Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread [Spoiler tag free, beware]

[Ratman_tf]

There's no way they could cash the storytelling checks they wrote in ME1. Not without brass balls, and there's too much money sunk into the franchise for that.

The copycat scenes I like to imagine is subconcious shit. Hell, I have that Winter on Mars in my wallpaper queue. I'd probably copy it without realizing it.
It seems odd that they'd be cheap about a few pictures, which would be a speck of sand compared to their total budget, I imagine.

[Fordel]

Further Questions:

[MournelitheCalix]

Wow, I am really speechless at the conclusion of this game.  I am not sure even how to put things into words at this point.  So this was a really awesome game up until....  The battles seemed authentic like they were nothing but chaos errupting all around you.  Signs of desperation, worlds at war, putting aside old hatreds, and the worlds uniting.  Everything was pretty amazing and it really felt like you were making a difference.  Then...the traditional Bioware end before the ending.  It really was neat to see the integrated guys from the Mass Effects making a comeback.  That was handled brilliantly.  Now the spoilers:


Ending:


My Initial WTF:




The Pure Gold:




What I Wish:

[Sjofn]

GOD DAMMIT JACOB

[Pezzle]

=(

[Sjofn]

GOD DAMMIT JACOB, PART TWO:


And yeah, Pezzle. I feel ya.

[kildorn]

Garrus scene aboard the citadel:

General space events:

[Sjofn]

Garrus scene aboard the citadel:

YES <3

The writing for this is aggressively uneven, but I found that scene just about right.

[Surlyboi]

End game.

I never heard of that while I was there. That doesn't mean it wasn't floated at some level above me.

I haven't watched the endings yet (I'm not going to play the game, because being the sort of OCD I am, I'll just end up throwing juvenile tantrums over every physics violation, canon retcon, and ship painted the wrong color), so I don't know what ended up in the final version. When I left, the Big Reveal was going to be

That ending would have been infinitely better. Shades of Baxter's Xeelee cycle. The only thing cooler would have been Photino Birds.

[Velorath]

The ending Stormwaltz posted makes way more sense even if it is sort of like an episode of TNG.

Really? 


Anyhow, I'll say one thing for the writing in this game, they actually really got me liking Jack despite the fact that she was one of my least favorite characters in 2.  I also loved the previously mentioned Garrus scene. 

Plus Tali's scene in the Normandy rec room/bar towards the end.
Also the first time I went down into the engine room, in the bottom area where Jack stayed in ME2, I thought I say a circle moving around but dismissed it as just locking onto something through the wall.  It wasn't until near the very end of the game that I found out: 
Anyhow, that's pretty much all I feel like saying about the game.  It was good enough that the ending didn't really bother me.  Any time you tell a story on a scale like this it's hard to come up with any sort of satisfying conclusion.  I guess my main issue with the end is that:

[ajax34i]

Lol-lore speculation, regarding Stormwaltz's ending:

[Stormwaltz]

The thing I talked about:

[Merusk]

Answers to 1 and 2 are simple. They're machines and their programming doesn't include "creativity."  How do you program spontaneity and imagination?  That's one of the biggest problems with AI in the ME universe. Even the Geth and EDI don't appear to have that.. they just act within their programming with minor variances.

Windows 7 isn't going to suddenly become an accounting software.  Why would intelligent machines spontaneously develop.. spontaneity?

[Sjofn]

Man, that ending.


What I liked:

I had mixed feelings on:

Things I did not like:

Basically I enjoyed the ride, I will do my MANSHEP playthrough as I am apt to do, but ... yeah. This was very KotOR 2, where they had IDEAS, man, but it's nigh impossible to tell if those ideas would've been any good if it hadn't all crashed into each other in a big ol' mess.


Also, Stormwaltz, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic when you say the series had been bereft of "humans are special" jingoism. Because um. There was a LOT of "humanity, FUCK YEAH," even in ME1.

[kildorn]

Sjofn beat this already? I need to stop spending so much time with the multi I guess.

All I know is anyone who thinks the weapons are weak needs to stop using the shitty guns. Yeah, powers are awesome. And the Scorpion is the only weapon anyone ever needs to carry. Because it's that awesome. Also: there is an upgrade station on the normandy. Bump that gun up from level 1.

[Sjofn]

Took me about this long to beat ME2 and DA2, too. 

Took about 28 hours, I think? I think it was 28h on my POST GAME SAVE.

[Lantyssa]

[Sjofn]

It wouldn't surprise me, frankly.

[Ratman_tf]

The thing I talked about:

House gets his revelations from the strangest places. It's not odd that super-duper hyperbeings just might be looking for a fresh perspective, in their own strange way. New blood, and all that.

But yes, making the Reapers too 'nice' would be anticlimatic. I kinda like the idea that the motivations for the Reapers might have been beyond human comprehension. Hyperbeings got hyperproblems, and just as a caveman wouldn't understand the policy of nuclear deterence, and all the politics of the world, so we might not understand why the Reapers have to cull the universe to further their bizzare plans. But then I don't think "You can't understand it, so there! Nyah!" would fly either.

[Sjofn]

I am too wired about the ending to sleep as I ought, so I am going to ramble a bit about it some more:



I should probably stress that I really enjoyed most of this game. I will probably play it a few times. But yeesh.

[Stormwaltz]

Also, Stormwaltz, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic when you say the series had been bereft of "humans are special" jingoism. Because um. There was a LOT of "humanity, FUCK YEAH," even in ME1.

But it's all from the humans, and they can't back it up.

The Alliance is a "Third Galaxy" power, and as a species humans are weaker and softer than the krogan, less wise and less biotic than the asari, slower and less intelligent than than the salarians, and less organized and disciplined than the turians. If they try to seize power in the ME1 ending, the result is a galaxy with a lot more prejudice against them and brushfire wars breaking out everywhere (listen to the news on the Citadel).

[eldaec]

In ME1, sure, but from ME2 on, non-humans start being defined by their views on humans, and the reapers apparently give no fucks about non-humans.

And even in ME1, the alliance is basically china.

[tmp]

But it's all from the humans, and they can't back it up.

The Alliance is a "Third Galaxy" power, and as a species humans are weaker and softer than the krogan, less wise and less biotic than the asari, slower and less intelligent than than the salarians, and less organized and disciplined than the turians. If they try to seize power in the ME1 ending, the result is a galaxy with a lot more prejudice against them and brushfire wars breaking out everywhere (listen to the news on the Citadel).

I think the impression is "humanity FUCK YEAH" precisely because humans can do the power grab like that despite all those drawbacks you list, and no one dares to tell them "no, fuck YOU and go back to the corner with the volus like the third-grade power wannabe you really are, OR ELSE".

[Lakov_Sanite]

Maybe it wasn't intentional but ME1 was the same sci-fi trope seen time and again  "Humans aren't the best at anything...except their 'human spirit' makes them the best race EVAR"

[kildorn]

I never get the impression that Humanity is ever shown as being weaker/less able than the other species, or treated as such. This may be tainted by you basically playing the UberHuman and seeing that side of things. But essentially from minute 1 you're showing that humanity is advancing in the galactic space far faster than anyone else has. And that the humans are kicking ass and taking names against the geth fucking shit up in 1. In 2, humanity is the primary target of the hostiles, and humanity is the group kicking ass and taking names against the reaper pawns. In 3, humanity is the central force bringing the galaxy together to fight the reapers, and leading the entire show.

The Mass Effect series may have been written at first for humanity to be a low tier power trying to fight for relevance. But the actual produced product is non stop Humanity, FUCK YEAH! They're displayed as being the only power in the galaxy actually willing to and capable of fixing shit.

[Simond]

Man, that ending.

Now that's not a very fair comparison.






KOTOR2 had a valid excuse. 

[Fordel]

Also, Stormwaltz, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic when you say the series had been bereft of "humans are special" jingoism. Because um. There was a LOT of "humanity, FUCK YEAH," even in ME1.

But it's all from the humans, and they can't back it up.

The Alliance is a "Third Galaxy" power, and as a species humans are weaker and softer than the krogan, less wise and less biotic than the asari, slower and less intelligent than than the salarians, and less organized and disciplined than the turians. If they try to seize power in the ME1 ending, the result is a galaxy with a lot more prejudice against them and brushfire wars breaking out everywhere (listen to the news on the Citadel).

The very first thing Humanity does is win a war against the local military powerhouse and do so in a fashion to make the other races shit themselves slightly and include them into the galactic community as quickly as possible.

The Codex goes on about how Humanity revolutionized space warfare that hasn't otherwise changed in thousands of years. Inventing ideas like Space Carriers to circumvent the dreadnaught limits and abusing VI drones and mobile infantry. Or how Humanity's military might is still only a tiny volunteer fraction of their overall population/resources.

Everyone bitches at us because we are moving up 'too fast', getting to greedy, to aggressive.


Then at the end of ME1, when all the other fleets are useless, it's up to human cavalry to save the fucking day.



The entire first game is about Humanity going "We are here bitches and we don't give a fuck if your bigger, strong, faster or smarter. Were humanity and we are more STUBBORN!"

Which is really, a pretty accurate representation of our species.

[Velorath]

Answers to 1 and 2 are simple. They're machines and their programming doesn't include "creativity."  How do you program spontaneity and imagination?  That's one of the biggest problems with AI in the ME universe. Even the Geth and EDI don't appear to have that.. they just act within their programming with minor variances.

Windows 7 isn't going to suddenly become an accounting software.  Why would intelligent machines spontaneously develop.. spontaneity?

Wouldn't the plan to harvest organic races every so often be a sign of trying to creatively solve a problem?  Certainly it wouldn't be the kind of plan you'd expect software to just come upon logically.

[tmp]

The entire first game is about Humanity going "We are here bitches and we don't give a fuck if your bigger, strong, faster or smarter. Were humanity and we are more STUBBORN!"

Which is really, a pretty accurate representation of our species.

I'd say it's not as much accurate representation, but rather a stereotype and the game narrative's willingness to handwave its own settings in order to justify human advancements. IIRC the game codex specifically notes turians are far more stubborn (in the sense they'd rather literally die than give up ground, or at least how their units don't break in combat etc) and i don't think humans on average are really that much more stubborn than say, krogans.

It's not unlike making the collective galaxy a bunch of idiots apparently unable to come up with any notable inventions or tactics for literally over thousand of years just so humans can show off those big brains of theirs, and be on relatively equal footing with species which got access to mass effect technologies centuries earlier. That is to say, mildly annoying.

[SurfD]

So, as someone who has not played ME3 yet, but may eventually get it as a bargin bin title some day just to finish the trilogy off, can someone tell me what exactly WAS the purpose behind the Reaper system wipe cycle?  Was it ever revealed exactly why the Reapers were harvesting us?

[Fordel]

The entire first game is about Humanity going "We are here bitches and we don't give a fuck if your bigger, strong, faster or smarter. Were humanity and we are more STUBBORN!"

Which is really, a pretty accurate representation of our species.

I'd say it's not as much accurate representation, but rather a stereotype and the game narrative's willingness to handwave its own settings in order to justify human advancements. IIRC the game codex specifically notes turians are far more stubborn (in the sense they'd rather literally die than give up ground, or at least how their units don't break in combat etc) and i don't think humans on average are really that much more stubborn than say, krogans.

It's not unlike making the collective galaxy a bunch of idiots apparently unable to come up with any notable inventions or tactics for literally over thousand of years just so humans can show off those big brains of theirs, and be on relatively equal footing with species which got access to mass effect technologies centuries earlier. That is to say, mildly annoying.

Well that's the entire point of the Mass Effect technology. NO ONE actually thought it up themselves, they just reversed engineered it from their local relay/cache.

[Merusk]

Answers to 1 and 2 are simple. They're machines and their programming doesn't include "creativity."  How do you program spontaneity and imagination?  That's one of the biggest problems with AI in the ME universe. Even the Geth and EDI don't appear to have that.. they just act within their programming with minor variances.

Windows 7 isn't going to suddenly become an accounting software.  Why would intelligent machines spontaneously develop.. spontaneity?

Wouldn't the plan to harvest organic races every so often be a sign of trying to creatively solve a problem?  Certainly it wouldn't be the kind of plan you'd expect software to just come upon logically.

You're making the assumption that the Reapers came upon that idea themselves and weren't programmed for exactly that purpose by the organic versions of themselves who were seeing their own extinction on the horizon. 

[tmp]

Well that's the entire point of the Mass Effect technology. NO ONE actually thought it up themselves, they just reversed engineered it from their local relay/cache.

I don't mean the technology itself, but rather the possible applications of it. Case in point -- the main gun on the ME1 Reaper also uses this technology. And i'm expected to believe that no one out of billions thought of using it to propel jet of molten metal rather than cooled down metal for thousand of years, until one Reaper got killed and the species of the universe got their collective appendages on such weapon. And then i'm expected to believe this stunning lack of imagination affects not only all fields of research but also unrelated areas like military tactics, medicine and whatnot... which is especially funny when at the same time the game gives you option to 'perform research' and 'invent/adapt technologies' which routinely double your performance, and more, effectively over course of weeks tops.

[eldaec]

So, the synthetic reapers just want to kill us so that we don't get killed by other synthetics. OK, I get that, but now what was the point of ME1 and 2 again?

ME2, surely the invasion was always going to provide much more human goo than they were ever going to get by sneaking away colonists?

As for ME1, I no longer get it at all, why is Sovereign shooting at the Citadel, why is he pro-geth, and what was the point of him showing up exactly?

[Stormwaltz]

The very first thing Humanity does is win a war against the local military powerhouse

By responding quickly and with force. The turians outnumbered them by thousands to one.

and do so in a fashion to make the other races shit themselves slightly and include them into the galactic community as quickly as possible.

They shit themselves because they realized, "Oh fuck, the turians are going to pound these yokels into the stone age, and we haven't even had a chance to talk to them yet." The turians only understand total war - complete commitment of all state resources until the enemy lies prostrate and offers unconditional surrender. The human counterattack, without our knowing it, had just provoked that level of threat response.

The Council intervened to save us, not the turians.

Or at least that was the way I left it. ME3 could spin it differently - in which case that would be canon, and I'd be talking out of my ass more than usual. :P

The Codex goes on about how Humanity revolutionized space warfare that hasn't otherwise changed in thousands of years. Inventing ideas like Space Carriers to circumvent the dreadnaught limits and abusing VI drones and mobile infantry. Or how Humanity's military might is still only a tiny volunteer fraction of their overall population/resources.

All true. But remember that their population and resources are roughly equal to those of the elcor. The problem is, if they mobilize there's real potential for a war of Krogan Rebellions level savagery. Neither the turians nor the humans know when to swallow their pride and walk away.

I think you're confusing something. The humans have no advantages of economy or biology. All they have is the hunger of youth. Council Space is complacent. They're wealthy beyond measure and untouchably powerful. They don't need to work for anything, they're coasting on the profits of their earlier investments. They've made it. The Alliance is like the Imperial Germany before WWI. "We'll do anything to share the prestige of our older neighbors, even if it means getting into a naval race we can't afford with the British and colonizing the crap islands in the Pacific that no one else wanted!"

Then at the end of ME1, when all the other fleets are useless, it's up to human cavalry to save the fucking day.

That's not quite accurate. The Council Fleet isn't useless - it's scattered. The Council peacekeeping fleets couldn't respond because they're out policing half the galaxy. It take time to organize and reorient for a counterattack. Meantime we only have a handfull of colonization clusters to defend, so we keep all our forces in a few big clumps. One of which was real close to the Citadel relay.