That's the problem. We get so many different answers from them, but sometimes they seem confusing. Like saying Shepard was under rubble on the Citadel, then they make the rebar comment which relates to London.
What rebar comment?
Anyway, when the lead writer says there wasn't a plan, I believe him. But it's conceivable that he's lying to cover up his colleagues' incompetence and there really was a plan, sure.
It was at a convention panel. One of them made a comment about how Shepard survived and said the rebar. It was a silly moment of joking, but it made people confused. I think everyone's confused on where Shepard ended up, even the people involved lol
I doubt there was any lying, just a mass amount of confusion and an attempt to make sense of it all. I know I've done that myself when writing stories.
Dude... like I said, you can't actually finish ME3 without moving Normandy between systems without using a relay. No reading required.
And? It's a common occurrence on forums but what you've done is made a strawman out of a couple of lines from the precis of an idea to attack it and somehow turned it into an ad hominem as well.
I'm not seeking your approval for whatever idea I put forward about ME3, like I said, it's academic. The only conversation that I'm interested in is that is it fair to criticize the irrelevance of ME2 if none of its ideas have been used in the succeeding game?
LOL I tried but someone always lives. I don't know how to do it.
Easy
I don't see why they couldn't make Miranda a squadmate. She has the highest odds of surviving the suicide mission, she has about as much impact on the story as Garrus or Tali does, it'd give you another biotic on the squad with having to rely on Liara, buying Javik, keeping Kaiden alive or make Shepard a biotic class. Plus the Normandy is the safest place to hide from Cerberus and she'd find her sister better with the help of Liara's resources.
Easy
Spoiler
Awesome! I'm trying that on my current Renegade playthough! Thanks!
Awesome! I'm trying that on my current Renegade playthough! Thanks!
Make sure to post your playthrough in the "What I did in ME today" thread. I'm sure folks will enjoy reading about your playthrough
And? It's a common occurrence on forums but what you've done is made a strawman out of a couple of lines from the precis of an idea to attack it and somehow turned it into an ad hominem as well.
I'm not seeking your approval for whatever idea I put forward about ME3, like I said, it's academic. The only conversation that I'm interested in is that is it fair to criticize the irrelevance of ME2 if none of its ideas have been used in the succeeding game?
The idea's unworkable because its premise is flawed. That premise is flawed because you don't understand the lore.
I don't see where an ad hominem comes in. I'm judging your ideas, not you.
If you don't want your ideas debated, why are you posting ideas?
The idea being debated here is whether ME2 should be blamed for ME3 not using its concepts/plot points at all. My 'idea' was a suggestion of how an issue raised in ME2 could have been used in the next one to show that it is possible without retconning an entire game. You have made a strawman out of a couple of lines from that suggestion and used it to bash the central idea of this thread. I'm sorry if I'm not ready to debate a side-thread that you created because I can still firmly set my sights on what is actually being discussed here.
As for premise being flawed, details flesh out a premise. Do you honestly think I'm going to work out every kink and spoon-feed you every detail in a two paragraph example of how the DE plot could have been taken forward? If this were possible, people wouldn't bother with novels or 2 hour movies. Why do that if it's possible to condense complex stories to a paragraph or a vine video?
The idea being debated here is whether ME2 should be blamed for ME3 not using its concepts/plot points at all. My 'idea' was a suggestion of how an issue raised in ME2 could have been used in the next one to show that it is possible without retconning an entire game.
To be fair here LineHolder, I love ME2, but I acknowledge the fact that it does not advance the plot in anyway. Not even by the protagonist perspective. I grant that we get some exposition on the reapers and we get some great characters, but that is it. ME2 would have been better suited as a side story. Now, had the crucible been introduced in ME2 we would be talking some business.But in the end ME2, while very good on its own, does really lead to the faults of ME3 due to the fact that nothing really happens in ME2. After that, given the rushed timeframe EA gave bioware, this was a recipe for disaster.
While I do blame EA for a lot of ME3's failings, I do note to look at bioware for a lot as well. (regarding the building and writing of ME2).
To be fair here LineHolder, I love ME2, but I acknowledge the fact that it does not advance the plot in anyway. Not even by the protagonist perspective. I grant that we get some exposition on the reapers and we get some great characters, but that is it. ME2 would have been better suited as a side story. Now, had the crucible been introduced in ME2 we would be talking some business.But in the end ME2, while very good on its own, does really lead to the faults of ME3 due to the fact that nothing really happens in ME2. After that, given the rushed timeframe EA gave bioware, this was a recipe for disaster.
While I do blame EA for a lot of ME3's failings, I do note to look at bioware for a lot as well. (regarding the building and writing of ME2).
And I am completely ok with your view. I acknowledge that people don't think ME2 advanced the plot in anyway. I am not saying that you guys are wrong at all. In fact, when viewed as a trilogy as it stands now ME2 does stick out like a sore thumb.
I merely tried to have a new perspective on why this is and my contention is that it is because ME3 dumped whatever (little or substantial) ME2 brought up and went off in another direction with the Crucible. Now perhaps if ME3 had persisted with DE (no, not the leaked script) or with Reaperization processes etc, ME2 wouldn't have been called the adopted child. The transition from 2 to 3 may have been seamless.
As for blaming EA, I recall MrFob making an argument in a thread around here recently that the ending of ME3 (starchild scenes) has a lot of detail in terms of choreography and vistas that brings into question if ME3 was actually rushed or not. Now I think it may not have been so. ME3 is down to Bioware and no one else, in my view.
The grim-dark-touchy-feely-profoundness attempt may just as well have been a reflection of entertainment media around the time of 2012. That it was far removed from the hard sci-fi roots of earlier parts of Mass Effect is ... unfortunate.
I already addressed this in previous posts in this topic, but here goes,
If the 3rd part of a story dumps *everything* its predecessor put forward, of course the 2nd part is going to look detached and stupid. Instead of making what they had already done work somehow, it was flushed down the toilet without any attempt to save face. Saying ME2 was already wandering down a different path maybe true enough but what's the point in spiriting away to an entirely new thread? What could have been done in ME3 is entirely academic anyway. All I am saying is that it could have continued from what was established in ME2.
ME3 didn't dump everything ME2 put forward. That's rather the problem, because ME2 didn't put a plan forward in the first place- and much of the stuff ME3 did drop was largely unworkable or unthought.
Dark Energy remained as technobabble it always was. The squadmates were reflected for being dead or not. There was still no clue as to WTF the Reapers were actually trying to do. ME3 still built on ME2's end-game (and DLC's) implications that victory wasn't going to be by the Cycle's own strength, but rather from some macguffin from the past.
ME3 could have chosen different elements from ME2 to build on, but they would have all been equally arbitrary implementations and made-up-on-the-fly. ME2 was always going to be detached because, again, ME2 never planned how anything would attach to it.
As for the fate of the squad mates suddenly being important to their arcs in the 3rd game, consider this,
1. Shepard can *also* die. Yet we have a 3rd game featuring him as the main protagonist. There's no Lazarus Project 2.0 in ME3 to hand wave that away.
There's also no import if Shepard died. It's explicitly a non-canon outcome of the Suicide Mission, just like dying with Morinth.
2. The fate of the Collector Base makes no difference either way in the 3rd. The ME3 plot doesn't reference it meaningfully at all. It doesn't expand upon the 'techno-babble' of the 2nd, it is just ignored and only serves as a checksum for having additional choices depending upon EMS (whatever this was supposed to mean anyway). It may certainly have been stupid to impose that choice but it's evident now that nothing was learned when the rainbow ending was imposed upon the end of ME3 again.
The fate of the collector Base doesn't matter because 'destruction' is the same concept as 'death' with characters: all plotlines have to accept the absence when being created. Short of entirely differing plot narratives- which Bioware has repeatedly declined to do because of resource restrictions- or letting players get epically screwed over by a choice of the previous game- which would be antithetical to Bioware's general proclaimed design philosophy with ME's moral choices- plots will run by the lowest common denominator. Whatever can be justified by the 'destruction' route, in other words.
This extremely foreseeable problem, just like the rest of the suicide mission's casualty implications, was seen back after ME2.
If ME2's writing had a plan for what the Collector Base was supposed to do, it might have helped- but it's rather apparent they didn't. They just punted, when they never should have.
To me it's quite clear 'choices' and 'consequences' are not something that was understood during the creation and production of this series. The interpretation of these two words is all over the place. Because if the 'consequence' of Shepard dying in ME2 is meaningless, why does it not apply to selected squad mates from that game as well?
Because Shepard dying was something the devs said even at ME2's release was non canon. It is impossible to import a 'Shepard dead' Suicide Mission into ME3. ME3 only begins with an import save of Shepard surviving, or no save with shepard surviving.
But you are correct that consequences were never thought through. That was never more apparent than in ME2, which dumped the previous game's end-game decision (and ending) to go it's own way by dumping the -insert final council- here and the acceptance of fighting the Reapers, didn't even provide cameo/reflection content for a number of possible ME1 choices (which themselves, for all the core plot choices, were variants of 'kill X or not'), and didn't even concern itself with deciding what the Reapers actually want to do even as it made revelations about the Reapers the big plot reveal.
Fortunately, bringing us back to the subject of the thread, these were all things ME2, not ME3, is responsible for.
It's similar to passionate discussions people used to have on this place 3-4 years ago ... discussing which ME3 ending would be canon and such (not that I want to revive that again ... god, no).
Except there's an actual answer to the ME2 suicide mission, hence why there was no passionate debate about Shepard's survival 6 years ago in ME2. It wasn't in question.
Shepard survives the suicide mission. Anyone else can die. That's what's canon compatible.
Do you know how long codex entries are? Are you aware of how long it takes to play the trilogy completely? I suppose one can measure them in hundreds of pages and hundreds of hours.
What, you never saw the cutscenes in which the Normandy gets out of FTL nowhere near a relay? Or played Legion's loyalty mission out in the middle of darkspace? Or drove the little ship around the star systems? ME2 and ME3 both even went through the trouble of actually putting the relays in the systems that had them, while leaving them out of the systems that didn't.
(I'll give a pass on not reading the planet descriptions, but it's there too.)
No complete playthrough is required. ME2 alone is enough. (Irony.)
I apologize for not working out all the kinks of an idea in a two paragraph precis. Perhaps if you'd pay me, I could come up with a more professional looking draft.
You'd need to establish a reputation for competence and content first. Professional looks don't matter if the content is based on ignorance and a denial of the source material.
What, you never saw the cutscenes in which the Normandy gets out of FTL nowhere near a relay? Or played Legion's loyalty mission out in the middle of darkspace? Or drove the little ship around the star systems? ME2 and ME3 both even went through the trouble of actually putting the relays in the systems that had them, while leaving them out of the systems that didn't.
(I'll give a pass on not reading the planet descriptions, but it's there too.)
No complete playthrough is required. ME2 alone is enough. (Irony.)
You'd need to establish a reputation for competence and content first. Professional looks don't matter if the content is based on ignorance and a denial of the source material.
The idea being debated here is whether ME2 should be blamed for ME3 not using its concepts/plot points at all. My 'idea' was a suggestion of how an issue raised in ME2 could have been used in the next one to show that it is possible without retconning an entire game. You have made a strawman out of a couple of lines from that suggestion and used it to bash the central idea of this thread. I'm sorry if I'm not ready to debate a side-thread that you created because I can still firmly set my sights on what is actually being discussed here.
As for premise being flawed, details flesh out a premise. Do you honestly think I'm going to work out every kink and spoon-feed you every detail in a two paragraph example of how the DE plot could have been taken forward? If this were possible, people wouldn't bother with novels or 2 hour movies. Why do that if it's possible to condense complex stories to a paragraph or a vine video?
Hey, it's like someone can't address counter-arguments and repeats the same thing as if it addresses the points already raised!
Well, this is going to be fun.
Well you aren't some special snowflake that requires specially directed answers because
This would be a bit more compelling if you hadn't and weren't right now specifically directed a response towards me...
1. You usually don't bother to read farther than a post you want to reply to
...and if this weren't false, and an ironic use of strawmanning a view onto me like you so self-righteously protested against earlier...
2. Your post wasn't original in this thread either, AlanC9 beat you to it
...and if I hadn't brought up some separate and other points from Alan, enough so that your response doesn't actually match to what I wrote.
...and if this weren't false, and an ironic use of strawmanning a view onto me like you so self-righteously protested against earlier...
...and if I hadn't brought up some separate and other points from Alan, enough so that your response doesn't actually match to what I wrote.
You're not using "strawman" correctly there. I was not discussing that dark energy idea as a way to attack your idea that ME3 should have used ME2 plot points. I wasn't discussing that at all. I thought MrFob took care of that upthread by pointing out that your proposals didn't actually improve anything, and Dean's working the angle that there's no theoretical possibility for this to work.The idea being debated here is whether ME2 should be blamed for ME3 not using its concepts/plot points at all. My 'idea' was a suggestion of how an issue raised in ME2 could have been used in the next one to show that it is possible without retconning an entire game. You have made a strawman out of a couple of lines from that suggestion and used it to bash the central idea of this thread. I'm sorry if I'm not ready to debate a side-thread that you created because I can still firmly set my sights on what is actually being discussed here.
"Premise" as in "the basic preconditions for the proposed idea." If those preconditions aren't true, adding more details can't help anything; you'd just pile more structure on top of a broken foundation.As for premise being flawed, details flesh out a premise.
"Persisted with" is a strange way to describe it. Persist with.... something that was mentioned twice in the course of ME2 and had no real significance there?I merely tried to have a new perspective on why this is and my contention is that it is because ME3 dumped whatever (little or substantial) ME2 brought up and went off in another direction with the Crucible. Now perhaps if ME3 had persisted with DE (no, not the leaked script) or with Reaperization processes etc, ME2 wouldn't have been called the adopted child. The transition from 2 to 3 may have been seamless.
Don't dish it if you can't take it.
Also, I notice you're not pretending to be too high and mighty to reply directly to me now. Want to try defending your factually inaccurate arguments again, or keep on this?
Besides strawman doesn't mean what you think it means, or at least how you are using the word here. *ironic*
In the sense of creating a hypothetical position for someone else and arguing against it on the basis of the misrepresentation?
If that's the use we're using, irony is appropriate. Certainly kinder than some other choices.
You didn't.
Alternative hypothesis- I did, but you were lazy and decided to copy paste rather than address a similar themed but separatly framed position.
"Persisted with" is a strange way to describe it. Persist with.... something that was mentioned twice in the course of ME2 and had no real significance there?
So the concept you're pushing is that simply having the words "dark energy" pop up somehow would have fixed something?
I'm fairly sure 'Protheans' were mentioned a time or three in ME2.
Sure, there was nothing actually linking them to a solution for the Reapers, they were Important and there was some foreshadowing from Shadow Broker that they they were relevant going forward and since the galaxy wasn't doing anything now Shepard was having to go around the galaxy looking for Ancient and Important things to help stop the Reapers, just like ME1 centered around beating the Reapers with devices from previous cycles.
Clearly building on that little would have been enough.
I'd say instead of ME 3 not building on ME 2's plot, rather, that ME 2 was written as a stand alone game rather than as a vehicle to progress the Reaper plot established in Mass Effect. They didn't even start writing ME 3 until after ME 2 shipped, and they deliberately aimed to write ME 3 as much a stand alone game as possible, as "the perfect entry point into the series."
A phrase which was much bandied about in response to the question "Should new players get the previous games in the trilogy?"
I'd say instead of ME 3 not building on ME 2's plot, rather, that ME 2 was written as a stand alone game rather than as a vehicle to progress the Reaper plot established in Mass Effect. They didn't even start writing ME 3 until after ME 2 shipped, and they deliberately aimed to write ME 3 as much a stand alone game as possible, as "the perfect entry point into the series."
A phrase which was much bandied about in response to the question "Should new players get the previous games in the trilogy?"
That's pretty much it, but what you miss out by skipping ME2 is much better results in ME3 with priority missions. ME2 is my fav in the franchise tbh, and gives you the best of both ME1 and ME3 imo.
And my fav part of ME2 and the unique relationship between The Illusive Man and Shepard. Newcomers completely miss that little connection if they skip 2, and because he's your final confrontation in ME3, it leaves less of an impact if you never played the second game.
Hey, I was arguing back in 2010 that ME2 did nothing to advance the overall plot. And how wtf-inducing Cerberus' metamorphosis was. 
But given ME2 dumped just about everything ME1 related, crew and all, I find it surprising people were surprised when ME3 did the exact same thing to ME2's story and crew. Complete with a brand-spanking-new iteration of Cerberus.
But really, I don' think ME3 would have been any better if they did carry over more stuff. Because frankly, ME2 was mostly flying around recruiting random people, solving their personal (often daddy-related) issues so everyone can team up (for a given value of "team") to fight bug-people who appear in exactly three missions.
Could a "dark energy" ending have been implemented? Maybe? Would it have been "better"? hard to say (though I hardly think it would have been any worse) But we'll never know because it doesn't sound like it got past an idea stage. We simply don't know what final form it would have had.
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