Mass Effect 3 Discussion Thread

[Bigglesworth]

No idea how small the chunks would need to be. But I would imagine that this is a scenario that's been examined quite a bit by all of the races. After all, if someone attacks one of your inhabited worlds, then you need to know how much the atmosphere will deal with (which is going to vary based on the specific atmosphere involved...) and how much you need to deal with yourself. Logic would dictate that there are calculations that can be performed using resources available onboard the warships themselves in case one of those warships ends up dealing with just this situation over a friendly colony world.



Presumably the Reapers had the Citadel in some sort of stable orbit. So the question is, how much damage did the Citadel take as a result of ghost boy's nonsense, how much was the Citadel's orbit affected by said nonsense, and which direction did the Citadel get moved in as a result of same said nonsense? After all, it's entirely possible that the damage to the Citadel actually pushed the bulk of it out of orbit.

That last bit is pure speculation, of course, and it's entirely possible that the Citadel's orbit did in fact start to degrade. But there are a lot of ships present. And if the Citadel is indeed slipping downward, the anti-Reaper fleets presumably have more than just an hour or two before the Citadel enters a non-recoverable descent.


Besides, as we learned in "Bring Down the Sky", all you really need to do in order to stop a massive object from reentering is to turn off the thrusters.

:P

Your right really, it does not really matter how it is prevented from hitting earth, but it will be thanks to the magic of writing and plot armour... Though If you have seen the very low EMS destroy ending I would suggest that is the way to "fail". You do destroy the reapers but earth is scorched bare by the explosion, and since no one exits the Normandy that seems to imply everyone is dead...


And large orbital impacts do seem to be a real threat, given that the Turians have even made the actual size and distance of their moon highly classified so people (I.e the krogan!) don't try to crash it into them.

[Private_SeeD]

I knew about FTL travel as the reapers use this in the wake of Arrival DLC but those surviving fleets would likely not have adequate food stores for a probable decades long trip - the reapers didnt take more than 6 months because they only had to get to the next system with a relay but some of these fleets would have to fly the breadth of the galaxy. But yes it is an option and while tragic for the fleets at earth doesn't preclude the continuance of communication with various planets and races.

From the cryptic twitter posts, ppl from Bioware have stated no on will starve and there was another one but can't remember it off the top of my head.
I completed ME3 couple of weeks ago but only noticed the topic a couple of days ago and have been steadily reading all the posts. I enjoyed the game like the rest of you, would have liked some more team members but that's just me, would have also liked to see Tali's face... I was a goodie two shoes but didn't have a romantic relationship with her so maybe if you had one with her you might have seen it, I'm sure people can say yes or no to that on here.
I'm in the camp that wasn't pleased with the ending, I chose 'green' in the end and was jst stunned at the end, I stayed and watched all the end credits just in hope there would have been something at the end like video clip from Fallout 3 showing how your team ended their days.
Also really do enjoy the you tube video's from MrBtongue, thanks for posting his links... brightened up some boring shifts.
Can't comment on the multi-player cause my current net connection can't deal with stuff like that, but does actually sound interesting from what people have said on here

[Bigglesworth]

From the cryptic twitter posts, ppl from Bioware have stated no on will starve and there was another one but can't remember it off the top of my head.
I completed ME3 couple of weeks ago but only noticed the topic a couple of days ago and have been steadily reading all the posts. I enjoyed the game like the rest of you, would have liked some more team members but that's just me, would have also liked to see Tali's face... I was a goodie two shoes but didn't have a romantic relationship with her so maybe if you had one with her you might have seen it, I'm sure people can say yes or no to that on here.
I'm in the camp that wasn't pleased with the ending, I chose 'green' in the end and was jst stunned at the end, I stayed and watched all the end credits just in hope there would have been something at the end like video clip from Fallout 3 showing how your team ended their days.
Also really do enjoy the you tube video's from MrBtongue, thanks for posting his links... brightened up some boring shifts.
Can't comment on the multi-player cause my current net connection can't deal with stuff like that, but does actually sound interesting from what people have said on here

Oh my Talis face... if she is your LI she gives you this photo, there is no in-game render of her face though... HC Talifans are a bit cheesed that they just Photoshopped a random picture off Gety Images though...

before and after pic

http://media.gamebandits.com/images/.../taligetty.jpg

And if you want to see it ingame remember to have her as a LI you need to import a me2 save were she is your LI, you can't start her and Garus in me3

[eldargal]

New DLC apparently leaked. Multiplayer only, new classes, two new maps on Thessia and a jungle.

[Bigglesworth]

New DLC apparently leaked. Multiplayer only, new classes, two new maps on Thessia and a jungle.

Hmmm, heard this before, but seems to be confirmed now...

I just hope details of the EC are not leaked early by some numpty, the nerdrage would be intolerable...

[Bigglesworth]

Double post I know, some news from bioware in regards to that announcement, Its not coming out that soon and some of the details they gave out were wrong...

Ah well...


Ask not the Bioware a question, for they will give you three terrifying answers, all of which are true and terrifying to know

[eldargal]

The wording is certainly ambiguous, BW says there won't MP DLC 'tomorrow' but that doesn't mean the actual DLC is false.

[Bigglesworth]

The wording is certainly ambiguous, BW says there won't MP DLC 'tomorrow' but that doesn't mean the actual DLC is false.

Yes, I assume that the map locations will be true, just because all the maps have been modified campaign locations before now, I think the "Phoenix" thing seems too strange to be true at this point, I imagine we will here more before the end of the month though.

[Grimmeth]

Right, finally finished the game - can see the holes in the finale but to be honest I didn't think it was as bad as the Internet would have us all believe.
As for new Multiplayer DLC - the objective briefings have definitely been hinting at more troops and weaponry coming soon (Vorcha specifically, but there are other mentions to better equipped troops being needed) so I'd imagine it won't be long to wait for it.

[Firebreath]

Right, finally finished the game - can see the holes in the finale but to be honest I didn't think it was as bad as the Internet would have us all believe.

Let it sink in for a while, like I did. And not just the end, the whole thing. Then realize it's the biggest cluster**** in gaming history. But don't take my word for it. Think about it.

[Grimmeth]

I have, maybe I'd had the opposite of fan hype? I was expecting it to be much worse and in the end found that it was... ok?
The only thing I'd have liked is to see exactly what happened to each of the races in the aftermath - I'll fully agree that:

After the reaper battle with a billion or so Brutes the game suddenly shifts gear and loses majority of the decision making the rest of the series had, but frankly I didn't care by that point - I didn't mind the 'higher power' thing that was the 'big reveal' (granted, it could have been handled better) and the endings were passable. It would have been nice to see more Harbinger too.

I've played games that required similar levels of investment (most Final Fantasy games spring to mind) with much worse endings than the Mass Effect trilogy - and lets face it, the trip there was pretty damn awesome.

I'm intrigued as to why you thing the whole thing is a mess though?

[eldargal]

Personally I tried to go into it with as few expectations as possible regarding the ending, and I came out feeling it was perfectly good, and, as you say, the journey was brilliant. There is some legitimate criticism though, most of the plotholes could have been resolved with a decent epilogue and the lack of closure too.

My main dissapointing, if I had let my expectations take over, would have been the linear nature of the story. I think it would have been far more interesting to have to choose in what order you wanted to save the planets with differeing outcomes for each. So after the intro you can choose go to Palavan OR Thessia, which one you pick changes the progression with the Palaven choice being what we got and the Thessia choice providing something different. That would have been much better, but this is where I think managing expectations are so important. Let them run rampant and you set yourself up for dissapointment.

[Bigglesworth]

I have, maybe I'd had the opposite of fan hype? I was expecting it to be much worse and in the end found that it was... ok?
The only thing I'd have liked is to see exactly what happened to each of the races in the aftermath - I'll fully agree that:

After the reaper battle with a billion or so Brutes the game suddenly shifts gear and loses majority of the decision making the rest of the series had, but frankly I didn't care by that point - I didn't mind the 'higher power' thing that was the 'big reveal' (granted, it could have been handled better) and the endings were passable. It would have been nice to see more Harbinger too.

I've played games that required similar levels of investment (most Final Fantasy games spring to mind) with much worse endings than the Mass Effect trilogy - and lets face it, the trip there was pretty damn awesome.

I'm intrigued as to why you thing the whole thing is a mess though?

I can't speak for why he thinks its a mess, but I am happy for people to not think the ending was disappointing as long as they in turn respect the fact that its possible to have a very different opinion in that regard...


I personally completed the game a week after release, and before getting to the ending I had not looked at any information about the game for about six months... and it was also my first pre order of a game ever (Lol, and look how that turned out)... Maybe reading spoilers first would have changed my reaction but I doubt it. My initial response was a simple emotional reaction and all these things I mention now are things I have decided since playing... I did not like the fact that there was little explanation of how your choices affected the future, which would be fair enough if there was going to be a sequel, but given it is the end of a trilogy, a open ended cliffhanger seems a little cheap. The fact that all the endings are very visually similar in the extreme short term, I agree they all create very different galaxies in the long term, but bioware did not seem to think anyone would care what these were.

I feel that the argument that the main story or the journey being the "closure" does not work for me, sure you solve the genophage and Q-G conflict, but the ending could potentially mean both these resolutions are undone, its like saving a village from a dragon and finding out the next week that they all died of the plague...

While "explainable" I don't get a positive vibe from the crew being stranded on an "eden" world, I feel personally that their long term prospects are not positive and rescue is unlikely given the state of the galaxy

Also I feel the attempt to create a edgy open to interpretation ending, perhaps inspired by inception misses the point you can't just add that on to the end of the story like a module, it has to there the whole time.

Personally while I would prefer a cheesy happy of ending of some sort, I am not averse to a hero sacrificing himself for the greater good, Red dead redemption, LA Noire, and Halo reach have endings like that and I thought they were sad I did not feel they should be changed. but in this case (ignoring shepard living in high ems destroy for now) You sacrifice your self for something really bad

Biowares reaction to the situation also did not help, they gave off the impression they had not quite decided if they were going to do anything for far too long, and if they had come out and said "thats all your getting deal with it" I would have had to, but they just could not make up their minds...


Maybe some of the things they will have in the EC will have been planned, maybe not, but it seems they are going with the "catalyst is a liar" angle, which seems logical enough, which brings me to another point that you accept all these options from a strange individual with very little in the way of questioning or reasoning,

I think the reapers reason for existence is not as bad as the "Yo dawg" meme, but it is not really that well thought out.

[Grimmeth]

Oh, I can completely see why people disliked the ending, I'm actually somewhat surprised that I quite enjoyed it. I can logically see all the plotholes and the problems that are there, but I'm still finding that for some reason for me it worked.

I will hasten to add that is completely my opinion, I'm just interested to see why Firebreath thinks the whole game(s?) are a mess?

[Bigglesworth]

Oh, I can completely see why people disliked the ending, I'm actually somewhat surprised that I quite enjoyed it. I can logically see all the plotholes and the problems that are there, but I'm still finding that for some reason for me it worked.

I will hasten to add that is completely my opinion, I'm just interested to see why Firebreath thinks the whole game(s?) are a mess?

Well if you spend too much time on BSN you really develop a new hate for every flaw in the game, the kinds of things you would ignore if the ending was satisfying, like the quest log being broken, the treatment of some characters, plot holes in the story ect, the Rachni turning out to be not that important after all ect, I am not sure if I really hate these things, in many's opinion the Genophage missions and Rannoch were the best parts of the game because they had lots of ways they could go down, many outcomes, a lot of variables from the previous games that were included, hard choices and sacrifice that seemed to be missing from the other parts of the story. Not sure where I really stand because I have not done a second play-through, so maybe the shine wears off after the second time around and you see that things don't really play out differently, will have to reserve judgement.


In the weeks after I played I did try to see if things really were that bad but I could not even watch videos of shepard talking to starkid without being upset/angry and I still can't so I don't think it will wear off. Try playing it again perhaps?

[Eumerin]

In the weeks after I played I did try to see if things really were that bad but I could not even watch videos of shepard talking to starkid without being upset/angry and I still can't so I don't think it will wear off. Try playing it again perhaps?

I doubt a replay will change his view.

Everyone's got their own outlook. And the emotional attachment that you get from the first time you experience something will always stick with you to some extent, though it will diminish somewhat over time. For those who went into the ending blind, the ending is particularly jarring as you were expecting something to match up with the rest of the game... and instead got what we have now. Those who were forwarned are, I suspect, less bothered by it because they knew beforehand that the ending was weak and therefore weren't expecting as much out of it.

[Bigglesworth]

I doubt a replay will change his view.

Everyone's got their own outlook. And the emotional attachment that you get from the first time you experience something will always stick with you to some extent, though it will diminish somewhat over time. For those who went into the ending blind, the ending is particularly jarring as you were expecting something to match up with the rest of the game... and instead got what we have now. Those who were forwarned are, I suspect, less bothered by it because they knew beforehand that the ending was weak and therefore weren't expecting as much out of it.

True, while people have changed their opinion of the ending when presented with logical arguments, I suppose its harder to change you emotional reaction to it, you can be convinced that it is poor, but not really feel it.

[Grimmeth]

I doubt a replay will change his view.

Everyone's got their own outlook. And the emotional attachment that you get from the first time you experience something will always stick with you to some extent, though it will diminish somewhat over time. For those who went into the ending blind, the ending is particularly jarring as you were expecting something to match up with the rest of the game... and instead got what we have now. Those who were forwarned are, I suspect, less bothered by it because they knew beforehand that the ending was weak and therefore weren't expecting as much out of it.

I think that's it - I wasn't expecting much from it, so concentrated more on the events leading up to it - the assault on Earth is good, the experiments on Horizon I thought were handled well and the whole build-up was rather effective.
The Rannoch and Tuchanka elements were definitely defining moments however, so much so that I was quite disappointed there was nothing more that could be done for Thessia.

The biggest issue I have with the game is how closely the Multiplayer is tied into single player and altering the EMS (Is it even possible to get the 'best' endings - that is, 8000+ EMS, without multiplayer or iphone apps? I think I hit all the side quests and managed around 7300? Although some of my decisions possibly weren't the best from an EMS perspective)

[Jericho]

My personal take on the ending?

I am on board with the "conspiracy theory" videos that you can find on the Intertubes. It makes more sense than taking the ending at face value IMO.

As for my expectations, I was fully expecting a Matrix sequels ending, which is more or less what we got (replace Colonel Sanders viz a viz ergo with PTSD kid). I did not expect the heavy dose of Inception, however. I think they were a wee bit too subtle with it, or else more folks would have noticed the dream-like qualities of the ending on their own. I think that if Inception had been released a few years earlier, they might have borrowed a motif like the spinning top to help plant a seed of doubt about the ending being real or not. Sadly it isn't executed as well in the game as in the movie.

More detailed stuff in Spoiler tags just in case...

I noticed a lot of these things on my first playthrough, long before I knew anything about the conspiracy theory videos. I mentioned these to my roommate, who was actually a QA tech for ME3, and his best guess was that it was simply a resource saving trick, recycling some existing imagery that tied in visually to the rest of the game. The colors, the shrubs, Anderson and others talking about how nobody made it to the beam... to me it all suggests that Shepard is bleeding out on the ground and is only imagining everything else that happens. When you get the ending with battered corpse in N7 gear taking a breath, it looks more like the rubble in London than the remains of the Citadel, so again this seems to support the dream sequence interpretation.

As for the other choices throughout the series mattering/not mattering, I think that the biggest issue here is that many of these arcs are resolved prior to the big grand finale battle for Earth. The Geth/Quarian conflict is ended one way or another, and the Turian/Salarian/Krogan issue even earlier than that. I was a little disappointed that the Asari's fate is so linear, Javik's revelation that the Asari were groomed to be the best hope against the Reapers came to nothing, and that the Asari getting boned is just a backdrop for the Kai Leng/gunship boss fight. Eldargal's suggestion about choosing between Palaven and Thessia would have been incredibly emotional. Garrus is a total boss, but let's face it damn near everyone picks Liara for their romance option.

Things I still want to see in any DLC:
-Any more hints that the ending wasn't to be taken literally. If that includes Garrus or someone else stepping up to take charge of the situation, that would be cool too. Would really complete the arc of your most faithful and reliable ally. Showing what really happens with Harbinger and the Illusive Man would be necessary if this pans out. Those villains need to be taken care of.
-What happens to Omega. You spend an awful lot of ME2 there and you get no resolution whatsoever regarding Aria.
-More cinematic scenes of your friends/allies leading portions of the final battle... phone calls were lame.
-Krogan riding goddamn dinosaurs. That would have made any ending palatable.

[Bigglesworth]

My personal take on the ending?

I am on board with the "conspiracy theory" videos that you can find on the Intertubes. It makes more sense than taking the ending at face value IMO.

................

Things I still want to see in any DLC:
-Any more hints that the ending wasn't to be taken literally. If that includes Garrus or someone else stepping up to take charge of the situation, that would be cool too. Would really complete the arc of your most faithful and reliable ally. Showing what really happens with Harbinger and the Illusive Man would be necessary if this pans out. Those villains need to be taken care of.
-What happens to Omega. You spend an awful lot of ME2 there and you get no resolution whatsoever regarding Aria.
-More cinematic scenes of your friends/allies leading portions of the final battle... phone calls were lame.
-Krogan riding goddamn dinosaurs. That would have made any ending palatable.

I was on board with the conspiracy IT to start with, but given biowares reaction and the length of time I think the simplest explanation is the right one, which is in fact bioware were just incompetent .

The certainly sowed the seeds of the IT throughout, to give their "Speculation" but they were never going to let them grow to fruition. The reason they won't yet flat out deny the theory is because of the rage it will cause among those who have found some hope or closure through it.

At best I think the EC will contain elements of what I call "Indoctrination Lite", where maybe some things are augmented reality ect. I don't think it will mean the 3 consequences wont happen, but maybe they were not caused by shepard choosing one of 3 metaphors, I don't know, we will have to see. but at the moment I am 100% expecting face value EC, though how shepard can survive to breath I don't know either...