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I love this thread title. And it still feels so surreal that the game is out. Been waiting so, so long. I can't believe they killed Emily Wong over that twitter thing, I was totally expecting that if she died, she would die in game. I seriously, straight up did not see that coming. Also, I'm excited and anxious and nervous to see what this game does with  . Her and Kaidan/Ashley for that matter - all of them were said to be minor players in ME2 because they had big plans for them in ME3. But god, what does that mean?Edit - Also I'm gonna mostly be ducking out of this thread until I clear the game, I can't take getting spoiled for it. And it only takes one person to gently caress up their spoiler tags to ruin it. And I have a really bad history of stumbling on those posts.
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Mar 6, 2012 05:50
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Hey guys I see there's 1k new posts since I last checked the thread so I ASSUME everyone knows this but Count Choculitis even was unaware of this specifically so I figure I'll post it anyway just in case someone else out there doesn't know. Semi spoilers about Liara early game ish You can reunite Liara with Aethyta, her father. Aethyta appears in the Presidium Commons at the bar/cafe near where Liara sits. Aethyta doesn't appear until you finish a mission for an asari in the hospital in the back, though, so if you've been putting off the missions where you have to scavenge for resources, you might not even realize you can do this.
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Mar 7, 2012 06:29
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Well, I've been ignoring the thread for fear of spoilers so I could experience the game pure. I finally finished it, and I have to give my thoughts. On the entire game, and the ending. This is gonna be long,  , and spoiler filled, but I want to get my thoughts out all into one post rather than dragging it out across multiple pages and discussions, since the thread moves fast and it's hard to stay on one topic. As well, if I make multiple posts instead of one long post, it is more likely to cause derails and just take up more of the thread than one long post that people can skip if they are so inclined.Feel free to skip my post if you don't like long posts or have never been a fan of my posting. I know there's a few people like that, I've gotten poo poo for it in the past. But some people have cared, so anyway. I'll start with the game basically in order, cover the ending last. The game, overall, was amazing. It improved on things I have always wanted, but never expected. The things it did for the characters, their development, and their relationships, is nothing short of amazing. You actually see the characters living more of their own lives. No longer do they sit around, statically, waiting for Shep to come talk to them whereupon they vomit up a prepared scene and then spit out stock dialogue for the next 20 missions until they have another scene. After every mission, including side ones, the characters will comment on it or be doing something. You walk in on the characters actually having conversations with eachother, it's not just Shepard centric. More than that, they will actually leave their rooms. I walked into Liara's office once and she wasn't even there. She was in Kasumi's old room chilling on a couch with Garrus shooting the poo poo. The characters in this game feel more alive and natural than they ever did - and this goes for when talking to them too - by that I mean, the voicework is better, the characters have more motion and aren't just statically standing in place nearly as much as they did in ME1 and 2, and attitudes and tones are just better portrayed. Beyond that, but related - romances are more well done. Provided you picked Liara or the Vermire Survivor, anyway.  But I went for Liara, so I'm focusing my post around that. Someone who went for someone else, especially if they went for an ME2 romance, might have had a different, worse experience than me, so I'm throwing that out there. But, anyway - characters constantly referenced that my Shep was romancing Liara. It was just accepted, and you get romantic dialogue between him and Liara more than just the specific few cutscenes on the Normandy. It just felt so much more natural - and I do mean that even normal missions would have dialogue between them for a romance. It always did bug me that in ME1/ME2 outside of the romance scenes on the Normandy, you could not tell at all who Shep was romancing, if any. They really fixed that here. I mean, I loved the conversation with Aethyta with my Shepard. She taunts Shep about dating Liara, and then even makes fun of Liara - there's a golden set of lines where Aethyta is saying that a political figure needs to look available and sexy to people, and Liara tells Aethyta that "That's not true, Shepard listens to me!" and Aethyta counters with "Yeah...but how many times have you popped his thermal clip?  " I lost it there. The delivery on that is great, and it's great innuendo. And even Javik and Wrex and such made comments about my Shep dating Liara.As for the actual romance with Liara, I loved it. I mentioned how it fleshes out beyond just cutscenes on the Normandy, but as for the Normandy cutscenes? They reminded me of the end of LotSB, they were so well done. There's a lot of adequate talking about eachother and the things coming and it just felt more serious and like there was chemistry between them. It wasn't like shy or awkward, it was just more natural. There was a lapse in the mid-game where it felt like conversations with Liara just kinda slacked off for a while, but...it picked up near the end. Seeing Liara devastated on Thessia and in her room afterwards - Bioware really managed to pull emotions out of me there. And I'm normally one to really get moved by games or movies, ME is a rare exception. And Thessia - it was bittersweet. I have ALWAYS wanted to get a chance to visit Thessia. And I finally do, and it's ravaged and you can not save it. At least you get a good view of the city in the distance, but one mission where it's being destroyed is not what I wanted, but it managed to really fuel my anger there and make me hate Kai Leng. Anyway, the final 2 scenes with Liara were great. The sex scene - I really appreciated what they managed to do there. I'm sure a lot didn't, but for me? I felt it was like the sex scene from ME1 except much more well done. That is, the emotion of the scene was really portrayed really well, their talk leading into it and the scene itself was not childish. For example, I've always disliked the Miranda sex scene because it has always felt immature to me, like Shep and Miranda were teenage gently caress buddies. The scene between Liara and Shep felt like more than that. As well, I felt they managed to do a good job of maintaining Liara's "alien-ness" and not just having her be a blue woman. Not only does she mix in some biotic energy and the whole black eyed connection, but the level of detail on her body was really impressive - her skin even looks sorta scaled? At the very least, it doesn't look like blue human flesh. Then, on Earth, her final scene blew my mind. Connecting with her and actually seeing that strange void was...it was something else entirely. I was just awed by it, I loved the scenery. Speaking of scenery - I have to mention how well done the game also was on a visual department. There were some absolutely amazing scenery in the game - Palaven's Moon has an incredible view of Palaven and the Reaper in the background, and you get a good view of a Thessian city on Thessia, and such. And there's just lots of effort put into background details on the Citadel and such, lots of interesting conversations to hear, and I really liked the mechanic of coming across an argument between two people and being able to support a side - not to mention that brought about one of my favorites - Joker pestering Liara to know if her head tentacles moved. And then I found out they don't move. Mystery solved! I WAS disappointed the Citadel was the only real hub, but for what it was, it was really well done. And I have to mention that the game was just overall good at bringing out emotions in me it wanted to. When Mordin died, that crushed me. I didn't see it coming, I thought I was making a perfect paragon play, and it was still early in the game, I wasn't expecting deaths before the end like in ME2. Then he dies - mid song - and before I could really recover from that Thane gets stabbed and dies too. And they both had really well done death scenes, so even though I hated that they died, it really was a heroic and bittersweet death. So that done, I have to move on to the ending now. I wanted to go into detail about how the game was really something I loved and moved me before I went into the negative of the ending, so that people don't think I'm just incapable of being moved by the game or unresponsive to what it did throughout. The ending...it was terrible. It's really, to me, like reliving Lost's ending all over again. I was heavily wrapped up in that show then the ending ruined the series for me. More relevant, it might be really similar to Fallout 3 - another game I barely played but had such a legendarily bad ending that despite that I only played the beginning of it I still know about the ending and the faults with it. In short, the ending of ME3 is like a reverse deus ex machina. Normally, deus ex machinas are used when the characters are in a hopeless situation they can not naturally fix themselves, so the writers just force in a good ending, something happens out of nowhere to solve everything. Well, in ME3, you get an ending where things are GOING to be triumphant if things proceed naturally, then the gods descend from on high to say things HAVE to be poo poo, instead of the characters being pulled from ruins to success in a deus ex machina, they are pulled from success to ruins in a reverse deus ex machina. And I'm not just complaining because Shepard died and I can't get my storybook ending with Liara/Shep happily ever after. Don't get me wrong, I certainly hate that, but if it was natural, if it made sense and was consistent, I could deal with it. That's why I mentioned Mordin and Thane - I did not like that they died, but it made sense, felt natural and consistent. Shepard dying is not that. They might have intended that, but it wasn't. To go into more detail - let me explain. The ending DOES make more sense if you're a renegade Shep, but for a paragon Shep, you have to sit there and listen to this kid tell you that the entire reason things are bad is because synthetics will always war against organics. This is the reason you are given for being forced into the ending. The only reason - and it is TOTAL BULLSHIT for a paragon Shepard, because a paragon Shepard has not only made peace between the Krogans/Turians/Salarians, showing that even organics can come to peace and not always war, but the Geth/Quarians have made peace. Shepard has specifically disproven the only reason you are given for why the ending must happen, so that entire thing falls flat. Even without a reason, the ending could still be decent. A reasonless ending is bad, but ME3 gets worse. I hear the argument that they wanted a "sacrifice", and that was the theme they were going for - Shepard must sacrifice himself for the good of the galaxy, the greater good. This is what they wanted. This is not what they achieved. Mordin dying is a sacrifice. Shepard dying is so much worse...and here's why. It's not a sacrifice. Shepard dies, and no matter which choice you make, the galaxy is ruined. Shepard literally does more damage and harm than the Reapers do, no matter what you choose, because no matter what, the mass relays get destroyed and galactic civilization is gone. The writers did not think about the consequences of what they showed here - what the ending they showed means is this - ALL OF THE PLANETS AND SOLAR SYSTEMS ARE CUT OFF. This does not just mean communications, it means MASSIVE die offs. 98% of the galaxy will likely die soon after the end of ME3, if not more. With the Mass Relays gone, there are planets with entire populations with their supply of food and resources cut off. Ships CAN travel inside of solar systems at a reasonable pace, but once they run out of fuel, that's it. There's no routes open anymore to keep people refueled even then, so even travel inside of solar systems to other planets will only happen for a short while. This means planets will have to rely only on what food and resources they can generate themselves. For a HUGE amount of planets, this is little to none and the population will shrink to a tiny fraction of what it is, or die off entirely. You can't even put hope on just the homeworlds to be sustainable hubs, because Earth, Thessia, Palaven - all of the major homeworlds that could have resources, have been ravaged by the Reapers, and they will not be able to get the resources they need to repair their systems and begin even taking care of populations on their own planet. In the Sol system, you have the survivors of the battle with the Reapers - they will likely crash land on planets in the Sol system. If they crash land on Earth, then they face competing for massively shrinking resources on a ruined planet that is still smoldering from the Reaper attacks. For the Quarians and Turians, it is even worse because they need special resources that Earth would have even less of. Never mind that all of these people are military people that will never see their families again. Even Shepard's close personal friends aboard the Normandy are not spared. They may not die immediately, but the ending strands them on a planet where they are promised a slow, miserable lonely existance likely ending in starvation and with their lifespans massively shortened. There is no peace in this ending here. The BEST outcome, pointed out to me by Torsade, that gets past the starvation issue, is that in the synthetic merging ending, possibly being fused with synthetics means that people might be able to sustain themselves from sources other than food, so they don't have to starve to death. Every other issue still stands - there is still no communication, living resources are shot, and the Normandy crew including Shepard's LI, are stranded alone on a planet with nothing on it. There is no salvation even in this ending. The Reapers at least would allow new civilizations to sprout from the old ones. There is no hope, the Milky Way is forever ruined, without the Mass Relays. You kill Shepard so that the galaxy may die a slow, painful, ruinous death. Not to save it. And I don't think the writers intended that. I think they intended for people to be sad about Shepard dying, but feel bittersweet that they had saved the galaxy. I don't think they realized they created an ending wherein Shepard actually destroys the galaxy. Regardless, none of this is even fitting for ME. There are themes of sacrifice throughout, but for most of us, I think it's been primarily viewed as a heroic action game. Especially for paragons, the theme has been that conflict can be heroically overcome if you try hard enough - Shepard even unites the Rachni with the rest of the galaxy, and the Geth/Quarians and Krogan/Turians/Salarians. So, those are my thoughts. The ending is terrible and I can go on, but I can't disregard how much I enjoyed everything up to the last 5 minutes. It was astounding and I will still look back fondly on the rest of the game. What I hope happens now? Didn't Fallout 3 eventually get an expansion that rewrote the ending to be more reasonable? This is what I hope happens. I hope there is enough backlash that Bioware does this, I want an expansion where you can get a proper, reasonable ending - especially for paragons, because the ending as shown, while worse even for renegades, at least the reasons are more sound for renegades, because a renegade may not have united all the races Paragon Shep did, and he can't disprove the assertion that synthetics will always wage war against their creators. There's a bioware social post making the rounds now about how Shep should've had a 4th choice to use of refusing to play a long, which I think is perfect. It goes a long with what I've always said, a perfect, storybook ending should be POSSIBLE - especially in a heroic series like Mass Effect, but getting it should be about overcoming all odds and be really difficult, which the poster managed to do. The Reapers leaving and the system having to fend for itself, Mass Relays in tact, for them to face the future with hope that Shepard was right and synthetics will not consume the rest of the galaxy, to be a challenge for them to face themselves. Shepard, for his own part, can survive the ending and return to the Normandy, if it survived if you did well enough, and get a better ending. There is still sacrifice in that ending - sacrifice of order, of certainty of what will happen, for the chaos of the unknown. It is unknown if Shepard is right, but there is hope.
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Mar 10, 2012 22:11
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doctor 7 posted:Regarding the endings Exactly, you're getting me. Shepard is just completely out of character throughout that part. If Shepard was the type of character to just give in to the kid and lie down and take his lovely choices as presented, he should never have made it as far as he did. He should've given up on Vermire when talking to Sovereign. He should've never attempted uniting the Krogan/Salarians/Turians or the Quarians/Geth. All of that was treated as "just fate, you can't fight the nature of things" and that they would always be at war, yet Shepard said gently caress that noise and helped them unite. opblaaskrokodil posted:Hm, where did you find (ME2 NPC) Aethyta? I never ran into that character Complete a mission for an Asari in the hospital, in the early game. Then talk to the Asari afterwards, then go to the cafe near Liara, in the Presidium Commons. It's totally worth doing. Also, I do want to say that I am a bit worried that the atrociousness of the ending will over-ride the rest of the game, for most people. I mean, I can't overstate how much I enjoyed the vast majority of the game. Really just the last 5-10 minutes I hated, yet I'm afraid that that is going to color the game too much for most people. I do think Bioware deserves credit for how well the rest of the game was done, at the same time.
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Mar 10, 2012 23:10
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3 Stacked Midgets posted:The character writing in the game is fantastic. The overarching plot wasn't. Nobody is really upset at the Crucible being a Deus ex Machina. Of course it was going to be that, I expected that from the first moment on Mars. It's about the execution, and that it doesn't even serve as a Deus Ex Machina to make things right, but as I said in my post, a reverse one to make everything poo poo. Also, this just occurred to me, but the game is completely lacking in a Final boss fight. ME1 had Saren. Me2 has the human Reaper. ME3? a few banshees and brutes. Hard, but not the same as an actual figure like Saren or the human Reaper even. The closest you get is Kai-Leng, but he's too distanced from the end of the game to count, I think. The reason I'm pointing this out is to drive home even more the failure of the Catalyst-Kid. He really should have been the final boss. Shepard really should have told him to get hosed, and then fought him. He's presented exactly as the Reapers were, makes exactly the same argument, yet Shepard doesn't fight him so the game is suddenly lacking in a final boss fight because this time Shepard lets the final boss win. Just an interesting note.
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Mar 10, 2012 23:22
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Malrauxs Place posted:I have this nagging feeling that maybe the whole point of those vague endings is to provide a blank slate so future games don't need to take individual player choices into account - kind of like the warp in the west did for The Elder Scrolls. The epilogue already implies that future installments in the franchise will take place long after the events of ME3 - so long, in fact, that Shepard has turned into a mythical character and nobody can really say what actually happened anymore. What you're posting about here goes more into something else I got into a bit in my post, and honestly, this is another strong failing of the ending. Why? Because this isn't an ending where the slate is wiped clean so new games can be made in the universe. What you are posting can't happen. Without the Mass Relays there is no galactic civilization. It will die, and NEVER COME BACK. EVER. The ending of ME3 does NOT allow for a game to be made that takes place in a distant future where Shepard is a myth, because in that distant future, what you would actually see is a ruined galaxy with a tiny, tiny fraction of the life it had in the ME trilogy. You would see a completely ruined Earth, Thessia, Palaven looking more like Tuchanka than a real populated world, except in very likely an even worse state than we ever saw Tuchanka in. There may be pockets of small villages on self sustaining planets here and there, but as a whole things are completely ruined after ME3. Galactic civilization is truly dead and never coming back.
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Mar 10, 2012 23:29
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doctor 7 posted:Yeah, the deus ex machina ending should've been obvious to pretty much anyone. "Hey we're building this device and we have no idea what it does!" I mean really, it's pretty much as obvious as Shepard having to make a grand sacrifice with the Shepard name." Despite that you say that ME is not about the boss fights, it has always had a boss fight. ME1 and ME2 both had final boss fights. ME3 is the odd one out. Let me put it to you this way. ME3 ends as if in ME1, when Shepard confronts Saren at the Citadel being controlled by Sovereign - it's as if Saren convinced Shepard to lie down and let the Reapers through because it was useless to resist. In that case, ME1 would not have a boss fight, and the last real fighting you would do in ME1 would be the run up the Citadel - similarly, ME3 does not have a real boss fight, the last real fighting you do is simply the gauntlet on Earth, and Shepard gives in. Do you understand the comparison I'm making yet? How ME3 lacks a real boss fight because Shepard gives in to the boss? Pladdicus posted:So, just to guage the feelings here, the big idea to fix the ending is Yes, this is basically it, with different amounts of success to that based on your war assets score.
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Mar 10, 2012 23:39
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Casimir Radon posted:A loose canon ending-not one of the ones we have now- would have worked out fine. Of course you'd have nerds whining that, that's not how their Shepard did it, but you can't please everyone. Keeping continuation beyond the trilogy itself isn't the biggest priority in the world. I was kind of hoping there would be a stand alone game with the same settings and characters to pick up slightly afterwards, and involve an engaging plot, just a whole lot less grim. The way things are now, that's not happening. Exactly. All along I've been saying that while Shepard's story ends in ME3, I've been hoping they do more with the universe. Even if Shepard's story had to end, I wanted more games to come out that could flesh out the rest of the galaxy. I mean they wrote an entire galaxy, you have had single planets that are interesting enough to base an entire game on, start to finish, and we have a whole GALAXY with planets and possible conflicts like this. There was a whole slew of possibilities and ways they would've been able to keep making games in the universe that aren't about Shepard. Then this ending removes all that. There simply can be no more games, about anyone, because the galaxy is dead.
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Mar 11, 2012 00:01
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Internet Kraken posted:The more I hear about this game to more lazy and rushed it sounds. Even if it wasn't on Origin I probably wouldn't buy it until the price came down a lot. This is exactly what I was afraid of. The vast majority of the game is amazing. It's a disservice to how drat good most of the game is, to focus so hard on the ending, but well, as someone else said, if you find a mouse in your last bite of delicious food, you're gonna remember and talk about that mouse, not the rest that was delicious. I had nothing but glowing, positive words for the game until literally the last few minutes. Literally. It is not a lazy and rushed game at all, the ending simply is.
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Mar 11, 2012 00:10
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Jimbot posted:True, but if they cut out the last 15 minutes, the entire conversation with the Star Child, or they could have Shepard push back and call the thing out on its bad logic. Right, this is how an expansion to resolve the ending can work. Give Shepard the proper and correct response, allow him to reject star-child. Or simply have him never go up on that platform to meet him in the first place and something entirely different happens. True enough, the Reapers motivations would still be really lame, but so what? They are villains and they are wrong. Having the Reapers motivations be something we can disprove just makes Shepard even more right in resisting them. They still firmly believe they are correct and that if left unchecked synthetics will eventually consume and kill all organics everywhere, so they still must be resisted. Their motivation being weaker is not nearly as bad as what we DID get in the ending anyway, which STILL had that problem anyway.
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Mar 11, 2012 00:50
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Extra Smooth Balls posted:All sheps get the mind meld space horizon thing don't they? Oh come on now! The scene is not that hard to understand. Liara is NOT having mind babies with Shepard there. Even for a Liara romancer, they just make out. What that is, is a more in depth form of what Liara did to Shepard in ME1 when they shared the cipher. You are just getting a stronger visualization of it, as the player. Specifically, what she is doing is sharing her memories and experiences - her life and being - with Shepard. She only possibly has space babies with Shep if you romance her and then you know, the sex scenes. That mind meld is not a sex scene.
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Mar 11, 2012 00:53
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Welmu posted:How are you missing my points like that? I specifically mentioned the problem with the ending isn't in and of itself that Shepard dies. You're harping on that like that is the only problem. Not at all. The problem is what Shepard does isn't a sacrifice. The writers intended it as a sacrifice, but a sacrifice is when something is given up to obtain something greater. Shepard dying here achieves nothing but the ruin of the galactic community, all of his friends and people he was close to. As for "some things can't be solved by chipping away at HP bars whilst somersault dodging like Sonic the Hedgehog." I'm also not sure how you missed that the point is while this is true, ME is a series that traditionally always had a final boss. Both ME1 and ME2 had final bosses. ME3 is the odd one out in the very series it is a part of.
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Mar 11, 2012 02:17
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Someone spoil this for me, I never really played the game. How similar is ME3's ending to DA2's ending, and any outrage around it? I don't know a whole lot about DA2 other than that it's apparently a disappointing game. If they are similar, I'm just surprised that Bioware went through with this, for their biggest game, despite already causing outrage over something similar in another series of theirs. Really, if they don't do something about this, they are likely to sour their reputation for a lot of fans. I'm not going to be interested in getting invested in a new Bioware series after this, personally, if they never come out with an expansion or dlc or something that fixes the ending.
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Mar 11, 2012 05:59
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Isaacs Alter Ego posted:The game should've just ended with Shepard going up the elevator, and meeting Blasto and his new elcor sidekick who have already shot a huge pile of dead husks and are in the midst of activating the "activate to save the world" console. Then they help shep fist-fight Harbinger and launch off in an escape pod to chill with all their space bros. The funny thing is I would unironically like that ending better. I'm not even kidding. It's a lot better. Edit - What the gently caress is with your avatar kri kri
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Mar 11, 2012 06:24
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NmareBfly posted:Have they ever acknowledged Shep's class in any way in any of the games? I always thought this was a missed opportunity in general -- my Engineer Shep could occasionally have an idea of her own and not depend on Tali / EDI for tech stuff, an Infiltrator Shep could use cloaking in some awesome renegade interrupt... all sorts of stuff. I suppose it would draw even more attention to the cutscene / gameplay divide, though: if infiltrator Shep cloaks once in a cutscene to get the drop on someone, why doesn't she do it all the time? It gets mentioned at various times throughout ME3. I don't remember a lot of specifics, I just remember Liara mentioning that my character was a biotic and such, Kaidan mentioned it in the hospital. There might've been a few other times.
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Mar 11, 2012 21:24
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Lyer posted:So is this game any fun, or did bioware poo poo the bed again like DA2? I haven't kept up on any of the hype or reviews. The game is really fun. Seriously. It's amazing. 99% of the game is just mind blowing and I can barely rave enough about how much it blew my mind and blew my expectations out of the water. What you're hearing is just a lot of moaning about the literal last few minutes of the game.
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Mar 11, 2012 21:25
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Ryan-RB posted:Here's what I loved about the ending: I can't let this post go by without throwing in my support for it. I said it in my huge post before but I was completely in awe at that. Just astounded. Both of Liara's final romance scenes were simply amazing, and I say this as someone that obviously loved the rest of her scenes as well, but those went even beyond the rest. What that meant Liara was sharing with Shepard too, that they were completely melding together and Liara was sharing her very, mind, being and essence with Shepard, was not something lost on me. I had to catch my breath a bit after that. I'm going to take a minute here to also repeat myself in saying that the sex scene with Liara similarly was something I loved, because it showed off a lot of chemistry between Liara and Shep, and it came across as really mature, and like there was actual pure love between them. The emotion in that scene just was portrayed well. That and, as I also mentioned before, I felt they did a good job of maintaining Liara's "alienness" instead of it just being a blue stand in for Ashley or something. Her scene is actually different enough than a human's, with the way she mixes in biotics and also how she looks - her skin is amazingly detailed and does not just look like blue flesh, but even looks slightly...scaled? or something of that sort. But it's not just blue flesh, even if it does look that way throughout most of the less detailed appearances in the games.
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Mar 11, 2012 21:44
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zoso820 posted:About the ending This is the biggest difference between people like you and people like me. I could not possibly disagree more with that assertion. The Mass Effect series, for me, has always been a character driven one about my Shepard and his squad. The reapers, to me, have always been little more than a plot macguffin or something, just a conflict to drive the characters forward.
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Mar 12, 2012 00:40
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I have no real interest in ever doing another full playthrough of ME3, at least not any time soon, but if I did, I'd probably do an Adept run and take Javik on every mission where I can also take Liara. Just because he was a really cool character and I got him too late into the game. If I ever do another playthrough though, I'm definitely just stopping before the end, before the last 5 minutes. There is no point in ever watching that poo poo again and I refuse to accept it. At any rate, it's okay even if I never do another playthrough, because I made approximately 1 billion saves throughout my run of the game so I can easily rewatch any scene I want to. And I don't have a strong desire to actually see how things are different for other Shepards, like Renegades and such, it's enough to quell my curiosity just to hear from other people what happens. I am curious about one thing - Jack/Morinth becoming Reaper troops. Is there any special scene introducing them? Do they have any special powers or stats or anything? Or are they exactly the same as any other unit, except instead of "Banshee" it says "Morinth" and you might miss it if you don't pay attention to the targeting names?
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Mar 12, 2012 04:08
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Digital Osmosis posted:Hey, so I was poking around the IGN Mass effect wiki guide thing and in the romance section it looked like I might have done something wrong with my imported Shepard, who had a romance with Liara. Anyway, the guide mentions a few things should have happened that didn't. When I brought Liara onto the Normandy, there was some talk of us being an item, like the guide mentioned. I talked to her on the presidium, and she asked me to talk to a Volus, who gave me a quest I haven't found the artifact for. Then when the time capsule conversation came up I was nice to her and told her to write what she thought about me, but nothing happened. There never was another message or another meeting on the citadel. In the main plot, I just Cured the genophage and just started the mission where you get attacked by Cerberus on the citadel. I specificlly didn't flirt with or use the paragon inturupt on my ME2 love interest because I tried that once and she got huffy, so I reloaded. I guess it's a silly thing to worry about, but I've been playing this Shepard for three games now, and expect to ride off into the sunset with my blue alien space babe. So... any ideas how I messed up, and what I can do about it? Have you been back to the Normandy and such? Can you still not talk to Liara in the presidium commons, even once you get a bunch of emails to meet a bunch of people on the citadel, including Garrus and the Vermire survivor. Liara should send you an email at the same time they do
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Mar 12, 2012 08:59
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Digital Osmosis posted:Haven't gotten those emails. My only contact with Liara in the commons was mostly business, she was sitting in a cafe and directed me to a Volus who offered me a side quest. Get back to me here if you still can't talk to her or don't get an email from her when you get emails from all those other people. I think you just need to get that email first. I'm not entirely confident on what exactly you've done though, that's just my thought.
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Mar 12, 2012 09:03
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Charlie Mopps posted:Its obvious Liara was meant to be the canon romance by Bioware. So much more attention went into it. I'm not sure I buy that, as much as I want that to be true. I always got the impression, even back in ME1, that the vermire survivor was meant to be the canon romance. Hell, the vermire survivor is a human alliance soldier just like Shep, it's total action movie predestined romantic couple just by that alone.
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Mar 12, 2012 19:38
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Charlie Mopps posted:Eh, i admit my bias might make me see things not completely like they are. Haha, I certainly understand that. And I mean, I'm not really qualified to talk on if Liara comes across as more or less canon than other romances, because I've only romanced Liara. I know a bit about the other romances, but it's just in what I've picked up from pieces told to me by people who did other romances. I think it would take someone who did multiple romances to really comment. I can talk about Liara's romance, sure, but that's all I can talk about, I mean. In depth.
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Mar 12, 2012 20:01
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Mr Dog posted:It's true, though. A new/updated ending DLC is never in a million years going to happen. Making that demand of a writer or project lead or whatever is about as respectful as unzipping and pissing in his face. You're saying "That thing you spent five years designing and nurturing for five years by yourself, that nobody comprehends more intimately than you? I know better how it should be built than you do." For better or for worse, it's what we've got. What they gave us is about as respectful as unzipping and pissing in our faces, so...
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Mar 12, 2012 20:43
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Ryan-RB posted:I could see that for a 100% paragon Shepard--my philosophy was cooperation, altruism, the greater good, anti-racism, noble sacrifice. If Bioware views that Shepard as canon, they'd probably want him hooked up with an alien to make him an example. You make a good point. Liara definitely fits more for a Paragon Shepard, and I was playing Paragon as basically what you said. I think, in the end, it definitely comes out that Liara fits the most for a paragon, and perhaps the vermire survivor fits the most for a renegade or neutral character. I'm definitely going to miss Liara as a character too. I've never seen a romance in a game handled as well as hers was. That's not to say there isn't one out there, just that I haven't personally played it. And she was more than just there as a romance option too, she had a whole entire character that was not based around being a romance option, unlike in other games where a character clearly exists just to be a romance to the main character.
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Mar 12, 2012 21:07
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Charlie Mopps posted:Meeting Liara on Mars made me really happy with how they handled it. Definitely. That was the beginning of the game letting me know that the romance would show up even outside of specific Normandy scenes, and it was just great. Especially since I wasn't expecting it at all, because ME1 and ME2 certainly didn't do that. They just act so natural and right throughout the entirety of Mars and it continues on throughout the rest of the game.
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Mar 12, 2012 21:49
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DerDestroyer posted:I like the comment Wrex made about Shep and Liara especially considering mine was a Femshep. At first I thought Wrex was just speaking in a general context since one would assume Asari are better kissers than Krogan. But then I realized he was specifically addressing the Shep x Liara connection. Yeah, there's tons of great references all throughout the game. I loved Wrex's delivery of that line. Complaining about how Liara gets a better room, and then just "but I'm not as good a kisser as she is." then the way he laughs at Shepard. Aethyta had a similar golden set of lines talking about Liara/Shep if you got that conversation. And the game was just filled with people actually acknowledging my Shep/Liara romance. It was great.
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Mar 12, 2012 21:58
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Ryan-RB posted:Okay! I've read about this Aethyta thing, but never ran into her. Which part of the galaxy? Somehow, I also managed to miss that conversation where Liara offers Shepard a chance to record something about himself for posterity. I'm pretty sure she only shows up after you do the citadel: biotic amps mission, and then only before the Priority: Tuchanka mission. That is, I think Aethyta leaves the bar once the citadel gets invaded. At least that is how it worked for me. Edit - By the way, do you play the multiplayer on PC any?
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Mar 12, 2012 23:07
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Icesler posted:
Because Thessia is the first planet Shepard and the crew have to deal with actually losing. Palaven and Earth are both hit hard, but they go through a lot of work to actually bring forces to them and defend them. They haven't given up on those planets and lost them yet, the fight for them is still ongoing. Thessia is lost. There's no fight for it anymore. It's over. And I hope you can understand why this would be even harder for Liara to accept, and by association Shepard if he's romancing Liara.
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Mar 13, 2012 18:07
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nessin posted:Except it's totally bogus. It was just being invaded, whereas other planets (including Earth) had been under attack since the beginning of the game and were still holding out. The entire thing was to create a fake sense of drama, the whole "we have to listen to the bad guy explain his plans instead of actually killing him and going about our business" theme. I get your point, but here's something you're missing. Shepard is still actively building a fleet to go retake Earth, not Thessia. Earth might be just as lost as Thessia is, except there's a strong push being made for an effort to go retake it. Thessia just has to accept that its' only hope is just being one of the many planets retaken if the war is won at Earth, there's nothing specific being done to save or retake it.
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Mar 13, 2012 18:32
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Charlie Mopps posted:See you in the other thread for some emotional support. Pretty much this. Welcome to the 99%, brother.
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Mar 13, 2012 22:33
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Lotish posted:I like that you can make Liara explain the tentacles. But I don't know why she's so sensitive about it. A human could explain hair without feeling put out, right? Maybe there's more to it. Or she's just sensitive about the racist notion that they are prehensile or something. That conversation was one of my favorites to stumble onto on the ship. I think she's just frustrated at Joker bugging her about it, and she finds it weird. That and perhaps there could just be something special in the way an asari regards their head tentacles, who really knows? I mean, it did seem to me that Liara was a bit too sensitive to Joker asking about it, but you don't get to ask her why she's so reluctant to tell him. I enjoyed being able to finally solve that mystery for myself as a player though.
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Mar 13, 2012 23:37
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farfidnuggin posted:But Liara, she affected me the most. I say that as someone who has never really liked her character. Her time capsule broke my heart. The mind-meld? Resting her head on Shepard's shoulder was the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak. You really owe it to yourself to do a run where you romance Liara - and specifically one where you go into ME3 as a Shepard who romanced her and stayed faithful. I'm not saying you need to play through ME1 and Me2 in their entirety for this if you don't want to, you can just take a shepard save from Me2 with the choices you want and import that, but you might want to try it.
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Mar 14, 2012 01:41
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100 Years in Iraq posted:I found this out rather early, and I'm not even finished with the game. When the Asari asked for a gun I thought maybe it would calm her down and then later she'd do something heroic so she could redeem herself in her own eyes. In reality they gave it to her and she offed herself immediately Yeah, that whole conversation and set of events really surprised me. It has to be one of, if not the, single most interesting and just sad conversation you can overhear from all 3 games. I never made the connection to Joker, even though I heard both her conversation in its entirety and listened to Joker. It's even more  to hear about that now.And I gave her the gun too, because I didn't think that blindly authorizing everything would actually be bad. I figured maybe it would just give her comfort. Then I read that she shot herself and just got all depressed about it.
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Mar 14, 2012 01:44
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Lotish posted:Eee. Hadn't considered the Tali sweat thing; I was out of the ME2 thread long before that came up, I think. I just find biology fascinating, and sci-fi leaves openings for the imagination down that vein (like what do turians have to eat in order to grow their metallic scales). I'll try to avoid that in the future; ME3 has made enough of us uncomfortable already. I don't think there's anything wrong with a biology discussion necessarily - I mean I find it interesting that ME is a detailed enough universe to allow it in the first place. It's all in the tone. The Tali sweat thing was creepy and disturbing not just because it was about Tali's sweat, but because it was also being used to try and make yet another "TALI IS AWESOME AND THE BEST EVER" point at its heart, so he came to the conclusion that Tali's sweat was delicious and nutritious for humans and such. It wasn't a serious, reasonable, intelligent thought he was laying out, basically. He decided first and foremost that he wanted to find a scientific reason why Tali was the best and went from there. In short, you're not going into Tali Sweat territory just because you're discussing biology. Just pay attention to your tone. Banjodark posted:We are on the verge of this turning into a tali's sweat moment, but you could argue that their evolution was altered by the protheans, especially if you bring javik to thessia with you. The protheans gave the asari their biotic powers and perhaps enabled them to randomize their DNA and have more variance in their species over time It's pretty difficult to really know that much in detail about the Asari, because it takes more knowledge of farther back in their past than we really find out about. I don't think I'm off base in saying that there were never any male Asari though. I mean poo poo, that's pretty easy to tell because they never even had gender as a concept until they met alien races. Yes, you hear them refer to a "mother" and a "father" but that's more for the benefit of so that other races can understand things. I think, after ME3, it's definitely a strong possibility that the protheans had more to do with Asari development than people thought. I don't know if they actually specifically did anything to alter their evolutionary path like that, but it's hard to say. I will say this though, wasn't Thessia just always a planet with lots of eezo, regardless of the Protheans? That likely had a lot to do with their biotic development and being such strong, natural biotics probably is why they work with mind melding and what not. Like, that mind melding is tied into reproduction so I'm not saying I think the Asari ever had a time where they weren't biotic, just that the planet having so much eezo led into everything they can do. What's really a question is if the Protheans had anything to do with Thessia having so much Eezo. Perhaps they intentionally spread Eezo throughout the planet? Or perhaps it was just there naturally without the Protheans doing anything.
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Mar 14, 2012 02:40
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MadRhetoric posted:I'm just about to make the final push and I've gotta say, never have I enjoyed the little character moments so much in a plot that I care so little about. The game is really amazing at doing that, isn't it? The characters in ME3 have never felt more alive and natural. I've always liked Liara, but even still the things they have done with her character in ME3 compared to Me1 or vanilla ME2 are just astounding. There's a massive improvement.
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Mar 14, 2012 19:25
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I definitely agree that ManShep makes a better Paragon, and FemShep makes a better Renegade. Hale just does a Shepard that sounds almost constantly annoyed, pissed off, and frustrated. Which I'm not saying is a bad thing, but it's why I think she makes a much better renegade.
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Mar 14, 2012 20:37
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Darko posted:I can't take her at all Renegade BECAUSE of that. It's FUNNY when MaleShep does ridiculous stuff in Renegade because he sounds so detached still. FemShep sounds far far too serious while doing it and ends up making me annoyed with her instead of whatever she's overreacting to. Well maybe, but I've never really played a renegade or anything so I'm just going off some videoclips I've seen. I might even agree with you if I gave Renegade/FemShep more of a chance. But I've always played a Paragon/MaleShep, really.
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Mar 14, 2012 20:44
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Red Mundus posted:I have a weird question here. The ending is seriously poisonous. You can straight up just cut the power to your console before the last few minutes and get a better ending.
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Mar 14, 2012 20:47
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Count Choculitis posted:To break up the SAD TALK of this page, thought I'd share this hilarious/horrifying snippet I overheard between Liara and Matriarch Aethyta: The entire conversation between Liara and Aethyta is absolutely golden. I've always hoped you could reunite them, and that conversation they have is totally worth listening to all of. MadHat posted:Do yu have to romance Liara to get those two to talk or did I just miss a sequence somewhere? You don't have to romance Liara. However, if you do, the dialogue between her and Aethyta is even better. Aethyta even has some things to say to Shep if he's romancing Liara. Totally worth seeing.
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Mar 15, 2012 07:38
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