EA has a habit of forcing rush jobs with or without multiplayer, for a long time now.theluckyjosh said:
Just look at Ultima 8 and 9; they were absolutely horrid primarily due to the ridiculously short development schedule.
4 Reasons Why The Mass Effect 3 Debate Refuses to Die
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
Just look at Ultima 8 and 9; they were absolutely horrid primarily due to the ridiculously short development schedule.
4173 said:
Well Sovreign isn't lying. The whole Reaper "plan" is to seed the galaxy with artifacts close to the various worlds of primitives they didn't kill in their latest genocide, knowing that these artifacts would be discovered when these species first developed space travel, and would be exploited for technology which would in turn mean everyone would evolve along predictable lines, travelling through space the same way, using the same basic weapons, and they know after X number of thousand years pretty much what they will be facing. The whole basic idea is that a single, Reaper comes through, takes over The Citadel which was left behind intentionally for this purpose, figures out who is out there and then brings in the rest of the fleet to engage in systematic extermination. The whole plan relies on this being a surprise attack and knowing what they will be facing.
To some extent this worked, after all, despite some stylistic differences all the various species all use the same basic technologies. You don't see stuff like in other science fiction with say one race having warp drives, another race having space fold technology, and another using some kind of psionic rifting, and say radically different weapons that achieve similar results in different ways like say phasers (particles phased through different wavelengths and nearby dimensions) and disruptors (a brute force attack on molecular bonds, hence the name "disruptor" that separates what is holding physical objects or solidified energy constructs together). Meaning that the Reapers don't have to predict and be ready for 200 different ways of blowing holes in them all of which would require a separate countermeasure.
What went wrong this time was that in their previous cycle they happened to run into a rather tenacious species called The Protheans that just did not give up, and were smart enough to start adapting much faster than the Reapers expected. They were still doomed, but they did an unusual amount of damage, and what's more decided to play the Reapers' game right back with them and left behind their own artifacts to warn the species about what was coming so they would be less... predictable. As well as trying to leave some of their new tech that they knew was working to give an edge, as well as jumpstart the Reaper's own tech process so people would be a bit ahead of what was expected of them. Due to the artifacts they left behind The Protheans were viewed as being far more benevolent than they actually were (they were themselves a xenophobic, highly-aggressive species, that felt superior to everyone else... but they wanted revenge and were willing to strike back from beyond the grave.. as well as planning to try and hide some of their own people to survive which failed).
In the current timeline people got the message too late, in part because the Protheans were so different from other species that they couldn't get the full range of information. Hints in the game imply that the Protheans tampered with humanity (an artifact you can activate with the Consort's key in ME1 for example) which is why some humans can interface with Prothean technology to a limited degree, and also why the most important artifact was located in space Humans would predictably advance into. The point here being that the whole "humans as the central species" thing is not quite as luck dependent as some people think, it was part of the plan. I suppose there is some hubris in saying that the "chosen ones" would be humans given that humans are making and playing the game, but at the end of the day it has to be someone, and it's been done the other way as well with having to find special aliens as a Macguffin in other series (such as the Peacemakers.. the departed patron race of the Peacekeepers in the final sequence of Farscape, or Aeris in Final Fantasy VII).
In the end the trickle of Prothean information was almost too late, but allowed Sovreign to be headed off, preventing him from activating The Citadel and making the threat known, and giving all of the current species time to prepare.
The problem with ME3 is that while in ME2 there is a big show being made of ignoring the Reaper threat, you find out that different species are experimenting with the technology. The Turians for example adapting Sovreign's cannons, and Reaper tech being intergrated into various ship systems. How much they were actually ignoring what was going on, is a matter of opinion, because there is plenty of side evidence that says that they were just downplaying their view of the threat to avoid giving humanity credit. Even if they were dismissing it other than some research, by the end of ME2 the whole point is that the threat is clear, and you have foiled the whole Reaper backup plan, so bought yet more time, as well as seizing more of their tech and intelligence about them.
The biggest problem with Mass Effect was of course the big question of why The Reapers would do something like this. It's a clever plan, but really it's idiotic to assume they would go about this all for "the lulz", being machines someone had to have created them as well. The crap inherent in ME3 is that I think they just didn't have a good answer themselves so tried to fart something out and hope people would take it, spending more time worrying about the journey than how they are going to end this whole bloody thing. A problem compounded by them wanting to turn it into a franchise.
Now to make this a dual response (of others are reading like Trunkage) I'm going to answer the question of how I would answer this at the end of this long post:
The first thing a person has to understand is that the concepts of Mass Effect are sort of a rip off to begin with. A lot of vintage science fiction fans were comparing this to Fred Saberhagen's "Berserker" series (which is quite lengthy, including novels and short stories). Those stories being what also inspired the Star Trek "Doomsday Machine". The idea being pretty much that an ancient alien species goes to war, they create these giant genocide weapons, both sides wind up destroying each other, and the weapons they made go about their job except devoid of any other purposes except "kill everything" they do exactly that. The Berserkers can actually be pretty clever, they learn and evolve, and use things like infiltration tactics, I believe it's also mentioned that they actually fear success to an extent because once everything is dead except them, who do they continue to kill? As a result sometimes they like to prolong the inevitable. For those that have seen "Macross 7" this is a very similar concept to the Protodevlin that destroyed the previous precursor races the so called "Protoculture" that developed them and seeded the other species. The main difference is Macross 7 used life-sucking biological entities as opposed to planet-wrecking AI space ships.
In the "Berserker" stories they take place before, after, and during the battles against The Berserkers. There are also concepts involved like people merging themselves into Berserkers to take it over (I believe it was called "Berserker Man" creatively enough... lol) and certain battles like Stone Heath (I think it was called, it's been a very long time) where the Berserkers are finally defeated as a major force fit into the whole mythology. Of course there are a LOT of Berserkers and even after they are defeated the few survivors continue to be threats, ramping up the infiltration, and of course you have stories where say a space liner (which actually defends itself fairly well, showing the advancement of technology since previously a Berserker would have ripped apart a fleet like nothing) is taken out, and the badly damaged berserker downloads a database and flies off to demolish a planet before it expires, much to the lulz of the guy whose Database it downloaded since it was an Encyclopedia salesman, and the "prime target" it went after did not exist being an entry the company created just to pad out the Encyclopedia entities (a colony of so little note, nobody would ever want to visit it, or notice it didn't exist).
A few old fogeys and "vintage" sci-fi fans like me who somewhat remember "Berserker" of course made predictions about how this would end, because frankly things drawing on this inspiration tend to involve the same basic solutions, and ultimate answers. Reprogramming, unexpected suicide tactics, holding the line until new tech and tactics are developed, the deception of an AI that does not understand human thought or emotion, etc. There are a few different ways of doing it.
Given the desire to remove Shepard from the story (they mentioned he would end with the trilogy) I was predicting especially when we were told there would be multiple endings, that you might say see an ending where Shepard would merge with a Reaper and take over it's central intelligence and use it and it's technology to save everyone (and pump up the tech base). You might also see endings where Shepard say performs a suicide run and blows up some kind of flag ship, or whatever else. There are plenty of ways to address the threat. What's more given the desires for a franchise, even being defeated "The Reapers" could very well be kept around, as individual survivors would continue to try and do their thing, and people could spend centuries fighting the last stragglers, allowing them to remain a galactic threat always plotting to come back from the shadows, present, even while the universe moves on to other things.
To be honest I would probably change the ending this way, and it would become a lot more complicated as a result:
I'd have the end sequence begin with an attack on The Citadel, where your choices about security and such there would play a key role in how the battle plays out. Since The Reapers want it intact, it would turn into an internal battle, trying to beat the reapers and their minions to the central control mechanisms. The difficulty of this in terms of the amount of time you have and what allies you receive being dependent on defense choices made earler. Perhaps being an algorithim where the more "humane" you were the harder things are combat wise, but the longer you have to complete the mission.
At that point it determines whether The Citadel heads to earth or not. Either way Shepard escapes (having an exit plan even if his assault fails).
If The Citadel heads to earth your pretty much dealing with a sort of sucky ending for the planet whatever happens since a major ground-land battle on a planetary scale with tons of orbital bombardment is not going to be good for the people living there or the environment.
The ending would of course be similar without any Star Child, the amount of resources you've accumulated of course determines how well the good guys do. Similar to the whole "potential failure" in ME2, when you finally retake The Citadel and it's command center, you either get an ending where Shepard stays the day and pretty much retires a hero (going back to command in the military) or dies heroically in the process. A basic good/bad ending that go to the
same place.
If The Citadel is saved, the allied fleet of course arrives there and the battle happens out in space so we don't see Earth get decimated in the fighting, giving the potential of different endings. Shepard winds up fighting defensively against last ditch Reaper efforts to get control, in something similar to the end of "Halo Reach" but where if you last long enough The Reapers eventually lose enough outside to stop sending guys and the surviving ones retreat. Keeping in the spirit of the good/bad ending route your resources should matter and again the game ends similarly to the above where Shepard either retiring to command, or dying heroically in the final battle. The whole point here and above is Shepard is an epic hero, his amazing death compensating for the lack of resources.
A final "best" ending would exist for the people who beat all of the previous games. In this ending Shepard has learned enough about The Reapers, and has the support from both psionic species like the Rakni, technology experts, and the Geth shared consciousness to effectively attempt to invade the Reaper flagship mentally. This leads to a virtual space battle like in some previous games where memory constructs of Shepard's companions assist him at key moments. The enslaved minds absorbed into the Reapers rebel given their opportunity, and Shepard takes over the central link, and with their help forces the Reapers to suddenly malfunction. A few of the strongest ones warp away (to present threats in other games) other self destruct, or get spend back into subspace without a timing beacon home. Shepard, in command of the Flagship says his farewells and departs since "it's too powerful for anyone to have, but he'll be around if needed" and becomes one of the greatest legends of space... with spacers for millennium talking about how they might have seen him, or how in a desperate moment against space pirates or something a massive ship appeared, leveled the bad guys, and then left without a word.
Now on some levels this still sort of "sucks" but I'm going with the whole desire to end Shepard's story so he won't appear in ME4. He can either be off on earth leading (and simply mentioned as "Commander Shepard" in audio logs, you don't even need to show him/her), or dead/departed.
To be fair I suspect they didn't do something like this specifically because of the people making "Berserker" references and they didn't want to do it the same way as everyone else, so they decided to mess around with the whole idea of transhumanist machine-man philosophy while that wasn't a huge factor to begin with (and indeed what questions about it that existed could be resolved in ways where this didn't make sense). Given the lack of any better ideas they pretty much crapped out an ending that everyone hated at the last minute.
This ending has 5 endings, 4 of which are fairly similar, but the whole "branching path" with The Citadel makes it a little more involved than simply "choose A B or C", and to be fair there are limits to what could practically be done without re-doing the entire bloody game. To keep their promises they would need to re-write huge portions of it, including setting up a number of encounters that would act as exposition dumps.
Now, my idea would not make everyone happy, but I think it would make a lot more people happy than the current state of affairs, and even those who didn't like it could at least tolerate it, because at least it's a set of "high fantasy" endings that fit the narrative. Shepard isn't the kind of guy who should be going out having trippy space delusions and selecting one form of suck or another. What's more he should have a chance to save earth and prevent it's massive decimation, which this suggestion allows for (2 variants where Earth is badly leveled in a crossfire, 3 where it isn't), either way if the game doesn't end with a "Game Over" followed by a reload, Shepard saves the day one way or another which is pretty much the character in a nutshell.
Oh god I loved that long road. Just constant hopping over rockets and returning fire. I may sound like I'm being sarcastic, but I really did enjoy the mako as well.Joabbuac said:
My big problem with the endings was with the execution. Sure I'm not fond of the star kid, I fully believe that the Reapers didn't need an explanation, but it wasn't a huge deal breaker.
The Star Kid offered me three choices with wildly different repercussions for the galaxy. Yet all Bioware chose to show was three near identical sets of ending cinematics. I never once got the feeling from them that I'd made any difference when making a different choice.
It's part of the failed execution that they forgot the most important thing about the Mass Effect Universe, the characters living in it. I wasn't trying to save the quarians and geth, I wanted to save Tali and Legion. I wasn't curing the genophage for the Krogan, I was doing it because I trusted Wrex. I didn't go out there to save the turians, I did it because Garrus is space-Batman.
You get the idea, the characters were the binding agent for the universe. They made people involved in it. So that they were near absent from the endings was a complete and utter shock to me. I think Bioware got so caught up in providing awesome pew-pew action that they forgot about the characters.
Speaking of the combat, I'm one of the few that preferred it in the first game. For a start each class was balanced, you could be equally effective with any of them, each able to become godly of you so wished.
Mass Effect 2 and 3 threw the balance firmly in the favour of the gun-based classes, both with making powers pretty much ineffective against shields and other protection, making specialised ammo a 'power', and the stupid weight limit in the 3rd making you choose between effective guns or quick cool-downs.
The first game also felt like something was always happening. The two follow ups had far too much hiding behind chest high walls.
Now I find that most people who hate the Mako tried to drive everywhere in a straight line. Worlds were easy to navigate if you took the time to make use of the map and plotted your route. Often going the long way around was quicker than trying to go in a straight line.
One last thing about the ending of the third game. I found is stunning that it took a financial magazine, in the form of Forbes, to actually take a look at what people were complaining about.
The Star Kid offered me three choices with wildly different repercussions for the galaxy. Yet all Bioware chose to show was three near identical sets of ending cinematics. I never once got the feeling from them that I'd made any difference when making a different choice.
It's part of the failed execution that they forgot the most important thing about the Mass Effect Universe, the characters living in it. I wasn't trying to save the quarians and geth, I wanted to save Tali and Legion. I wasn't curing the genophage for the Krogan, I was doing it because I trusted Wrex. I didn't go out there to save the turians, I did it because Garrus is space-Batman.
You get the idea, the characters were the binding agent for the universe. They made people involved in it. So that they were near absent from the endings was a complete and utter shock to me. I think Bioware got so caught up in providing awesome pew-pew action that they forgot about the characters.
Speaking of the combat, I'm one of the few that preferred it in the first game. For a start each class was balanced, you could be equally effective with any of them, each able to become godly of you so wished.
Mass Effect 2 and 3 threw the balance firmly in the favour of the gun-based classes, both with making powers pretty much ineffective against shields and other protection, making specialised ammo a 'power', and the stupid weight limit in the 3rd making you choose between effective guns or quick cool-downs.
The first game also felt like something was always happening. The two follow ups had far too much hiding behind chest high walls.
Now I find that most people who hate the Mako tried to drive everywhere in a straight line. Worlds were easy to navigate if you took the time to make use of the map and plotted your route. Often going the long way around was quicker than trying to go in a straight line.
One last thing about the ending of the third game. I found is stunning that it took a financial magazine, in the form of Forbes, to actually take a look at what people were complaining about.
You make some good points, Shamus. Far better than Jim Sterling ragging on straw men. But I think the main reason is that Mass Effect 3 simply was not a good game, whatsoever. Mass Effect 2 did streamline a lot of elements, but it still felt like it belonged in the same franchise as the first Mass Effect (and this is coming from a huge RPG fan), because it essentially became what Mass Effect 1 was trying to be all along. The writing still had a great sense of mystery to it, and the character building was absolutely phenomenal. Mass Effect 3 basically threw away all of the sharp writing and interesting characters to cater to the Uncharted crowd that just wanted explosions and rail shooting segments, hence why the story was suddenly all about saving Earth, "Be all you can be" space marines, while intricate characters were shoe-horned into mustache-twirling villain roles. Half the stories in the game feel like they were written by Hideo Kojima. It was also very broken on release, and never got patched. And it was rather homophobic, despite EA parading it around as LGBT progression (meanwhile, Bioware's vastly superior counterpart Obsidian has no problem writing LGBT characters that are actually characters instead of caricatures).
I always hated when people used that line of defense, mostly because of the notion behind it; because it is, quite frankly, an implied insult against Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. Clarke and Kubrick were artists with a coherent vision who knew what they were doing, and hacks who literally writes important parts of the story as rough notes on napkins in the last five minutes of the eleventh hour, like Walters and Hudson, are not fit to lick the dirt from their spats.
Just finished playing ME3 through for the first time. I have to say, the ending was not as disappointing as expected (based on what I have heard/read). Overall i thought the game was enjoyable. I wasn't bored, both gameplay and story were decent enough to keep me interested.
Battles were not all that challenging, a few mistakes were made sure and i'd fail a mission here and there. Only two tough times really come to mind are the 1v1 reaper stand-off (that one hitting red beam beam of death was not easily avoided, until I took my time with it) and the ending battle defending the last 2 missiles on earth (for some reason I lacked medi-gels, had it rough finding good cover, and realized I didn't have to clear the map before firing those missiles). Oh and of course it became a little tedious trekking back and forth throughout the galaxy, citadel, and ship to complete all side missions (but that's quite standard, there are for sure other games more tedious than ME3). I am thankful for the probe when searching for items on other planets.
Story was fine. I always wanted to keep playing to find out what happens next and dying to destroy Cerberus and discover more about the Reapers. I had a feeling that the war was not going to go well, especially when you keep seeing more and more reapers on the galaxy map every time you complete a mission. I expected main characters to die. There could have been some more character development for many of the main and side characters.
I played through as a female shep, adept. decided to have a balance between renegade and paragon. Mainly because i wasn't trying to lean either way and just chose the option that I thought was right (for the most part, by the end I was trying to keep red/blue even). ended up with practically equal parts, half paragon half renegade. So naturally the 3rd option for the ending made most sense. Synthesis. Which seems to me like the most obvious solution for peace. The whole time the VI kid was yapping, I was yelling at him that his whole existence was an epic fail. created to stop conflict yet that all he actually is doing. If reapers are harvesting civilizations to save them, why don't they just ask us? talk to Liara, she figured out a way to preserve info on species without pressing the reset button on the galaxy. anyway, machines and organisms can live in peace now, yay synergy!
Now i am going to look at how many trophies i missed and decide whether to play through the game again, or just watch the other endings on youtube. Part of me wants to play through as full renegade and/or full blown paragon, but might not want to waste all that time... all depends on how accessible platinum is.
Oh i guess i should mention that I only played ME1 all the way through on PC, bought ME2 but skipped playing it due to time and other games. Got ME3 special edition real cheap for PS3 and just decided to finally play it a few weeks ago. So i kind of missed otu on the whole port your character over (which is awesome) and the whole Collectors thing. I still really loved ME1 and enjoyed ME3... not sure if I will have time to run through ME2 though.
Battles were not all that challenging, a few mistakes were made sure and i'd fail a mission here and there. Only two tough times really come to mind are the 1v1 reaper stand-off (that one hitting red beam beam of death was not easily avoided, until I took my time with it) and the ending battle defending the last 2 missiles on earth (for some reason I lacked medi-gels, had it rough finding good cover, and realized I didn't have to clear the map before firing those missiles). Oh and of course it became a little tedious trekking back and forth throughout the galaxy, citadel, and ship to complete all side missions (but that's quite standard, there are for sure other games more tedious than ME3). I am thankful for the probe when searching for items on other planets.
Story was fine. I always wanted to keep playing to find out what happens next and dying to destroy Cerberus and discover more about the Reapers. I had a feeling that the war was not going to go well, especially when you keep seeing more and more reapers on the galaxy map every time you complete a mission. I expected main characters to die. There could have been some more character development for many of the main and side characters.
I played through as a female shep, adept. decided to have a balance between renegade and paragon. Mainly because i wasn't trying to lean either way and just chose the option that I thought was right (for the most part, by the end I was trying to keep red/blue even). ended up with practically equal parts, half paragon half renegade. So naturally the 3rd option for the ending made most sense. Synthesis. Which seems to me like the most obvious solution for peace. The whole time the VI kid was yapping, I was yelling at him that his whole existence was an epic fail. created to stop conflict yet that all he actually is doing. If reapers are harvesting civilizations to save them, why don't they just ask us? talk to Liara, she figured out a way to preserve info on species without pressing the reset button on the galaxy. anyway, machines and organisms can live in peace now, yay synergy!
Now i am going to look at how many trophies i missed and decide whether to play through the game again, or just watch the other endings on youtube. Part of me wants to play through as full renegade and/or full blown paragon, but might not want to waste all that time... all depends on how accessible platinum is.
Oh i guess i should mention that I only played ME1 all the way through on PC, bought ME2 but skipped playing it due to time and other games. Got ME3 special edition real cheap for PS3 and just decided to finally play it a few weeks ago. So i kind of missed otu on the whole port your character over (which is awesome) and the whole Collectors thing. I still really loved ME1 and enjoyed ME3... not sure if I will have time to run through ME2 though.