104 réponses à ce sujet

[Esthlos]

Would you have liked it better?

Just imagine:
-on Mars, instead of by the Illusive Man you are confronted by the Starchild. It doesn't present itself: it merely states that it has been watching Shepard, and hoped to speak with him/her.
Upon being questioned, though, it utters "you don't have time for this now" or something similar (maybe even a mockingish "you should go") right as Liara finds out that somebody is stealing the Crucible's plans.

-Then, after you deal with Dr. Eva, it appears in your room on the Normandy and speaks a bit more; it says it woke up recently, and starts a part of the vanilla ending dialogue, also stating that Shepard is wasting his/her time: the Crucible has been built multiple times in the past, and it never worked.
(Which would explain why it cares so little that Shepard retrieved the plans)
(Maybe it also is disappointed by finding out it cannot shut down the relay network, as the Keepers ignore any order from it)

-Then it keeps showing up at key points in the Plot; it talks to Shepard, eventually admits what it is, and keeps discussing the vanilla ending's dialogue key matters.

-The information kept on Thessia is its location and the fact that it indeed is the missing piece of the Crucible.

-After successfully reaching its chamber on the Citadel, finally, one of four things can happen:
1) If you loathed the Reapers and the cycles, it will admit that they are no longer necessary, as the alliance forged by Shepard proves that organics in this cycle are perfectly able to defend themselves; it will thus use the power of the Crucible to augment the power of the Citadel Relay, and all the Reapers will jump off, presumably off-galaxy, in order to find a new purpose somewhere else.

2) If you went all vigilante on it, then it will offer Shepard to fulfill exactly that role: it offers to use the power of the Crucible to upload Shepard's brain into the Citadel, thus making him/her the ultimate spectre (definition I read here on the forum and liked ), also warnign that unfortunately this will kill him/her.

3) If you actually tried to persuade it to join the galaxy as an ally or submit itself to this cycle's races, then it will refuse to. It will recognize that Shepard united the galaxy, but will assert that going all Napoleon or Saint Francis won't produce any lasting peace (sort of a reprisal of Kreia's lessons in KOTOR2: going for the extremes will bite you in the tail eventually).
At this point, if Shepard is very persuasive (like took every persuade option in all dialogues during all the game), then if the Geth have been destroyed, the Genofage is not cured and/or the Rachni are gone for good (at least 2 of these three things), it will leave as in 1; otherwise, it will concede a 15 000 years delay in the Harvest, in order to give this cycle the chance to prove that lasting peace has actually been achieved, after warning of course that it'll keep watching, and that the Harvest will continue if Shepard tries to warn anybody.

4) If you took too many discording responses (like getting both "vigilante" and "fly off" responses in similar quantities) then it will discard Shepard as an hypocrite or a schizophrenic, and the Harvest will continue.

Then the normal ending slides play, telling us the fate of the galaxy.

Then if 1, we see the various survivors celebrate their victory over the Reapers.

If 2, the Stargazer will finish telling the legend of the Shepard, the mysterious intelligence that guides the Reapers as a brutal force of peacekeeping/punishing.

if 3 and the delay was given, we see the Catalyst in an undefined year in the future, as it finishes re-watching the recording of Shepard's actions; meanwhile, a newscaster is following Shepard's funeral.
But, breaking news! Shepard's body disappeared, and was presumably stolen.
The Catalyst smirks at the news, implying that it is it who stole the body (maybe in order to upload Shepard's brain, so that when the time comes Shepard will be able to see if the bet paid off; after all, s/he did prove to be an individual worth keeping).
If no delay was given, then we see the same ending scene as in 1.

If 4, then the usual Refuse ending plays.

Would you have liked it better if done this way?

[Linkenski]

Then everyone would've hated the entire game. I'm pretty sure most already hated the child in every scene and dream sequence.

 

The Catalyst is foreshadowed both on Thessia and on Rannoch and I caught it the first time expecting the whole weirdness with the Child eventually leading into some sort of point. I didn't exactly expect it to be that he would be the face of the Reapers but I remember being agitated over how simple the message seemed to be in the dreams so naturally I thought "this can't just be it" and guess what, that little brat did show up in the ending after all... just not in the way I thought and of course I didn't like it.

 

I understand that you're saying it's about establishing the theme in the ending as early as possible so it doesn't come as a slap in the face, but I don't think people would've ever bought the whole Catalyst nonsense in any way shape or form as long as it was this new character who just randomly enters the plot and in the shape of an imaginary human boy.

 

Perhaps if the Citadel itself housed an AI and we had to plug in the Vendetta VI that would then transmit or transcode the signal from the Catalyst (the citadel) and be the voice of the Reapers that could've worked, but the whole "boy" thing was just awful.

 

 

The way you say it it would again contradict ME1 in a lot of ways. If the one who controls the Reapers enters on Mars to tell Shepard that he's been stalking him it's not only contrived but it poses the question of "why didn't sovereign or Harbinger ever talk to Shepard about... you know... wanting to just chat with him and not kill him?"

[AlanC9]

You could maybe make it work if the Reapers are completely out of the Catalyst's control. Say, he's been trying to call the cycles off for millions of years but the Reapers think his program's become corrupt and they're ignoring his directives.

[Valmar]

All they'd have to do is remove "the citadel is my home, its a part of me" and I'm okay. Remove it completely and replace it with the prothean VI or a crucible researcher explaining your choices. Either of those could work, too. I'm not picky. 

[Esthlos]

And what if it was Harbringer instead of the Catalyst?

The same as in the first post, but the one who's stalking you up to the Citadel's secret room is Harbringer.

What would have changed?

[WizzyWarlock]

It would have been better, I mean foreshadowing is better than no shadowing. Just dropping the kid on us at the very end and expecting us to believe every word the REAPER OVERLORD was telling us.. well, no. Having him appear from time to time might have helped, but still not so good. Personally, I think the whole story was flawed. The idea of the Crucible took the whole fight out of the hands of the Galaxy, it changed the whole feel of Mass Effect for me. The first one was fighting Geth and trying to capture a rogue Spectre, the second was gathering a team to stop the Collectors who were capturing entire human colonies, then the third was about.. making a big gun. I suppose you could also say it was about uniting the Galaxy, but really, what did that achieve in regards to the story? Nothing. It added War Assets to help you make a big gun.

I think ME3 needed an entire rewrite, not just a bunch of foreshadowing.

[angol fear]

I would not like it better.

 

But it actually doesn't make sense : the structure of mass effect is supposed to be like a micro structure and a macro structure that you access only in the end. Reapers are supposed to be at a higher level than us. What you suggest breaks with this idea.

The A.I. is supposed to be the one that created the solution, it is not part of the solution, it doesn't act. You want him to talk with Shepard.But why? as long as Shepard doesn't reach the A.I. Why would it talk to Shepard? Shepard can fail at any time. The A.I. is just here for a solution, not to stop its own solution or defend it. It is here to apply a solution. As long as it works, why would it interfere with something, why would it change anything?

You want Shepard to be persuasive with an A.I.? When in Mass Effect is there something like that? You can't be persuasive with an A.I. With Legion you can help him to make a decision, but you never persuade a synthetic in the entire trilogy.

There are more things that can be discussed, it doesn't work for me.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

I think the problems started about a minute into Mass Effect 2.

[Valmar]

And what if it was Harbringer instead of the Catalyst?

The same as in the first post, but the one who's stalking you up to the Citadel's secret room is Harbringer.

What would have changed?

 

You'd still be having a reaper delivering to you the method for which to destroy the reapers. I'd rather keep them out of it completely. Hence why I'd prefer a prothean VI or a crucible scientist.

 

 

It would have been better, I mean foreshadowing is better than no shadowing. Just dropping the kid on us at the very end and expecting us to believe every word the REAPER OVERLORD was telling us.. well, no.

 

Leviathan DLC. A dlc created specifically for the foreshadowing you desire.

 

 

[wright1978]

No i wouldn't have liked it better. I view space brat as a cancer, so spreading him to every part of the game would be like infecting every organ in the body with that cancer. Personally i think the Reapers were much better before they tried to introduce bratticus.

 

However i'll say your scenario makes more sense. Also your endings would actually feel more rewarding(though i'm rather confused by the activate the crucible but the reapers depart) Surely crucible is rendered pointless via your endings. Rather than being forced onto your knees by the antagonist and told the 3 options it is allowing you to choose between with the artificial costs it has attached, the player would be placed in a position of persuasion towards reaper departure or reaper godhood.

[Esthlos]

I think ME3 needed an entire rewrite, not just a bunch of foreshadowing.

True, it seems to stem from far-fetched premises.
You start with a billions-years-old hostile race that wages a war you can't win and for which you never even prepared, because none of the warnings were heeded.

From this, they tried to give the game a proper "win" ending and to give the villain some background, presumably in order to not make them a clichè villain.

The problem is that the Reapers did not have a common, central, key something you can point out as Shepard's main objective.

In ME1 it was Saren.
In ME2 it was the collector's base.

But the Reapers, it looks like they were designed to not have one... to each be an independent and incredibly powerful entity.

I think that the reason why we ended up with a catalyst and a crucible at all is that the authors still wanted the game to have an objective and a mean to victory... so, they made them up.
An Intelligence never hinted at before and a mysterious apocaliptic superweapon that just randomly pops up at the start of the game.

Now, I personally don't have many problems with this... I can understand why they needed to take this out of a hat, and don't mind a few inconsistencies for the sake of having a plot.

What I'm not ok with is with the Intelligence being dropped at the very end, with its previous "foreshadowing" feeling like something rushed that was added as an afterthought, and with the choices not making sense on their own (why give up control to a random organic? why in Dedstroy the space magic didn't destroy just the Reapers, given that it is capable of the complexity and precision required to make synthesis even remotely thinkable? why let a 10 years old write synthesis?)
These could both be easily fixed by simply having the Intelligence make its proper appearance earlier, and changing the choices.

What I wanted to see is if the community shared this sentiment... seems not. ^^"

[Valmar]

What I'm not ok with is with the Intelligence being dropped at the very end, with its previous "foreshadowing" feeling like something rushed that was added as an afterthought, and with the choices not making sense on their own (why give up control to a random organic? why in Dedstroy the space magic didn't destroy just the Reapers, given that it is capable of the complexity and precision required to make synthesis even remotely thinkable? why let a 10 years old write synthesis?)
 

 

Leviathan DLC. Intelligence foreshadowed, potentially very early in the game.

 

Shepard is not a random organic. Shepard is special. Shepard is the embodiment of Rule of Cool.

Apparently, if you believe the forum goers, because making the crucible target all synthetics adds a 'negative' to the destroy choice so that it isn't completely favored.

Casey Hudson wrote it. 10 year old's would probably be more creative. Though if I remember correctly he mentioned Dues Ex was his favorite game... so. Allow me to put on my shock face.

[WizzyWarlock]

Leviathan DLC. Intelligence foreshadowed, potentially very early in the game.

I don't have the Leviathan DLC so I get no foreshadowing. That's the problem, the base game should tell the story, it should have everything in there that's required for the story to make sense. The original ending made no friggin' sense, it came out of nowhere, who the hell is this Catalyst kid? Am I supposed to believe him? Are these choices real? Is it really controlling the Reapers or is this all in my head? And that's where the Indoctrination Theory came from. With proper foreshadowing in the base game you wouldn't have had an I.T. because we would have known about the starbrat long before we met him.

[WizzyWarlock]

The A.I. is supposed to be the one that created the solution, it is not part of the solution, it doesn't act. You want him to talk with Shepard. But why? as long as Shepard doesn't reach the A.I. Why would it talk to Shepard? Shepard can fail at any time. The A.I. is just here for a solution, not to stop its own solution or defend it. It is here to apply a solution. As long as it works, why would it interfere with something, why would it change anything?

But Shepard never actually reached the Catalyst, he passed out in front of the control console and the Catalyst brought Shepard to him.

This is actually the main reason I think the whole Catalyst scene is a Leviathan-esque dreamscape made by Harbinger. There just happened to be an elevator right where he fell. He went unconscious just as he was about to fire the Crucible, much like Leviathan caused him to go unconscious the moment they made the dreamscape. The open space above with no visible shielding, as in, he's standing in a vacuum. The refuse voice being that of a Reaper. The Catalyst looking like an image from inside Shepard's head - how if someone isn't inside his head? And so on..

I think the intelligence is inside Harbinger, the Catalyst that we see is just an image for Shepard to talk to, much like the three choices are just visual representations of selections Shepard can make on the Crucible firing console.

But hey, that's just me.

[themikefest]

I don't have the Leviathan DLC so I get no foreshadowing. That's the problem, the base game should tell the story, it should have everything in there that's required for the story to make sense. The original ending made no friggin' sense, it came out of nowhere, who the hell is this Catalyst kid? Am I supposed to believe him? Are these choices real? Is it really controlling the Reapers or is this all in my head? And that's where the Indoctrination Theory came from. With proper foreshadowing in the base game you wouldn't have had an I.T. because we would have known about the starbrat long before we met him.

Until Leviathan was released, the only foreshadowing, if you want to call it foreshadowing, is when Vendetta mentions master on Thessia

[Valmar]

I don't have the Leviathan DLC so I get no foreshadowing. That's the problem, the base game should tell the story, it should have everything in there that's required for the story to make sense. The original ending made no friggin' sense, it came out of nowhere, who the hell is this Catalyst kid? Am I supposed to believe him? Are these choices real? Is it really controlling the Reapers or is this all in my head? And that's where the Indoctrination Theory came from. With proper foreshadowing in the base game you wouldn't have had an I.T. because we would have known about the starbrat long before we met him.

 

The base game does have everything for the story to make sense. I never said Leviathan was needed to make sense, I said it was there for foreshadowing.

 

The fact that you and others don't understand the story is just proof that Bioware should have done more hand-holding and paid more attention to their target audience. It ventured too far into Dark Souls territory of story telling, relying on the player to know lore and put the pieces together themselves. They take for granted how little the average player pays attention or remembers. Quite unfortunate really.

 

[WizzyWarlock]

The fact that you and others don't understand the story is just proof that Bioware should have done more hand-holding and paid more attention to their target audience. It ventured too far into Dark Souls territory of story telling, relying on the player to know lore and put the pieces together themselves. They take for granted how little the average player pays attention or remembers. Quite unfortunate really.

Not to put myself down here, I'm not that dumb.. honest. But you're right about that, they really should have kept things easy to follow. The first two games were pretty much straightforward, easy to follow stories, there was nothing complex about them, it was like popcorn action movies really. Then the theme and tone seemed to change with the third game, especially when you get to the ending. Were completely different writers involved in the last game or something? The whole story seems to lack the essence of what made Mass Effect 'Mass Effect', for me at least.

[angol fear]

The first two games were pretty much straightforward, easy to follow stories, there was nothing complex about them, it was like popcorn action movies really. Then the theme and tone seemed to change with the third game, especially when you get to the ending. Were completely different writers involved in the last game or something? The whole story seems to lack the essence of what made Mass Effect 'Mass Effect', for me at least.

 

Well, Mass Effect is post modernist since mass effect1, so that pretty normal you think it is like a popcorn movie. But actually, it is not a real popcorn movie. The writing of Mass effect 1 is clearly more complex than you think. Just one example that illustrate the way Mass Effect is written : the keeper's mission. The ending is just the way Mass effect 1 developed its own writing so it has got the "essence" of Mass Effect.

[Valmar]

Not to put myself down here, I'm not that dumb.. honest. But you're right about that, they really should have kept things easy to follow. The first two games were pretty much straightforward, easy to follow stories, there was nothing complex about them, it was like popcorn action movies really. Then the theme and tone seemed to change with the third game, especially when you get to the ending.

 

My sentiments exactly. ME1-2 were never this deep and didn't required the player to know lore or remember all these specific details. That isn't to say there wasn't depth to some of the story but the games overall were fairly straight forward and simple. Then ME3 comes in and takes things to a whole other level. I don't have a problem with that approach, I like stories that are deep and require you to pay attention to follow it... I just don't think ME3 was the right time to do that. That approach didn't suit the trilogy for me. It was too late for them to try to shift genres on us. If they started it in the first or even second game, okay. We know what were getting ourselves into. They didn't do that, though. They kinda just dropped it on us at the end.

 

The target audience they'd been aiming this trilogy towards were clearly not the type to expect or desire such an approach. The story makes sense if you follow the lore and pay attention to the details. If you just sit down and play the game and not bother to take this too seriously, you're kinda out of luck because the ending does nothing to really remind you any of the important details and just expects you to remember and piece it together yourself. If they spent 15 minutes doing a "recap" of the trilogy and highlighting all the elements of lore that lead to this moment, if they pieced it all together for you in some cinematic way... I think you'd have a lot less confused fans out there scratching their heads. Hell, they might actually be impressed with how much ties together.

 

 

Were completely different writers involved in the last game or something?

In a manner of speaking, yes. From what I understand the original lead writer for ME1-2 was replaced in ME3. The person who replaced him did work on the first two games but in a lesser capacity. I also hear that the original writer for Legion wasn't involved so that's likely why Legion and the geth are so radically changed in ME3.

 

As for who wrote the ending, well... [cough]

 

 

Well, Mass Effect is post modernist since mass effect1, so that pretty normal you think it is like a popcorn movie. But actually, it is not a real popcorn movie. The writing of Mass effect 1 is clearly more complex than you think. Just one example that illustrate the way Mass Effect is written : the keeper's mission. The ending is just the way Mass effect 1 developed its own writing so it has got the "essence" of Mass Effect.

 

ME1 had some complexity, sure. Though you could still sit down and play it without devoting your full attention and still be able to understand the general story. Saren bad. Reapers worse. Stop Saren, stop reapers from coming back, save the day, be hero.

 

ME2. Collectors work for reapers. Collectors bad, taking humans. Stop collectors. Be hero.

 

ME3. Reapers here. Stop reapers. Crucible docks. Whatever the hell that was. Be.. hero? Whats going on? Uh.... what just happened?

 

I can appreciate the depth the ending took, in hindsight, but if they wanted to be that deep they should had held our hand through the process so we don't get loss. There's a lot of lore to shift through, you know. Especially don't have your main character act like a complete dolt, completely forgetting all lore he SHOULD know. How can you expect the player to remember this stuff when your main character can't even remember?

 

Another issue the ending has, imo, is the fact that too many people view the last five minutes as the ending. I believe the trilogy should be viewed as one product. One story. The last few minutes with the catalyst isn't the ending. ME3 is the ending. Instead of viewing the lore given to us in ME3 as "this lore wasn't in the first two games so shouldn't count, came out of nowhere!" we should view it as "this is lore in the game." It doesn't necessarily have to go against the lore of ME1-2 just because it wasn't there - ME1-2 are an incomplete story. You have to view Mass Effect as a whole.

 

Despite Bioware's sale-pitch, ME3 is not the place to start the trilogy.

[shepskisaac]

Leviathan is not *needed* per say, but it's worth every cent and its a living proof how much proper presentation and exposition matters. Imagine if instead the original crappy Catalyst nonsense we got grand Levi conversation instead.

[angol fear]

ME1 had some complexity, sure. Though you could still sit down and play it without devoting your full attention and still be able to understand the general story. Saren bad. Reapers worse. Stop Saren, stop reapers from coming back, save the day, be hero.

 

ME2. Collectors work for reapers. Collectors bad, taking humans. Stop collectors. Be hero.

 

ME3. Reapers here. Stop reapers. Crucible docks. Whatever the hell that was. Be.. hero? Whats going on? Uh.... what just happened?

 

I can appreciate the depth the ending took, in hindsight, but if they wanted to be that deep they should had held our hand through the process so we don't get loss. There's a lot of lore to shift through, you know. Especially don't have your main character act like a complete dolt, completely forgetting all lore he SHOULD know. How can you expect the player to remember this stuff when your main character can't even remember?

 

[...]

 

Despite Bioware's sale-pitch, ME3 is not the place to start the trilogy.

 

Well that's quite a caricature. Mass effect is complex but the complexity should never be seen? People should be able to see Mass effect like a stupid game? That is your opinion, not mine, not Bioware and not anyone who knows what is complexity. Sorry but you don't appreciate the "depth the ending took" :it is the depth that was built from mass effect 1 to mass effect 3, if you don't see how the ending is related to Mass Effect 1, then you don't appreciate the ending. Just like I've said, the ending is the essence of Mass Effect, if you can't see it, then it's because you didn't really played Mass Effect 1 and 2.

 

Mass Effect is a place to start like  mass effect 2 is a place to start. That's marketing. Every game is a good place because it is meant to be, otherwise they would not sell. Do you really think you would say the same thing if you were a producer, and you were making a trilogy. Each game is developed to make even new people enjoy the whole story.

[Massa FX]

Despite Bioware's sale-pitch, ME3 is not the place to start the trilogy.

 

Agreed

[Arcian]

Would you have liked it better?

I'd sooner get mauled by a grizzly bear than have that little sh!t ruin the parts of Mass Effect 3 that were actually good.

[Arcian]

Leviathan is not *needed* per say

It's spelled "per se".

[shepskisaac]

It's spelled "per se".

Grammar fail, happens!