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

[Goreschach]

you'll see people routinely referencing on the intrawebs Disney stuff, South Park, Spongebob, Batman animation, some random anime series/movie or whatever else they happen to like. I have yet to see someone snap in response that it's fucking shameful, annoying, stupid and obnoxious to bring any of those up, when it happens.

True, but none of those will give you the gay.




Well, maybe Spongebob.

[Teleku]

Is this the magical DLC that's suppose 'enhance' the ending?

[Ingmar]

No, that hit like 2 months ago.

[Teleku]

Oh, shows how much I've been paying attention!  (been distracted)

I'll be lazy rather than go back and read:  What was the general consensus on it?

[Kail]

I'll be lazy rather than go back and read:  What was the general consensus on it?

I think, roughly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NNUImNL9Ok&feature=plcp

[Ingmar]

I don't think it fixes it, in the sense that the sort of central concept of the spacechild thing is dumb, but it takes the edge off to a point where I go "OK fine." There's a lot more closure on other characters, what actually happens to the universe, etc.

[Sjofn]

I think that if it had been released with the enhanced endings, people wouldn't have raged quite so hard about the shitty ending. The spacekid is still dumb, synthesis is still stupid wankery, but you get a much better sense of closure, which was one of my biggest issues with the ending, so it went from "complete shit" to "sort of dumb, but whatever."

[Ratman_tf]

I think that if it had been released with the enhanced endings, people wouldn't have raged quite so hard about the shitty ending. The spacekid is still dumb, synthesis is still stupid wankery, but you get a much better sense of closure, which was one of my biggest issues with the ending, so it went from "complete shit" to "sort of dumb, but whatever."

I think it's a vicious circle. The mentality that put out the dumb ending didn't want any closure, (see: The gilligan's island part of the original ending) so they wouldn't have launched with the enhanced endings even if they could.

[Stormwaltz]

My take was, "Nothing legitimate to complain about in Mass Effect this week, let's bitch about pony fanart."

Tempest in a thimble.

[Shrike]

I think that if it had been released with the enhanced endings, people wouldn't have raged quite so hard about the shitty ending. The spacekid is still dumb, synthesis is still stupid wankery, but you get a much better sense of closure...

Which, I think, sums it up pretty well. That was basically my feelings about the whole thing.

The main thing I wanted from the last game was the "fuck yeah!" feeling you got at the end of ME2 (maybe with a touch of meloncholy like ME, since it was all over at this point).

A pre-EC high EMS destroy ending got you some of that, and a post-EC high EMS destory ending definately got you that. I can ignore the other weirdness easily enough.

[Venkman]

Finally finished the game. Been avoiding this thread. Originally I was gonna finish but then all the nerdrage about the endings started going around, so I got myself stalled in other games, and the ME multiplayer (which is still hella fun). Then they announced the fixed-endings DLC, but by that point I was already long gone elsewhere. Between games now I got myself co-op'd back up to 100% readiness and spent the no-more-than-45 minutes doing what I coulda done months ago.

I'm so late to the party two whole cycles of ending critiques have passed

Just for future civilizations to ponder though:

I didn't experience the original endings, so I can't compare the extended ones. I didn't hate them though. The two gauling pieces though:

• Goddamn stupid genius-kid trope again. I've hated that since Galactica 1980. I'd have taken that other really abused device of the wizened old Gandalf-knockoff over the stupid kid.
  
• There was no sense of any real what-happened-next. A bunch of vague references to rebuilding, but nothing about all of the unfinished business (like, it'd have been nice to see the much-telegraphed Krogan uprising within the the Destroy or Control endings)
   
  

Minor quibles include the entire ending experience ignoring the two most critical parts of the game itself which were all your character upgrades and your entire crew, or that the Reaper invasion is a horribly inefficient way to wipe out a species (coulda just destroyed the Relays and let each local cluster self-annihilate through civil or organic/synthetic war).

But, the ending choices worked for me.

• It was established early on that nobody knew what the Crucible would do, just that it should be built because previous cycles tried to. I didn't mind that any more than The Machine from Contact, plus the layer of urgency added here. I disagree with TUN's analysis of the Catalyst (liked his video though).
• The "this has happened before" had been established early in ME1 and repeated quite often, cemented with the Prothean guy.
• The three options were really the only options. The fourth was just  a yea-whatevs ending that nobody would rightly choose after having gone through three games of trying to save the galaxy. And the super-specific he's-still-alive Destroy ending you'd only ever see if you specifically played to it.
• You being asked to make the choice was established the moment you hit the Beacon in 1.
• Synthetics delegating the choice to organics didn't bother me either. That's just Asimovian roots (Zeroeth Law coupled with subservience to the creators, Daneel's ask at the end of Foundation and Earth). Something else I disagreed with from TUN's video.

I went synthesis and really dug that ending because it had the finality of ending the cycles and improving life (hard to imagine how they'd evolve from there but, eh, that's another game).

Control didn't do it for me because whose to say Sheperd has any long term control, or doesn't go all God-complex on everyone. Plus you're still left with all the civil strife between syntethics and organics that gave rise to the cycles in the first place, Control just takes away one cause for universal destruction.

Destroy didn't work for me for two reasons: Roboticide sorta felt racist to me (basically saying sentient AI didn't have the same rights as organics, which my character wouldn't feel after having uplifted the Geth). But also it was a temporary fix. A few generations later when the species no longer had emotional attachment to the war, they'd create synthetics again and probably still kill themselves in civil war.

The I don't-care ending was just dumb. But it was also dumb because they retained the Stargazer ending. Sure hope for a new cycle to win. But the I don't-care ending deserved a Reapers-all-the-way-down meta-ending.

That was too many words for a post long since obsolete. But eh, I got it out

Now if I can play and get bored of GW2 from early start through 28th, I'll check out Leviathen :)

[Lantyssa]

I'm pretty sure the I-don't-care ending was a poke at the fan uproar.

I agree with you on the Destroy and Synthesis endings as far as personal feeling.  After going through three games I can't really see letting the Reapers live, but I wasn't exactly keen on wiping out all synthetic life.  I just wanted the Reapers gone.

[Venkman]

I was expecting a "just destroy the Reapers" option, but in retrospect I guess it makes sense. The Reapers exist because of the inevitable conflict between synthetic and organic. They don't see an existence that doesn't end in that war. And they don't see themselves as being wrong. So they don't have whole "what have we done?!" emo thing that compels them to even consider mass suicide. They have the:

• Destroy: eh, you're right, organics win, all synthetics must therefore suck and should go away.
• Control: eh, you're right, organics are better, we never envisioned that and are therefore too flawed to continue self-governing. Lead us oh great one.
• Synthesis: you might be right, but we doubt it, and you do too, so let's stop pretending synthetics that augment you won't eventually turn on you and make the evolutionary leap together.
  
• Don't choose: we convinced you we're right and this cycle is still too stupid to let live (even though this f-u ending was tacked on, I can make it work )

I am curious if they'll ever try and shoehorn in a ME4. Two of the four endings have a finality it's hard to build on, and I don't how many ME3 purchasers would buy a "meanwhile in another part|a different galaxy at the same time" sequel.

I read somewhere the co-op multiplayer was originally intended to be a standalone game? True?

[Sjofn]

Synthesis is way too neat a package for me to swallow (plus I think transhumanism is inherently silly), although I did pick that in my first playthrough as my lady Shepard, as it seemed the thing she'd pick. However, I prefer destroy as my "canon" ending (which I picked on my second playthrough, a MANSHEP) not because I think synthetics suck, but because that was what I spent all this time working towards, so sorry, EDI and the geth, I promise MANSHEP felt really bad about it, but I'm blowing these assholes up. I don't think organics and synthetics are destined to fight and destroy organics in the process (I find the reasoning given for that pretty terrible, frankly), but I also don't want to force the next alleged "evolution," plus the whole YAY DIVERSITY message throughout 99% of the game gets kinda ruined when you melt yourself down to make everyone the same. So fuck you, Reapers! And fuck you, Starkid!


Plus it's the only ending where my Shepard lives. 

[Lantyssa]

Yeah.  That was my reasoning.  When it's between two stupid endings with neither solution being what I'd pick when I have Deus Ex Machina powers, it's "Fuck you, Reapers".

[Venkman]

Heh yea. I just took it as a foregone conclusion that the cycles existed due to the recurring inevitable conflict. They could just as easily retcon (or surprise reveal) that the real reason is because the Reapers lost the first organic/synthetic conflict and have been forestalling all future ones so that the synthetics don't lose again. History's ultimate avenger 

Synthesis smacked of a typical Peter F Hamilton ending. I love the worlds he creates, and he's good on the narrative side. But his endings seem to either be "it didn't really happen" or "bad guys get what they want but then go away forever". Synthesis felt like that to a degree. Uncounted eons of Reapers wiping out all life, but lets merge with them and then we'll all be happy.

But that's only after overthinking it. In the moment within the context of the three games and DLCs, it made sense at the time to go  all "selectively forgetting the past, putting aside our differences, and aligning our core competencies" 

[Riggswolfe]

Synthesis is way too neat a package for me to swallow (plus I think transhumanism is inherently silly), although I did pick that in my first playthrough as my lady Shepard, as it seemed the thing she'd pick. However, I prefer destroy as my "canon" ending (which I picked on my second playthrough, a MANSHEP) not because I think synthetics suck, but because that was what I spent all this time working towards, so sorry, EDI and the geth, I promise MANSHEP felt really bad about it, but I'm blowing these assholes up. I don't think organics and synthetics are destined to fight and destroy organics in the process (I find the reasoning given for that pretty terrible, frankly), but I also don't want to force the next alleged "evolution," plus the whole YAY DIVERSITY message throughout 99% of the game gets kinda ruined when you melt yourself down to make everyone the same. So fuck you, Reapers! And fuck you, Starkid!


Plus it's the only ending where my Shepard lives. 

You summed up pretty well why I chose destroy. I felt guilty as hell about Edi and the Geth but at the end of the day I'd just spent hours of my life with one goal: Stop the Reapers. Synthesis also felt like me forcing a choice on the entire galaxy and on a paragon  that just felt wrong to me. I'll admit I did Synthesis once and it was, frankly, the happy unicorns with rainbows ending but it just didn't feel right.

So, yeah. Fuck you Reapers. Fuck you Star kid. Even if AI rises up again someday it won't be any of you fuckers because I destroyed you all AND lived to tell about it. I do imagine my Shepard, despite being paragon, going "What, it killed Edi and the Geth too? Damn, wish I'd known that was going to happen."

[Sjofn]

The new DLC is out, by the way, and I played it. It's not particularly exciting, and I think for most people, ten dollars is too steep (I think it's a little too much for what it was, and I am crazy). There are some new weapons and mods in it, if that interests people. None of the fighting sequences are overly long, which I liked, as sometimes they go a little overboard on those in their DLCs, probably because those are easy filler. All your squadmates have things to say during the missions (although not a lot ... although Kaidan was definitely unhappy about an Extremely Stupid thing Shepard decided to do towards the end in a way that I thiiiiink was because he was my Shepard's snugglebunny). The story is fine, but given I didn't really care where the Reapers came from in the first place, it didn't excite me much.

[Minvaren]

So, I just finished this after buying it for $17 - and I got my money's worth, I think.

- Holy fuck, the end pulled a giant KotOR2.
- Were the endings WORSE before the extended cut?  Were they on drugs?
- Kai Leng fight, SUPER ANNOYING.
- Was there any way to save DatAss Miranda?
- Geth/Quarian decision was NOT explained well enough beforehand.
- Was this game short, or was it short?
- Picked Synthesis ending...  Meh...
- Thane dying was 
- Retconning (Die by Reapers so you don't die by synthetics!  Er, wait...) destroyed the franchise.

Think that's about it.

[Ratman_tf]

- Were the endings WORSE before the extended cut?  Were they on drugs?

Yep, and bets are still open.

- Was there any way to save DatAss Miranda?

She lived in my playthrough. I don't remember the exact steps, but I'm sure they're on the net somewhere.

[Fabricated]

Yeah, I'm waiting for the "Game of the Year" edition with all the DLC before I plunk down any cash for ME3. I might even wait for that version to go on sale.

[cironian]

- Retconning (Die by Reapers so you don't die by synthetics!  Er, wait...) destroyed the franchise.

I interpreted spacekid as just another crazy AI who got designed with a difficult task and chose the HAL9000 solution to the problem, since killing all advanced races technically fulfilled its programming. That way, the reapers don't have to be an objectively good thing by any measure, just something that makes sense in the skewed system of values spacekid was built with.

At least, that's my take. Works fine if you just take what the damn thing says as yet another subjective opinion instead of the absolute truth.

[Sjofn]

- Was this game short, or was it short?

I didn't think it was short, no. It was about the right length for me, anyway.

Miranda can live, as was mentioned. She lived in my playthrough too. And cironian, I dunno if you played the Leviathan DLC, but that left me with the impression that's pretty much what the starkid's deal is.

[Maledict]

Unfortunately leviathon adds as much stupidity to the series as it explains. God like creatures who create an AI to fix the problem of lesser races always creating AIs to fix their problems and then killing them is a really stupid, stupid explanation.

[Stormwaltz]

I can't help but think the ending would have been just fine if they'd ended it right before Shepard got taken up to heaven took the elevator to space kid. I know some of the story behind it now (only a bit, and no, I can't talk about it), but have this strange feeling someone said, "This ending needs big decision. Something that will affect the future of the entire galaxy! Add that in, plz."

[Ingmar]

Well, I don't know about 'just fine' but the released ending would have been at least better if they'd cut it right where you and Anderson are staring out the window at the fight, yes. There would still be a massive, massive issue about closure for the characters you're invested in, though. The new ending somewhat fixes that which was to me the much bigger flaw with the ending, not the space kid sci-fi Reaper wank, that stuff is dumb but if the game hadn't failed to explain anything about the #1 reason that the game was worth playing (the characters) then I wouldn't really have cared that much.

[Ratman_tf]

I can't help but think the ending would have been just fine if they'd ended it right before Shepard got taken up to heaven took the elevator to space kid.

There's a fan edit on youtube that does just that. I think the game needs a final boss, because it's a goddamn video game, not a movie, but otherwise, it would remove a lot of the stupid.

I know some of the story behind it now (only a bit, and no, I can't talk about it), but have this strange feeling someone said, "This ending needs big decision. Something that will affect the future of the entire galaxy! Add that in, plz."

Tease!  

[Sjofn]

Well, I don't know about 'just fine' but the released ending would have been at least better if they'd cut it right where you and Anderson are staring out the window at the fight, yes. There would still be a massive, massive issue about closure for the characters you're invested in, though.

Mm, yes and no. I had a good feeling of closure with the characters due to the final goodbyes in London. I had a good sense of what they all wanted to do after this was all over, and at that point had no real reason to think they wouldn't be able to do that, assuming we all survived. Then the stupid original ending happened, throwing all of that shit right out the window.

[Ingmar]

That was all before the HARBINGER MELT YOUR PARTY ray though so I think the feeling of 'uh, did I just get everyone killed' would still be there.

[Sjofn]

Well, that is where we differ. I had assumed I just got Garrus and Kaidan killed (whoops) but did not think to myself "oh god what about everyone else?!" until I saw the relays blow up.

[Goreschach]

I had been under the assumption that you'd come to find out that the crucible was actually a kind of galactic WMD. This would lead you to discover that the reapers were originally created as the only certain way of preventing any species from advancing to the point where they could build a crucible and destroy the galaxy.

But that would have made sense.

[rk47]

That'd be great.
It's gonna hurt the Paragons like hell, while the Renegades go 'If it means, taking all of us down to defeat the Reapers, so be it!'

I'm all for that.
Renegades have been living without a care for consequences of their actions - the game continues to fellate them for being awesome. Let's see how they deal with this.

[Maledict]

Free multi-player pack next week includes:

 - new enemy faction, the Collectors
 - new character classes, including a Turian with a jetpack
 - new collector weapons and gear
 - new hazard mode for existing maps that adds swarms / lightning / acid etc
 - whole new ranking and challenges database that unlocks cosmetic customisation options for your account

Full preview is at :

http://blog.bioware.com/2012/10/04/mass-effect-3-retaliation-multiplayer-dlc/

The single player game was ruined by the ending for me, but despite all my mocking and dislike beforehand the multiplayer has turned out to be one of the best games I've played in years.

[kaid]

I would concur while the ending of me3 was a bit of a let down 95 percent of the single player game was truly epic and I am pretty shocked at how well supported and how fun the multiplayer turned out to be. Pretty amazing longevity on what I expected initially to be a throwaway add on to the game.

[Stormwaltz]

It wasn't *exactly* a throw away - apparently at some point they had a team in Montreal developing an ME team-based shooter. It got canned as an independent title, but the work at least informed ME3's multiplayer.