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I'm like 60% sure you have to talk / gun down the Vermire survivor regardless of what your playthrough was like. Taking certain actions beforehand might make it easier to talk them down, but I wouldn't even count on that. I let Ashley live if only because I was so tired of having to use the same few squadmates over and over. And then I never actually used her on a mission. No comments on Udina's big moment? I think I hinted above that it's one of the many instances of ME3 taking something that was complex in the previous installments and... to be as fair as possible... simplifying it a great deal. (And if they were going to turn Udina into a comic book villain, at least they could have given him in appropriately epic demise, instead of that wet fart) Mazerunner posted:Has anyone read the Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle? The ending (the humans are chilling out and looking at the barrier, while one the aliens, birth controlled and all, plays besides them) makes a lot more sense with a sequel in mind. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 16:06
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2house2fly posted:I always saw the genophage as a krogan preservation project, really. If you can deploy a sterility plague throughout an entire species you could presumably deploy a killer plague just as easily. Or just carpet bomb their homeworld with those 20-kiloton cannonballs. I'm sure I remember Mordin saying something along those lines in ME2 but last time I played I didn't see it so maybe I misremembered something. No, you're right. The Krogan could have been utterly wiped out through a variety of means. A sidenote even- while the Salarians developed the genophage they intended to use it as deterrent to get the Krogan to stop without deploying, but it was the Turians who pushed the button. The thing with the genophage is that Tuchanka was so dangerous that the Krogan, as durable as they are, had to adopt an r-type breeding strategy to survive, so only one out of every hundred or thousand births would survive to adulthood. Once free into the galaxy, they had a bunch of planets not nearly so dangerous and their population exploded. The genophage, or at least Mordin's refinement of it, was calculated to bring them back to that pre-uplifting birthrate, which would still be sustainable. Problem is a bunch of the Krogan just stopped trying and became self-destructive mercs or started fighting each other, or retreated back to Tuchanka where everyone dies most of the time and whatnot so the population kept shrinking.
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Sep 3, 2014 16:09
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2house2fly posted:I always saw the genophage as a krogan preservation project, really. If you can deploy a sterility plague throughout an entire species you could presumably deploy a killer plague just as easily. Or just carpet bomb their homeworld with those 20-kiloton cannonballs. I'm sure I remember Mordin saying something along those lines in ME2 but last time I played I didn't see it so maybe I misremembered something. That's exactly what Mordin said it was. The other races could probably completely drive the krogan to extinction if they were to start another war, so the salarians introduced the carefully controlled genophage to keep their numbers at a reasonable level. It'd have been much easier to make a version of the genophage that causes complete sterility than one that allows for pre-industrial population growth. The problem was that the krogan culture, which was still recovering from massive nuclear war at the time of their discovery, wasn't able to catch up since everyone was in such a hurry to turn them against the rachni. Having a fundamental part of their biology destroyed by their "allies" only made things worse, leading to them falling into the rut of endless in-fighting tribes they were by the point of this game. It might seem a little over-the-top, but this all did happen within two or three generations of krogans, partially explaining why they can't seem to move on.
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Sep 3, 2014 16:15
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Xander77 posted:I'm like 60% sure you have to talk / gun down the Vermire survivor regardless of what your playthrough was like. Taking certain actions beforehand might make it easier to talk them down, but I wouldn't even count on that. I'll probably circle back to Udina when I do the monastery mission and we all have fascism-chat. There's an invisible meter for Ashley/Kaidan that goes up or down based on your actions in the games - mostly ME3, but one or two decisions from the other two games count as well. Mostly it's based on if you're nice to them on Mars and if you visit them in the hospital, but who the Council is and if you romanced/cheated on them count too. Over 5 and you automatically convince the VS to stand down; under 0 and you have to shoot them, and they curse you as they die; between the two and you get what's in the video, where you make a Rep check or shoot them/have a squaddie shoot them. The consequence is a bit limp - either you get another squadmate that isn't interesting and doesn't do much, or you get nothing. Generally I think Bioware struggles with handling choice and tying it to any kind of overarching narrative. I have a feeling it's because they're not always entirely sure what they want to do with it.
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Sep 3, 2014 16:23
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Xander77 posted:I'm like 60% sure you have to talk / gun down the Vermire survivor regardless of what your playthrough was like. Taking certain actions beforehand might make it easier to talk them down, but I wouldn't even count on that. There's a hidden trust level that gets calculated based on a bunch of things like if you romanced them in 1, cheated on them in 2, and visited them in the hospital. If the net value is below -1 you can't convince them, if it's 4 or higher you don't have to talk them down beyond lowering your gun, between 0-3 it's a reputation check. Ashley is pretty good just because Inferno Grenades are a great power and fun as hell to have her use her NPC Psychic powers to magically teleport to the enemies and explode instantly 6 times in a row. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 16:27
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Geostomp posted:That's exactly what Mordin said it was. The other races could probably completely drive the krogan to extinction if they were to start another war, so the salarians introduced the carefully controlled genophage to keep their numbers at a reasonable level. It'd have been much easier to make a version of the genophage that causes complete sterility than one that allows for pre-industrial population growth. Yeah the Genophage was actually the good option, that's also why I think Wrex is so important to keep alive if you want to have the Krogan not repeat past mistakes; he is the only Krogan that ever demonstrates an actual understanding of why the Genophage was implimented and is willing to (forcefully if neccessary which it will be because Krogan do nothing without force) look to solve the massive overbreeding issue.
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Sep 3, 2014 17:38
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Xander77 posted:No comments on Udina's big moment? I think I hinted above that it's one of the many instances of ME3 taking something that was complex in the previous installments and... to be as fair as possible... simplifying it a great deal. I think it's another victim of the "resolve everything" approach that suggests that you need closure on the fact that Udina was slightly unpopular in the second game, so it's important that we engineer a way for the player to shoot him in the face, and we don't really have a story and we can only give it 30 minutes, so it's just going to be a series of bullshit things that don't make sense and if we throw them together in sequence quickly enough people won't catch on. The reason Lt. Danger could essentially talk over this entire section is that it ultimately has no reason to be there. It's not fun, it's not in any way interesting, it's adding more contrivance to the already growing Cerberus contrivance fire, and all it actually accomplishes is to introduce Ninja X-Pac as a poorly-constructed character that doesn't fit the story at all, as well as to give you a chance to shoot a relatively minor character from the first two games. You could take this entire part out of the game, and it'd pretty much be better for it.
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Sep 3, 2014 19:54
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Udina has always been the enemy
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Sep 3, 2014 20:12
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Lt. Danger posted:Udina has always been the enemy Finally something we can agree on.
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Sep 3, 2014 20:14
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Kai Leng, even if the developers intended him to be lame, never came across as something you were laughing with them about, it came across as something you were laughing at them for putting in the game.
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Sep 3, 2014 20:20
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theblastizard posted:Kai Leng, even if the developers intended him to be lame, never came across as something you were laughing with them about, it came across as something you were laughing at them for putting in the game. I just can't imagine Bioware making this totally badass Matrix ninja and giving him spots and not being in on the joke, though.
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Sep 3, 2014 20:31
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I can.
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Sep 3, 2014 20:32
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What could Bioware possibly have done to deserve this cynicism?!
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Sep 3, 2014 20:38
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JabaTheHuttsayingOhHoHoHo.jpg
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Sep 3, 2014 20:39
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Lt. Danger posted:Udina has always been the enemy That animation is so weird
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Sep 3, 2014 20:57
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Lt. Danger posted:What could Bioware possibly have done to deserve this cynicism?! Dragon Age II Which is unfair to the disparate teams of Bioware, but when there's a fly in your soup you tend to get skeptical of the restaurant, not just the chef that was on duty that night.
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Sep 3, 2014 21:04
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double nine posted:That animation is so weird When Jack punches Shepard at Grissom Academy, Shepard doesn't even close his eyes.
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Sep 3, 2014 21:06
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Bioware puts a lot of effort into their animations and facial expressions, but unfortunately all it does it put the whole thing squarely in uncanny valley territory, and Bioware seemingly hasn't found a way to get out of it yet. See: Shepard's hilariously inappropriate derp face as he watches the kid burn to death. It's a lot of work going into something that just looks janky as hell.
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Sep 3, 2014 21:21
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I feel like there's some weird slowdown in the gif after the punch lands, but it's hard to say. The animation was pretty odd. Udina, I think, works best if you put him as the councilor in ME1. First, he burns the turian councilor immediately, so that's a plus. Second, it helps ... well, maybe not explain, but it makes it easier to work with what ME3 gives you. The guy's been working with or on the council for years. Always pushing for his species, trying for years to make deals and swing influence and then when the chips are down, when all his work comes to a tipping point where it really matters what he's done ... everyone tells him "well, sorry, no. Also gently caress you, got mine." so, ME3 rolls around. You have Udina, who's seeing years of his professional work mean poo poo. Who's seeing his entire worldview crumble. Who's seeing his entire civilization get eaten and his so-called fellow councilors are throwing him to the wolves, treating him like Ashley's dog metaphor. I think what you were supposed to see was Udina pushed to the point where he had nothing to lose and is desperate - desperate - to do something to save humanity. He takes a really drat bad deal to do it because he feels he has no other choice. Alas: supposed to see. Could've seen. Should've seen, perhaps. There are hints of it there, your conversations with him earlier in the game scream "I'm barely holding it together because it's my drat job to hold it together and I'll do it" and I responded well to that - finally, I thought, we're getting somewhere with the complexities of politicians and wrecking balls like Shepard trying to interact. We're gonna do this thing because we've finally found a threat bigger than the Shepard-Udina dispute hour. Instead, grey gets turned into a quick black and white, you resolve it in two minutes because Shepard, it's over. All the potential character and plot growth potential gets discarded in a hurry - almost casually, as if it wasn't even meaningful - to introduce BADASS SPACENINJA NOTRACIST and the resolution just deflates like a sad balloon. in another thousand word post nobody will read, Cerberus having the power of plot is stupid. Psion fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 21:29
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Lt. Danger posted:When Jack punches Shepard at Grissom Academy, Shepard doesn't even close his eyes. Little known fact but Shepard's primary trait is in fact his utter refusal to emote under any circumstances  Harbinger became obsessed with Shepard because no matter what Harbinger did, Shepard refused to change his expression. The only reason he shows up at the end is one last attempt to make Shepard emote for once in his life. e; That hideous face he makes as the kid is burning to death does not count as emoting.
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Sep 3, 2014 21:39
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double nine posted:That animation is so weird I thought Udina's/Ashley's "get shot" animations looked weird. Not only do they make the same motion, it just looks awkward with how they seize up and fall forward while looking down.
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Sep 3, 2014 21:44
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Bioware doesn't have very good animators. Even for the facial stuff. Which is weird, considering.Lt. Danger posted:The consequence is a bit limp - either you get another squadmate that isn't interesting and doesn't do much, or you get nothing. Generally I think Bioware struggles with handling choice and tying it to any kind of overarching narrative. I have a feeling it's because they're not always entirely sure what they want to do with it. I was thinking about what it takes to get people to let go of a character, and I started reflecting on Final Fantasy a bit, trying to piece out the differences. In older Final Fantasies, you could and did lose characters as part of the narrative. Sometimes they could be 'found again', but if you never found them, basically, they were dead as far as you were concerned. This let them have their dramatic moments without compromise. The idea of 'what you get' from a moment is kind of interesting because it reminds me of how some characters were only 'gettable' by navigating a situation carefully or doing something special. The characters that were optional were effectively always a 'secret' of sorts. This started to taper off in the last few FFs. Aeris and the various hidden characters from that game were probably the last time I can recall character deaths and genuine side stories being handled that way. Bioware has the idea of a character as a reward, but they're generally not hidden in terms of going somewhere on a side quest or bringing together weird ingredients. They're usually hidden in a dialog tree. In some cases like Samara/Not Samara, you don't really get or sacrifice anything meaningful. I recall toward the end of Dragon Age (I forget which one), you could basically throw out one of your knights in a dialog tree and adopt your enemy as a new party member. He effectively just acted as a replacement for the knight you got rid of. What was particularly weird was that you'd go through the game and occasionally find a special item that didn't correspond to any character you had. It would turn out that these were for this guy you didn't/shouldn't know you could get. It's an interesting idea. In FF, when you get a hidden character, you get a compartmentalized story that might flesh out some element of the larger story (or an area of the world outside the main story), and you get a different combat aesthetic, usually. Like, in a game where the combat system revolves around characters that have completely unique abilities--the idea that a totally optional character that you may never get or see would have their own assets and affects just for the sake of being cool *if* you found them is pretty interesting. And compelling. And other jargon. In Bioware games, at least recently, there have been the DLC characters who come with missions, and usually whatever they're up to doesn't add much texture. Well I suppose it runs the gamut from 'totally irrelevant' to 'fan service' to 'bizarrely required to understand and enjoy the core story'. I can't remember a character that has any interesting or unique abilities, or aesthetic. In fact, a lot of them seem like different flavors of things that already exist--trying to cater to the idea of the player getting to choose their dolls, basically. Like, mechanically, they want this 'tech' and 'biotic' stuff in ME, and dragon age has different flavors of magic, but once you know what a character does, you basically know everything about them that you care about. There's a bunch of snipers, mostly they're tech guys. There's a bunch of biotics, mostly without powerful guns. You're basically saying 'I need someone who can drain shields--which doll do I like the most'. Bioware characters occasionally amount to nothing more than a costume and a chance at some dialog reputation points. They could have their cake and eat it too a little bit more, I think, if they forced some of the deaths and then allowed for something like 'finding' a character later. Shepherd in ME2, after all, basically dies, gets resuscitated and then rediscovered by his old allies. You could have experienced that from the other side--right? What if Ashley saved you, died, and then you're out on some planet, and all of the sudden she shows up to help you fight off Collectors and you're all like 'wtf?!'. Honestly it'd be way more interesting to me if the story arc had shepherd signing on with an old ally at that moment, rather than being brought back from the dead him/herself. Then it's about your perceived trust/distrust as a personal feeling, rather than just dismissively assuming this character should do what you say and come along for the ride. Though the idea of light mirror/dark mirror wouldn't work out the same way. Assuming that holds. Frankly, I think there's a light/dark mirror of the player in every ME, and it's different every time. It echoes the 'choice' system around being paragon or renegade.
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Sep 3, 2014 22:18
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I always felt like the series never paints the political leaders too badly, and that a lot of the negativity is from the fact that as a character shepard hates them. It's just all the little things like in me1 the council demands evidence other than just shepard's word that their top agent had gone rogue and shepard throws a hissy fit. Or how at the start of me3 Anderson tells shepard to go convince everyone to fight together, a perfectly reasonable order, and shepards response isn't "but what about earth?" it's "But dad I don't wanna be a politician!"
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Sep 4, 2014 00:12
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Honestly in ME3 the Council finally comes into focus; these guys are basically ambassadors and have limited authority to make decisions regarding their home governments. Shepard's decision to go talk to the Salarian and Turian governments directly makes so much sense that it seems like humanity has become much more politically savvy after 3 years with a Council seat. It's like, insignificant nations go to the UN, real players go talk to the US directly. In 2183 the Systems Alliance is a scrub state stuck dealing with the Council, in 2186 the Alliance is big and respected enough to talk directly to the Heirarchy. I always liked how ME and ME2 handled humans' place in the galaxy. From the Council perspective, Humanity is a new and troubling presence on the scene. They're a relative backwater for now but their homeworld is overpopulated and the Alliance has been deeply militarized by war with the Turians, so they're expanding their territory and military at an alarming pace. They show a disturbing lack of respect for the status quo and are not-so-secretly circumventing arms control treaties. But fortunately, they live between Council space and the Batarians, so let's sit back and watch them duke it out over the Attican Traverse. Maybe they'll mellow out in the long run. Shepard gets to decide whether this strategy pays off or blows up spectacularly.
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Sep 4, 2014 03:54
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Arglebargle III posted:Honestly in ME3 the Council finally comes into focus; these guys are basically ambassadors and have limited authority to make decisions regarding their home governments. Shepard's decision to go talk to the Salarian and Turian governments directly makes so much sense that it seems like humanity has become much more politically savvy after 3 years with a Council seat. It's like, insignificant nations go to the UN, real players go talk to the US directly. In 2183 the Systems Alliance is a scrub state stuck dealing with the Council, in 2186 the Alliance is big and respected enough to talk directly to the Heirarchy. You know, this also means that the highest form of political power the Council has is empowering the Specters, since they're basically empowered to do whatever the gently caress they want the Council can just Specter some guy that has a goal in line with theirs and set him loose on the galaxy. The only downside is that for Every Shepard or Blasto, you get a Saren or two.
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Sep 4, 2014 05:04
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I really like the soundtrack.
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Sep 4, 2014 13:49
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I wasn't sure what time, if any, was right to bitch about this, so might as well do so in the downtime before an update: Back in 2007, disguising loading with an elevator that had a fixed time of travel and therefore took interminably long even when your computer loaded the room within seconds, was... actually kinda stupid. Behind the times even by 2007 standards. Doing the same in 2013, after everyone bitched about you doing this in the original game is just pure Bioware. (gently caress the war-room exit scanner is what I'm saying)
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Sep 6, 2014 04:21
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The war room scanner is like 1.5 seconds.
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Sep 6, 2014 06:28
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Arglebargle III posted:The war room scanner is like 1.5 seconds. People throw temper tantrums over being held up for way less time than one and a half seconds.
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Sep 6, 2014 06:30
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Arglebargle III posted:The war room scanner is like 1.5 seconds. not on the PS3 it isn't However that does bring up one big problem I had playing all three of these games back-to-back, the loading times got better in certain areas but overall were still terrible. In ME1 whenever you saved something you would have to wait 3 or 4 seconds while the game saved and would freeze everything, so you couldn't actually do anything. They fixed this in 2 and 3, thankfully, so now you could continue doing stuff while the game was auto-saving or you were initiating a save. However if there was ever a loading screen for anything else (any time you load a save or go to a new planet or jump systems or really ANYTHING in ME1) then you are loving parked for a good 15 or 20 seconds. The same thing happens in ME2 and 3 if you are going from floor to floor on the Normandy, or if you're loading a save again or if you're going to a new planet. I don't know if it's a console hardware problem but jeeeeeeeeesus gently caress is it annoying, way more than the elevators
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Sep 6, 2014 08:16
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Yeah it's for console hardware circa 2007. For what it's worth the loading animations in ME2 rarely finish for me, usually I'll get into an elevator or hit the mission start button and play through ~5-10 seconds of loading animation before the mission just kicks off. Sounds like a serious difference between PC aristocracy and Console peasantry. Going floor to floor on the Normandy rarely takes more than 3 seconds.
Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 11:05
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Arglebargle III posted:The war room scanner is like 1.5 seconds.
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Sep 6, 2014 14:28
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Xander77 posted:If you can make your way to the galaxy map within a minute of Hackett shutting his trap, you are a better Shepard than me, Arglebargle. Wow, I was unaware this issue existed. It definitely does not for me on PC.
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Sep 6, 2014 15:34
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Xander77 posted:If you can make your way to the galaxy map within a minute of Hackett shutting his trap, you are a better Shepard than me, Arglebargle. ME3 on the 360 took maybe a minute and a half, two minutes tops, depending on if you checked on conversation options/ the Wartime Funbux meter. I don't get why this ever became an issue, does it really take THAT much longer on the PS3?
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Sep 6, 2014 16:42
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Well I decided to clock it: 19 seconds on PC. The war room scanner was 3 seconds.
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Sep 6, 2014 17:14
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Is the in-game gaffing worse this time around? I mean, the lighting. It seems that on the whole, the lights and shadows are duller and flatter than they were in the second game, where things were brighter but also had more constrasting shadows. I only just noticed this with Garrus, where in the second game his little nest in the main battery had lighting that melded to his form: made him pop out from the background, had soft shadows curl around his face, even giving him the Turian equivalent of specular highlights. Garrus is not the only one -- Jack also has those shots where she gets enveloped completely in shadow. You can easily get the feeling that each camera shot was carefully considered, even if we ended up with all those gratuitous angles of Miranda's rear end. Here though, I started to notice that all the scenes with Garrus on the Normandy made him seem indistinct. His own colours merged him into the colours of the background. I thought at first it was just the new setup of the main battery, but then I noticed the lighting was different all over the ship. They either had to downgrade the shader they were using to cut the loadtimes, or having a mobile crew meant they had to set up multiple new camera angles and didn't have the time or ability to tweak the lighting as needed. I'd call it a change in art direction, but I get the feeling it wasn't a change made deliberately.
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Sep 6, 2014 18:04
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theblastizard posted:Kai Leng, even if the developers intended him to be lame, never came across as something you were laughing with them about, it came across as something you were laughing at them for putting in the game. How Kai Leng could have been made better (hindsight 20/20 version). -Introduce him during ME1, maybe during the Rear Admiral Kahoku (sp) missions, maybe have him fight with Shepard, play up Cerberus a little bit, maybe have him join up with the crew on Terra Nova as a temporary PC (maybe he has a grudge against the Batarians too, we don't know) -In ME2, have him meet Shepard and Miranda at the landing zone of Freedom's Progress, perhaps taking down a squad of mechs single-handed, then casually make his greetings depending on the interactions in ME1. He'll act as the Cerberus loyalty officer and become a PC instead of Jacob, who'll be demoted to a shuttle driver and requisition officer because seriously the dude's like a black Caidan without any of the biotic baggage. Lame. You can still romance him like Cortez and such and do his loyalty mission but...seriously, he ain't interesting at ALL. - Maybe Kai Leng's loyalty mission would have to do with Batarians or (gasp) Barla Von and the volus guys. It could be a rescue mission for another Cerberus dark operative, one who had Kai Leng as a teacher. Keep Paragon or Renegade just enough and he'll start wondering whether Cerberus is as cracked up as it should be. Maybe have him starting conversations all around the ship with the other PCs, arguing and teasing and rapport and crap. - ME3 rolls around? Give him the operative from the loyalty mission. If Kai Leng survives the suicide mission and Shepard was Paragon, have him show hesitation at key moments, with his little buddy nagging at him. Renegade? Have him be a complete rear end in a top hat. If Shepard caused Kai to doubt his affiliation with Cerberus, hell, have him defect after one of the bigger missions. - But what if dies on the suicide mission, you ask? That's what the partner is for. Have the partner keep blaming Shepard for his friend's death, or if he wasn't rescued at all, have him blame Shepard for not thinking him worthy enough to save.
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Sep 6, 2014 19:27
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Cangelosi posted:How Kai Leng could have been made better (hindsight 20/20 version). If he absolutely has to stay, though, then simply get him written by someone competent who is capable of creating a villain who doesn't come across as a 13-year-old's original character do not steal.
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Sep 6, 2014 20:34
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Kai Leng should turn up only if you're nasty to Conrad Verner. And he is actually Conrad Verner with a grudge, who made up the name 'Kai Leng'.
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Sep 6, 2014 20:54
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not posted:Kai Leng should turn up only if you're nasty to Conrad Verner. And he is actually Conrad Verner with a grudge, who made up the name 'Kai Leng'. They couldn't do that because of the save glitch in ME1. ME2 assumes that everyone was mean to Conrad Verner.
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Sep 6, 2014 21:35
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