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iamnotaparakeet
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07 Dec 2013, 6:21 am

In the first Mass Effect, I try to always balance out the special abilities within a squad - such that I play as an engineer and my squadmates are Ashley and Liara usually. In the second one, for all the missions except the last, I just kept Miranda along for biotics and varied the third squad member according to the mission. In the final mission, at first I'd pick Miranda to lead the second team, Tali to hack, and Thane and Legion as squadmates since they can snipe and that deals with the Collectors quickly. Then, Samara for biotic shield, Miranda for second team, Jack to bring the crew and colonists back. For the squadmates with me when dealing with the giant terminator, it varied and doesn't matter that much. Third game I've played a couple times now and squad composition doesn't seem to matter that much except for dialog. Armor piercing ammunition is excellent against those Cerberus troops with shields.



Tross
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08 Dec 2013, 5:57 pm

AmoralHeart wrote:
Has anyone else played the ME3 citadel DLC? Any opinions on the best time to play it?
I would recommend waiting till after Tali's story arc if you want her to be present for the events of this dlc. Also, I would wait to have the party till after you help Miranda, so she can come, but I wouldn't wait any longer than that because the point of no return comes up pretty fast afterwards.

I love Mass Effect. It's kind of strange because I dislike the vast majority of 7th gen rpgs that I've played. I invested in the ME collection because it was a really good deal, and I figured I could just write off wrpgs entirely afterwards. I was wrong. One problem I've had with wrpgs is the writing. It's like they sacrifice good writing and characters for open ended and sandbox type gameplay. I often find the npcs to be bland and sometimes the voice acting is atrocious. I will admit Skyrim has good lore, but that somehow doesn't translate to a good story IMHO.

ME has good lore, a story I actually like, and characters I actually have a reason to care about. Even the main character is an actual character, yet still provides enough in the way of choices to allow people to step into his or her shoes. It's pretty much what I wish most wrpgs were. There are elements of wrpgs that I do like, such as non-linear gameplay, and some ability to choose one's path, but I wish everything else didn't have to be sacrificed most of the time. For the record, I also dislike most sci-fi, because it often takes place within a few decades of the work's release date, effectively dating the piece, and making it far less believable, but ME addresses that by taking place a good 170+ years later.

I suppose if I were to compare the ME series to another series, I would say it reminds me a little of Persona 3 and 4. Those games are also rpgs with adventures, but also feature sim elements on the side. Most games, including rpgs, are all about the adventure, and good ones make the player feel empathy for the plight of the main character, and possible his or her teammates, but games like ME and Persona allow the player to live a bit in the game's world, or in this case, universe. Players get the opportunity to interact with the npcs and get to know them on a more personal level, and a mission to save the game's world effectively becomes a mission to save a world I actually care about, because it's like I was a part of it. Also, these games have worlds that I actually wouldn't mind living in. I'm sorry, but even most games I like have worlds that I think would be incredibly boring to live in unless you're the hero, but that's not the case in Persona or ME.

I could probably go on longer about ME, but I think I'll cut myself off here. By the way, the ending dlc fixes the endings just fine IMHO. It doesn't actually change the original endings, it just expands on them. I looked up the original endings after seeing all of the updated ones, and I would have been disappointed with them. However, as it stands, I'm ok with how the games end now.



iamnotaparakeet
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09 Dec 2013, 7:42 am

I hadn't heard about the indoctrination theory about the ending of Mass Effect 3 until now, but it sounds like it makes more sense of the ending than that the events after reaching the London conduit being real. See for yourself, I think this plot theory makes sense - more than the plot does otherwise at least:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZOyeFvnhiI[/youtube]



zer0netgain
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09 Dec 2013, 12:19 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
I hadn't heard about the indoctrination theory about the ending of Mass Effect 3 until now, but it sounds like it makes more sense of the ending than that the events after reaching the London conduit being real. See for yourself, I think this plot theory makes sense - more than the plot does otherwise at least:


I have no doubt that it may be a decade or so before we find out the truth about the ME3 ending.

The original ending was just SO BAD and atypical of the quality the development team came up to that many are convinced that someone at EA/Bioware decided that they had an "ending" and cut the project off there because of time and cost factors. The "new" ending was nothing but a "tweek" of the original ending...making it less bad, but keeping it the same.

Was there a "real" ending where if you made the right choice in ME3, you moved on to it rather than the ending you got? Other games have done that. We won't know until someone who had access to the plans comes forth and spills the beans on why what we got was what it was.

I think the ending we got was plausible. I, myself, could have come up with a similar outcome as I didn't see any real way for the main character to save the galaxy without sacrificing himself in the process, but I sure would have made it make more sense than what originally came out.

As far as the indoctrination theory, it is certainly very plausible...that the ending was just a hallucination Shepard experienced while Harbinger tried to stop him from using the beam to get to the Citadel.



Schneekugel
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09 Dec 2013, 12:53 pm

I dont know, but I actually liked the ending? Could it be, that you only played a cracked version, and so could not engage into Multiplayer to actually get the really good end?

EVERYTHING FOLLOWING NOW IS A SPOILER!! !

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I dont know if you meant that anyway, but if you had enough points gathered, then you had an third option (which my partner actually could not acchieve, because of him not engaging in Multiplayer with his cracked version). So instead of controlling or destroying the Reapers, involving bombing the galaxy back into stone age or killing every artificial being, I could choose to melt all kind of lifeforms in some kind of hybrid-bionics, which took as well away the danger, why the reapers destroyed civilisation again and again, to prevent biological lifeforms, wiping themselves out by creating of intelligent artificial life forms, that could turn against them. And so causing the reapers to loose their reason for killing civilisation, so as far as I remember they simply left to go back, where they came from.

I dont know, but the relationship of Joker and EDI, and them stepping out of the ship at the end of the ending video, really seemed for me to be a good thing, with the meaning that you managed to destroy the borders between biological and artificial beings. So an allegory for the conflict of the Quarian and the Geth, which you managed as well to solve by forcing the Quarians to accept the Geth as equal beings, anyway if created or not.

I understand that the ending possibilities of my partner really sucked for him, because either way you had to decide about destroying civilisations and life forms, but the third option of the melting, I really liked.



Ostemaden
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27 Dec 2013, 7:29 pm

and never criticize or complain. :roll:[/quot

Aw hell no! People should think whatever the f**k they want about games, whether it's good or bad is not a matter of fact, it's opinion, and people should critiscise and complain if they think the game is bad and/or somethings wrong with it. I have no idea how the hell you can enjoy every game you play, but you're talking anti-freedom of speech here.



Last edited by Ostemaden on 28 Dec 2013, 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

zer0netgain
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28 Dec 2013, 10:29 am

Schneekugel wrote:
I dont know if you meant that anyway, but if you had enough points gathered, then you had an third option (which my partner actually could not acchieve, because of him not engaging in Multiplayer with his cracked version).


SPOILER ALERT (if that's even needed at this point).

You had originally 3 endings with a secret 4th.

Post-update, you now have 4 with a secret 5th.

Depending on your EMS level you could access the secret ending (which wasn't anything special).

Since you have an automatic 50% deduction on your EMS unless you improve it via multiplayer, EA compensated by adding DLC so you could get over 8,000 EMS total and qualify for all endings if you don't do multiplayer. You have to buy Aria's mission to take back Omega from Cerberus and the Leviathan DLC. Then, between these two DLCs and what's in the game you SHOULD be able to get all endings. I'm not sure if you need an imported character so you can get ALL possible points or not.

You need an EMS of 4,000 or higher. At 50%, that means having over 8,000.

The original endings (options) were:

Destroy the reapers.
Control the reapers.
Synthesis.
Destroy the reapers BUT you get a glimpse of Shepard's body in the rubble taking a gasp of breath. (secret if you have over 4,000 EMS)

The new endings are:

Destroy the reapers.
Control the reapers.
Synthesis.
Reject all options.
Destroy the reapers BUT you get a glimpse of Shepard's body in the rubble taking a gasp of breath. (secret if you have over 4,000 EMS)

The "secret" ending is the big sledgehammer upholding the whole "indoctrination" theory of how ME was supposed to end because he is clearly NOT lying in the rubble of the Citadel. It is more in line with the idea of the whole ending being a hallucination to convince Shepard to give up.

Destroy without enough EMS that Shepard comes to in the rubble of Earth = death.
Control = death/surrender.
Synthesis = death/surrender.
Destroy WITH enough EMS = continue game to the real ending.

This is important because the options Shepard gets from the Catalyst ALL come with the understanding that he will die in order to make his choice.



Ostemaden
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28 Dec 2013, 8:09 pm

eelektrik wrote:
I still think Bioware did the gaming community a disservice by releasing different endings later due to fan complaints. Regardless of the quality of the original endings BioWare made, they should never have given in to fan complaints over story as that will only fuel the entitlement issues already present in the gaming community who think they can b***h and make a petition to change things they dislike. BioWare just gave them precedent for them to keep doing so.

You don't see people petitioning movie studios to change the endings to movies, but because games can be patched many people expect everything they dislike to be changed.


Yes, they should complain if they hate it, because it's the most common way of improving. Being critiscised. I was actually one of those that critiscised the game ending. And if you have a problem with it, then fine. Just spell it out. It's a free country. :) And no. It isn't guarantied that complaining will change it, but we show the mistakes they made, so they can't repeat those faults in the future. And Bioware did a good thing by changing the endings. It showed that they can take critiscism, and listen and care about their fans. And the new endings did more good things than bad things, so it was totally worth it. And judging by the way you're speeking, you probably cannot take critiscism. If you really can't do that, then you're a shining example of the continuing pussyfication of humanity. Everything should be critiscised. Nothing is perfect, but it can still be improved.