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

[Nayr]

That was always my assumption, that they were talking about the same place.

Explains why the Reaper Conduit in ME3 is important enough for them to send Harbinger to defend. It may be the only entrance into the place.

Though if that's the case, it doesn't bode well for Commander Shepard in the High EMS destroy ending. Being trapped in an unreachable part of the Citadel while critically injured.(Natural injures from Harbinger and the Marauder, and the pipe explosion, then the damage to his implants incurred by the anti-technology pulse that the Citadel fires off.)

[Ingmar]

There's no particular conclusion that one can draw as to where Shepard is when the rubble twitches. Insufficient evidence.

[Sjofn]

Still better off than s/he is in the green ending, regardless. 

[Lantyssa]

A previously inaccessible location doesn't mean much when half the structure has been blown away.

[Nayr]

Another thing I have to wonder is who wrote Ashley in ME3. I know Stormwaltz/L'Etoile wrote her for ME1 and I presume ME2 as well.

But character-wise, she's almost insufferable in ME3. For the first half of the game she is completely unreasonable over the whole Cerberus thing. On Mars she questions my loyalties while I'm killing Cerberus troops in droves and stealing data from the Illusive Man to give to the Alliance. Then in the hospital, she acts like she doesn't believe me when I say I cut all ties with them. Then in the Cerberus Coup, she ends up defending Udina, the real traitor, and thinks that I'm helping Cerberus. Even in her romance, suspicion and disbelief is always there.

Kaidan acts the same way at first, but he cools down after the android bashes his head into the shuttle. He's not half as bad.

[Fabricated]

I avoided the problem by killing her in ME1 since she was an unlikable xenophobic bitch I didn't feel like curing.

[rk47]

I couldn't avoid that problem in ME1.
It's vagina vs man with a vagina.
Vagina wins.

[Fabricated]

Kaiden was more stoic and boring than womanly. Ashley seemed like a strong female character for like 15 minutes then I started talking to her and boom instantly stuck on the ship forever until I could pawn her off to the god of plot twists.

[Nayr]

Kaiden was more stoic and boring than womanly. Ashley seemed like a strong female character for like 15 minutes then I started talking to her and boom instantly stuck on the ship forever until I could pawn her off to the god of plot twists.

Kaidan didn't seem womanly to me. Although it was a little creepy when he showed his bisexual side to me in ME3 during a bro-moment.

Which begs the question. If they made Kaidan go both ways in ME3, why not Ashley? At this rate, the male Shepard gets more romances than female.

Male Shep: Ashley, Liara, Miranda, Jack, Tali, Kelly, Steve, Kaidan, and Allers. That's 9.

Female Shep: Kaidan, Liara, Jacob(he cheats,) Thane(he dies,) Garrus, Kelly, Traynor, and Allers. That's only eight, and two of them cannot resume romance due to circumstances.

[rk47]

Because bioware thinks lesbians don't push the envelope as much as a dude coming out of the closet after years of not showing any signs of being gay.
Must be that L2 implants.

[Sjofn]

If you think Kaidan didn't show flashes of being into ManShep prior to ME3, you weren't paying attention.

[tmp]

Which begs the question. If they made Kaidan go both ways in ME3, why not Ashley?

Because ME already had a woman who'd go both ways (Liara) since the first game.

[rk47]

There's also that lesbian PA on the ship :X

[Nayr]

Which begs the question. If they made Kaidan go both ways in ME3, why not Ashley?

Because ME already had a woman who'd go both ways (Liara) since the first game.

Well that's not quite the same. Asari are mono-gendered. They don't see much of a distinction between male and female. They could reproduce with any organic being.

[Merusk]

Lesbianism is cool and awesome. Gay is icky.

Anytime you see this dichotomy when it comes to same-sex pairings it really doesn't go any deeper than that.

If you think Kaidan didn't show flashes of being into ManShep prior to ME3, you weren't paying attention.

Agreed, I got a bit of the vibe from him on my manshep in ME1.  To the point I was expecting an, "I don't like you *that way*" dialogue.

[Nayr]

Lesbianism is cool and awesome. Gay is icky.

Anytime you see this dichotomy when it comes to same-sex pairings it really doesn't go any deeper than that.

If you think Kaidan didn't show flashes of being into ManShep prior to ME3, you weren't paying attention.

Agreed, I got a bit of the vibe from him on my manshep in ME1.  To the point I was expecting an, "I don't like you *that way*" dialogue.

I don't mind that Kaidan feels that way for my Shepard, cause my Shepard is awesome, it's not Kaidan's fault that he's interested. :p

But it's sad that he's alone when Shep doesn't go for him. You can tell the guy has low self esteem.

They should have gone a little further with the in-game romances. Like how Garrus and Tali get together if Shepard never romanced either of them, and how Ken and Gabby can discover their love for one another. Other characters should be able to find a love connection if the parameters are right.

Potential Pairings:

Kaidan + Liara, Steve Cortez, Tali(if Garrus died in ME2,) or Dr. Michel(I could see a Florence Nightingale thing between them)
Liara + Sam Traynor or James Vega
Ashley + James Vega
Dr Chakwas + Engineer Adams
James Vega + Dr Michel
Garrus + Dr Michel(If Tali died in ME2/ME3, it would be a good pairing given their history)

Lot of fun to be had.

[Lantyssa]

Which begs the question. If they made Kaidan go both ways in ME3, why not Ashley? At this rate, the male Shepard gets more romances than female.

They expect more men are playing the ME series.  They provide women some options, but a trend of Bioware games is that many of them are... iffy.

Despite all my "moar gay" protests, I've been involved with Kelly twice, and Liara once on an abandoned play through.  (Kaiden also got some love, but then he heroically died.  Oops.)  Traynor I never got involved with because the set-up was terrible and that apparently meant I missed my chance.

[Jeff Kelly]

Well since gaming still is predominantly male demonated this is not really a surprise.

Asari may be mono-gendered, apart from the tentacle hair though they clearly look like women and behave like pretty slutty ones too.

So hot girl on girl action which - if the reaction of the hardcore fandom is any indication - is exactly what is wanted (The amount of 'shipping going on about Liara is downright scary).

A lot of my guild friends played female blood elves in WoW because: 'if I have to look at my avatar's butt for most of the day it might as well be a hot female one'.

So I had to smile a little bit when one of the Bioware people said in an interview 'they don't really understand why Femshep is so popular'. It's a customisible female avatar with Jennifer Hale's awesome voice that can have hot girl on girl action, what don't you get there?

What's sad is that nobody said anything about the 'sexed up' and clearly quite exploitative lesbian 'romances' (or portrayal of females in general) or the date-rapey actions of douche-shep yet there was an epic shitstorm when Bioware announced a single gay (as in man on man) character for ME3.

Bioware gays up ME3 was one of the more harmless things they said.

That being said I disliked all three romance options in ME 1, you had the brooding and slightly whimpy emo, the borderline racist hypocrite with the persecution complex and the naive and barely legal teenager with a severe case of hero worship.

ME2 gave you the genetically modified narcissist with daddy issues, the bi-polar abuse victim and the sex-addicted personal assistant too eager to please (and who seems to work as a stripper on weekends to prop up the Alliance salary). Oh and also Jacob the man without a personality.

Romancing any of them seemed to be exploiting their character flaws and weaknesses and felt a little icky.

[Jeff Kelly]

Then you have the constant and inappropriate sexual innuendo with 'In your culture I would be equal to a 15 year old ' Tali. Where the 'I won't have sex with you now but as soon as you're legal' thing is only thinly veiled.

Oh and also the 'on a real military ship I'd be courtmartialed' relationship option with Traynor.

Garrus seems like the only one you could go for without expecting Chris Hansen to show up at any moment or being arested for fraternisation or statutory rape.

[Nayr]

Asari promiscuity is a big misconception though(as per the codex.) Slut implies they sleep with lots of people casually. But in most cases, Asari look for a connection to someone and do practice monogamy(as per Liara.)

Few tidbits.

- Liara is 106 years old in ME1. Tali is 23 in ME2. Shepard is 29 in ME1 and 31-32 in the rest of the games. That's hardly being barely legal. And some Quarians never come back from their pilgrimage, "adulthood" in their society only matters if you live on the fleet.

- Kaidan was designed to appeal to females. And broodiness/emo is something they find hot.

- Ashley can be talked out of her racism by pointing out to her that it was humans who persecuted her grandfather, not aliens.

- You never actually sleep with Kelly in ME2. She's also never worked for the Alliance, and Cerberus does pay their operatives well. Not to mention Kelly is a psychologist, if anything, she's working you, not the other way around.

- Jack's relationship goes two different ways. You're only exploiting her character flaw if you have the one night stand, where she'll just dismiss you as just like everybody else who has used her. Refusing her initially and holding out for an actual relationship is psychologically beneficial to her. It helps to heal her character because she finally opens up about how hurt she was.

- Narcissism is described as a person only being able to have feelings for himself/herself(Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection.) Miranda is more self-hating than self-loving, and the real narcissist is her father, who created her practically as a clone of himself, albeit with a vagina. As it is, I see nothing wrong with Shepard showing her that there is more about her to love than her father's twisted science. But technically, Miranda was engineered from nothing a Y chromosome and some random female traits, so she may genetically be a man(women are XX, men are XY.) Let the mind-fucking begin!

- Going by how Jeff Kelly put down other characters' personalities in regard to romance, Jacob's actually the most well adjusted. Least amount of baggage.

Also these characters are the way they are because it makes their romance paths different. It'd be pretty boring if Shepard just said "Go to the Normandy. We'll bang, okay?" and ensue softcore loving. The funny thing being Mark Meer actually said that line once.

[Jeff Kelly]

I didn't want to start a discussion about ME canon. Just observations about how I feel it is presented in game.

[Ceryse]

with Jennifer Hale's awesome voice

This right there is why I did most of my playthroughs in the series as a femshep. The difference in voice acting quality is amazing between femshep and maleshep. I can't think of a single instance where maleshep had a better moment because of voice acting, not one.

As far as romances went.. I think the only romance that I wanted, but couldn't do, was the femshep + Samara one. Most other options were incredibly shallow or flawed, but I always liked Samara's character. I wasn't generally into the romance aspect of the game, though, for obvious reasons (though still did a couple of them for sheer variety on playthroughs) and was more disappointed in the general amount of actual character development in the series, romantic or otherwise.

[Merusk]

I didn't want to start a discussion about ME canon. Just observations about how I feel it is presented in game.

You aren't alone in your observations as it's been discussed before. Lorenerding about it won't change those perceptions.

[Ingmar]

I didn't want to start a discussion about ME canon. Just observations about how I feel it is presented in game.

You aren't alone in your observations as it's been discussed before. Lorenerding about it won't change those perceptions.

Yeah the lore stuff is all there simply to justify it. For me it's the biggest eyeroller in the trilogy and the most obvious sign of the difference in makeup of the writing teams of the ME games vs. the DA ones. The fact that it took them until game 3 to throw the gay dudes a bone says to me clearly that the Liara romance (the Asari in general, really) is there to titillate straight dudes, not to provide any kind of gay perspective or inclusion.

EDIT: I do think they did a good job in 2-3 making the Asari into something more than they were in 1. But boy, they don't really get off to a good start.

[Jeff Kelly]

A little bit yeah but you still see a lot of scantily clad Asari on stripper poles in 2 and 3.

My favourite character and the one I would have liked to spend more time with in game was the Asari matriarch bartender/Liara's parent.

Wry humor, foul-mouthed and has your back in a barfight and doesn't take shit from nobody.

[Nayr]

A little bit yeah but you still see a lot of scantily clad Asari on stripper poles in 2 and 3.

My favourite character and the one I would have liked to spend more time with in game was the Asari matriarch bartender/Liara's parent.

Wry humor, foul-mouthed and has your back in a barfight and doesn't take shit from nobody.

Strippers make a lot of money in tips. And being a mercenary does as well. Both things that a lot of young asari do.

Probably more about money than anything. Asari live for a thousand years, and they have roughly 250 years before they hit the Matron stage when they settle down and start families. That's a lot of time to save tips and bounties.

Fun Fact: Aria T'Loak was just a stripper in Afterlife when she started out on Omega. She eventually stole ownership of the club and then established herself as a major player. And then her disagreement with Patriarch happened and she crushed his ass. Now she's the Pirate Queen, de facto ruler of the unofficial capital of the Terminus systems.

And yeah, Matriarch Aethyta kicks ass. Also I wanna see Liara's half-sisters who are part Hanar. "Well I'm not human, am I? Anthropocentric bag of dicks."

Claudia Black does awesome in that role. And sounds nothing like Morrigan and Admiral Xen.

[Ingmar]

It's not really going to be a discussable issue with you if you intentionally limit yourself to the excuses that the writers built into the lore.

[Nayr]

It's not really going to be a discussable issue with you if you intentionally limit yourself to the excuses that the writers built into the lore.

Well assuming they choose those career paths for money is just as much outside of the lore as assuming they do it because they're whores.

Money makes a lot more sense practically speaking. Save their money through the entirety of their Maiden stage and an Asari could probably have a nice little nest egg to get them and their daughters through the Matron and Matriarch years. Their bondmates usually don't live half as long as they do unless they marry another Asari or a Krogan, so they don't exactly scream "longtime provider."

[Sjofn]

The fact that it took them until game 3 to throw the gay dudes a bone...

lol

I am twelve. 

[Sjofn]

I can't think of a single instance where maleshep had a better moment because of voice acting, not one.

"This shop discriminates against the poor!" in ME2. ManShep owns the shit out of that line, FemShep just sounds sort of bored. Also, any romance lines. Jennifer Hale is a talented woman, but she goes into creepy cougar mode whenever she's supposed to be flirting with someone and it is gross. Meer just sounds sort of condescending.

[Ingmar]

I like Jennifer Hale a lot in general, but I'll be honest, I don't find anything especially special about her VA in the ME series.

[Fabricated]

I like Jennifer Hale a lot in general, but I'll be honest, I don't find anything especially special about her VA in the ME series.

[Merusk]

Storm is being awfully quiet. 

:peer:

[Nayr]

Jennifer Hale has a good voice, but there's something about when she does Shepard. It's like she tries a little too hard, some of her lines sound forced out.

Mark Meer, his voice just flows. Not to mention the guy is brilliant at changing his voice. He's like having a dozen voice actors.

Different topic:

Trying to discuss Mass Effect on the Bioware forum is becoming a headache. Between the outright haters, and those who condemn facts by ignoring their explanations, it's like bashing your head against a wall. Not to mention the bizarre DLC demands fans make. Dinosaurs, indoctrination, new ending, Shepard + Squad reunion, New face for Tali, Puzzle theory, Citadel, Harbinger, etc.

My particularly favorite ME3 DLC would have to be Leviathan, even if it does spoil the Big Reveal before it is time. Taking an obscure detail from a planet description in ME1(HadesGamma/Dis/Jartar - Leviathan of Dis) and making it a clue leading to the Reapers' origins was inspired. As I recall reading, Stormwaltz/L'Etoile wrote all the planet descriptions. I have to wonder if that was planned or if fan attention to it was what caused it.

Not to mention another planet description vividly describes the Reapers' master. Planet Klencory, where a volus billionaire received a vision to seek out the crypts of "beings of light" created at the beginning of time to protect organics from "synthetic devils." Strikingly similar to the AI the Leviathans created, which projects itself as a being of light and whose ultimate purpose is to preserve organic life before synthetics can kill them.

[Ingmar]

Storm is being awfully quiet. 

:peer:

Shocking.