Mass Effect 3

[Tannhauser]

Hey, those Philosophy majors have to wind up somewhere. 

[Lantyssa]

Heh, and it doesn't seem that long ago that "it's a BioWare game, and those are always good" was the standard reaction to any concerns about their titles. 

That's exactly why they need any positive PR over this they can get.  BioWare has been taking big hits to their reputation in the last few years.

Yes, it does play in to gamer entitlement, but they wouldn't have to if they didn't screw this one up so badly.  This is NGE levels of how not to end a game.  (Sadly, the quality of the rest of the game is completely lost on people due to the emotional reaction.)

[yoh]

Coming off like a company that regards its fanbase as nothing more than revenue to be made didn't help this situation either. The first thing that came to my mind after reading the Ray Muzyka post was "Shit, who will want to buy our alternate apperance DLC now?".

[jakonovski]

Finally burned out on the mp after 20 hours of play, during which I received one worthwhile weapon. Grindy and shit weapon balancing cuts off the game's legs.

[Special J]

All this stuff about the ending (which I've not yet seen) is making me sad.  I  this series.

[caladein]

Finally burned out on the mp after 20 hours of play, during which I received one worthwhile weapon. Grindy and shit weapon balancing cuts off the game's legs.

You should try the base weapons that are probably pretty highly upgraded if you haven't.

I love my Avenger X: weighs next to nothing, very accurate, good capacity, and it reloads quickly.  With that and the Predator VII (or VIII?) my Soldier sits at max cooldown bonus.  On the lighter classes, I can run with just that instead of having to use an SMG with Ultralight.

[Sky]

I hardly even use my pistol with my engineer. Having a scope on it is nice, though.

[jakonovski]

Finally burned out on the mp after 20 hours of play, during which I received one worthwhile weapon. Grindy and shit weapon balancing cuts off the game's legs.

You should try the base weapons that are probably pretty highly upgraded if you haven't.

I love my Avenger X: weighs next to nothing, very accurate, good capacity, and it reloads quickly.  With that and the Predator VII (or VIII?) my Soldier sits at max cooldown bonus.  On the lighter classes, I can run with just that instead of having to use an SMG with Ultralight.

The best I have is Predator VIII, the rest are III or worse. It's pretty good but I'm getting bored using the same weapon all the time. I do have two ability resets and bonus slots for medigel and the other healing thing, all rare drops. Of the higher "grade" weapons I've gotten mostly useless stuff like Quarian Arc Pistol and Incisor Sniper Rifle. The one thing I had moderate success with was the Revenant, but without ammo powers the damage is abysmal because most of the shots go wide even with a Turian soldier with maxed out stabilization talents.

edit: for comparison, my friends are rocking upgraded Geth Plasma Shotguns and Black Widows. RNG sucks.

[Koyasha]

Heh, and it doesn't seem that long ago that "it's a BioWare game, and those are always good" was the standard reaction to any concerns about their titles. 

I still feel this way.  Yes, the ending is horrible and annoys me, but the game as a whole?  One of the best RPG's I've ever played, and they made a lot of big steps forward in a lot of areas to make it feel much, much more alive than any previous game I've ever played.  The conversations going on in the background, all the tiny details that are carried forward from ME2, all sorts of amazing touches that definitely make this game great.  It's marred by a terrible ending, but even knowing everything I do about it now, I wouldn't hesitate in the slightest to buy it, and I'm not going to have any hesitation buying future BioWare games.

I also hope that this ending fiasco doesn't stop BioWare and other companies from taking lots of lessons from everything that DID work really well in ME3.

[Paelos]

I also hope that this ending fiasco doesn't stop BioWare and other companies from taking lots of lessons from everything that DID work really well in ME3.

What would you enjoy them carrying forward on their next games from the current title? Or, what lessons do you believe they learned that were the most repeatable in future projects?

[Ingmar]

Give the entire team input on the ending. 

[rk47]

mr ray did post an open letter to do a content ...and fix the ending problem.
it came across as insincere DLC pitch to me.

Dr Ray says:

The reaction to the release of Mass Effect 3 has been unprecedented. On one hand, some of our loyal fans are passionately expressing their displeasure about how their game concluded; we care about this feedback, and we’re planning to directly address it. However, most folks appear to agree that the game as a whole is exceptional, with more than 75 critics giving it a perfect review score and a review average in the mid-90s.

Exceptional, bitches. Stop whining, now pay for my DLC content patch.

[Nightblade]

mr ray did post an open letter to do a content ...and fix the ending problem.
it came across as insincere DLC pitch to me.

Dr Ray says:

The reaction to the release of Mass Effect 3 has been unprecedented. On one hand, some of our loyal fans are passionately expressing their displeasure about how their game concluded; we care about this feedback, and we’re planning to directly address it. However, most folks appear to agree that the game as a whole is exceptional, with more than 75 critics giving it a perfect review score and a review average in the mid-90s.

Exceptional, bitches. Stop whining, now pay for my DLC content patch.

"Dr Ray" needs to be smashed across the face repeatedly with a piece of heavy mining equipment.

[caladein]

What would you enjoy them carrying forward on their next games from the current title? Or, what lessons do you believe they learned that were the most repeatable in future projects?

I think the combat and underlying systems are fantastic.  I think they really hit their stride in mixing in dialogue in and out of the dialogue wheel mode and with interrupts.  I also found that the amount of dialogue from companions was much better, could have used more as always, but a lot better than I felt it was in ME2 (or at least it was a lot less annoying to find out that they didn't have anything substantial to say).  I'm happy they patched the gay back in to the series and didn't make a fuss about it in-game.

Really, as someone that liked the ending well enough (as I said in the spoiler thread), I found it a wonderful and moving game all the way through.  The only complaints I have is I felt like I was running between message terminals a lot, that the journal was completely useless (better off just using the map), and that Ashley was a disappointment on the clever writing front.

[Koyasha]

The dialogue in and out of 'dialogue mode' was great - when there was only one thing to be said, the character just said it, I didn't have to waste my time digging through a dialogue wheel and playing 'find the new option', or initiating dialogue only to have Garrus tell me that he's doing calibrations for the seventeenth time.  Furthermore, this 'short lines' system seemed to allow them to have more dialogue overall.  Not sure if that's really the case, but it felt that way.  It seemed that after each mission, most of the crew had actual comments about the mission I just did - often even with the secondary side-missions.  The way they handled character conversations on the Citadel was also very good.  Rather than having them tagging along with you, they go off, do their own stuff, and you meet and talk with them.  Finally a way that you can get all the little comments from all the characters, without having to swap your crew a whole bunch of times in order to find every dialogue spot with every crew member.  It felt a lot more like they were doing their own stuff with their time off.

The relationship (at least with Liara, only one I've played so far) feels better too; they previously felt somewhat awkward partly because the sex came at the 'end' but this time it felt more natural, and there was more conversation and talking after the sex scene.  Meeting up on the Citadel for that was also good.  Similarly, I liked the friendly level of relationship with Samantha and Kelly.  I wasn't 'interested' in them, but they felt like friends.  In ME2 it felt very awkward because everyone's conversations seemed to just stop if you didn't get into a relationship with them.

I really liked that at least one set of "good" decisions turned out a suboptimal ending.
Even the combat turned out much better this time around - in ME2, everyone being immune to biotics until their defenses were stripped was terrible, as was having all enemies have like 3 layers of protection on Insanity, thus making biotics almost useless.  This time around the fights were quite difficult but didn't require cheesy immunity.  Biotics worked in a reduced manner on shielded enemies, for instance, rather than simply not working at all, so pull would still get an enemy out of cover by causing them to stagger a bit.

That's the stuff I can think of, but I'm sure there's a lot of things that I'm missing or forgetting to mention that combined to make the experience really good.  There's so many small details everywhere that helped pull me in I doubt I can think of all of them.

[tmp]

I really liked that at least one set of "good" decisions turned out a suboptimal ending.

There's some smaller stuff like that, too.

Probably more, those were just most noticeable.

[Rasix]

If I were to pick this up on PC, is there a savegame generator floating around?  I really hadn't planned on going through the whole series again so soon, but I'm not even sure I want to get my xbox repaired or get a new one.

[Rokal]

I'm not sure there is a generator out there, but you can take a community save that matches your choices more or less. I imported my 360 save to my PC and the process actually wasn't bad, but you'll need to get your save onto a USB memory stick which might not be realistic if your 360 is broken.

[Sjofn]

I'd offer you one of my saves, Rasix, but your girlfriend is dead in most of them. 

[Rasix]

Do you have a fem shep + Liara save (with Ash alive???)? Need to be Paladin pure. Seriously, I'm such a boy scout.  I've lost the ability to even roleplay "unpleasant". Perhaps I can rig something up with the HD to get the saves off.

I think I'll just end up giving my 360 games away to my nephews. Well, when they're old enough to play them. 

[Sjofn]

Best I can do for you is my PigShep save, he's romancing Liara (no cheatin', either) with Ashley alive. And ... pretty paragon, I'm blanking on how he resolved the geth situation. I could look if you'd like, but if you're married to the FemShep thing I can't do much for you, since my LadyShepards are Ultra Paragon Sally Shepard who was Kaidan/Jacob and my Half-assed Renegade LadyShep who was Kaidan/Thane. :P

EDIT: For MANSHEPS there is also my Only Gay Man in Space Shepard (no romance), my soldier ManShep (Liara/Miranda), and my Only Gay Man in Space With Tali as a Beard Shepard. All of those are with Kaidan alive, though, and varying degrees of paragon-maxxed-but-some-renegade-points.

Can you tell how badly LadyShepard's horrible flirt voice in ME2 scarred me?


EDIT TWO: Thinking about it, my PigShep save plus Gibbed's save editor MIGHT be able to turn him into a woman, plus you can fuss around with some of the other flags? Not sure.

[Rasix]

FemShep would just be a change up, since my run that blew up the xbox was dudeshep who LURVES Ash and her ducklips.  I just hate how he goes all Canadian Barry White voice with every female in the cast.  Although I might heave if femshep starts making eyes at Garrus and his no-lipped, horrid face.

[Sjofn]

She's not nearly as creepy-voiced in ME3 as she was in ME2, although she skirted the line a couple of times with Kaidan (Jacob too, but <redacted>). If you didn't romance Garrus in ME2, you can't flirt with Garrus in ME3, so you'd be safe on that front. :P I belieeeeeeve you can start up a romance with Ashley as a dude even if you hadn't macked her in ME1, but I'm not 100% sure.

ManShep is ULTRACANADIAN in ME3 for some reason, which is delighting the shit out of me.

[Trippy]

Do you have a fem shep + Liara save (with Ash alive???)? Need to be Paladin pure. Seriously, I'm such a boy scout.  I've lost the ability to even roleplay "unpleasant". Perhaps I can rig something up with the HD to get the saves off.

I think I'll just end up giving my 360 games away to my nephews. Well, when they're old enough to play them.  

I have one. FemShep, Liara romance 1, no romance 2, Ashley alive, Collector base destroyed, Rachni Queen saved, Council saved, all crew members alive in 2, so on and so forth. Yes I'm a Boy Scout too.

Edit: attachment

• Saved the rachni queen
• Rescued Ashley Williams on Viremire
• Chose to save the Council
• Saved Maelon's data
• Kept Wrex alive on Viremire
• Chose to rewrite the geth heretics
• Destroyed the Collectors Base
• Survived the suicide mission with 11 teammates
• Romanced Liara before ME2
• Did not romance anyone in ME2

[caladein]

Easiest thing is to look around http://masseffect2saves.com/.  Ignore class and appearance, you can change those without issue in game.

Also, if you can't find your perfect ME1 and ME2 set, choose the one that's good for ME2.  It's pretty easy with the new save editor to edit the ME1 variables.

On the subject, here's where you can grab the ME3 editors.

[Lantyssa]

"Heh... You would be one to love Grizzly bears, Mr. Vega."

 

[Rasix]

Do you have a fem shep + Liara save (with Ash alive???)? Need to be Paladin pure. Seriously, I'm such a boy scout.  I've lost the ability to even roleplay "unpleasant". Perhaps I can rig something up with the HD to get the saves off.

I think I'll just end up giving my 360 games away to my nephews. Well, when they're old enough to play them.  

I have one. FemShep, Liara romance 1, no romance 2, Ashley alive, Collector base destroyed, Rachni Queen saved, Council saved, all crew members alive in 2, so on and so forth. Yes I'm a Boy Scout too.

Edit: attachment

• Saved the rachni queen
• Rescued Ashley Williams on Viremire
• Chose to save the Council
• Saved Maelon's data
• Kept Wrex alive on Viremire
• Chose to rewrite the geth heretics
• Destroyed the Collectors Base
• Survived the suicide mission with 11 teammates
• Romanced Liara before ME2
• Did not romance anyone in ME2

That's... perfect.  Thanks. 

[Ingmar]

"Heh... You would be one to love Grizzly bears, Mr. Vega."

 

That is on my short list for best line in the game.

[jakonovski]

I decided to play a bit more in the hopes of getting something. I sure did, a THIRD reset powers pack. This is stupid beyond belief.

[Nonentity]

I'm digging the new Premium Veteran packs. Finally got my Turian Soldier, chewing up the ranks now on some weapons I'll never use.

[Sjofn]

"Heh... You would be one to love Grizzly bears, Mr. Vega."

 

I totally laughed out loud when he said that. 

Honestly, the Cortez/Vega banter is what made me like Vega a lot more than I expected, even though Cortez gets most of the good lines in them. :P

[tmp]

I don't get the bears thing :/

Quite liked Vega, though

[Sjofn]

I don't get the bears thing :/

Neither did Vega. 

[SurfD]

This about summs up the mass effect experience quite nicely.

Spoilered just incase.

[tmp]

Best part is, initially it was without the two bottom picures.

(should be probably in spoiler thread, though )