Mass Effect 4: Sequel?

AnarchistFish

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Simple Bluff said:
AnarchistFish said:
tippy2k2 said:
There is one GIANT issue standing in the way to a direct sequel here...

For everyone complaining that all three endings were "the same", they would all have VERY different results if you continued the story (not to mention all the side stuff that could be different).

You talk about Quarians as an example for a species hit hard by the destruction of the Citadels. Well...they were hit very hard in my game for they blew up. I cured the Genophage, which is going to have a very different impact than someone who decided not to do it. These are just two examples from my own play through.

For the main course, you have HUGE differences between the three cupcake endings. Either:

A. The Reapers were destroyed and are no longer a threat. However, you just killed millions of sentient robot life as well

B. The Reapers are in your control and they're still doing whatever it is that mind-controlled Reapers do.

C. Everyone has turned into androids after fusing all life and robots into one super race

Hell, you'd need an entirely different game based on whatever choice you made. One year or one hundred thousand years later, the story would have to change based on which major end choice you made.

So in conclusion, they're likely going to continue stories in the Mass Effect universe. However, I would be incredibly shocked if they ever made a direct sequel.
I'm thinking it might be a prequel. Would be the most sensible way to avoid this.
I wish I had a link for this, but I'm nearly certain Bioware said ME4 is not a prequel. So I guess the only way to go forward is to choose a canon ending.
Mmmmmm, maybe a story running concurrently to the original one? Where you play as someone low key. I'd love to play a zoomed in story about a mercenary or pirate whilst everything else is going on around them.
 
Jun 16, 2010
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Spoonius said:
James Joseph Emerald said:
Have an epic story that spans the whole galaxy involving all the aliens, locales & technology of the previous games, but that will inevitably feel like a step down from the Reapers arc, or;

2. Have a smaller-scale story where you are not the "chosen one" and don't really have any justifiable reason to get involved in interstellar conflicts or explore the whole galaxy, which means either most of Mass Effect's lore will be left out (so why not make a new IP?), or they'll have to contrive silly reasons for you to become yet another planet-hopping hero.
If IT is true, then the Reapers still haven't been beaten and there's still an epilogue that still needs to be told. They may not need to abandon the overarching Reaper plot at all. :)

They might even combine the two concepts you mentioned. Put players in command of a mixed-species commando team during the fight for Earth or something.
I highly doubt the writers would continue with the reaper plot in any way. They're played out; even a sophomoric writer could realise that. It would be like bringing Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire back for Star Wars 7.

You're making the ultimate fan theorist mistake: treating the world as if it exists as an internally consistent entity insulated from reality, and not simply a piece of entertainment. Putting aside story logic, there are so many reasons why making the Indoctrination Theory canon is a bad decision creatively:

  • [li]It would rob ME3 of any kind of plot coherency or narrative payoff by making its ending essentially "all in the main character's head" (which is one of the most exhausted tropes of all time);[/li]
    [li]It would make ME4 inevitably have to re-tread most of ME3's plot as they pad out the reaper invasion, come up with some other way to overcome them, and have you work towards an identical conclusion (i.e. defeating the reapers... except this time for realsies!);[/li]
    [li]It would invalidate the experience of everyone who actually enjoys the original ending to ME3 (especially since the extended cut was released);[/li]
    [li]Speaking of which, it would make the extended cut completely pointless and a waste of everyone's time;[/li]
    [li]It would pretty much quash any fresh ideas, because everything will (yet again) become secondary to the reaper invasion plot and relegated to rushed side-quests that seem at odds with the main story rather than ancillary to it.[/li]

I could go on. And again, this isn't even touching on in-game logic, this is purely from a storytelling perspective: the IT is bad storytelling.
 

nameless023

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Before I say anything, I'd like to point out that I am indeed a fanboy of the Mass Effect series and you can use that fact as much as you want when disproving any argument I make.

I think the ME3 ending was... decent, the Extended Cut expanded on that ending and made things a bit clearer for those who wanted to know what happened after and I also think that the Indoctrination Theory takes almost all the flaws the ending has, sets them straight with a reasonable argument and makes the whole ending experience much more enjoyable. And I would have been happy leaving the story with that ending, having Shepard either become indoctrinated or fight it off and wake up barely alive in the last moments of Earth and then the Reapers finish off the Harvest and have a new cycle begin. It wouldn't be your typical happy ending, it would be more like "You did everything you could, but it wasn't enough" ending and although it would still be a shitty ending it would have been more tolerable because it brings actual closure to the series. The reason why the ME3 ending still brings up drama almost 2 years after the game came out is because the ending is, as Bioware likes to put it, "open for discussion".

As I stated before, the way ME3 ended was just fine. A dissatisfying ending for a good series that needed a fan based explanation to set it straight. It wasn't the most graceful way to go but it worked. At least it did until you bring up two glaring issues: the Stargazer sequence and the fact that Mass Effect 4 is a thing that exists. Or, to put it in a single sentence, the lack of closure.

The one fatal flaw that the IT has is that it only explains what is going on during the ending of ME3 up until Shepard being indoctrinated or not but it doesn't explain what happens after. The Reapers are launching the final strike on Earth and even if Shepard does manage to wake up he wouldn't be able to do anything in his condition. Nothing is said about what happens next, but one thing is certain and that is that the galaxy is somehow saved and humanity survives. Why? Because of the Stargazer sequence: an old man and a kid in a very peaceful looking scene talking about the Sheppard. It's almost pointless and doesn't add anything to the story but it clearly says "There will be something next" and as far as I recall the IT never explains this sequence. And I'd bet anything to say that the Stargazer sequence will be directly related to how Mass Effect 4 will begin.

And Mass Effect 4 has to be a sequel because everything points to it and anything else is highly unlikely. It won't be on a different cycle because of the human bias in games that was brought up earlier and because the Stargazer points out that humans survived the Reaper invasion. It won't be a prequel in the same cycle (Racchni Wars, Krogan Rebellions, First Contact War) because both the in game lore and the novels already tell everything there is to know about them and although they would make a fine content for DLC/Expansions they wouldn't have enough new content to make a full fledged game. It won't be set during the Shepard period because it would be a spin off (which Bioware said they wouldn't do) and it would be difficult to keep Shepard away from the story with all the galaxy-wide things he does on the first three games. And sure, Bioware could ditch the whole Shepard/Reapers storyline completely and start anew but it would be a massive F*ck You to the fan base, a waste of an entire galaxy of resources and lore and a finished result not worthy of being called Mass Effect. The only logical direction left is moving forward, to bring some sense of closure to the previous game.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, just like the Indoctrination Theory anything that we try to come up regarding how the series are going to continue will remain as only a Theory until either Bioware gives information about what the game will be about or until the game actually comes out. And yes, I will squeal like the fanboy I am the second any information is released and I will have a day one preorder of the game and I will most likely go for a collector's edition of it because I enjoy the series, but I will also remain skeptical about it until the moment I see the ending credits roll. All I can hope for is that the new game makes the ME3 ending drama worth it.

---

PS: I seriously hope Bioware doesn't do what Volition did with Saints Row IV and go all "We had multiple endings on the previous game but we decided to go with one and ignore the other ending. Hopefully you picked the right ending last game".
 

AD-Stu

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bug_of_war said:
Actually he really hasn't. In ME1 the only time he is actually close enough for Reaper technology to begin indoctrinating him is at the very end of the game, when Sovereign explodes and pieces fall into where Shepard fights Saren. The second game Shepard is only inside the 'dead' Reaper for an hour or two at max, literally being 3 years since the first encounter in ME1. In ME3 Shepard again is never in full contact or partial contact with a Reaper for more than a few minutes or an hour.

Also, saying that TIM implanted Reaper tech in Shepard is 99% highly unlikely. He was never actually in the physical presence Shepard's body during the reconstruction, Miranda was the lead scientist working to revive Shepard (you'd think siding with Shepard after Illusive Man would cause her to tell him if there were any "extras"), there is so little Reaper tech actually laying around after ME1 that could be collected to input into people, TIM explicitly says that he wants Shepard to be 100% himself with no additions what so ever (and keep in my TIM is actually fairly in control of himself during the events of the second game, and his Reaper upgraded soldiers are supposed to be fairly new).

I'm sorry, but you're grasping at straws mate.
I should start off by saying very clearly that I think the whole "indoctrination theory" thing is nonsense too, made up by people who are both grasping at straws and being very selective with the lore they choose to cite.

That said, a couple of things to consider:

- Shepard spends days in the presence of Reaper artifacts during the Arrival DLC at the end of ME2 (though I guess you can argue the events of Arrival are non-canon since it's DLC and not everybody played it / there are alternative plots for those who didn't).

- The Illusive Man was indoctrinated during the First Contact War, and Cerberus has been implanting people with / experimenting with Reaper tech for years before Shepard even came on the scene. They were conducting the Paul Grayson experiments at the same time as they were reviving Shepard, for example.

- Given the above, things the Illusive Man says in-game aren't necessarily reliable
 

sc1arr1

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Personally I don't really care about the indoctrination theory. I just want to play a turian in the next ME game.
 

Pr0

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I think it pretty much says everything you have to say about ME3 when people are still trying to rationalize the end of it nearly two years later. Thats literally an ending so bad that its equatable to psychological trauma.

Regardless of that, Indoctrination Theory was never more than a desperate attempt at trying to make a horrible conclusion somehow seem smarter and deeper than it was or ever will be.

Far as everything else goes...the best thing that ME4 can be is...a horrible failure, so EA stops humping this franchise. Their entire bet with ME4 is that we care enough about Mass Effect's setting that we don't much care about anything else...that if they slap Mass Effect on a box we'll buy it and...sorry but thats just not the case. It was the story of the first three games that drove it to the epic level it reached (and then fell off of, face first, in the most ridiculous of manners), it wasn't about the biotics or the gun play and action and you can't just take all those elements and throw them together into some other game, name it Mass Effect 4 and expect it to mean the same things.

Of course, EA has its cattle farm and the cattle just keep mooing. So I'll likely be wrong regardless, cause the simple facts are is there are people out there that will buy ANYTHING, even from EA. So even if ME4 is even bigger schlock than ME3 ended as...they'll still make a profit on it cause this brain dead market will buy it regardless of knowing the track record of the franchise and knowing EA/BioWare's track record with screwing up everything else in the name of the almighty dollar.

You can't keep hoping that the studio that made KoTOR is going to miraculously re-emerge and take control of their games development again. BioWare is dead and gone, all you're throwing money at right now is a zombie raised and sustained by the necromancer that is EA.
 

ATRAYA

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RJ 17 said:
Indeed, that would be the case if the IT was true. Sooooo what next? Shepard's out of the fight, no one gets to the Crucible, no one fires off it's space magic. The fleet above earth is utterly smashed by the Reapers (just as every character in the game said it would be, that its only true purpose was buying time to activate the Crucible).
That's the entire Turian fleet up against what, 4 or 5 Reapers? And yet their entire military force is completely unable to liberate Palavin. Then there's the fact that it took three human fleets and the massive Citadel Defense Fleet to take down a single Reaper and it's pretty much established that no, you're not going to win a shoot-out against the full might of the Reaper fleet.
This means that pretty much every organized military force in the galaxy has been wiped out in one fell swoop. The Reapers then go on to complete the cycle and get ready for the next one. Just as the Protheans proved: you're not going to win a war of attrition against the Reapers. Guerrilla-style combat isn't going to work against them when they just zerg-rush entire planets or, barring that, just bombard the planet from orbit.

So yeah, if the IT is true, then Shepard can break free of indoctrination and wake up on the battlefield! Woo-hoo! Oh wait, he/she is in critical condition, barely hanging onto life after taking Harbingers Lazer-o-Doom straight to the face, and is laying broken and bloodied on a battlefield being completely swarmed by Reapers forces. The ground forces are wiped out. The fleet is wiped out. Quite simply: if the IT is true, every possible ending means that the Reapers win, complete the harvest of this cycle, and move on to the next one.

That, my friend, is why the IT is a load of bollocks, as Zhukov put it. It boils down to the fact that the IT doesn't extrapolate itself to what it would mean for the future of the ME universe. All the IT does is try and fill in all the blanks and plot holes left by the original writing.
Have you never seen an action hero before? Of course they rise back stronger than ever when they reach their lowest point! It's the classic underdog story told in EVERY GODDAMN HOLLYWOOD MOVIE EVER MADE.

OT: I've always thought the IT was brilliant, and I can totally believe it was intentional, since Drew Karpyshyn finally left BioWare before ME3's development and some real writers could take the f*ck over. I was skeptical of the theory at first, but when the Extended Cut arrived, it completely solidified it for me. For those who think for some unknown reason that the EC killed the IT, watch this and come back: /watch?v=oeJkR683Sas

Anyway, I enjoyed your speculation on the upcoming sequel, and honestly I don't think BioWare could do it in a much better way than what you described. Though with some of those features (differing storylines for so many species would be insane, especially in a Fallout-style galaxy you could explore), I worry about cost and production time; since ME has always been about humanity's steps into the galaxy, I would think they would keep to having a human protagonist. They're taking their sweet time on it and haven't really disclosed ANY information about it, other than Shepard won't be the protagonist, but I don't think they have THAT much time - this is EA we're talking about here. They also probably would've told us if changing your species would be an option (since that would immediately hype the game through the roof).

It's all inconsequential to me however - I've been boycotting EA since ME3.

Captcha: "don't waste time". How apt.
 

Camaranth

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I'm interested to see what they come up with for ME4. I think it has to be sometime after the reaper invasion so it'll be interesting to see how they tie everything together. Most likely it'll be a hand wave " yeah shep took control fixed everything then flew the reapers to the edge of space until they were needed again" . OMG I think that's the main quest! Our new characters are trying to convince shep to come back and fix everything! And if you destroyed the reapers well there are more waiting and now they are willing to negotiate after we built the crucible!

sorry that kinda got away from me.

I like the idea of the indoctrination theory better than the theory itself. So long as ME4 doesn't open with us screaming at shep that "You were supposed to be the hero and save us all" before pulling the trigger/ releasing the biotic OR it's set so far after that everyone is saying "By The Sheppard" as a curse i think i can accept it. Kinda. Maybe.
 

Terminal Blue

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Pr0 said:
Their entire bet with ME4 is that we care enough about Mass Effect's setting that we don't much care about anything else...that if they slap Mass Effect on a box we'll buy it and...sorry but thats just not the case. It was the story of the first three games that drove it to the epic level it reached (and then fell off of, face first, in the most ridiculous of manners), it wasn't about the biotics or the gun play and action and you can't just take all those elements and throw them together into some other game, name it Mass Effect 4 and expect it to mean the same things.
I've been thinking this one over for the past couple of years, but this one really nailed some of the thoughts I've been having.

I'll probably buy ME4.

Not because I'm a braindead zombie moron who has an inexplicable raging boner for EA, but because I just never cared about Mass Effect in the same way some people seem to have done.

Sure, the story had okay dialogue and some interesting moments, but it still never really rose above TV level, and I don't generally watch TV. That's why the ending never burned me, because I went into it expecting yet another bad game ending. I didn't expect the light of heaven to descend from on high, I was in for some enjoyable gameplay and pulpy fantasy/sci-fi drivel, and that's exactly what I got. It's all I've ever got from Bioware. KoToR, DA:O, even BG2, it's all nice and fun and entertaining, but at the end of the day it's just the same mush you'd find on the bottom shelf of the fantasy and sci fi section at the bookstore. It's not Planescape: Torment or even Bioshock: Infinite.

In my opinion, the biggest threat to Bioware is not EA. It's the fans. It's the fans who seem to feel such a great personal connection to everything Bioware produces that they feel like more than just consumers, more than just people who paid stupid EA prices for a fairly decent but not mind-blowing game. If anything, Bioware seems to have a habit of listening to its fans way too much and taking every note of controversy in the reception of something as a smack on the nose. That, not EA, is what seems genuinely likely to destroy any individual identity the studio once had.

So yeah, I'll probably buy ME4. I won't buy it on release and I won't buy it until someone I trust (i.e. not a fan) tells me it's not terrible, but it probably won't be terrible. It'll probably be the exact kind of mediocre paste which fans have been demanding, only this time with less ambition, less risk and less originality.

And that's enough. It's not good, but it's okay.. for now.
 

bug_of_war

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AD-Stu said:
- Shepard spends days in the presence of Reaper artifacts during the Arrival DLC at the end of ME2 (though I guess you can argue the events of Arrival are non-canon since it's DLC and not everybody played it / there are alternative plots for those who didn't).
True, but it has been explained that it takes at least a week in full contact with a Reaper to be indoctrinated, more so with their artifacts.
AD-Stu said:
- The Illusive Man was indoctrinated during the First Contact War, and Cerberus has been implanting people with / experimenting with Reaper tech for years before Shepard even came on the scene. They were conducting the Paul Grayson experiments at the same time as they were reviving Shepard, for example.
Yes, but as we see in both ME2 and 3, Miranda is fully against doing exactly that, and seeing as how she saw over Shepard's full recovery (and also attempted to add a device to control Shep's actions before being told explicitly not to by TIM) it's extremely unlikely that any Reaper tech is inside him.
 

userwhoquitthesite

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Spoonius said:
Zhukov said:
The Indoctrination Theory was total bollocks. Always was.

It was a frantic excuse born of desperation.
That's your opinion, and I disagree. Indoctrination Theory is actually an intelligent (and comprehensive) hypothesis that ties together many loose ends.

Watch the video I linked and decide for yourself. Or at least provide conflicting evidence. :)

Zhukov said:
The only reason it had any evidence at all was because there was originally going to be a sequence in which Shepard did get indoctrinated. However, they couldn't make the gameplay work as they wanted, so the scrapped it.
No, they scrapped the idea of physical control over the protagonist. They felt that physically restricting the player's movements wasn't working out.

Zhukov said:
However, elements of the foreshadowing remained. Most of which were later cited by the IT proponents.
If anything, that strengthens the argument for IT. With such a mechanic already firmly established, why remove it entirely?
Here's why you're wrong:
They DID say that Shepard wasn't indoctrinated, and that the Indoctrination Theory was wrong. You are remembering one piece of that announcement (the part about it being interesting) in a desperate attempt to cling to hope that Mass Effect didn't shit the bed.
They removed a section of the game because it didnt work properly. They left in the foreshadowing because that would involve a major amount of work and cost time, effort, and (more importantly) money.

I do agree with you: Indoctrination is a much better option than what we got. But it's pure fanfic, and has been openly discredited by the game makers.
The problem is, Mass Effect was doomed since the developers compromised their worldbuilding all the way back in ME2. There is ONE Mass Effect game that makes any god damned sense, either at a narrative or metanarrative level. ME3 was NEVER going to be good, Indoctrination or no.

There is no good way to do a sequel, and the series doesn't deserve one anyway.
 

RJ 17

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Spanishax said:
OT: I've always thought the IT was brilliant, and I can totally believe it was intentional, since Drew Karpyshyn finally left BioWare before ME3's development and some real writers could take the f*ck over. I was skeptical of the theory at first, but when the Extended Cut arrived, it completely solidified it for me. For those who think for some unknown reason that the EC killed the IT, watch this and come back: /watch?v=oeJkR683Sas
Go watch the "I reject your choices" ending from the EC and tell me how it fits into the IT. Here, I'll even save you the trouble of having to look it up. Here's part of the last bit of my most recent comment with Spoonius in this discussion, so I'll ask you the same question I asked him in the quote below:

RJ 17 said:
So in accordance to the IT, what does rejecting the choices signify? If picking blue or green equates to full indoctrination while red equates to breaking free...what happens if you reject those choices? The IT doesn't cover this possibility because the IT was made before the EC, and this is why many people were still unsatisfied even after the EC because they felt the Reject ending was Bioware slipping in a little "fuck you haters". Are you saying that if Shepard rejects the choices, he then has a dream about his cycle failing completely? I thought the entire point of the dream theory in the IT was that the dream sequences were made to placate Shepard, to make him/her think he/she made the right choice. Why then would they give Shepard a dream about failing? Wouldn't they give him/her a dream about heroically going on to save the day without the Crucible?
 

Scootinfroodie

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Radoh said:
Mass Effect: Krogan Rebellion. Fight either for the Krogan or against the Krogan.
Mass Effect: STG. Squad based stealth tactical game focusing on Salarian STG team doing stuff.
Basically these two
Not that I've really got much faith in Bioware after DA2, ME3 and about half of ME2, but I could totally buy into a character driven narrative surrounding the Salarian STG's efforts in it, and culminating in the Genophage.
-> Automatic points from fans because Mordin
-> Chance to have more memorable Krogan characters
-> Player doesn't always get to upper left blue out of every situation. Some people are already confirmed dead as a result of this conflict, and the Genophage is already canon.
-> Because it's a team of non-humans, there's much more room to explore the other cultures of the universe, even if one of those cultures is basically blue/purple personified fanservice anyway
-> Maybe they could bring back some stuff from ME1 so it isn't about spamming one or two abilities when you aren't doing standard TPS stuff

Also you could totally make the Rachni Wars, the Krogan Rebellion, the First Contact War, and any others you feel like into scenarios/campaigns in a strategy game.
 

Rodolphe Kourkenko

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Ok in first it's EA so human will be a playable race: no prequel beside the first contact war, a two weeks squirmish ! Period.
In second, i don't really care about any theory regarding the game, the first was really cool, the second good, the third meh at best and the ending is bad, anticlimatic and illogical. I don't feel the need to fill the holes with a brainwashing thing, if i buy a game, i want it to be what the developer said it was. It wasn't in ME3 case.

IMO, they burned their IP and, if you look at some interview (like this one http://www.sidhtech.com/news/mass-effect-4-bioware-shepard-name/10028902/), you can see that NO ANY EVENTS of the past three games will be featured in the game.
So it's not a sequel, it's not a prequel.

My only advice: don't hype yourself, look where it lead you for ME3 and DA2.
 

thewatergamer

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*sigh* Never got into Mass Effect, was interested until I heard about ME3's ending, but eh at that point I was like "ok I might pick it up later"

But now that ME4 has been announced I have a feeling that ME has subcummed to what I call "Ass-assins creed syndrome"

I want to buy a game series that actually ends rather than be some yearly exploitation, mind you this is coming from someone who has never played any of the ME games, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, I am kind of an outsider looking in and not liking what he sees
 

AD-Stu

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thewatergamer said:
I want to buy a game series that actually ends rather than be some yearly exploitation, mind you this is coming from someone who has never played any of the ME games, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, I am kind of an outsider looking in and not liking what he sees
To be fair, they're not churning out a sequel every year - there were three years between ME1 and ME2, another two between 2 and 3, and it'll be more than two years between 3 and the next release.
 

white_wolf

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BW keeping the same writers for the sequel or trilogy of ME4 would be a start to consistency. They'd also have to plan out when they're planning ME4 what ME4 2.0 and 3.0 would look like before progressing to the final script this they did not do with ME they made ME then went, "Now what?" For 2 and 3 it definitely showed their lack of direction in ME2 as the mako plunged into the ditch at his point of the series.

Not rewriting nearly 80% of your script after its been finalized, animated, and voiced would've helped them avoid the issues ME3 had in consistency, lore, and themes and of course them not just making crap up a month before game release for endings would've helped them not nuke their own established world, laws, and themes at the end of the game.

Right now BW should focus on ME4 which we all hope will be a sequel and prove to us that they can make a cohesive story before we even go into should sequels be made fan wise. BW wise they should know and pre-plan for a sequel or trilogy if they want to take it to three games again and be sure to keep it all inline. I think BW proved with MEtrilogy that they just can't do trilogies or at least the head of their department can't do trilogies they should start small and either make one or two for the ME4 universe and see if they can stay on theme, lore, and story before making anymore trilogies.

Now more on to OP suggestions:

In the original script shep was going to be turned into (A) a Manchurian reaper thrall or (B) a willing reaper thrall. Why?

Because early artwork and BWs own admittance was to have a obviously cyborg shep with robot legs, arms, and very little flesh and reason shep decided he couldn't defeat the reapers unless he became one in this plot VS was suppose to be the new hero of the sereis. So shep became a willing thrall to the reaper and probably where they decided to give us the crappy control ending from.

The Manchurian thrall is were I think the series was actually going in ME2 we conveniently wake up after dying and planet reentry which isn't possible IRL so what woke up on that table was clone shep 5000 with tim as a reaper agent they just simply made their perfect spy. Recall the lore back in ME as to them using heros and great leaders to lead entire groups to their doom willingly no one suspected the thrall till the end same idea here. Clone shep form the DLC was to be found in Sanctuary where they had hundreds if not more clone sheps in various fourms some more reaperfied then others some looking closer to our shep 5000. Shep is revealed to be an advanced AI or thanks to Liara our shep got old shep's memories via mental transfer. Shep still needs to have the whole mind over matter thing going on in ME because TIM knows without it a thrall can't overcome the reaper tech see TIM, Virmir scientist girl, and Shiala three thralls that are living proof you can overcome the mind influence. Keeping this very short clone shep 5000 gains friends but is tricking them unknowingly, gets programed by the Arival beacon thrall Hacket sent him to, and gets all the parties together in ME3 and leads them all to die via Earth retake mission its revealed the dues ex thrall Hacket and Shep pushed is a failure and oops everyone can die if shep 5000 can't overcome the strong influences generated by being inside the citadel near space brat so shep overcomes it to get us a destroy or combined ending and done.

However now all that I said when they rewrote ME3's script they also WROTE OUT his thrall role so no there is no IT its an indoctrination wish at this point.

Do I think they should carry this IW over to ME4? No because they proved they can't handles such complex subtly in their games with their technology or their format.

The only thing that I think should carry over is in regards to the ending choice like I picked destroy so now in my game only the geth and EDI aren't in it because they live forever and its now 50K into the future. If you picked combine 50K is so far in time that any green glow is gone and both AI and organics are like PBJ, if you picked control your reapers took a vacation or got destroyed by the new boss of the game, and if you picked FU ending all species BW chooses to have been left over from the last cycle will be in your game.

Relying on fan posed questions during BW convention meeting is dubious they proved last time during ME3 those "fans" were actors it helps BW control what is asked and what they'll have to answer. So don't bother to hold that up as true BW bone tossing.

As far as BW being tight lipped of course they are! Remember the lawsuits that CA filed because two peeps were outrageously unhappy with the endings? They used their own hype marketing against them which is valid to use cuz they did lie (like BW says you'll have 15 endings turns out we actually get 1 pre EC, post EC we got 2) in the hype over the game and should not just say crap to make it sound greater then it is however the lawsuit was way over the top to tell BW don't do that crap again! BW should shut up make the game and see how people react to it so they don't have to go through more lawsuits because they don't know how to keep their facts straight or honest. It saves them it saves fans.
 

ATRAYA

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RJ 17 said:
Spanishax said:
OT: I've always thought the IT was brilliant, and I can totally believe it was intentional, since Drew Karpyshyn finally left BioWare before ME3's development and some real writers could take the f*ck over. I was skeptical of the theory at first, but when the Extended Cut arrived, it completely solidified it for me. For those who think for some unknown reason that the EC killed the IT, watch this and come back: /watch?v=oeJkR683Sas
Go watch the "I reject your choices" ending from the EC and tell me how it fits into the IT. Here, I'll even save you the trouble of having to look it up. Here's part of the last bit of my most recent comment with Spoonius in this discussion, so I'll ask you the same question I asked him in the quote below:

RJ 17 said:
So in accordance to the IT, what does rejecting the choices signify? If picking blue or green equates to full indoctrination while red equates to breaking free...what happens if you reject those choices? The IT doesn't cover this possibility because the IT was made before the EC, and this is why many people were still unsatisfied even after the EC because they felt the Reject ending was Bioware slipping in a little "fuck you haters". Are you saying that if Shepard rejects the choices, he then has a dream about his cycle failing completely? I thought the entire point of the dream theory in the IT was that the dream sequences were made to placate Shepard, to make him/her think he/she made the right choice. Why then would they give Shepard a dream about failing? Wouldn't they give him/her a dream about heroically going on to save the day without the Crucible?
It's entirely plausible the Reapers would manipulate Shepard's mind (which is what they're doing during the dream sequence, remember) to cause him to "fail" if he decided not to choose. The decision to succumb to the Reapers or deny them (the entire dream is not about saving the universe, but about saving Shepard's mind, remember) is a choice Shepard MUST face. By saying, "No, I don't wanna!", you're essentially giving up, and therefore forfeit to the Reaper's anyway. QQ; game over; Reaper's destroy everything. You lost your mind because you chose not to fight for it.

It WAS basically a big "fuck you", I'll give you that, but on multiple levels. They know something we don't, and so when we whined, they came up with that.
 

Spoonius

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bug_of_war said:
Spoonius said:
He's been exposed to all manner of Reaper forces and items over the years, it's very possible he even has Reaper tech implanted inside him by TIM (who did the same thing to himself and all his troops during ME3).
Actually he really hasn't.
That's not true. Several actual Reapers (alive and dormant), Object Rho, various artifacts, countless Reaperfied or indoctrinated enemy troops... hell, potentially even the Reaper IFF aboard the Normandy (James mentions a humming sound, remember?).

bug_of_war said:
Also, saying that TIM implanted Reaper tech in Shepard is 99% highly unlikely.
Doesn't really matter anyway, that was just a single vector. There are plenty of other ways the Reapers could have got to Shepard (see above).

bug_of_war said:
I'm sorry, but you're grasping at straws mate.
I understand that people think I'm being naive, but I still believe it has merit. I still haven't heard anything conclusive that invalidates IT, yet the amount of support (I won't say 'evidence', because it's not) is almost irrefutable.

bug_of_war said:
There is far more evidence suggesting that Shepard is experiencing PTSD than there is for the Indoctrination Theory. You of course are allowed to want the Indoctrination Theory to be true, but don't ignore the holes in the theory.
What holes? Please list some.

PTSD and IT don't need to be mutually exclusive. In fact, part of the theory is that the increased psychological pressure Shepard is subjected to throughout ME3 actually increase his vulnerability to indoctrination.[/quote]