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

[Jeff Kelly]

Since someone asked in typical internet forum fashion 'complaining is easy but how would you have done it?' I'd offer my suggestion that wouldn't require too many changes to ME3.

- Kill Kai Leng, kill him completely. Retroactively erase his entire existence from the Mass Effect Unviverse. Kill all the scenes where you as a player would have easily killed him - hell one-shotted him even - but where the game wouldn't let you to force a certain plot event to happen.

- Scrap Prologue: Earth, don't let the Reapers invade Earth first, in fact make it so that the Reapers haven't invaded the Galaxy yet.

Start the game with Shepard's court martial for the things he did during Mass Effect 2: Arrival. Write a few great Paragon and/or renegade Interrupts. Bring a few of his squad mates to testify as character witnesses which gives you an excuse to bring them along once the game starts.

Either make it clear that the Council doesn't really want to convict Shepard - either because they agree with his/her actions or because Earth is a dominating council influence after you let the old Council die in ME 1. Or if you screw up during the trial, have no character witnesses left after the suicide mission or have pissed of the council one to many times you'd need to escape to the normandy and spend the first few hours as a fugitive until the reaper assault happens.

The whole scene could double as exposition for new players when the prosecution or defense present Shepards exploits and what happened so far or when his/her old squaddies testify on his behalf or not depending on loyalty status or if they are still alive. You could also call old friends or enemies to the stand. This would give veteran players the opportunity to confront their past and allow new players to quickly get most of the backstory. Use flashbacks when appropriate where you could re-use old sequences from previous games.

- Start the game with Priority: Mars

Let the Cerberus assault on the Mars archive happen during or after the trial and make it so Normandy and Shepard are the only ones or the first that could respond. Let the mission happen as it is. The Alliance starts to build the Crucible and you get the mission to garner support for the construction from all Alliance races.

Let a few of the missions play out as before but without the immediate reaper threat, let the reapers on the planets show up as before to give you the info that the assault is imminent.

- Move Priority: Thessia to be the first story mission

Somewhere in the first third of the story give Shepard the info that a vital part of the Crucible is missing and tell him that he/she can find info about the Catalyst in the old Temple on Thessia.

This is when the Reaper assault starts and they start with Thessia since the game clearly establishes that the Asari are the most advanced race of the Galaxy so the reapers want to take out the biggest threat first. The rest of the mission plays out as is. Cerberus gets to the Prothean Beacon before you and steals the info about the Catalyst. Only better scripted and with less Kai Leng

- The rest of the game now centers around finding Cerberus and the Catalyst info and/or another option to kill the Reapers

Rework the Priority: Missions so you have to do them to have the Races help you with building the Crucible, finding Cerberus or the Catalyst (the only hope to kill the reapers) or to find info about Leviathan.

This removes the 'why do I have to do all the stupid side missions while the Galaxy dies' problem. You have to, any mission might give you the final clue where Chronos station and the Catalyst is before it's too late or offers you a hint to the location of the reaper killer Leviathan.

- The game at one point becomes about who gets to the Citadel's secrets first. A race to the finish

The Reapers to end the cycle
Cerberus to control the reapers
The galactic alliance to use the Crucible

During the race to get Leviathan/the Catalyst more and more Worlds fall to the Reapers, this creates the sense of imminent danger until only Earth is left, the Citadel orbits Earth and the whole galactic fleet forces the final showdown that decides galactic survival.

- Use the dream sequences as exposition.

Make it so that the starchild AI contacts Shepard through his/her dreams. Use it as a way to let the AI explain its motivations and to give the player a sense just how broken the AI has become. Shepard is basically the only being since countless cycles the AI thinks can end it since after the events of ME 2 he is basically already 'half-synthesised' and you allowed EDI to live - an AI that has become self-aware and is partly organic. Synthesis is already in it's infancy in this cycle. Shepard could be the only one to get that this would be the best solution and he is the one that could ultimately decide how the Crucible is used.

Change the story to make it clear that the AI designed the Crucible and that it took it countless cycles to perfect it. It needs you because in an ironic twist the creatures it designed to help (the reapers) ultimately rebelled against the AI and it can't control them fully anymore. It's a computer in a space station without hands or feet and without an Avatar.

It steered the galactic evolution so that the galaxy would work as a kind of "organic computer". Each cycle would bring new creatures with unique viewpoints to add to the Crucible but each cycle would be cut short by the Harvest and it needed to hide the plans from the Reapers.

- The rest of the game could play out largely as is with a single exception Scrap: Priority Earth

Make it so the Crucible is at the Citadel and orbits Earth (maybe it has to be to be most effective for example)

The Illusive Man is on the Citadel to try to get to the AI to control the Reapers
Shepard, Anderson and a few others are on the Citadel to activate the Crucible and destroy the reapers
The full force of the reaper assault is directed at earth to harvest humanity and to destroy the Citadel/keep the Council races from activating the Crucible.

The galactic fleet is there to protect the Citadel and the Crucible at all cost, depending on the galactic readiness it plays out better or more dramatic. If the galaxy is not sufficiently ready you could even lose.

The Citadel has become a clusterfuck of Council, Cerberus and Reaper forces in a mad dash to uncover its secrets.

This would leave the finale largely as it is. You kill the Illusive Man but not before he could shoot Anderson (or make you shoot him) you meet the AI and it presents you with your choices.

In this story those are not the only options the AI could think of, those are just the only options you could use due to the Crucible being the way it is. There might be even better options but the number of cycles wasn't sufficient to explore them.

Offer the player three initial options

- Destroy the reapers
- Control the Reapers
- Let this cycle end and hope that a future cycle can perfect the crucible/offer a better solution.

Let the player uncover the synthesis option by clever use of dialogue and paragon/renegade interrupts.

By this time both the fight on the citadel and in the sol system have damaged the Crucible and the Citadel so badly that you can either flee and survive for the moment but with the cycle ending as the Reapers had planned. Or you have to stay to pick a solution and execute all the steps needed to make it happen but probably die Mordin Solus style.

If you stay then you will manage to activate the Crucible device and either control or destroy the Reapers or use the synthesis option if you leave then the cycle will end.
If galactic readiness is to low you won't manage to activate the device and the cycle will end.

This puts the choice whether or not to sacrifice Shepard back in the hands of the players. If you want to be deep make the 'let the cycle end so that a future cycle may be able to find a more perfect solution' a viable if somewhat esoteric choice.

[Nayr]

Since someone asked in typical internet forum fashion 'complaining is easy but how would you have done it?' I'd offer my suggestion that wouldn't require too many changes to ME3.

- Scrap Prologue: Earth, don't let the Reapers invade Earth first, in fact make it so that the Reapers haven't invaded the Galaxy yet.

Start the game with Shepard's court martial for the things he did during Mass Effect 2: Arrival. Write a few great Paragon and/or renegade Interrupts. Bring a few of his squad mates to testify as character witnesses which gives you an excuse to bring them along once the game starts.

There's a problem with a few of your ideas. Well, I'll just point out these.

1. Earth WAS NOT the first world hit by the Reapers. Kar'Shan was. The Batarian Homeworld. Earth was the first Council world hit and took the brunt of the attack(probably because of the Reapers' fascination with humanity,)

2. Not everybody does Arrival. If you skip it, you're idea leaves the game with no prologue.

[Jeff Kelly]

Yet Prologue: Earth made Arrival Mass Effect Canon. Shepard is awaiting trial/in protective custody (depends on how you want read it) to protect him/her from Batarians.

Basically as far as Bioware is concerned all novels the companion Apps, the comics and the DLCs are part of Mass Effect Canon.

Even if it weren't it would be no problem to simply make it canon for the sake of the story.

My goal was to design a story without completely changing the game and without changing the premise the designers claim was their intention from the start, namely that "synthesis is the best option" while giving the player a different mtivation to go on all of the missions.

The basic building blocks are already in place you'd just need to reshuffle them a bit.

[Fabricated]

Synthesis is definitely given as the "ultimate happy Scooby-Doo ending", but I can't recall any game with multiple endings (that also got a sequel or two) where the ultra-happy ending is canon.

For example: Deus Ex 2 is written that the canon ending is somehow you picking pretty much everything to an extent. You kill Page, merge with Helios, then blow up the communication grid, and even if you don't side with them the Illuminati/et all are still major players. JC doesn't become the kind machine god everyone expected him to, and if they make a sequel that comes after 2 (and don't correctly just destroy it from the canon because it fucking sucks) you bet your ass Denton 2 didn't become the kindly machine god either.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution ham-handedly pushes the "kill literally everyone for no fucking good reason" ending on you via the AI annoyingly tsk-tsking you for picking anything else, and with all these big name characters that are never mentioned in Deus Ex 1 outside of Tong- you have to assume that's what happened because no way would Jensen/Sarif/etc be forgotten/gone/never mentioned if they lived.

Dragon Age: Awakening seemed to encourage any of the endings where your Grey Warden dies IMO.

I mean, if you wrap up literally the biggest conflict/danger you could ever have face your IP's universe, how the hell can you make players get invested? I bet money "Destroy" is the canon ending, since between the dire predictions of the AI and the scene of Shepard taking a breath in the rubble you give yourself the absolute most leeway to do whatever you want with the story in future incarnations.

The synthetic v. organic conflict can be recycled if necessary, Shepard can be hauled out of death with minimal cognitive dissonance if you want him/her to feature in the story in any way, and it leaves the galaxy in a fairly chaotic state since there's no wondrous new existence as a nebulously defined organic/synthetic for galactic society to figure out rather than returning to the fun business of dicking eachother over.

[Nayr]

Yet Prologue: Earth made Arrival Mass Effect Canon. Shepard is awaiting trial/in protective custody (depends on how you want read it) to protect him/her from Batarians.

Basically as far as Bioware is concerned all novels the companion Apps, the comics and the DLCs are part of Mass Effect Canon.

Even if it weren't it would be no problem to simply make it canon for the sake of the story.

My goal was to design a story without completely changing the game and without changing the premise the designers claim was their intention from the start, namely that "synthesis is the best option" while giving the player a different mtivation to go on all of the missions.

The basic building blocks are already in place you'd just need to reshuffle them a bit.

That's incorrect. If you didn't do Arrival, Hackett sent a battalion of Marines to Arathot to rescue Doctor Kenson. They blew up the relay in Shepard's place, but were all killed. Resulting in a 50 point dip in one of your Alliance War Assets

If Shepard didn't do Arathot, he's in Alliance Custody for working with Cerberus(you know, terrorists and sworn enemies of the Alliance), and Anderson's dialogue is different.

Shepard: "Is that why they grounded me? Took away my ship?"

Anderson w/ Arrival: "When you blew up that Batarian Relay, hundreds of thousands of Batarians died. Anybody else would have been left to rot in the brig."

Anderson w/o Arrival: "The shit you've done, anybody else would have been court-martialed and discharged."

Also Shepard's dialogues with Balak and the Batarian Terrorist on life support are different.


And making something "Canon for the sake of the story" is not something I like to see. When Dragon Age did it with Anders and Justice, it was horrid.

[Jeff Kelly]

OK so in the non-arrival version Shepard would be on trial for working with Cerberus, the rest of the scene could play out in a similar fashion, though

[kaid]

Yet Prologue: Earth made Arrival Mass Effect Canon. Shepard is awaiting trial/in protective custody (depends on how you want read it) to protect him/her from Batarians.

Basically as far as Bioware is concerned all novels the companion Apps, the comics and the DLCs are part of Mass Effect Canon.

Even if it weren't it would be no problem to simply make it canon for the sake of the story.

My goal was to design a story without completely changing the game and without changing the premise the designers claim was their intention from the start, namely that "synthesis is the best option" while giving the player a different mtivation to go on all of the missions.

The basic building blocks are already in place you'd just need to reshuffle them a bit.

Yes I am doing my fresh default renegade play through and regardless of if you did the arrivial DLC or not that is where you start. Honestly expanding that more by being at the trial would allow people who had not played it to have some idea what the flaming hell is going on at the begining and a lot of the other comments in the game which make zero sense if you did not play the arrivial DLC.

[Sjofn]

Dragon Age: Awakening seemed to encourage any of the endings where your Grey Warden dies IMO.

Curious why you thought that, as it gave me the opposite impression: that the Warden living (however s/he achieves that) is more proper. Is it because "the Warden disappeared after X amount of time" is basically the ending slide no matter what?


I am cool with Destroy winding up the canon ending. I can't really see the other ones working as a "canon," or even just sort of being vague about what the ending choice was working, since after they walked back the "AND THEN THE RELAYS BLOWED UP" thing, the endings do have enough impact they'd be tough to handwave. Especially the shitty synthesis ending.

[kaid]

I would have to agree. If going forward they declare any of the endings cannon it would almost have to be the destroy ending. I don't see them as using harbinger shepard and his herd of reapers being cannon because that would just creep everybody the hell out having to be near "tame" reapers and the synthesis ending while great for joker and his robo bride I just don't see as viable starting point to anything else.

In the destroy ending you have closure to the whole reaper thing they are dead and gone and the main "loss" the geth are a faction most people feel are enemies anyway due to the anti AI prejudices so most races would see that as a victory too.

Playing through again renegade style this time without importing anything just to see what the cannon stuff up to this point is. Man the krogan warlord you get if you don't save wrex is a total jackass now I am tempted to do the fake genophage guy because I don't trust this jack ass farther than I can throw him. I don't think I can make myself shoot mordin though sniff.

[Sjofn]

I believe there's a way to convince Mordin to not cure the genophage under a particular set of conditions (I think that being Wreav is the warlord, and Eve is dead?), but you'd have to click blue dialogue during the sequence. :P

[Venkman]

I would have to agree. If going forward they declare any of the endings cannon it would almost have to be the destroy ending.

I think they've written themselves into a trap that prevents any ending from being canon.

Their options are Star Trek-type time streams, weather yet-another PR disasters, or set any subsequent game so far into the future that whatever ending you chose is undone by time itself.

You can get to the same galaxy-spanning conflict pretty easily plot wise. Destroy is the easiest because species forget and will inevitably use the same technological techniques to leap frog through evolution. Control is second easiest because that leads to inevitable repression and the raising of militias (could be centered on Omega). Synthesis would be kinda tricky but it's not like that was well-defined so much anyone would even recognize a retcon (could be easily written as only "some" people did it, or it was temporary) like it didn't take hold or something.

[Morat20]

I believe I read an interview or saw one wherein the developers basically said: "Mass Effect 4 would not take place after ME3" and basically implied it was stuff set during Mass Effect, or possibly before.

Which frankly doesn't seem to work, because Mass Effect was epic space opera. You were working with the seats of power, dealing with THE big threat. No other threat can compare, anything else would feel...smaller.

You can't do "epic space opera" by saying "See that epic story there? Yeah, this is the part no one gave a shit about, no matter how awesome you were. Did you kill Saren? The collectors? Destroy the Reapers? No? Then we give no shits"

Sure, they could build on MP (which, by the way, stopping challenges now that the last DLC is out? Fucking bullshit. They could at least put the old ones on rotation or something), but that's a different game. It's not an RPG, really. It's a cooperative cover based shooter.

I can't see them moving away from Humans, either. I can't see, oh, they doing the Rachni Wars or something.

[Merusk]

You can make the same arguments about Star Wars, yet those games sell just fine.

[Ingmar]

I really want them to make a 4X/Star Control-esque game about rebuilding, repairing the relays, rediscovering what has happened to colonies/other races/etc. Assume Destroy ending. Won't happen but I can dream.

[Maledict]

I believe I read an interview or saw one wherein the developers basically said: "Mass Effect 4 would not take place after ME3" and basically implied it was stuff set during Mass Effect, or possibly before.

Which frankly doesn't seem to work, because Mass Effect was epic space opera. You were working with the seats of power, dealing with THE big threat. No other threat can compare, anything else would feel...smaller.

You can't do "epic space opera" by saying "See that epic story there? Yeah, this is the part no one gave a shit about, no matter how awesome you were. Did you kill Saren? The collectors? Destroy the Reapers? No? Then we give no shits"

Sure, they could build on MP (which, by the way, stopping challenges now that the last DLC is out? Fucking bullshit. They could at least put the old ones on rotation or something), but that's a different game. It's not an RPG, really. It's a cooperative cover based shooter.

I can't see them moving away from Humans, either. I can't see, oh, they doing the Rachni Wars or something.

Latest info is that it will be set after ME3, won't be called ME4 and will be linked to the first game in the way a game set in WW2 is linked to WW1. So you'll have a different threat, a different galactic background but some of the same elements as ME3.

[Sjofn]

(which, by the way, stopping challenges now that the last DLC is out? Fucking bullshit. They could at least put the old ones on rotation or something)

AGREEEEEEEEE

[Trippy]

Must...open...more...boxes...

[Jeff Kelly]

Well the end of the support for the ME 3 multiplayer barely a year after release is basically another nail in the coffin for in-game transactions and micropayment.

One of the reasons developers gave for that stuff was that it ensures ongoing and continuing support for a game long after release.

ME 3 multiplayer seems to be still popular so if all the card packs brought in money there shouldn't be a reason to end support. I suppose that the amount of money Bioware and EA make with MP could easily fund a small team that continues to support and extend it.

If it doesn't it shows that microtransactions don't work, if it does then there should be no reason to abandon it as long as it makes money and is popular.

[Velorath]

Well the end of the support for the ME 3 multiplayer barely a year after release is basically another nail in the coffin for in-game transactions and micropayment.

One of the reasons developers gave for that stuff was that it ensures ongoing and continuing support for a game long after release.

ME 3 multiplayer seems to be still popular so if all the card packs brought in money there shouldn't be a reason to end support. I suppose that the amount of money Bioware and EA make with MP could easily fund a small team that continues to support and extend it.

If it doesn't it shows that microtransactions don't work, if it does then there should be no reason to abandon it as long as it makes money and is popular.

For a series which didn't even have multiplayer up until now, I think a year's worth of support (weekly balance changes, challenges, and four free DLC packs) was a pretty strong showing. Personally I never spent a dollar on packs because it was fairly easy to max your manifest (not including UR's) just through playing. UR's weren't worth buying packs for because on average you'd have to buy ten to get one UR and most of them aren't really any better than the Rares. Ideally, that's the best use of microtransactions to me. Never felt like I needed to put real money in, but enough people did to make it worthwhile for Bioware to continue supporting it for a year, after which point I'm more or less done with it anyway.

Over time, it's just natural that they were going to get diminishing returns. I'm sure with the low ME3 userbase on the PS3, that platform stopped being worth supporting for them a while back, but they probably felt like they were already committed to releasing the DLC for it (the Wii U was not so lucky). I'm also guessing that DLC peaks were probably intended to cause spikes in microtransactions as everyone tried to get the new stuff as quickly as possible, but since news of every DLC got leaked well in advance, everybody stockpiled credits for it in anticipation.

[Shrike]

I really want them to make a 4X/Star Control-esque game about rebuilding, repairing the relays, rediscovering what has happened to colonies/other races/etc. Assume Destroy ending. Won't happen but I can dream.

I find your thoughts intriguing and want to subscribe to your newsletter.

Actually, this does sound entertaining. 4X RPG? Sure, I"m game.

A few co-workers and I were speculating where ME4 (or whatever) might go. My thoughts were possible extra-galactic exploration (Magellanic Clounds are always entertaining), say, a thousand or so years in the future. Gets the game away from...uncomfortable...elements from the previous series.

[kaid]

Well the end of the support for the ME 3 multiplayer barely a year after release is basically another nail in the coffin for in-game transactions and micropayment.

One of the reasons developers gave for that stuff was that it ensures ongoing and continuing support for a game long after release.

ME 3 multiplayer seems to be still popular so if all the card packs brought in money there shouldn't be a reason to end support. I suppose that the amount of money Bioware and EA make with MP could easily fund a small team that continues to support and extend it.

If it doesn't it shows that microtransactions don't work, if it does then there should be no reason to abandon it as long as it makes money and is popular.

For a series which didn't even have multiplayer up until now, I think a year's worth of support (weekly balance changes, challenges, and four free DLC packs) was a pretty strong showing. Personally I never spent a dollar on packs because it was fairly easy to max your manifest (not including UR's) just through playing. UR's weren't worth buying packs for because on average you'd have to buy ten to get one UR and most of them aren't really any better than the Rares. Ideally, that's the best use of microtransactions to me. Never felt like I needed to put real money in, but enough people did to make it worthwhile for Bioware to continue supporting it for a year, after which point I'm more or less done with it anyway.

Over time, it's just natural that they were going to get diminishing returns. I'm sure with the low ME3 userbase on the PS3, that platform stopped being worth supporting for them a while back, but they probably felt like they were already committed to releasing the DLC for it (the Wii U was not so lucky). I'm also guessing that DLC peaks were probably intended to cause spikes in microtransactions as everyone tried to get the new stuff as quickly as possible, but since news of every DLC got leaked well in advance, everybody stockpiled credits for it in anticipation.

The multiplayer in ME3 really turned out way better than anybody had any right to expect and it was pretty solidly supported for a year. I still fire it up fairly often because it is still pretty damn fun. That it is starting to peter out a bit now especially on ps3 and WII U is understandable but it was a very solid opening offer for multiplayer in the ME universe.

[Stormwaltz]

I really want them to make a 4X/Star Control-esque game about rebuilding, repairing the relays, rediscovering what has happened to colonies/other races/etc. Assume Destroy ending. Won't happen but I can dream.

I find your thoughts intriguing and want to subscribe to your newsletter.

Are you accepting resumes?

[Ratman_tf]

Since someone asked in typical internet forum fashion 'complaining is easy but how would you have done it?' I'd offer my suggestion that wouldn't require too many changes to ME3.

Yay!

#1. Cut Kai Leng. Dude was weaksauce. Replace with "Evil Shepard". A character who's the Renegade to your Paragon, or the Renegade who want to tear it all down for Cerberus.
Give Evil Shepard a team like Shepard's. Make them appear all through ME3.

#2. Cut the starchild. Replace with the Prothean VI. We have no reason to trust vent boy. He's a broken plot device to deliver a last minute major change in the story. Snippety snip. At least the Protheans (and their VI constructs) actually oppose the Reapers, which gives us some reason to trust them a bit.

#3. Dont' give an in depth reason for the Reaper's backstory and motivations. We got the "Misunderstood bad guys" with the Geth. No reason to rehash that idea in the same trilogy. That would be like having a second Death Star!  

#4. End it like a dumb blockbuster movie. In this case, simple is better. We want to bring this thing in for a triumphant landing, not muck it up with pompus metaphors or assinine imagery. No "Eden Planet shot" or "Creepy old dude talking to his sweet little dumplingchild". Think Independence Day or even gorram Battleship. It's ok to end with a dumb bang, as long as it's well told.

#5. Leave the franchise open to more games and stuff. The utter galaxy changing endings that are mutually contradictory were a bad, dumb move. People want more Mass Effect. Shepard's story is over, but that shouldn't mean that the whole thing has to end.

#6. Ratman's color coded Mass Effect endings:
Red: Destroy the Reapers. With the combined might of the galaxy, maybe the Crucible macguffin. Dont' matter. Make them go boom.
Blue: Talk the Reapers to death. Shepard fights the Reapers to the brink of annihilation, and then when they're on the ropes, tells them to get the hell out of the galaxy. Reapers abscond, and the galactic community is finally willing to invest in anti-Reaper pest strips.
Green: Infection. The Geth provide a nanobot virus that will destroy the Reapers from the inside. Shepard and the galaxy force infect the Reaper fleet attacking earth, who get the sniffles and start falling apart. The virus is provided to the galaxy who use it to turn the tide and wipe out the Reapers once and for all.

In all three endings, Shepard may die, depending on your dialogue choices, and the Relays are always destroyed. By boom or virus or self-destruct. Life is rough in the galaxy without them, but surprise, surprise, the Geth were working on a new system, less advanced than the Reaper network, but serviceable enough. Either provided by the Geth at the end of the game, or salvaged if the Geth got destroyed. The galaxy starts to rebuild free of Reaper influence.

[Ingmar]

I really want them to make a 4X/Star Control-esque game about rebuilding, repairing the relays, rediscovering what has happened to colonies/other races/etc. Assume Destroy ending. Won't happen but I can dream.

I find your thoughts intriguing and want to subscribe to your newsletter.

Are you accepting resumes?

Sadly I am probably about the 500th most qualified person on this forum to make a game. But, if you want to start a company to do it, I can run the mail system. 

[Paelos]

I call CFO. 

[Khaldun]

You know, I still haven't finished the damn thing. I got through the first encounter with Kai Leng and said, "Ok, this has just gotten too stupid suddenly, I'm really turned off". So I put it aside for a while and then read about what actually happens and felt totally unmotivated to finish. I should do it now, I guess.

[rk47]

Space Ninja vs Shepard the Biotics Specialist.

Cinematic Sequence:
Kai Leng uses Biotics Barrier!
Shep uses Gunfire. It's ineffective!

'Ok, so it's cinematics, next time I'll beat you Space Ninja.'

Later on Thessia...
Player uses guns, biotics, grenades, whatever - takes shield down to 50%
Kai Leng uses Plot Armor. Calls gunship.
Whatever the player uses is ineffective!

[Tebonas]

Yes, Kai Leng felt like a self-inserted GM character of another campaign. You know, the one he played for years with that other group and now wants to show you how much more awesome he is than the group of losers he is GMing for.

[Ingmar]

So I finally got around to doing an all-DLC run through with the new ending, and I'd definitely say it upgraded the ending from OH GOD WHAT NO JUST NO to 'eh'. They could have done better by taking out the post-credits thing with the grandpa and the kid, but all in all I'd say that is probably about as good a fix as we could expect. The Leviathan DLC helps a great deal as well.

The Citadel DLC is just fantastic.

[Fabricated]

So I finally got around to doing an all-DLC run through with the new ending, and I'd definitely say it upgraded the ending from OH GOD WHAT NO JUST NO to 'eh'. They could have done better by taking out the post-credits thing with the grandpa and the kid, but all in all I'd say that is probably about as good a fix as we could expect. The Leviathan DLC helps a great deal as well.

The Citadel DLC is just fantastic.

The Best Gamers review still made a hell of a point that makes me laugh the more I think about it.

"Mass Effect 3 is the best grandpa story filled with sex and unspeakable violence!"

[Tannhauser]

LOL  Well said.

"Grandpa, what's a cooter?"

[Morat20]

The multiplayer in ME3 really turned out way better than anybody had any right to expect and it was pretty solidly supported for a year. I still fire it up fairly often because it is still pretty damn fun. That it is starting to peter out a bit now especially on ps3 and WII U is understandable but it was a very solid opening offer for multiplayer in the ME universe.

It really did. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it at all, really. I was pleasantly surprised.

I still don't think adding the challenges on a rotating loop would have take all that much effort. Adding new ones, yeah -- they had to add banners, titles, and whatnot. But I've already GOT all the assets for the old ones on my box. All the art, the title, the code that tracks it and awards it. All that's missing is the bit on the server (which still runs) that says "This week X is turned on".

[Venkman]

I assume they weren't making anywhere near what they needed to pay the maintenance costs on the servers. But it's a shame they couldn't figure out a way to at least keep the lights on. This is a pretty short run for a multiplayer game. Don't they usually give it 2-3 years?

Or maybe that was the plan but it all changes after the quarterly results came in.

[Ingmar]

Uh, they aren't turning off the servers. They're just not running the weekend events anymore and they've done their last DLC. The server shutdown will presumably happen eventually, but this is not it.

[Morat20]

I assume they weren't making anywhere near what they needed to pay the maintenance costs on the servers. But it's a shame they couldn't figure out a way to at least keep the lights on. This is a pretty short run for a multiplayer game. Don't they usually give it 2-3 years?

Or maybe that was the plan but it all changes after the quarterly results came in.

They're  not turning that off. They're just turning off challenges and no more balance fixes.

I suspect the server shutdown will occur closer to ME4.