It's official, Devil May Cry fans are the worst fans ever

[bug_of_war]

I dont blame the other writers for the ending, i blame them for the part they worked on. Stopping the Reapers WAS the overarching plot on ME2 and ME3, but M2 didnt do anything meaningful with it (we end up making alliances on M3 instead) and instead of fighting the Reapers on ME3, we fight Cerberus who somehow got more resourses AND time to even produce an entire fleet to fight against EVERYONE on the galaxy. Cerberus became The Empire of Stars Wars in....what? 6 months after ME2? Hell, even the earlier scripts had TIM as the final boss, instead of, you know, the Reapers??

Again, is not that we want to take control over the writing, is more like talking to an old friend who say himself that he has a drinking problem.......and keep on drinking while he is talking to you. This friend claimed that he wanted to stop but he KEEP ON GOING with it, we just want to politely tell him to (and i quote here): "Stop being a retarded hypocrite".

This is similar on how the developers on ME couldnt stop lying about the contents of the game, even a day before releasing the game itself.


To that we ask: What IS what the author wants? he starts saying one thing and end up doing another. Hell, why does he think that this is HIS vision?? you said before that other writers have their own writting style, therefore, it means that they have both a vision and something to tell in this big work done by lots of people. Why THEIR opinions about that one guy doing only 10-15 minutes of the ending (taking all the credits for the vision as a whole) are being ignored? do they really think that the ending (or even the parts that they didnt work in) have the same consistency as everything else?

I remember talking about the "who gets the credits for your work" kind of question in this thread:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.398232-Games-as-art?page=2
Posts 37-39

A similar game with the same problem of being worse because of the contradicting mentality of the developers (both inside the game narrative AND interviews) is Spec Ops: The Line:

http://theshillinfield.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/spec-ops-the-line-is-a-bad-videogame/
http://theshillinfield.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/spec-ops-the-line-is-still-a-bad-videogame/#more-95

I'm going to cut this short because otherwise I believe we are going to keep running in circles. While I can't defend Casey Hudson whom ran his mouth I can defend the other writers as I believe you saying their work is below quality is wrong. The story is subjective, so one mans diamond is another mans chalk.

I am quite certain your fridge example is blown out of proprtion.

Right, i should have said that they sold me funtional fridges for over a decade BEFORE "expanding the audience" by adding the ones that have the Mustard Gas version that smells like Channel Nº5.

So, ME1 had bad controls and alot of other stuff that needed polish. Yes, it is true, but THIS is the price we have to pay? it this BW definition of polished? either fuck it up or remove it completely (The Mako segments, borrowed from the game Star Control 2: The Ur Quan Masters):

The game itself is funtional, you just don't like the story. The game was promised to be the end of Shepards story. Check. Action 3rd person shooter. Check. RPG elements. Check. I believe I got what I was promised, the game works, the story is what I was told it would be and I personally believe that your fridge comparison is waaaaaay too far. IF you were going to compare it to a fridge, I guess you COULD say that it's like buying a fridge that doesn't have the space you presumed that it would have.

All my squad members can take down any geth, that's not a good RPG.

Chris Avellone, the man who wrote Planescape Torment (The Best RPG of all time) and Fallout New Vegas, says different about having everyone be useful. It gives the player the capacity of choosing the members they like as a character rather than who is more useful (because they are balanced enough to stand on their own):

While I understand wanting to use your favourite characters, I believe that all characters in your party should have something interesting and unique about them. For example, Dragon Age: Origins has many levels in which characters have different interactions with each other, argue and even can help you or hinder you along the quest. There are enemies that require different line ups as well. When I played through the game, I was constantly changing between the 4 warriors, 2 rogues and 2 mages so as that I would be able to methodically take down enemies. Wynne was my healing mage, so when I went up against enemies such as mages, demons or Dwarfs I would use her to keep the team consisting of Sten/Ogrehn, Leliana (Bow) and myself (Dual wield swords) healthy. But with enemies like Werewolves, Humans or Darkspawn I would use Morrigan, Zeveran and Dog/Alistair to take them on. In doing so I grew to enjoy the company of all the characters and got the full enjoyment out of the game. Whilst there's nothing wrong with balance, I feel that Mass Effect 1 had no balance because all the squad mates were equal in strength and weaknesses in nearly every scenario.

Whats stopping them is that they are not the original writers. Asking them to write exactly like the previous writer is asking the impossible. All writers have their own style, flare and knowledge on the topic they created. So, to then expect new writers to know EVERYTHING about an entire series that spans from comics, novels, film and game is like expecting someone to know everything about shakespere and have them write a sequel to Macbeth, or Richard the 3rd.

How is supposed to make sense? For example, Batman gets rewritten all the time by lots of writters and it is still recogniced as Batman by the fans. Why? because the themes or unique features that make Batman be Batman are still there, just played differently. Are you telling me that the new writters couldnt EVEN ask for the footnotes of what Batman IS?

Here, let me use the Metroid Other M Liveblog to ilustrate better what i mean:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13373815860B43920100&i_id=13378783280I83340200&p=8

Start at: "Why Do You Like This Scene?", you will eventually get to the part where they mention Batman and you will see what i mean.

THEN you tell me if the writers on ME2 actually DID consider what happened on ME1? (by the way, the lead writer Drew Karpyshyn also worked on ME2, this time alongside Mac Walters. So not even the same writer can get this thing straight)

I knew the lead writer of the first game worked on the second. Yes Batman has been re-written, not all of the re-writes are 'good' though in the opinion of some people as they feel that the character isn't the original, yet there are others, presumably like yourself, whom believe all the iterations are a 'good' Batman.

"not even the same writer can get this thing straight", that is highly insulting. You outright saying that you know the story of Mass Effect better than the man whom wrote it. THIS is where gamer possesiveness is becoming a problem, YOU DIDN'T WRITE THE STORY, you merely were given the chance to experience the story, so while you may not have liked where it went you have no right to say that the lead writer didn't write the second game properly. I believe Mass Effect 2 is a fine game, and I see no jarring differation between the writing of the first and second game. While my opinion is entirely subjective, so is yours, but the one person who knows exactly how it should go is the lead writer, and when he left he had to be replaced by someone like you and me, a fan whom knew the series, but was not the creator. It is impossible for him to replicate and reproduce the work done by Drew because he is not Drew, he has only a small idea on what Drew was going to do with the third game. Whomever the lead writer was, I believe he did the best job he could with the resources available.

"it would be stupid to do it again like it was before but at least it will be consistent", so you would rather the story be more stupid than you already believe it to be simply because it would be consistent with how the second game played.

Dont look at me like that, it was the writers who wrote themselves in this corner of "stupid antagonist syndrome" AKA Villain Ball. And since good writting contains the "Law of Conservation of Detail" then they may as well DO something meaninful with this guy they created, or otherwise it would be a waste of time for them AND the audience.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail

I disagree, the writers didn't write themselves into a corner. They could have easily continued having Harbinger taunt the player, however it would not make sense that the leader of the Reapers would waste time telling 1 person what he is going to do when he can just flat out do it. Actions speak louder than words.

I felt it was consitent with Harbingers character that he no longer is out to insult Shepard and focus on him. At the end of the game Harbinger talks about how Shepard is dealing with matters that are far greater than his comprehension, so why would Harbinger then, in Mass Effect 3 still waste time taking over foot soldiers to taunt Shepard. I'm pretty sure when you butt fuck Earth on your arrival you've shown the enemy that your a powerhouse mother fucker. He doesn't need to taunt Shepard because he's already shown his full power.

He has demostrated his power by buttfuking Earth? because the Protean visions with the Cypher, Sovereing playing The Juggernaut on The Citadel, and the Derelict Reaper indoctrinating everyone WASNT enough to convince Shepards that he is a threat alredy? An 2 of the things i listed here happened before Harby even talked non stop about his power (in english no less, because you know, he has to fill you in the loop about his plans. Being in dark space is kinda lonely)

Shepard says in the first game that the Prothean beacon vision was difficult to process even with the cipher, and even as a player watching the vision sequence didn't really show me the full power of the Reapers. Shepard never had to fight Soverign directly, he was too busy killing Geth and chasing Saren to really see the terror of Soverign hugging the Citadel. And as for the dead Reaper indoctrinating the the workers on board isn't really a demonstration of immense power, rather a these things are still effective at disabling organics whom stay close to them for too long. Having an entire Reaper fleet come down and buttfuck Earth the way they did is an excellent way to demonstrate power. It shows Shepard the fragile state of organic life, and the speed in which Earth is taken over is psycologically more terrifying than an old vision, a robot squid hugging a large space station, and a dead Reaper still having the abillity to slowly but surely fuck with organics minds.

The Reapers don't chase you because they KNOW the signal is coming from the Normandy, they chase you because it is a ship signal being output in a galaxy and they're trying to grab all the organics.

So it ISNT invisible as you said. But that means that Harbinger COULD have killed us during this scene in the Extended Cut when we get the squadmates to the Normandy........but just stands there not shooting the slow ass ship.

Actually it is 'invisible', it traps all heat signatures and stops sending out radio positioning signals. However, when the Normandy scans a planet it HAS to output a signal that CAN be picked up by the Reapers. This is why the Reapers can find the ship when scanning planets, and it is the reason why Harbinger doesn't shoot the Normandy in the EC. Harbinger could not 'see' the Normandy as the Normandy was blocking all of it's signals, thus it would have just been a blind spot to Harbinger.

I know I didn't explain this well, but I am sure there is a website that explains this better and I'll look around for the link and tag it into this in an edit.

As for why they didn't reverse engineer the technology, they didn't have time. Nobody believed that the Reapers were real, everyone passed it off as Shepard being paranoid. So, WHY would other races reverse engineer technology when they have no need for it. If you're about to say "BUT WE'RE IN A WAR", then here is my retort to that. Yes, the galaxy is in a war, which means they need to put all resources into stopping the Reapers. However, instead of reverse engineering technology that would take too much time to distribute, the galaxy decides to go with the crucible, a plan that nearly every previous cycle believed would work.

Nobody believed about The Reapers but that didnt stop them in reverse ingeniering Sovereing technology and mass producing it into Thanix Cannons. All Shepards had to do to help the galaxy is that say "this is Reaper te-I MEAN- Cybersquid Geth Capital Ship tech. Remember how it kicked our asses? well, we better develop more of that shit for ourselves"

So reverse ingeniering something that WAS proven to be efective before AND that IS possible to reverse ingenier in the first place.....takes more time. (it seems that Reapers ARENT so "beyond comprehention" like they said they are, if we can make those weapons AND develop EDI in the first place out of their remains)

Acording to you, it even takes even MORE time than developing The Crusible. An object that, i remind you, took the longer effort of many many cycles........but somehow, WE are going to finish it in time, faster than making reverse ingenier attempts on KNOW technology. And for bonus points, we dont KNOW what The Crusible even does beyond "taking the word of the previous cycles for it"

I dont know what military training makes you use UNKNOWN variables to win wars, but sure as hell it isnt the human one.

Also, that is an "appeal to tradition". Just because the other cycles thought it could work without even knowing what it does (nor we get to know that until the ending) and did it every time, doesnt mean we SHOULD do it too (specially without information)

EDIT1: This could be the perfect time for Shepard to either use his connections on Cerberus or even Liara as Shadow Brooker to obtain resourses to mass produce the weapons against Reapers AND make sure that people are infiltrated in all military facilities to ship the new weapons to all ships in the galaxy, all while keeping as low profile as possible. It will be the equivalent of someone stealthily entering your house at night to replace your Nerf Guns with real guns, so the family (and even your kids) can shoot down a bunch of hitmen that are about to kill you all.

Its ilegal, sure, but the galaxy will learn to forgive this if they manage to survive the invasion.

They didn't believe the giant squid ship was a Reaper because the council covered it up as just a one of a kind geth ship. Also, yes they did have 2 years to reverse engineer and outfit their ships with powerful weapons, but there are plenty of reasons not to. Arming ships is a sign that you are preparing to go to war, not only that, but it's expensive and not all ships would be capable of taking on the Thanix Cannons. Just because you have a bazooka, doesn't mean you attatch it to everything you own. As for why Shepard didn't just come out and say, "The Geth are actually the bad guys, yeah, lets uh...go get em!" it's because he died just 2 months after the events in ME1 and came back 2 years later working with Cerberus. His credibility is gone, so even if he did just go along and pretend the Reapers are Geth, his association with Cerberus and his 2 year gap completely negates any pulling power he accumulated in the first game.

Why were we able to build the Crucible so fast? Because we had ALL the plans. It was explained that many races slowly added different parts to the Crucible to make it what it is. WE were able to build it because we had all the plans, unlike the other races whom were essentially still building the initial plans of the weapon. And why Shepard didn't use his connections with TIM to mass produce Thanix Cannons is because the Illusive Man didn't want the Reapers dead, he wanted to control them. There is no way in hell TIM would waste resources on something that would destroy the thing he wants. Also, the Shadow Brokers greatest power was the anonymity. Also, just because someone makes a weapon as powerful as the Thanix Cannons, doesn't mean they can force it apon everyone whom owns a ship.

Harbinger never said they preserve synthetics, only organics. I believe it is also mentioned somewhere in ME3 that only the most influencial races are turned into the reapers while the rest of the sapient species are turned into husks. The entire idea is that they are not trying to preserve current sapient life, but future life, be it sentient or not. They care little for the sapient life at present, they care about the future of sapient life in the Milky Way.

That doesnt explain why they send the preserved life (in both Husk and Reaper form) to attack other lifeforms with the risk of getting killed, thus, failing the directive of protecting ALL life because you send them to fight and die. Even Sovereing Class Reapers are killed and they STILL send those to fight. If those contain civilizations inside their bodies, then it means that those are gone forever now. Reapers should have made pure mechanical beings to make the Reaping and let the ones filled with civilizations in Dark Space so they dont get killed.

They are not trying to preserve present life, and they preserve the strongest life in Reaper form becuase they need to replenish their ranks with the strong. The Reapers are trying to preserve life, and view space faring races as a threat to future organic life. They send husks of space faring races at the organics so that they don't have to always be on ground killing people. You have to remember that it is not the Reapers intention to wipe out or presrve all organic life. Think of them as a lawn mower, keeping the grass in check, but not dead, THAT is the reapers purpose.

To be honest, that sounds like a boring game where I have to continue to click on dialogue segments to continue a conversation, in fact it sounds like filler gameplay. I don't wanna have to sit down and keep telling my character to say something, and for the most part I found the auto dilogue suit the situation.

But when a game is about choice (and repercutions to those choices) we expect to carefully take our time with the information at hand before making difficult choices. That is what a ROLE Playing Game is about. That is why Planescape Torment and even the Original 2 Fallout games are the closest to being a Dungeon & Dragons RPG experience.

There are conversations in Mass Effect where you literally clicking a button to just say, "Yes I did this" to have me continually have to press a button for a conversation to continue is just time wasting. For example, in Mass Effect 1, after completeing a main mission, the council would call you and you would be stuck talking to them. However everything you said simply determined if you were nice in telling them what happened, straight to the point, or a prick who just hangs up. This had no reall effect on the story and forced me to sit through quick time dialogue segments where in which the Salarian, Asari and Turian would either question everything I did, or be angry at me. In the end, it did not effect the game in any way other than extending time.

If that is the type of experience you want, then play Dungeons and Dragons where in which you have to do everything yourself. Video games have their limits, and I would rather click a button once to just get a quick conversation over and done with than sit their and constantly decide whether or not my character is still nice, neutral or mean.

Choices you make have an effect throughout the whole story. For example, if you side with the Salarians and Wrex is alive, he will find out and you will be forced to kill him and loose suppourt of the Krogans. IF however Wreave is alive and Eve is dead, he will never know and you will continue having both Salarian and Krogan support. Onto the whole, "Why didn't they research this", while I can't say why not, I can propose the theory that in war, you take desperate measures. The Crucible was a desperate measure, it was supported by every previous race, so why not give it a shot.

I see you calling the Crucible a Deus ex Machina, I hate that this has been thrown around because everyone seems to have forgotten what a DEM really is. A Deus Ex Machina is an I win button that has not been hinted at at all throught the entire story and comes in at the very end of the game. This does not hold true for the Crucible. Firstly, the Crucible is introduced in the second mission of the game and we are told that it has the power to stop the Reapers. We now know at the start of the game that it is a weapon that has the ability to stop the reapers, but we don't know how it will stop the Reapers. In the end, we find out that it can Destroy, Control, or Synthesize, and these effects are not DEM either. I'll explain, the 3 games go by human psyche, in the sense of we hate, fear and want the unknown to be destroyed. Second stage, we learn a little about the unknown and begin wanting to control it, and finally, when we know everything there is to know we come to accept it. A more easy way to show this is with Vampires. At first we feared them, then we learnt more about them and made hunter characters like Van Helsing, and now, we have twilight, where everyone seems to want to be a vampire. How does this huge chunk fit with the ME series? Well, Reapers are the unknown in the first game, and we want Soverign destroyed, and in the end he is. Second game, we know more about the Reapers and the Illusive Man proposes the possibility of controlling them (in both ME2 and 3). By the third game the entire idea is unify the galaxy to save it. In it's most literal sense you are unifying organic and synthetic creatures in the synthesis ending.

What about the starchild? he is totally a DEM! Well, actually no, the starchild is the catalyst, we have known about the catalyst for some time and understand that we need it to make the Crucible work.

THERE IS NO DEUS EX MACHINA IN MASS EFFECT 3, there IS however a somewhat contrived ending that just fits well with how the series progressed.

Yes there are plot holes, but there will always be plot holes in a universe as big as the Mass Effect series.

I will have to make a graphic ilustrating what it trully means to have a branching narrative, but in the meantime i will have to deal with other minor stuff like:

Desperate measures shouldnt equal stupidity. We have NO info on what it does and we have to take the words of everyone else for it. If i were Shepard, i would first try to recall if the Prothean visions on ME1 and 2 had ANY mention of this machine that many cycles (and even the protheans) worked on. After all, if it is so important then why i havent hear of it, for all i know it could be another trap of The Reapers like The Citadel was on ME1 given how convenient it is that we found the solution to our problems. Also "Appeal To Tradition": "Everyone focused the resourses on this thing rather than developing weapons, we must follow their example too and fail like them"

You are thinking rationally and have no pressures though. It is easy to look at a situation and say, "I would have done this" but in a war, you don't think rationally when you are on the ground taking fire, you can make brash decisions when everyone is turning to you and asking you, "What do we do". And when you friend is telling you, "I have been studying this thing and I believe 100% that this thing will stop the Reapers" it is quite likely you would take that option.

You say that, because it was stablished early, it ISNT a DEM. You do realize that in the Greek/Atheans days (where DEM was invented) the Gods themselves were also stablished? the audience knew about their existance and how they could just, at the drop of a hat, fuck the journey up in any way they want, it was stablished in every work, but guess what? it was a DEM even by those days standards. The plot resolved itself because a god came to wrap everything up, even when they once antagonised the protagonist himself before, the reason of why he is giving him an end to his torment is because SHUT THE FUCK UP, I AM A GOD, YOU ARE A PUNY MORTAL WHO DOESNT KNOW SHIT ABOUT LIFE (AND WRITING), DONT QUESTION IT!

Yes, the gods were established, however a DEM is when something that has not been present throughout the entire story just shows up un-annouced and says, "I fix your problem". The crucible is constantly talked about throughout the game. We know it's going to stop the Reapers and in the end it does.

Same with the Crucible, it magically allowed us to FORCE the antagonist into surrendering AND giving us himself 3 elegant (but of a questionable source) choices. Why The Crusible does this? SHUT THE FUCK UP, I AM BEYOND COMPREHENTION (EVEN IF YOU BUILT ME), THIS IS WHAT I DO, DONT QUESTION IT!

It likely uses a pulse of radiation that has an EMP like effect. If this is too hard for you to accept, than why are you playing a game that has an all female race of aliens that can breed without any DNA from the partner and is able to magically look into the partners DNA and choose the 'bonus powers' the child will get. Or what about the whole Element Zero makes people telekenetic, or that every single living spaient creature has an inbuilt translator in their brain that translates all languages almost flawlessly. Mass Effect has always required suspension of disbelief, and to only just now say that this one thing in particular is stupid is in it of itself stupid. You have so far excepted things that are more BS than a wave of radiation blowing up synthetic life, controling a particular bunch of synthetics, or fusing synthetic and organic life.

So the Catalyst is also the part we need to make The Crusible AND the collective conciousness of all Reapers. Gee, that doesnt sound suspicious at all, that the machine that nobody knew what it does, to the point that it may as well be a trap, NEEDS the antagonist himself to work.

Well, seeing as how the Citadel has always been a part of the Reapers cycle it makes sense that it could also have something more to do with the Reapers.

Spoiler: Also, the vampire example doesnt work because people dont work that way...

...they dont fear something and THEN like later. People have already made up their minds, by the time they found this creature, what they want to do with it. They may change their opinions but it isnt a linear path with specific mentalities that humans have to follow.

And vampires, believe or not, represent lust for power AND fear of the unknown. They are the faster, strongest, smarters, and the more charming motherfuckers you will ever see (as made popular by Dracula while being NOT the first vampire ever written) and they are inmortal too, all while giving themselves to their hedonistic lifestyles for all eternity. They are, basically, everything that YOU want (hell, Dracula wasnt even harmed by sunlight).......except, they still dont have everything in the world. This is where their fear for religious symbols comes in, because they arent harm by them, they just fear the concept behind them.

Vampires are supposed to be the top of the top of the food chain, better than mortals in everyway, all strenghts none of the weaknesses, but the idea of God makes them feel like shit because it REMINDS THEM their place in this universe. They are not on top, God is on top controlling everything, even with inmortality they still need to feed like an animal, and their place in the universe is just as insignificant like other beings. They are NOTHING in the great scale of things even with all that power.

God is to them, what Cthulhu Mythos and Cosmic Horror is to us: We dont matter, we cant make a difference, we are miniscule in the uncaring universe, all you can do is just delude yourself with mortal pleasures until the truth comes right in front of you. Absolute and unbereable.

Vampires use to be scary. Yes they represented lust and sex, but they WERE scary originally. People feared Vampires, and they were the new monster that scared us. We began understnding them and began creating characters or ways to destroy them, and eventually began looking at their strength, speed, and longevity and people started saying, "That woud actually be kinda cool". Thus we started getting books and films like Twilight and Underworld.

it's a stretch, but so was the indoctrination theory, and many people believed that even though it had flaws.

Yes, bribery is wrong, and it happens, but that is why you should never base your opinion on something off of one thing. You can't say a certain food is bad after 1 mouthful. You can't say a certain music genre is bad after hearing 1 song.
I have also seen Angry Joe's top 10 gaming scandals, and I did see the ending as number 2, but he still found it as a good game. As for what you said about "what makes a game good", this is ENTIRELY subjective, and a good reviewer like Joe or Shamus Young will outline their reasons. It is then up to you to decide if these line up with the things you find important in a game. For example, Angry Joe HATES the new Dante and Vergil in DMC Devil May Cry, but that didn't stop him from giving the game a 7/10 for it's gameplay and what not. He gave a fair score to the game based off of it's gameplay and not off of it being part of a franchise.

If what makes something good is ENTIRELY subjective..........then why do these people have jobs? what is so important about their opinions that we, the unwashed masses, cannot do by ourselves? after all, everything is subjective, there is no profesional or objective way to know if something is good or bad. Every opinion counts because all of them are valid. Yet the opinion of those guys count more because of........what, exactly? for making less grammar mistakes than the common folk? because they make pretty images with the green screen? how do you become a profesional at something that is purely subjective? why i am not listening to my own brain since its opinion is just as valid?

They have jobs because people want to know if something is good. There are multiple reviewers because art is subjective and requires many opinions, like you stated, to form a general consensus. I'm not saying their opinion is better than ours, I'm saying their opinion is formed and given to the people for us to scrutinize and decide if we agree with them or not. I personally don't listen to reviewers very often because I find myself tending to disagree with what the say about games. I know what I like, but there are times where I question whether I truly want a game. This is when I may load up a video of Angry Joe, Escapist, ABC's Good Game, etc and find out what they have to say. I can listen to their opinion on the games story and gameplay and from that point on I can make a decision based on a consensus of multiple people whether or not I will or wont but a game. Your opinion is valid...for you. It does not however work for everyone, so when YOU start demanding that something be changed based on your opinion, you are currently saying, "I don't care what others think, cater for me and me only". Yes, there were large amounts of people who did not like the game, there were also large amounts of people who did enjoy the game. But instead of just accepting that they didn't like the game, they raved on about it and refused to just accept that they don't like it but others may.

For example, I HATE brussel sprouts and cabbage, I think they are the most disgusting tasting food out there. But I accpet that I don't like it, and that I can't change the brussel sprout or cabbage. I also have no right demanding that they stop being used by people because there are people out there whom like cabbage and brussel sprouts. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean I can or have any right to change anything about it.

I would say it's because of their recent games not being very good (Warfighter) and the majority of gamers seeming to loathe the company and refusing to buy a game simply because EA has it's brand on the game. What most people don't realise that is if EA dies, so does all of it's developers. There is currently a thread on the Escapist about things people have Boycotted, and there are several people on it saying things like, "I'm boycotting EA even though I really want a few of their games. I just can't handle EA and their practices". This is bullshit, if you want something, get it, don't deny yourself pleasure because you don't like the person who published it. It's almost like saying, "I don't watch Universal Studios films because I don't like the people who work at Universal even though I like their movies". EA is getting more hate than they deserve and this is effecting their sales figures.

But you said that gamers are like children BECAUSE they do what the like without thinking. Boycotting is just a choice they take into admitting that somethings have to be sacrificed in order to let EA crumble. A more valid concern would be that your beloved developers would starve if EA dies, but i am sure that even the developers would notice that adopting EA practices will make less money in the long run AND it prevents them from doing what they want because EA will make sure that the game does what it must to SELL not to ENGAGE or inspire like the author wanted.

The video of "The Tale of 2 Companies" ilustrated well that Bioware was fine back when they were 3 people with a hundred grans, and today, 3 people with hundreds of grans can succeed too in making something of quality. So what IS Bioware winning by aligning with EA?

Let's play Vorlon and say: "Who is Bioware? And what do they want?"

They are acting like children when they are boycotting EA. They got pissed off at the company and are now refusing to play ANYTHING published by them based on what? A misplaced sense of self righteousness?. EA is keeping these developers alive by giving them money to continue making games, so by boycotting EA you are boycotting all the developers trying to make a living and are actually maiking the industry worse. If EA falls, then we will loose developers such as Bioware and Maxis whom were going bankrupt before EA purchased them. EA provides developers a sense of security. They are a large company that has been around for decades that offer the developers the chance to keep making the thing they love and getting paid to do so. Yes, you can make a game with 3 people, but then that game is going to be simple in a sense. For example, Limbo has been getting rave reviews for it's story and gameplay, yet the graphics are just crappy little shilouttes and it is a side scroller. Dead Space has a similar story in the sense that the protagonist is searching for someone in a dangerous unkown environment. It's graphics are quite good, the environment is somewhat open and is fully fleshed out, not all enemies can be taken out in the same way and require a certain strategy,and there are some puzzles. I'm not saying that AAA games are always better than indie games. What I am saying is that AAA games can take the same concept as an indie game and expand apon it making it more immersive than what the indie developed video game was.

"Who is Bioware? And what do they want?" Bioware is a company made up of people whom love to make video games for a living. However video games take time to create, and they want to make a good game, thus they require the game making hobby to be their actual job. They want to make a great experience, but that will require them to take time out of their lives. Because of this, they feel as though they deserve to be paid. And they totally should be paid for their hardwork.
Bioware is a group of people who have mouths to feed, and when you get offered economic security and a pay rise from a large and long lived bigger company, you take that offer as it suggests that what you are doing is good, and that you have a future in the industry.

 

[lapan]

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/capcom-almost-halves-dmc-sales-expectations/0110372

It?s potentially a sad end to a tale brought about very much by the fans themselves. Anyone who played Devil May Cry 4 must surely of seen how desperately the IP needed an injection of new ideas and modernisation ? which is exactly what the skilful Ninja Theory achieved.

Yet the fans revolted because Capcom dared to reinvent its IP for the 21st century and dared to change the colour of Dante?s hair. It?s really very sad.

A headline suggested by a colleague: ?Devil May Cry fans destroy brand out of spite.? That about covers it.

Voting with your wallet is now called "destroying a brand out of spite" by some journalists.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/02/05/are-fans-to-blame-for-lower-than-expected-dmc-sales/

 

[DioWallachia]

I'm going to cut this short because otherwise I believe we are going to keep running in circles. While I can't defend Casey Hudson whom ran his mouth I can defend the other writers as I believe you saying their work is below quality is wrong. The story is subjective, so one mans diamond is another mans chalk.

Is below quality for a work of Bioware compared to Baldur's Gate, Knights of The Old Republic and even Dragon Age Origins (who was made with EA funding, interestingly enough) and its below quality compared to other products in this Capitalistic Economic System. You may like it like someone would like Twilight for its batshit insanity but that doesnt mean that the work in question is in par with literary classics. Let alone have any "integrity" in its art (i question the integrity in have a robot with a cameltoe)

But dont worry, its ok to like it (in a "Bile Fascination" sort off way), as long you actually recognice that its not the best Bioware could do AND you dont inflict that quality upon others just because its enough for you.

Stories are built on a logical and belivable base FIRST, then the subjective interpretation of it comes SECOND. So lets start with the game that expanded the holes that will eventually lead to the "catalyst" of ME3 controversy.


Interestingly enough, that guy made videos since 2010, the year that ME2 was released. I am telling you just in case that you believe that people had complains on ME as whole to join the bandwagon of "It sucks" because of the ending alone.

The game itself is funtional, you just don't like the story. The game was promised to be the end of Shepards story. Check. Action 3rd person shooter. Check. RPG elements. Check. I believe I got what I was promised, the game works, the story is what I was told it would be and I personally believe that your fridge comparison is waaaaaay too far. IF you were going to compare it to a fridge, I guess you COULD say that it's like buying a fridge that doesn't have the space you presumed that it would have.

Functional? you got lucky then:

I cant presume when i DO know about something that i saw in detail how it works and what to expect. That is what you do when you buy something, you see every detail carefully before making a decition of buying it. Then the people ship it to my house and find out that its totally different of what i bought.

Also, i cant like or dislike, i am just making an observation that the story is quite incoherent and takes too many liberties when more simple things could have been done by the characters.

I knew the lead writer of the first game worked on the second. Yes Batman has been re-written, not all of the re-writes are 'good' though in the opinion of some people as they feel that the character isn't the original, yet there are others, presumably like yourself, whom believe all the iterations are a 'good' Batman.

"not even the same writer can get this thing straight", that is highly insulting. You outright saying that you know the story of Mass Effect better than the man whom wrote it. THIS is where gamer possesiveness is becoming a problem, YOU DIDN'T WRITE THE STORY, you merely were given the chance to experience the story, so while you may not have liked where it went you have no right to say that the lead writer didn't write the second game properly. I believe Mass Effect 2 is a fine game, and I see no jarring differation between the writing of the first and second game. While my opinion is entirely subjective, so is yours, but the one person who knows exactly how it should go is the lead writer, and when he left he had to be replaced by someone like you and me, a fan whom knew the series, but was not the creator. It is impossible for him to replicate and reproduce the work done by Drew because he is not Drew, he has only a small idea on what Drew was going to do with the third game. Whomever the lead writer was, I believe he did the best job he could with the resources available.

We dont write the story, but it belongs to us just as it belongs to the writer. That is part of "The Agreement" by the presentation of Armando Troisi "Get Your Game Out Of My Movie"

So the lead writers knows what to do, you said? and how do you determinate that? just because its a writer? because it has more authority than us both, we automatically assume that he can do it (an Argument For Authority)? its not like people get into positions of power by pulling favors and doing anything BUT the job they are supposed to be doing, right?

Case in point, Mac Walters. We know NOTHING about this guy, except some rumors that he did some kind of campaing fanfic of Neverwinter Nights and that got him promoted to be part of Bioware writers team. A promoted fanboy, so to speak, just like the dreaded Joe Quesada on Spider Man. And not the only few times that it backfires:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PromotedFanboy
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RunningTheAsylum

Also, Casey Hudson was the one to promote him to that position AND write the ending together on ME3. Remind me again why? who is this guy? what did he do to get into a position that more decent (and well know) Sci Fi writers like Harlan Ellison, who wrote "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" and several episodes of Babylon 5, who also deal with Order Vs Chaos, would want?

This complain is similar to Movie Bro complain of J.J.Abrams being in charge of the new Star Wars movies. Just WHAT this average joe did to obtain such power?

I disagree, the writers didn't write themselves into a corner. They could have easily continued having Harbinger taunt the player, however it would not make sense that the leader of the Reapers would waste time telling 1 person what he is going to do when he can just flat out do it. Actions speak louder than words.

Yes actions are better, and yet, you dont see him leading the charge of assaulting The Citadel FIRST before going into Earth SECOND. Apparently, the strategy of getting to The Citadel to shut down the relays (as it was always intended in previous cycles) was just plain forgotten by The Reapers or possibly the writers when they noticed that doing so, would mean that there is no way for the player to get to those sidequest they wrote.

Its not like The Reapers could have repaired the console with their superior intellect and THEN shut down the relays. That would make too much sense. Even more strange, they didnt pick up the Citadel UNTIL TIM told them about it after you capture Cerberus Base.


EDIT: OH wait, Harby doesnt waste time on Shep now but he IS wasting time on trailers and talking to his Collectors again (and not on Earth, curiously enough)

Shepard says in the first game that the Prothean beacon vision was difficult to process even with the cipher, and even as a player watching the vision sequence didn't really show me the full power of the Reapers. Shepard never had to fight Soverign directly, he was too busy killing Geth and chasing Saren to really see the terror of Soverign hugging the Citadel. And as for the dead Reaper indoctrinating the the workers on board isn't really a demonstration of immense power, rather a these things are still effective at disabling organics whom stay close to them for too long. Having an entire Reaper fleet come down and buttfuck Earth the way they did is an excellent way to demonstrate power. It shows Shepard the fragile state of organic life, and the speed in which Earth is taken over is psycologically more terrifying than an old vision, a robot squid hugging a large space station, and a dead Reaper still having the abillity to slowly but surely fuck with organics minds.

So Shep doesnt trust the word of his friends or even the PHYSICAL evidence of the destruction caused by Sovereing alone? When even the writers themselves rip off a line of the Cthulhu Mythos to ilustrate how hard to kill there fuckers are and how easily they can fuck us over in their sleep, i think they made their point very clear.

So apparently the writers forgot about Shepard and the Cypher and the Prothean visions....wonderful, that was a waste of time then. Instead of having Samara or Liara look into Shep brain for clear answers left by the Protheans, they just forgot about it. And dont tell me that Shep lost this ability or memories of it because ME3 had that scene on the Asari Temple where Shep detected the beacon of the Protheans

Also, one of the backstories you can choose for Shep is that he ESCAPED the hell hole that was Earth. He/she/It shouldnt give a fuck about Earth being destroyed in this backstory.

I remind you that The Reapers are in Earth in the first place to HARVEST the humans because they are the best Reaper candidates to preserve. And yet they stomp and blow things up with their eye beams, killing or even VAPORIZING millions of millions of humans that are needed for a perfect Reaper body. Perfect machine logic right there, why make more Reapers when we can scare this one human because he didnt submit to my taunts!! GRRRR.

They should have either used Nanomachines to disolve humans into grey goo or even use the same tech the Collectors had to capture humans rather than waste precious human resourses like that.

They didn't believe the giant squid ship was a Reaper because the council covered it up as just a one of a kind geth ship. Also, yes they did have 2 years to reverse engineer and outfit their ships with powerful weapons, but there are plenty of reasons not to. Arming ships is a sign that you are preparing to go to war, not only that, but it's expensive and not all ships would be capable of taking on the Thanix Cannons. Just because you have a bazooka, doesn't mean you attatch it to everything you own.

As for why Shepard didn't just come out and say, "The Geth are actually the bad guys, yeah, lets uh...go get em!" it's because he died just 2 months after the events in ME1 and came back 2 years later working with Cerberus. His credibility is gone, so even if he did just go along and pretend the Reapers are Geth, his association with Cerberus and his 2 year gap completely negates any pulling power he accumulated in the first game.

Given how EASY it was for Cerberus (and its UNLIMITED RESOURSES) to obtain a entire fleet out of his ass to be more prominent than the Reapers forces THEMSELVES in ME3(the main villians, i remind you), i believe that it could have been posible to have an army ready to fight AND distribute tech to other civilizations so they can help defend the galaxy.

If TIM doesnt want to help, we could had at least the option to surpass him and take over Cerberus for ourselves as a Renegade option (we kill him or we make him work for us) Now THAT is a desperate measure that is grounded in logic.

The Thanix Cannons are ALSO attached to the shittiest and smaller ships know as "Fighters"

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Thanix
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/Ships_and_Vehicles#Starships:_Fighters

So not only is in the smaller ships, it is ALSO attached in Dreadnoughts, the big ones. We still dont get an explanation if it works or not on Reapers even when it was said that it can penetrate ALL shields. Giving details to the audience is just....too mainstream.

They dont believe the threat is real? 3 options:

1)Instead of Blowing up the Derelict Reaper (who has been there for thousands of years) why not show it to the Council?
+
2)Have the Asari Council meld minds with Shepard to see the Prothean visions herself and see if the warnings about The Reapers is true
+
3)BONUS!: Shepard forgot to show the Council in ME1, to use the recordings he got from the converzation with Sovereing (Ashley even lampshade this fact with you)

Ah but wait! they dont believe SHEPARD before he opens his mouth. Even after saving their miserable lives a year ago in the battle of The Citadel from the menace of the Geth, Saren and Sovereing. Even the Virmire survivor doesnt trust Shep in ME2 when you visit the colony attacked by The Collectors, and the survivor WAS with you the whole time on ME1 when the Sovereing shit happened.

And they STILL dont trust this guy/gal? And what were the squadmates doing while Shep was dead? why Garrus has to waste his time playing Batman on Omega rather than obtaining resourses along the other squadmates that know about The Reapers?

Why were we able to build the Crucible so fast? Because we had ALL the plans. It was explained that many races slowly added different parts to the Crucible to make it what it is. WE were able to build it because we had all the plans, unlike the other races whom were essentially still building the initial plans of the weapon. And why Shepard didn't use his connections with TIM to mass produce Thanix Cannons is because the Illusive Man didn't want the Reapers dead, he wanted to control them. There is no way in hell TIM would waste resources on something that would destroy the thing he wants. Also, the Shadow Brokers greatest power was the anonymity. Also, just because someone makes a weapon as powerful as the Thanix Cannons, doesn't mean they can force it apon everyone whom owns a ship.

So we had all the plans........of a weapon that we STILL dont know what it does even with ALL the plans in hand.

....

Yeah, that makes sense. We are TOLD that we must use it but dont know why because even the Codex doesnt know what it does. The only way we know what it does is by the ending, but that would be an argument after the fact. The characters THEMSELVES in this "belivable" world of fiction we have here, dont know what it does. Its like they read the script ahead of time and knew that, if they do this stupid thing, it will paid off against all odds and probability.

TIM wasted resourses on resurrecting Shep when he could make more Kai Lengs Deus Ex Machina Guys to defeat the collector instead (and he was indoctrinated and upgraded BEFORE Shep was resurrected, meaning that he WOULDNT blow up the base later)

By the way, Renegade Option:

Shep: "Hey TIM!!"
TIM: "Sup?"
Shep: "Why not instead of controlling ALL Reapers, we kill them all and leave just one or Harbinger alive for you to control and reverse ingenier? because keeping them all controlled is a waste of resourses and EVERYTHING could go wrong. If there is only one, we could just blow it up without problems"
TIM: "I dont like it because of blah blah blah (takes a smoke) blah blah blah"
Shep: "Fuck it" (shoots TIM in the head)

Shep: (sends a message to all Cerberus workers) "This is the new Illusive Man speaking, my name is Shepard and i pretend to fulfil my duty of protecting humanity at all cost. First order of the day, we are going to recluit more people to our cause and research the Derelict Reaper for a way to penetrate its armor and shields, and we are going to where Sigil was to research as much as possible on how Prothean VI can detect indoctrination. Also, we are going to initiate a program to infiltrate our men into every weapon deposit in the galaxy, to ensure that when the production is finished, we can secretly send the new Thanix Cannons without raising suspicion. Lets make use of the unlimited resourses for a better tomorrow.

Shepard has spoken (message finished)"

Shep: "Hmm... this chair is really comfy"

They are not trying to preserve present life, and they preserve the strongest life in Reaper form becuase they need to replenish their ranks with the strong. The Reapers are trying to preserve life, and view space faring races as a threat to future organic life. They send husks of space faring races at the organics so that they don't have to always be on ground killing people. You have to remember that it is not the Reapers intention to wipe out or presrve all organic life. Think of them as a lawn mower, keeping the grass in check, but not dead, THAT is the reapers purpose.

And they still murder with eye beams the people they are supposed to make goo to make a Reaper. Also, they DO exterminate species, the Vorcha become extinct in ME3 thanks to the Reapers (and that species didnt develop FTL travel on their own).

But lets keep exploring the mentality of the Reapers, shall we?:

There are conversations in Mass Effect where you literally clicking a button to just say, "Yes I did this" to have me continually have to press a button for a conversation to continue is just time wasting. For example, in Mass Effect 1, after completeing a main mission, the council would call you and you would be stuck talking to them. However everything you said simply determined if you were nice in telling them what happened, straight to the point, or a prick who just hangs up. This had no reall effect on the story and forced me to sit through quick time dialogue segments where in which the Salarian, Asari and Turian would either question everything I did, or be angry at me. In the end, it did not effect the game in any way other than extending time.

If that is the type of experience you want, then play Dungeons and Dragons where in which you have to do everything yourself. Video games have their limits, and I would rather click a button once to just get a quick conversation over and done with than sit their and constantly decide whether or not my character is still nice, neutral or mean.

If it didnt bring anything meaninful to the game, then its not the fault of the system, its the fault of the writing for not making the best of it.

This is the experience that EVERYONE who played games from Bioware wants, they have been doing that since Baldurs Gate and even the Infinity Engine is based on Dungeon & Dragons (They have been updating this Engine until ME1 and Dragon Age Origins. Later, they used the Unreal Engine)

You are thinking rationally and have no pressures though. It is easy to look at a situation and say, "I would have done this" but in a war, you don't think rationally when you are on the ground taking fire, you can make brash decisions when everyone is turning to you and asking you, "What do we do". And when you friend is telling you, "I have been studying this thing and I believe 100% that this thing will stop the Reapers" it is quite likely you would take that option.

If my friend wants me to use an object that no one knows what it does, even when he tells me that he knows what it does (and doesnt show it or demostrate it) i will probably shoot him in the knee for wasting my time that could have been used to save lives or interrogate him as a spy. It ISNT military procedure to depend on unknown variables, soldiers are trained PRECICELY to avoid jumping to conclusions in the middle of life threatening situations and risk the lives of others because of such stupid acts. Shep in this fictional universe is no exception.

Can you imagine someone on position of power over people's lives that does something ilogical and poorly researched as this? the last time that happened, our "Crusible" was named SOPA. The assholes didnt even CARED about the research or repercutions of remaking the Internet at their specifications as long it served their agenda. If ME is to be a functional belivable world, then the soldiers or the highers up will be nuts or indoctrinated into accepting an idea this dubious.

And ME3 has EDI and Legion, calculating machines devoid of emotions and impulses that will hamper their capacity of reaching the logical and coherent conclusion that using unknow factors to win is, as human puts it: "bullshit"

Or better yet, how about giving the audience that thing that the game proclaims it has.......i think its called.....CHOICE. How about having the choice of making difficult decitions (like the series was supposed to be by emulating Star Trek as its inspiration) of using the Giant Microphone of Questionable Content (The Crusile) or spend resourses on making more weapons that we know they can kill Reapers just fine (Thanix, Klendagon, EMP). And then get punished or rewarded acording on how well we did.

Does that reminds you of anything?

Yes, the gods were established, however a DEM is when something that has not been present throughout the entire story just shows up un-annouced and says, "I fix your problem". The crucible is constantly talked about throughout the game. We know it's going to stop the Reapers and in the end it does.

Constantly talked and we STILL dont know what it does even when we build it and we have ALL the plans. Again, its an argument after the fact, we know it can when its already too late and the decitions was already made for US.

It likely uses a pulse of radiation that has an EMP like effect. If this is too hard for you to accept, than why are you playing a game that has an all female race of aliens that can breed without any DNA from the partner and is able to magically look into the partners DNA and choose the 'bonus powers' the child will get. Or what about the whole Element Zero makes people telekenetic, or that every single living spaient creature has an inbuilt translator in their brain that translates all languages almost flawlessly. Mass Effect has always required suspension of disbelief, and to only just now say that this one thing in particular is stupid is in it of itself stupid. You have so far excepted things that are more BS than a wave of radiation blowing up synthetic life, controling a particular bunch of synthetics, or fusing synthetic and organic life.

You are losing ground now because you are not thinking carefully what you are writing. The reason that WE, the audience, believe anything else BUT the Crusible........is because all that is explained, its consistent, and makes sense in their own universe. ME violates this consistency several times, and conveniently enough, the start of ME2 is one of the egregious examples of this. There is no way to even have something reasembling a body when Shepard died in that atmosphere re-entry, and yet he was magically alive with a machine that we dont even know how it works, with no change in his/her psyche or repercutions whatsoever. Even when ME3 tried to explain it, only made it worse.

And here is the best part, we in the real world, even before the 21th Century, have EMP weapons (even Nuclear Bombs emit Electro Magnetic Pulses, too bad that it comes with radiation AND heat that even the Sun itself cannot rival). Are you telling me that in this future setting we DONT have EMP weapons or bombs to destroy machines? we need a big unknown object to do it for us instead of making small scale EMP weapons and distribute that?

The Dreadnough have nuclear power in their weapons (as told in the Codex) why would the EMP of those weapons not be enought or ANY different to the one of The Crusible?

"Show, Dont Tell", this is how all stories are supposed to work. The narrative has to show us why we need this unknown thing but it doesnt care to explain how it can defeat the Reapers (we are just told it does). It doesnt matter what genre it is, all this crap needs to be explained or its just pure nonsense.

For example, I HATE brussel sprouts and cabbage, I think they are the most disgusting tasting food out there. But I accpet that I don't like it, and that I can't change the brussel sprout or cabbage. I also have no right demanding that they stop being used by people because there are people out there whom like cabbage and brussel sprouts. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean I can or have any right to change anything about it.

So are you telling me that you never had any problem in a Mc Donalds or something where they gave you the wrong hamburger or put more of the stuff you didnt like, and didnt change it? you are entitled to that burger to be changed.....problem is that now more people want their burger changed because they ALSO obtained one that they didnt want....and another one....and another one.....then 100 clients...1000...100000...

Gee i wonder if there is something wrong with the burger or the people?

They are acting like children when they are boycotting EA. They got pissed off at the company and are now refusing to play ANYTHING published by them based on what? A misplaced sense of self righteousness?. EA is keeping these developers alive by giving them money to continue making games, so by boycotting EA you are boycotting all the developers trying to make a living and are actually maiking the industry worse. If EA falls, then we will loose developers such as Bioware and Maxis whom were going bankrupt before EA purchased them. EA provides developers a sense of security. They are a large company that has been around for decades that offer the developers the chance to keep making the thing they love and getting paid to do so. Yes, you can make a game with 3 people, but then that game is going to be simple in a sense. For example, Limbo has been getting rave reviews for it's story and gameplay, yet the graphics are just crappy little shilouttes and it is a side scroller. Dead Space has a similar story in the sense that the protagonist is searching for someone in a dangerous unkown environment. It's graphics are quite good, the environment is somewhat open and is fully fleshed out, not all enemies can be taken out in the same way and require a certain strategy,and there are some puzzles. I'm not saying that AAA games are always better than indie games. What I am saying is that AAA games can take the same concept as an indie game and expand apon it making it more immersive than what the indie developed video game was.

I present to you 2 options:

1)Kickstarter
2)http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SugarWiki/GeniusProgramming

It doesnt matter if you have limited resourses, its up to those individials to make the best out of it. Its Art From Advercity. Star Wars was made with limited resourses and lots of problems and end up being The Best Sci Fi WORLDWIDE.

They dont NEED EA anymore if they trully are talented enough to be in bussiness.

But lets get to the part that you keep bringing up, the "you cant change it". Ok, what happens if more developers start making shitty games and defend themselves with "Artistic Integrity"? What if these new....."games" are so wretched that NO ONE likes it, does that mean that our money is gone forever and we cant do anything about it?

And is not like Art cannot be changed at all since movies had this crap before, if the artist isnt satisfied with what they did because the producers fuck up their vision, then he does a Director's Cut. If the audience doesnt get the message he wants, then he either makes another movie or explains it. Its all in the benefit of everyone, even the autohr itself.

But when real hacks start to abuse things like "Artistic Integrity" then what would happen to gaming or other mediums by extension? the medium will be a joke that no one takes seriously because these "visionaries" are too far up their asses to know when they fucked up.

Hell, is this kind of behavior that made possible the career of Andy Warhol and influence Postmodernism. Artists made shit so abstract that only THEM alone can understand it, so Andy made fun of that.

 

[GrimHeaper]

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/capcom-almost-halves-dmc-sales-expectations/0110372

It?s potentially a sad end to a tale brought about very much by the fans themselves. Anyone who played Devil May Cry 4 must surely of seen how desperately the IP needed an injection of new ideas and modernisation ? which is exactly what the skilful Ninja Theory achieved.

Yet the fans revolted because Capcom dared to reinvent its IP for the 21st century and dared to change the colour of Dante?s hair. It?s really very sad.

A headline suggested by a colleague: ?Devil May Cry fans destroy brand out of spite.? That about covers it.

Voting with your wallet is now called "destroying a brand out of spite" by some journalists.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/02/05/are-fans-to-blame-for-lower-than-expected-dmc-sales/

But DMC was made in 2001
He's just mad that he won't be getting paid as often.

 

[anthony87]

Well now that the whole debacle is more or less over and done with and Capcom has resorted to lowering the sales forecast for the game, I guess we can all just sit back and wait for the real Devil May Cry game that the fans want-nay-deserve.

Because that's totally how these things work right?

 

[GrimHeaper]

Well now that the whole debacle is more or less over and done with and Capcom has resorted to lowering the sales forecast for the game, I guess we can all just sit back and wait for the real Devil May Cry game that the fans want-nay-deserve.

Because that's totally how these things work right?

Actually Capcom is going to burn right beside Sega.
At least that's what I see happening in the future.

 

[AgentLampshade]

Well now that the whole debacle is more or less over and done with and Capcom has resorted to lowering the sales forecast for the game, I guess we can all just sit back and wait for the real Devil May Cry game that the fans want-nay-deserve.

Because that's totally how these things work right?

Could always shoot for gold and do another reboot. Hell, I'd get behind them just because they had the gall to do that.

Captcha: walk the walk. Do it Capcom. Do it!

 

[anthony87]

Well now that the whole debacle is more or less over and done with and Capcom has resorted to lowering the sales forecast for the game, I guess we can all just sit back and wait for the real Devil May Cry game that the fans want-nay-deserve.

Because that's totally how these things work right?

Could always shoot for gold and do another reboot. Hell, I'd get behind them just because they had the gall to do that.

Captcha: walk the walk. Do it Capcom. Do it!

I'd applaud the hell out of them if they had the balls to do that, although I'm kinda biased because I think that things were feeling stale as hell with the series after DMC4.

 

[bug_of_war]

Is below quality for a work of Bioware compared to Baldur's Gate, Knights of The Old Republic and even Dragon Age Origins (who was made with EA funding, interestingly enough) and its below quality compared to other products in this Capitalistic Economic System. You may like it like someone would like Twilight for its batshit insanity but that doesnt mean that the work in question is in par with literary classics. Let alone have any "integrity" in its art (i question the integrity in have a robot with a cameltoe)

But dont worry, its ok to like it (in a "Bile Fascination" sort off way), as long you actually recognice that its not the best Bioware could do AND you dont inflict that quality upon others just because its enough for you.

Stories are built on a logical and belivable base FIRST, then the subjective interpretation of it comes SECOND. So lets start with the game that expanded the holes that will eventually lead to the "catalyst" of ME3 controversy.


Interestingly enough, that guy made videos since 2010, the year that ME2 was released. I am telling you just in case that you believe that people had complains on ME as whole to join the bandwagon of "It sucks" because of the ending alone.

Hey, I flat out admit that the entire Mass Effect series wasn't well written on whole. I felt the script of all 3 games was good, but not great. And, as I said before, we should drop this because it's obvious neither party is flinching from their viewpoint here and that all that can be said has been said.

The game itself is funtional, you just don't like the story. The game was promised to be the end of Shepards story. Check. Action 3rd person shooter. Check. RPG elements. Check. I believe I got what I was promised, the game works, the story is what I was told it would be and I personally believe that your fridge comparison is waaaaaay too far. IF you were going to compare it to a fridge, I guess you COULD say that it's like buying a fridge that doesn't have the space you presumed that it would have.

Functional? you got lucky then:

I cant presume when i DO know about something that i saw in detail how it works and what to expect. That is what you do when you buy something, you see every detail carefully before making a decition of buying it. Then the people ship it to my house and find out that its totally different of what i bought.

Also, i cant like or dislike, i am just making an observation that the story is quite incoherent and takes too many liberties when more simple things could have been done by the characters.

Nothing in that video showed the game being disfunctional. Yeah, the animation is great, none of the ME games had great animation. Yeah, the shotgun seem to havemore range in cutscenes, but cutscenes have always shown characters killing people with one shot from weapons, such as ME1 where Saren kills Nhilus with one shot from a pistol. The video also did not point out the game being "incoherent", soo maybe you might want to explain where the game itself got incoherent so as that I may understand where this argument is coming from, because so far from my observations of the game and the video you sent me, the games story was coherent.

I knew the lead writer of the first game worked on the second. Yes Batman has been re-written, not all of the re-writes are 'good' though in the opinion of some people as they feel that the character isn't the original, yet there are others, presumably like yourself, whom believe all the iterations are a 'good' Batman.

"not even the same writer can get this thing straight", that is highly insulting. You outright saying that you know the story of Mass Effect better than the man whom wrote it. THIS is where gamer possesiveness is becoming a problem, YOU DIDN'T WRITE THE STORY, you merely were given the chance to experience the story, so while you may not have liked where it went you have no right to say that the lead writer didn't write the second game properly. I believe Mass Effect 2 is a fine game, and I see no jarring differation between the writing of the first and second game. While my opinion is entirely subjective, so is yours, but the one person who knows exactly how it should go is the lead writer, and when he left he had to be replaced by someone like you and me, a fan whom knew the series, but was not the creator. It is impossible for him to replicate and reproduce the work done by Drew because he is not Drew, he has only a small idea on what Drew was going to do with the third game. Whomever the lead writer was, I believe he did the best job he could with the resources available.

We dont write the story, but it belongs to us just as it belongs to the writer. That is part of "The Agreement" by the presentation of Armando Troisi "Get Your Game Out Of My Movie"

So the lead writers knows what to do, you said? and how do you determinate that? just because its a writer? because it has more authority than us both, we automatically assume that he can do it (an Argument For Authority)? its not like people get into positions of power by pulling favors and doing anything BUT the job they are supposed to be doing, right?

Case in point, Mac Walters. We know NOTHING about this guy, except some rumors that he did some kind of campaing fanfic of Neverwinter Nights and that got him promoted to be part of Bioware writers team. A promoted fanboy, so to speak, just like the dreaded Joe Quesada on Spider Man. And not the only few times that it backfires:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PromotedFanboy
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RunningTheAsylum

Also, Casey Hudson was the one to promote him to that position AND write the ending together on ME3. Remind me again why? who is this guy? what did he do to get into a position that more decent (and well know) Sci Fi writers like Harlan Ellison, who wrote "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" and several episodes of Babylon 5, who also deal with Order Vs Chaos, would want?

This complain is similar to Movie Bro complain of J.J.Abrams being in charge of the new Star Wars movies. Just WHAT this average joe did to obtain such power?

We don't own the story, we own the experience it gives us. When you watch a film, read a book, listen to a song etc you are being allowed to experience the product. You can like it, hate it, or not care and no one can say you're wrong, but you do not own it. I repeat, YOU DO NOT OWN IT. When you had NO part in creating the product, you are simply a consumer, you had never put any time into creating the product and that means you have no claims of ownership. THIS is what I am talking about with gamers being entitled children. ALL we own is the experience we have with the game, and that is it. We don't own the story, the game, the graphics, the sound, we own an intangable memory of the events we experienced with the product.

I can determine that the lead writer knows what he is doing with the story because he was the lead writer in the begining. Obviously he is the person whom would outline the plot points of the story and proof read the work of the other writers. So yeah, the guy whoms job is to be the lead in his role kinda has to be the creator of the story,being the glue that keeps the writers all in check. I know nothing about Mac Walters, but you did point out that he was working with Drew as the co-lead writer. This means that Drew would still be mostly in charge of proof reading the writing of all writers, and had someone to bounce ideas off of.

I can't defend Casey Hudson because he has made that task near impossible.

And as for Movie Bob's idea on Abrams being a poor choice, I agree with him on that. And yeah, you can totally ask WHAT Mac Walters did to deserve the position of power he got, but he was working with Drew on game 2, and presumably was working with writers whom had worked under drew in ME3.

I disagree, the writers didn't write themselves into a corner. They could have easily continued having Harbinger taunt the player, however it would not make sense that the leader of the Reapers would waste time telling 1 person what he is going to do when he can just flat out do it. Actions speak louder than words.

Yes actions are better, and yet, you dont see him leading the charge of assaulting The Citadel FIRST before going into Earth SECOND. Apparently, the strategy of getting to The Citadel to shut down the relays (as it was always intended in previous cycles) was just plain forgotten by The Reapers or possibly the writers when they noticed that doing so, would mean that there is no way for the player to get to those sidequest they wrote.

Its not like The Reapers could have repaired the console with their superior intellect and THEN shut down the relays. That would make too much sense. Even more strange, they didnt pick up the Citadel UNTIL TIM told them about it after you capture Cerberus Base.


EDIT: OH wait, Harby doesnt waste time on Shep now but he IS wasting time on trailers and talking to his Collectors again (and not on Earth, curiously enough)

I don't have to see Harbinger personally leading the attack on Earth to see his pulling power. He told me he was basically the leader of the Reapers in the second game, and he is prooving his power by sending a bunch of Reapers to fuck up Earth. It's like, I don't need to see Hitler personally shooting and gasing jewish people to know that he had all the power and was leading the Nazis. He perfectly displayed his power when he sent Reapers to ransack Earth.

Why they didn't repair the console? While I can't give a definate answer I can pose a few theories. Maybe the console is to small or hidden and requires organics to shut it off. Maybe the rate at which the were reaping the galaxy was faster than expected and the decision was made that the relays need not be shut down. I can't say for certain, but there are some reasons, not the best, but still a reason as to why they didn't use it to shut down the relays.

And as for the trailer having Harbinger talking to the Collectors,IT'S A TRAILER. Trailers always show bits that may or may not be part of the game, they do this to build hype. For example, the Dragon Age: Origins trailers showed the Warden being a human male and Sten having a beard, Morrigan could shapeshift at the click of her fingers (whilst in game it took about 5 seconds of waving her arms in the air), Leliana was able to jump around almost Assassins Creed style. Cyberpunk 2077 showed no gameplay and was just a song over some animation. Mass Effect 3 trailer showed the British dude in a big tower sniping husks, yet we never saw him doing that, and he showed up maybe 3 times throughout the entire game. TRAILERS BUILD HYPE, and Harbinger's speach is meant to excite players and get them ready to team up with buddies to kill the husks and collectors in the new online multiplayer DLC.

Shepard says in the first game that the Prothean beacon vision was difficult to process even with the cipher, and even as a player watching the vision sequence didn't really show me the full power of the Reapers. Shepard never had to fight Soverign directly, he was too busy killing Geth and chasing Saren to really see the terror of Soverign hugging the Citadel. And as for the dead Reaper indoctrinating the the workers on board isn't really a demonstration of immense power, rather a these things are still effective at disabling organics whom stay close to them for too long. Having an entire Reaper fleet come down and buttfuck Earth the way they did is an excellent way to demonstrate power. It shows Shepard the fragile state of organic life, and the speed in which Earth is taken over is psycologically more terrifying than an old vision, a robot squid hugging a large space station, and a dead Reaper still having the abillity to slowly but surely fuck with organics minds.

So Shep doesnt trust the word of his friends or even the PHYSICAL evidence of the destruction caused by Sovereing alone? When even the writers themselves rip off a line of the Cthulhu Mythos to ilustrate how hard to kill there fuckers are and how easily they can fuck us over in their sleep, i think they made their point very clear.

So apparently the writers forgot about Shepard and the Cypher and the Prothean visions....wonderful, that was a waste of time then. Instead of having Samara or Liara look into Shep brain for clear answers left by the Protheans, they just forgot about it. And dont tell me that Shep lost this ability or memories of it because ME3 had that scene on the Asari Temple where Shep detected the beacon of the Protheans

Also, one of the backstories you can choose for Shep is that he ESCAPED the hell hole that was Earth. He/she/It shouldnt give a fuck about Earth being destroyed in this backstory.

I remind you that The Reapers are in Earth in the first place to HARVEST the humans because they are the best Reaper candidates to preserve. And yet they stomp and blow things up with their eye beams, killing or even VAPORIZING millions of millions of humans that are needed for a perfect Reaper body. Perfect machine logic right there, why make more Reapers when we can scare this one human because he didnt submit to my taunts!! GRRRR.

They should have either used Nanomachines to disolve humans into grey goo or even use the same tech the Collectors had to capture humans rather than waste precious human resourses like that.

I never said Shepard doesn't trust the word of his friends or the evidence left behind. I am saying that first hand experience will always be more powerful than second hand. I'm not going to tell you that he lost his abilities, but I am going to say that the Cipher and the memories are now no longer important to the story. We dealt with them in the first game, the second game doesn't require us to go find another Asari to read our mind because the vision is a warning, not a full on documentary on the Reapers hobbies, likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses.

Yeah, one of the backstories has Shep escaping Earth, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care for the human race, and when a majority of the human populace lives on Earth, you can be damn sure he'd be a little pissed off.

The Reapers intial attack is to eliminate all resistance so as that acuiring the specimens to convert is made much more easy as they wont have rockets shot at them. Also, in the last mission, you can clearly see hundreds of bodies all piled up in the citadel, so obviously they had begun collecting the bodies of the fallen.

They didn't believe the giant squid ship was a Reaper because the council covered it up as just a one of a kind geth ship. Also, yes they did have 2 years to reverse engineer and outfit their ships with powerful weapons, but there are plenty of reasons not to. Arming ships is a sign that you are preparing to go to war, not only that, but it's expensive and not all ships would be capable of taking on the Thanix Cannons. Just because you have a bazooka, doesn't mean you attatch it to everything you own.

As for why Shepard didn't just come out and say, "The Geth are actually the bad guys, yeah, lets uh...go get em!" it's because he died just 2 months after the events in ME1 and came back 2 years later working with Cerberus. His credibility is gone, so even if he did just go along and pretend the Reapers are Geth, his association with Cerberus and his 2 year gap completely negates any pulling power he accumulated in the first game.

Given how EASY it was for Cerberus (and its UNLIMITED RESOURSES) to obtain a entire fleet out of his ass to be more prominent than the Reapers forces THEMSELVES in ME3(the main villians, i remind you), i believe that it could have been posible to have an army ready to fight AND distribute tech to other civilizations so they can help defend the galaxy.

If TIM doesnt want to help, we could had at least the option to surpass him and take over Cerberus for ourselves as a Renegade option (we kill him or we make him work for us) Now THAT is a desperate measure that is grounded in logic.

Yeah...except the people working in Cerberus clearly don't like aliens and want humans to be on top. So even if we could renegade take over the soldiers wouldn't listen to an alien sympathising human, they would just disband. The soldiers of Cerberus are loyal to TIM.

The Thanix Cannons are ALSO attached to the shittiest and smaller ships know as "Fighters"

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Thanix
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/Ships_and_Vehicles#Starships:_Fighters

So not only is in the smaller ships, it is ALSO attached in Dreadnoughts, the big ones. We still dont get an explanation if it works or not on Reapers even when it was said that it can penetrate ALL shields. Giving details to the audience is just....too mainstream.

I got nothing to say...except for they probably should have put the explanation in the codex.

They dont believe the threat is real? 3 options:

1)Instead of Blowing up the Derelict Reaper (who has been there for thousands of years) why not show it to the Council?
+
2)Have the Asari Council meld minds with Shepard to see the Prothean visions herself and see if the warnings about The Reapers is true
+
3)BONUS!: Shepard forgot to show the Council in ME1, to use the recordings he got from the converzation with Sovereing (Ashley even lampshade this fact with you)

Ah but wait! they dont believe SHEPARD before he opens his mouth. Even after saving their miserable lives a year ago in the battle of The Citadel from the menace of the Geth, Saren and Sovereing. Even the Virmire survivor doesnt trust Shep in ME2 when you visit the colony attacked by The Collectors, and the survivor WAS with you the whole time on ME1 when the Sovereing shit happened.

And they STILL dont trust this guy/gal? And what were the squadmates doing while Shep was dead? why Garrus has to waste his time playing Batman on Omega rather than obtaining resourses along the other squadmates that know about The Reapers?

It has been explained many times that the council refuse to believe the existence due to being afraid/believing Shepard, a Human (Humans only being part of the citadel for 30 years) was fooled by Saren as they had been/was working with terrorists in game 2. The Virmire survivor doesn't trust Shepard because he/she is working with Cerberus, a known terrorist organisation. They do however send an e-mail to Shepard later (if you weren't a dick) and apologize for their actions. As for not respecting the person whom saved them, it's because they probably felt that the person whom was KIA for 2 years who suddenly returned working with a group that hates aliens is not the same Shepard they once knew.

The Tali and Garrus both give their reasons for going down the paths they took. Nobody wanted to listen to them, and everyone drifted apart because of it. Garrus mentions that he tried to convince the Turian counciler but was knocked back. Having already lost faith in C-sec in game 1, it's not that far a stretch to see why Garrus became a merc who led a team similar to Shepard's to fight injustice.

Why were we able to build the Crucible so fast? Because we had ALL the plans. It was explained that many races slowly added different parts to the Crucible to make it what it is. WE were able to build it because we had all the plans, unlike the other races whom were essentially still building the initial plans of the weapon. And why Shepard didn't use his connections with TIM to mass produce Thanix Cannons is because the Illusive Man didn't want the Reapers dead, he wanted to control them. There is no way in hell TIM would waste resources on something that would destroy the thing he wants. Also, the Shadow Brokers greatest power was the anonymity. Also, just because someone makes a weapon as powerful as the Thanix Cannons, doesn't mean they can force it apon everyone whom owns a ship.

So we had all the plans........of a weapon that we STILL dont know what it does even with ALL the plans in hand.

....

Yeah, that makes sense. We are TOLD that we must use it but dont know why because even the Codex doesnt know what it does. The only way we know what it does is by the ending, but that would be an argument after the fact. The characters THEMSELVES in this "belivable" world of fiction we have here, dont know what it does. Its like they read the script ahead of time and knew that, if they do this stupid thing, it will paid off against all odds and probability.

TIM wasted resourses on resurrecting Shep when he could make more Kai Lengs Deus Ex Machina Guys to defeat the collector instead (and he was indoctrinated and upgraded BEFORE Shep was resurrected, meaning that he WOULDNT blow up the base later)

By the way, Renegade Option:

Shep: "Hey TIM!!"
TIM: "Sup?"
Shep: "Why not instead of controlling ALL Reapers, we kill them all and leave just one or Harbinger alive for you to control and reverse ingenier? because keeping them all controlled is a waste of resourses and EVERYTHING could go wrong. If there is only one, we could just blow it up without problems"
TIM: "I dont like it because of blah blah blah (takes a smoke) blah blah blah"
Shep: "Fuck it" (shoots TIM in the head)

Shep: (sends a message to all Cerberus workers) "This is the new Illusive Man speaking, my name is Shepard and i pretend to fulfil my duty of protecting humanity at all cost. First order of the day, we are going to recluit more people to our cause and research the Derelict Reaper for a way to penetrate its armor and shields, and we are going to where Sigil was to research as much as possible on how Prothean VI can detect indoctrination. Also, we are going to initiate a program to infiltrate our men into every weapon deposit in the galaxy, to ensure that when the production is finished, we can secretly send the new Thanix Cannons without raising suspicion. Lets make use of the unlimited resourses for a better tomorrow.

Shepard has spoken (message finished)"

Shep: "Hmm... this chair is really comfy"

Shepard trusts Liara when she says "I believe this weapon will work" because Shepard knows she is an expert on Protheans. As for how to use it...yeah I can't think of a reason other then they were to stressed out and terrified to make a propper informed decision on building a machine without knowing how to fire it.

TIM believed that he could persuade Shepard into following Cerberus and eventually agreeing with their practices. He also believed that if the 'great Shepard' were to join Cerberus that many humans whom admired the first Human spectre would also join him. As for why Shepard didn't just kill him, lets take a look back at all the games. Other than the end of ME3, WE NEVER SEE TIM IN PERSON. Every single time Shepard talks to TIM it is through a hologram telephone call. So, please elaborate and tell me how Shepard is supposed to kill a man whom's location is unknown and has never talked to Shepard face-to-face.

They are not trying to preserve present life, and they preserve the strongest life in Reaper form becuase they need to replenish their ranks with the strong. The Reapers are trying to preserve life, and view space faring races as a threat to future organic life. They send husks of space faring races at the organics so that they don't have to always be on ground killing people. You have to remember that it is not the Reapers intention to wipe out or presrve all organic life. Think of them as a lawn mower, keeping the grass in check, but not dead, THAT is the reapers purpose.

And they still murder with eye beams the people they are supposed to make goo to make a Reaper. Also, they DO exterminate species, the Vorcha become extinct in ME3 thanks to the Reapers (and that species didnt develop FTL travel on their own).

I already explained why they murdered people in response to a post you will have already read. I never said that the Reapers DON'T exterminate species, I said they leave younger races whom have not developed space flight alo- wait? Did you just say the Vorcha are exterminated in ME3?...WHEN!? At no point do I remember hearing that. I recall the Batarians being fundementally extinct due to the Relay in their system blowing up, but as for the Vorcha as far as I am aware they are still kicking.

You are thinking rationally and have no pressures though. It is easy to look at a situation and say, "I would have done this" but in a war, you don't think rationally when you are on the ground taking fire, you can make brash decisions when everyone is turning to you and asking you, "What do we do". And when you friend is telling you, "I have been studying this thing and I believe 100% that this thing will stop the Reapers" it is quite likely you would take that option.

If my friend wants me to use an object that no one knows what it does, even when he tells me that he knows what it does (and doesnt show it or demostrate it) i will probably shoot him in the knee for wasting my time that could have been used to save lives or interrogate him as a spy. It ISNT military procedure to depend on unknown variables, soldiers are trained PRECICELY to avoid jumping to conclusions in the middle of life threatening situations and risk the lives of others because of such stupid acts. Shep in this fictional universe is no exception.

Can you imagine someone on position of power over people's lives that does something ilogical and poorly researched as this? the last time that happened, our "Crusible" was named SOPA. The assholes didnt even CARED about the research or repercutions of remaking the Internet at their specifications as long it served their agenda. If ME is to be a functional belivable world, then the soldiers or the highers up will be nuts or indoctrinated into accepting an idea this dubious.

And ME3 has EDI and Legion, calculating machines devoid of emotions and impulses that will hamper their capacity of reaching the logical and coherent conclusion that using unknow factors to win is, as human puts it: "bullshit"

Or better yet, how about giving the audience that thing that the game proclaims it has.......i think its called.....CHOICE. How about having the choice of making difficult decitions (like the series was supposed to be by emulating Star Trek as its inspiration) of using the Giant Microphone of Questionable Content (The Crusile) or spend resourses on making more weapons that we know they can kill Reapers just fine (Thanix, Klendagon, EMP). And then get punished or rewarded acording on how well we did.

Does that reminds you of anything?

No it isn't military procedure to base everything on faith, but need I remind you that Sheperd had faith in the belief that the Reapers were coming, and while HE knew it due to the beacon, everyone else who believed him was doing so because they had faith in Shepard. It would be hypocritical of Shepard to immedietly blow Liara off just because they don't know how to fire the weapon when Shepard expected his crew to follow him based off of "I had a vision".

Being Australian I didn't hear about the SOPA act until Wikipedia decided to go on an internet black out 2 days before I had a year 11 essay to write. After reading a bit about it, I can see your comparison and I can see how in normal circumstances it is stupid to take such a risk. However, Shepard was right about the Reapers this whole time and all he ever did to try and proove it to everyone is say, "You have to trust me, I've seen it for myself". So I guess when your backyard is getting blown the fuck up, you listen to the guy whom was telling you this would happen for 3 years.

What you wrote at the end does sound really cool, and it would have been interesting to have that implemented. The only problems I can think of is that it would make some missions redundant/require more space or discs to implement perfectly into the game. There's also the problem of more is less. While I agree that the idea you've proposed is cool, the developers would essentially be forced to be writing 2 games in 1. You've already pointed out that you did not enjoy the writing in ME3, which is why it can be assumed that by taking your idea the writing quality would likely be worse as they would have to quadruple check their work, and because humans aren't perfect the likely hood of screw ups becomes much greater.

Yes, the gods were established, however a DEM is when something that has not been present throughout the entire story just shows up un-annouced and says, "I fix your problem". The crucible is constantly talked about throughout the game. We know it's going to stop the Reapers and in the end it does.

Constantly talked and we STILL dont know what it does even when we build it and we have ALL the plans. Again, its an argument after the fact, we know it can when its already too late and the decitions was already made for US.

We know it will stop the Reapers, we just don't know how. We have seen Reapers get blown up, and we have been presented with the idea that Reapers could be controlled. The biggest stretch was Synthesis, but that was touched upon in the game where the whole point was to unify the galaxy against the threat. The Reapers are a part of the galaxy, thus synthesis just unifies literally everything in the universe for the greater good.

It likely uses a pulse of radiation that has an EMP like effect. If this is too hard for you to accept, than why are you playing a game that has an all female race of aliens that can breed without any DNA from the partner and is able to magically look into the partners DNA and choose the 'bonus powers' the child will get. Or what about the whole Element Zero makes people telekenetic, or that every single living spaient creature has an inbuilt translator in their brain that translates all languages almost flawlessly. Mass Effect has always required suspension of disbelief, and to only just now say that this one thing in particular is stupid is in it of itself stupid. You have so far excepted things that are more BS than a wave of radiation blowing up synthetic life, controling a particular bunch of synthetics, or fusing synthetic and organic life.

You are losing ground now because you are not thinking carefully what you are writing. The reason that WE, the audience, believe anything else BUT the Crusible........is because all that is explained, its consistent, and makes sense in their own universe. ME violates this consistency several times, and conveniently enough, the start of ME2 is one of the egregious examples of this. There is no way to even have something reasembling a body when Shepard died in that atmosphere re-entry, and yet he was magically alive with a machine that we dont even know how it works, with no change in his/her psyche or repercutions whatsoever. Even when ME3 tried to explain it, only made it worse.

And here is the best part, we in the real world, even before the 21th Century, have EMP weapons (even Nuclear Bombs emit Electro Magnetic Pulses, too bad that it comes with radiation AND heat that even the Sun itself cannot rival). Are you telling me that in this future setting we DONT have EMP weapons or bombs to destroy machines? we need a big unknown object to do it for us instead of making small scale EMP weapons and distribute that?

The Dreadnough have nuclear power in their weapons (as told in the Codex) why would the EMP of those weapons not be enought or ANY different to the one of The Crusible?

I never got explained as to how an Asari is able to look into my mind and then use my DNA to rewrite her childs. As for biotics and universal translators, their explanations are fine. As for what I said about the EMP effect, notice how I said the crucible, "likely uses a pulse of radiation that has an EMP like effect". I never said it WAS an EMP, but that it's effect was somewhat similar to the effects seen when EMPs are used. This is to me, as believable as universal translators, and even more believable than biotics.

For example, I HATE brussel sprouts and cabbage, I think they are the most disgusting tasting food out there. But I accpet that I don't like it, and that I can't change the brussel sprout or cabbage. I also have no right demanding that they stop being used by people because there are people out there whom like cabbage and brussel sprouts. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean I can or have any right to change anything about it.

So are you telling me that you never had any problem in a Mc Donalds or something where they gave you the wrong hamburger or put more of the stuff you didnt like, and didnt change it? you are entitled to that burger to be changed.....problem is that now more people want their burger changed because they ALSO obtained one that they didnt want....and another one....and another one.....then 100 clients...1000...100000...

Gee i wonder if there is something wrong with the burger or the people?

You're missing my point. If I don't like something, I don't like something. 1,000,000 people could agree that they also don't like that something, but that doesn't mean others don't. If I order a burger that specifically says "has no pickles" but comes with pickles, THAT is when I may demand a new burger. However, if I order a burger that has pickles, then I have no one to blame but myself for ordering the buger with pickles. If 1,000,000 people also ordered a burger that said it has pickles and don't like pickles, then they have no one to blame but themselves. Mass Effect 3 promised me a few things. Take back Earth, Destroy the Reapers, Unite the galaxy. I got those things. I was happy with how they gave me those things. There are people who are not happy with them, but that doesn't give them the right to change the story for EVERYONE because THEY don't like it.

They are acting like children when they are boycotting EA. They got pissed off at the company and are now refusing to play ANYTHING published by them based on what? A misplaced sense of self righteousness?. EA is keeping these developers alive by giving them money to continue making games, so by boycotting EA you are boycotting all the developers trying to make a living and are actually maiking the industry worse. If EA falls, then we will loose developers such as Bioware and Maxis whom were going bankrupt before EA purchased them. EA provides developers a sense of security. They are a large company that has been around for decades that offer the developers the chance to keep making the thing they love and getting paid to do so. Yes, you can make a game with 3 people, but then that game is going to be simple in a sense. For example, Limbo has been getting rave reviews for it's story and gameplay, yet the graphics are just crappy little shilouttes and it is a side scroller. Dead Space has a similar story in the sense that the protagonist is searching for someone in a dangerous unkown environment. It's graphics are quite good, the environment is somewhat open and is fully fleshed out, not all enemies can be taken out in the same way and require a certain strategy,and there are some puzzles. I'm not saying that AAA games are always better than indie games. What I am saying is that AAA games can take the same concept as an indie game and expand apon it making it more immersive than what the indie developed video game was.

I present to you 2 options:

1)Kickstarter
2)http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SugarWiki/GeniusProgramming

It doesnt matter if you have limited resourses, its up to those individials to make the best out of it. Its Art From Advercity. Star Wars was made with limited resourses and lots of problems and end up being The Best Sci Fi WORLDWIDE.

They dont NEED EA anymore if they trully are talented enough to be in bussiness.

But lets get to the part that you keep bringing up, the "you cant change it". Ok, what happens if more developers start making shitty games and defend themselves with "Artistic Integrity"? What if these new....."games" are so wretched that NO ONE likes it, does that mean that our money is gone forever and we cant do anything about it?

And is not like Art cannot be changed at all since movies had this crap before, if the artist isnt satisfied with what they did because the producers fuck up their vision, then he does a Director's Cut. If the audience doesnt get the message he wants, then he either makes another movie or explains it. Its all in the benefit of everyone, even the autohr itself.

But when real hacks start to abuse things like "Artistic Integrity" then what would happen to gaming or other mediums by extension? the medium will be a joke that no one takes seriously because these "visionaries" are too far up their asses to know when they fucked up.

Hell, is this kind of behavior that made possible the career of Andy Warhol and influence Postmodernism. Artists made shit so abstract that only THEM alone can understand it, so Andy made fun of that.

OH THANK FUCK I'M AT THE END. haha, anyway, back on topic, jokes aside :

Bioware may not agree with not needing EA. They want to make money for doing the thing they love, creating video games, and EA can guarantee them economic security. They get paid while working on their game as well as get money to improove the game. The situation is win win for Bioware, they get to keep making games as well as getting a decent pay check.

A shitty game is a game that is broken in a few areas. The story, the gameplay and the price for the longevity of the game. If the story id terrible, the game is unplayable and it takes you 2 hours to finish EVERYTHING (online and offline) for a 90 dollar game, then it's a shit game and you can complain about it. PERFECT EXAMPLE: The War Z, the game was incomplete, the story, well there was no story, and the price was hefty for a game that was so broken that the longevity was 10 minutes.

As for Directors changing the movie, that's fine because THEY OWN IT along with the producers. Art can definately be changed, but it should ONLY be changed by the creators of the artistic piece.

I quote James Portnow when I say, "not all games are art". Some games are made purely for fun, for the sake of it, etc. Mass Effect however I think we can all agree is quite the good series that has potential to be more than a fun game. The fact that we are currently arguing and discussing the game on all of these points show that it is in fact more than just a product.

So yeah, while there are problems with the industry, they're nothing worth boycotting an entire company over. Also, we can agree that there are games that don't fall under the view of art. For example, The War Z, a majority of sports games, Pokemon Snap.

 

[DioWallachia]

Nothing in that video showed the game being disfunctional. Yeah, the animation is great, none of the ME games had great animation. Yeah, the shotgun seem to havemore range in cutscenes, but cutscenes have always shown characters killing people with one shot from weapons, such as ME1 where Saren kills Nhilus with one shot from a pistol. The video also did not point out the game being "incoherent", soo maybe you might want to explain where the game itself got incoherent so as that I may understand where this argument is coming from, because so far from my observations of the game and the video you sent me, the games story was coherent.

My quote and the video with the "gameplay" is a response to: "The game itself is funtional" that is why is only about the gameplay.

As for the story, i already gave you the "smudboy" channel in the previous comment to your reply a post ago, with the videos that you may need to understand what happened to the whole series writing and its "consistency".

So you are admiting that there are discrepancies between cutscenes and gameplay, kinda like how Kai Leng is only killable when the plot saids so and when he no longer abuses the Shield Recharge super move as often as he should be anymore. For a series that prides itself on the story rather than the gameplay, this unexplained asspulls out of nowhere could be considered..........so video-gamey.


So apparently having a final boss out of nowhere and without explanation is "video-gamey" but having villains use powers when its convenient for the plot is not? These developers cannont even remain consistent OUTSIDE the fiction they made. I wish they just played Planescape Torment just for the well written final boss, and how well tied it is to the themes of the game itself. Maybe THEN they will learn.

We don't own the story, we own the experience it gives us. When you watch a film, read a book, listen to a song etc you are being allowed to experience the product. You can like it, hate it, or not care and no one can say you're wrong, but you do not own it. I repeat, YOU DO NOT OWN IT. When you had NO part in creating the product, you are simply a consumer, you had never put any time into creating the product and that means you have no claims of ownership. THIS is what I am talking about with gamers being entitled children. ALL we own is the experience we have with the game, and that is it. We don't own the story, the game, the graphics, the sound, we own an intangable memory of the events we experienced with the product.

We dont own it and yet the writers in this medium and programers take into account player feedback and CHANGE things constantly. Its no different now as it was before. BW does that to some extend but does it in a way that opens even more questions and making the product even more ridiculous, because it something so simple and yet they are not letting it go. To think that they were lucky to have a fanbase that have endured so much of ME2 and DA2 questionable writting, and SWTOR gameplay, just because of the well earn reputation they gained.......and all gone now after wasting this unique oportunity.


I will spare you the lenght of the video and focus on 19:57

I can determine that the lead writer knows what he is doing with the story because he was the lead writer in the begining. Obviously he is the person whom would outline the plot points of the story and proof read the work of the other writers. So yeah, the guy whoms job is to be the lead in his role kinda has to be the creator of the story,being the glue that keeps the writers all in check.

That doesnt explain why he needed to retcon his OWN lore (IF he had such control on the writting to begin with) that he stablished already. Oh well.

I don't have to see Harbinger personally leading the attack on Earth to see his pulling power. He told me he was basically the leader of the Reapers in the second game, and he is prooving his power by sending a bunch of Reapers to fuck up Earth. It's like, I don't need to see Hitler personally shooting and gasing jewish people to know that he had all the power and was leading the Nazis. He perfectly displayed his power when he sent Reapers to ransack Earth.

But here is the thing, he ISNT the leader of the Reapers. Because the reapers are just interconected between one another, all whom respond to God Child / Catalyst Boy / Casper The Genocidal Ghost (the embodiment of all Reapers)

And if he is, then what is so special about him? besides having a different voice than Sovereing? what function does he have that ANY Reaper couldnt fill but himself? what was the point of his existance in the narrative? why would the definition of a "leader" would apply to the Reapers, being all the same and interconected? And why even care about ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL and be like Hitler possesing SS agents on the battlefied if he is not even capable of ADC on indoctrinated agents and kill people directly to further their agenda?

This guy is the definition of a "gimmick".

Why they didn't repair the console? While I can't give a definate answer I can pose a few theories. Maybe the console is to small or hidden and requires organics to shut it off. Maybe the rate at which the were reaping the galaxy was faster than expected and the decision was made that the relays need not be shut down. I can't say for certain, but there are some reasons, not the best, but still a reason as to why they didn't use it to shut down the relays.

And i can answer that without resorting to headcannon. The Reapers not only are presented in the narrative as always prepared and ahead of time before the cycles could defend themselves properly or even KNOW that The Reapers exist, they ALSO invented the Mass Relays and The Citadel to make sure that civilizations fall into their traps by depending on them. It should be no brainer they also have anticipated something as the Citadel breaking down if not repaired, and that is why the Keepers were invented (or indoctrinated) into doing repairs. They dont respond to the signal anymore but their programing of keeping everything repaired, even the console to override the relay network, is intact. No mention of having the Keepers reprogramed after ME1 was notified, so the threat of someone using the console is still there because the Keepers WILL repair or even re-built one to keep everything in the same way it has always been, since the day they were created cycles ago. People cant hide it because it will be just placed back to where it was. All the Reapers had to do is ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL of an indoctrinated agent (as evidenced by The Arrival DLC with Dr. Amanda Kenson, where it is not needed to be implanted with Reaper tech to control you DIRECTLY) or get indoctrinated TIM and Cerberus to shut down the Relay Network, not kill the council as shown on ME3, instead just get close to the console.

But they dont even do that. Not EVEN when they pick up the Citadel to Earth, they still have the network open just for all the fleet to jump in. They not even use their GODLIKE powers of technology to become grey goo and get inside the Citadel to access the console. Nothing.

Why would the reaping be more faster in this cycle than in the others? hell, given all the problems they had to START the cycle, as evidenced by Sovereing starting the Rachni Wars to get an army to get to the Citadel (instead of just going alone because, after all, who could possibly kill him in this cycle?) it seems more logical to just play it safe.....like they always did.......and yet they didnt.

I never said Shepard doesn't trust the word of his friends or the evidence left behind. I am saying that first hand experience will always be more powerful than second hand. I'm not going to tell you that he lost his abilities, but I am going to say that the Cipher and the memories are now no longer important to the story. We dealt with them in the first game, the second game doesn't require us to go find another Asari to read our mind because the vision is a warning, not a full on documentary on the Reapers hobbies, likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses.

Just a vision huh? it was incoherent when we saw it and Shep didnt understand it, but how do we know that the answers arent there? or even the plans of The Crusible all along?? what is stopping Shep from asking Samara (an ancient and powerful Asari) or even Liara from reading our mind and dispelling the cloud of doubts and confusion that the vision gave us? maybe it isnt as unclear to their species as it is to us. But of course, that would be interesting, so they didnt do anything with it.

The Reapers intial attack is to eliminate all resistance so as that acuiring the specimens to convert is made much more easy as they wont have rockets shot at them. Also, in the last mission, you can clearly see hundreds of bodies all piled up in the citadel, so obviously they had begun collecting the bodies of the fallen.

But no one can kill Reapers with conventional weapons (or so we are told), let alone the forces on Earth who arent as develop as the other species (The Dreadnought of the intro sequence didnt do jack) And if Reapers are soooo preocupied about finding resistance while reaping......doesnt that mean that it would be VERY efficient to shut down the Relay Network FIRST before coming to Earth so they dont get killed?? they would no longer had to stomp everything and use eye beams because NOTHING could be strong in numbers to kill them. Consistency is overrated.

So they gathered dead bodies on The Citadel in the end, and then what? the dead bodies are useless, remember? that is what Harby said on the quotes video:


"Leave the dead where they fall"
"The dead are useless"


So what is the plan now? they needed them alive when you see them in the Collector Base, apparently the victim NEEDS to be concious to be melted down in body and mind to a Reaper form to be preserved. But now on ME3 they can use them even when they are dead? what was the point of using the previous method then? why not skip that bullshit and kill everyone COMPLETELY instead of just the resistance (like you said) if they can process dead bodies too? We need details and it obvious at this point that we are not going to get any.

Maybe MOAR DLC will solve the problem and they will eventually answer everything, maybe it will cure cancer too.

Yeah...except the people working in Cerberus clearly don't like aliens and want humans to be on top. So even if we could renegade take over the soldiers wouldn't listen to an alien sympathising human, they would just disband. The soldiers of Cerberus are loyal to TIM.

Are they? given how stupid some of the previous actions of Cerberus were, and how every experiment they do backfires spectaculary, i am having a hard time beliving why people still follow TIM other than the very corrupt or very oblivious like Miranda and Kelly Chambers.

They dont listion to an alien symphathising human? and what do you think TIM was doing when he send ME to get those aliens in the first place? isnt he already a symphatiser? cant Shep just LIE to the xenophobic human members to ensure their loyalty or even throw them in the airlock? Why cant i demostrate both phisically and mentally that i am better than TIM and i can ACTUALLY ensure the survival of the human race? because blowing up the Collector Base wasnt evidence enough?

Great, the council doesnt believe me and now even the terrorist think i am not badass enough to command them.

It has been explained many times that the council refuse to believe the existence due to being afraid/believing Shepard, a Human (Humans only being part of the citadel for 30 years) was fooled by Saren as they had been/was working with terrorists in game 2. The Virmire survivor doesn't trust Shepard because he/she is working with Cerberus, a known terrorist organisation. They do however send an e-mail to Shepard later (if you weren't a dick) and apologize for their actions. As for not respecting the person whom saved them, it's because they probably felt that the person whom was KIA for 2 years who suddenly returned working with a group that hates aliens is not the same Shepard they once knew.

Garrus and others aliens (even Thane who would probably more careful since he is a profesional assasin) didnt have any problem in believing and even joining me with Cerberus. So a few join too easily and others just plain refuse to listen to you.

The Tali and Garrus both give their reasons for going down the paths they took. Nobody wanted to listen to them, and everyone drifted apart because of it. Garrus mentions that he tried to convince the Turian counciler but was knocked back. Having already lost faith in C-sec in game 1, it's not that far a stretch to see why Garrus became a merc who led a team similar to Shepard's to fight injustice.

Fighting injustice is minor compared to galactix extintion. Again, i dont see how that had more priority that preventing and preparing for an invasion. At least Liara had the desency of locating the Shadow Brooker but even THEN, it was for revenge reasons, not for practical purposes. She just took over because "while we are here, may as well" not because it may help the galaxy.

Shepard trusts Liara when she says "I believe this weapon will work" because Shepard knows she is an expert on Protheans. As for how to use it...yeah I can't think of a reason other then they were to stressed out and terrified to make a propper informed decision on building a machine without knowing how to fire it.

Shep trust Liara, great. Can you tell us, Liara, what this thing does? or at the very least explain the parts of The Crusible that the Prothean worked on? because i am sure as hell that you didnt study races more older than the Protheans by CYCLES ago.

No? oh well...

TIM believed that he could persuade Shepard into following Cerberus and eventually agreeing with their practices. He also believed that if the 'great Shepard' were to join Cerberus that many humans whom admired the first Human spectre would also join him. As for why Shepard didn't just kill him, lets take a look back at all the games. Other than the end of ME3, WE NEVER SEE TIM IN PERSON. Every single time Shepard talks to TIM it is through a hologram telephone call. So, please elaborate and tell me how Shepard is supposed to kill a man whom's location is unknown and has never talked to Shepard face-to-face.

Ask Miranda. She was there IN PERSON in the intro of ME2, on the Cerberus Base, not on Quantum Entaglement. Are you telling me that the most trusted person of TIM, who he lets her close enough to even stab him in the back, DOESNT know the location of the base she works?? And even if she is put to sleep everytime people need her in the base WITHOUT knowing where it is, doesnt that make her distrust TIM for not trusting her in revealing the location, even when she is like the second in command??

I already explained why they murdered people in response to a post you will have already read. I never said that the Reapers DON'T exterminate species, I said they leave younger races whom have not developed space flight alo- wait? Did you just say the Vorcha are exterminated in ME3?...WHEN!? At no point do I remember hearing that. I recall the Batarians being fundementally extinct due to the Relay in their system blowing up, but as for the Vorcha as far as I am aware they are still kicking.

Opss wrong info, sorry. But i am sure there was a race that got extinct somewhere...

No it isn't military procedure to base everything on faith, but need I remind you that Sheperd had faith in the belief that the Reapers were coming, and while HE knew it due to the beacon, everyone else who believed him was doing so because they had faith in Shepard. It would be hypocritical of Shepard to immedietly blow Liara off just because they don't know how to fire the weapon when Shepard expected his crew to follow him based off of "I had a vision".

Is isnt hypocritical because most of the squadmates were there and had just as much evidence as Shepard had.

Being Australian I didn't hear about the SOPA act until Wikipedia decided to go on an internet black out 2 days before I had a year 11 essay to write. After reading a bit about it, I can see your comparison and I can see how in normal circumstances it is stupid to take such a risk. However, Shepard was right about the Reapers this whole time and all he ever did to try and proove it to everyone is say, "You have to trust me, I've seen it for myself". So I guess when your backyard is getting blown the fuck up, you listen to the guy whom was telling you this would happen for 3 years.

Again, he just needed to show the Derelict Reaper existance and how powerful is the technology that Sovereing had to ilustrate that (at least) there is a fucking menace (regardless if they belive its Geth or not)

Better yet, we could have used the existence of The Human Reaper to further proove that they do exist AND to demostrate to the human colonies where their families went and died.

Those extra months that you obtained, small as they are, could have been used and be meaningful if ONLY the writers didnt waste it on making Shep prisioner for no apparent reason on Earth in ME3. If you didnt play Arrival, then he has no reason to be imprisioned, not even by working with Cerberus because Specters are above the law.

What you wrote at the end does sound really cool, and it would have been interesting to have that implemented. The only problems I can think of is that it would make some missions redundant/require more space or discs to implement perfectly into the game. There's also the problem of more is less. While I agree that the idea you've proposed is cool, the developers would essentially be forced to be writing 2 games in 1. You've already pointed out that you did not enjoy the writing in ME3, which is why it can be assumed that by taking your idea the writing quality would likely be worse as they would have to quadruple check their work, and because humans aren't perfect the likely hood of screw ups becomes much greater.

Well, if the Reapers attacked the Citadel ASAP, then most of the interactions there on ME3 are already pointless.

But so what if that takes more space into the discs? isnt that what they told US that it will happen? the story would branch off in the 3rd game (as Armando Troisi said) because its more easy to do it in the final game without worrying about connecting the dots if a sequel were made after ME3, and its more easy to code on the last game rather than in the first one where branching too much would make it impossible.

To give an example of branching REALLY HARD, pretend that ME1 has not 2 continuities:

1)The one we got Sovereing dead and the Citadel saved in ME1 at the end.

2)Another where Sovereing managed to separate from Saren after assuming control of his body, escaping The Citadel and find more reinforcements to get to the console another time. Meaning that we dont get to kill him in ME1, nor the Thanix Cannons or EDI are developed because he didnt die and we couldnt reverse ingenier him. So he is the one helping the Collectors later or, taking adventaje of the rumors of him being a "Geth" ship, he attacks the Quarians and leave alive just a few. Those few decide discover that Sovereing is a Geth and decide to wipe all the Geth before they could strike them again. The Geth, ALL of them in self defense this time, will decide to submit to Sovereing and get upgraded before they are killed by the Quarians (and before they even know that it was Sovereing who tricked the Quarians into attacking them). Meaning that the conflict that happened between Quarians and Geth happens early in ME2 instead of ME3, but we dont even get to know Legion because HE was created because Sovereing was dead in the original timeline and the Geth wanted to contact Shepard for it.

ME3 was supposed to have something like that, any minimal change leads to totally different scenarios and endings. But alas, that didnt happen............again.

This is the bane of videogames. The interactive aspect is the best and worst part of this medium because, if given its full potential, it means that ANY interaction made by the audience could change the shape of the plot they will see. Because this takes too long to make and lots of effort, games are doomed by their own ambition. And so are the developers who THINK they can do it, specially when they said that CHOICES MATTER.

Given that BW made good stories before and now they are financed by EA, one would think that they will get enough money to pull something this ambitious. Little do the fans know that this was just a publicity stunt, just an empty feature that doesnt even manage to compete with other RPGs or games around choice.

And come to think of it, if it was too big, then they could have just filled the gaps with DLC. They are doing just that, but most of it is just old content that was cut and that doesnt bring anything new to the branching other than more EMS. In fact, it seems that they are restoring WITHOUT updating or even fixing the problems it had, that made it worth being cut from the main game in the first place.

We know it will stop the Reapers, we just don't know how. We have seen Reapers get blown up, and we have been presented with the idea that Reapers could be controlled. The biggest stretch was Synthesis, but that was touched upon in the game where the whole point was to unify the galaxy against the threat. The Reapers are a part of the galaxy, thus synthesis just unifies literally everything in the universe for the greater good.

We see it AFTER the game already made the choice for us to use it, we see it in the endings. But the characters themselves have no reason to do it.

Lets roleplay for a moment and you will see my point:


AGENT CODENAME "BUG OF WAR"!!

B.O.W: SIR, YES SIR!

Alright agent, you have been properly trained for this mission after the many years of playing COD. The media may suspect but have no evidence of our secret training programs. Noobs.

You have one mission: You must deliver the contents of this Spoiler Envelope (WHO YOU MUST NOT CLICK UNTIL THE RENDEVOU POINT!!) with a very classified super weapon. When you get there, deep into the enemy lines, you must follow the instructions to operate the super weapon. Hold it with your right hand, with the black side of the weapon aiming to your left, and do the following sequence:

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, (say out loud) MORPHING TIME!

The scientist have no clue what it will do or WHY do you have to be in the middle of enemy lines, but they tell us that the weapon is fuelled by "suspension of disbelief" and "it will not work if you see it early before the rendevou point"

Is that understood?

B.O.W: SIR, YES SIR!

GODSPEED, SOLDIER!!

B.O.W: Dont you mean "agent"?

Shut up

----you get to the rendevou point with so many holes in your ass that you PRAY that you had regenerating health---

RADIO: NOW AGENT, OPEN THE SPOILER ENVELOPE AND USE THE INSTRUCTIONS!!

Spoiler

RADIO: AGENT?? RESPOND. IS THAT CRYING LAUGHTER I HEAR? RESPOND!!


Since you bring synthesis, you may realize that we unite everyone on the galaxy despite their differences, yes? we did this by accepting that they are different in the first place. But by acepting synthesis, we are agreeing with the Reaper way of unifing anyone. Their method is: "People cant get along because they are different, so we are going to force them all into Reaper form (or a single race) to solve this and keeping them alive"

I never got explained as to how an Asari is able to look into my mind and then use my DNA to rewrite her childs. As for biotics and universal translators, their explanations are fine. As for what I said about the EMP effect, notice how I said the crucible, "likely uses a pulse of radiation that has an EMP like effect". I never said it WAS an EMP, but that it's effect was somewhat similar to the effects seen when EMPs are used. This is to me, as believable as universal translators, and even more believable than biotics.

"Similar" to EMP? so the scientist dont know? how come that they do KNOW about this:
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/War_Assets/Crucible

Interferometric Array:
Normally interferometric arrays are used to analyze planetary landmasses, or to determine the astrophysical properties of stellar systems. The powerful array salvaged from the Hercules system can be used for something much more ambitious: the Crucible tunes into the mass relays' command switches. Installing the interferometric array into the Crucible's systems results in a real-time map of the entire galaxy, including the position of each and every Reaper in the Milky Way.

So the Crusible knows the difference between a robot/synthetic/technology in general and a REAPER, just enough to map them in the galaxy. Does that mean that when i use the Destruction ending (and uses the supposed EMP") it will kill all Reapers ALONE and not the Geth, or EDI, or people with cyber-implants like the Quarians (because they count too in the list since we are told that Shep is part synthetic or cybernetic, and so are the Quarians)

You see what i mean when lack of details opens more questions than it should be healthy?

OH THANK FUCK I'M AT THE END. haha, anyway, back on topic, jokes aside :

So yeah, while there are problems with the industry, they're nothing worth boycotting an entire company over. Also, we can agree that there are games that don't fall under the view of art. For example, The War Z, a majority of sports games, Pokemon Snap.

Ironically, games in general are view as sports, not just games of sports, but ALL games. And for that reason (thanks to Roger fucking Ebert) games are not art (also because you "win" a game, is not art) Nevermind that most games dont even have a fucking score or even a "a winner is you" screen. Most games are just stories and the best ending (the one with the credits) is most likely the one the author wants as canon.

But that is another thread altogether:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.398232-Games-as-art?page=1

 

[AgentLampshade]

Goddamn it why is there Mass Effect where Devil may Cry should be?

 

[TehCookie]

Goddamn it why is there Mass Effect where Devil may Cry should be?

They're mad we're taking their title so they want to get it back by proving their the worst.

Edit: Fixed double quote (I blame my phone)

 

[mattttherman3]

I'm playing it, I'm enjoying it, not sure why everyone is being a whiner about it. So what they changed the origin and his hair, when franchises become stagnant, that's what happens. This is actually very good if you compare it to other reboots, like Prince of Persia, bleh!

 

[TehCookie]

I'm playing it, I'm enjoying it, not sure why everyone is being a whiner about it. So what they changed the origin and his hair, when franchises become stagnant, that's what happens. This is actually very good if you compare it to other reboots, like Prince of Persia, bleh!

No fan is complaining about the hair. I'll make a bet anyone who does is a fujoshi. Fans are complaining about the step back in mechanics and bad design choices like mini cutscenes interrupting gameplay and poor dialogue. The media just blows off all the legitimate complains and tries to paint the old fans in a bad manner.

 

[DioWallachia]

And this is why I have absolutely no respect for people obsessed with bashing Mass Effect 3.

If you havent noticed, we are talking about Mass Effect as whole. Not just ME3 nor the ending alone. Thank you for not noticing it.

Addendum: Rather than waste time shooting down every stupid comment you make, I'm just going to pick the three stupidest statements you make and demonstrate how they prove nothing but your ignorance and/or desire to mislead others.

Because making mistakes means the whole thing falls appart? because questioning my surroundings and the reality of this fictional world means i am misleading? does that mean that questioning ANYTHING means that i desire to mislead? Are we already in the world of George Orwell "1984"?

My comments are free of charge, you know? i am not going to get mad for fucking up, NOR i will try to pull that i have "artistic integrity" and shield myself out of criticism.

Given the lenght of the game, how some players dont look every single mail/log, and how some players dont even CARE about the story of ME (even by being fans of it) and are there for the shooty parts, it should not be surpricing that not everyone knows every detail.

But i guess i am not harcore fan enough to speak against the series. My CASUAL presence here ruins the fun of everyone who is a TRUE fan.

You forgot to mention that those lines are spoken in relation to fallen Collectors. They are not referring to the races that the Reapers are harvesting but rather the race that they did not harvest and instead converted into their slaves.

In other words, your argument here relies entirely on using quotes and completely disregarding the context of those quotes.

Ah ok. Must have mixed memories of the cutscenes and the GoW gameplay.

But wait, why would someone as logical and cold as a Reaper wouldnt TRY to destroy the corpses or make sure to scan the area so not even the particles or traces of Collector corpses, would lead people to start searching for them.

And since the Collectors are basically pure tech now, why not dissasemble the bodies and leave the parts worth saving to upgrade or even make more Collectors? it seems like a waste of resourses once again, and the Reapers are limited in numbers of Husk troops to do their bidding (like manning a console to manually shut down the Relay Network)

Maybe its philosophy of leaving shit behind made possible for Mordin to obtain a Seeker Swarm to develop the cure? (because we never get an explanation of how we got our hands into one of those when the Collectors are supposed to leave no trace)

And why would they believe that ship was a Reaper and not just another geth ship? The Council didn't accept Shepard's insistence that they were Reapers because the only "proof" they had was Shepard's word.

And that's real simple: just use the remains of the Human-Reaper that's located in the galatic core, where no ship has ever returned and where the Normandy needed a Reaper IFF in order to arrive safely.

And your last point here is indeed explained in Mass Effect 2: Cerberus is an avowed enemy of the Council, and thus even a Spectre working with Cerberus is treason, a capital offense.

So perhaps you should play the games before insisting that things don't make sense?

Reaper or not, it is still a threat. And if you havent noticed by the tone of my comments (where i make emphasis on the choices the players didnt have), by me MENTIONING the Human Reaper it means that:

A) We already reached the part where the plot shows us the existance of the Human Reaper AND where are the colonist located (inside it)

B)If we SAVE the base, we could obviously show the Human Reaper. That is why this comment exist in the first place:
"Those extra months that you obtained, small as they are, could have been used and be meaningful if ONLY the writers didnt waste it on making Shep prisioner for no apparent reason on Earth in ME3"

With the evidence, you could have played your cards well and get the full suport of The Council ASAP and make the most of it by preparing for the invacion and warning others. I should probably have mentioned Arrival DLC where you ALSO get a bit of extra time by delaying the Reapers.

If Shep is a traitor, then why dont they shoot him on sight? why even allow to even get a Geth to meet the Council to begin with?? If they are going to talk to you, the least they could do is just send scouts to the Derelict Reaper or, better yet, have the Justicar Samara back you up AND convince the Asari council to read your mind and find out about the beacon visions and everything else. What more proof of Shep innocense than seeing how He/She got enroled in Cerberus against his will, the mental trauma of being death and resurrected, and of course, the fact that the Reaper treat is real.

What was stopping the writers from doing the simplest of solutions? I may be a traitor but i ALSO saved the galaxy and their lives when Sovereing came to The Citadel. Everyone knows my intentions towards the galaxy and i prove that by saving it.

So the ability to map the galaxy is equivalent to the ability to choose specific targets?

Let's give a hypothetical example. Say I have a rocket launcher with a fancy scope. This scope identifies allies and hostiles, and marks hostile targets with a symbol so that I can easily pick them out from a crowd.

Now, if I were to fire that rocket launcher into a crowd of people, would it only magically damage the people marked as hostiles?

It's bad enough when your whining about Mass Effect revolves around a lack of common sense, but even worse when your whining about Mass Effect revolves around being completely ignorant of Mass Effect. Perhaps if you played the games, you would have all of these answers that you somehow overlooked when coming up with excuses to cry about Mass Effect.

So, let me get this straight: In this time of war and extinction, where every second counts, and where we are building a weapon that no one knows what it does. We are going to install a system that knows where the Reapers is in real time.......but it ISNT going to be useful NOR its related to the function of the bigger weapon it forms a part off, meaning that it isnt going to help at all in destroying the Reapers.

....

Why are we even wasting time installing this thing then? the resourses could be better spent in something else more practical and saving lives. Are you sure that the plans of previous cycles are well traducted or even being built properly? Why desing something that its completely useless? its like painting the your gun in red, it doesnt make the weapon stronger or fire faster, its just decoration. But still decoration that took time and money and makes no impact in the inminent war.

As for the rocket launcher example, it isnt the same thing. The data says that its KINDA like EMP (it could kill all robots but we dont know how much of a difference it is) If it were traditional EMP as we know it in the real world, then it could kill all robots and be like the rocket launcher example, where the explotion will kill everyone regardless.

However, due to the lack of details, we cant even be sure other than by watching the endings (meta gaming) and where its already too late.

Even Catalyst boy doesnt solve the issue if Quarians and people with cyber implants will die. He saids "The Crusible will not discriminate, all synthetics will be targeted. Even YOU are part synthetic" so that means that Quarians are going to die too, but the endings afterwards in Destroy says otherwise.

(7:58)

Come to think of it, why not order the Geth to shut themselves down (turn "OFF") to avoid being "ON" when the Destroy "EMP?" hits them?? and they only reboot their systems when its safe? Sure, probably the Reapers could do that too, but while they are off to survive the impact, the fleets could shoot them with their shields down and still win.

We have to make sure they blow up in lots of pieces, because even dead these cyberquids can indoctrinate people. Better be sure and send them to the sun.

EDIT:You know what? The Crusible IS a rocket launcher. I remember that (even before and after the Extended Cut) the LOW EMS Destroy ending actually VAPORIZES EVERYONE (robot or not) on the surface of Earth. And the Relays actually explode like Pre-EC in Low EMS Destroy and Control ending. With high EMS only the gyroscopic rings explode.

Why on Earth would the Effective Military Strenght (the number of ships i have to fight) would have ANYTHING to do with how the Crusible works? regardless if all those fancy things in the War Assets/Crusible say nothing of vaporizing organics too?

"Like EMP" my ass.

 

[DioWallachia]

I'm playing it, I'm enjoying it, not sure why everyone is being a whiner about it. So what they changed the origin and his hair, when franchises become stagnant, that's what happens. This is actually very good if you compare it to other reboots, like Prince of Persia, bleh!

No fan is complaining about the hair. I'll make a bet anyone who does is a fujoshi. Fans are complaining about the step back in mechanics and bad design choices like mini cutscenes interrupting gameplay and poor dialogue. The media just blows off all the legitimate complains and tries to paint the old fans in a bad manner.

But there are already people ilustrating with videos and such that the gameplay is more easy to pull of and the story is quite different in tone to the DMC, but also not very well written.

So how long before people actually realize that the fans actually have a point?

 

[A Red Robot]

So a few days ago I decided to purchase the DMC HD collection. The only prior experience I had with DMC before this was the DmC demo and the DMC4 demo, with the DmC demo being the one I played first and I actually enjoyed playing it. After beating DMC1 and 3(and playing a bit of 2), I decided to retry the DmC demo to see if people where just overreacting about the reboot, as the internet usually does.

I decided to play it on the Normal difficulty mode to see if it was as challenging as 1 and 3 were on normal. I found the normal difficulty in the reboot to be much easier than the normal difficulty in 1 and 3. The enemy AI seemed kind of stupid, and there never seemed to be a lot of enemies on the screen at one time. Also the fighting areas seemed a lot larger than most of the areas in 1 & 3, which felt kind of...off to me. In 1 and 3, fighting decently sized groups of enemies in small areas felt tense and exciting, and also required a bit of strategy if you wanted to survive. In the demo, it really never felt fun or exciting to fight enemies, but I haven't played the full game yet so if it gets better later on, I would't know.

The combat in the demo also felt a bit off. I thought it was unsatisfying to hit monster-things with my sharp-things. The sword swings didn't seem to be as "cruchy", for lack of a better word, as the past game's. The style levels seem to be way to easy to get and keep, where I could just mash attack with Arbiter and somehow get an A rank. It only goes down to lower levels if you get hit, instead of just going down as fast as it went up like in the previous games.
Not including the lock-on feature from the previous games just seems like bad design to me. It was awkward to pull off directional moves, such as stinger, where instead of just having to press forward+attack while locked on, you have to double tap forward+attack. It doesn't seem like it would be too bad at first, but something about it just made it feel slower.

Speaking of slower, I really don't see why they didn't use the MTframework engine from DMC4, or something similar. I'm not usually one to complain about games being only 30 fps when people can barely notice the difference, but after playing the other DMC games and then jumping straight into the demo of the reboot, the game felt noticeably slower. It's kind of hard to describe, but I guess the best way to see what I'm saying is either play one of the older DMC games, download 4's demo or something, then after you're done start up the DmC demo.

Devil Trigger is also something that doesn't seem well executed. The slow down effect combined with knocking up all the enemies in the air seemed more annoying than useful. I also don't understand why they only went with one, really bland looking Devil Trigger. They could've had something like activating DT while having your angelic weapons equipped turns you into one DT, having the demonic weapons equipped turns you into another DT, and just using rebellion while activating DT turns you into your standard DT. The Devil Trigger we got seems really lazy and just looks boring.

It could've done with less platforming segments. I never liked platforming in this series because it never seems to work well. It's kind of fun in the reboot's demo, but I can see it getting much more tedious in the full game. But hey, atleast it's improving one of the worst parts of the previous games.

The music in the demo was okay. I couldn't really hear most of it over the enemy noises and Dante's noise making, but what I could actually hear was pretty tolerable and fitting. I haven't heard the full soundtrack yet, so my opinion on it might change.

I guess I also want to add my opinion on the new Dante. I'm okay with the redesign of the character for the most part. I don't really like the way his face looks, but whatever, it's not a big deal. I guess what I don't like is personality. I haven't played the full game yet, but from what I saw in the demo and looking at cut scenes on Youtube, I don't like him. He just seems like a guy who drains the fun out of a room when he steps in. I didn't find him charming, I didn't find his jokes funny, it feels like he's trying a bit too hard to be cool, and he's kind of annoying. Sure, the old Dante was cheesy and over the top, but he had charisma(at least in the 3rd game), which is why I liked playing as him, and why I don't like playing as new Dante. Also the new voice actor seems to have a weird way of sometimes slurring his words together, which just seems a bit strange to me.

I can see why people don't like the new game, and I can see why fans would want to avoid this game like the plague, or something less extreme. It doesn't seem like it's improved much from the previous games and in some cases seems like it's taken a few steps back from the previous games, from what I've played. I honestly think this would've done better as a new IP, just change the name of the characters around and change a few story aspects, and no one would've known it was going to be a DMC game. Probably would've sold better too...

 

[bug_of_war]

Nothing in that video showed the game being disfunctional. Yeah, the animation is great, none of the ME games had great animation. Yeah, the shotgun seem to havemore range in cutscenes, but cutscenes have always shown characters killing people with one shot from weapons, such as ME1 where Saren kills Nhilus with one shot from a pistol. The video also did not point out the game being "incoherent", soo maybe you might want to explain where the game itself got incoherent so as that I may understand where this argument is coming from, because so far from my observations of the game and the video you sent me, the games story was coherent.

My quote and the video with the "gameplay" is a response to: "The game itself is funtional" that is why is only about the gameplay.

As for the story, i already gave you the "smudboy" channel in the previous comment to your reply a post ago, with the videos that you may need to understand what happened to the whole series writing and its "consistency".

So you are admiting that there are discrepancies between cutscenes and gameplay, kinda like how Kai Leng is only killable when the plot saids so and when he no longer abuses the Shield Recharge super move as often as he should be anymore. For a series that prides itself on the story rather than the gameplay, this unexplained asspulls out of nowhere could be considered..........so video-gamey.


So apparently having a final boss out of nowhere and without explanation is "video-gamey" but having villains use powers when its convenient for the plot is not? These developers cannont even remain consistent OUTSIDE the fiction they made. I wish they just played Planescape Torment just for the well written final boss, and how well tied it is to the themes of the game itself. Maybe THEN they will learn.

It never really bothered me that there were discrepancies between cutscene and gameplay. I always saw it as a liberty that they took in order to create an emotional response in a player. For example, in ME1 when you're on Noveria and talking to the Russian guy who has the passcode there is NO Rachnai anywhere to be seen, nor is there any holes or vents they could come from both in and out of cutscene. Then, once he gives you the code, out of no where he gets killed by a bigass Rachnai that somehow snuck up on everyone. A lot of games take liberties such as this, and while they can come off as minor or major (Guy getting sneaky stabbed, Shepard loosing the ability to shoot straight) I feel as though personally for me, it just makes me more determined. Every time Kai Leng would prance about and Shepard didn't kill him made me more determined to do so the next time, so when I finally did kill him (Mind you I was playing on the higher difficulties, so he wasn't as easy as you have put it) I was so happy. ALL the cutscenes and that fight at the temple had made me hate him so much that the satisfaction of breaking his blade and stabbing him was so much more satisfying than killing someone such as the Blood Pack Krogan leader in ME2.

We don't own the story, we own the experience it gives us. When you watch a film, read a book, listen to a song etc you are being allowed to experience the product. You can like it, hate it, or not care and no one can say you're wrong, but you do not own it. I repeat, YOU DO NOT OWN IT. When you had NO part in creating the product, you are simply a consumer, you had never put any time into creating the product and that means you have no claims of ownership. THIS is what I am talking about with gamers being entitled children. ALL we own is the experience we have with the game, and that is it. We don't own the story, the game, the graphics, the sound, we own an intangable memory of the events we experienced with the product.

We dont own it and yet the writers in this medium and programers take into account player feedback and CHANGE things constantly. Its no different now as it was before. BW does that to some extend but does it in a way that opens even more questions and making the product even more ridiculous, because it something so simple and yet they are not letting it go. To think that they were lucky to have a fanbase that have endured so much of ME2 and DA2 questionable writting, and SWTOR gameplay, just because of the well earn reputation they gained.......and all gone now after wasting this unique oportunity.


I will spare you the lenght of the video and focus on 19:57

Thanks for giving me the time code.
I always disagreed with Biowares willingness to bendover and take it from their fans because it tells me that they are too scared to take risks and stand up for themseleves. In that video you posted I think the guy is being a little unfair in saying "Bioware is saying it's our (the fans fault)". I don't think Bioware was angry at their fans or even blaming them. I think they were acting like the kid at school with a small group of pretentious friends. They were scared that their friends were going to leave them because they did something that created contreversy between them. Instead of standing up and saying, "No, this is how we are ending the game" they bent over and said, "OH GOD PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME I'LL ALTER IT". I think the worse part though is that even when they altered the ending most fans continued to bash them. I felt like screaming at the fans (and ended up doing so) and telling them that they don't even deserve the Extended Cut. And I felt like yelling at Bioware and telling them to grow a fucking spine. Bioware showed it's willingness to listen to fans and the fans took advantage of this, and now Bioware is paying the price, and while I'm angry at both sides I feel sorry for Bioware for getting themselves into this mess. Fans should really have very little input/say in where a game goes, because THAT is where inconcistencies and problems begin to pop up. That's not to say fans should not be allowed to say when something FUNCTIONALLY is wrong with the game. But when it comes to the story, fans should have no input other than their little fan fics they may write and publish on their blog.

I can determine that the lead writer knows what he is doing with the story because he was the lead writer in the begining. Obviously he is the person whom would outline the plot points of the story and proof read the work of the other writers. So yeah, the guy whoms job is to be the lead in his role kinda has to be the creator of the story,being the glue that keeps the writers all in check.

That doesnt explain why he needed to retcon his OWN lore (IF he had such control on the writting to begin with) that he stablished already. Oh well.

Please explain to me where he retconned his own lore. I see no retconning in Mass Effect 2 at all.

I don't have to see Harbinger personally leading the attack on Earth to see his pulling power. He told me he was basically the leader of the Reapers in the second game, and he is prooving his power by sending a bunch of Reapers to fuck up Earth. It's like, I don't need to see Hitler personally shooting and gasing jewish people to know that he had all the power and was leading the Nazis. He perfectly displayed his power when he sent Reapers to ransack Earth.

But here is the thing, he ISNT the leader of the Reapers. Because the reapers are just interconected between one another, all whom respond to God Child / Catalyst Boy / Casper The Genocidal Ghost (the embodiment of all Reapers)

And if he is, then what is so special about him? besides having a different voice than Sovereing? what function does he have that ANY Reaper couldnt fill but himself? what was the point of his existance in the narrative? why would the definition of a "leader" would apply to the Reapers, being all the same and interconected? And why even care about ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL and be like Hitler possesing SS agents on the battlefied if he is not even capable of ADC on indoctrinated agents and kill people directly to further their agenda?

This guy is the definition of a "gimmick".

I have two answers to this. The first is that at the begining of ME3, no one knows about the starchild, not even Shepard. So as far as EVERYONE knows Harbinger really is the leader of the Reaper fleet. Thus, when Shepard witnesses the Reapers descending on Earth, he believes that Harbinger has personally sent them their, especially since Harbinger spent the whole of game 2 taunting Shepard. My second answer is that we never hear the starchild say that he directly control the Reapers, only that he is their creator and that they are the solution to the problem initially imposed apon it. It is likely that the Reapers do not take direct orders from the starchild and make decisions on their whilst adhearing to their base programming. Harbinger is still essentially the leader of the Reaper Fleet, it is simply the task of preserving future life in the galaxy that was ordered from the starchild.

Why they didn't repair the console? While I can't give a definate answer I can pose a few theories. Maybe the console is to small or hidden and requires organics to shut it off. Maybe the rate at which the were reaping the galaxy was faster than expected and the decision was made that the relays need not be shut down. I can't say for certain, but there are some reasons, not the best, but still a reason as to why they didn't use it to shut down the relays.

And i can answer that without resorting to headcannon. The Reapers not only are presented in the narrative as always prepared and ahead of time before the cycles could defend themselves properly or even KNOW that The Reapers exist, they ALSO invented the Mass Relays and The Citadel to make sure that civilizations fall into their traps by depending on them. It should be no brainer they also have anticipated something as the Citadel breaking down if not repaired, and that is why the Keepers were invented (or indoctrinated) into doing repairs. They dont respond to the signal anymore but their programing of keeping everything repaired, even the console to override the relay network, is intact. No mention of having the Keepers reprogramed after ME1 was notified, so the threat of someone using the console is still there because the Keepers WILL repair or even re-built one to keep everything in the same way it has always been, since the day they were created cycles ago. People cant hide it because it will be just placed back to where it was. All the Reapers had to do is ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL of an indoctrinated agent (as evidenced by The Arrival DLC with Dr. Amanda Kenson, where it is not needed to be implanted with Reaper tech to control you DIRECTLY) or get indoctrinated TIM and Cerberus to shut down the Relay Network, not kill the council as shown on ME3, instead just get close to the console.

Yes, the Keepers repair it, but as you've pointed out it still requires someone to activate the program of shutting down the relays. We also know that nobody knows where the Keepers go or come from, so that must mean that the route the Keepers take is ONLY accesable by them, or is too dangerous for other organics. Thus, this rules out the Reapers ability to send indoctrinated organics to flick the switch as it is entirely plausable that it is inaccesable to them. The Keepers tendancies to self distruct when tampered with also stops them from having an indoctrinated organic capture a Keeper and re connecting it to the Reapers.

[/quote]

I never said Shepard doesn't trust the word of his friends or the evidence left behind. I am saying that first hand experience will always be more powerful than second hand. I'm not going to tell you that he lost his abilities, but I am going to say that the Cipher and the memories are now no longer important to the story. We dealt with them in the first game, the second game doesn't require us to go find another Asari to read our mind because the vision is a warning, not a full on documentary on the Reapers hobbies, likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses.

Just a vision huh? it was incoherent when we saw it and Shep didnt understand it, but how do we know that the answers arent there? or even the plans of The Crusible all along?? what is stopping Shep from asking Samara (an ancient and powerful Asari) or even Liara from reading our mind and dispelling the cloud of doubts and confusion that the vision gave us? maybe it isnt as unclear to their species as it is to us. But of course, that would be interesting, so they didnt do anything with it.

Relying on the vision in the second game would have been lazy and just a re-hash of the first game. Liara looks through Shep's brain a maximum of 4 times throughout the first game, you'd think she would have found something more than a warning message. Afterall, you pointed out that their is a possibility that their species may be able to comprehend the vision better, so why after 4 times could Liara not get more than, "SCARY IMMAGERY, SQUIDS IN PLANETS, PROTHEAN LIKE CREATURES DYING".

The Reapers intial attack is to eliminate all resistance so as that acuiring the specimens to convert is made much more easy as they wont have rockets shot at them. Also, in the last mission, you can clearly see hundreds of bodies all piled up in the citadel, so obviously they had begun collecting the bodies of the fallen.

But no one can kill Reapers with conventional weapons (or so we are told), let alone the forces on Earth who arent as develop as the other species (The Dreadnought of the intro sequence didnt do jack) And if Reapers are soooo preocupied about finding resistance while reaping......doesnt that mean that it would be VERY efficient to shut down the Relay Network FIRST before coming to Earth so they dont get killed?? they would no longer had to stomp everything and use eye beams because NOTHING could be strong in numbers to kill them. Consistency is overrated.

But that doesn't mean our weapons can't kill us. What if we fired a shot that missed the Reaper and then blew up 500 people in a building, the Reapers would have lost 500 organic bodies to use to make husks/Reapers. They're killing those firing at them for more than just self preservation, they're doing so to ensure that the species doesn't wipe themselves out before the Reapers can begin converting them.

So they gathered dead bodies on The Citadel in the end, and then what? the dead bodies are useless, remember? that is what Harby said on the quotes video:


"Leave the dead where they fall"
"The dead are useless"


So what is the plan now? they needed them alive when you see them in the Collector Base, apparently the victim NEEDS to be concious to be melted down in body and mind to a Reaper form to be preserved. But now on ME3 they can use them even when they are dead? what was the point of using the previous method then? why not skip that bullshit and kill everyone COMPLETELY instead of just the resistance (like you said) if they can process dead bodies too? We need details and it obvious at this point that we are not going to get any.

Maybe MOAR DLC will solve the problem and they will eventually answer everything, maybe it will cure cancer too.

Harbinger is talking about the Collectors when he says that, and reading through your discussion with the other guy, they leave the collector bodies because they fucking disintergrate when you kill them. Very few of the Collector bodies stay solid if memory serves correct. As for why the Reapers don't just shoot their eyebeams at everyone, I would say it's because it is far easy to pick up one body than a puddle of goo.

Yeah...except the people working in Cerberus clearly don't like aliens and want humans to be on top. So even if we could renegade take over the soldiers wouldn't listen to an alien sympathising human, they would just disband. The soldiers of Cerberus are loyal to TIM.

Are they? given how stupid some of the previous actions of Cerberus were, and how every experiment they do backfires spectaculary, i am having a hard time beliving why people still follow TIM other than the very corrupt or very oblivious like Miranda and Kelly Chambers.

They dont listion to an alien symphathising human? and what do you think TIM was doing when he send ME to get those aliens in the first place? isnt he already a symphatiser? cant Shep just LIE to the xenophobic human members to ensure their loyalty or even throw them in the airlock? Why cant i demostrate both phisically and mentally that i am better than TIM and i can ACTUALLY ensure the survival of the human race? because blowing up the Collector Base wasnt evidence enough?

Great, the council doesnt believe me and now even the terrorist think i am not badass enough to command them.

TIM's plans may have fucked up, but he is still striving to make humanity no.1 in the galaxy, and believe it or not, people can and are close minded enough to let bad shit happen so as that they become the dominant people. Humans are not above being stupid/corrupt. And TIM isn't an alien sympathiser, he specifically chose the people in Shepard's team to lull him into a false sense of security. As far as TIM cares, Garrus could have died and he wouldn't have shed a tear, but it would make it harder for him to win over Shepard if he gave him an all Human Cerberus team. As for why the terrorist wouldn't listen to Shep, it's because he likes aliens and in one of the endings of ME1 he sacrifices human lives for 3 aliens.

It has been explained many times that the council refuse to believe the existence due to being afraid/believing Shepard, a Human (Humans only being part of the citadel for 30 years) was fooled by Saren as they had been/was working with terrorists in game 2. The Virmire survivor doesn't trust Shepard because he/she is working with Cerberus, a known terrorist organisation. They do however send an e-mail to Shepard later (if you weren't a dick) and apologize for their actions. As for not respecting the person whom saved them, it's because they probably felt that the person whom was KIA for 2 years who suddenly returned working with a group that hates aliens is not the same Shepard they once knew.

Garrus and others aliens (even Thane who would probably more careful since he is a profesional assasin) didnt have any problem in believing and even joining me with Cerberus. So a few join too easily and others just plain refuse to listen to you.

Yeah, believe it or not some people are more closed minded than others. Shepard doesn't say to Thane "I'ma kill some Reapers daba der", he explains that he is after the Collectors and the missing human colonies and Thane believes that that task would suffice for a final fight. And Garrus didn't have a problem because he fought right beside Shepard in the first game. He's seen the same shit as Shepard and understands that his friend is doing this with the best intentions. The council don't lsten to Shep because they're not friends with him, they were not fighting the same fight as he was, they're not going to die in a few months, and they're not prepared to look like they're favouring 1 race because 1 human and a few others say that a still unconfirmed threat (in their minds) is behind human disapearance in unclaimed council space territory.

The Tali and Garrus both give their reasons for going down the paths they took. Nobody wanted to listen to them, and everyone drifted apart because of it. Garrus mentions that he tried to convince the Turian counciler but was knocked back. Having already lost faith in C-sec in game 1, it's not that far a stretch to see why Garrus became a merc who led a team similar to Shepard's to fight injustice.

Fighting injustice is minor compared to galactix extintion. Again, i dont see how that had more priority that preventing and preparing for an invasion. At least Liara had the desency of locating the Shadow Brooker but even THEN, it was for revenge reasons, not for practical purposes. She just took over because "while we are here, may as well" not because it may help the galaxy.

Okay, you tell me how in the hell 1 turian whom is known for making brash decisions and has shown moral ambiguity is supposed to properly prepare for an invasion that he has no idea when or where is going to happen. Every one of you squadmates are in no position other than Liara to properly prepare for the Reapers. And even then, Liara requires Shepard coming back from the dead to become the Shadow Broker.

Shepard trusts Liara when she says "I believe this weapon will work" because Shepard knows she is an expert on Protheans. As for how to use it...yeah I can't think of a reason other then they were to stressed out and terrified to make a propper informed decision on building a machine without knowing how to fire it.

Shep trust Liara, great. Can you tell us, Liara, what this thing does? or at the very least explain the parts of The Crusible that the Prothean worked on? because i am sure as hell that you didnt study races more older than the Protheans by CYCLES ago.

No? oh well...

Again, desperate times cause people to make brash decisions, and when a close friend whom allowed you to kill her mother and continued following you so based off of the vision, you give them the same courtesy. Also, seeing as how the Illusive Man thinks it's worth stealing and keeping from Shepard, I'd say it's got plenty of merit. If she was a random person, I would have told her to go fuck herself, but she was a close friend who has been with me from the begining, is the reason I am breathing, AND is currently being shot at buy Cerberus due to her knowing the existence and location of the weapon plans.

TIM believed that he could persuade Shepard into following Cerberus and eventually agreeing with their practices. He also believed that if the 'great Shepard' were to join Cerberus that many humans whom admired the first Human spectre would also join him. As for why Shepard didn't just kill him, lets take a look back at all the games. Other than the end of ME3, WE NEVER SEE TIM IN PERSON. Every single time Shepard talks to TIM it is through a hologram telephone call. So, please elaborate and tell me how Shepard is supposed to kill a man whom's location is unknown and has never talked to Shepard face-to-face.

Ask Miranda. She was there IN PERSON in the intro of ME2, on the Cerberus Base, not on Quantum Entaglement. Are you telling me that the most trusted person of TIM, who he lets her close enough to even stab him in the back, DOESNT know the location of the base she works?? And even if she is put to sleep everytime people need her in the base WITHOUT knowing where it is, doesnt that make her distrust TIM for not trusting her in revealing the location, even when she is like the second in command??

First off, I think I recall Miranda telling Shepard that she has never met TIM in person, so Shepard has no reason to ask her where he is later in the game when she is (in my case) banging him because he trusts that she was telling the truth. Secondly, what's to say that TIM doesn't have her escorted their by ship, this meaning that while she has been on his station, she has never flown their by herself. And by ME3 Shepard and Miranda are both a little pre-occupied and TIM has firmly established his control over the people working for him. The ones with doubts left, the ones without doubts stayed.

I already explained why they murdered people in response to a post you will have already read. I never said that the Reapers DON'T exterminate species, I said they leave younger races whom have not developed space flight alo- wait? Did you just say the Vorcha are exterminated in ME3?...WHEN!? At no point do I remember hearing that. I recall the Batarians being fundementally extinct due to the Relay in their system blowing up, but as for the Vorcha as far as I am aware they are still kicking.

Opss wrong info, sorry. But i am sure there was a race that got extinct somewhere...

It was the Batarians...they are now functionally an extinct race.

No it isn't military procedure to base everything on faith, but need I remind you that Sheperd had faith in the belief that the Reapers were coming, and while HE knew it due to the beacon, everyone else who believed him was doing so because they had faith in Shepard. It would be hypocritical of Shepard to immedietly blow Liara off just because they don't know how to fire the weapon when Shepard expected his crew to follow him based off of "I had a vision".

Is isnt hypocritical because most of the squadmates were there and had just as much evidence as Shepard had.

Not really, Wrex joined Shepard for really no other reason than "Why not", Garrus had a grudge against Saren, Ashley and Kaiden both went with Shepard because of the vision (and being under his command), Liara kinda owes her life to Shep and only witnesses the vision first hand, and Tali is the only squad member with proof that Saren is evil and siding with the Reapers, but she has never seen a Reaper and is going off of word value. Sure, Garrus and Liara may have more reason than others, but Wrex, Kaiden, Ashley and Tali are all just going off of Shepard's word. Hell, on Virmire Wrex was willing to die to save Saren when he found out Krogan were being cured of the genophage, but he listened to Shepard and realised they would just be pawns. Most of your team are following you by word more so than evidence in ME1, well, at least until Virmire.

Being Australian I didn't hear about the SOPA act until Wikipedia decided to go on an internet black out 2 days before I had a year 11 essay to write. After reading a bit about it, I can see your comparison and I can see how in normal circumstances it is stupid to take such a risk. However, Shepard was right about the Reapers this whole time and all he ever did to try and proove it to everyone is say, "You have to trust me, I've seen it for myself". So I guess when your backyard is getting blown the fuck up, you listen to the guy whom was telling you this would happen for 3 years.

Again, he just needed to show the Derelict Reaper existance and how powerful is the technology that Sovereing had to ilustrate that (at least) there is a fucking menace (regardless if they belive its Geth or not)

Better yet, we could have used the existence of The Human Reaper to further proove that they do exist AND to demostrate to the human colonies where their families went and died.

Those extra months that you obtained, small as they are, could have been used and be meaningful if ONLY the writers didnt waste it on making Shep prisioner for no apparent reason on Earth in ME3. If you didnt play Arrival, then he has no reason to be imprisioned, not even by working with Cerberus because Specters are above the law.

What's to say the Council wouldn't have passed the derelict Reaper off as just another Geth ship that is no longer functional and thus no longer a threat? Yes it can indoctrinate people over time, but that just means people should stay away from it. As to the Human Reaper, how do you propose Shepard lug it to the Citadel? TIM wouldn't let him, and he doesn't exactly have the Alliance on his side. So do tell how 1 ship is suppose to lug a Reaper corpse all the way to the citadel through all the debris in the system it was found in.

What you wrote at the end does sound really cool, and it would have been interesting to have that implemented. The only problems I can think of is that it would make some missions redundant/require more space or discs to implement perfectly into the game. There's also the problem of more is less. While I agree that the idea you've proposed is cool, the developers would essentially be forced to be writing 2 games in 1. You've already pointed out that you did not enjoy the writing in ME3, which is why it can be assumed that by taking your idea the writing quality would likely be worse as they would have to quadruple check their work, and because humans aren't perfect the likely hood of screw ups becomes much greater.

Well, if the Reapers attacked the Citadel ASAP, then most of the interactions there on ME3 are already pointless.

But so what if that takes more space into the discs? isnt that what they told US that it will happen? the story would branch off in the 3rd game (as Armando Troisi said) because its more easy to do it in the final game without worrying about connecting the dots if a sequel were made after ME3, and its more easy to code on the last game rather than in the first one where branching too much would make it impossible.

To give an example of branching REALLY HARD, pretend that ME1 has not 2 continuities:

1)The one we got Sovereing dead and the Citadel saved in ME1 at the end.

2)Another where Sovereing managed to separate from Saren after assuming control of his body, escaping The Citadel and find more reinforcements to get to the console another time. Meaning that we dont get to kill him in ME1, nor the Thanix Cannons or EDI are developed because he didnt die and we couldnt reverse ingenier him. So he is the one helping the Collectors later or, taking adventaje of the rumors of him being a "Geth" ship, he attacks the Quarians and leave alive just a few. Those few decide discover that Sovereing is a Geth and decide to wipe all the Geth before they could strike them again. The Geth, ALL of them in self defense this time, will decide to submit to Sovereing and get upgraded before they are killed by the Quarians (and before they even know that it was Sovereing who tricked the Quarians into attacking them). Meaning that the conflict that happened between Quarians and Geth happens early in ME2 instead of ME3, but we dont even get to know Legion because HE was created because Sovereing was dead in the original timeline and the Geth wanted to contact Shepard for it.

ME3 was supposed to have something like that, any minimal change leads to totally different scenarios and endings. But alas, that didnt happen............again.

This is the bane of videogames. The interactive aspect is the best and worst part of this medium because, if given its full potential, it means that ANY interaction made by the audience could change the shape of the plot they will see. Because this takes too long to make and lots of effort, games are doomed by their own ambition. And so are the developers who THINK they can do it, specially when they said that CHOICES MATTER.

You just answered your own question. The reason it did not have such contrasting endings is because ambition can be the greatest friend and the worst of enemies. I would also say that the devs did a good job of making the endings unfollowable seeing as how one ending has the Geth and Reapers completely destroyed, another has Shepard controlling the Reapers, and one where EVERYONE and EVERYTHING is organthetic/Synthanic.

We know it will stop the Reapers, we just don't know how. We have seen Reapers get blown up, and we have been presented with the idea that Reapers could be controlled. The biggest stretch was Synthesis, but that was touched upon in the game where the whole point was to unify the galaxy against the threat. The Reapers are a part of the galaxy, thus synthesis just unifies literally everything in the universe for the greater good.

We see it AFTER the game already made the choice for us to use it, we see it in the endings. But the characters themselves have no reason to do it.

Lets roleplay for a moment and you will see my point:


AGENT CODENAME "BUG OF WAR"!!

B.O.W: SIR, YES SIR!

Alright agent, you have been properly trained for this mission after the many years of playing COD. The media may suspect but have no evidence of our secret training programs. Noobs.

You have one mission: You must deliver the contents of this Spoiler Envelope (WHO YOU MUST NOT CLICK UNTIL THE RENDEVOU POINT!!) with a very classified super weapon. When you get there, deep into the enemy lines, you must follow the instructions to operate the super weapon. Hold it with your right hand, with the black side of the weapon aiming to your left, and do the following sequence:

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, (say out loud) MORPHING TIME!

The scientist have no clue what it will do or WHY do you have to be in the middle of enemy lines, but they tell us that the weapon is fuelled by "suspension of disbelief" and "it will not work if you see it early before the rendevou point"

Is that understood?

B.O.W: SIR, YES SIR!

GODSPEED, SOLDIER!!

B.O.W: Dont you mean "agent"?

Shut up

----you get to the rendevou point with so many holes in your ass that you PRAY that you had regenerating health---

RADIO: NOW AGENT, OPEN THE SPOILER ENVELOPE AND USE THE INSTRUCTIONS!!

Spoiler

RADIO: AGENT?? RESPOND. IS THAT CRYING LAUGHTER I HEAR? RESPOND!!


Since you bring synthesis, you may realize that we unite everyone on the galaxy despite their differences, yes? we did this by accepting that they are different in the first place. But by acepting synthesis, we are agreeing with the Reaper way of unifing anyone. Their method is: "People cant get along because they are different, so we are going to force them all into Reaper form (or a single race) to solve this and keeping them alive"

I never said the Synthesis ending was the BEST choice, I said that it was for the greater good. It allows EVERYTHING to live, but sacrifices our differences and some of our individuality. We essentially have stopped evolution, which is a terrible, TERRIBLE thing to do, but we have stopped the chaos of organic and synthetic lifeforms killing each other. Personally I chose destroy because it's the best option in my mind, but in the black and white ideals of the Reapers, synthesis is the best option. It's all a matter of perspective.

I never got explained as to how an Asari is able to look into my mind and then use my DNA to rewrite her childs. As for biotics and universal translators, their explanations are fine. As for what I said about the EMP effect, notice how I said the crucible, "likely uses a pulse of radiation that has an EMP like effect". I never said it WAS an EMP, but that it's effect was somewhat similar to the effects seen when EMPs are used. This is to me, as believable as universal translators, and even more believable than biotics.

"Similar" to EMP? so the scientist dont know? how come that they do KNOW about this:
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/War_Assets/Crucible

Interferometric Array:
Normally interferometric arrays are used to analyze planetary landmasses, or to determine the astrophysical properties of stellar systems. The powerful array salvaged from the Hercules system can be used for something much more ambitious: the Crucible tunes into the mass relays' command switches. Installing the interferometric array into the Crucible's systems results in a real-time map of the entire galaxy, including the position of each and every Reaper in the Milky Way.

So the Crusible knows the difference between a robot/synthetic/technology in general and a REAPER, just enough to map them in the galaxy. Does that mean that when i use the Destruction ending (and uses the supposed EMP") it will kill all Reapers ALONE and not the Geth, or EDI, or people with cyber-implants like the Quarians (because they count too in the list since we are told that Shep is part synthetic or cybernetic, and so are the Quarians)

You see what i mean when lack of details opens more questions than it should be healthy?

I rationalised it as, "Citadel holds the Reaper creator, therefore the creator must have a link to all Reapers or at least know their signal output" thus it made sense in my mind that the Crucible was able to targer the Reapers.

Also, we have targeting systems right now. We have missles that lock on to heat signatures, so why is it not possible that a technologically superior race couldn't have vastly superior targeting systems.

OH THANK FUCK I'M AT THE END. haha, anyway, back on topic, jokes aside :

So yeah, while there are problems with the industry, they're nothing worth boycotting an entire company over. Also, we can agree that there are games that don't fall under the view of art. For example, The War Z, a majority of sports games, Pokemon Snap.

Ironically, games in general are view as sports, not just games of sports, but ALL games. And for that reason (thanks to Roger fucking Ebert) games are not art (also because you "win" a game, is not art) Nevermind that most games dont even have a fucking score or even a "a winner is you" screen. Most games are just stories and the best ending (the one with the credits) is most likely the one the author wants as canon.

But that is another thread altogether:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.398232-Games-as-art?page=1

I don't know exactly how to link Youtube videos, but if you go to youtube there is an interview with James Portnow where in which he discusses some of what you have brought up. Just type in, 'James Portnow, Extra Credits | PAX PRIME 2011'. He explains, and I am paraphrasing here, that video games that are more than just "lets have fun" or are just in general crap, need to be treated by consumers, developers, and publishers as art. He also talks about the medium of video games IS art, but not all games are art, and because of it's relative new status it is harder for people to accept games as art.