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[Killroy]

It's just not the same team of designers, being done out of Montreal. I don't know how much of the ME3 team transferred over, but despite the label and brand it's not the Bioware we're familiar with usually.

 

While it's true that the bulk of the ME3 team is not working on MEA, that's no reason to think the exploration in MEA will somehow be superb. It's a young, relatively inexperienced studio making MEA. Unless the studio happens to have a bunch of open-world savants that we don't know about we should probably just expect exploration to be a necessary annoyance in MEA.

[Akka le Vil]

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Reapers, unfortunately, are legion and are located "everywhere" in the MW galaxy. There is no way to find  and kill them all.

 

The idea of defeating the Reapers while they are dormant is key.  The action is to find the Catalyst and destroy it before it starts the pogrom. This ending is a viable one. While the various Council races prepare for war and the construction of the Crucible, Shep could follow a path that leads to the Catalyst and arrives "in time" to stop it. Bio could have Shep killed off while fighting the Catalyst and at the same time, ended the trilogy on a semi high note.

Remove the Catalyst, make instead a quest to assemble and convince all races and scientists to build a Council-Space weapon able to destroy the Reapers where they sleep, and I'm game.

The Catalyst Deus Ex Machina is an insult to the very concept of intelligence.

[Killroy]

What's really funny is that its the organics that find the solution without realizing its a solution until its hooked up to the Citadel and dumb dumb says its the ideal solution.

 

I too shoot the tube. I have no reason to choose the blue or green

 

But the priiiiiiiiize...

[themikefest]

But the priiiiiiiiize...

I don't give a crap about that. I shoot the tube every time

[Akka le Vil]

I found the circle ironic.

 

At first, the Conduit wasn't important. But Saren frakked up and got his Spectre status revoked, and then it became vital for him to find.

 

I don't know if you've ever played Planescape: Torment, but I suspect you'd find the part going into the endgame absolutely infuriating.

 

Spoiler

given the portal to the Fortress of Regrets turns out to be in the very same room where you woke up at the start of the game.

 

"I regret that I wandered all over the Planes when the damn portal was right here when I FIRST woke up"  

You can't seriously compare the plot quality of Torment and Mass Effect...

 

Torment had metaphysical irony. ME had plot holes. It's not because you can find some contrived look-alikes that they are even remotely on the same level.

[Killroy]

I don't give a crap about that. I shoot the tube every time

 

Every time? So do you just play the same Shepard over and over again? And why are you replaying the ending so many times? Any sensible person would just stop playing at Thessia. 

[themikefest]

Every time?

Yes
 

So do you just play the same Shepard over and over again?

No
 

And why are you replaying the ending so many times?

Because I can.
 

Any sensible person would just stop playing at Thessia.

Does that mean you've never completed ME3 if you stopped at Thessia?

[Killroy]

Does that mean you've never completed ME3 if you stopped at Thessia?

 

Only once. That was more than enough.

[In Exile]

While it's true that the bulk of the ME3 team is not working on MEA, that's no reason to think the exploration in MEA will somehow be superb. It's a young, relatively inexperienced studio making MEA. Unless the studio happens to have a bunch of open-world savants that we don't know about we should probably just expect exploration to be a necessary annoyance in MEA.

It's not a reason to think it's good, but it's also not a reason to per se think it'll have the same issues. Without knowing the resumes of the design team it's hard to say what experience they have - particularly since this was basically just the studio that did MP and Omega. Not really much of a resume and as I understand it Omega underwhelmed.

[N7M]

Oh, i didn't mean shoot the starbrat. I meant Destroy.

 

But either/or, I guess

 

In my latest playthough, Shep was stumbling backwards on his way to make his choice and I didn't know shooting the Catalyst triggered an ending.

 

My internal process at that moment of realization:

Spoiler

[Spectr61]

Oh, i didn't mean shoot the starbrat. I meant Destroy.

But either/or, I guess

PersonallyI find both Refuse and Destroy the most palatable of the unpalatable.

But Refuse more so because I get to shoot that little wanker and symbolically all it represents.

[Iakus]

I'm not sure I'd put them in the same category. 

 

Planescape Torment's ending is ironic because we had no legit reason to suspect what we were searching for would be at our origin point. From what I remember of Torment (it's been a while), we had to follow a trail of bread crumbs before we could figure out where the end to the journey was.

 

And that's what ME1 is, following breadcrumbs

 

 

 

The Saren plot point is moronic, by contrast, because, for all of the Reaper build-up, they ignored one of the most obvious breadcrumb trails to the Citadel problem. Coming full circle can make for a great plot point, just not if it involves turning your villains into fools.

 

I'm still not clear on this "most obvious breadcrumb trail" thing.  It seems to be based on the assumption that SOvereign has a magical diagnostic tool that can tell exactly what the Protheans sabotaged.

 

Not impossible, given the goofy space magic the ME trilogy was full of, I suppose.

 

 

For the two scenarios you're suggesting to be equivalent, we would need the Nameless One to ignore all the writing on his back from the game's start, then have somebody basically say at the end "hey, that writing on your back is the key to finding your mortality!".

 That would be the intact beacon on Ilos combined with the Cipher 

 

Please note, not saying ME1's story is anywhere near the equivalent of Planesape: Torment's.  Just saying that ME1's writing, while it has some nonsensical parts, doesn't rise to the brain-damaging levels of ME3, and in fact, has some aspects that in another game would be praised. 

[Iakus]

In my latest playthough, Shep was stumbling backwards on his way to make his choice and I didn't know shooting the Catalyst triggered an ending.

 

My internal process at that moment of realization:

Spoiler

YOU DARE EXPRESS DISSATISFACTION WITH THE CHOICES WE WERE SO KIND TO GIVE YOU!?

SO BE IT!!!!

 

Now reload and pick a color!

[AlanC9]

While it's true that the bulk of the ME3 team is not working on MEA, that's no reason to think the exploration in MEA will somehow be superb. It's a young, relatively inexperienced studio making MEA. Unless the studio happens to have a bunch of open-world savants that we don't know about we should probably just expect exploration to be a necessary annoyance in MEA.

Hey, it's not like the core Bio team are all that good at exploration themselves.

Or so I'm told, anyway. I liked DAI fine myself, but I'm not enough of an exploration fan to be able to tell the difference. And I thought ME1's exploration was a boring mess which detracted from the game. I don't see any problem with rolling the dice on a new team.

[AlanC9]

And that's what ME1 is, following breadcrumbs

I believe the point is that Sovereign wouldn't have been following breadcrumbs.

[Iakus]

I believe the point is that Sovereign wouldn't have been following breadcrumbs.

Why?  All Sovereign knows is something on the 45 kilometer long space station is broken.  If he had the magical diagnostic tool and can send Saren wandering around the Citadel with it, that would be another thing.

[Cyonan]

Why?  All Sovereign knows is something on the 45 kilometer long space station is broken.  If he had the magical diagnostic tool and can send Saren wandering around the Citadel with it, that would be another thing.

 

The other thing is that we know what was sabotaged was the Keeper's ability to receive the signal, meaning had they ever actually checked on the Citadel itself they wouldn't even have needed anything special to figure out what happened because it simply would have just worked. Whatever button the Keeper's used Saren could have just pressed to summon himself up some Reapers.

 

Not to mention that the conduit is just a relay to the Presidium. Shep is right behind Saren at that point and Saren never talked to Vigil(who is the only reason we as players know what happened), so he didn't have the time to study any sort of notes one can argue he might have found on Ilos.

 

It doesn't tell them anything beyond the Protheans got back to the Citadel and sabotaged something, which is information they already knew. After that failed they clearly went to manual activation mode based on no new additional data gained from finding the conduit, so why didn't they just make that plan A?

 

and that's all assuming they can't scan anything, which is itself not an absurd notion considering a Salarian/Volus duo was able to scrape enough together to figure out something isn't right with the Citadel. Reaper tech should have been miles ahead of Chorban, doubly so because they genetically engineered the Keepers.

[Iakus]

The other thing is that we know what was sabotaged was the Keeper's ability to receive the signal, meaning had they ever actually checked on the Citadel itself they wouldn't even have needed anything special to figure out what happened because it simply would have just worked. Whatever button the Keeper's used Saren could have just pressed to summon himself up some Reapers.

 

Not to mention that the conduit is just a relay to the Presidium. Shep is right behind Saren at that point and Saren never talked to Vigil(who is the only reason we as players know what happened), so he didn't have the time to study any sort of notes one can argue he might have found on Ilos.

 

It doesn't tell them anything beyond the Protheans got back to the Citadel and sabotaged something, which is information they already knew. After that failed they clearly went to manual activation mode based on no new additional data gained from finding the conduit, so why didn't they just make that plan A?

 

and that's all assuming they can't scan anything, which is itself not an absurd notion considering a Salarian/Volus duo was able to scrape enough together to figure out something isn't right with the Citadel. Reaper tech should have been miles ahead of Chorban, doubly so because they genetically engineered the Keepers.

But we don't know how the Keepers open the relay.    We don't know if the controls are accessible to Saren, or if he is even physically capable of activating whatever controls were used.  All we know is Sovereign has to access the Citadel personally

 

A weak point, I admit.

 

Remember, Shepard went back to the Citadel, reported to the Council, had the Normandy put on lockdown, met with Anderson, and escaped from the Citadel before going to Ilos.  Whereas Saren could simply go straight there.  Saren had a head start of hours, if not days.  Plenty of time to find notes.  Especially given he had the Cipher too.

 

Once they found it was the Keepers that were sabotaged (remember, it took decades for the Protheans to find a way to do this, likely lots of notes to be found there) , perhaps they decided the direct confrontation was the next best option.  Even if the Keepers could be repaired enough to open the relay, at this point Saren was exposed and couldn't possibly do it.  

 

Chorban didn't discover something wrong with the Citadel, he discovered that the Keepers were supposed to react to "something" every fifty thousand years or so.  Sovereign would go "Well DUH!" at that.  That the Keepers were bioengineered was discovered later, when Chorban got a look at pieces of Sovereign.

[Iakus]

Hey, it's not like the core Bio team are all that good at exploration themselves.

Or so I'm told, anyway. I liked DAI fine myself, but I'm not enough of an exploration fan to be able to tell the difference. And I thought ME1's exploration was a boring mess which detracted from the game. I don't see any problem with rolling the dice on a new team.

If MEA's exploration was more like Jaws of Hakkon and less like the Exalted Plains, exploration should be fine.

[Cyonan]

But we don't know how the Keepers open the relay.    We don't know if the controls are accessible to Saren, or if he is even physically capable of activating whatever controls were used.  All we know is Sovereign has to access the Citadel personally

 

A weak point, I admit.

 

Remember, Shepard went back to the Citadel, reported to the Council, had the Normandy put on lockdown, met with Anderson, and escaped from the Citadel before going to Ilos.  Whereas Saren could simply go straight there.  Saren had a head start of hours, if not days.  Plenty of time to find notes.  Especially given he had the Cipher too.

 

Once they found it was the Keepers that were sabotaged (remember, it took decades for the Protheans to find a way to do this, likely lots of notes to be found there) , perhaps they decided the direct confrontation was the next best option.  Even if the Keepers could be repaired enough to open the relay, at this point Saren was exposed and couldn't possibly do it.  

 

Chorban didn't discover something wrong with the Citadel, he discovered that the Keepers were supposed to react to "something" every fifty thousand years or so.  Sovereign would go "Well DUH!" at that.  That the Keepers were bioengineered was discovered later, when Chorban got a look at pieces of Sovereign.

 

We don't need to know, because we know that the Reapers do on account of them having designed the whole system. If we know that Sovereign knows how to open the Relay we have to question why he didn't just open with that.

 

If we assume they did actually manage to find something on Ilos to tell them what happened and their thinking was "well we're too exposed now" why didn't they just go to plan B the moment Saren lost spectre status? He was already exposed at that point.

 

The point is that Chorban was able to figure out the general idea as to what the Keepers were for by using a basic medical scanner he adapted to work on the Keepers. We know that Reaper tech is far more advanced and they have far greater knowledge of the Keepers and the Citadel than any other beings. Even if they don't possess a scanner to check them, it should have been trivial to make one with that knowledge and tech level that Saren could use.

 

The idea that the Reapers understand their own systems so little that they actually needed the Prothean notes to figure out what's wrong with them already suggests an even higher level of incompetence on their behalf than I've been saying they have.

[Iakus]

 

If we assume they did actually manage to find something on Ilos to tell them what happened and their thinking was "well we're too exposed now" why didn't they just go to plan B the moment Saren lost spectre status? He was already exposed at that point.

 

Because at that point, they didn't know if the Protheans had dome something to the Citadel itself.  Bull-rushing the Citadel only to find out that, whoops, Sovereign can't access the relay wither would have been really really embarrassing 

[Cyonan]

Because at that point, they didn't know if the Protheans had dome something to the Citadel itself.  Bull-rushing the Citadel only to find out that, whoops, Sovereign can't access the relay wither would have been really really embarrassing 

 

but if they had found sabotage what were they going to do? It's not like Saren could have fixed it because he would have been shot the moment he showed up.

 

The whole thing has way too many holes for me to believe Sovereign wasn't a massive idiot regardless of which route one wants to argue.

[Hadeedak]

I've picked all the choices on varying Shepards.

 

But I do have a funny ending choice story. My husband was playing at 3am, and by the vagaries of life, he was in another state. So I'd told him to keep going through a part that was kicking his butt, and he launched into the ending (pre-extended cut). This is 3am, and he's a bit out of it, and his Skype messages are increasingly disjointed. So he's like "I dunno, I guess I'm going to pick the red one". And I, remembering his favorite character, respond as quickly as I can via text. "What about EDI?"

 

Two seconds later, "OH NO OH DAMNIT <obscenties> I CAN'T TURN BACK!"

[Kabraxal]

If MEA's exploration was more like Jaws of Hakkon and less like the Exalted Plains, exploration should be fine.

 

Hey now, walking through the ruins and finding mutilated bodies around along with the few ruins scattered throughout was quite an experience to me... granted Jaws was astounding, but I think the Exalted Plains gets way too much of a bad rap.  I think the Forbidden Oasis is probably the one, that while interesting to look at, seems disconnected from the rest of the world in such a way I do not get much added back into the lore or story as compared to every other zone. 

 

As for the endings of ME3... refuse, reload, headcanon victory, Citadel celebration with only two lines having to be ignored.  That is my canon.  And no, you cannot change my mind! 

[Killroy]

Hey, it's not like the core Bio team are all that good at exploration themselves.

But that's my point. BioWare isn't good at exploration. There's no reason to assume the new team, which up to now has only done MP and a corridor-shooter DLC, will knock exploration out of the park.
 

Or so I'm told, anyway. I liked DAI fine myself, but I'm not enough of an exploration fan to be able to tell the difference. And I thought ME1's exploration was a boring mess which detracted from the game. I don't see any problem with rolling the dice on a new team.

DAI doesn't have exploration because there's nothing to find. DAI has a series of boring vacations. 

 

"Hey, what's that over there?"

"It's nothing."

"Hey, what's that over there?"

"It's nothing."

"Hey, what's that over there?"

"It's still nothing."