opinions on THIS PAGE ALONE, the EC is considered better then the original.

(6) Again, you are throwing out this and that with NO corroberating evidence. Just saying something without any proof doesn't make it true.
WHAT is your proof of the Crucible breaking the lore? Vigil? DOESN'T COUNT. He was programed AFTER Ilos went dark (he says he was spicifically programed to monitor the stasis pods), so NO INFORMAION ABOUT THE CRUCIBLE OR WAR. And any pre-programed information is long gone due to corruption in the memory banks.
WHAT is your proof of the Catalyst breaking the lore? ME1? DOESN'T DO SQUAT. The prothean sabotage could have rendered it inactive. Or, it's a shackled system that can't interact with any of the Citadel systems without outside interaction, explaining the signal sent out by the vanguards.
The Reapers are trying to preserve all life by a form of "transhuminasim": changing the physical body to the point that it no longer resembles the original orginisim from the exterior, and controled by the intelligence of a machine. It's harvest actually makes a grim sense. It didn't want the extinctions of the Leviathan Age's races repeating, so it harvests and preserves them before they can ever hit that point again. So NO, It DOESN'T kill the universe.

And how do you know that the Keepers weren't there from the beginning? Perhaps the signal goes through the Citadel to the Keepers directly, and therefore, the Catalyst is basically shackled and completely isolated after all. Unable to affect the Citadel systems. Perhaps the Keepers are automatic caretakers, like cells in a body, working autonomous.
And I countered your claims above in 3^

2) Yes, I did talk to Vigil. Vigil says nothing that excuses Starchild incompetence. Why should he be unable to do anything about it? The Citadel is his home. To not include any defences would be moronic.

3) Just means a lot of people are wrong, or don't care as much about the plotholes.
a)  the stuff  mentioned in 4, as well as the fact that if the Normandy is doing anything significant in that battle he should not be able to make it there so quickly without any trouble.  And yes, it's far worse.  The entire new scene is ridiculous. The Lazarus project wasn't intended to fix the game, and it doesn't break it (as stupid as it is)
He already had a reason. Just now he has stupid lines like  "When fire burns, is it at war?". VIKI made sense. Starchild was an "asspull". He wouldn't have been so bad if he wasn't located at the Citadel, yet had done NOTHING. Still would be pretty bad though.
c) It doesn't matter at what point the story is ruined. The story is still ruined. Abrupt isn't a problem.  It's just abrupt and terrible.
d) It wasn't massively important. The future of a broken universe is uninteresting for one thing. Secondly, that scene isn't "Fixed", it's rendered meaningless.  What purpose does that planet have now? All they did is change the story to appease people who were upset by the likelihood of characters dying if they weren't rescued (what happened to artistic integrity?)

e) Teleporting squadmates, was never a serious problem. It was already known that Coates had called a retreat. Just now instead of your friends abandoning the most important mission, perhaps due to orders from Coates, Shepard moronically orders them to desert. Not fixed at all. made worse.

No idea what happens to crew: What happens to Garrus then? or Tali? All I see is that they are alive. Not really a good fix.

Starchild is less believable due to poor quality of his new lines- not fixed, made worse.
The endings didn't show anything that wasn't already obvious for a literal interpretation,except for locking what Shepard would do if he chose to control the Reapers - Not fixed. And made worse for control playthroughs.

And you have shown your stupidity by playing the "true fan" card. If I wasn't a fan of the earlier games, I wouldn't be wasting my time on these boards posting these responses.

4) It's not several nameless strangers or a dear one in this case. It's all the nameless strangers + all the friends, vs 2 friends. The correct choice is obvious. Spacer Shepard is endangering his family (his mother), and everyone he cares about by making such a stupid decision. I would choose to leave them, because not doing so would be stupid.

As already stated, by taking out the ship, the "leader" would also have been killed. And if he really wanted to mess with them, blowing up the Normandy after it took off would hurt Shepard the most.  But that said, you can't use arrogance to defend every bit of stupidity that a character makes. If he's not firing on the ship that is potentially bringing more soldiers, there's not much point in firing at all those men.

5) I see a whole lot of metal, with organic material being put inside. It's still being constructed not grown. The main plot of ME2 was a side mission (and thanks to the character writing, and excellent one) but it didn't result in the ruining of the series. That was all ME3.

6)Why does the Starchild (of whom the Citadel is part of) need a reaper that it controls to stay behind and tell  it when the Harvest is ready [the organic races are on the Citadel (part of the Starchild)], so that it can send a signal to the Keepers so that they can open the Citadel relay (part of the Starchild)?

How do the Protheans sneak onto the Citadel (part of the Catalyst) and change it without alerting the Starchild?

When the Citadel receives Sovereign's signal, and the keepers aren't activated, why doesn't it let Sovereign know what's going on?
Why does Sovereign have to spend all that time figuring out by himself, and eventually using Saren to discover the truth?

Why does the Citadel (part of the catalyst) have a master control console that organics can use?

Why hasn't the Catalyst made the other reapers it controls who can enter the Milky Way using FTL drives, do so in all that time?

Why did the Starchild let us up in the first place? Shepard had failed. The Reapers had already won.

"Perhaps the signal goes through the Citadel to the Keepers directly"
Sounds like you're the one who hasn't talked to Vigil. Vigil tells us explicitly that the Keepers don't respond to the Reapers.

2). He likely never thought that anyone would ever reach him.
And what the HELL could Vigil ever know about the thing? He was isolated from the information network long before even being programed. He'd know nothing about even the Crucible, let alone an A.I. that no one ever found out about.
Are you SURE you talked to Vigil? Because NOTHING he says could be linked in any way to ANYTHING pertaining to the Catalyst. Your linking up two unrelated subjects.

3) No refute:wizard:
Seriously, you could at least try to make an arguement. Just saying "your wrong" but having no proof of it? That's sad. If that mentality was true, an EC would never have been made. BioWare would have just told us "deal with it" and ignored us.
(a) You really don't get that there are dozens of ways to rationalize/explain away the Normandy being there so fast?
Look around. Your in the minority, sir. NO ONE argees with you on the teleporting sceen being better.  A ship being conviently in range is much more believeable and plausible then teleporting squadmates. At least there are believable explinations for THAT.
( Your arguements are the asspull at this point. There is NO DIFFERENCE in their actual beliefs. The scale is larger, and they phrase it differently, but they are the SAME. They do things because they don't believe in lasting peace. The Catalyst isn't an asspull. His existance DOESN'T violate any lore.
©The entire story can't just be ignored because of a bad ending. That's just being butthurt.
(d)You are kidding right? HALF the COMPLAINTS were bcause the fate of the universe was left hanging like that. Start a poll if you want.
(e)You must have been smoking something. Teleporting squadmates was one of the top five compaints. That's WHY it was adressed in the EC. If it hadn't been fussed over by the majority of fans, they would have left it be.
Again, you are in the minority.
And you see that the Normandy isn't just stranded any longer, so you have more hope for them.
There is more exposition, and his lines DO make more sense, because he feels more like a computer that just doesn't get the ethics of this. Like the V.I.K.I. from "I, Robot." It's MUCH more understandible.

And you certinly don't ACT like one, as the wide majority of fans believe that the EC is a complete marked improvement over what was given. I doubt you were arguing AGAINST it when the prospect came out, so don't complain now. We got it. It's better then what we had. Not perfect, but certinly better.

4) Again, it's human nature. A reaction movment to save the people close to you. There isn't TIME to think about that "greater purpose" garbage. It's NEVER obvious when the person is dying right in front of you, and rescue for them is a button-press away.
Look at the Suicide Mission. Shepard has the choice of sending a teammate back with the Crew, weakening the nember of squadmants holding the line just for the sake of the ships crew. That right there means that personal friends are as much a priority as the greater purpose.
He can throw away hundreds of humans for three Council mambers.
He's been more then willing to make sacrifices for a few. And this even more so. The first reaction you have to seeing a close friend or lover get injured like that is to try and save them - hell with the mission. It's an instinctual, reflexive movement for anyone.
Leaving them is heartless. Obviosuly, you can't be human if you place that little value on comradery and human responces.

And as stated before, At this point Harbinger thinks he's already won, so there's no harm in toying with the humans. Why else do you think he just leasurlly exterminates the humans, instead of just glassing the entire surrounding area? He's toying with his prey - with Shepard, showing that no matter who he saves, he will lose.

5) EDI says that this is flat-out wrong. The mteal aloys are made from genetic material. That gray liquid (DNA) is solidified into the metal alloys of the Reaper body. They are GROWN.
ME2 was poorly handled as a middleman in the series. It spent too mcuh time being self contained. If anything, ME2 was the death blow. It was too centered on it's own plot, with little tieing it to the plot of either of the other games. In my opinion, the overly isolated story was the downfall of ME, as the Crucibel and other elements should have been in that, and NOT so focused on the Collectors alone.
ME3 was just a symptom of ME2's failure to be a bridge by being totally isolated from the story.

6) Why is the signal so manditory then? Why else must a signal be sent out every harvest?
It seems the Catalyst may be a totally ioslated system within the Citadel. Like EDI when shackled, it was it's home, but not it's domain. Possibly to decrease the risk of someone finding a system that could be traced back to it.

AGAIN, the Conduit. VIGIL told you this in ME1? Remember?

Again, perhaps it did, and we didn't know. Or perhaps the blocking of the Keeper signal rendered it severed from the others.

Even MORE credidance that the Catalyst is an isolated system in the Citadel.

Three years is a long time, and they lose the element of surprise this way, and lose the oppertunity to quickly take the Citadel and the relay network.

It was courious. Shepard broke it's predictions and altered the variables it always used. It had the chance to speak directly. So why not?

The Reapers transmitt to the Citadel which transmitts to the Keepers. Ergo, exactally what I said.
Again, YOU are the one likely not talking to Vigil.

Modifié par silverexile17s, 04 février 2013 - 11:57 .

[silverexile17s]

Indy_S wrote...

Silver, you're using hypotheticals in an argument as proof again. That's not how they're meant to be used. You're trying to say that these things don't break the canon, I get that, but it's not the audience's job to fill in the blanks, certainly not to this degree. These things you're debating over are some of the things that create a "Wait, what?" reaction from the audience and it doesn't appear to be intentional.

Again, at least they CAN be hypothisised. That means they AREN'T plotholes if they can be given an explination.
They are unanswered questions, but NOT lore-breaking plotholes.

[djspectre]

No I judged ME3 on awful dialog editing, 'generic' responses (every other response from shepard was a 'yeah', 'uh huh' or an awkward silence), immersion breaking bugs at launch (face import, galaxy scan bug, scene after killing udina), soundtracks that quit playing halfway through cinematics, a terrible Priority Earth (where's my suicide mission choices!) and the worst lip syncing of the three games.

By the time I had gotten to the ending, I no longer cared.

I have replayed ME1 at least a dozen times, I've played ME3 twice...only to hear Jennifer Hales excellent voice acting on the second playthrough.