BioWare: Mass Effect 3 Story Has More Than a Thousand Variables
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
Iv got an important question. If i got all the shops on the citadel to get me a discount for saying ?I?m Commander Shepard and this my favourite shop on the citadel?, will i be sued in Mass Effect 3?
I don't know how they're going to deal with the variables regarding potential party members. For instance:
# of unique party members so far: 16
# of party members who can be dead (while still importing a living Shepard): 12
How will they account for such variation? Unless EVERYONE except your love interest from ME1 and/or Liara are reduced to secondary roles? They pulled that crap with Wrex in ME2; is EVERYONE going to be busy doing something useless on the side, so they only have to record like 10 lines of dialogue for each one? The variation is insane, I don't know how they'll put it off.
# of unique party members so far: 16
# of party members who can be dead (while still importing a living Shepard): 12
How will they account for such variation? Unless EVERYONE except your love interest from ME1 and/or Liara are reduced to secondary roles? They pulled that crap with Wrex in ME2; is EVERYONE going to be busy doing something useless on the side, so they only have to record like 10 lines of dialogue for each one? The variation is insane, I don't know how they'll put it off.
I played both Mass Effect games 4 times. I just hope that out of one of those playthroughs I have the perfect character that made the best decisions.
If this is not the case, I think I am going to have to play Mass Effect 1 and 2 again for one last time to make sure that all decisions were correctly made. Damn man. DAMN!
If this is not the case, I think I am going to have to play Mass Effect 1 and 2 again for one last time to make sure that all decisions were correctly made. Damn man. DAMN!
It sounds awesome but it must be impossibly heavy amounts of pressure on Bioware and I wonder if it's like the Butterfly Effect in games where if you do one thing differently everything changes.
For instance, in my standard playthrough of Mass Effect I always romanced Ashley, always saved the Rachni, always helped the colonists on Feros, always managed to get Wrex to calm down, always managed to save the Council in the end.
However in my first playthrough I actually messed up and got Kirrahe killed in the mission on Virmire and I now wonder how that will effect my upcoming playthroughs. Also in my first playthrough I slept with the Asari Consort before moving on to Ashley so I wonder if that will turn up anywhere in the plot?
Now my default Mass Effect 2 plot, always stayed faithful to Ashley, managed to save my entire team, destroyed the base, reprogrammed the Heretics, made Mordin hold onto the genophage cure to help the Krogan, killed the Thresher Maw, didn't have Tali get exiled, didn't kill Sidonis, and had Morinith killed... essentially all the paragon things I did.
Part of me would be curious of what would happen if I did just one thing differently but as it stands it would be interesting just to see where the plot goes from here.
So I'm hoping for a perfect Mass Effect 3 that has everything I want but I am slightly curious to see how many different variables there could be in the meantime.
That said, some things Bioware might overlook and/or not acknowledge. An example of this is the possible character development of Ashley or Kaidan. The former of which you can convert into trusting aliens and liking the Council and being proud to fight alongside them and the latter of which you can turn into an angry xenophobic alien hater who spits in disgust at the thought of them.
But then in Mass Effect 3, they just revert back to defaults... regardless of whether you made the switch or not. Ashley once again goes back to her stance of not being a 'fan' of aliens, despite having in the last moment of the first game announced that she did trust the Council damn near completely. (though she does still say she doesn't like how Cerberus is 'extremist' so that's a start)
And Kaidan who you can have slur and hope that the 'alien bastards get to see what humanity can do' ends up leaving expressing his undying trust in the Council.
It's as if the game couldn't register optional character development moments so they didn't bother with them, I would hope that this doesn't happen in Mass Effect 3.
Also I suspect I will have to go back and replay Mass Effects 1 and 2 again just so I can paragon Ashley (I admit it wasn't until after I had stopped playing Mass Effect altogether that I even realized you could do that) just in case it does have some kind of effect in Mass Effect 3. Also want to make doubly sure that all my other choices are perfect as well.
For instance, in my standard playthrough of Mass Effect I always romanced Ashley, always saved the Rachni, always helped the colonists on Feros, always managed to get Wrex to calm down, always managed to save the Council in the end.
However in my first playthrough I actually messed up and got Kirrahe killed in the mission on Virmire and I now wonder how that will effect my upcoming playthroughs. Also in my first playthrough I slept with the Asari Consort before moving on to Ashley so I wonder if that will turn up anywhere in the plot?
Now my default Mass Effect 2 plot, always stayed faithful to Ashley, managed to save my entire team, destroyed the base, reprogrammed the Heretics, made Mordin hold onto the genophage cure to help the Krogan, killed the Thresher Maw, didn't have Tali get exiled, didn't kill Sidonis, and had Morinith killed... essentially all the paragon things I did.
Part of me would be curious of what would happen if I did just one thing differently but as it stands it would be interesting just to see where the plot goes from here.
So I'm hoping for a perfect Mass Effect 3 that has everything I want but I am slightly curious to see how many different variables there could be in the meantime.
That said, some things Bioware might overlook and/or not acknowledge. An example of this is the possible character development of Ashley or Kaidan. The former of which you can convert into trusting aliens and liking the Council and being proud to fight alongside them and the latter of which you can turn into an angry xenophobic alien hater who spits in disgust at the thought of them.
But then in Mass Effect 3, they just revert back to defaults... regardless of whether you made the switch or not. Ashley once again goes back to her stance of not being a 'fan' of aliens, despite having in the last moment of the first game announced that she did trust the Council damn near completely. (though she does still say she doesn't like how Cerberus is 'extremist' so that's a start)
And Kaidan who you can have slur and hope that the 'alien bastards get to see what humanity can do' ends up leaving expressing his undying trust in the Council.
It's as if the game couldn't register optional character development moments so they didn't bother with them, I would hope that this doesn't happen in Mass Effect 3.
Also I suspect I will have to go back and replay Mass Effects 1 and 2 again just so I can paragon Ashley (I admit it wasn't until after I had stopped playing Mass Effect altogether that I even realized you could do that) just in case it does have some kind of effect in Mass Effect 3. Also want to make doubly sure that all my other choices are perfect as well.
Spoilers much?Vrex360 said:
But yeah, I agree. Butterfly effect would probably be the best way to go, maybe pull something like The Witcher on us, where a paragon action in ME1 ends up getting a bunch of people killed in ME3 or something like that.
But hell, they could only have 1 line references, and I'd still get ME3. ME2 is my favourite-est game ever, so hell yeah I'd get the sequel!
Well I'm a bit stalkerish and tend to remember all the people I ran into. So even if it's the smallest most obscure reference, line of dialogue or email... I'll notice.
Just have to start making my perfect ME + ME 2 save for Mass Effect 3.
Just have to start making my perfect ME + ME 2 save for Mass Effect 3.
I can see it now: a mini-mission in which Jack kidnaps Tali and threatens to kill her because of how I broke her heart. Since Jack was loyal to me though, she will be easy enough to persuade out of the homicidal rampage...this time...or, if she does go bananas, I can just whistle for some of the Rachni whom I saved in the first game!
Slightly off-topic: Does anybody else see the Rachni as organic Basilisk War Droids? I was really looking at the queen and she struck me as being very similar to the BWDs...
Slightly off-topic: Does anybody else see the Rachni as organic Basilisk War Droids? I was really looking at the queen and she struck me as being very similar to the BWDs...
I don't mind if I'm either getting a small dialogue chat with someone I rescued or even just an email, I loved those small things in ME2 because I actually felt like I made a goddamn difference in the galaxy, not just to the galaxy itself, but to the individuals.
Very clever in terms of adding replay value. I must agree that many of the references to previous events amount to little more than making you feel like the world acknowledges what little choices you make, but it could possibly set a precedent for future RPGs. Today it's brief references to sidequests, tomorrow we'll see a whole slew of opportunities open up for core missions, also.
I wonder what BioWare will do for those of us who lost half of our squads in the final battle. My game experience would feel a bit dull if I had only those remaining characters.
I wonder what BioWare will do for those of us who lost half of our squads in the final battle. My game experience would feel a bit dull if I had only those remaining characters.
Onyx Oblivion said:
your right about that, i seriously hope they pop up big somewhere in me3, have them come in MASSES as reinforcements at some dire point in the game, to just maul the shit out of geth or something, thatd be epic.Onyx Oblivion said:
OT: im glad they are sticking to it and including all this stuff, i understand that alot of it is going to be one liners and stuff and thats perfectly acceptable, its too hard to include EVERYTHING in a amazing way, so good job for sticking with it at least bioware
wait what..?stinkychops said:
do you not realize that is what bioware is mostly all about?
im assuming you like very linear games for you then... as that is what you are describing mostly.
which besides bioware i can't really recommend too many wrpg's for that, besides fable and lost odyssey..
Good to see we might actually get some congruency between two and three (unlike the first 2) in terms of story.
Too bad if they don't fix the combat severely, I won't be buying their next mass (effect) produced piece of shit.
Too bad if they don't fix the combat severely, I won't be buying their next mass (effect) produced piece of shit.