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

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, that's not obvious.  I figured having her help others would help her work out her own issues.  And at a time when the galaxy was going to shit, someone selfishly helping others.  Silly me.

It seriously scarred me when I heard the people discussing it.  Like look of horror on my face, pause for two minutes, type stuff.

[Ingmar]

It makes sense though. You're already aware by that point in the game that former Cerberus people are getting bad treatment by Cerberus.

[Lantyssa]

I didn't know she was giving her name out to everyone who asked!  Nor that Cerberus would be storming the Citadel!  If there was any time she had been safe, it should have been when the place was crawling with refugees.

[Sjofn]

Kelly was never the sharpest tool in the shed.

[Ratman_tf]

Just beat the game. What the holy fuck is going on here?

Terrible ending has made people post stupid shit.

[Margalis]

Where did Stomrwaltz even imply that criticizing his story was in any way criticizing Jews?  

I'm going to say when he rewrote criticism of his story into criticism of Jews.

People fighting to get their homes back is just not that outlandish a theme, either.

Of course not. That in itself is not implausible. But the fact that stuff like that can work or is vaguely similar to real life events doesn't mean it always works. The fact that Quarians were partially inspired by Jews doesn't mean that the story told in Mass Effect is the same as actual history and that questioning one is questioning the other.

"30 Minutes or Less" is based on real events, but I think it's perfectly fair to say that some of the movie rings false, that characters don't seem believable, etc. (And that's before getting into the fact that random everyday occurrences that actually happen in real life can ring false in narrative fiction) Mass Effect and 30 Minutes or Less are not documentaries. Being inspired by real events is interesting but has little to do with the verisimilitude of ME.

Edit: I'm not trying to say that Storm was all "you must be an anti-Semite if you don't like Mass Effect!"

[amiable]

I'm going to say when he rewrote criticism of his story into criticism of Jews.

Precisely where did he do that pray tell?  I'm not seeing it.  I'm seeing him explain the origins of his story being based on the Jewish diaspora, but he no where even implies that criticism of his story is criticism of Jews.  You all have gone wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy  of the deep end on this one.

Edit:  I'm not saying the story isn't bad (it is even possible to write a bad story about Jews), but saying that an author explaining his inspiration for a story has a historical parallel does not mean that if you criticize the story you are somehow criticizing the historical people it is based on.  I understand your precious fee-fees were hurt by the mass effect ending but "OMG he is saying we are anti-semites" is fucking retarded.  (Except maybe Kelly's implication that he can never side with the Quarians because they are based on the Jews, that is pretty anti-semetic Edit - my bad Jeff is pro-semetic!).

[Sjofn]

Edit: I'm not trying to say that Storm was all "you must be an anti-Semite if you don't like Mass Effect!"

Then you might want to rethink how you're saying what you're saying, because this is exactly what you're coming across as.


EDIT: And amiable, Jeff said he wouldn't be able to side with the geth now, not the quarians. :P

[Margalis]

I understand your precious fee-fees were hurt by the mass effect ending but...

Uh...come again?

Wait...am I some sort of disgruntled former fan who's heart was broken by the ending?

[amiable]

I understand your precious fee-fees were hurt by the mass effect ending but...

Uh...come again?

Wait...am I some sort of disgruntled former fan who's heart was broken by the ending?

I really can't think of any other explanation for your assertion that Stormwaltz was saying criticism of his writing was anti-semetic.

Edit:  Also how about responding to what i said instead of trying to take one phrase out of context to take the attention off of the point:  You accused stormwaltz of equating criticism of his work with anti-semitism.

[Margalis]

It's pretty clear you aren't actually reading this thread, which sort of kills any point in responding to you, but I suppose I will.

You think I am a Bioware fan who is upset about the ending. Strike 1.

You fail to see where Storm even implied that criticism of Jews and Quarians were similar, even though in his first post on the subject he literally took criticism of ME and struck out "Jews" for "Quarians" as if they were interchangeable. Strike 2. (That was the entire thrust of that post, all the historical comparison stuff came later)

You think I am accusing Storm of accusing someone else of anti-semitism when I explicitly said I wasn't. Strike 3.

What I "accused" Stormwaltz of is playing a clever rhetorical trick that makes it hard to criticize ME because it makes criticism of a fictional story look like criticism of a real group of historically oppressed people. That's very different from accusing people of anti-Semitism, something he clearly did not do.

If someone says "those Quarians are kind of dumb" and someone else rewrites that as "those Jews Quarians are kind of dumb" it makes further criticism a little awkward.

I'm not one to mince words, if I think Stormwaltz is accusing Jeff of anti-Semitism I'll just say that directly.

[rk47]

Man, fuck the space jews. 
Kai Leng Thessia fight. HORRIBLE.
Fucking weaboo ninja attempting to take three Prothean Particle Rifles in the face and succeeded simply because the script allowed him to.
I should've realized spamming grenade is meaningless cause really, Shepard is meant to fail in here.

Goddamit. Horrible forced plot.

[Mosesandstick]

Text

You're reaching. Jeff implied that the plot made no sense and was logically incoherent whilst the closest real life parallel and the inspiration for the taking back your homeworld part of the Quarian story is by all accounts also baffling and logically incoherent.

If you want to go out on a limb and state that he's doing it to deflect criticism then do so, but there's no evidence that is the reason why he brought them up unless mind-reading is one of your new talents.

[amiable]

text

There is an easier way to back track.  Just say:  "You know, I was wrong and I probably overreacted about the Jew thing."  Still pushing the point about Stormwaltz indicated to me you aren't there yet and still have serious reading comprehension problems.

[tmp]

Alternatively you can point out the analogy only works so far, because while our Earth is completely claimed by different countries the space jews in contrast are quite more free to establish a 'new israel', with the flag, anthem and everything else. Meaning the critique/rationality or lack thereof/motivations don't fully map between the fiction and inspiration source.

[Sir T]

I am proud to announce the results of testing on this topic.

[Margalis]

There is an easier way to back track.  Just say:  "You know, I was wrong and I probably overreacted about the Jew thing."

But I'm neither wrong nor backtracking.

Jeff implied that the plot made no sense and was logically incoherent whilst the closest real life parallel and the inspiration for the taking back your homeworld part of the Quarian story is by all accounts also baffling and logically incoherent.

This is such an nightmare of ambiguous grammar that even if I wanted to respond it would be impossible.

[Riggswolfe]

You fail to see where Storm even implied that criticism of Jews and Quarians were similar, even though in his first post on the subject he literally took criticism of ME and struck out "Jews" for "Quarians" as if they were interchangeable. Strike 2. (That was the entire thrust of that post, all the historical comparison stuff came later)

You're wrong. Sorry. He struck out the Jews because it was a post where he was explicitly saying he modeled some of the Quarian backstory after the Jewish Diaspora. The crossing out was intended only to make it extremely obvious  why he thinks it is "in character" for the Quarians to want their homeworld back so badly. For you to say he did it to make it harder for people to criticize the Quarian storyline is  and you need to be called on it. You're foaming at the mouth looking for an issue that doesn't exist and it's kind of silly to be honest. And it's not like what he did is a new technique. I've seen it tons of times on this very forum where someone is saying some group resembles another. For you to decide that Stormwaltz alone is doing it for some kind of armor against criticism is just silly.

[Mosesandstick]

This is such an nightmare of ambiguous grammar that even if I wanted to respond it would be impossible.

Jeff said that the plot made no sense and was logically incoherent, inclusive of the Quarian's journey to reclaim their homeworld. The closest real life parallel and inspiration is by all accounts also baffling and logically incoherent.

Keep the insults to yourself please.

[Ragnoros]

First Impressions: Stupid Miranda. WTF is she doing hanging around military headquarters. Goes into Squad screen. That's Ashley!  What have they done to you!?!

[Margalis]

Edit: Never mind, this has gone WAY far afield of anything relevant.

[Sir Fodder]

“Take care with the end as you do with the beginning.” – Lao-tzu

"Take care of the beginning and the end will take care of itself" -a whole bunch of idiots

"Take care of the beginning and the end, the middle will take care of itself" -Guitar Craft

[TheWalrus]

"Fuck it, we're tired." - Bioware

[Jeff Kelly]

Kelly was never the sharpest tool in the shed.

That's... probably half true but also mean

I'd also like to claim language barrier and cultural differences as my defense and I move for a mistrial  . After all Germans are not known for their sublety when it comes to critizising others (ask the rest of Europe) or well anything else really.

Look I'm angry about Mass Effect. I'm angry because the story waxes and wanes. It changes from being utterly brilliant to being absolutely inane and back again and for me most of the issues I have with the series and especially ME 3 could have been fixed easily if the team had just put a little more thought into it. It sticks out when a team that is capable of creating characters that you become so attached to that you grief when they die then turns to fumble pretty basic stuff.

The bad parts remind me of what could have easily been brilliant with a little more thought or a little more polish and as a German things that could be but are not perfect make me angry 

I also don't like that beloved pieces of pop culture so easily become sacrosanct and beyond criticism. ME has it's shortcomings after all.

I had time to think a little further about the real world inspiration for the Geth vs. Quarian story

For me hanging on to the memory of a lost homeland for generations didn't make sense (well it still doesn't really) because the Galaxy is vast and the Quarians could have probably settled somewhere else easily.

Stormwaltz's comparison of the ME 3 story to the diaspora and the intifada rang hollow to me because in my mind it belittled the struggle of both the Jewish people and the Palestinians (again the whole Jew thing is an awkward topic for us) especially since the Quarian side comes off as a petty and single-minded people.

Then I realized that this is exactly the kind of thing pretty much all of the people that live in exile do. Even more so when it is a forced exile and not willful emigration. They cling unto their cultural identity and their grudges or at least the shared memory of them. There are still a lot of people alive that were driven away from East Prussia or Bohemia after Germany lost the war and they are still angry about their homes and the possessions they lost. Some even lobby that the German authorities should reclaim their (supposed) estates and take back the ackowledgment of the current borders.

The first Generation Turks that came here in the fifties still cling to a memory of Turkey that ceased to exist a long time ago and are baffled when they return to their old homeland and can't recognize it anymore. People willfully label themselves "something-or-other"-Americans even though they have lived there for generations.

It is still a weird concept to me. To be fair though I belong to the 3rd generation born after the second world war and Germany has done a pretty great job to drive the concept of nationalism and the concept of there being a positive attitude towards a shared cultural identity out of everyone. So for me it's still hard to grasp why people cling on to something that inherently has no real meaning to me or most of my people.

That's a debate for poltics though.

[Teleku]

Just finished this a few days ago in time for the Diablo release.  I've tried to catch up with this thread, but am only half way.  Oh man, I wish I was there at the beginning to I could have taken part in the discussion, but that shits months old now, so oh well.

But yeah.  I am not amused.  Fucking Christ.

However, thanks to the reaction I've seen here and else where, plus the origin bullshit, I went ahead and pirated the game for my play through, and don't feel bad in the slightest now.  I'll probably buy it on discount someday when they release a steam version, but that's it.  What a god damn insult to fans.

[Kageru]

I'll consider it when it shows up on steam... and never is fine too.

I still really enjoy watching this Mass Effect 3 Ending video though because of what it says about story-telling and how to get it wrong.

[rk47]

I left my normandy parked outside cerberus, waiting for the turd ending while playing Binary Domain. Anytime now...   

[Falconeer]

As late as I can be, I finally finished the game. I won't go into the marketing bullshit. It's ridiculous how they sold the game for ages about having multiple endings when it turns out they are pretty much all the same. For that, they deserve public humiliation and it's offensive that they don't apologise about the lies.
But considering there's pretty much just one conclusion to the game, and without fiddling with details about consistency, what character does what, or why the pace or mood don't satisfy every or the majority of the customers, I'll put down my feelings about it:

I like it. I think it makes sense.

According to what we learned, organics build/built synthetics gazillions of years ago and eventually synthetics were about to wipe away all organics. That's why the "gods", or whatever is the unthinkable uber species the kid belongs to (which is probably not organic nor synthetic) had to intervene, to prevent organics from being the cause of their own extinction. Why do they care? It's beyond us and I am OK with that. Aside from organics and synthetics there could be so many entities we can't even imagine, and it's acceptable that we can not understand their motives and the likes. The opposite would be ridiculous to me. If you think about it, we might be as smart to them as an ant is to us. They simply are "a higher life form", for now.

So, since this incredibly more evolved form of life has been observing "organics" for a looooooooooooooooong time, at some point they realized that organics were about to vanish forever because something they created went out of hand: the synthetics. Since they want to preserve organics (the same way we try not to have endangered species go extinct, or maybe because they need organic to cure their swine flu, whatever) they thought of a solution, not necessary out of love. Maybe simply out of efficiency. A solution that includes meddling here and there and chopping self-destructive branches of the organic evolution in order to make sure they will keep existing while at the same time being manageable. Again, I can see parallelism in the way humanity have been making all the big decisions for EVERY other form of life on Earth. For a long time, humanity as been making life and death decisions for other humans too, based on highly debatable biological differences.

So yeah, they created their (higher life form) own synthetic mechanism that regulate organics and their (organics') rogue synthetics, their evolution, their ambitions, their self-destructive aspirations. Enter the Reapers. As evil and apocalyptic as they look, they are just following a program by "cleaning" the galaxy from what might kill it for good. They are an anti-virus. For all the billions living things the Reapers are going to kill it's obvious that there are many many more that will be untouched. "You bring this on yourself" says the kid. You can't reason by exceptions here: "oh but there's plenty of good humans/turians/ferengi that would never create a synthetic! we didn't start this!". It's irrelevant to the higher race, the same way we spray with pesticide everything that endangers our garden, or we torture every rat we need to test our new chemical products on, we don't ask questions about it. They are "lesser." Or the same way we kill cows for their meat, even though they don't endanger shit. We don't interview them first. Nor we try to see if they can communicate. They can't speak English, but I am pretty sure they can convey pretty well the feeling that they would prefer "to keep their own form" (to paraphrase Shepard's "I think we'd rather keep our own form") instead of becoming hamburgers/be ascended to Reaper form. We don't care.

So, Reapers are their tool created to make sure we organics, the cows, the pests, the mosquitos, the lesser species, will keep existing cause we are needed in the Universe-ecosystem but we won't make a mess, by killing ourselves or getting too smart maybe (and maybe one day exact revenge on them?). That's the "Chaos" he mentions and would happen if the Solution (Reapers = Reset cycle) wasn't applied.

The mass relays have been built with the Reapers and for the Reapers. The Reapers are their "format c:" solution, the reset button for their galaxy/experiment/harvestable sandbox. The mass relays are there SOLELY to help the Reapers do their job fast. The relays get used by "our" civilizations because they are space highways no matter what, but their purpose has been to be used for the final reset by the creators and just for that. Since they don't plan on resetting us anymore, the relays are not needed anymore. And it's better to destroy them anyway, and leave us to live with our own tech, no more "Higher species" tech.

Why they need these lifeforms might be connected to what Stormwaltz mentioned as one of the original ideas, these "gods", or let's just refer to them from now on as the Higher Species, have other problems and no matter how powerful or advanced they are, they can use other perspectives/angles/biological marvels that cannot just be created. The same way our advanced technology can learn stuff from micro-organisms or discovering things right when we thought we discovered pretty much all. Still, they don't even see whatever they do to us as killing us, they "help us ascend by storing our memories in Reaper form". Again, as ridiculous as it sound, that's not so different to how we treat "lesser species" in our real world, we just don't let them ascend or anything. But we certainly experiment, mutate them, torture them for what WE consider a greater good (ours).

Makes sense to me that way too to me. If you are experimenting with a microcellular life form in a lab, and wanted to study it and use it for different applications and needed for it to flourish and develop BUT WITHIN CERTAIN LIMITS, wouldn't you periodically make sure it's not getting out of hand, growing too much, taking over the lab and eventually destroy you or try to get revenge for a fate or an explanation they don't like? Not to mention it is not all that different to what happens to the Krogan with the genophage, or the Rachni. Good or evil are such relative concepts in the grand scheme of unthinkable races and lifeforms.

Also, I love the idea that everyone thinks the Crucible is a weapon, while it ends up acting more like a giant communicator, a thing that allows "us" to speak with the creators. And show them we can think out of the box, break the cycle, overcome expectations, surprise. So maybe, not create synthetics the next time or find ways not to obliterate ourselves. "The crucible is not firing!" - Yes, cause it's more a giant antenna to another universe than a gun. Loved it.

Think of these as if we, all the organics of the ME Universe were mosquitos, and this big huge unthinkable space race the kid belongs to were us, 21st century humans. Then one day after centuries of methodically killing them and trying to keep their numbers at bay in certain areas (but without trying to erase them from existence, cause that would be wrong), one mosquito finds a way to _speak_ to us and explains their reasons and asks for understanding...

You know, I liked the ending of the Mass Effect saga. It's very Star Trek to me, it reminds me of some awesome sci-fi short stories from the 50s/60s, like Pohl's "Tunnel under the world" or Brown's "Sentry". And I think it's a wonderful take on the immensity of the Universe, far beyond the already mindboggling reach of one galaxy, and how irrelevant "we" humans are. While at the same time we consider exploitable anything that is a) different enough - b) weak enough - c) doesn't speak our language - d) cannot be empathised with.

Yes, the horrible, annoying god-kid is us. Humanity.

And if you need closure to this long-winded tirade, I have a link for you.



PS: Forgive me if this has all been written before. I am not gonna read 30+ pages of old spoilers.

[Sir T]

You're broken, Falc.

[Ingmar]

I'm not going to argue any of that meta-whatnot with you Falc; my issue with the ending is that up until that point Mass Effect really isn't about that stuff. It is a character story, and at the end they forgot about the characters.

I mean yes, that stuff is the backdrop to the character stuff. But that was never the primary thing, at least not for me.

[Zane0]

I find this a hilarious conversation because the plot is basically Star Control 3's - which is not a good game but probably has better writing! Play it if you don't believe me.

There were certainly no paroxysms over the 1998 fmv's which covered the same thematic ground.

[PalmTrees]

The extended cut ending will be available as a free dlc on the 26th. http://blog.bioware.com/2012/06/22/mass-effect-3-extended-cut-2/

here's a snippet:

Does the Extended Cut change the endings?

    The Extended Cut is an expansion of the original endings to Mass Effect 3. It does not fundamentally change the endings, but rather it expands on the meaning of the original endings, and reveals greater detail on the impact of player decisions.

What save game should I load to play the Extended Cut?

    [SPOILERS] To experience the Extended Cut, load a save game from before the attack on the Cerberus Base and play through to the end of the game. The Extended Cut endings will differ depending on choices made throughout the Mass Effect series, so multiple playthroughs with a variety of different decisions will be required to experience the variety of possibilities offered by the new content.

Don't know if I give enough of a damn to actually redo any fights. How can I face Marauder Shields again, knowing what I know now? I'll probably youtube this one.

[Rokal]

[SPOILERS] To experience the Extended Cut, load a save game from before the attack on the Cerberus Base and play through to the end of the game. The Extended Cut endings will differ depending on choices made throughout the Mass Effect series, so multiple playthroughs with a variety of different decisions will be required to experience the variety of possibilities offered by the new content.

I'll probably just reload my save right before beaming up to the crucible and see what changes. I doubt I have a save significantly older than that and there's no way I'm replaying through the entire game just for this.

Edit: Galactic readiness will also be at 50% for everyone if you stopped playing months ago. Hope you feel like playing some multiplayer.

[Miasma]

I made all my saves after the cerberus base because that seems to be when they lock in the multiplayer percentage.  That good forward planning on my part is pointless if I have to start before the cerberus base.  Most of my life-in-genral good forward planning seems to wind up being worthless, I should give up.

[Pezzle]

I cannot bring myself to reinstall and suffer through this game for enhanced content.  Putting sprinkles on shit does not make it delicious.