pure.Wasted said:
Mikeyfell said:
The problems with ME 3 are so deeply rooted in the core of mechanics and storytelling that fixing any one part doesn't change anything.
So fix the ending, fix all the little nit picky things that people complain about. Fix Tali's face, fix Diana Allers, fix the quest tracking, fix the controls, fix the Galactic Readiness bullshit, it still won't make the game any good. Because it wasn't Mass Effect 3, it was Corporate Meddling 3: How to Screw a Fanbase.
Is it wrong that it brings me just a little bit of joy to see how annoyed you are?
No, it's not wrong. In fact there was a time (Right around the time they announced there would be multyplayer) that I was afraid I wouldn't have any opinion on ME 3 and it would just fade away into the dust and I would go back to Skyrim. So I actually get some entertainment value my self out of getting annoyed at Mass Effect 3.
It really, really wouldn't have, if you'd simply offered your constructive criticism and let it stand or fall on its own merits, because there's nothing wrong with analyzing something even if it's as beloved as Mass Effect 3 is loved outside of its ending. But no, you had to make this a Big Issue. Mass Effect 3 couldn't have been unsatisfying simply because it was poorly designed, because the guys making the game didn't understand what made it so good for someone like you in the first place, no, it has to be because of corporate meddling, it has to be EA, it has to be Bioware deliberately going out of their way to ruin your gaming experience, because nothing makes them so happy as to see their fanbase reduced to a pool of tears.
Oh, this is going to be one of
those comments, I see. It's okay I knew what I was getting into when I clicked on a Mass Effect 3 thread.
Ahem.
Perhaps "Corporate Meddling" wasn't ME 3's downfall, but between the multyplayer and all the stuff that was cut in the "Final Hours" thing it's hard to come up with another theory.
Call it petty but it does make me feel better to blame the multyplayer for the script being about a third of the previous games.
In truth the more likely reason is that Bioware is spread thin over ME 3 DA 2 and SWTOR. and they only have enough talented people to make one game at a time, so while their A team is working on (Their monetary black hole that is inevitably going to get chewed up and spat out by WoW like they all do) the rest of Bioware is just going to throw us table scraps in the meantime.
Sound ridiculous? Yeah. Most exaggerations do, yours included. You had some decent (but not inarguable) points, but presenting them with such predictable elitism really doesn't help your credibility. I hope it at least made you feel better.
and what exactly makes your "predictable elitism" better than my "predictable elitism"
I mean, asides from the obvious fact that you really
are a better person than me and I should feel privileged to be reading your text.
On to your points:
The problem with Mass Effect 3 is that it's not a role playing game any more. apart from two decisions (How you handle the Genophage, and how you handle the Quarian/Geth war) Nothing you do or ever did has any effect on the game.
You say "How you handle the Genophage" as if it's a single decision, when in fact "how you handle the Genophage" is made up of three (and a half) separate decisions within Mass Effect 3, and is
heavily influenced by whether you saved or killed Wrex, whether you saved or killed Mordin, whether you got Mordin's loyalty or not, and whether you kept Maelon's Genophage cure going or not. Never mind the Quarian/Geth war, which takes so many of your decisions into account that people are
still figuring it out.
Even
if I were to grant that ME3 presents less choices than previous games in the series did - and I don't - your experience with the game will still depend completely upon your experience with Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2.
Let's count the decisions that have a reasonably big influence over the course of Mass Effect 3
1) Did Wrex survive Vimire?
2) Did you save Mealon's Genophage data?
2.5) Did you do the mission at all?
3) Did you blow up the Geth Heretics?
4) Did Legion survive the suicide mission?
4.5) Did you give Legion to Cerberus?
5) Did Tali survive the suicide mission?
6) Did Mordin survive the suicide mission?
7) Did Thane survive the suicide mission?
8) Did Garrus survive the suicide mission?
8 and 2 halve choices. (Feel free to speak up if I missed one) Those are the only choices that influence the main quest line of the game.
Let's count a few decisions that don't matter at all.
1) Did you save the Rachnai queen?
2) Did Kaiden or Ashley survive Virmire?
3) Did you save the council?
4) Did you give the council seat to Anderson or Udina?
5) Did you turn down Spectre status at the start of ME 2?
6) Did you let Miranda talk to her sister during her loyalty mission?
7) Did you get Tali Exiled?
7.5) Did you bring Legion on the Flotilla?
7.75) Did you support the war?
7.875) Did you do Tali's loyalty mission at all?
8) Did Thane's son get arrested
8.5)Did you do Thane's loyalty mission?
9) Did you delete Kasumi's Gray box?
10) Did you save Morinth?
11) Did anything that happened in Project Overlord matter?
12) Did you cheat on your ME 1 romance?
13) Did you save your Cerberus Crew?
14) Did you save the Collector base?
14.5) Were you nice to the Illusive Man all the way through ME 2?
Those things seem pretty important, and in ME 3 they were either completely ignored, ret-conned or hand-waved away. And that's just a few. I find it bothersome that whether or not you bought the Hamster in ME 2 matters more than who you gave the council seat to.
There are choices that had some influence on ME 3
like anyone but the "big 5" surviving the suicide mission, or Conrad Vernor and Jena, if kirrahe survived Vermire.
And I have heard the "Those same choices didn't matter in ME 2 either" argument, but at least there it felt like they were building towards some sort of pay off in the finale, but it turns out they weren't. This is what people are talking about when they say ME 3 ruined the whole series.
Sur'Kesh, which doesn't involve any "choice" in and of itself outside of choosing your squadmates, can be either "just another mission" that includes Wreav, some Salarian we've never seen or heard of before, Vega, and Javik... or it can be an epic reunion between Wrex and his ME1 buddies Garrus and Liara, with Mordin showing up out of the blue to save the day.
Not only will the experience of playing that mission vary wildly amongst players, but even those who manage to reach the same result will still feel like they reached it because they worked to reach it. Not because it was the only one available.
And again, this is a mission where you get to choose nothing but your squadmates.
Maybe you didn't do multiple playthroughs, so it might not have hit you very hard. But I did 7. Each Shepard had a unique personality that I played them according to. And the way it worked out my complete and utter ***** pure Renegade Shepard, and my through and through soldier, 70/30 paragon/renegade Shepard had exactly the same Mass Effect 3 experience.
You can call that my fault if you want, but there simply isn't seven playthroughs wroth of content in ME 3.
Shepard's personality is hardly even up to you anymore. 90% of your dialog choices come down to whether you want to continue the conversation in a happy or angry way. Renegade Shepard isn't even an Asshole any more because Shep treats anyone who survived the suicide mission like his/her BFF (Except Miranda, but honestly did anyone actually let that ***** survive ME 2)
A lot of people let "that *****" survive ME 2. In fact, she was the second most popular male romance option in the game, out of four. This really makes me question how in touch with the fanbase's wishes you really are.
Personally I think Miranda's ass was the second most popular romance option for Male Shepard.
A pretty sizable portion of the male gender would choose looks over personality, that statistic isn't surprising to me. I'd also hazard a guess that most people who romanced her would agree that she's a schizophrenic, condescending, narcissistic *****.
As for renegade Shepard being less of an asshole... what of it? It was inevitable. The ME franchise is not made of sandbox games where you do whatever the hell you want to do. Shepard is a hero. You can choose to interpret his actions differently, ie. maybe he secretly hates women and aliens and gets them all killed on the suicide mission, but you're reading into what isn't there. Shepard doesn't hate women, and he doesn't hate aliens. He's a hero.
That's just more the reason that "Mass Effect 3 ruined the whole series"
Shepard was not pretending to be racist in the first two games. Shepard wasn't pretending to be mean to Thane. Shep wasn't just faking being an asshole through out the first two games.
If (s)he was, the implications are that the first two games were even more meaningless than ME 3 already makes them.
He can be an optimistic hero or a cynical hero, but that's about all the input you have on his attitude, and it's always been that way. Does /friending Garrus seem like the type of thing that would be influenced by Shepard being an optimist or a cynic? Nope! So Shepard friends Garrus is canon. Nothing unexpected there. If you don't want them to be friends, get Garrus killed in the Suicide Mission, problem solved! And if you don't like Bioware having some image of what Shepard is like other than "completely blank slate," then ME3 is the wrong time to bring it up. ME2 was built around this idea, with Shepard working with TIM every step of the plot. Off the top of my head, another example would be Shepard not being able to explain himself on Horizon to Kaidan/Ashley. Point being, regardless of how poorly received those individual elements were, that didn't stop the game from being loved by the majority of the fans and receiving numerous GOTY awards. Why you would think that ME3 is evil incarnate for doing the same thing ME2 did is beyond me.
The auto-dialogue was a genuine problem in a few specific scenes, ie. Shepard breaking down while talking to Hackett comes to mind. But it really wasn't as world-shattering a deal as you make it out to seem.
In ME 3 conversations will often stat with Shepard dialog that the player had no say over.
It's an extreme problem for Renegade Shep (Who was wildly inconsistent in ME 2 as well) but it's also pretty damming to the replay value.
I'd say in a good half of the conversations Shepard doesn't get any dialog wheels at all. Which is sad because all those characters on the Citadel just get lost in the shuffle. I still have fond memories about that Krogan who wanted to know about Presidium fish, and the Asaris on the no fly list. All the ME 3 citadel dwellers are just nameless faceless prick number 37 who wants some do-dad from some place.
ME 1 and 2 were about talking to people and making hard decisions.
ME 3 is about running errands, and since all the decisions can be weighed numerically they have right and wrong answers, instead of ethical or emotional answers.
So... yeah. You raised some good discussion points, but nothing that really stands up to criticism.
Declaring your victory before you hear the rebuttal is a very classy move.
How about the plot holes, do you want to talk about then next?
[quote
And you did it all while being an ass. Congrats.[/quote]
I love you too.
To answer your question, the detail about Protheans that wanted to control the Reapers comes out when you're talking to the Prothean VI on Thesia. You ask "Why didn't you guys use the Crucible?" to which he responds "A splinter faction thought we could control the Reapers instead of destroying them." to which you reply "Just like Cerberus." which leads into the bit about all time being cyclical and that the same conflicts repeat themselves - in one variation or another - in every cycle.
