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

[TNG3]

Also Citadel hovercars obviously don't have airbags or any other kind of passenger protection systems.

Airbags wouldn't be much help if your car plummeted 200 feet into the ground. The only thing that could possibly help would be a parachute, which would present all kinds of engineering problems. Admittedly, this might be less of a concern on the Presidium, which only has 0.3 Gs gravity according to the Codex. On the other hand, things would be really bad on Illium, which has 1.2 Gs of gravity and super high skyscrapers (and by extension hovercar routes) due to the high ground temperatures.

Yes, I know, mass effect fields, but don't those require a constant electrical current? What if the car's power source or eezo core was damaged in a collision?

Flying cars just aren't very safe. Which is one of the main reasons why we don't have them in real life.

[Jeff Kelly]

I'm currently on a complete playthrough in which Kaidan survived Virmire. Kaidan's backstory and dialogue in ME 3 is streets ahead of Ashley's.

Ashley just comes off as ungrateful and bitchy and immature and she throws several tantrums. The dialogue about the cerberus scientists and the illusive man alone is better than everything written for Ashley.

[Venkman]

Airbags wouldn't be much help if your car plummeted 200 feet into the ground.

Come on. Didn't you see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol?

 

Sidenote: terrrible movie, especially compared to 3. Everything about it was dumb, including specifically making Tom Cruise look like he's 50-something.

[Nayr]

If Bioware ever needs money quick, they just could release a ME 3 dlc pack that either completely eradicates Kai Leng from the story or better gives me a mission where I can kill him in the most prolongued and painful way possible. I at least would pay top dollar for that.

On second thought they should just have done that instead of the expanded end and I'd be happy.

That first encounter with Kai Leng is simply one of the worst scripted scenes ever. At first he gets his ass handed to him by a terminally ill Drell while three arned-to-the-teeth supersoldiers just watch dumbfoundedly then he jumps on the hood of a frigging flying car. If I could have just flipped over the flying police car he would have dropped to his death.

Also Citadel hovercars obviously don't have airbags or any other kind of passenger protection systems.

1. Shepard and friends would have just gotten in Thane's way and gotten him killed sooner.

2. No he wouldn't. Ever heard of magnetic boots? Remember: Shepard used them to board the Geth Dreadnought? If he weren't wearing mag boots, Leng wouldn't have been able to even land on the hood of Shepard's car.

3. Well knowing how technology developed in Mass Effect's universe, they probably use mass effect fields instead of airbags. If you noticed, nobody died in Shepard's skycar crash.

[Nayr]

Also one thing about Kai Leng that does piss me off: He wasn't in Omega.

I'm sure many rejoiced over that fact, but hear me out.

The reason why Kai Leng should have been in Omega is because he murdered Aria's daughter. He knows it, she knows it, and the players(who read the novels) know it.

And Omega is about Aria taking back what's hers and sticking it to Cerberus. So that should include giving Kai Leng a fierce biotic beatdown that makes what Thane did to him look like a tickle.

Hell, Nyreen might have even been Liselle T'Loak's "father". Considering her past romantic relationship with Aria.

And the writers for Omega at Bioware Montreal apparently read Retribution because the Talons were featured. Turian gang who smuggle red sand and rose to power after Shepard and Archangel's war with the three merc gangs. But Nyreen... took over... and turned them into freedom fighters.

[Ratman_tf]

No. Kai Leng is best forgotten, like the terrible socks you got for chistmas.

[Ingmar]

I am sure they clearly saw the writing on the wall about how the fan base felt about Kai Leng, and putting him in a DLC would have probably cost them a bunch of money. Especially the one where they were already asking us to bite on a much higher price.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, the less Kai Leng, the better.

[Nayr]

I am sure they clearly saw the writing on the wall about how the fan base felt about Kai Leng, and putting him in a DLC would have probably cost them a bunch of money. Especially the one where they were already asking us to bite on a much higher price.

An extra $5 hardly qualifies as a "much higher price"

Especially considering Omega is longer than both From Ashes and Leviathan combined.

[TNG3]

Though its length really depends on how long it takes you to get through combat sections. Also, if you included all of Javik's dialogue and cutscenes into that equation, I doubt it would still work out that way.

In any case, I suspect that Omega's higher price tag had more to do with Carrie-Anne Moss's salary than the length of the content. I'm sure that like with movies, actors get paid more for playing more prominent characters. Also, remember that the ME2 DLCs had virtually no squadmate dialogue, and Leviathan was only able to have squadmate banter because the Extended Cut was being developed at the same time, and adding a few lines to a recording session is pretty cheap.

Which kind of makes one wonder what the squadmate dialogue policies and pricing of the DLC for the next Mass Effect game will be like, now that all of ME3's single player DLCs have had new squadmate dialogue.

[Jeff Kelly]

Salary for voiceover/overdubbing work is usually per line. Contracts for actors with name recognition might differ though. VO is incredibly cheap for film/TV. VO for animated series is usually done en bloc for the whole series in one go and you can do that for a five digit budget if you don't need actors with name-recognition.

What makes it expensive for games is that the script is usually finalized pretty late in the dev cycle so they have a lot of edited/changed lines and do overs.

The amount of text per squaddie wouldn't even take a day to record normally. Look up the amount of lines each squad mate says in 2 its not that much text and they commonly record their lines without any other actor being present. so its not that difficult to schedule if you had a finalized script far enough in advance.

I remember that ME 2 and 3 did lots of recalls to incorporate late changes in the scripts and that they even did some sessions via internet/sending tapes by mail because actors weren't able to get to the recording studio on such short notice. (Martin Sheen was a notable example where they did that to incorporate last minute changes to TIMs lines).

DLC is budgeted differently though. Its usually done by the B or maintenance team (except on high profile DLC like Citadel) and has a significantly lower budget. I think if they wanted to they could get the complete voice cast budget-wise. (see Citadel) but usually do DLC the way they do so they won't have to.

I think its more about shipping dates and actor schedules than money though.

If a studio figures out how to nail the tech and game aspects of a game pretty early in the dev cycle and could allocate more of the budget on storytelling and levels/scenes i think we would see a lot more dialogue and better storytelling as well.

Alas right now a game like ME 3 hasn't even finished or figured out all of the level design six months prior to shipping. That's like a movie that is still reshooting scenes a month before release.

Most of the time that a game is in development  devs still figure out if they can sctually do a level/scene with the available tech or budget instead which is pretty ad all things considered.

Thats why I'd rather like to see more sequels using the same tech as their predecessors. Do a Mass Effect 2.5 on the same engine and use what you've learned to tell an even better story instead of sinking most of your budget into upgraded tech and tools just to provide us with more shinies.

[TNG3]

Most of the time that a game is in development  devs still figure out if they can sctually do a level/scene with the available tech or budget instead which is pretty ad all things considered.

Thats why I'd rather like to see more sequels using the same tech as their predecessors. Do a Mass Effect 2.5 on the same engine and use what you've learned to tell an even better story instead of sinking most of your budget into upgraded tech and tools just to provide us with more shinies.

I suspect that this was a significant problem with ME3. If you look at the game files, a surprising amount of cutscenes were pre-rendered, even if at first glance you'd think that the scene should have been feasible in engine. This includes the kid getting killed in the prologue, Cerberus attacking the Citadel, and basically all of the battle cutscenes in the final London missions. Even the shot of about 20 Cerberus soldiers at the end of Jacob's mission, which did not have any unique special effects, models, or animations, was actually a pre-rendered video. I doubt that all of these were intended to be pre-rendered from the beginning; more likely the cutscene artists tried to make some of them work in-engine but couldn't, so they replaced them with pre-rendered videos as a last resort.

I've also heard about things like a longer Reaper chase at the end of Priority: Rannoch (parts of which were shown in E3 2011 gameplay videos) getting cut for technical reasons.

Looking at these things, you can't help but wonder if some of the game's cut corners were due to Bioware spending a lot of time and money trying to create large scale Uncharted/Call of Duty style set pieces that the ME2/ME3 engine just wasn't designed for.

[Stormwaltz]

Salary for voiceover/overdubbing work is usually per line.

All VO I've been part of was paid for by hours in the booth. You hire an actor to so X hours of work, and the audio production people work out how many characters they can complete in that block of time. Admittedly, big-name Hollywood sorts might demand unique treatment.

EDIT: And most VA's have a "minimum time block" in their contracts. So if you only need them to do a dozen lines, you still have to pay for a half day or full day of work.

[Jeff Kelly]

Ah that's different then. Nearly all the VO work my friend supervises was billed per line so I assumed that this was always the case.

Even billed per hour with a minimum block time the VO budget shouldn't break the bank though. VO rates I've seen are ridiculously low.

[Nayr]

Ah that's different then. Nearly all the VO work my friend supervises was billed per line so I assumed that this was always the case.

Even billed per hour with a minimum block time the VO budget shouldn't break the bank though. VO rates I've seen are ridiculously low.

Likely differs between companies.

What does your friend work in? Game company, or is he with one of the anime localizing companies like Funimation or Bandai?

[Sjofn]

I am sure they clearly saw the writing on the wall about how the fan base felt about Kai Leng, and putting him in a DLC would have probably cost them a bunch of money. Especially the one where they were already asking us to bite on a much higher price.

An extra $5 hardly qualifies as a "much higher price"

Especially considering Omega is longer than both From Ashes and Leviathan combined.

It was enough higher that I didn't buy it. And I am hardly an anti-DLC zealot.

[Nayr]

I am sure they clearly saw the writing on the wall about how the fan base felt about Kai Leng, and putting him in a DLC would have probably cost them a bunch of money. Especially the one where they were already asking us to bite on a much higher price.

An extra $5 hardly qualifies as a "much higher price"

Especially considering Omega is longer than both From Ashes and Leviathan combined.

It was enough higher that I didn't buy it. And I am hardly an anti-DLC zealot.

Then maybe you should have paid closer attention to the devs on Twitter. One was giving away free Omega redemption codes a couple months ago, IIRC.

[Sjofn]

Some dev was giving away free Omega codes, that totally means it wasn't overpriced? What?

You are ridiculous.

[Reg]

Admit it Sjofn.  You just hate Bioware don't you?  A seething, irrational hate that forces you to fill every Bioware thread with your bile.

[Jeff Kelly]

each of us still commenting has probably played Mass Effect, Dragon Age or other Bioware franchises for several hundred hours. If we weren't we'd given up long ago instead of pushing the thread to nearly sixty pages.

So there must be something we all really like about those games. So I don't think Sjofn hates Bioware any more than you do. I suppose if you compared playcounts of Bioware games she would be right up there with the worst of us.

That being said: As much as I love Mass Effect, the games are by no means flawless. In fact I like them despite all their flaws of which there are many not because I think that they are flawless pinnacles of game design.

I pretty much like Nayr as a matter of fact just because he still can acknowledge the flaws of the Mass Effect series and the sometimes questionable conduct and practices of Bioware despite being a "hard core Mass Effect superfan" (please take it as a term of endearment Nayr).

Omega is no Lair of the Shadow Broker, though, no Overlord or Leviathan. It doesn't add that much to the ME Universe or the game except a very linear side mission with a character that is interesting as an NPC but that in my opinion doesn't carry enough weight to justify a "full price DLC" package.  You can't even visit Omega once it ended.

It's more in line with Project Firewalker or From Ashes and shouldn't be sold at 1200 MS points IMHO. It's the same price as Citadel which gives you an apartment, an arena and a Casino in addition to the much more compelling mission or as LOTSB which gives you the shadow broker base with its dossiers videos and the ability to reassign squad mate talent points.

I'd still prefer Aria to emo prothean douchebag Jaavik though.

[Jeff Kelly]

Likely differs between companies.

What does your friend work in? Game company, or is he with one of the anime localizing companies like Funimation or Bandai?

It's usually supervising voiceover work for German overdubs of foreign TV and movies. In the German speaking parts of the world ( a market of 150 million potential viewers) nearly all content is translated and this is usually done by producing German voice tracks and overdubs that are translated by professionals and voiced by professional actors instead of using subtitles.

Those voice tracks are usually pretty high quality, they even select actors that sound similar to the originals and they even try and construct the lines in such a way that the German overdub is still in synchronicity with the lip movements of the original.

Since nearly everything is localized in that way it's a huge business (non-localized or poorly localized products simply don't sell) and a lot of high profile actors like for example Christoph Waltz of Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained fame live quite comfortably off of those gigs. (In fact Waltz did his own lines in the German Version of both movies). There are even actors that are sort of the 'official voices' of famous actors and chances are that every time you watch a German dub of for example Bruce Willis you always hear the voice of the same guy. it's also very unlikely that a VO actor does several voices on one production so they have to cast an actor for each individual speaking role.

Ir's a huge business for a significant market that attracts top German talent. not hollywood A-list but still Stars with name recognition that can get a significant paycheck doing theater, TV or movies.

You still can get voice over work ridiculously cheap though. A whole 22 episode series of a AAA hollywood production usually goes for less than 100,000 dollars. I figured that it couldn't be that much higher in the states. Rate structures and fees might be different but you also have a much larger pool of professional actors capable of such work.

I figure (Stormwaltz wil probably correct me if I'm totally wrong) that the cost of the VO may not be the limiting factor for a new DLC release then.

[Reg]

I was joking Jeff. Until Nayr arrived Sjofn was the resident Bioware Superfan surpassing even myself. And I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours playing and replaying their games.  I just thought it would be fun to lump her in with the real Bioware haters. 

[Jeff Kelly]

Oh.

Carry on then 

[rk47]

Ahaahhahahah, this thread.  

[Nayr]

Some dev was giving away free Omega codes, that totally means it wasn't overpriced? What?

You are ridiculous.

Way to invent meanings where there are none.

What I meant is, you could have played Omega for free, had you been aware of the thing when it was happening.

No price is the best price.

[rk47]

Yes, Sjofn, it's YOUR fault. Bioware was kind enough to give away their games but you didn't bother checking.
How dare you accuse Bioware of overcharging their customers when they're generous enough to give it away FREELY?!

[Jeff Kelly]

I really like the principal way they handle conversations in ME 3. NPC conversations now feel more organic. Not every conversation requires a conversation wheel, NPCs now talk with each other or say some things without being prompted and they sometimes walk around the ship and can be found at different locations on the Normandy doing different things.

Feels much more natural.

What I don't like is that ME is still exceptionally bad at showing you when a conversation/VO part is over and when you can expect something new. I only now found out that some NPCs have multiple sentences in a VO scene prompted by pressing the "A" button (action prompt) and that they tell you their next line when you prompt them again but only some of the time.

I missed whole conversations because ME 1 and 2 have conditioned me that conversations with multiple talking points are made via the wheel and conversations via action prompt only give you one line before the NPC changes to a generic answer like "Commander" or "Shepard". (With a select few examples where it's different like: "The Salarian union respectfully requests you to stop that)

I never noticed the "Hang in there little buddy", "go for their eyes" scene in Citadel for example just because I thought that triggering an action prompt conversation would always lead to just one line of dialogue anyway.

I like that in 3  small flavor conversations simply take place. You go into a room somebody talks to you and you answer automatically otherwise you have the conversation via the wheel if you have a selection of answers to choose from. I even like the "support X or Y" system.

That I have to press "A" multiple times in a row just so that new lines fall out of my crew member like he's some sort of talking pinata feels clunky by comparison

[Lantyssa]

Sjofn, why aren't you glued to all of Bioware's social channels?  You're a bad fan.

[Reg]

I know!  I just found out recently that Tali sweat was a thing.  I've always relied on Sjofn to keep me up to date on stuff like that.

[Nayr]

I keep an eye on the twitter accounts of Bioware devs to be privy to things. Sometimes they let details slip or you can hear about things they're doing before the actual announcements. Not to mention the banter between them is sometimes more amusing than the party-banter in their games.

Also I have to question what kind of person puts so much time into figuring out what Quarian sweat smells like.

[Sjofn]

I was joking Jeff. Until Nayr arrived Sjofn was the resident Bioware Superfan surpassing even myself. And I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours playing and replaying their games.  I just thought it would be fun to lump her in with the real Bioware haters.  

I laughed, if it makes you feel better.  

edit: But yes, that was half my point, really. If I think a DLC is overpriced (and Omega was the first to really fit that bill for me), I am pretty sure it was probably priced a wee bit too high.

Also, I totally thought you guys knew about the Tali sweat thing, I have clearly failed you all. Although in my defense, I reserve my really embarrassing fangirling for Dragon Age.

[Ingmar]

Luckily my BG1/2 and ME1 hours don't show up on Steam for Rasix to jpg-ify and throw the superfan crown into question.

[Sjofn]

Someone is ~jeeeeeeeeeealoooooooooooous~.

[Jeff Kelly]

It's rather interesting how perceptions can change.

I once thought that ME 2 and 3 were challenging even on normal difficulty. Since my Mass Effect insanity playthroughs of 1 and 2 though, normal mode difficulty feels very easy and I rechecked two or three times that I hadn't selected "casual" instead.

It's also interesting for me that Insanity is doable with all character classes and they each shine at certain situations but have more difficulty at others.

Take infiltrator for example. The most recommended class for insanity after the soldier. I found infiltrator to be more difficult that for example Adept or Vanguard.

Yes, you have tactical cloak which is the "Oh shit" button to get you out of tight spots but for the infiltrator to really shine you need range and cover so that you can tactical cloack -> scope -> headshot enemies.

This makes those fights where the game makes it a point to not offer you cover or range that much harder. For example the praetorian fight on Horizon, the great husk migration on the disabled reaper or any fight really where enemies can easily flank you or flush you out of cover and you need to reposition.

The disabled reaper and the abandoned mine though are absolute easy mode with an engineer or adept. Squad incendiary ammo plus area incinerate (engineer) or singularity (adept) makes you a husk exterminator. It's just burning and flying husks everywhere. The end fight on Horizon, and the probably hardest fight in the whole game (flying platforms on the collector cruiser) were a breeze as adept.

The gauntlet fights are harder though since your damage output is lower and it's easy to get overwhelmed by the onslaught of enemies, the abandoned loki mech factory was a real challenge as adept as was the Tali recruitment mission on Haestrom. (at least Haestrom offers you three different paths to the Colossus each suited to a different play style). As an adept the probably hardest mission in ME2 is Tali's loyalty mission, followed by Tali's recruitment. The adept is least suited to fight geth and has a pretty hard time against geth hunters particularly.

I'd recommend Vanguard on insanity to absolute adrenaline junkies. It's tremendous fun but you are always a hair's breadth from dying. If you panic every time your shields are down and your health bar is barely visible you'll get a nervous breakdown playing vanguard on insanity. You'd be playing the Vaguard class as it's supposed to be though.

Soldier is probably the most boring class but mattock + adrenaline rush has an insane damage output and Sentinel is exactly as described by the NPC on the Silversun strip. Are you in trouble? Yes: detonate tech armor. No: also detonate tech armor.

The biggest enemies of the Vanguard are the level designers though. It's the class most likely to die because of obstacles or buggy terrain.

[Stormwaltz]

XKCD shows how far away present day Earth can be detected by Reapers listening for prestellar civilizations.

http://xkcd.com/1212/