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Yeah go play ME1, the game that ended with a big pew-pew space battle.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:23
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Lycus posted:Yeah go play ME1, the game that ended with a big pew-pew space battle cutscene. Edit: Now I'm picturing ME4 with an AC4-like ship fighting and now I've made myself sad because it would be awesome. 
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Dec 30, 2013 22:28
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SubponticatePoster posted:FTFY. You never do any actual ship to ship fighting. At best it would end up being another mounted turret sequence which suck.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:30
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Lycus posted:Yeah go play ME1, the game that ended with a big pew-pew space battle. Or Me2, the game that ended with a big pew pew space battle and mission. The Mass Effect series was always about cliched pulpy sci fi endings. A big problem with Me3 is Bioware decided to try and get artsy and intellectual with that transhumanism poo poo when that didn't match the tone of their series at all. I mean sure they had some cool more mature themes in there like the genophage, but overall it was always a typical story of plucky good guys overcoming the odds. If they had written Me3 with the same type of ending as the first two, everyone would have been more than pleased.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:30
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I myself never understood the problem with a happy ending. You do everything right through the whole series, either by being super nice or a super rear end in a top hat and at the end you get to retire with your LI (or harem because Shepard is a slut) with all the Reapers blown up. Don't want a happy ending? Then just do Failshep runs, they're easy enough. VVV Not on console
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Dec 30, 2013 22:33
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Luckily there's a mod for that.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:33
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Geostomp posted:This is part of why ME3 bugs me: the writers had so many potential outs, but just bulled on putting themselves into a corner by dropping all of it so the Reapers were so invincible that they needed the massive cop-out of the Crucible's mystery magic to end things. It's like they had to try to make things go so wrong. ME3 was not an accident, like they were trying to write something and slipped and ended up with the Crucible. Bioware told the story that they wanted to tell - they didn't forget about all the other plot threads they could have used to resolve the Reapers, they just didn't want to use them because they wanted to write in the Catalyst, because Mass Effect has always been a giant grab-bag of sci-fi, 1960 to present day, and they hadn't done 2001: A Space Odyssey yet. For the record, like exquisite tea used to say in the spoiler thread, I think ME3 is an interesting 'failure'. I think that's worthier than the 'happy ending space opera' that we've all seen before, because at least this is new and different. Milky Moor posted:'suddenly alter everyone in the galaxy without their consent' Unless you mean this as an ironic Pythonesque "I never asked to be liberated from the dictatorship!" joke then this is a very silly criticism. Geostomp posted:If you try hard enough, you'll eventually make all the square pegs of the world's problems fit into the round hole of "generational conflict" (which is still broader than very specific "synthetic vs. organic" conflict that the ending claimed). Okay, look, come on guys. This is starting to annoy me. The text isn't going to spell out the themes for you, yeah? That isn't how it works. As it is, the ME series comes close enough to explicitly saying what it's about, what with all the heavy-handed references to bad dads, disobedient creations and old vs new. When we say (I say, when I say, I've been saying this since ME2/not that long after ME3 hit, now suddenly we're all saying it...) Mass Effect is about intergenerational conflict, it's not saying that literally the hot button issue in the galaxy is what to do about parents fighting with children, it's saying that that's the topic Bioware wanted to address in their game series. Whether or not the characters in their fiction are aware of this is irrelevant - Mass Effect has always been about this idea of the past fighting or conflicting or just plain determining the present, whether covertly (the Mass Relays have determined the course of all pan-galactic civilisations for millenia) or overtly (giant killer robots from outer space murdering everything). Strictly speaking this is good old Entropy, but it best expresses itself in the series as intergenerational conflict, or daddy issues. Synthetics vs organics, older races vs newer races, parents vs children - they don't directly relate, because they don't need to! They're themes! They're part of the series as a literary construct, which is something I think the thread forgets at times.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:33
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So what if I like the Destroy ending? gently caress ALL YOU HATERS! I didn't like Synthesis or Control and I wasn't forced to choose them, I hated the Catalyst and it's Reaper abomination slaves with the fury of a thousand suns, I wanted to see Reapers fall over dead, and I wanted Shepard to live. And I got all of that. So what's with all of the bitching? Last time I checked, the story wasn't coop so don't try to make others feel bad or belittle them because they made different choices from you.
SgtSteel91 fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 22:36
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I'm trying to imagine a Mass Effect series without the Reapers actually showing up in full force and it is just the dumbest poo poo.  The Reapers are, as already pointed out, all over the place in ME3. They are both impossible to defeat conventionally (in-game) and little more than fancy dreadnaughts (codex). In the Codex, existing weaknesses have been patched up for no apparent reason but, meanwhile, they still can be outmanoeuvred, defeated and destroyed and the general vibe is one of that there will be a conventional victory - albeit costly - if Shepard can get everyone working together. But then...  edit: Danger, fundamentally altering everyone on a metaphysical/mental/genetic/magical level is a whole different can of worms than liberating the oppressed. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 22:38
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Vigilance posted:The Mass Effect series was always about cliched pulpy sci fi endings. Pulp sci-fi is an actual thing, not a shorthand for "big dumb explosions and a Hollywood plot that doesn't challenge me too much." There's a good couple of posts in the ME3 spoiler thread that explains this far better than I could. If anything, pulp sci-fi is one of the few kinds of sci-fi that Mass Effect actually isn't about.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:40
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One thing that Mass Effect did well is contriving it so that no matter what you choose, you're right. So if Synthesis somehow makes sense to you - great! Pick it.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:43
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Bongo Bill posted:One thing that Mass Effect did well is contriving it so that no matter what you choose, you're right. So if Synthesis somehow makes sense to you - great! Pick it. This. Sacrifice the Council? Humanity has more ships to fight the Reapers with and those Council guys were jerks anyway. Saved the Council? Humanity has the trust and respect of the rest of the galactic community and can count on their support to make up for their lost ships. Saved the Collector Base? When you shut down Cerberus you get the Reaper Brain which gives more war asset points and makes the best Control ending easier to achieve. Destroyed the Collector Base? Well Cerberus got itself indoctrinated so good job not giving them the intact base which they can use to gently caress you over. And that Reaper Heart makes getting the best Destroy ending easier. Many choices lay ahead, most of them won't shoot you in the foot. SgtSteel91 fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 22:50
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I don't think the thread forgets, I think "the thread" simply doesn't agree with your pretentious interpretations and apologism.Vigilance posted:Or Me2, the game that ended with a big pew pew space battle and mission. You don't need actual reapers arriving to have high stakes, battles and combat, and you can have space battles without trying to turn the whole game into a series of "epic" battle scenes which are often at odds with the whole player agency thing. ME1 didn't have massive battles until the very end. ME2 didn't even really have a huge battle, just Normandy vs. Collectors fights. It would have been entirely possible to make a third game with battles of a similar scope without people feeling cheated. Also, people on the internet complain about everything. Goons complain about everything. That's not a good benchmark. orcane fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 22:54
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I'm trying to push that the story would've much more boring and unsatisfying if the Reapers never showed up, and the thread would've bitched about it. Seems less weird than "the Reaper force shouldn't have been in the games at all. Only then could it have been great!" or something.
Lycus fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 22:59
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SgtSteel91 posted:So what if I like the Destroy ending? gently caress ALL YOU HATERS! I didn't like Synthesis or Control and I wasn't forced to choose them, I hated the Catalyst and it's Reaper abomination slaves with the fury of a thousand suns, I wanted to see Reapers fall over dead, and I wanted Shepard to live. And I got all of that. So what's with all of the bitching? Last time I checked, the story wasn't coop so don't try to make others feel bad or belittle them because they made different choices from you. The problem is that everybody expected sequels (chronological sequels) to the series and if Bioware actually ends up doing on of those, they'll either have to settle for one canon ending (and no matter which one they pick, they'll always piss off fans who preferred one of the others) or do some really twisted stuff to merge them into a single canon outcome or just plainly ignore some endings or whatever. As they're presented now, the endings (but specifically Synthesis compared to the other two) are so fundamentally different in their outcomes that it's going to be weird or people are going to be pissed no matter what they'll end up deciding that the post-ME3 galaxy will look like.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:01
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orcane posted:I don't think the thread forgets, I think "the thread" simply doesn't agree with your pretentious interpretations and apologism. No, you're dumb. apologism for a game jeeesus
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Dec 30, 2013 23:06
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I think I posted this a long time ago, but I'll say it again: Mass Effect was a mid-to-late 80s low budget science fiction movie, especially if you play as a Paragade Male Soldier Shep. Most of the races could have easily been made with effects of the era, the film grain and lens flares made it look like it has been filmed on the cheap, etc. It didn't do well at the box office, but it found an audience. Mass Effect 2 was a 90s miniseries. Better production values with an episodic format; the overarching plot is mixed with each episode featuring one of Shep's crew and their issue, while retaining the action feel from the movie. The gamble of having Shep be more emotionally sensitive (mirroring Clinton's "I feel your pain" stuff) pays off; the series becomes much more mainstream and acceptable. Mass Effect 3 is a mid 2000s movie, returning more to the action genre it was originally, but with a lot more of a budget. Cynicism of the era has Shep portrayed as weary and tired, and some actions he performs are a bit rougher than fans of the miniseries (ME2) expect. The reaction to the ending embroils the fledgling Internet. I don't honestly know why I've always felt this way, but I do.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:06
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Captain Oblivious posted:The old paradigm is synthetics versus organics. This theme is pretty clear throughout the entire series. The Reapers are just a symptom of the problem of irreconcilable differences. When and if they are gone it will just happen again sooner or later. Almost one of the last things you do before going to Earth and meeting the Catalyst is broker a lasting peace between the Geth and the Quarians. I can't recall for certain but I'm pretty sure you never even get to bring that up to the Catalyst when it tells you that war between organics and synthetics is inevitable. It seemed to me that Geth/Quarian peace being a (potential) part of the story should have been used as a counter to the Catalyst's claims that the Reapers were necessary, if they really wanted to force people down the route of the old paradigm being unstoppable unless you chose the red, blue or green button, then perhaps they shouldn't have included a mission where you successfully bring to an end a long-standing synthetic/organic conflict. The problem there, as many have already mentioned, is that a group of writers worked on the first 90-95% of the story and then two people shut all the rest out and came up with an ending independent of the rest of the story.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:08
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Jerusalem posted:Almost one of the last things you do before going to Earth and meeting the Catalyst is broker a lasting peace between the Geth and the Quarians. I can't recall for certain but I'm pretty sure you never even get to bring that up to the Catalyst when it tells you that war between organics and synthetics is inevitable.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:13
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The endings were all Really Good.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:17
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Lycus posted:I'm trying to push that the story would've much more boring and unsatisfying if the Reapers never showed up, and the thread would've bitched about it. Seems less weird than "the Reaper force shouldn't have been in the games at all. Only then could it have been great!" or something. Burning Mustache posted:The problem is that everybody expected sequels (chronological sequels) to the series and if Bioware actually ends up doing on of those, they'll either have to settle for one canon ending (and no matter which one they pick, they'll always piss off fans who preferred one of the others) or do some really twisted stuff to merge them into a single canon outcome or just plainly ignore some endings or whatever. As they're presented now, the endings (but specifically Synthesis compared to the other two) are so fundamentally different in their outcomes that it's going to be weird or people are going to be pissed no matter what they'll end up deciding that the post-ME3 galaxy will look like. On the other hand it forces them to review their universe and eschew a direct sequel in favour of a prequel or set a sequel long enough after Shepard's final decision, so they can paint over the consequences of the RBG endings somewhat. That might actually be better than sticking to the same places, races and political situations they worked with for three games (or two, since they mostly seem to have forgotten most of ME1). orcane fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 23:23
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Jerusalem posted:It seemed to me that Geth/Quarian peace being a (potential) part of the story should have been used as a counter to the Catalyst's claims that the Reapers were necessary, if they really wanted to force people down the route of the old paradigm being unstoppable unless you chose the red, blue or green button, then perhaps they shouldn't have included a mission where you successfully bring to an end a long-standing synthetic/organic conflict. This would be true if making peace between the two was a point of inevitably. As the game is designed, it's comparitively difficult to pull off. The average player is more likely to meet the Catalyst with one of them dead than working together. Wasn't there some image floating around about this? I recall seeing it... Edit: Yeah, not the best source but it's on other sites too: Players were pretty split on how they finished that quest. I agree that they should have put some throwaway line had you pulled it off. Some sort of  "Yay you forced peace onto them at gunpoint, I'm sure nothing will go wrong!" line.
MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 23:25
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MisterBibs posted:I agree that they should have put some throwaway line had you pulled it off. Some sort of In which case there should have also been a counter of Shepard crying,"I learned it from you! I learned it from watching you!  " and running out of the room sobbing.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:32
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Lt. Danger posted:Pulp sci-fi is an actual thing, not a shorthand for "big dumb explosions and a Hollywood plot that doesn't challenge me too much." We can argue about terminology, but I don't think it's at all arguable that Mass Effect is and always was a fairly basic and cliched story of good guys vs the big bad with a few slightly more interesting concepts mixed in.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:08
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I've still not managed to play ME3 a second time although that's as much a product of me failing to drag a new renegade shepherd through the full series as it is my annoyance. Every-time I come here my brain tries to work out what ending I'd choose next but two feel unsatisfactory and synthesis is lol (still chose it first time because, you know, 'best ending'  ). I think control would have worked better if they'd been able to emulate a god emperor feel, a sort of "this isn't the future you want, but this is the future you need to truly break this cycle". Then Synthesis I think would have worked better if it ended in a similar fashion to Foundation's Edge (the penultimate book in that series) where at the end of that story the protagonist stalls for time in whether humanity should adopt a galaxy spanning mega-conscious, as he's not prepared to just take the advocates word at face value. Also the change in that story would take 100's/1000's of years which feels significantly less abhorrent.. In the end I still think there shouldn't have been a Big Choice. It should have just been a no ties destroy ending with the choices you made, races and characters you've saved/destroyed determining the makeup of the ending. MisterBibs posted:This would be true if making peace between the two was a point of inevitably. As the game is designed, it's comparitively difficult to pull off. The average player is more likely to meet the Catalyst with one of them dead than working together. Actually this is a good point as having invested so much time in this universe I was damned if I was going to allow any genocide on my watch. I don't think it would have made everything sit nicely but this could have been a valid part of a unifying thread of plot points throughout the 100+ hour series which properly sold the Organics+Robots = Doom equation. Just needs the rest of that thread... And the fact they had that get out jail card (same too for the salarian/krogan conflict) made the fact there wasn't one at the end quite jarring. Fwoderwick fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Dec 31, 2013 |
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Dec 31, 2013 00:11
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Malderi posted:Can we all agree that the "perfect destroy" ending is canonical and nothing else happened? Normandy lives, crewmates live, Shep lives, and the Catalyst is just a Reaper trying to say anything to get Shepherd to not kill them all. Besides, I think the Reapers are interesting and would prefer they lived.  Minus the genocidal tendencies of course.Bongo Bill posted:You shouldn't introduce a new idea like that in a vacuum in the last five minutes, especially when it's so similar to the crazy nonsense a villain was raving about earlier.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:17
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Vigilance posted:We can argue about terminology, but I don't think it's at all arguable that Mass Effect is and always was a fairly basic and cliched story of good guys vs the big bad with a few slightly more interesting concepts mixed in. Gonna be all contrarian again and say that it is. I know we all make fun of Bioware for heavily mining Joseph Campbell but there's more to the series than goodies and baddies in space. For example, look at the different inspirations for the art direction in each game: ME1 is like Star Trek or Babylon 5, ME2 is like Alien or Blade Runner, and ME3 is like Star Wars or Independence Day.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:23
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I'm probably remembering incorrectly, but wasn't the first Mass Effect made because Bioware either lost the Star Wars license or because they wanted to make a Star Wars game free of the constraints of that universe? Biotic powers are basically Force Powers and Paragon/Renegade Interrupts are pretty much Force Persuasion, after all.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:27
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Jerusalem posted:I'm probably remembering incorrectly, but wasn't the first Mass Effect made because Bioware either lost the Star Wars license or because they wanted to make a Star Wars game free of the constraints of that universe? I think the closest to this I've heard was someone, possibly Casey Hudson, saying that Bioware wanted to make a space sci-fi game but they also wanted full control over the IP, so they came up with their own.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:33
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I think Mass Effect, Jade Empire and Dragon Age were part of a drive to build up their own portfolio of stuff so they weren't beholden to external interests for all their business. Star Wars is pretty straightforward, but apparently between Hasbro and Atari the D&D license was always a bit of a minefield... But by owning the IP Bioware can make direct bank from all the terrible expanded universe poo poo that people like to buy, instead of having their KOTOR cash-ins go straight to Lucas.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:34
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Another ending I would have liked to see is one where you destroy the Catalyst with the intention of freeing the Reapers from its control. It's not like you could make things worse at that point. This might be in a situation where the Cruicible doesn't exist. Harbinger, being his dickish self, wants to continue the cycle and gains some supporters, but the majority of the Reapers turn on him and they start having their own civil war. One of the final scenes would be Harbinger screaming in range as he's destroyed by other Reapers. How many turn on Harbinger vs fighting him might be determined by what Shepard has done and whether or not he brought the Geth vs Quarian situation to a good end. The Geth showed us that even among beings like that, they aren't always in full agreement.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:37
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Lt. Danger posted:I think Mass Effect, Jade Empire and Dragon Age were part of a drive to build up their own portfolio of stuff so they weren't beholden to external interests for all their business. Star Wars is pretty straightforward, but apparently between Hasbro and Atari the D&D license was always a bit of a minefield... I'm honestly interested to see how the actual setting does in terms of awful EU stuff. Pre-ME3, you had people writing unironically that Mass Effect was the most important sci-fi series of this generation, but the ending (fairly or unfairly) seemed to slow that momentum.
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Dec 31, 2013 00:44
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Pattonesque posted:I'm honestly interested to see how the actual setting does in terms of awful EU stuff. Pre-ME3, you had people writing unironically that Mass Effect was the most important sci-fi series of this generation, but the ending (fairly or unfairly) seemed to slow that momentum. The latest Mass Effect novel (Deception) was so poorly received and so far removed from the actual lore (I think it basically said that Quarians don't wear enclosed suits) that the publisher and Bioware agreed to reprint it with corrections and alterations. Then ME3 happened and it looks like this won't be going ahead. ME movie seems to be in development hell. It didn't slow the momentum. It flat out killed it. The EU that was created for Mass Effect wasn't even terribly good. Redemption was okay, but it was a story we already knew about. Ascension was fine with some interesting stuff not seen before (the Migrant Fleet etc) but just a flat story with nothing really going for it. Retribution had some cool things about the Reapers (but all invalidated by ME3, I think) but was far worse than Ascension was. And Deception, well... Kai Leng cereal killer. I've never actually read Deception. Paragon Lost or whatever also seems terrible. There's a lot of comics but, lol, comics. There's a lot of good stories you could write in the Mass Effect universe. Sure, it won't be great literature, but all the frameworks are there to tell sci-fi adventures like you find in the Star Wars EU or in novels like Leviathan Wakes. Hell, you could even do something like Blindsight about the Reapers. But none of the novels released really embraced the whole universe and instead revolved around Anderson, TIM and Aria (along with Kahlee Sanders) who aren't very interesting characters. And that's not even getting into the frequently awkward prose, like the description of some teenager literally popping a boner over Sanders. It'll be interesting to see how things go in the wake of Mass Effect 4, but I don't think it's really possible to overstate how ME3's ending damaged ME as a franchise. It's no longer 'that really cool game where your choices matter and you pal around the galaxy with a team of cool dudes', it's 'the game with the horrible ending'.
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Dec 31, 2013 01:00
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Seriously, when you release a novel that has these sorts of errors, it's going to piss off the primary readership for these novels (the fans who know every little bit of canon like the back of their hand). It says 'blatant cash grab'. Find them here.
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Dec 31, 2013 01:09
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Milky Moor posted:Seriously, when you release a novel that has these sorts of errors, it's going to piss off the primary readership for these novels (the fans who know every little bit of canon like the back of their hand). It says 'blatant cash grab'. "While this list may seem nit-picky considering some of the errors, there are a handful worth mentioning that have very legitimate reasons for being upset over. This includes a character ‘growing up’ from being autistic, turning Mass Effect’s only gay male character straight and then killing him, and being literally impossible to reconcile with the timeline made by the games, comics and other books." Welp. EDIT: Man, stuff like Battletech seems to have a million short stories, but I've never really seen any for Mass Effect 
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Dec 31, 2013 01:11
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Pattonesque posted:Pre-ME3, you had people writing unironically that Mass Effect was the most important sci-fi series of this generation, but the ending (fairly or unfairly) seemed to slow that momentum. Fun fact, the person who wrote that "Why Mass Effect is the most important sci-fi of our generation" article literally took it back afterwards. Can't find it right now, though.
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Dec 31, 2013 01:14
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Cheston posted:Fun fact, the person who wrote that "Why Mass Effect is the most important sci-fi of our generation" article literally took it back afterwards. Can't find it right now, though. http://doycetesterman.com/index.php/2012/03/mass-effect-tolkein-and-your-bullshit-artistic-process/ That guy?
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Dec 31, 2013 01:16
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Pattonesque posted:http://doycetesterman.com/index.php/2012/03/mass-effect-tolkein-and-your-bullshit-artistic-process/ That's one of the nerdiest things I've ever read, but I have to admit I got a good laugh out of,"Destroy evil, plus all Dwarfs will die."
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Dec 31, 2013 01:31
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Milky Moor posted:Seriously, when you release a novel that has these sorts of errors, it's going to piss off the primary readership for these novels (the fans who know every little bit of canon like the back of their hand). It says 'blatant cash grab'. I've only ever read the first two books, and I read them shortly after ME2 came out since I was crazed and wanted more Mass Effect. They're not awful books, but they're clearly introducing things that come up in the (next) game: The first book (Revelation) gets away with it more since it's also the first thing set in the universe, but the second book (Ascension) deals with: 1. The Collectors 2. Cerberus and the Illusive Man 3. The Migrant Fleet 4. Omega To be honest it felt to me like the book was trying to... I don't really know the right word, so I'll go with 'piggyback' off the concepts developed for the game. Ironically it pushed me away from the next two books (and thank god), since I had gone into ME2 nearly completely blind and enjoyed the experience that much more for it.
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Dec 31, 2013 01:42
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Sky Shadowing posted:I've only ever read the first two books, and I read them shortly after ME2 came out since I was crazed and wanted more Mass Effect. They're not awful books, but they're clearly introducing things that come up in the (next) game: Do you mean that it just sort of throws all the concepts in without much rhyme or reason? That's the feeling I got from it. It's too much for one relatively thin novel. You could do a tie-in novel just about Cerberus and the Collectors, especially since they both wanted Shepard's body. You could do cool stuff with TIM, Miranda, Jacob and Wilson. But throwing in Aria, Omega, the original characters, and then tying it all together with a raid on the Migrant Fleet... it's just too much. It's like the book is saying 'the next game is going to deal with these things'. But EU stories, the good ones, aren't a bridging story. The X-Wing novels are probably the best work of the Star Wars EU, because they're a Top Gun space adventure that explores things you didn't really see in the films, allowing an original, fresh perspective with an original cast of characters that isn't tied up with the big mysteries like the Force and Jedi and Sith. But every ME novel was tied up with the big mysteries and with feature characters like TIM and Aria. So, by Retribution, the mysteries seem incoherent because no answers have come out, and the characters are just boring because it is hard to write intelligent, menacing characters well. In Retribution, TIM and Aria have this conversation and both of them come off looking like blabbering idiots. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Dec 31, 2013 |
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Dec 31, 2013 01:50
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