9 réponses à ce sujet

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

One of the early complaints of ME3 was how schitzophrenic the narrative felt.  

There was a reaper invasion going on but you had time to do sidequests and hang out at the citadel and deal with cerberus and traips arround solving problems.  ME2 had a "first half second half" structure and it worked well, it also meant less disc swapping...

I really think it would have helped the overall narrative if the game had been split up into 2 parts, CERBERUS and REAPERS.  (Also, Arrival from ME2 felt like it was canibalized from me3, it shoulda been over here too.  and cerberus shoulda been behind it) ... (I threw Citadel DLC in there but honestly I dont really know if what it was would have still worked or not had the game been like this?  Eh.)  Also obviously, some of these quests would require tweaks to reflect their place in the story, there arent TOO many changes that would need to occur.  One thing I think would have been cool was what I thought they were going to do.  Limit certain squadmates to certain halves of the game.  Allowing you to take a wider variety of characters depending on where you are in the story with you but only letting you use a full roster on the final mission.  So: Jack, Miranda, and Jacob could be recruitable in the first half, and then assist the Alliance after the Invasion begins.  Garrus, Tali, Wrex, Mordin, and Legion could be Second Half exclusive, and limited based on where your progression is on their story elements.  (It would be nice to get zaeed, kasumi, grunt, and samara too, even if its just at the end of the game)

Basically it shoulda been like this:

PART 1: CERBERUS
Opening Mission:
 > Mars Archives -> First Visit to Citadel (Citadel 1)
Selectable Missions:
  > Grissom Academy (Jack)
  > Cerberus Scientists (Jacob)
  > Rescue Amanda Kenson (Arrival)
  > Retake Omega (Aria)
  > Identity Theft (Citadel)
  > Eden Prime (Javik)
   * N7 Missions
Story Progression:
(After Completing Eden Prime and a certain ammount of other missions the main plot opens up.  Elements of Cerberus's involvement in Thessia would be moved to the Eden Prime quest to flesh it out more and maintain the Cerberus/Kai Leng arc within this half of the game.  If you complete Eden Prime last you'd just unlock them after eachother.  Progressing too far in the main quests would still run the risk of locking you out of previous missions as "FAILED", allowing Jack to be captured or the Alliance War Assets to be diminished by not doing Arrival.  Horizon would have less advanced reapers.  Mostly Husks and Adjutants perhaps?)
 > Cerberus Coup (Citadel 2)
  > Sanctuary (Horizon)
   > Chronos Station (Cerberus HQ)
 
PART 2: REAPERS
Opening Mission:
 > Earth: Vancouver
Selectable Missions:
  Rescue Turian Primarch (Palaven) (Garrus)
  Meet with Quarian Admirals (Tali)
  Speak with Asari Councilor (Citadel 3)
  Dr. Bryson's Lab (Leviathan)
(Each of these would branch out into additional missions as each campaign progressed.  After completing at least Thessia, Leviathan, and at least Rannoch or Tuchunka the Citadel would be taken by the reapers and the hub would be unavailable.  it would re-emerge above earth after completing the other questline.  Or If you complete Thessia or Leviathan last then that progresses immediately.  Thessia Changes: a cypher to decoding crucial information from the VI Victory
could be what you're after on thessia.  Since the kai leng thing would
be moved to eden prime in this case, you'd instead escape as thessia is
overrun after recovering the prothean vi data.  the coolest thing here would be the ability to get wrex, legion, tali, and mordin on your ship at the same time.  Maybe certain characters would only be useable on certain questline so dialogue budget doesnt spiral out of control?  Big thing, The Cerberus elements on tuchunka would be replaced with reapers, or maybe collectors?  There was that rumored lost collector ship dlc that we never got, it probably got canibalized when they made dlc to fix the game.  Reapers would probably work fine though in this entire questline.)
 Tuchunka Questline:
 > Rescue Turian Primarch (Palaven) (Garrus)
  > War Summit Meeting (Wrex)
   > Sur'Kesh (Mordin)
    > Rachni Hive (Optional) (Grunt)
    > Turian Platoon > Bomb (Expires)
     > Cure the Genophage (Tuchunka)
 Rannoch Questline:
  > Meet with Quarian Admirals (Tali)
   > Geth Dreadnaught
    > Admiral Koris (Expires)
    > Geth Fighter Squadron (Expires)
     > Destroy Reaper Signal (Rannoch)
 Thessia Questline:
  > Speak with Asari Councilor (Citadel 3)
   > Ardat-Yakshi Monastery (Optional) (Samara)
   > Investigate Asari Temple (Thessia)
 Leviathan Questline:
  > Dr. Bryson's Lab (Leviathan)
   > Find Dr. Garneau
    > Find Anne Bryson
     > Find Leviathan
Final Mission:
  > Priority: London
(TIM would still be part of the story here, hell let us fight his deleted boss after he kills himself/gets killed in a cutscene.  Even if its solo shepard.)


Sorry if that was a big load of list.  Hell if the me3 game had been released as "EPISODE 1" with "EPISODE 2 COMING NEXT YEAR" that would have been a little better.  They could have focused on the initial release with a smaller scope and more room to expand the followup to me2, and still had plenty of time to react to people and create a really cool expansion that ends the game.  It would have been better than releasing dlc after people already moved on...  *shrug*

[KaiserShep]

Something along these lines would help to justify Cerberus' huge presence in the game, but I think that the way some missions play out would have to be way different, because it becomes even less believable that Cerberus could so brazenly attack this and that throughout the galaxy while the major fleets and defenses are not preoccupied with the reapers.

[Xplode441]

I can't see it working with the ME3 missions. Honestly, Cerberus would be wrecked trying to do the things they were doing if they tried them before the reapers arrived.

Also, ME2 was two disc on consoles?

[KaiserShep]

Xplode441 wrote...
 Honestly, Cerberus would be wrecked trying to do the things they were doing if they tried them before the reapers arrived.

This is why the way the mission plays out would have to involve fighting some kind of powerful infiltrator. The Eva mech was already a formidable opponent, and allowed Cerberus to get in to retrieve what TIM wanted without necessitating a full-on assault. The Cerberus defectors is a different story, though, since they are way out of the way, and this occurs on a facility of their own. You could have missions set in more remote locations in the galaxy, which would be something that the Alliance may not want to commit a lot of manpower to deal with, same as what you would have done in ME1 when hunting and killing Cerberus bases. But this would also mean that Cerberus would be operating strictly with small fast-moving ships to perform quick hit and run missions that you have to investigate. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 17 septembre 2013 - 07:26 .

[Pearl (rip bioware)]

Xplode441 wrote...

I can't see it working with the ME3 missions. Honestly, Cerberus would be wrecked trying to do the things they were doing if they tried them before the reapers arrived.

Also, ME2 was two disc on consoles?

on Xbox. All three games are single disc on PS3.

OT: Eh, I think this would have messed with the pacing of the story even more, but still, I admire the effort you put in to writing the OP.

[Nicodemus]

The OP has an interesting idea, but to make it work further there would have to be added things which Bioware would not have done.

For example:

As part of the Cerberus Part 1, starting the game off with a proper Court Marshal which absolves Shepard would set the game up for Shep to be reinstated and sent to Mars. No sign of reapers yet but rumours abound. Cerberus commits it's various acts of stupidity which leads you up to Chronos Station. I'd also add Thessia here as a covert operation. You come back to earth to present your findings about Cerberus when the Reapers arrive.

Part 2 has the Reapers doing their thing around the galaxy and the focus is on them, however Cerberus although weakened tries to throw a spanner in the works with the Citadel Coup and a couple of other opportunistic attacks (maybe even a mission to stop a spy on the Crucible). I'd have also had them on earth fighting against the Alliance forces in Priority London to show that Indoctrination was alive and kicking. I'd also have added a couple more reapercentric missions involving rescues or battles on planets, Priority Irune perhaps or Battle of Illium?

Might have made the story a little more interesting, but that is just my opinion of course

Modifié par Nicodemus, 17 septembre 2013 - 10:35 .

[AlexMBrennan]

it also meant less disc swapping...

Or you could just do a proper install - TB hard drives are dead cheap, and swapping them is hardly rocket science (it's not like they are soldered on like console memory)

Honestly, Cerberus would be wrecked trying to do the things they were doing if they tried them before the reapers arrived.

The writers pulled unbelievably massive Cerberus armies and fleets out of their behind already so how would this be any different?

[Cornughon]

Maybe they just should have split Mass Effect 3 in two parts to begin with.

[Mathias]

Yes I've argued in the past that having the Reapers arrive in the beginning was a bad start. The first 70% of the game should've been about uniting and preparing the Galaxy for the arrival of the Reapers, and then the remaining 30% should comprise of several major battles during their arrival.

If I had it my way, the Crucible would've stayed in the game, but instead it would basically be a superweapon that uses the Mass Relays to discharge the kinetic barriers from Reaper Tech in the same way that Sovereign was stunned when you defeated Saren when Sovereign took direct control of him. This would've left the Reaper fleet open to a lengthy preemptive strike from the Galactic Alliance before the Reapers could recover and fight back, but still with their barriers in a weakened state. This to me would've made a conventional victory possible, and a more rewarding final battle for the player. Your War Assets would've actually meant something.

Modifié par Mdoggy1214, 17 septembre 2013 - 06:25 .

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

War Assets never would have meant anything unless they became a resource in a minigame (RTS) But this series isnt suited for that. war assets was kind of a bad idea and too much emphasis was put on it. it should have been resources for a game mechanic.  In ME2 it worked becuase you'd look at garrus become loyal and it would indicate to you "He's more useful now if I need to use him for something." 

The war assets shouldn't have been as numerous or enumerated.  we should have had a more general sense of different categories with an endgame mechanic that would use each of those in some way.  ME3's war assets might as well have not even been organized into "Turian"  "Asari" and so on, because those differentiators dont feed into anything else.  Its all about getting one number up.  it was a quick slapdash.


The big thing about your idea, Mdoggy1214, isnt actually that different from the end result of the game.  A weapon uses the mass relays to effect the reapers in a way that wins the war.  adding in "and then we all fight" feels like its just an extension and a lesser climax.  ME3 had its problems but I dont think a multiplication of a previous game's ending would have been all that great.


What people wanted was to see the things that the war assets lists out to you show up in the last battle.  presentingeverything to the player like that just raised expectation too much and was a bad move on bioware's part.  If you're constantly looking at a cool thing on a list its just going to remind you every time you finish a mission that you're anticipating this thing and that just hurts expectations.

They totally should have had a more elaborate final mission.  You shouldn't have had krogans on EARTH if you lost the krogan alliance.  It felt budgeted where ME2 felt overflowing.

Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 19 septembre 2013 - 01:33 .