Mass Effect 3.5B: Taste the Rainbow (Story and Ending Discussion; Spoilers!)

[Zevox]

Much as I'm loathe to say it, Chakwas would also have fit the bill (though I'm not sure if you can get her killed in ME 2 if you crew the escort mission up.)

Only if you send no escort at all, but it is possible.

Zevox

[TheLaughingMan]

Still, all this doesn't change the fact that making the Catalyst take the form of the boy made no sense and whatever effect it was intended to have, it failed. Frankly, I have a nagging feeling that the real reason the Catalyst looked the way it did was because they were in a hurry.

It's all symbolic. Duct-boy is a symbol of the writing staff throwing up their hands and deciding to railroad you. Hence Catalyst.

[thegurullamen]

People mentioned the squadmate who died on Virmire, and that'd work - however, they'd have to record all lines twice.

Not like they didn't do that originally. The Catalyst's voice is Femshep and Manshep's voices coming out of opposite speakers.

[VanBuren]

I agree that the dreams were not a bad idea at their core. The kid however was - we know nothing about him, so expecting us to be particularly sad about him just comes across as transparently manipulative, expecting us to care precisely because he's a kid.

I even suggested an easy way to fix this earler (don't recall if it was in the ending thread or main thread): kill Anderson instead. He's someone we know from the previous games and most players probably care about to some degree, and he didn't really do anything in this one. I could certainly see his death getting to someone who worked with him as much as Shepard in that kind of way.

Zevox

I think there's a way to make the whole setup work. For one thing, you have to explain why the kid matters. I think it's fairly obvious why he should, but that doesn't mean an emotional connection follows. That, and it still shouldn't be expected to carry all by itself. So, proposing how I might fix it...

1. As early as possible after meeting the kid in the vents, have Shepard find some way to talk about how the kid would play outside the window of his cell every day during his confinement, and something about how it was both the only link to the outside world, as well as the only constant reminder of what was at stake in this war. (optionally, Paragon/Renegade responses would let you decide which one is the more important)

2. Not long after that, perhaps after the first dream, give Shepard the option of confiding in someone (Liara, Hackett, Anderson, etc.) about how the boy represents all the innocent civilian lives being lost in this war.

But here's the big one.

3. The dreams are filled with more than just the kid. Maybe as you run through you see, along with the faceless masses, the faces of named secondary characters that died along the way. And when you finally get to the kid at the end, instead of him simply bursting into flames, he runs into the arms of the VS--essentially the last dream but with the VS instead of Shepard. Each dream adding in characters that have died. The last dream still works as normal with Shepard at the end.

If you're feeling ambitious, maybe even have the VS give a demotivational speech to Shepard.

[Aotrs Commander]

So... Read through my ME Codex as I play ME again.

Oh dear.

Communications ALSO rely on the relay network, and it says without the relays it was also take months or years to get contact out, excpet via high-speed courier and unmanned probes.

So, Bioware, the relay destruction completely severs the extranet and galaxy-wide communications, and that's not going to get people killed...?

*sigh*

(It also mentions again the lack of suitable drive-discharge stars being a barrier to FTL transit, cited as another reason everything clustered around the relays...)



Way to read your own codex before making sweeping changes to your own established rules, guys...!

[TheLaughingMan]

0. I think there's a way to make the whole setup work. For one thing, you have to explain why the kid matters. I think it's fairly obvious why he should, but that doesn't mean an emotional connection follows. That, and it still shouldn't be expected to carry all by itself. So, proposing how I might fix it...

1. As early as possible after meeting the kid in the vents, have Shepard find some way to talk about how the kid would play outside the window of his cell every day during his confinement, and something about how it was both the only link to the outside world, as well as the only constant reminder of what was at stake in this war. (optionally, Paragon/Renegade responses would let you decide which one is the more important)

2. Not long after that, perhaps after the first dream, give Shepard the option of confiding in someone (Liara, Hackett, Anderson, etc.) about how the boy represents all the innocent civilian lives being lost in this war.

0. I think Zevox's solution is actually the best in this case (that is, killing Anderson off instead) as he's a more visible symbol of Earth culture for Shepard. That way, the player has built-in sympathy for the guy instead of having to devote extra time to developing a new character.

1. Eh, it's still a bit too high-school grade as far as symbolism goes, but that might just be me.

2. But you see, that just makes things even more ham-handed. It's out and out telling us what the kid is supposed to represent, when it's pretty obvious exactly what he does.

[VanBuren]

0. I think Zevox's solution is actually the best in this case (that is, killing Anderson off instead). That way, the player has built-in sympathy for the guy, and he's a more visible symbol of Earth culture for Shepard.

1. Eh, it's still a bit too high-school grade as far as symbolism goes, but that might just be me.

2. But you see, that just makes things even more ham-handed. It's out and out telling us what the kid is supposed to represent, when it's pretty obvious exactly what he does.

Except neither Anderson nor the VS are civilians. That's the big difference. Soldiers die, unfortunate but a fact. Civilians aren't supposed to. So having Anderson or the VS serve that role would have felt... hollow to me.

[Zevox]

Except neither Anderson nor the VS are civilians. That's the big difference. Soldiers die, unfortunate but a fact. Civilians aren't supposed to. So having Anderson or the VS serve that role would have felt... hollow to me.

Yet having the kid is worse than hollow to me, it's a shallow attempt at pretty transparent manipulation. That he's a civilian doesn't make it work at all, at least not for me and (given the number of complaints there seem to be about it) a number of other players.

Anderson's death on the flip side could potentially have left an actual impact (all depending on how it was handled of course), even if that impact were different from the one you think they were going for here, because we know him. I'd take that over this any day.

Zevox

[Trazoi]

Yet having the kid is worse than hollow to me, it's a shallow attempt at pretty transparent manipulation. That he's a civilian doesn't make it work at all, at least not for me and (given the number of complaints there seem to be about it) a number of other players.

Especially because that was the only child shown in the entire trilogy.

They might as well have had Shep run up to a burning Vancouver orphanage, and tearfully pick up a charred doll from the wreckage.

[VanBuren]

Yet having the kid is worse than hollow to me, it's a shallow attempt at pretty transparent manipulation. That he's a civilian doesn't make it work at all, at least not for me and (given the number of complaints there seem to be about it) a number of other players.

Anderson's death on the flip side could potentially have left an actual impact (all depending on how it was handled of course), even if that impact were different from the one you think they were going for here, because we know him. I'd take that over this any day.

Zevox

I can't disagree more. Killing off Anderson is IMO a much worse decision than leaving him to lead the Earth resistance and kill him off at the end.

I love the idea of the kid, just not at all the execution.

[Zevox]

I can't disagree more. Killing off Anderson is IMO a much worse decision than leaving him to lead the Earth resistance and kill him off at the end.

Why? Anderson leading the Earth resistance didn't do anything. Aside perhaps from raise the plot hole of how exactly any meaningful resistance survived on Earth for so long with so many Reapers there.

Zevox

[Misery Esquire]

Or replaced Duct-boy with a box of kittens.

49. The catalyst is a box of kittens. Nothing else changes.

50. When you shoot the Illusive Man, he conviently falls on the platform that you later collapse on. You then throw his corpse into the Synthesis Beam.

51. The platform rises, and the Illusive Man reveals that TIM below was a clone, and that he has already reprogrammed the Reapers, and that the human casualties in the battle outside are "unfortunate, but nessecary to destroy the aliens and ensure human dominion." Shepard then has the choice to shoot TIM, releasing the Reapers from his control, talking with TIM until Shepard can lunge to grab the controls, or agreeing with TIM, and watching a Star-Wars-ish cutscene of a space battle for twenty minutes.

[LordShotGun]

Especially because that was the only child shown in the entire trilogy.

They might as well have had Shep run up to a burning Vancouver orphanage, and tearfully pick up a charred doll from the wreckage.

Well we almost had the EXACT same thing in the trailer what with the sunflower field and that little girl and Shepard picking up her toy and the zip zop zobada bop.

[Trazoi]

Well we almost had the EXACT same thing in the trailer what with the sunflower field and that little girl and Shepard picking up her toy and the zip zop zobada bop.

Oh wow. I never saw the trailer so I had to check it up on YouTube. I guess Reapers prioritised hitting major population centers, industrial zones, and sunflower fields filled with precious children.

Shepard landing on Earth: "This model ship is going straight on my wall."

[Zorg]

Funnily I found the little girl far more effective than the boy. Simple reason: Shep gets pissed off and goes into face stomping mode, not being all sleepless. If they'd made the dreams more generalist, maybe showing those other refugees I saw get killed with the kid too or something, it'd be far less ham-fisted IMO.

[Morty]

The hamfistedness of the dreams and the Duct-boy is even more weird because when you look at scenes like Mordin's death, Eve's funeral (if you destroy Maelon's data and Mordin/Padok Wicks can't save her), Thane's death or Legion's death, they show that BioWare could get moving, dramatic and sad moments right. Heck, even the dreams get actually pretty good when you start hearing all the people who died throughout the series. So why pull off such awkward and transparent tear-jerkers?

[Aotrs Commander]

The hamfistedness of the dreams and the Duct-boy is even more weird because when you look at scenes like Mordin's death, Eve's funeral (if you destroy Maelon's data and Mordin/Padok Wicks can't save her), Thane's death or Legion's death, they show that BioWare could get moving, dramatic and sad moments right. Heck, even the dreams get actually pretty good when you start hearing all the people who died throughout the series. So why pull off such awkward and transparent tear-jerkers?

Because apart from the final mission, pretty much all the rest of the stuff was reviewed by the whole team, whereas apparently only the two leads worked on the ending. (And one assumes the kid was part-and-parcel of that.)

[Zorg]

Just when you thought I would never go back, they keep PULLING me back in #MassEffect3 !! Recoding!! yay! Wha-hoo! http://pic.twitter.com/W6b3pezw

[Landis963]

Did Gamble voice anything, or is he a Bioware employee?

[Zorg]

He's one of the lead producers at BioWare.

[Aotrs Commander]

52: All the voice recording work is the major characters shouting "aaaargh!" in a variety of ways...

52a: All the voice recording work is the major characters saying "congratulations!" in a variety of ways... (This is followed by breaking news that the entire staff of Bioware and EA quality control have been found with the their intestines removed and arranged to spell out "no-one thinks that's funny!")

[Derthric]

52: All the voice recording work is the major characters shouting "aaaargh!" in a variety of ways...

52a: All the voice recording work is the major characters saying "congratulations!" in a variety of ways... (This is followed by breaking news that the entire staff of Bioware and EA quality control have been found with the their intestines removed and arranged to spell out "no-one thinks that's funny!")

I kinda do, but not as an official end. One of my favorite parts of jade Empire is actually the credits where they have the VA's reading lines as if the characters existed as real actors, talking about all the "dirty stuff" Dawn Star had to do before she made it big or how Sagacious Zhu keeps getting typecast as the "wise lonesome outsider" but he really wants to do comedies. It was hilarious.

The hamfistedness of the dreams and the Duct-boy is even more weird because when you look at scenes like Mordin's death, Eve's funeral (if you destroy Maelon's data and Mordin/Padok Wicks can't save her), Thane's death or Legion's death, they show that BioWare could get moving, dramatic and sad moments right. Heck, even the dreams get actually pretty good when you start hearing all the people who died throughout the series. So why pull off such awkward and transparent tear-jerkers?

I think this all goes back to the break down of the player-character relationship. In ME1 Shep won't say one word without player input, its a direct manifestation of the player. ME2 gives some leeway but on simpler things mostly Shep's in combat responses which are pretty universally "Kill! Kill it! Duck!". In ME3 more direction of Shepard is taken out of your hands, Bioware is telling you(the player) that Shepard feels bad about this kid. Which is a gamble. Ask a DM about doing something similar and it takes a lot of work and you have to be ready to roll out of the plan if the player does not react the way they need to to get the point of why you are doing it. Look at the conversation you have with Liara in LotSB in the cabin (no not the Vaenia re-enactment) where she asks how you are doing, you can respond with hopeful, frustrated, worried. Its your choice, they gave you a range of emotions to frame Shepard's mindset. In this one you have no choice in your character's mindset or rationality.

That being said they could have just had the Catalyst appear in a similar way to Vigil, a wonky bit of hologram, from some race we have never seen before. Of course none of this addresses the Narrative problems of introducing the twist in the Narrative and its resolution in the final 14 lines of dialogue. Let alone what that twist consisted of.

[Aotrs Commander]

I kinda do, but not as an official end. One of my favorite parts of jade Empire is actually the credits where they have the VA's reading lines as if the characters existed as real actors, talking about all the "dirty stuff" Dawn Star had to do before she made it big or how Sagacious Zhu keeps getting typecast as the "wise lonesome outsider" but he really wants to do comedies. It was hilarious.

You know, I'd completely forgotten about that. (They did it at the end of Ultimate Alliance 1, too, and it was side-splitting, especially Uatu doing a Wolverine impression (turns out he wanted to be one of the playable characters...))

Yeah, actually, that would work for me. (It even might take some of the sting out, because even if the ending is nearly as bad, at least the last thing you take away from the game is laughter.)

[LordShotGun]

I kinda do, but not as an official end. One of my favorite parts of jade Empire is actually the credits where they have the VA's reading lines as if the characters existed as real actors, talking about all the "dirty stuff" Dawn Star had to do before she made it big or how Sagacious Zhu keeps getting typecast as the "wise lonesome outsider" but he really wants to do comedies. It was hilarious.

Wait...WHAT!!!. I totally missed that when I played jade empire. ANYONE HAVE A LINK?!?!?


Back on topic. Taking shepard out of the hands of the player is going totally aginst the whole concept of the Mass Effect series. How many times have people talked about "my" Shepard and how "my" Shepard felt about a certain situation.

Changing that any more away then from silly stuff like Shepard saying "There goes the next shadow broker" and Garus saying to Liara that he heard the Yahg muttering T'soni as it ran away and into stuff like the abomination of an ending was just a horrible call.

[Trazoi]

Wait...WHAT!!!. I totally missed that when I played jade empire. ANYONE HAVE A LINK?!?!?

It's a vid of a TV so the audio is pretty terrible, but here you go. Comments start at about 2:50. It might have been Xbox only - I remember loving it the first time I played using my brother's Xbox, and being disappointed it wasn't there on the PC version I bought.

Totally agree with you about the player's Shepard.

[Jeivar]

I kinda do, but not as an official end. One of my favorite parts of jade Empire is actually the credits where they have the VA's reading lines as if the characters existed as real actors, talking about all the "dirty stuff" Dawn Star had to do before she made it big or how Sagacious Zhu keeps getting typecast as the "wise lonesome outsider" but he really wants to do comedies. It was hilarious.

Wait, what? I know this if off-topic but I've finished Jade Empire several times and I never got any such dialogue during the credits.

EDIT:

It's a vid of a TV so the audio is pretty terrible, but here you go. Comments start at about 2:50. It might have been Xbox only - I remember loving it the first time I played using my brother's Xbox, and being disappointed it wasn't there on the PC version I bought.

Ah, I didn't notice this earlier.

[GloatingSwine]

I agree that the dreams were not a bad idea at their core. The kid however was - we know nothing about him, so expecting us to be particularly sad about him just comes across as transparently manipulative, expecting us to care precisely because he's a kid.

Well yeah. "Transparently and lazily manipulative" describes the whole story of Mass Effect 3, really.

There's no in-universe reason for the climax of the Mass Effect story to focus on Earth, especially since Earth has been an invisible element of the previous games in the series. Earth doesn't matter to the universe of Mass Effect, the developers were just lazy and said "well, our players will care about Earth because they live there, right?".

Except not, for the purposes of Mass Effect, we care about the Citadel, because we spend so much time there and keep going back there. That's why the invasion of the Citadel at the end of ME1 worked, because we had been made to care about the citadel by tromping around it so much. Earth is nowhere as far as ME is concerned, it just gets shoveled in at the end because "This means **** got real mang!".

[Grif]

Well yeah. "Transparently and lazily manipulative" describes the whole story of Mass Effect 3, really.

There's no in-universe reason for the climax of the Mass Effect story to focus on Earth, especially since Earth has been an invisible element of the previous games in the series. Earth doesn't matter to the universe of Mass Effect, the developers were just lazy and said "well, our players will care about Earth because they live there, right?".

This. This right here.

Till today, I still never found an appropriate in-universe explaination for the reason the Reaper targeted the Earth of all places with their forces. They could have easily overwhelmed Palaven with the forces they had in Sol, and then some. Why the Citadel was moved there was also never explained adequately.

[Trazoi]

Except not, for the purposes of Mass Effect, we care about the Citadel, because we spend so much time there and keep going back there. That's why the invasion of the Citadel at the end of ME1 worked, because we had been made to care about the citadel by tromping around it so much. Earth is nowhere as far as ME is concerned, it just gets shoveled in at the end because "This means **** got real mang!".

Or how in ME2, while the Collectors were hitting human colonies hard throughout the game, it become personal when they hit the Normandy and took the crew. As a plot point it was forced (all playable characters had to leave the ship for an inadequate reason) but the reasoning was right: the Normandy was both Shepard and the player's in-game home, and the crew their family.

Mordin quote: "For this fight, want personal connection. Can't anthropomorphize galaxy. But can think of favorite nephew. Fighting for him." Except for some reason Bioware thought our "favorite nephew" was an absent Earth instead of Garrus, Liara, Tali and all our other quirky crewmates that we've grown to love over three games.

[Avilan the Grey]

There's no in-universe reason for the climax of the Mass Effect story to focus on Earth,

Now this I definitely have an issue with. To me, it is blatantly clear from playing ME2 that the endgame was to be on Earth.