"The Truth" for Mass Effect 3

[idarkphoenixi]

Seeing as they obviously only made this to shut up people about 'that other DLC' and not because they actually wanted to give something out for free, this doesn't change my opinion on how exploititive the EA market is.

They will still remain number one for worst public relations of any game developer/producer.

 

[GoddyofAus]

But really, even if it looks to be rushed, can you really complain about a free epilogue?

If you don't mind my asking, if you were watching LOTR at the cinema, and it suddenly ended as Aragorn and co. are charging Mount Doom in Operation Massive Distration, and it then showed you a load of stuff that made no sense (e.g. Look, Gimli is with Frodo now!, the Witch-King isn't dead!)...

Would you be cool with them saying "Don't worry guys, give us a month or two and we'll hurl out the REAL ending. It's free so we're cool"?

You're completely disregarding the lore of Mass Effect. If you factor that in, it's actually a brilliant piece of storytelling.

 

[Bat Vader]

Bioware hasn't confirmed or denied this yet. So either that means they don't know about the rumors yet or they do and are keeping it a secret. Hopefully they confirm or deny it rather quickly instead of making people wait.

I am going to consider the rumors false. That way if they do turn out to be real I will be pleasantly surprised.

 

[goose4291]

As much as I'd like to see this happen, it is all rumour and conjecture at this point with not even really any sort of evidence to substantiate it.

Gamble's tweet "Holding onto your ME3 copy forever." just indicates that DLC will be coming. Which we knew anyway. All I'm saying is don't build your hopes up unneccessarily.

 

[VonKlaw]

But really, even if it looks to be rushed, can you really complain about a free epilogue?

If you don't mind my asking, if you were watching LOTR at the cinema, and it suddenly ended as Aragorn and co. are charging Mount Doom in Operation Massive Distration, and it then showed you a load of stuff that made no sense (e.g. Look, Gimli is with Frodo now!, the Witch-King isn't dead!)...

Would you be cool with them saying "Don't worry guys, give us a month or two and we'll hurl out the REAL ending. It's free so we're cool"?

You're completely disregarding the lore of Mass Effect. If you factor that in, it's actually a brilliant piece of storytelling.

You're right...my analogy would be better if instead of fading to black, Sauron (scrap that, some villian who is actually controlling him but has never been seen or mentioned before) suddenly appeared and said "Yo guys, i'm using orcs to destroy you so you don't make orcs who destroy you" or...something.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I'm mostly running on optimism. From what I've heard, the ending we got was a byproduct of being rushed by EA (to the point of outright threats and jobs being on the line if the deadline was missed) and Bioware being frustrated after all the leaks and harrassment them and their writers endured leading to the game's release.

Seeing things like that screenshot, the twitter updates about making sure you keep your copy forever, and all the free DLC that we got from Mass Effect 2 makes me think that it could be more than a rumor. Who knows? Why COULDN'T this be the magic DLC people have been demanding that will fix the story? People shouldn't be so goddamn negative all the goddamn time. Just wait and see. You literally lose nothing because it'll be free.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Looks like we're getting Geth Infiltrator and Engineer, Batarian Sentinel and Soldier, and a Krogan Battlemaster and Asari Justicar. I was really hoping for a Krogan Biotic, and it looks like we're getting one. I'm pretty anxious on seeing the two new enemy types.

Hmmm, well I have mixed opinions about the Asari Justicar, since that was already the name of the base tree for the Asari Vanguard.... leading me to believe we already had Justicars, this seems to confuse matters more than anything.

That said, the Geth classes are cool, but fighting other Geth would be a little wonky given that by the time Geth would be joining N7 spec ops teams there wouldn't be any Geth warbands for them to fight.

Legion helped you fight Geth in the story, so why not? And about the Asari Justicar, I had the same reaction to it as well, but my guess is that it'll have a unique skill tree. I'm more excited about have the Krogan Battlemaster. You'll finally get to play as a Krogan Biotic.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

This isn't an apology.

This is good business.

Because of the method of unlock for the multiplayer this is just sowing potential stuff you want without forcing your player base to split in two.

Those who want early access to the new content can put in a few dollars and unlock it, while the rest of us can get it by playing what is essentially free content for us.

Effectively letting those who can afford it pay and those who cant just add to the player base.

There is no guilt here. No asking for forgiveness. Just business as it should be.

I'm confused, are you defending or berating them? I honestly can't tell. You speaking in a very "matter of fact" way makes it impossible to tell.

That being said, I kind of like the way the multiplayer is. I COULD buy packs with MSpoints, but I don't have to. I can get anything I want with a little patience and playing a game. Sure the random nature of it can be rustrating if you're after a very specific weapon or character, but that just means you play the game some more. Sure, having it tie in with the Single Player could piss off people who maybe don't have internet access or just don't really care for the multiplayer, but since I DO like it, those people can eat me I guess.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I doubt it will be free.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I 100% steadfastly refuse to believe that it will be free. Just look at all that content. Come on.

Bioware may still be on my 'a grain of hope' watchlist but EA have long since sold their souls.

And come on. With a shit ending like that, you KNOW EA are going to cash in for the 'proper' ending. Because everyone. EVERYONE will buy it.

Did you not have the Cerberus Network in Mass Effect 2? They gave away TONS of free DLC with that if you bought the game new. So I don't see why they would change the formula now.

I doubt it will be free.

Refer to the above. There were tons of free DLC released to people who had the Cerberus Network in Mass Effect 2.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I 100% steadfastly refuse to believe that it will be free. Just look at all that content. Come on.

Bioware may still be on my 'a grain of hope' watchlist but EA have long since sold their souls.

And come on. With a shit ending like that, you KNOW EA are going to cash in for the 'proper' ending. Because everyone. EVERYONE will buy it.

Did you not have the Cerberus Network in Mass Effect 2? They gave away TONS of free DLC with that if you bought the game new. So I don't see why they would change the formula now.

I doubt it will be free.

Refer to the above. There were tons of free DLC released to people who had the Cerberus Network in Mass Effect 2.

That doesn't prove anything. I can still doubt it will be free.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I 100% steadfastly refuse to believe that it will be free. Just look at all that content. Come on.

Bioware may still be on my 'a grain of hope' watchlist but EA have long since sold their souls.

And come on. With a shit ending like that, you KNOW EA are going to cash in for the 'proper' ending. Because everyone. EVERYONE will buy it.

Did you not have the Cerberus Network in Mass Effect 2? They gave away TONS of free DLC with that if you bought the game new. So I don't see why they would change the formula now.

I doubt it will be free.

Refer to the above. There were tons of free DLC released to people who had the Cerberus Network in Mass Effect 2.

That doesn't prove anything. I can still doubt it will be free.

Well, you can DO whatever you want. But that doesn't change the fact that there IS a history of Bioware giving away DLC for free.

Zaeed - The Price of Vengeance
Normandy Crash Site
Cerberus Weapon and Armor pack
Arc Projector
and the FireWalker Pack were all given to people who bought the game new. Honestly? I think it was a great system for getting people to buy New copies over used copies. It effectively devalued used copies by $15 for 5 DLC, one of which is a whole new Squadmate and another was one of the most haunting missions in the game.

 

[goose4291]

Zaeed - The Price of Vengeance
Normandy Crash Site
Cerberus Weapon and Armor pack
Arc Projector
Firewalker

Its important to note though that out of the ones you've listed the Zaeed DLC was the only thing that really felt to me like it brought anything of value to the game. Firewalker was atrocious and short, and the weapons packs overpowering, making the game quite easy on even the hardest difficulty.

 

[Scabadus]

Gotta admit, I am cautiously optimistic about this. If Bioware did do some sort of "staggered ending" then in my books, it would go down as the single greatest peice of storytelling I've every had the pleaure to be part of. I don't mean an 'oh shit they're angry, throw something together' patch, by the way, I mean a proper, planned and well-written ending that took advantage of how people play games over reading books or watching movies. And we will be able to tell the difference.

If they just said "ok, we fucked up. We got too wrapped up in our own ideas, got too involved with out story and just forgot to take on board critisism. We're going to re-write the ending for all of you," and patched the game with something nice, that would still be good. Yeah it would be wierd, but it's not the first time it would have happened (think director's cuts of movies) To my knowledge, it would be a first for games though. On the other hand, for the price of a little wierdness, the story gets a good ending and we can declare all the current confused mess non-cannon.

Even if they only added a 30 second epilogue (and I am very hopeful of this, given their tweets) that explains how all life isn't doomed, stuck in the Sol system for the rest of its short existance along with a small ending for the love interest and crew other than "look they're on a planet!" it would at least give some closure. Despite what I've written abobe I don't hate the endings... I think they're badly written, especially compared ot the rest of the game, but I don't hate them and having some closure on top of them would fix a lot.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Zaeed - The Price of Vengeance
Normandy Crash Site
Cerberus Weapon and Armor pack
Arc Projector
Firewalker

Its important to note though that out of the ones you've listed the Zaeed DLC was the only thing that really felt to me like it brought anything of value to the game. Firewalker was atrocious and short, and the weapons packs overpowering, making the game quite easy on even the hardest difficulty.

I actually really liked Zaeed as a character. If you listen to him, you actually find out he has a history with another one of your Squadmates.

Spoiler

from what I heard, he was part of the Merc group that picked up Jack after she escaped the Cerberus Facility, raped her, then sold her and the ship she was on to the Quarian Flotilla. Which in turn led to Cerberus attacking the Flotilla and the animosity between the Quarians and Cerberus

But I also really liked the Normandy Crash Site. All the flashbacks, finding out that Pressely eventually overcame his prejudices of aliens, setting up the monument, finding your old N7 helmet (which gets displayed in your penthouse after) and finding all the dogtags. It was really haunting if you ask me, and just kind of brought the destruction of the original SR1 and Shepard's subsequent return mean that much more.

-snip-

See? That's the kind of optimism I'd really like to see out of this. People are just so goddamn cinical about this whole subject, they seem to refuse any possible good news.

 

[Valanthe]

If this is true, and that's a colossal if, then I will be appeased. Not enthusiastic, and certainly not ready to apologize for my vitriol, as a commenter in the rumour post demands. But them repairing this game in a satisfactory manner will make me consider purchasing their products in the future.