BioWare Hints at Big Things in Next Mass Effect 3 DLC

[2clueless]

I for one am quite curious to see what this going to be about.

There is no way I am actually going to buy it. After the absolute catastrophe of the endings, I have not been able to work up any enthusiasm or even contemplate sinking another penny into this destroyed franchise.

Still curious to see what attempt or hook there will be to wring some more money out of the masses.

 

[Nihlus2]

Centered around the Citadel eh? Maybe we will finally get a (lore retconned) explanation as to why the Reapers did not just A-Roll over the Citadel forces, claimed it. Then shut down all relays in the universe. As. We. Were. Informed. In. ME1! And then proceeded to do what they did in all previous cycles... take out a system 1 by 1, with no loses, since they had no intel, no resources to transfer between worlds (isolated), and no reinforcements / alternate worlds to regroup at.
We only stopped them from calling in the Reaper Fleet... which they solved damn well themselves between ME2 and 3... which -should- have left us back at square one... but for some reason they decided to brawl with us... *facedesk*

Because they seem to be just fine about steamrolling over it in time for it to be a plot device on Earth...

...why did you not do this from the beginning again?

At this point in time I'm putting my money on the excuse that Harbinger accidently deleted that tactical folder along with his final boss script in order to make space on his harddrive for more surveilance footage of Shepard.

 

[an874]

Well the bright side is that as long as Bioware/EA are distracted with this, they won't be ruining any new IP's.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

My god Bioware, I mean, my god. You're really trying to hammer this series into the ground. I mean, the asinine ending aside, clipping in as much DLC as you can into your story-based game is not the best idea. I'm actually interested to see the ratios between those who bought Mass Effect 3 and those who purchased the DLC. I get a feeling there's a pretty constant downward trend in their consumer base.

To quote Joss Whedon: "You have to know at what point mouth-to-mouth becomes necrophilia."

This.

Fix ending or GTFO, Bioware.

No sane person can congratulate Casey Hudson after what he did to an otherwise excellent series.

 

[alik44]

I said it in another thread: I want new squad members. Need someone new to chat up. On that note, also please stop having Shepard speak on his own. It's incredibly cringe-inducing. But yeah, there's a lot of space on the Normandy where someone can hang out: Lower engineering, life support, that walled-off room where Jacob used to be in ME2.

Hell why stop there they can add at some more squad mate interactions with each other. would love to see my team mates interact with each other more often aside from some moments of gold. or you can at least bring back wrex or grunt my team feels empty with out some kind krogan there.

 

[Metalrocks]

ok, even when the last DLC was a bit over priced, it was good. at least i had a very good time playing it. im wondering how the new DLC will be but im sure looking forward to it.

 

[Diana Kingston-Gabai]

Curious thing - I'd started a new trilogy playthrough in preparation for the Omega DLC. I did the mission after the Cerberus coup, and was slightly disappointed (Nyreen was interesting but underused, and there's really only one "choice" that affects how the story unfolds). I got a little further... and then I stopped. Just couldn't be arsed to keep playing. And I realized it was because I knew my actions at that point in the game would make no further difference: resolving the situation on Rannoch, failing on Thessia, then Horizon, Cerberus HQ and Earth. And then I'd have to listen to that awful, awful Catalyst speech again, and watch the Extended Cut ending I'd already seen twice before (because I choose Destroy every time, it's the only ending that feels right to me).

And I think that, more than anything, serves as an indictment of Bioware - I had a great time replaying ME1 and ME2 again, but ME3? I've literally stopped in the middle of the game and gone off to do other things. And after the letdown of Omega, I find it absolutely impossible to believe that maybe the next DLC will change that...

 

[RJ 17]

And yet....that ending.

I kid! I kid!......kinda. See even though the ending had it's issues that's not the problem regarding the DLC, the problem for me is that it was THE ending y'know? They can release DLC but in the end none of it affects the overall ending of the game that I've already seen. Makes it kinda hard for me to be that enthused about the DLC, as interesting as it sounds.

Actually the Leviathan expansion does add a new bit of dialogue at the end, so it's at least mentioned. Haven't beaten the game after beating Omega yet though, so I can't say anything about that.

And the point isn't necessarily about the ending or the DLC's impact on the ending, it's just going on new adventures with Shepard.

 

[Xathos]

Hey, maybe the Citadel Defense Force will finally do something then!

Oh my God, that annoyed me so much in the game. I thought it would at least be taken into account for a choice or something given what happens in the game, but nope. Was like, "Oh...so that pretty much...didn't matter at all". Was confused for a long while, lol.

But anyways, I'm glad that more DLC is coming. Like others have said though, because ME3 ended in such a way that DLC can't really affect anything (unless they added a new ending option which is so beyond the realm of possibility at this point, its best not to even think about it), it seems kinda...bleh, you know? I mean, most Mass Effect DLC is pretty good (except for Pinnacle Station in ME1,) so at the very least it'll probably be worth the purchase. I kinda want a new squadmember just to shake things up a bit, but I think the squad is perfect in ME3, so I'm a bit torn on it. It just bugs me that areas of the ship like Life Support are completely empty. But hey, new squadmate means more squad interaction, which means another playthrough would be interesting.

And if this DLC happens to be Lair of the Shadow Broker good, then that's even better.

 

[mrverbal]

Bioware is dead to me.

I enjoyed dragon age 2. Hell, I defended it to people. No, it wasn't great, but it was fun enough.

I could have defended most of ME3 - because even the non-ending parts after the end of the first act are pretty flawed.

But the ending is simply god awful. The extended ending is marginally, marginally better, but still dreadful.

The company was one of the greats. Made some of the best games I've ever played. But now, they are just

 

[h@wke]

I only ever saw the with-DLC ending but I thought it was absolutly brilliant, you all seem very hard to please. That said there doesn't seem like theres room in the story for another big fat DLC.

 

[Frostbyte666]

My god Bioware, I mean, my god. You're really trying to hammer this series into the ground. I mean, the asinine ending aside, clipping in as much DLC as you can into your story-based game is not the best idea. I'm actually interested to see the ratios between those who bought Mass Effect 3 and those who purchased the DLC. I get a feeling there's a pretty constant downward trend in their consumer base.

To quote Joss Whedon: "You have to know at what point mouth-to-mouth becomes necrophilia."

Considering Joss Whedon enjoyed vampire slayer - vampire (demonically animated corpse) romance I wouldn't trust his views on necrophilia.

OT: Yeah they just need to let the series die with what little dignity remains. I saw reviews of ME3 and was horrified so didn't get it. The dlc is doing little to encourage me to get ME3 either, maybe if they pulled a rimmer with the ending:
catalyst "make a choice"
shepard *kicks him in the balls* "Not today matey"
catalyst "gasp...thats never happened before, gasp"

 

[The_Darkness]

Centered around the Citadel eh? Maybe we will finally get a (lore retconned) explanation as to why the Reapers did not just A-Roll over the Citadel forces, claimed it. Then shut down all relays in the universe. As. We. Were. Informed. In. ME1! And then proceeded to do what they did in all previous cycles... take out a system 1 by 1, with no loses, since they had no intel, no resources to transfer between worlds (isolated), and no reinforcements / alternate worlds to regroup at.
We only stopped them from calling in the Reaper Fleet... which they solved damn well themselves between ME2 and 3... which -should- have left us back at square one... but for some reason they decided to brawl with us... *facedesk*

Because they seem to be just fine about steamrolling over it in time for it to be a plot device on Earth...

...why did you not do this from the beginning again?

At this point in time I'm putting my money on the excuse that Harbinger accidently deleted that tactical folder along with his final boss script in order to make space on his harddrive for more surveilance footage of Shepard.

I've never seen this as a problem, honestly. Any attack from the Reapers on the Citadel will take long enough that the Citadel will have time to lock itself up, leaving the Reapers in a long-term siege situation. On top of that, the Citadel is probably the most heavily guarded system in the galaxy. There's just no immediate advantage to the Reapers in attacking. They probably were planning to hit the Citadel at some point but only after bleeding the allied fleets dry.

Spoiler

TIM presumably found a way to ensure that the arms didn't close, allowing the Reapers to attack. I'd assume that indoctrinated infiltration is how they would have gone about it anyway, but the info about the Crucible stepped the Citadel up from 'target to take someday' to 'GET IT NOW'.

On top of all that, the Normandy still has a Reaper IFF, and that has, at the very least, been shared with Cerberus and probably the Alliance too. So even if the Reapers did lock down the Mass Relays, quite a few ships could still get through them.

Anyway, on topic: I really hope that this DLC focuses on the Reapers somehow. Not just the Reaper's background, but the actual Reapers. I want to hear Harbinger yelling at me. I want Shepard to blow another Reaper up - preferably an actual Sovereign sized one this time! And I'd quite like to go through the Citadel Relay to see what's in Dark Space.

 

[AD-Stu]

My god Bioware, I mean, my god. You're really trying to hammer this series into the ground. I mean, the asinine ending aside, clipping in as much DLC as you can into your story-based game is not the best idea.

Thing is, they did the exact same thing with ME2. And even though most of the DLC for ME2 took place after the ending it was all pointless too. Kasumi gave you an extra squad member during the game so maybe that was worth it. Overlord was completely pointless and had no impact on the plot. Ditto Firewalker. Arrival would have progressed the plot... except in ME3 they were too scared that the people who hadn't played it would be confused, so they glossed over it. And LotSB, while very cool, didn't really affect much either.

So the fact that the DLC is all set pre-ending this time around doesn't actually change much at all in the grand scheme of things. It's pretty much exactly what they did last time.

 

[Floppertje]

My god Bioware, I mean, my god. You're really trying to hammer this series into the ground. I mean, the asinine ending aside, clipping in as much DLC as you can into your story-based game is not the best idea. I'm actually interested to see the ratios between those who bought Mass Effect 3 and those who purchased the DLC. I get a feeling there's a pretty constant downward trend in their consumer base.

To quote Joss Whedon: "You have to know at what point mouth-to-mouth becomes necrophilia."

Considering Joss Whedon enjoyed vampire slayer - vampire (demonically animated corpse) romance I wouldn't trust his views on necrophilia.

OT: Yeah they just need to let the series die with what little dignity remains. I saw reviews of ME3 and was horrified so didn't get it. The dlc is doing little to encourage me to get ME3 either, maybe if they pulled a rimmer with the ending:
catalyst "make a choice"
shepard *kicks him in the balls* "Not today matey"
catalyst "gasp...thats never happened before, gasp"

actually, you should get it. it's great! just... you know, stop playing when you hit the liberation of earth, put your fingers in your ears and yell: and then the reapers got killed and everything was perfect forever!

 

[GloatingSwine]

actually, you should get it. it's great! just... you know, stop playing when you hit the liberation of earth, put your fingers in your ears and yell: and then the reapers got killed and everything was perfect forever!

To be honest, the suck sets in some way before there.

If you get Mass Effect 3, just pretend it's a pretty good multiplayer horde mode game with an interesting but flawed progression mechanic, and ignore the horrible wart of a singleplayer campaign hanging off it.

Y'know, just like all those other EA games like Battlefield and Medal of Honour.

 

[Legion]

And yet....that ending.

I kid! I kid!......kinda. See even though the ending had it's issues that's not the problem regarding the DLC, the problem for me is that it was THE ending y'know? They can release DLC but in the end none of it affects the overall ending of the game that I've already seen. Makes it kinda hard for me to be that enthused about the DLC, as interesting as it sounds.

I think it depends on how it is done.

Bioware tend to prefer to create 2 hour long DLC's that directly tie in to the main story in some shape or form. This tends to mean that the DLC is essentially another mission, and by not having it you were missing out on some story. It also means that it is viewed as being a part of the story and so considering that we know how the game ends (nothing we do makes a difference anyway) it makes the DLC somewhat worthless.

If they did what Bethesda does, then it wouldn't be so much of an issue. 3-5 hours long, completely different setting, story not related to the main quest. These feel much more like optional extras, than they do missions that we are "missing out on" if we do not get them.

If you do not care about vampires, then missing out on Dawnguard isn't going to harm your game experience. If you care about stopping the Reapers, then missing out on missions that are supposed to help that, does. So when the Mass Effect ending renders those DLC all irrelevant (in terms of how much they help win the war) it isn't exactly a compelling purchase.