Shepard Can Lose in Mass Effect 3

[ReservoirAngel]

I kind of want to purposely fuck everything up now just to see how dark and depressing they play the ending off if you utterly fail

 

[tetron]

A game with choices that has more than one ending ? Gasp, such innovation ! What shall we call this new method of making it so players have the potential to fail ? I put forth the nominations fuzzy zone, reboot, Back to the Future 4:Loadering, and game over.

 

[PingoBlack]

Are you saying you're going to disregard ME3 because of one inconsistency? If so that's really unfair. I mean that's a pretty big nitpick.

It's not the only one ... but it was the last one.
Mostly because they decided to use it on box art it is obviously thought of as mayor new feature.

 

[Stammer]

Awesome!

This totally fixes one of my biggest problems with Mass Effect 2-- that every decision seemed to be black-and-white. The fact that a decision we make can make or break the game for us is going to suddenly make the moral choice system far more interesting and deep.

 

[Clonekiller]

Awesome!

This totally fixes one of my biggest problems with Mass Effect 2-- that every decision seemed to be black-and-white. The fact that a decision we make can make or break the game for us is going to suddenly make the moral choice system far more interesting and deep.

Yeah. You'll probably still have moral choices like "kill geth or not to kill geth", but I'm personally hoping for some freaking awesome solutions like, "side with geth, side with Quarians, or do it the hard way and get the two to work together." That would be epic of awesome, and since Casey Hudson seems to like that kind of thing, we might just have a good chance for it.

I wonder though, will winning be difficult, or will it be like ME2 where you only lose if you're a complete numbskull.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Killing commander Shepard in the last game was actually kind of hard to do unless you rushed though it (for some reason, you twitchy side-quest avoiding weirdo) and I'd imagine it will be the same here. Its more tense if the chance to fail is greater but at the same time you don't want to make it so likely that average Joe Blow is doomed to die if he doesn't read the wiki.

 

[Stammer]

Yeah. You'll probably still have moral choices like "kill geth or not to kill geth", but I'm personally hoping for some freaking awesome solutions like, "side with geth, side with Quarians, or do it the hard way and get the two to work together." That would be epic of awesome, and since Casey Hudson seems to like that kind of thing, we might just have a good chance for it.

I wonder though, will winning be difficult, or will it be like ME2 where you only lose if you're a complete numbskull.

I stand by my belief that even "A House Divided" wasn't a really big moral choice. It's not a moral choice, it's a gamble. Do you Norton-ize the geth and let them think for themselves, thus giving the opportunity to work with you or continue working against you, or do you just kill them all and not take any chances?

I just hope that the decisions that affect the galaxy's survival ultimately get harder as time goes on. I don't want to have a super-ambiguous decision right at the start and screw it up for me 60 hours into the game. But I also don't want every decision to be like "Stop the Reapers / Make out with Tali in the silhouette of the Fifth Fleet being destroyed".

 

[Nostalgia Ripoff]

Snip

Don't be silly. EA would just interpret the poor sales on PC as "PC gaming is dead!" all because no one wants to use their shitty service.

OT: I do like the idea of being able to fail. After all, something this big can be nigh impossible for any man to do, even Shepard. Although, Shepard does have a knack for doing the impossible.

 

[Laxman9292]

This is already receiving too much hype. Most likely you won't be able to get the bad ending unless you actually intend to do so. Just look at ME2; the only way Shepard could die was 1. Disregard all ship upgrades
2. Not recruiting enough squad mates
3. Ignoring everyone's loyalty missions
4. Fuck up the squad placement in the final mission
= You have to kill all your squadmates for Shepard to die.
or
Not having any genre savvy and seducing the Asari killer-sexbot.

Most choices in ME games have never mattered apart from the occasional "YOU ARE OUR SAVIOR" or "YOU HUMAN DICKHEAD!" you get from various NPCs anyways.

1. Maybe thought upgrading weapons and armor was more important than the ship.
2 and 3. Maybe not a completionist or whatever
4. Just bad decisions

Admittedly you had to be a very bad Shepard to die, but it isn't inconceivable.

OT: Obviously this was happening, if you could do it in the last game. This just shows why Bioware is and always will be "King of the RPG's" and my favorite developer. If you want to know more, just play Jade Empire and try to not say that that game is amazing. Now if only it had a sequel...

 

[jFr[e]ak93]

I just got more excited for ME3. Now all we have to do is remove this whole Origins blight from humanity and we will be set... Hey! Maybe EA can make a DLC where Shepard travels back in time and stops the Reapers from using Origin to kill the series! I'd buy that!

 

[Sir Shockwave]

*cough* Origin *cough*

That's what's going to sell/kill ME3 now.

This. Invading my privacy is not on EA. No I don't care about your Collectors Edition or World of Warcraft: Star Wars Edition. Invading my PC and poking my files for whatever purposes you see fit is not on.

On topic, to be fair, I think we all saw this coming - official confirmation or no.

 

[NickCaligo42]

*cough* Origin *cough*

That's what's going to sell/kill ME3 now.

Except on consoles, where that isn't an issue. For those of us on PC though... yeah, if I can't get an origin-free copy, I'm not buying this.

More on topic, though: This isn't the first time they've said this, you know, and it turned out pretty damn stupid since you had to be really neglectful to get the "bad ending" in ME2. Bioware always does this. There's always a perfect resolution that makes everybody happy, and it's really easy to find as long as you just 1) do everything, and 2) be a politically correct hippie who always does the considerate thing and tries to be everyone's best friend.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

*cough* Origin *cough*

That's what's going to sell/kill ME3 now.

Except on consoles, where that isn't an issue.

Really not so sure about that. A lot of gamers are plugged into both PC and consoles, and may take a "less legal" route if they are forced into the console route. Given the excrement has reached the whirling blade, the residue may cover a host of surfaces.

 

[Souplex]

So is this Reapers win scenario something likely, or is it like the last one, where you need to be completely inept for it to happen?

 

[Jumpingbean3]

Are you saying you're going to disregard ME3 because of one inconsistency? If so that's really unfair. I mean that's a pretty big nitpick.

It's not the only one ... but it was the last one.
Mostly because they decided to use it on box art it is obviously thought of as mayor new feature.

I still think you're being unfair to the game. For me it wasn't necessarily the sci-fi aspect that made Mass Effect great but the story and the characters. I can forgive a few inconsistencies if the characters are good and the story is engaging. Besides I've seen holograms take physical presence in sci-fi before. Yes it was a comedy and based on made up science but then again sci-fi in general is usually based on made up science.

 

[GartarkMusik]

Wait ... exactly the same feature as ME2 had? Only now they expect me to believe that holograms can stab? I'm sorry. I liked Mass Effect when it was still slightly Science Fiction.

With "visceral" "edgy" "insert bad hype here" stabby holographic UIs they completely lost me on Science part.
When they started outsourcing their design decisions to Facebook votes, then added EA Origin, the case was shut for me.

Sad that all BioWare PR is now handled by EA, people that brought you Dead Space 2 comercial ...

Not quite. The Suicide Mission still gets accomplished either way whether Shepard lives or dies in ME2. This can literally end with a complete failure, and everyone dying. As for the holo-blade, it sounds awesome, but I do hope that a reasonable scientific explanation (game wise) can be thought of for it, it'll just screw with immersion a little otherwise.

 

[Foxblade618]

Yeah. You'll probably still have moral choices like "kill geth or not to kill geth", but I'm personally hoping for some freaking awesome solutions like, "side with geth, side with Quarians, or do it the hard way and get the two to work together." That would be epic of awesome, and since Casey Hudson seems to like that kind of thing, we might just have a good chance for it.

I wonder though, will winning be difficult, or will it be like ME2 where you only lose if you're a complete numbskull.

I stand by my belief that even "A House Divided" wasn't a really big moral choice. It's not a moral choice, it's a gamble. Do you Norton-ize the geth and let them think for themselves, thus giving the opportunity to work with you or continue working against you, or do you just kill them all and not take any chances?

I just hope that the decisions that affect the galaxy's survival ultimately get harder as time goes on. I don't want to have a super-ambiguous decision right at the start and screw it up for me 60 hours into the game. But I also don't want every decision to be like "Stop the Reapers / Make out with Tali in the silhouette of the Fifth Fleet being destroyed".

I would say that all the choices you make are more of a gamble than morality choices. But I also never make decisions based on paragon/renegade - technically I rewrote the geth for renegade reasons even though it was marked as a paragon choice. I saved the Rachni not because I think it was wrong to kill the monster, but because I hoped to gain additional support for the eventual battle I knew I was going to have to fight. Could they turn on me, sure, but I was willing to gamble on that - not really a moral choice, very amoral actually.

 

[pandorum]

Off topic: If EA makes this game Origin exclusive, then I really don't fancy its chances.

On topic: It doesn't fucking matter. It's incredibly obvious that the results of the final battle will be bad if someone intentionally fucks everything up. Like Mass Effect 2, it's going to be mind numbingly easy to avoid this, because Bioware - as much as I love them - seems to, most recenty, at least, fucking suck at this sort of thing.

Remember, for a moment, Heavy Rain. In order to save your son, you had to go through five challenges; things like cutting off your own finger, or murdering a stranger you knew nothing about, for no other reason than to save your son. You had to do at least three of these challenges to even have a hope of saving your son, and all five to make it a sure thing. Even then, you still weren't guarunteed a happy ending, depending on what the other characters had achieved, as well.

Each of the challenges you had to complete was challenging in it's own right, and it came down to some seriously hard decisions about what you were willing to do to get a happy ending. This is the sort of thing that Bioware should be striving for.

Instead, what we're going to see are more diametrically opposed choices that really won't matter because the results will be the same. Not a single decision that we made in the last two games will have any *real* effect - ie more than a cameo - on the outcome.

Getting off topic again, but they even fucked up their attempt to make their black and white morality system not so black and white. The Paragon was supposed to be an idealist; someone who would not sacrifice their principles, while the Renegade was supposed to be someone to whom the ends justified the means. Instead, we get a naive, head in the clouds, light side of the force, way of the open palm nice guy, and a jerk who punches reporters in the head. Really off topic now, but that SHOULD NOT HAVE FUCKING GIVEN RENEGADE POINTS.

The EC crew made an interesting observation a while ago. During - spoiler alert - Legion's loyalty mission, you are given the choice of brainwashing or destroying the Geth. Instead of considering the ramifications of brainwashing an entire species to die for you, as opposed to removing the threat entirely - Bioware opted for the simplistic approach. Good guy saves them, bad guy kills them. The EC guys pointed out that both decisions might have resulted in Renegade points, but Bioware didn't consider that. Even more irritating, they didn't consider that by their own definitions, the point results should have been swapped. The ruthless Renegade would have brainwashed his enemies to fight for him, while the Paragon would have either killed them (a difficult decision that should possibly have given Renegade points anyway) or - being idealistic - left and decided to wait to face them in open combat.

But the real problem is that none of what I just ranted about will FUCKING MATTER, because Bioware seems to have mastered the art of giving us the illusion of choice. This won't - mark my words - boil down to anything more than a cameo, because choices aren't what matter in Mass Effect - it's the illusion of choice that counts.

And that, my good fellows, ties back into the very first point that I made. There's no *real* risk of losing, because, mark my words, it's going to be the threat that's important - the illusion of real danger is but one aspect of that. Besides, Bioware hates making players face consequences for their actions - we all know that.

Argh, damn you TOR, for stealing all of Bioware's *actual* talent.

/edit
Wow, that came out rantier than I meant it to be.
TL;DR: We can lose? Well, congratulations, Bioware, for adding to the facade of choice in this game. You know full fucking well that there's no *actual* risk of someone unintentionally losing, and so do we, so why even pretend? In fact, why the FUCK DO YOU - crap, I'm doing it again. I love Bioware, and I adored ME1, and liked ME2, so I get the treensiest bit annoyed whenever I think of how much better this series could be, or of the bleedingly obvious things that it's doing wrong. For as much as I loved it, ME2 was railroaded. Even ME1 was, to an extent.

Oh, and a note on the point based morality systems; the most powerful choice in the entire series was between Ashley and Kaidan, and that didn't use the morality system at all.

Wow you had a lot to get off your chest........ feel better?

 

[HK_01]

I'm definitely gonna have to lose once. It just sounds so epic. The galaxy is prepared and fights the Reapers with everything it's got, only to still be defeated in the end. Really, I think they should make victory really, really difficult to achieve and most endings should have you fail.

 

[Namkrow]

Shepard won't lose, because at the last minute Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"'s Black Knight and Benito Mussolini and The Blue Meanie and Cowboy Curtis and Jambi the Genie, Robocop, the Terminator, Captain Kirk, and Darth Vader, Lo Pan, Superman, every single Power Ranger, Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan, Spock, The Rock, Doc Ock, and Hulk Hogan all came out of nowhere lightning fast and they kicked the Reapers in their metallic ass.