The Catalyst isn't a god however, despite the pretense of omnipotence. It is nothing more than a poorly coded A.I.
Though to be fair, that was not entirely clear prior to EC. Before the Extended Cut a lot of people were wondering whether or not Bioware introduced 'god' into the game, or whether it was intended to be something similar to Q from Star Trek. The religious symbolism, intentional or not, also played into those theories.
@Andres Hendrix
So you see that I didn't missed the point.
I actually think that you overestimate logic. You are trapped in logic, that's your problem. It even makes you arrogant with me and Obadiah. Before you say anything, I'd just say that I know what are logic and formal logic, it's something that I teach. I understand why logic is so important for you because it's the basis of our culture. But it's only a basis. Even in our culture "logic" have been attacked and sometimes destroyed and these works are masterpieces. But I'll stop here.
You can say that there's a problem of logic in the ending but you actually missed the point of the writing. You didn't see that the ending is about higher level, you didn't see that the whole writing is based on paradox so the ending had to destroy the common logic to get to this higher level.
But let's say that it's not important, while it's the basis to understand the ending.
You want Bioware to discuss the logic of the ending. Fans will say "there's no logic so it's bad" and Bioware will say "we wanted to do it this way" ("so it's not bad", but Bioware will not say that). There will be no discussion. It's not simple as : logic = good ; non-logic = bad. If you think so, then you missed a lot of things in the XXth century and now.
But let's say it's not important.
Let's talk about Weeks. What we've been saying isn't what you think we've been saying. In an industry like that, people can't criticize their company. I agree with you and I can say that in cinema people sign contract to not go against the marketing of the film. Paul Schrader's problem shows that :http://insidemovies....raders-protest/
But what we are saying is it's not because he can't criticize his company that he will say anything to support something that he dislikes (and actually you suppose that he dislikes, you're the one who wants him to think like you and to support your thoughts).
If he really disliked the writing of the ending, and wanted to support the company, I think that he would try to calm down people, saying that Mass Effect isn't only the ending etc... But I don't know him personally so it's just an hypothesis.
But for me it's not black or white, criticize or support (even if he disagrees). Silence can be done too, and it's a better way to support something he is supposed to dislike. That's why I think he is honest.
You start with ad hominem; it is hardly worth but a mention. No, I don't suppose that Weeks does not like the ending. I do suppose that he cannot really say anything that would diminish the prestige of his company (oh my, this is like the fourth time I have written this). There is a set discourse, which people in a business get into to support their team and product, to maintain corporate face.
Destroying logic sounds like something a Fascist would say (read 1984, now there is a culture that abhors logic, and buys fully into a cult of contradictions or doublethink). You are welcome to your kool-aid, but do not dare try to force it down others. Logic is not simply a social construction, logic, like language, correlates with how the human brain evolved. Interestingly the pointy-headed postmodernists (who think that they have destroyed logic, and are ‘post structure’) never got away with calling everything subjective, because to do so is a performative contradiction. They mostly argue nonsense within their own bandwagon, hence the present state of decay in the humanities, and English departments.
You are trying to argue from authority by saying that you are a formal logic teacher. I don’t see you being a real logic teacher, maybe a tutor, because a real logic professor or teacher would not be trying to move the goalposts as you are doing. Pleading me to drop logic, and buy a pencil from your cup. Don’t insult my intelligence.
This is the last that I will write about this.
Might be interesting in my point of view as someone being late the party: my first playthrough of the trilogy (and the first time i really paid Mass Effect any attention) was last year - ME1 - 3 straight through over the period of a week, non stop.
Right up until the best seat of the house I was largely onboard; the evacuation scene was a bit 'er.. ok, let's roll with it' and I quite liked the part where you are dazed and walk to the beam. I found the mission before fairly bleh, just felt like an horde mode in a unimaginative way, not much variation or interest (an I laughed when I saw a red telephone box for the first time).
That was fine. The TIM confrontation was ok, harked back to Saren. Was slightly puzzled how Anderson was there, but again, rolled with it.
Anderson died, room got very dusty and I had to wipe it from my eye. Was fully prepared for Shep to either die alongside as the crucible fired or whatever. That felt right, the emotional feeling was bang on.
Then Hackett comes on the radio, and we go up the lift. My feelings changed to puzzlement, and a sense of having done something wrong. The resultant scene with the catalyst felt baffling, and I even accidentally chose refuse first time as I had no clue what was going on and kept seeing if there were other options rather than listen to this holographic child who had appeared from nowhere.
Swift reload later (which mean the resultant second play through had lost all it's tension and drama) I ended up choosing destroy, which is what I had wanted to do for the trilogy.
Cutscene rolls, music makes it pretty damn dusty again in the room. Fine, Shep is dead, can deal with that, saved the galaxy. Liara lives, marvellous.
And then, the breath scene. I stared at the credits thinking 'What the hell? I'm alive? But.. what.. how.. who..?!!'.
I actually joined up here to see if I had done something wrong or missed an extra bit of the ending. I couldn't believe that was how they were leaving the fate of this character I had poured 150 hrs into - a 20 second badly rendered FMV sequence.
I would not have minded if it had been clear that Shep had died, that would have been fine. It was the shittily done 'Easter egg' that got me, and this got me thinking back to the whole catalyst scene and I was reminded of how jarring going up the lift felt at the time. I therefore had two differing points where I was jerked out of the intended emotional setting which added to my disquiet, and that has made me analyse the game as a whole to a degree I probably wouldn't have done if Shep had died / lived next to Anderson.
I need to stress that for the above I knew NOTHING about the Mass Effect trilogy before playing the game, not even the basic plot outline.
Ah well, Jennifer Shepard, Soldier, Asari lover - still one of the best game playing experiences I have had, and that is worth something:
IMO the biggest mistake they made was giving choices at the end. I could have handled Shepard dying. That's not the point. The multiple choice question at the end with the Starbrat ensured that it would be next to impossible to write a direct sequel. This was part of Walter's plan to cement Shepard's fate. See, they could bring back Shepard, but bringing back a cohesive universe after this mess would be almost impossible without alienating 2/3s of the fan base.
But, the MEU is a rich place for stories to continue. He was very selfish about that. And they're writing another story anyway. He's not the lead writer.
IMO the biggest mistake they made was giving choices at the end. I could have handled Shepard dying. That's not the point. The multiple choice question at the end with the Starbrat ensured that it would be next to impossible to write a direct sequel.
Absolutely.
ME3 should have went the DA:O route. In DA:O you have no other option but to kill the archdemon, but your choices throughout the game affect character fates or have an impact on the future of the various factions you encountered. That's the way it should have been with ME3. There should have only been one ending choice, and that was Destroying the Reapers, with the multiple endings instead being more along the lines of DA:O's epilogues and determined by earlier choices in the game. A sequel from that universe would be no more difficult to craft than it is to craft DA:I from the world state left behind by DA2 and DA:O.
I thought that was one of their goals - a trilogy story on one platform that would end, and not be dragged into an endless franchise of sequels like other stories and games, where the story usually just gets sillier and sillier the longer it goes on. I rather liked the idea.The multiple choice question at the end with the Starbrat ensured that it would be next to impossible to write a direct sequel.
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Guest_Peevish Lurker_*
Personally, I felt they made Shepard too important to the ME universe. The player spends 3 games as Shepard going around and solving the galaxy's problems. From the personal problems of squad-mates to galaxy-wide problems. It's made explicitly clear that Shepard is the only one who can solve these problems. Therefore exchanging Shepard's life to save a seemingly incompetent universe doesn't seem like a worthy trade. I wish they had spent more time making the ME universe stronger and less time on Shepard's heroic legacy. However, that's just me; and I still love Mass Effect.
Personally, I felt they made Shepard too important to the ME universe. The player spends 3 games as Shepard going around and solving the galaxy's problems. From the personal problems of squad-mates to galaxy-wide problems. It's made explicitly clear that Shepard is the only one who can solve these problems. Therefore exchanging Shepard's life to save such an incompetent universe doesn't seem like a worthy trade. I wish they had spent more time making the ME universe respectable and less time on Shepard's heroic legacy. However, that's just me; and I still love Mass Effect.
I think it would've been fun having the Mass Effect trilogy carry on with a new protagonist each game, like Dragon Age does.
I think it would've been fun having the Mass Effect trilogy carry on with a new protagonist each game, like Dragon Age does.
Virmire survivor in ME2, Vega/Captain Riley (perhaps?) in ME3?
Instead of Vega, maybe Major Coats?
I think it would've been fun having the Mass Effect trilogy carry on with a new protagonist each game, like Dragon Age does.
That probably would have been the best course of action.
Towards the end it was getting as bad as (or worst than) this guy:
Emotional reactions need to have a good logical basis if you want to make a case that the work was actually bad. Just saying "I don't like it because I wanted something else" in a tantrum isn't a compelling argument.
How about saying "I don't like it because it isn't what you promised."
Or perhaps "I don't like it because its what you promised it wouldn't be."
Hell there are countless reasons why people don't like it. You shouldn't generalize them all as just being upset because it wasn't what they wanted. Though it may be technically true (they would be happy with it if they didn't want something else) it still undermines the very real issues a lot of players have.
This is one of the complaints that people give about the ending that makes these fans act like children. People were upset about the "destroy" option because it would include the geth and precious EDI. Grow up people. Wars have casualties and considering the magnitude of the enemy in this case losing the geth/EDI is a fair trade-off.
Or, perhaps, rather than just being whiny babies they genuinely didn't feel like the story did an inadequate job of making these sacrifices feel truly justified or required. Why must the device specifically built for the purpose of eradicating reapers target ALL AI? Just to give the ending extra sense of sacrifice and loss for the drama sake of it. It doesn't seem strange to you that the geth are wiped out by the machine they themselves helped work on? That they didn't have any defense for it whatsoever? In the low-EMS destroy ending the blast from the crucible is very broad in what it targets - it wipes out pretty much EVERYTHING. Yet with high enough EMS you're able to make it more precise so it targets only the reapers, sparing the poor sobs on earth who'd otherwise be turned to ash.
If they can refine the blast to not take humanity out with it you'd think the Geth working on the crucible would find a failsafe to protect their runtimes or something. Again, they are working on the crucible. It seems strange that their sacrifice is absolutely mandatory. All this coming from a person who really doesn't care if the geth survive.
Also the geth are not a big sacrifice to be making. First off, many, many people died in the reaper war regardless. There has already been sacrifice. Depending on some of your choices in the game some of those sacrifices were very personal to Shepard, as well. To make matters worse not everyone even feel that the geth are worthy of grieving. They are machines, you know. To some people its the same as wiping out a league of toasters. Big whoop. This isn't the same as sacrificing a species of organics which everyone can relate to or feel loss from.
Again, trying to balance logic with fiction can be tricky. The catalyst explains that all synthetics will be killed.
It also implies that Shepard will be killed. Which didn't happen. It also isn't aware of all the possibilities of the crucible unless you have the right EMS scores. It isn't infallible. First it can only destroy, then it can also control, then it can also change all life in the galaxy. The Cataylst does not know everything about the crucible or its possibilities. The fact that it is wrong about Shepard proves it. Given that it describes destroy as the worst choice and practically swoo's over synthesis one could argue that it was exaggerating the devastating effects of the crucible to influence Shepard's decision. Though thats headcanon territory.
If destroy only killed the reapers then why would Shepard ever consider the other scenarios unless they were actually going to listen to the creator of the reapers' logic about AI/organic coexistence?
I strongly disagree with this sentiment. While personally I only choose destroy I know a lot of players who PREFER the other endings. The reasons I hear for their choices rarely, if ever, involve believing the reapers are right.
In one Shepard becomes basically God and controls all the reapers to follow his will and maintain peace and order. To some thats perfect. I can't say I blame them. Then you have synthesis (ugh) which is the ultimate peace ending. All life is one, everything is harmony with everything else. We are one. I hate this ending more than anything merely because it is absolutely ludicrous but its still the happiest of outcomes. People like other endings other than just destroy and it isn't just because the geth survive or that they believe in the reapers logic. Even if destroy spared the geth and EDI I genuinely believe there would still be players who'd prefer the other two endings. Destroy is perhaps the darkest of endings, really.
I agree, Reaper code is software. But who said that the energy beam targets software? Energy beam targets nanites in husks, cannibals etc., destroys them, effectively disintegrating those abominations. Notice how Reapers themselves are not disintegrated like husks, they simply collapse. That's the destruction of Reaper central database (Reaper code) that both Reapers, geth and EDI use quite extensively.
Even if that was the case nothing is keeping the geth from downgrading and removing the reaper code.
It stems from the same sort of disapproval as Legion's death.
Or, arguably, Mordin's as well.
To be fair, the Catalyst's line about Shepard being partly synthetic seems more like a throwaway line that doesn't really make sense, since s/he is not an AI, and it never actually says that s/he is going to die when making the decision to Destroy, at least not in high EMS. It's been a while since I've watched the YouTube vid of the pre-EC dialogue, but that's gone with the wind I guess.
Virmire survivor in ME2, Vega/Captain Riley (perhaps?) in ME3?
Instead of Vega, maybe Major Coats?
MAKER NO! All this would do is save me the money that I would have otherwise spent on the rest of the trilogy. Can't giveth the customizable protagonist, then taketh away.
Or, arguably, Mordin's as well.
I didn't feel as bad over Mordin's death -- sad, definitely. I mean, it had an impact -- but it was tempered by the fact that his death was personally meaningful in regards to his character arc. I'm talking about curing the genophage here and not those monsters* who shoot him.
* -- You know who you are, you monsters!** 
** -- Just kidding***
*** -- Not really****
**** -- No really, I am kidding. Play the game how you like. No judgments here. *cough*monsters*cough*
Legion's death, on the other hand, pretty much came outta nowhere and served no purpose that couldn't have been done another way. Now, if he jumped in front of a bullet to save admiral Gerrel and end the Rannoch war harvest conflict, then okay, now we're talking. "Copying code insufficient." Wait, what? 
MAKER NO! All this would do is save me the money that I would have otherwise spent on the rest of the trilogy. Can't giveth the customizable protagonist, then taketh away.
Fair point. Upon further consideration, I agree.... although I gotta say playing the Virmire survivor might have been kinda cool.
I can't say that I'd ever play that game myself. Playing any of the companion characters as the PC compels me as much as a "Lick Me" sign on the terminal of a car battery.
It could be fun to play as a companion character in a DLC or an expansion, but not as the protagonist to an entire game. I think most players want the ability to customize their characters or determine their personalities, neither of which you can do with a previously established character.
I dunno, Kaidan's and Ashley's characters both changed a fair bit from beginning of trilogy to end. For better or worse is not for me to say. There were things I liked/disliked about each in the sequels... Okay wait, I didn't like anything about either of them in ME2. But, for the sake of argument, let's say that somewhere along the line, after they'd been working with TIM awhile to stop the collectors, they discovered Cerberus had tried to resurrect shep and failed?
Anyway, a mostly non-customizable character can work sometimes. Planescape: Torment comes to mind.
I think it would be cool if the squad was a permanent 8-10 members and at the beginning of the game you got to select which one to play as (or choose from a sub group of 3 or so). Sort of like FE7's Eliwood's Tale and Hector's Tale, only with choice. The character wouldn't be a complete blank slate and would have some established character and rank that limited what sort of choices were available, but was other wise up to player discretion on how to act. For the most part, the story would be the same no matter who you choose but you would play it from a different perspective.
Using ME1 as an example. You can choose to play as either Liara or Shepard. During the Rachni decision, as Shepard, you can order Liara over the radio to set the queen free or kill her. As Liara, Shepard will give an order and you can choose to follow or disobey.
There are countless reasons people "said" they didn't like it. I don't really believe them....
Hell there are countless reasons why people don't like it. You shouldn't generalize them all as just being upset because it wasn't what they wanted.
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To be fair, the Catalyst's line about Shepard being partly synthetic seems more like a throwaway line that doesn't really make sense, since s/he is not an AI, and it never actually says that s/he is going to die when making the decision to Destroy, at least not in high EMS. It's been a while since I've watched the YouTube vid of the pre-EC dialogue, but that's gone with the wind I guess.
I did mention that the Catalyst suggests/implies it, not explicitly says it. However the threat is clearly there.
To paraphrase:
"The crucible will not discriminate, all synthetic life will be targeted. Even you are partly synthetic."
It doesn't explicitly says Shepard will die (though without high ems you do die) but that is definitely the tone it is setting. Honestly with low EMS it kills even normal organics on earth and I don't believe the star brat ever mentions that in EC (it doesn't in the original). Further proof that the starbrat doesn't know EVERYTHING or at least tells you everything about the crucible.
There are countless reasons people "said" they didn't like it. I don't really believe them.
Those damn dirty liars. Should be strung at the gallows I say.
I for one, was more grieving about the deplorable quality of writing.
As to Arcturus Stream, it is I believe around 37 light years from Earth. Do we know how much faster than light the FTL drives in the Mass Effect universe are? Even if it were thirty times faster than light that would still be over a year away, that's putting aside that they'd need to stop regularly to discharge their drive cores.
This ladies and gentlemen is why you shouldn't try and do mathematics after a 16 hour shift and a few beers.
Ends up being somewhat....off.
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