Poll: ME3: Did you get the DLC?

[Ringo_Plumen]

I don't care anymore to be honest. The extended cut gave me the closure I felt was missing from the original ending, it was still a terrible ending, but at least Shepard is now a done deal and though I might go back and replay the games sometime in the future, I have no desire whatsoever to try any of the DLC. Shepard is dead, the end.

 

[AgentLampshade]

I picked up Leviathan and From Ashes, because Leviathan and protheans.

Spoiler

I still think they should have at least hinted at the existence of the Leviathans in the main game.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I picked up Leviathan and From Ashes, because Leviathan and protheans.

Spoiler

I still think they should have at least hinted at the existence of the Leviathans in the main game.

They sort of did ...

Spoiler: Minor spoilers

... but in the first Mass Effect. Visiting a certain planet would give you info on the 'Leviathan of Dis', a giant genetically engineered starship, which in the third game is revealed to have been a dead reaper by Balak. The question being what killed the reaper. A question which the Leviathan dlc answers.

Anyway, I've got all the dlc so far, except for the weapon/appearance packs.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I picked up the collectors edition recently for a pittance, found the protean to be incredibly dull, and rarely brought him along. Dude might have died in the cargo hold for all I knew. Got the Leviathan DLC as well and while I didn't think it was particularly good from a play perspective (in that it wasn't all that different from what was already in the game save for that one bit near the end where you basically play a single player version of one of the multiplayer missions), it did serve the purpose of finally answering some of the lingering questions the ending had for some.

As for the ending, I first saw the non-EC version having forgotten to download it. After that, I saw the EC and found both entirely acceptable. Even without the EC or Leviathan, I didn't feel there were wide enough story gaps nor sufficient evidence to justify the common Indoctrination Theory. Hell, even before I played the game that theory was shaky.

Personally, I won't be getting any more DLC for the game. It served its purpose and in spite of the raging of the internet I found that I quite liked it.

Leviathan makes more question than answers from what I read of its synopsis.

Spoiler: I interpreted what I read off the wiki to this:

stupid race of aliens meet another stupid race.

One race becomes slaves because they are so stupid, the other stupid fish things think they got swag.

Slaves build AIs.

AI goes crazy, the now-retarded-fish-things don't give a shit.

AI start to kill retarded fish, and the fish hide even though the fish can destroy the AI easily.

Retarded fish think life is being preserved by being destroyed.

Retarded fish are found, and suddenly give a shit again and fight the reapers.

So the real face of evil in Mass Effect is this:

I HOPE that is the wiki being horrible in its ability to go into specifics. Because the way the wiki puts it is almost exactly that, but without the ridiculing tone.

I picked up Leviathan and From Ashes, because Leviathan and protheans.

Spoiler

I still think they should have at least hinted at the existence of the Leviathans in the main game.

That isn't really what I got from it.

Spoiler

The Leviathans were an ancient race of giant space cuttlefish that more or less have the power of indoctrination. The mechanism for this is vaguely described as being "similar" to quantum entanglement which is sufficient for the purposes of explaining how the process works without introducing enough detail to really pick it apart.

The Leviathans shared their home planet with a sapient terrestrial species. Over time they converted this species to their thralls and eventually began exploring the universe (they don't go into details though it can be surmised that the Leviathans themselves eventually had some capacity to fly about in space). As the Levithans came into contact with other species they converted these species to their thralls and thus a grand galactic empire was born.

The period of time the empire stood for is undetermined though suffice it to say that it was sufficiently long that they noticed a trend among sapient to create AI and then get killed by AI. For reasons they don't explain, they decided they needed a solution to this problem and thus created an AI charged with finding one. This bit gets a bit odd but they hand wave this monumentally stupid move off as simple hubris which I suppose is believable enough for the sake of the narrative.

This AI eventually constructed pawns that it used to investigate the problem. Eventually it determined that the problem could not be overcome. Given the AI was charged with the fundamental task of preserving organic life, a solution was found. The AI would simply exterminate advanced sapient life as it rose to power and store that species (literally everything about that species - knowledge, culture, history, personalities, etc) in the form of reapers. The mechanism of storage and reaper creation was not explained beyond what you may have learned from codex entries and ME2.

The first target of this force was the Leviathans themselves and most of that race was preserved in the the first Reaper (Harbinger). As was demonstrated, the culling of the galaxy is not always perfect and some number of the species survived such that they survived for the 100+ million years between the creation of the first reaper and the events in ME3. These leviathans that survive demonstrate a capacity to indoctrinate organics as well as reaper creations and, through means unknown, even have the capacity to instantly disable a reaper destroyer when it is in close range. This does introduce some unresolved plot problems notably including "just how did they get conquered when three leviathans are sufficient to bring down a destroyer with a thought".

The end goal of the AI was to create a synthesis of organic and synthetic life. For whatever reason, according to the AI, life simply wasn't ready for this step. Thus in an effort to speed the process along, the mass relay system was built along with other key pieces of technology that allowed the various races of the galaxy to rapidly develop to galaxy spanning empires in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take. That this also made the various species easy to harvest was presumably just a side benefit.

The crucible itself is far older than the Protheans. The Levithans mention explicitly that they had watched countless species try to build it and ultimately fail

That's the end of the actual details of the story as laid out in the DLC. It establishes a motivation for the Reapers, (though and ending with sufficient EMS to get offered the catalyst ending at least hints at this anyhow) and gives a loose history of how it came into being.

It can be surmised then that the crucible project itself is actually nothing more than a stage in the plan of the AI. While there is no explanation of what the right conditions are, or how the current cycle manages to demonstrate that it is ready when previous cycles were exterminated without a thought, the fact that this synthesis option is only possible with high EMS, which within the established fiction (that is, ignoring the multiplayer component that is capable, with enough time, to make the entirety of the single player story from leaving earth to returning irrelevant from a mechanical perspective) is the result of establishing widespread inter-species cooperation in the face of the Reaper threat may be the sign. Rather than having a dominant race, the ME3 cycle has a collective with no obviously outstanding member. The prothean squad member hints at this being a possibility when he asserts their biggest weakness is that everyone in the Galaxy fought exactly like the Protheans making them easy to beat once their weaknesses were discovered.

Of course, that's all just extrapolation. In the end, the crucible was simply a mcguffin.

What's more the Levithan DLC establishes a race that is ultimately just as dangerous as the Reapers in the first place making them at best fragile allies. Two of the endings of the game would seemingly result in a renewed effort to enslave the galaxy while the third leaves too many unknowns. Still, this is less a plot hole than an unresolved plot thread.

And, I'd agree with the sentiment that they should have at least hinted at the existence of Levithans outside of the DLC. Hell, if ever there was an example of something that ought never have been DLC it was this chunk. It wasn't particularly fun (no more or less so than the rest of the game) but it seems to be incredibly important.

 

[kommando367]

I got the weapon pack, Javik, and Leviathan. When I'm done with the 7-10 other games I want to play or replay, then I'll probably go back to ME3 to finish my insanity run and buy the Omega DLC.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Spoiler

It can be surmised then that the crucible project itself is actually nothing more than a stage in the plan of the AI. While there is no explanation of what the right conditions are, or how the current cycle manages to demonstrate that it is ready when previous cycles were exterminated without a thought, the fact that this synthesis option is only possible with high EMS, which within the established fiction (that is, ignoring the multiplayer component that is capable, with enough time, to make the entirety of the single player story from leaving earth to returning irrelevant from a mechanical perspective) is the result of establishing widespread inter-species cooperation in the face of the Reaper threat may be the sign. Rather than having a dominant race, the ME3 cycle has a collective with no obviously outstanding member. The prothean squad member hints at this being a possibility when he asserts their biggest weakness is that everyone in the Galaxy fought exactly like the Protheans making them easy to beat once their weaknesses were discovered.

Of course, that's all just extrapolation. In the end, the crucible was simply a mcguffin.

Spoiler

The current cycle having "passed the test" by being able to get along and co-operate against the Reapers doesn't really make sense. This is the first time the galaxy has been able to do so because in every previous cycle the Reapers take the Citadel immediately and use it to shut down the Mass Relay network, meaning that no effective co-operation can be formed, because no-one can get anywhere to co-ordinate it. I mean I'm sure Bioware would use that as an explanation, but it's because they're dumb and have forgotten their own plot. We knew that already though.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Spoiler

It can be surmised then that the crucible project itself is actually nothing more than a stage in the plan of the AI. While there is no explanation of what the right conditions are, or how the current cycle manages to demonstrate that it is ready when previous cycles were exterminated without a thought, the fact that this synthesis option is only possible with high EMS, which within the established fiction (that is, ignoring the multiplayer component that is capable, with enough time, to make the entirety of the single player story from leaving earth to returning irrelevant from a mechanical perspective) is the result of establishing widespread inter-species cooperation in the face of the Reaper threat may be the sign. Rather than having a dominant race, the ME3 cycle has a collective with no obviously outstanding member. The prothean squad member hints at this being a possibility when he asserts their biggest weakness is that everyone in the Galaxy fought exactly like the Protheans making them easy to beat once their weaknesses were discovered.

Of course, that's all just extrapolation. In the end, the crucible was simply a mcguffin.

Spoiler

The current cycle having "passed the test" by being able to get along and co-operate against the Reapers doesn't really make sense. This is the first time the galaxy has been able to do so because in every previous cycle the Reapers take the Citadel immediately and use it to shut down the Mass Relay network, meaning that no effective co-operation can be formed, because no-one can get anywhere to co-ordinate it. I mean I'm sure Bioware would use that as an explanation, but it's because they're dumb and have forgotten their own plot. We knew that already though.

Doing replies within spoilers is weird.

Spoiler

That's more or less the unanswered plot point. The only explanation given as to why the AI didn't use the synthesis option before, given that it was the option the AI thought would actually work in the long run, was that life simply wasn't ready. What readiness constitutes isn't explored in the slightest and we only have three cycles worth of information to base any guess on.

The prothean empire was believed to be larger and far more powerful than the combined empires of the various species in Mass Effect. The protheans were judged to not be ready thus we can surmise that strength of arm alone wasn't enough. The Levithans offer a similar set of conditions where they were likewise judged to be unworthy. In the two cycles we know of (Out of at least 2,000) before the events of Mass Effect, we know that the galaxy was dominated by a single species. That inter-species cooperation was the key isn't a terribly strong reason - it seems odd that in 2,000 attempts no one ever though to work together but perhaps that's just because I live in a world where no one nation has ever achieved sufficient martial might to unite the whole of humanity under a single banner.

Additionally, the bit about the Citadel being able to control the mass relay network doesn't hold either. While one might point to this as yet another plot hole in the story (certainly possible) it would seem that the Citadel is not fundamentally necessary to that process given the relay network works perfectly fine in the third game after the reapers steal the damn station and park it above the Earth. Given the single mention and the fact the source of the information was Virgil, who, thanks to isolation during their reaper invasion was working at best with incomplete data that could have simply been an educated guess.

Still, it seems to me that the most pressing unsolved question is simply this. Given the AI is attempting to preserve advanced organic life by building reapers out of them, why does this same AI then throw these reapers into combat? The codex indicates sovereign class reapers are the result of the reaperificatin process and the battle for palaven is stated to have resulted in the destruction of a number of these in the opening minutes.

 

[karloss01]

I got only the Free multiplayer DLC as i like fighting against the games AI (i play Gears horde/beast mode more then the actual multiplayer) but i'm not getting any of the story DLC because they don't change the ending and in omega's case it should have been on the disc. without it Aria is sitting in the club just waiting for a dialogue that gets you her omega fleet.

 

[J Tyran]

I will wait until its all released and then buy it, I made the mistake of getting DLC for games like ME2 and Fallout as they are released and then getting utterly fed up with the game by the time they have released it all.

 

[Zeckt]

I got From Ashes. It came with the collector's edition. Oh, and I downloaded the free stuff.

Haven't got the rest yet. I'll more than likely pick it up Leviathan, Omega and whatever other single player DLC they put out in the future.

Judging by the games you have been dissapointed by, please color me surprised your paying money for ME dlc of all things. That was about the last thing I would of expected from you.

 

[sunsetspawn]

The rest? Oddly unenthused about them, really. I mean, I should've been all over Leviathan, but I shrugged and forgot about it.

The Prothean and the Leviathan should've been integral to the narrative and the Leviathan especially should've been a part of the solution to the Reaper invasion. Instead we got a plot about assembling a Martian magic wand.

Nobody should be surprised when you consider the plot of ME2 was, "gather a team to kill the space bugs."

Interesting that EA knew people were eager enough about the Protheans and the Leviathan to make seperate DLC.

I've bitched about this dogshit story one too many times.

I did buy the Prothean, but that was before I'd actually played any of the game so I didn't know any better. Won't be buying anything more.

 

[soren7550]

I think that part of why people don't like the paid story DLC is because of how expensive they are, and for less content. From Ashes (which was clearly cut from the game to sell day one) was $10 USD for about the same amount of content as The Price of Revenge and Kasumi's Stolen Memory, which were free and $7 USD respectively.

Leviathan went for $10 USD, where as Operation Overlord went for $7 USD. Again, they were about the same amount of content, but ME3s DLC went for more.

The real kicker is Lair of the Shadow Broker, which went for $10 USD. Omega, which was compared to LotSB content and length wise by the BioWare team frequently, cost $15 USD, was shorter than LotSB, offered less content, took up more storage space, and was buggy.

In total, the ME2 DLCs I mentioned add up to:
9 Missions
2 Squadmates (1 temporary)
4 Locations
2 Weapons
10 Upgrades
9 Achievements
Cost - $24 USD

Whereas the ME3 DLCs total:

16 Missions
1 Squadmate (2 temporary)
13 Locations
5 Weapons
10 Upgrades
9 Achievements
Cost - $35 USD

However, of these, 4 of the added locations don't actually feature anything relating to the DLC while another one is a base in Omega that no one counted as 'a new location' (all the mentioned ME2 DLC each have all their new locations counted as one apiece), one of the missions is 'go to Bryson's lab' which then leads right into another mission after the cutscene of the 'go to the lab' mission (there's another 3 missions that involve going to the lab), and 4 of the weapons were pre-order/new game purchase bonuses, thus changing our totals to:

15 Missions
1 Squadmate (2 temporary)
8 Locations
1 Weapon
10 Upgrades
9 Achievements
Cost - $35 USD

While according to BioWare's twisted logic you're getting a bit more, in reality, you're not. The ME3 DLCs take up more storage space and more from your wallet, yes, but other than that, you're not getting more.

 

[Reaper195]

I tend to get the DLC when they're all out. Gives me enough extra content to play the game and puts enough time for me to forget a fair amount of stuff. But I'll only get the single-player DLC...and only story ones. Bollocks to those extra weapons (I'm certain there were more weapons in 3) and the appearance ones. Shit like that should be free. Or not at all.