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General: Soap Box: Mass Effect 3 Part 1 - The 95%

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  • SybnalSybnal Member Posts: 261
    Originally posted by Sunscour

    Everyone has an opinion, what I am about to say is that.
    I did like the ending. I felt like my Alice Shepard did what she set out to.
    People died, people dissappeared, war is hell.
     

     

    Couldn't agree more. Loved the ending of ME3. Loved the whole game in fact.

  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 6,959

    Originally posted by troublmaker



    Originally posted by JeroKane



    Mass Effect 3 was a rush job. Nothing more, nothing less!





    The game is no doubt the shortest game of the three content wise.





    The animations / voice overs were also of a lesser quality compared to the first two games. Which is appaling... only adding to the rush job feel of the game.





    Eventho I was able to enjoy the first 95% of the game.... the ending was a downright insult. Felt extremely rushed!





    I don't need a "happy" ending... we knew how it was going to end.... but with such a rich universe.... all the lore and all the choices and decisions we made in the first two games! It was all for NOTHING!





    They could have come up with much much better endings, especially where the choices and decisions you made in the first two games actually MATTER!





    ME 3 endings are solely based on the amount of war assets you grind, also pretty much forcing people to grind insane amount of hours in Multiplayer to be able to get the best possible ending. Also something they said that would not be the case, that people were not forced to do multiplayer! Just another lie!





    And then lets not even talk about the whole Day 1 DLC, for EA to quickly cash grab another 10 bucks from people on top of the main game.





    A DLC that is pretty much obligatory for the Story/Lore people among us (like me), as you will otherwise miss out on a lot of background story/lore regarding the Proteans!





    All in all.... it's a downright shame that Mass Effect 3 is another victim of the ruthless EA money grab machine that needed to make unrealistic deadlines to get out of the door before EA's fiscal year ending!!










     

    Mass Effect 1 was 15 hours of play

    Mass Effect 2 was 30 hours of play

    Mass Effect 3 was 40 hours of play

    This is all without DLCs.  The Protheian DLC was not obligatory by any means.  People who downloaded it played it for 30 minutes and felt it really did not add anything to the plot that was essential.  People FELT like it would be a big deal... but it really wasn't.

    The problem with Mass Effect 3 is that Bioware promised a lot of stuff and eventually had to remove it from the game because it just did not work.

    The ending was fine.  This lies another main problem with trilogies, the last one will have a crappy ending guaranteed.

    Indianna Jones decides to settle down.

    Luke Skywalker tells his sister they're brother/sister

    John Connor locks himself in a bomb shelter and the world ends.

    Frodo goes to the land of elves.

    Rippley kills herself.

    Doc Brown starts a family

    Neo dies

    Spider-man forgives Sandman

    Wolverine becomes the head of the X-Men

    Ash wakes up as just a employee at S-Mart

    When you build up a completely epic first two parts it is really hard to end something when it is planned for just three parts.  If it is planned to go further all they have to do is leave tones of shit open and close off nothing.

    It is very common for trilogies to have very simple endings specifically designed so that fans can go back and look at why this happens.




     

    I wonder if you really and trully played ME1, ME2 and ME3 or just make things up on the fly!

    Sorry, but ME1 is by far the largest game content wise, with tons of side missions (DLC excluded) that keep you occupied for a long long time.

    ME2 is also huge, but smaller than ME1... so here it was already on decline, with close corridor and small maps design. Still don't understand why they didn't use the entire design of Citadel from ME1 and reused it in ME2 and ME3... just upgrading the textures here and there a bit. But still Citadel in ME1 looks great... even for todays standards.

    I played ME1 and ME2 these past 2 months from scratch, with a fresh character, to build up a nice saved character to import into ME2 and then into ME3... to relive the whole story to the ending of ME3.

    So I know what I am talking about and the amount of time I have spend in each and every game.

    ME3 is short... very short, compared to ME1 and ME2. Period!

    Unless you going to count in the absolutely horrendous, boring and insane Multiplayer grind in ME3 to get max war assets!  I hope you're not serious and think that is actual content and game hours to include in ME3?  As it's nothing more than a boring horendous timesink! Something they lied about through their teeth would not be necessary to accomplish max war assets to get the best possible ending.

    So please... go actually play those games, before making things up.

  • SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129

    Originally posted by Matticus75

    Im 37 years old, and over the many years of gaming im not suprised

     

    I will say I am a Mass Effect fan, and you know I have not even bought the game

    I may get it when its has a all inclusive game of the year edition, or gold edition for $39.99

     

    :(


     

    I feel your pain. <3 


    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 


  • SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129

    Originally posted by Sybnal

    Originally posted by Sunscour

    Everyone has an opinion, what I am about to say is that.

    I did like the ending. I felt like my Alice Shepard did what she set out to.

    People died, people dissappeared, war is hell.

     

     

    Couldn't agree more. Loved the ending of ME3. Loved the whole game in fact.

     

    Just out of curiosity: Did you play the first two in the series or is this your first foray into the ME universe?


    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 


  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 6,959

    Originally posted by Suzie_Ford



    Originally posted by Sybnal






    Originally posted by Sunscour



    Everyone has an opinion, what I am about to say is that.





    I did like the ending. I felt like my Alice Shepard did what she set out to.





    People died, people dissappeared, war is hell.





     

     



    Couldn't agree more. Loved the ending of ME3. Loved the whole game in fact.





     

    Just out of curiosity: Did you play the first two in the series or is this your first foray into the ME universe?

    I am pretty sure that 99,9% of the people that liked the enitre ME3 game only played ME3... or didn't much care about the story/lore and just shoot and blast their way through the game... playing it as a regular FPS shooter, like COD or Battlefield game.

    Pretty much everyone I know that have played through ME1 and ME2, used saved character, payed lots of attention to the lore and story and characters... enjoyed the game as a RPG... they all were baffled and dissapointed with ME3's endings.

    I mean..... all the effort you put in both ME1 and ME2... to get your best possible saved character to import into ME3... it means total SQUAT! NADA!  It has ZERO effect on the outcome!

    EVERYTHING you did in ME1 and ME2 means NOTHING in ME3 ! Just a very few extra dialogs in the beginning... that's it! Nothing more!  It has ZERO impact on ME3!

    As the outcome (current endings in ME3) are SOLELY based on the amount of war assets you grind together in ME3 itself!  That's it!

    The worst is, because the endings in ME3 are such an insult (rushed, simplistic, resolute!)... that I will never be able to play ME1 and ME2 anymore... as what's the point?  I know how it's going to end now and that everything I do or try in ME1 and ME2 means TOTAL SQUAT! NADA!

    All Mass Relays get destroyed and everyone is pretty much isolated, stranded and screwed.


     

  • CitrusCitrus Member Posts: 34
    You have a lot of things to say about the game JeroKane, too bad they are all wrong.
  • starstar Member Posts: 1,101
    He's really not that wrong. In the end, it's true, the vast majority of your decisions play absolutely no part in the climax of the story. Hell, even in the cutscene of the fleets arriving to earth, you don't see the Geth Armada or the Batarian Fleet, neither the Elcor or Volus, or even the few Rachni vessels they promise you.

    image

  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 6,959

    Originally posted by Citrus

    You have a lot of opinions about the game, JeroKane. Too bad they're all wrong.

     

    Please.... enlighten us?

  • fenrisbluefenrisblue Member UncommonPosts: 138

    it's very ofensive that if someone did't like the rnding they are labeled as being entitled,..that's just stupid, i hated the ending of the game, i know the game is about a brutal war,...but i took every precaution i could to have an ending in which i lived,..almost all the endings you die, it's a sucky ending to an epic game, and if that OPINION leaves a bad taste in your mouth, then i have something else you can stick in there instead...

  • ConnmacartConnmacart Member UncommonPosts: 722

    Originally posted by JeroKane



    Originally posted by Citrus



    You have a lot of opinions about the game, JeroKane. Too bad they're all wrong.





     

    Please.... enlighten us?

    I concur how is he wrong.

  • VowOfSilenceVowOfSilence Member UncommonPosts: 565

    Harbinger wasn't mentioned in ME1, was he? Souvereign is the only reaper i remember from ME1.

    But, yeah... The whole conclusion to the reaper story was my main gripe with the ME3 ending. Even the first 95% were kinda disappointing... The reaper's attack plan never made much sense to me. Then Shepard spends most of his/her time fighting Cerberus instead of the reapers. The short dialogue with that nameless reaper is the only highlight in that regard. And when we finally run into Harbinger... we get NOTHING.

    The grand finale? SPACECHILD-HITLER OUT OF F*CKING NOWHERE! He doesn't make any sense whatsoever, offers three lame choices that aren't even really choices, while at the same time rendering all prevíous choices completely irrelevant. Nope, Shepard isn't even allowed to ask any questions.

    The whole thing is so insane and surreal that lots of people, including me, assumed that Shepard was being indoctrinated and going crazy or something. It's probably an evil EA conspiracy to make us buy DLC. It just HAS to be.

    Nope - looks like the ending is supposed to be the real thing. Bioware now gives us DLC that will "clarify" the ending. No further DLC regarding the ending.

    Dear Bioware - there is nothing that can be "clarified" about your spacechild.

    Hype train -> Reality

  • DusntmatterDusntmatter Member Posts: 32

    Originally posted by JeroKane

    Mass Effect 3 was a rush job. Nothing more, nothing less!

    The game is no doubt the shortest game of the three content wise.

    The animations / voice overs were also of a lesser quality compared to the first two games. Which is appaling... only adding to the rush job feel of the game.

    Eventho I was able to enjoy the first 95% of the game.... the ending was a downright insult. Felt extremely rushed!

    I don't need a "happy" ending... we knew how it was going to end.... but with such a rich universe.... all the lore and all the choices and decisions we made in the first two games! It was all for NOTHING!

    They could have come up with much much better endings, especially where the choices and decisions you made in the first two games actually MATTER!

    ME 3 endings are solely based on the amount of war assets you grind, also pretty much forcing people to grind insane amount of hours in Multiplayer to be able to get the best possible ending. Also something they said that would not be the case, that people were not forced to do multiplayer! Just another lie!

    And then lets not even talk about the whole Day 1 DLC, for EA to quickly cash grab another 10 bucks from people on top of the main game.

    A DLC that is pretty much obligatory for the Story/Lore people among us (like me), as you will otherwise miss out on a lot of background story/lore regarding the Proteans!

    All in all.... it's a downright shame that Mass Effect 3 is another victim of the ruthless EA money grab machine that needed to make unrealistic deadlines to get out of the door before EA's fiscal year ending!!




     

    Rush job is the perfect description for every Bioware game since Dragon Age I. 

  • DusntmatterDusntmatter Member Posts: 32

    Also, my biggest problem with the ending isn't necessarily with what actually happens in ending itself (it was god awful, don't get me wrong 3 different color beams is just lazy), but that it left me with no desire to play ME3 again. I played ME 2 over and over again with the various endings, but with ME 3 there is no point. Sure, I made a ton of decision leading to the ending, but I can honestly picture what the ending would be like if I let the geth live instead of the quarians. No need to play again to see that. 

  • FntSize72LOLFntSize72LOL Member Posts: 45



    Originally posted by Dusntmatter

    Also, my biggest problem with the ending isn't necessarily with what actually happens in ending itself (it was god awful, don't get me wrong 3 different color beams is just lazy), but that it left me with no desire to play ME3 again. I played ME 2 over and over again with the various endings, but with ME 3 there is no point. Sure, I made a ton of decision leading to the ending, but I can honestly picture what the ending would be like if I let the geth live instead of the quarians. No need to play again to see that. 










     

    Not only does it make it harder to play through ME3, but it hurts to play through ME1 and 2 now. Shepard dying wasn't necessarily a bad thing, however i honestly wouldn't mind an ending where Shepard can live, even if its at the cost of someone or something else. The biggest problem i have with the ending in general was how many plot holes were created because of Bioware/EA's lack of wanting to explain anything. While i don't believe in the indoctrination theory because it just seems like fans grasping at straws to get an ending that wasn't what we got, the whole thing just felt like a terrible hallucination.

    The Normandy escape scene was almost as big of a slap in the face as the color coded A,B,C choice you had to make. It made no sense that Joker would leave sol at that time, on top of that where were they going and what are the odds they'd even find a habitable planet. Not to mention it looked like they got ripped out of FTL, which according to the codex in ME1 would most likely bathe them in deadly radiation and kill them all anyway. Assuming it was habitable for Humans (And by extension Asari), It probably had no way of producing food for dextro's and that means given Tali and Garrus survived and was on the normandy, they're going to starve to death, nice.

    Given what we know about FTL space travel in the ME Universe, all of the fleets would be pretty much stranded in Sol, they wouldn't have nearly enough fuel to get home and without Eezo they wouldn't be able to travel at FTL. So its safe to say they're either going to starve or blow eachother up when the resources get low. Earth and Palaven are pretty much devastated so it will only be able to support a fraction of the populations they had pre-invasion. Any colony that isn't self sufficent, without Mass Relays they wont get supplies so they're all dead. I mean, i know not everyone thinks about this kind of stuff when playing a video game. Its hard not to get atleast a little depressed when thinking of the ultimate consequences you face when stopping the reapers. A little less Infered Holocaust in the "extended" ending would be a nice step to take.



     

  • ValasAzuviirValasAzuviir Member Posts: 27

    You've probably seen this already, and it might be jumping the gun a bit, considering it might fit better with your next article, but what the hey..

     

    Fair warning, it's a lengthy video.

     

  • RyowulfRyowulf Member UncommonPosts: 664

    Originally posted by troublmaker



    Originally posted by JeroKane



    Mass Effect 3 was a rush job. Nothing more, nothing less!

    The ending was fine.  This lies another main problem with trilogies, the last one will have a crappy ending guaranteed.

     

    It isn't a question of the ending being sad or crappy.  Its wrong. As in, 2+2=5, Lord of the Rongs.

    The movies and stories you mentioned (well most of them), if you were to look under the hood you would see that they were mechcaically very similar.  They shared certain elements, which came at certain points during the story. When you are telling a good story there is an order, a flow to it.

    The Mass Effect ending is broken, maybe there was meant to be more to it or maybe someone came in at the end and slapped the last bit in without regards for what came before.

    The saddest part in all this to me is that a lot of people spent a great deal of time making this game. They tried their best to make a great game. And then someone came in and gave a big f-u to all those people.

  • eddieg50eddieg50 Member UncommonPosts: 1,809

    Great game, great ending, Mass effect 2 is the best game I have ever played and 3 is close behind, especially when compared to trash like gears of war or modern combat and their ilk

  • gaeanprayergaeanprayer Member UncommonPosts: 2,341

    Yeah, I don't have a problem with people dying terribly. Or failing. I'd have been fine if after all these games, the war was lost, and I got to watch people die in terrible, mortal kombat-esque ways. Whatever.

     

    Just wrap the damn plot up, cut the vague bullshit. It's not poetry, it's a video game (spare me the "games are art" diatribe, that's not what I'm getting at). You want to end the series? End the bloody series and move on.

     

    Hopefully the summer ending DLC will do just that and we can finally put the issue to rest. I will say however, I'm sort of amused that the Better Business Bureau is even getting in on this. Totally worth a giggle.



     

    "Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."

  • fivorothfivoroth Member UncommonPosts: 3,916

    Saying that ME3 is the shortest game in the series is simply not true. Do you guys even remember how long it took to beat ME1? Now that game was super short! 

    On the ending, I think BioWare made a huge mistake. They shouldn't have gone for a controversial ending. They should've gone the happy ending route. This would've been much easier to do and most people would've been over the moon. I think that's what most people were expecting.

     

    Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.

  • troublmakertroublmaker Member Posts: 337

    I wonder if you really and trully played ME1, ME2 and ME3 or just make things up on the fly!

    Sorry, but ME1 is by far the largest game content wise, with tons of side missions (DLC excluded) that keep you occupied for a long long time.

    ME2 is also huge, but smaller than ME1... so here it was already on decline, with close corridor and small maps design. Still don't understand why they didn't use the entire design of Citadel from ME1 and reused it in ME2 and ME3... just upgrading the textures here and there a bit. But still Citadel in ME1 looks great... even for todays standards.

    I played ME1 and ME2 these past 2 months from scratch, with a fresh character, to build up a nice saved character to import into ME2 and then into ME3... to relive the whole story to the ending of ME3.

    So I know what I am talking about and the amount of time I have spend in each and every game.

    ME3 is short... very short, compared to ME1 and ME2. Period!

    Unless you going to count in the absolutely horrendous, boring and insane Multiplayer grind in ME3 to get max war assets!  I hope you're not serious and think that is actual content and game hours to include in ME3?  As it's nothing more than a boring horendous timesink! Something they lied about through their teeth would not be necessary to accomplish max war assets to get the best possible ending.

    So please... go actually play those games, before making things up.

    Really, side quests?  You got that much time out of these games because you ran around and did every single stupid side quest.  But if you want to finish the game my times are completely accurate.  Simply claiming I haven't played the games doesn't make me wrong, it makes you ignorant.

    You are allowed to hate the ending without it being called entitlement.  But if you start demanding the ending changed, then you are entitled.

    Authors are always under attack by their fans.  The second they produce something someone doesn't like there is backlash.

    There was this great Stephen King movie called Misery.  In it an author breaks down in a snowstorm and a woman takes in the author.  As it turns out she is a huge fan of his work and as it turns out he has the manuscript for the final book in the series.  After reading it in a single sitting she hates the ending.  She breaks the author's legs and forces him to a wheelchair.  From this piont on she is forcing him to write a better ending to the book.  Every time an ending is presented she hates it and she forces him to write another one.  Eventually he creates the work of fiction that she wants at which point he escapes.

    All the nerds whinning about the ending and only the ending remind me so much of Kathy Bate's character.

    it is alright to expect a great ending, but it is not alright to feel that you deserve a great ending.  This puts pressure on artists to capitulate to the fans instead of write something that fits with their creative modus.

    Honestly if you want to make a new ending, go ahead.  Write a piece of fan fiction showing how it should end.  What you will find out is that making a story is not easy and that the vast majority of people will hate your work.

  • ammoniteammonite Member Posts: 113

    Originally posted by JeroKane

    Originally posted by Suzie_Ford

    Originally posted by Sybnal

    Originally posted by Sunscour

     

    I am pretty sure that 99,9% of the people that liked the enitre ME3 game only played ME3... or didn't much care about the story/lore and just shoot and blast their way through the game... playing it as a regular FPS shooter, like COD or Battlefield game.

    Pretty much everyone I know that have played through ME1 and ME2, used saved character, payed lots of attention to the lore and story and characters... enjoyed the game as a RPG... they all were baffled and dissapointed with ME3's endings.

    I mean..... all the effort you put in both ME1 and ME2... to get your best possible saved character to import into ME3... it means total SQUAT! NADA!  It has ZERO effect on the outcome!

    EVERYTHING you did in ME1 and ME2 means NOTHING in ME3 ! Just a very few extra dialogs in the beginning... that's it! Nothing more!  It has ZERO impact on ME3!

    As the outcome (current endings in ME3) are SOLELY based on the amount of war assets you grind together in ME3 itself!  That's it!

    The worst is, because the endings in ME3 are such an insult (rushed, simplistic, resolute!)... that I will never be able to play ME1 and ME2 anymore... as what's the point?  I know how it's going to end now and that everything I do or try in ME1 and ME2 means TOTAL SQUAT! NADA!

    All Mass Relays get destroyed and everyone is pretty much isolated, stranded and screwed.

     I had a conversation like this on the train. Workmate liked the ending!, then told me he never played the other games and did'nt like science fiction or fantasy.

     I explained, how with the Relays turning into ship wrecking Nova that the galactic civilisation was screwed, he answered, 'its only a game'.

     Next Bioware AAA title will be 'PACKMAN - THE REVENGE'

    image

  • ConnmacartConnmacart Member UncommonPosts: 722

    Your times are not correct. I did everything in ME3 and did not come close to 40 hours game.

    ME3 with everything done plus from ashes = 30 hours

    ME2 with everything done including most DLC = 48 hours

    ME1 with everything done no DLC = 37 hours

    I checked all my final saves for these numbers.

    You scoff doing side quests, well not doing sidequests drops ME3 playtime down to about 10 hours max. ME3 simply has the least amount of content. Before you start saying well you had DLCs for ME2. There is not 18 hours worth of DLC content out there.

  • fadisfadis Member Posts: 469

    Write a better ending?  Sure.. but I also would've changed huge chunks of the main plot of ME2, as well.  But to give you an idea...

     

    I would've had the finished Crucible (surpisingly, instead of a weapon) turn out to be an intergalactic portal/mass relay.  An escape route, if you will.

    Realizing the war is lost and the only hope is to go to wherever this might lead - the final act would've involved a last stand of the Organic fleets defending the portal as a chaotic exodus of the galaxy ensues through the Crucible.

    A ton of potential endings there... a last showdown with Sovereign... does Shepard go out in a blaze of glory?  Can the Organics even defend (then presumably destroy) it long enough?  Maybe Shepard heads through the portal hoping to lead the survivors?  What really awaits on the other side? 

     

  • DaddyDarkDaddyDark Member Posts: 138

    The ending sucks - everybody agree on that. It's like the devs just came up with it in a few hours as they had to urgently finish the job (so they haven't even bothered to do ending footages different a single bit). Likely they were hard pressed towards the schedule by EA managers...

    Talking about the 3 games - I feel like they twisted the Mass Effect from a space exploration type game (remember the driving on planets surface in the 1st game) with a great plot to the nearly coridor type game in Mass Effect 3 ... you have the option to turn off the "boring" dialogue choices... Oh my!!! Are there really dialogue choices in the EA games? More like 1) I'll do it 2) I'll do it but... 3) I hate to do it but I must...  and they think it to be too difficult and boring, so some people would turn it off...  Lol Where are they heading? - to the Atari type arcade games?

    But I love the multiplayer ME3... well despite the fact they don't have the chat both in game and in the lobby... I thought everybody knows the chat is a must in any multiplayer game... and everything is done with the spacebar... you usually get into the situations where you do not what was intended... like I want to run for cover, but start reviving the fallen player instead and die... Otherwise it resembles an easier version of your typical MMO dungeon, but with much much more dynamism... I love that, especially with the lack of coop PC game out there.

  • troublmakertroublmaker Member Posts: 337

    Originally posted by fadis

    Write a better ending?  Sure.. but I also would've changed huge chunks of the main plot of ME2, as well.  But to give you an idea...

    I would've had the finished Crucible (surpisingly, instead of a weapon) turn out to be an intergalactic portal/mass relay.  An escape route, if you will.

    Realizing the war is lost and the only hope is to go to wherever this might lead - the final act would've involved a last stand of the Organic fleets defending the portal as a chaotic exodus of the galaxy ensues through the Crucible.

    A ton of potential endings there... a last showdown with Sovereign... does Shepard go out in a blaze of glory?  Can the Organics even defend (then presumably destroy) it long enough?  Maybe Shepard heads through the portal hoping to lead the survivors?  What really awaits on the other side? 


     

    So go ahead and write the ending from wherever you feel like it.  Write the entire script, write all of the details and churn it out.  Professional authors can spend up to a year perfecting a story

    Remember when crafting your own ending though that this is the final story of Sheppard and so whatever ending has to tie in everything, no loose ends.

    As I've stated before, finishing up a sequel is really really hard.  Most sequel endings generally suck and often do not tie in with the other movies/books at all.  It's not a lack of vision it's a lack of planning.

    No one at Bioware told the guy who wrote Mass Effect to make a full three stories.  He works like a TV screen writer who is forced to churn out next week's script as it's being needed.

    If anything the delivery of the ending was probably bad... and not that it was a bad ending.  Some people might think "it's a dream" might be a cop out but honestly there aren't many better ways to end it and tie in everything.

    Most games have crappy endings.  Story telling in video games is not an old and well developed art, it is something new.  The first real story telling in games might be 2002-2003. Much like the first movies they shouldn't be judged too harshly if they haven't quite figured out how to explain the story they want to tell in this format.

    And oh man the ending to Red Faction: Armageddon was terrible.  I can't believe it ended like that.  Why can't they change it?  So stupid that he loses his girlfriend and just doesn't care.. and stuff.

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