SEGAvangelist
Gold Member
This X 1000000000000000000000000000000000000!!!!!!
They could even add somemore indoctrination "clues." Would be nice to have another hub.
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Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread |OT2| Taste the Rainbow
- Thread starter Patryn
- Start date
This X 1000000000000000000000000000000000000!!!!!!
They could even add somemore indoctrination "clues." Would be nice to have another hub.
heliosRAzi
Banned
I wish ME2/3 had the aesthetic of ME1. I liked the cheesy suits and the 70/80s feel to it.
And film grain!
And film grain!
If we're talking things we miss, I will forever miss the immersion of ME1.
Like the ability to randomly run into some thugs on the way to Chora's Den, or do some stuff on Feros, run back to the colony, then run back for some more fighting.
It really is stunning how few loading screens you will see if you try to avoid them in ME1.
I'm still a little surprised that they fully dispensed with vehicle combat in ME3.
Oh, I also appreciated having all your squadmates wearing full space suits when appropriate. I know Bioware is now all about the iconic visual image of a companion, but I feel that if you need to have a super unique visual for a companion to be memorable, you're doing something wrong.
I mean, just look at Baldur's Gate. The sprites for the companions are all pretty much the same, yet the characters are some of the most memorable in all of gaming.
Like the ability to randomly run into some thugs on the way to Chora's Den, or do some stuff on Feros, run back to the colony, then run back for some more fighting.
It really is stunning how few loading screens you will see if you try to avoid them in ME1.
I'm still a little surprised that they fully dispensed with vehicle combat in ME3.
Oh, I also appreciated having all your squadmates wearing full space suits when appropriate. I know Bioware is now all about the iconic visual image of a companion, but I feel that if you need to have a super unique visual for a companion to be memorable, you're doing something wrong.
I mean, just look at Baldur's Gate. The sprites for the companions are all pretty much the same, yet the characters are some of the most memorable in all of gaming.
Agreed. I think Bioware did an admirable job in ME3 shortening the loading screens (at least on PC) and making them seem less jarring than ME2, but for me personally, there is still something amazing about being able to run throughout the entire Citadel without seeing one loading screen (or just taking a shuttle to your destination) and then boarding the Normandy through the airlock. An important aspect of any character driven RPG IMO is to minimize the amount of time that the player is forcibly taken out of the game world. In ME1 you were taken out when choosing a squad and landing on a planet. In ME2 you were torn from the game with each new area and after each mission with the "mission complete" screen. As great a game as ME2 was, that aspect was the most jarring for me when it first came out.
diamondstar
Member
I think that was one of the great things about ME. I never grew tired of going through decontamination yet I was totally pissed every time I had to go through a similar field in ME3. It's because in ME it felt "real" I guess and fit the theme of the game. The field in ME3 was just there and super annoying.
ME will forever be my favorite of the series. I can't go back and enjoy like I used to because I will miss certain things from the newer games but fuck I am so pissed that Bioware went away from all that ME established.
I think it's because he's actually color blind right? Like a joke, you know?
CrankyKong
Member
I watched the indoctrination theory video and the angry joe indoctrination video and found them to be very convincing.
Especially how shepards eyes are like the illusive mans if he chooses to synthesise or control, but is Normal if he destroys the reapers.
What confuses me about it though is that shepard gasps for air back on earth in the hidden clip.
Does that mean he actually destroyed the reapers or that he just broke free of their indoctrination and woke up, while the reapers were never beaten at All?
All the cryptic bioware tweets seem to suggest it might have been a fake ending.
Especially how shepards eyes are like the illusive mans if he chooses to synthesise or control, but is Normal if he destroys the reapers.
What confuses me about it though is that shepard gasps for air back on earth in the hidden clip.
Does that mean he actually destroyed the reapers or that he just broke free of their indoctrination and woke up, while the reapers were never beaten at All?
All the cryptic bioware tweets seem to suggest it might have been a fake ending.
shinobi602
Member
Ok it just hit me.
Spacebrat says that since Shepard has reached, err...him, the situation is thus changed and there are "new" solutions" (control, destroy, synthesis) and Shepard being there "changed him" right? If they're "new", why the hell are they already there in place magically on the Citadel if they weren't there from the beginning?
Was spacekid expecting someone to reach them eventually over the course of time? Or did he just...start building them somehow during the game? Was he getting tired of controlling the Reapers for millions of years and felt like it was someone else's turn, so he built some...things...for someone else so that person can control them?
The option to destroy the Reapers was there in some...generator thing. When did he build that? Was it there from the very beginning of the reaping cycles? If so, why even build it if from the beginning if spacepunk "knew" that synthetics and organics will never coexist peacefully forever and "always" rebel?
When did he build the synthesis beam? Why didn't he just use it from the very beginning and merge organics and synthetics ages ago and save everyone the trouble?
Hell, why the heck were those 3 options there anyway if they all needed the Crucible device to function? Spacebrat built them a long time ago anticipating that, well, "eventually some species are going to get around to built some kind of device thing that can utilize these 3 options!"?
WHERE THE HELL AM I!???
Spacebrat says that since Shepard has reached, err...him, the situation is thus changed and there are "new" solutions" (control, destroy, synthesis) and Shepard being there "changed him" right? If they're "new", why the hell are they already there in place magically on the Citadel if they weren't there from the beginning?
Was spacekid expecting someone to reach them eventually over the course of time? Or did he just...start building them somehow during the game? Was he getting tired of controlling the Reapers for millions of years and felt like it was someone else's turn, so he built some...things...for someone else so that person can control them?
The option to destroy the Reapers was there in some...generator thing. When did he build that? Was it there from the very beginning of the reaping cycles? If so, why even build it if from the beginning if spacepunk "knew" that synthetics and organics will never coexist peacefully forever and "always" rebel?
When did he build the synthesis beam? Why didn't he just use it from the very beginning and merge organics and synthetics ages ago and save everyone the trouble?
Hell, why the heck were those 3 options there anyway if they all needed the Crucible device to function? Spacebrat built them a long time ago anticipating that, well, "eventually some species are going to get around to built some kind of device thing that can utilize these 3 options!"?
WHERE THE HELL AM I!???
alysonwheel
Member
This just makes me sad. Probably took you five minutes to write but is a far better intro to the story and universe than we got.
Mac Walters doesn't understand why destroying the Normandy was emotional and affecting, but destroying some grey buildings filled with people you've never met isn't.
Lol, I didn't even think about that. Maybe none of the choices actually did anything other than cause the mass relays to go supernova and the Starchild just lied to get Shepard out of its hair: "Oh crap, some organic is poking around up here again. Well, lets just spin something so he will detonate the relays and we can go back to darkspace".
This one is easy. He lacked Shepard's Essence.
As well all know, Choice>Catalyst>Shepard's Essence.
Therefore Synthesis.
Mac Walters. You've just got to love him.
If that's the case, it's kind of stupid. Again, why drag another real person into it and put words in his mouth?
heliosRAzi
Banned
Go back a couple of pages. We just had a little debate about the Indoc theory.
In other happenings, does anyone else kind of discredit who complain about the entire backlash when they haven't beaten the game yet?
SEGAvangelist
Gold Member
BUT WHY DID HE HAVE TO DIE!?!?!?!?!?!?
heliosRAzi
Banned
WiiredShawn
Member
Mac Walters: [laughs] Writhe in my cage of torment, my friend.
Didn't the Crucible plans originally come from him or something?
shinobi602
Member
Ok, going back and watching the ending video, it appears those 3 options were part of the Crucible (not built by the Catalyst). Even so...
So the Protheans and species before them "added on" to the Crucible each time and decided to build a device that offers:
1)A little device with 2 handles that they predicted an organic would someday be able to...melt him/herself into it and control the Reapers?
2)Build a generator thing with a strong shield protecting it from being destroyed...to destroy the Reapers? Would have made more sense to have a "Blow up Reapers" button instead.
3)Magically predicted someone tens of thousands of years into the future would bungee jump into the beam and disintegrate and then...his/her "essence"(whatever the heck that means) would merge organics and synthetics?
My brain hurts even more now.
Hell, why would the Protheans and previous species build this superweapon with options!? "Well, let's give whoever finally completes this thing some choices. Maybe they'd like to control the Reapers! Let's build that into it. Well yea, but someone else would actually want to...you know, destroy them?"
So the Protheans and species before them "added on" to the Crucible each time and decided to build a device that offers:
1)A little device with 2 handles that they predicted an organic would someday be able to...melt him/herself into it and control the Reapers?
2)Build a generator thing with a strong shield protecting it from being destroyed...to destroy the Reapers? Would have made more sense to have a "Blow up Reapers" button instead.
3)Magically predicted someone tens of thousands of years into the future would bungee jump into the beam and disintegrate and then...his/her "essence"(whatever the heck that means) would merge organics and synthetics?
My brain hurts even more now.
Hell, why would the Protheans and previous species build this superweapon with options!? "Well, let's give whoever finally completes this thing some choices. Maybe they'd like to control the Reapers! Let's build that into it. Well yea, but someone else would actually want to...you know, destroy them?"
Basileus777
Member
If he had given out those plans, wouldn't he have been expecting someone (ie Shepard) to reach him? Why would he even need a bunch of less advanced civilizations to build the thing? What purpose would any of this serve? If his plans with the Reapers were going as expected, why does the device even exist? None of this makes any sense, did Walters not sit down and think about any of this?
SEGAvangelist
Gold Member
It's high level shit dude. Can't question it. It's beyond our comprehension.
WiiredShawn
Member
Friendly advice: stop. Don't throw away your life to understand shitty writing. There's plenty of other good writing out there in the world.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
In the end, they should have just brought back Saren Arterius so we could fight him again. I would have taken that over the space-kid.
They were not in the Citadel I think. That's what the crucible is for. Yeah, think about THAT now.
It's just the stupid way of Mac Walters to point out Shepard was special. He had "something" in him that made him that. If spacekid was tired or anticipating that, he obviously had the power to change it before Shepard got there.
It's dumb isn't it... The fact is that the crucible was worked on by many cycles, but no one know what it does exactly. Some even suggest that it was first planned by the spacekid himself, but that makes even less sense. If he planned it, then he did it to fuck with his own plans, but also, he had the solution all along, so why create a new solution that contradicts his existing solution. He also could have the reapers build it themselves. Also, what the fuck does controlling the reapers mean? Shepard gets to do the harvesting now? Or they become helpful machines like the Geth? Who knows!
LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE!
People need to stop blaming EA.
This was a disaster of Bioware's own making. If you look at interviews prior to the acquisition, the path that Mass Effect as a series has gone down is the path Bioware always planned to go down.
EA didn't hire Casey Hudson. EA didn't hire Mac Walters. Both have been with Bioware since before they were bought.
EA didn't write the ending. Hudson and Walters did.
Blaming EA is obscuring the issue. Blame fucking Bioware. They're the ones who have screwed up.
This was a disaster of Bioware's own making. If you look at interviews prior to the acquisition, the path that Mass Effect as a series has gone down is the path Bioware always planned to go down.
EA didn't hire Casey Hudson. EA didn't hire Mac Walters. Both have been with Bioware since before they were bought.
EA didn't write the ending. Hudson and Walters did.
Blaming EA is obscuring the issue. Blame fucking Bioware. They're the ones who have screwed up.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
wait, weren't you the 'defend the endings' guy?
Or you do just have the same avatar?
The fundamental problem of life, universe, everything is that synthetics wipe out organics. Kid makes a solution to that problem. The solution is sort of the same as the problem, but ok. And reality up until this point is contrary to that considering the Geth are our bros now, but maybe it does happen eventually, fine.
Shep being there proves solution no longer works, even though the only reason it didn't is because the kid deliberately made it so. Weird, but ok.
Kid says there has to be a new solution to this problem that he seems to care about. One new viable solution according to the star child is killing him and all the reapers so that the inevitable problem happens. How the fick is that a solution to the problem? Is the very anti-solution in all regards. And it means killing him too, but he's cool with that.
No number of 10 critic scores can make this shit coherent.
Shep being there proves solution no longer works, even though the only reason it didn't is because the kid deliberately made it so. Weird, but ok.
Kid says there has to be a new solution to this problem that he seems to care about. One new viable solution according to the star child is killing him and all the reapers so that the inevitable problem happens. How the fick is that a solution to the problem? Is the very anti-solution in all regards. And it means killing him too, but he's cool with that.
No number of 10 critic scores can make this shit coherent.
shinobi602
Member
Well, sort of. I always said there's "no way" they can be as bad as everyone is saying....
and then I beat the game...
They made the universe than spend two games trying to make it not logically coherent. They finally succeeded.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I blame both, to be honest. I blame BioWare for the obvious creative fuck ups, because they're most responsible for those. Crappy writing is crappy writing, and thus the writers (or writer) will be the target of criticism. I also loath the Walters and Hudson's decision to annex themselves from the team to write the ending which is, ultimately, a decision of BioWare.
But I don't think, looking at the big picture, EA didn't play a part in all of this. For example, I'm fairly sure Chobot's presence in the game, relative to other weirdly neglected assets (eg: Tali's face), is a consequence of EA's marketing team. EA obviously had IGN as their big marketing bed buddy (see: IGN's wiki and review layout), and I would not be surprised if Chobot was marketing's bold idea to get a familiar face in the game.
Same goes, to a lesser extent, Vega. EA were the ones pushing for ME3 to be an 'entry point to the series. This was their big marketing bullet point. It's also the one big thing I figure impacted the creativity at BioWare the most, EA pressuring the team the change or add components that fit EA's master plan. Vega was apparently written as a character supposed to reflect what a new Mass Effect player would be like.
How reluctant or welcoming BioWare were to EA's suggestions is impossible to know without being a fly on the wall during development. Same goes for the extent of these suggestions and just how, exactly, they influenced the game. But I do think it played a part.
As for the ending catastrophe, I blame BioWare's writers responsible. It was a creative decision, and a bad one. But I also suspect that had the team been given more time to work on the game, we would have got something else, or at the very least, something bigger.
The ending rests solely with Hudson and Walters, but the day one DLC of From Ashes is a direct result of EA pushing a release date on Bioware. I don't remember if it was Weekes or another designer, but there was a post about how originally, Javik was an integral part of the game and was suppose to be kidnapped by Cerberus on Thessia (I think Javik even was suppose to play a role in the final scene with the Catalyst). When Bioware was behind schedule, they decided to cut Javik to DLC and alter the remaining story aspects.
It is so vexing because other publishers like Take Two, Activision, and Bethesda all allow their marquee titles more than a few years of development (GTA V has had 4 to 5 years of development, Skyrim had roughly 4 years, Diablo 3 and SC2 had 6 to 7 years) and it is reflected in their sales numbers. I wish EA would have allowed Bioware to take as much time with ME3 as they needed. The pre order numbers alone show that fans were eager to finish the trilogy and I am confident that, had Bioware been free of the day one DLC controversy and the ending controversy, ME3 would be able to reach some larger sales numbers more akin to Fallout or Skyrim.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
And who shoulders the fact that this entire game feels like a rush job?
EA?
Maybe...but other EA games I have played don't feel like rush jobs. Dragon Age II seems like a rush job as well.
Oh, I acknowledge that EA had a detrimental effect on ME3 as a whole. Certainly, the hyperfocus on making ME3 newbie friendly came down from EA.
But the ending is solely on Bioware's shoulders. And I'm willing to bet that most of the bad stuff is Bioware's fault. Even the newbie thing in the hands of a better writer would have been a lot better.
SEGAvangelist
Gold Member
Yeah, I think published by Microsoft this game wouldn't be out for another 6-9 months. The ending may still be dumb and complete nonsense, but the game would have more polished sidequests and a much more "badass" ending at least. Most of the plot issues would still exist I bet.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
It's crazy how quick that happened...or seems to be quick. It's as if people love hating EA way more than they love hating Activision although I don't believe Activision has had the same number of fuck ups in the past year as EA.
They only had a couple of years of being "good guys" mainly 07-08, and during that time they lost almost 2 billion, so they said fuck it, and here we are. It also happened that during that period (and up into 2010) Kotick was the most reviled man in the industry.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Out of pure interest, may I ask how this may have changed your perception of Bioware as a whole?
You were pretty vocal on their defense in the OT, so I imagine that your 'pre-ending' view must be different from your 'post-ending' view. I would really like to know your experience of all this.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
Kotick has done an exemplary job of staying off the radar altogether in the last year or so.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
The buggy mess that is Battlefield 3?
Scope is a big issue, especially for a series like Mass Effect, which has only gotten bigger. Maybe not ambition, but scope of production for sure. There's so much writing, so many plot threads, so many missions, and so many cinematics that it's easy for shit to rushed while pushing for that deadline.
What I question is EA's appreciation for this scope, and especially what fans expected from the game. The game was already delayed once. It was supposed to be out by Christmas last year. That was EA's original goal, and the game wasn't even close to being finished. This stuff takes time. A lot of time. Efficiently and management of the team plays a huge part too, and maybe BioWare aren't up to scratch. But still, it takes time.
Take the lack of variations in the ending. The lack of substance. I blame this on both EA and BioWare. I blame BioWare for how badly written it was, and how poorly they prioritised something so damn important. But I blame EA for whatever time they gave BioWare, which clearly wasn't enough. What they churned out was all they could do (in terms of substance, not quality) in the time given. If BioWare approached EA and said "Hey, guys, we really want to do so much more with the ending, buuut you're probably going to have to delay the game a second time, from March to um I dunno June or July?", do you really think EA would have gone "That's fine. Take all this extra money for your budget, and take as long as you need".
He's been busy pursuing his dreams of becoming a movie star.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
So...I'm not 100% on the publisher-developer relationship.
When EA cracks the whip, how high does Bioware have to jump?
Bioware has been developing games for a long time. I don't have line of sight to how much they "fought" the deadlines they were given but in the end, I feel like I blame Bioware more for not fighting harder in order to keep their product from being compromised.
Cerberus base moves. I think the things in the archives were either new or filed away.
UnluckyKate
Member
Loading are shamefull on console. navigation aboard the Normandy is a fucking joke. 30+ sec loading between decks ? For the captain's cabin ? + frame drops + another loadings for special doors (Liara's door is an additional 5+ second loading on PS3
Seriously Bioware, get you shit together... It's been a concern for 3 games and yet, you pretend to get users feedback
Yeah Chris Avellone and George Ziets have only written multiple characters that are some of the deepest and most interesting the industry has offered.
Holy shit, that sounds terrible. PC loading was never more than a few seconds for any of the loading screens and Normandy navigation was a breeze. I'm starting to see how much consoles held back the overall quality of the product.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
If EA actually cracks the whip then BioWare jumps however high EA tells them to. EA owns BioWare. They are the publisher, they pay all their wages, and they call all the shots. If BioWare wants to make a game EA does not, it does not get made. If BioWare wants a delay and extra budget and EA does not, they do not get it. EA holds the power, dictating the budget, release dates and overall product goal.
The question is as it always is with these kinds of relationships: just how flexible are they wil BioWare, and to what extent did they impact ME3's development?
And that we'll never truly know.
UnluckyKate
Member
Did I mention loading for every interactive UI ? Open a shop, armor customization, weapons custimization, anything : loading for 2 to 5 seconds.
Changing gear (helmet, chestplates) takes 2 to 3 seconds to load the model...
Whaaaaat? Seriously? That's pretty asinine.