Biggest plot holes in games

major28

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In XCOM:EU, why the hell am I the only faction in the world that seems to actually fight the aliens? Why do I have to pay for all these things that I have to buy, who are these assholes that think gee these guys are the last hope for humanity but i still need to make a profit? Why are do countries back out of the project if I don't do a good job, I am literally the only people fighting and your just going to refuse my help?
 

Not G. Ivingname

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Judgement101 said:
ALL OF ULTIMA 9!
"What's a Paladin?"................the creators need to take a serious look at their games before they release it.
"You knowledge of the land will be great!"

You can get so many plot holes just from that one statement.
 

bug_of_war

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Suncatcher said:
If we assume that the Reapers are just VIs, acting on their programming instead of their own drive, we have to assume that Sovereign was programmed not only toward bluster and condescension in conversation, but also to deliberately lie about their origins ('we have no beginning or ending' is a long way from 'we were built to kill you a few million years ago'). Sovereign alone, in the single conversation you have with him and the one battle we see, displays more personality than any other machine in the series which isn't established to have true AI, emotions and all. And it makes little sense to program him to act that way, with his attention-grabbing tactics and hammy, provocative dialogue, since his duty was to stay hidden among the younger races and stand watch for millenia at a time rather than to intimidate or subjugate. Then we look at the final battle of the first game at the Citadel, and I can't see any way to classify that other than an emotional response or monumentally shitty programming. He had won the war. There was not enough firepower in the entire system to get through his shields and most of the fleet standing against him was shredded. His only possible loss conditions when he entered that fight were if the Citadel's arms had closed before he got inside (because the thing's pretty much indestructible) or if the entirety of the galaxy had united against him, and neither of those had happened or had any real chance of happening. He wasn't desperately reacting in order to take control immediately, because it didn't matter if you had command of the Citadel for a few minutes once he was on the tower. He could have wiped out the remaining ships before engaging you, he could have irradiated you from the outside, whatever, but instead he chose to reanimate his primary servant for a second round of personal scale combat with you because if you killed his Champion, no matter who was in control at the end of the day, a human had beaten him. And that was something he could not accept or allow. And when he lost round two, the death of his avatar was enough of a distraction to lower his shields and allow a simple frigate the killing blow.
Basically, either Sovereign had emotions which affected his choices more than calm logic, his programmer wanted to simulate pride, anger, deception, and overconfidence for no good reason, or his code was so stupid as to force him to risk everything in order to avoid a ten minute delay in a 50,000 year cycle.
I probably should have been more specific. I never meant to imply that I thought the Reapers were VI's, my belief was that the Reapers were AI's, however were restricted by some base programming measures that guided them. I agree with you that he was arrogant and quite well developed, however cleverbot can be arrogant and have some depth, and that program is just a VI. Again, HUUUUUUGE stretch there, but it's just my opinion and it worked for me and caused me to see no problem with the ending.

Suncatcher said:
What doesn't really make sense is using Earth for the ending, or trying to rally the galaxy to take back your planet specifically instead of generally beating back Reaper forces, but nothing in the ending and little in the core plot makes sense.
(lost the quote link, my comment down below)
Respectfully, I would like to disagree. It's been established that Harbinger seems to be the one whom is pulling the strings in the battle, so to then have the catalyst moved to Earth to be watched under his supervision makes sense when Shepard had done the unimaginable and truly rallied the majority of the galaxy. While the initial 'lets rally the galaxy to save Earth' definately doesn't make sense, as there are the same amount of Reaper's on other planets (That is until the ending), so I agree with you there. There is a spectacular line in the mission where you go to the Asari homeworld and fight with the comandos. During the battle, when you convince the commanding officer to hold the line she yells out "Let the galaxy know that the war was won on *insert Asari homeworld name here*". This shows how each species feels as though the attack is very personal, and that because Shepard, the guy who has been kicking ass before they realised there really was an ass that needed kicking, told them that their planet may hold the key to the destruction of the Reapers, it is clear that that just bolstered their belief that something about them made them more important than other species. I feel that it shows that during an intense moment of impossible odds, people can become closed minded and believe that the problem is only effecting them and no one else. Then, when Shepard reveals the key to winning, and that it's on Earth, everyone whom pledged their alliance (after being saved from the impossible odds) are fully prepared to go to this one planet. [/quote]
Suncatcher said:
Valid point.
Thank you.


Suncatcher said:
Yeah, I probably shouldn't have gone quite so far there. And for the record, I didn't think they rushed things, have no problem with day 1 DLC, and definitely never joined any of those stupid petitions trying to force them to change the game.
You have my full respect.

Suncatcher said:
But EA is a company infamous for, among other things, executive meddling. And the ending, with all its breaks in canon and themes, looks to me like nothing but one guy at the top of a command structure taking control away from the team who had been writing the rest of the series, including 90% of the third game. And then I look at the credits, and the former lead writer, who made so many magnificent games for Bioware before they were assimilated and who built up the universe of Mass Effect from scratch, is conspicuously absent. Given that evidence, is there a more likely theory than that the publisher caused (directly or due to dissatisfaction with other company policies) a change in staff which resulted in the game being released with a small but vital portion being written by an idiot? I hadn't heard anything about Casey Hudson being behind the ending (if you could cite that I'd appreciate it), but even if true there are many cases of writers making a wonderful product under an imperfect director and many more of said directors breaking certain parts of the story when they take control away from the writers or when a particularly talented lead is no longer there to restrain them. Heck, something like that being written by the director is a red flag in the first place; there are good reasons that writers and directors are different roles in producing a game.
Yes, EA has been seen as killing some franchises/publishers, and I understand that. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the article where in which it was stated that Hudson created the ending. Really sorry about that, but I do believe it was posted either on IGN, or the Escapist threads (which could obviously mean that it was false, but I believe there was a link).
Suncatcher said:
On the multiplayer front, I actually have to commend them though. Sure its influence on galactic readyness is annoying, but they managed to make the first plotless online shootfest that I actually enjoyed playing.
So much respect

Suncatcher said:
And to contribute to the ongoing Vega debate: not everyone needs to be your childhood friend or a comrade of a hundred battles to join your squad. He was, in fact, just some dude (well, high rank marine with anti-Collector experience) who was in the same base at the time. He knew (of) Shepard because Shepard is the most famous human alive at that point. He ended up on the ship because he was alongside Ash/Kaiden when they went to the Normandy, and he stays on your ship because you can't exactly swing by to drop him off back on Earth to join the fight there because it's covered with Reapers and you'd lose the Normandy, Shepard, and the galaxy's one chance if you got caught there. There really isn't any problem with Vega's introduction except for the fact that it results in Vega being near Shepard and I really kinda hate that guy.
I was initially against Vega, because all I saw was that he was a latino jersey shore looking dude. But after playing the first 2 hours of the games, I really, REALLY liked his character. I loved that he wasn't a Jersey Shore DB, I loved that he was a soldier through and through, but knew how to chill out after missions. I feel as though he was a nice addition to the series as he was the only human on your team who was somewhat freaked out about the Reapers' raw power. I did feel annoyed that some characters didn't join my team for REALLY stupid reasons. Samara could have totally joined, but doesn't because...she doesn't. Jack states that her students are doing fine without her, but refuses to join you, kinda understand, but sill, I miss my psychotic biotic. Not entirely annoyed by it, but it's something that would have been nice (having more team mates). I also didn't like it when Tali joined my team (Not gonna lie, REALLY didn't like Tali). Seeing as how she was an admiral, she should have gone back to her fleet after the Rannoch mission. But, my opinion...others liked Tali.
 

Suncatcher

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bug_of_war said:
I probably should have been more specific. I never meant to imply that I thought the Reapers were VI's, my belief was that the Reapers were AI's, however were restricted by some base programming measures that guided them. I agree with you that he was arrogant and quite well developed, however cleverbot can be arrogant and have some depth, and that program is just a VI. Again, HUUUUUUGE stretch there, but it's just my opinion and it worked for me and caused me to see no problem with the ending.
Okay. Now I'm having an idea. One that might, if you stretch a little, actually close the plotholes in the ME3 ending. This might take a while, so
Indoctrination. Not of Shepard, of the Reapers. They were, as Sovereign said, eternal and without equal or superior; Eldrich Abominations beyond mortal understanding, but occasionally harvesting innovations from the young races or ascending a particularly valued one to join them or whatever timeless synthetic intelligences beyond mortal understanding do for fun. Then one race, the creators of the Crucible, comes along with their hatred of synthetic life, their dedication to Order over sense, their particular brand of idiocy, and their highly advanced technology (before the Cycle began there wasn't a hard limit to development at 50,000 years). They saw a race of synthetic lifeforms powerful enough to destroy them, and used their Indoctrination technology (probably developed as a result of their 'order at all costs' philosophy) to enslave the Reapers just as TIM was planning to. But they needed an ultimate authority to control their chained robotic gods, one which would live longer than any organic but not pose the threat of a true artificial intelligence. So they make a simple, stupid VI (the star child) to control the Reapers and the Cycle begins.

Fast forward to Sovereign. He was originally subtle, hiding within the galaxy and keeping himself a secret from the young races for millennia until the time was right to open the way again, and then figuring out how to get around any obstructions to the return of the others. By all rights, he would have been among the most quiet, patient, and clever of the Reapers, the kind who would never throw away a battle on an emotional response like he does at the end of the first game. But when Saren and the Geth invade the Citadel, star kid freaks out. This absolutely does not compute. So he orders Sovereign to remove the invaders immediately. And so instead of wiping out the fleet and possessing Saren's corpse when it was safe to do so, or just irradiating Shepard from the outside, Sovereign is forced to rush into an engagement on the personal scale and when Shepard defeats his avatar it disrupts his defenses enough for a frigate to deal the killing blow to a vessel which should have been invincible.

Enter Harbinger. At first, he's clever. Like Saren and TIM. He's too valuable an agent to fully puppet, because he would lose all creativity and drive, so he's forced to act in accordance with the Crucible's orders but free to go about them as he sees fit. This leads to all his genre-savvy scheming in the second game. But over time, he begins to admire his adversary; a mere human killed two Reapers, denied them the Citadel, and delayed the invasion by almost three years. The command VI interprets these feelings as disloyal, and between 2 and 3 completely rewrites Harbinger's mind. This explains the total lack of conversation from a villain who was so talkative in the second game, and the generally poor strategies of the Reaper forces (since the brilliant chessmaster who was to lead them got mindraped). But like Benezia and Saren before him and TIM after, Harbinger retained a tiny fragment of self and resisted control for a moment at the end; he recognized Shepard, this puny human who achieved the impossible on a daily basis, as his race's best hope for freedom. And so the shot which destroyed the rest of the ground team and carved a gash into the bedrock beneath only scorched Shepard, and the Reaper lifted off without confirming a kill. That allows Shepard to make it to the Citadel and invade the inmost sanctum of the Crucible VI, at which point its programming requires it to present the living organic in front of it with a list of allowable options.

The Reapers aren't the villain here, they're another victim of a race of tyrants long dead.
It's stretching and there isn't much to support it over any other theory, but it seems to fit all the evidence I can think of.
Okay, now somebody help me find the holes in this.


bug_of_war said:
I was initially against Vega, because all I saw was that he was a latino jersey shore looking dude. But after playing the first 2 hours of the games, I really, REALLY liked his character. I loved that he wasn't a Jersey Shore DB, I loved that he was a soldier through and through, but knew how to chill out after missions. I feel as though he was a nice addition to the series as he was the only human on your team who was somewhat freaked out about the Reapers' raw power.
My first impression of him was that he was a boring grunt, when my ship was full of deep, unique, wonderful people. Though I'll admit that because of the bad first impression I didn't talk to him much later in the game my first time through, and I haven't gotten around to a second playthough yet, so if he has awesome hidden depths I'd have missed them. Like how I didn't like Garrus at all in the first game but started to love him in the second maybe?
but sill, I miss my psychotic biotic.
Same here. But as strong as those kids were, they weren't ready for the horrors of the front line without her there as an unstoppable force of destruction and/or team mom.
 

J Tyran

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Devoneaux said:
Edit: To be perfectly honest I never understood why her armor was colored to begin with. Seems kinda silly really.

At any rate if I really wanted to nitpick the beginning to death I could take it several steps further: Why is Ashley taking orders from the earth defense committee? What exactly is she doing here? What is this building that combines military headquarters, a place for keeping people under house arrest, and courthouse all in a highrise building? Where is this building specifically? It's kinda-sorta-not-really-implied that it's New York like an hour later but I dunno.

If Shepard was being kept basically as a prisoner, why didn't they keep him in Arturus Station where the alliance is actually centered? How did the nightmare kid get from the top of one building into the ducts of this one? Why are the reapers shooting at random defenseless buildings like this is some godzilla movie? ect. The list goes on into nitpicks of varying severity, you get the idea.
Again these are easy, I am beginning to wonder if you ever actually played the game or if you just watched a lets play or something.

-Ashleys Armour is blue because its the Alliance colours, shes not in standard armour as she is on special operations
-The base is in Vancouver
-The base is there because the Alliance has bases all over Earth
-How did the kid move around the base? His legs in all likelihood
-Why didn't they keep him it Arcturus? Because in the plot Arcturus station was destroyed almost instantly as part of the Reapers typical "shock and awe"
-Which is the final point, the Reapers blew the hell out of everything because its the way they make war.
 

sXeth

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Not G. Ivingname said:
Judgement101 said:
ALL OF ULTIMA 9!
"What's a Paladin?"................the creators need to take a serious look at their games before they release it.
"You knowledge of the land will be great!"

You can get so many plot holes just from that one statement.
Eh, you can hit better ones then the Avatar ignorance (which did exist somewhat in all of the games to let newbies play)

Dupre's a spirit at least, and was last in the Void, but how did Iolo and Shamino get there from Serpent Isle? And why is Shamino suddenly a mage again when he hasn't been since Ultima 1 (if that was even still the same Shamino at this point)

Similarly, how did Blackthorn cross over from Serpent Isle? The Guardian couldv'e hypothetically brought him, but its not like he was a military genius or anything, he inherited the throne when he had it.

Why is the Codex not in the Void? Or did Samhain steal the lenses and go get it himself without anyone noticing.

The Guardians created by the Avatar's purity. So you could theoretically just do some unvirtuous stuff and weaken/reabsorb him? Back to the hookers!
 

Olas

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canadamus_prime said:
One that's been bugging me since the end of Mass Effect 2 (haven't played 3, so maybe someone who has can sort this out for me), but it's established in the first game that the Citadel is the only (known) way for the Reapers to get into our Galaxy from Dark Space and yet at the end of Mass Effect 2 it's implied that a huge invasion is on it's way and that was the whole plot of Mass Effect 3 was it not? My question is how the hell did they get here? We shut down their only known way in in the first game.
The citadel was a shortcut into the galaxy, as was the Mass Relay in the Arrival DLC. Without those they were forced to get there the slow way which evidently took close to 3 years.

My question, it's said that the reapers come every 50,000 years, but then later that they come when the races of the galaxy become too advanced. Which is it? Don't tell me the races of the galaxy always take the exact same amount of time to become advanced.
 

J Tyran

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OlasDAlmighty said:
Don't tell me the races of the galaxy always take the exact same amount of time to become advanced.
The time it takes tech to advance is pre determined by the seeding of Reaper tech, it means they advance at a roughly predictable pace and in a predictable path.
 

J Tyran

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Devoneaux said:
Again you're misunderstanding the questions.
You have shown that your observation is pretty poor, do you really want to have to go through me proving you wrong every step of the way yet again? My understanding of the questions has been spot on every time.
 

coldfrog

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If Bowser turned a lot of the residents of Mushroom Kingdom into bricks, what happens when Mario breaks them? I certainly don't see little mushroom dudes escaping. And furthermore, why did he get REWARDED for his actions? This is just one of many thoughts in my ongoing belief that Mario is the real villain of the series, and Bowser is the misunderstood anti-hero.
 

J Tyran

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Devoneaux said:
J Tyran said:
Devoneaux said:
Again you're misunderstanding the questions.
You have shown that your observation is pretty poor, do you really want to have to go through me proving you wrong every step of the way yet again? My understanding of the questions has been spot on every time.
No it hasn't. Your answers have predominately been smartassery that doesn't actually address what i'm asking. Yes I understand the kid can walk, no shit. how did he walk from from his building all the way into the other building, climbing up through vents to the top level in the same amount of time it took Shepard to get there? The only way he could have feasibly gotten there is if he started well before the reapers came. You might -think- you're addressing my questions, but you're really not.

Edit: Regardless I think we're done here, you are either incapable or refuse to actually address the question i'm asking so we're not going to get anywhere with further arguing.
Well have you seen a map of the base? How do we know the building he was in wasn't the same one he was on the roof of when Shepard watched him from the window for starters, neither do we know how easy it was to move around the complex. It was ten minutes or more from when Shepard saw him on the roof to when he was in the vent, it was more than five minutes from when Shepard saw him on the roof until the first Reaper hit the base. Neither do you know he used the vents to get to where he was, he could have moved around and then entered the vent close to where Shepard found him. Again you are making assumptions about things you have no way of knowing about.

The kid had plenty of time to move around, and that's assuming the building he was found in is a different one entirely. I admit my answers are slightly snarky but that's because your questions are silly and all ready have obvious answers. "How did the kid get to where he was" well of course he used his legs, what did you expect him to use a fugging jetpack? It wasn't a question that really needed asking let alone answering.
 

bug_of_war

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bug_of_war said:
I probably should have been more specific. I never meant to imply that I thought the Reapers were VI's, my belief was that the Reapers were AI's, however were restricted by some base programming measures that guided them. I agree with you that he was arrogant and quite well developed, however cleverbot can be arrogant and have some depth, and that program is just a VI. Again, HUUUUUUGE stretch there, but it's just my opinion and it worked for me and caused me to see no problem with the ending.
Suncatcher said:
Okay. Now I'm having an idea. One that might, if you stretch a little, actually close the plotholes in the ME3 ending. This might take a while, so (extensive text)
The Reapers aren't the villain here, they're another victim of a race of tyrants long dead.[/spoiler]
It's stretching and there isn't much to support it over any other theory, but it seems to fit all the evidence I can think of.
Okay, now somebody help me find the holes in this.
Well yeah, I never thought that far into detail, but around ME3's ending I saw the Starchild as the safety net that the original creators would have placed within the programming of the Reapers. It's my understanding that the Leviathan DLC reveals that the creators of the Reapers initially created the Starchild to come up with a way to solve the problem of synthetics fighting organics, and they then built the Reapers. Assuming that the Starchild was simply put there to process probability calculations, it is likely that the Starchild is a VI, especially the way it talks to Shepard. So, to then link the Reapers, an AI powerhouse race of synthetic, to a VI that has the sole purpose of solving 1 particular problem, you can kind of see how the VI would come to the conclusion of preserving organic races in synthetic bodies and the overwriting a majority of the Reapers' intelligence and using them as pawns.

Again, loose fan theory, but it makes more sense then the Shepard indoctrination theory and has very few holes if any.


bug_of_war said:
I was initially against Vega, because all I saw was that he was a latino jersey shore looking dude. But after playing the first 2 hours of the games, I really, REALLY liked his character. I loved that he wasn't a Jersey Shore DB, I loved that he was a soldier through and through, but knew how to chill out after missions. I feel as though he was a nice addition to the series as he was the only human on your team who was somewhat freaked out about the Reapers' raw power.
Suncatcher said:
My first impression of him was that he was a boring grunt, when my ship was full of deep, unique, wonderful people. Though I'll admit that because of the bad first impression I didn't talk to him much later in the game my first time through, and I haven't gotten around to a second playthough yet, so if he has awesome hidden depths I'd have missed them. Like how I didn't like Garrus at all in the first game but started to love him in the second maybe?
He was totally there to fill the Krogan role, and I can see where other players saw him to be shallow or unlikeable. But I saw the charm of a young marine in a war like no other, whom had a hard time in the past, reacting and living through such horrors. He was a difficult character to really like and understand I guess, kind of like Connor from Assassins Creed 3. I really liked him because I understood why he was the man he was. Most people hated his attitude and naive nature, but I totally understood it, and for that I really loved the character. I'm not saying you have to understand a character to like them, far from it, what I'm saying is sometimes understanding a character can give you a new appreciation for them. Not all the time, but there are a lot of characters who go un-noticed due to not acting like Nathan Drake or Master Chief.

bug_of_war said:
but sill, I miss my psychotic biotic.
Suncatcher said:
Same here. But as strong as those kids were, they weren't ready for the horrors of the front line without her there as an unstoppable force of destruction and/or team mom.
I know but...come on, don't tell me you didn't wish the students told her to go with you, even though they were screwed without her. I just...Damn it she was such a cool character and all we got to see of her was one mission, and then two side conversations.
 

otakon17

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TizzytheTormentor said:
Neronium said:
Legion said:
Fallout 3 original ending is the worst one that I have ever encountered.

You are faced with a decision to go into a room full of lethal radiation in order to enter a code and prevent disaster. You are told it has to be you, and nobody else, and doing so will kill you.

You have the potential to have a super mutant and a ghoul with you at the end of the game. Both of them are not only immune to the negative effects of radiation, but are healed by it.

They will refuse to go into the room and enter the code because "It's your destiny" to do so.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Pretty much that. That ending seriously was just bad. "It's your destiny" Fawkes says, but you when I'm thinking with my head that the day can be saved and I'd be able to live sounds like a good prospect. But no the developers decided to make so that you couldn't until Broken Steel.
Indeed, the "whoever goes in there dies due to radiation poisoning" line made everyone who had Cheron/RL-something/Fawkes to do it, yet they didn't for asinine reasons and even when they agree in Broken Steel, they act pissed about it, why are they pissed?
In Fallout 3 once you retrieve the G.E.C.K. in Vault 87, you are ambushed and captured by Enclave troops before you get out. Problem is, the main door of Vault 87 is broken and surrounded by deadly radiation, so the only way in is the back door through Little Lamplight. But the residents of Little Lamplight wouldn't have let the Enclave troops in, and there's nothing to suggest the Enclave forced their way through, considering there is no damage to Little Lamplight itself.

And for that matter, if the vault door is busted, how do the mutants get out?
The Vault door isn't busted, you can get into Vault 87 without using the back entrance. It's just the radiation is so high it literally takes over a hundred RadAway doses to even make it to the entrance let alone enter it and get into 87 proper.

Another Fallout 3 one:

So, your Dad gets killed by the massive dose of radiation the first time the device goes off along with Col. Autumn, except SOMEHOW Autumn survives and it's never ever explained. He's not wearing armor of any kind, we don't see him jam a needle of RadAway into his arm or pop a couple of Rad-X even. Yet he's fine and dandy just a while later while good old Dad is a corpse
 

Mikeyfell

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Suncatcher said:
Granted, many of these things have outcomes that seem roughly equivalent on the face, since it's just not feasible to make an entirely different game for every possible combination of factors
Really? Because After I finished Mass Effect 3 I sat down in a fit of rage and wrote one.
I'm not programing gameplay or designing levels or anything but I wrote a script that takes into account every combination of choices you can make in the first 2 games.
Yeah, a script is easy. But just as a simple example, if the Ravagers were removed from the game by killing the Rachni queen in the first game? Every single level that included them needs to be reworked and rebalanced. The quest in the tunnels no longer exists for half of the pcs, so suddenly you have to allow for a wide range of levels of Shepard in every mission after that because of lost exp, and half your your players are going to be bitching about the game being too long or too short unless you make some equivalent mission that only happens if there aren't rachni around for some reason. Which would increase production costs by a significant amount and make the story even more nonsensical.

Wait. How is compensating for a very important player choice that was completely ignored by the writers of the game going to make anything more nonsensical?
Because to my mind.
I killed the last Rachnai. Oh shoot they're all back is more nonsensical than
I killed the last Rachnai, anything that doesn't involve Rachnai happens.

And I fully agree that redoing the levels to compensate for player choices would take work.
You know what? Good things take work.
If Bioware seriously thought that they could half ass and cut every corner and end up with a good game that means they should stop making products because they obviously don't know what they're supposed to be doing.


When it comes right down to it there aren't that many factors you have to take into account... there are only 50 possible outcomes you have to consider.
And if you make the basic structure of the game different for each one, that's 50 different full length AAA games you need to make. With all the rage over day 1 DLC, do you really think anyone would be willing to pay the several hundreds of dollars per copy required to recoup those costs?
There are really only 3 or 4 choices that would drastically effect the gameplay.
There would only be 1 or 2 levels they'd have to build from scratch, and just recycle the enemy AI they already used.
The vast majority would only effect the writing process and since that's the easy part just nut up and pay your vice actors to read more lines.
Like I said the script is only about 5 times the length, the amount of new architecture you have to program is negligible. and they'd really only have to make one, maybe two more enemy factions. And considering how boring and samey all the Mass Effect firefights are all they'd have to do is re-skin Cerberus and call it a day.


But this is Bioware we're talking about, if the writing is good people would play Mass Effect 3 the text adventure, that's the kind of fan base Bioware had, and they're fucking us over with these poorly written worse constructed action games. Go back to RPG's, go back to the Hero's Journey, and if you need to cut cost cut cut graphics.
What does this have to do with Day 1 DLC?

That would be the case if any of the scenes you mentioned existed. You save the queen, your numbers go up.
You save the clone, your numbers go down and you get a strongly worded letter from Hackett.
Did you actually read any of the text in the game? Because everything in the game is a part of the story, and if you don't pay attention to anything without a big shiny cutscene you're missing much of the plot and can't really contribute to a story discussion.
Yes I read every word of it.
Especially the Emails from people who refuse to talk to you when you're standing 3 feet from them insistently clicking on them.
The problem is that it was mostly exposition, There were a few times when you got a legitimately good Email (Kai Leng's post coup message, Morinth's message to Rila and what's her name. A lot of the messages that had nothing to do with anything like the interrogation records and such)
You never got any real insightful character information that made me think differently about any of the stuff I think. Wrapping up an entire story arc in a brief impersonal email is very bad form. It's like they outsourced all the email messages to interns. (Except the ones I mentioned up there. But hey, some interns are talented. Maybe interns wrote all of 'em. I don't know.)

If Shepard knew that TIM and by extension Cerberus is was and forever will be evil, why in the hell did s/he give TIM the Collector base?
That base was full of tech which could be used against the Reapers. For all you knew, it was the only way to catch up the crippling technological disadvantage in time to save the galaxy. That wasn't a question of whether or not you liked Cerberus, it was a question of whether you were willing to take the risk of giving that resource to someone you knew was evil but currently working on the right side, or if you would destroy that threat at the cost of being less prepared for the real invasion.
According to you. YOU. Shepard knew the Illusive Man was evil and going to stab him/her in the back the second s/he showed it to him. That's you talking (That's me paraphrasing you)

And willing to work with people who are clearly evil because he can't accomplish what he needs alone
That's you taking.
Would you trust someone who is "clearly evil" with that level of technology?

It's all rendered moot anyway because TIM attacks you first thing in ME3 regardless of what you did with the base.
Regardless of how much you wanted to work with him.
Regardless of how much you thought his Idea about reverse engineering indoctrination to use it against the Reapers was a better plan than putting all your eggs in the Dues Ex Machnia basket.

Basically Shepard died in the 6 months between ME 2 and 3 and was replaced by a personality deficient dipshit who was unwilling and unable to think for him/her self.
 

Mortamus

The Talking Dead
May 18, 2012
147
0
0
Diablo III.

Pretty much the only character that actually acted to all their hype and description that made them the feared Lesser Evils was...oh wait. None of them. Belial the Lord of Lies put himself directly in your face constantly, and even the NPCs commented on how horribly obvious he was. Azmodan was even worse. For being the revered tactician, he was constantly telling you his plans like some poorly written cartoon villian. I half expected him to say "I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!" Diablo was the only one that accomplished anything or truly lived up to his legend.
 

darlarosa

Senior Member
May 4, 2011
347
0
21
Devoneaux said:
darlarosa said:
Rawne1980 said:
Dragon Age 2.

All the way through it you get drummed with "Mages are good .... Templars are bad".

Yet all the way through it the Templars are helpful and polite and the Mages are trying to eat my face.....

Kind of hard to follow a plot and take it seriously when it doesn't know what the fuck it's doing itself. In fact, the Templars don't turn "bad" until the very end and even then it's only 1 person .... who turns bad because of a corrupt sword .... made from metal Hawke found.

WHO WRITES THIS SHIT.
Well...its pretty much implied throughout the game that a lot of rape and sexual assault is happening in the Gallows. If you walk around the gallows and click on people a few times or overhear them they'll hint at it repeatedly. The reason that crazy Templar was making mages Trainquil was so he could use them without complaining. Alain, one of the mages from Starkhaven, if he is captured he will tell you that he has been forced to do things under threat of being made Trainquil

It's not done well at all. Every other mage uses blood magic, and
I have a theory it was all in an attempt to make people want to play a templar in DA3....

Devoneaux said:
So reapers attack earth and Shepard and Anderson start climbing around on the rooftops. Why? Why didn't they just take the stairs, how is this in any way faster or safer than the sensible thing?
Because the doors are blocked and the interior of the building is chaos. Thats pretty damn clear. Not to mention you don't know what is stable and what isn't....remember the Reaper tore through that building.
...a lot og your questions are answered if you go look up the wiki or...pay attention to the game
Actually if you look closely, the desk breaks apart as it hits the wall, so there goes that. And that's exactly my point, we don't know if the door works because nobody in the room even bothers to check, they just look at the blown out window and go "Yep this is the best way to go about this." without even thinking things through. So yeah, maybe you'd like to try paying attention.

Edit: Also, are you suggesting to me that Shepard and Anderson( trained military proffessionals) can't...hop over a desk when we see them hoping over chest high walls within the next few minutes? As Shepard once said to a reporter: I'm tired of your disingenuous assertions!
If you actually look, some of the beams of the room are in the debris, then if you look at the direction where they came from which is the only apparent interest to the room their are large beams and other steel debris blocking the way. Also consider that the goal is to get out of there, and get to a ship of some kind. There is a better chance of that if you are outside then in a building. Considering that the reapers could once again fire on the building and bring the whole damn thing down it might be a good idea to go outside. Do you run through a burning building trying to get out or use the fire escape?

Now onto the artistic licence. Consider this is the first time the player sees Earth and Reaper destruction first hand. By putting Anderson and Shep outside you give the player that defining image of burning Earth. It doesn't disrupt the game,