Mass Effect: General thread of Awesomeness

[Derthric]

"But the peace won't last. Soon, your children will create synthetics, and the chaos will come back."

I think this brings us back to "Show, don't tell" again. And really so much had to be conveyed in that ending, and its really a massive design failure that would have afflicted the dark energy ending too. At no point prior to the ending was the issue even addressed seriously aside from Javik, but he was DLC and not part of the standard game. That flaw in the ending couldn't be addressed by the EC really. And like I said it would have afflicted any ending they pushed other than 1. use crucible, 2 win! 3 beers with Garrus on beach.

What doesn't help is the very Damon Lindeloffian way they treated the ending. So the compounded a lack of story support with a style that expounds on that.

[Avilan the Grey]

I feel like the only people who really enjoyed the EC were the ones who experienced the original ending, which was apparently so terrible that it makes the EC look good in comparison.

Well what you FEEL is irrelevant, since it is obviously wrong...
I never played the original ending, as I said, and I find the EC ending better than about 50% of the game endings I have experienced in my life.

I also jumped in with only EC and I also say it's not even a mediocre ending. Anyone who says otherwise is basically just compromising after a certain point.

See above.
Also, everybody's taste's different.

[Psyren]

I think this brings us back to "Show, don't tell" again. And really so much had to be conveyed in that ending, and its really a massive design failure that would have afflicted the dark energy ending too. At no point prior to the ending was the issue even addressed seriously aside from Javik, but he was DLC and not part of the standard game. That flaw in the ending couldn't be addressed by the EC really. And like I said it would have afflicted any ending they pushed other than 1. use crucible, 2 win! 3 beers with Garrus on beach.

What doesn't help is the very Damon Lindeloffian way they treated the ending. So the compounded a lack of story support with a style that expounds on that.

Damon what now?

And I agree - their ambition exceeded their grasp, and likely would have done so with Karpyhsyn's plot too.

[GloatingSwine]

Damon what now?

And I agree - their ambition exceeded their grasp, and likely would have done so with Karpyhsyn's plot too.

The guy who did Lost.

Though I think the problem was that they wanted the ending to be unpredictable. They didn't want to do an ending where you used the catalyst and it blew up the Reapers and that was just it (with variation depending on your level of war assets to determine whether your victory was convincing or merely phyrric and showing the specific war assets you had collected in some kind of cutscenes or background in the fight), even though that was basically the logical outcome of the story.

It's more like the case of the Monarch in DC Comics. There was a big old buildup storyline for the Monarch, and everyone guessed in advance it was going to be Captain Atom, which had been the original plan. But because everyone guessed it DC changed at the last minute for it to be Hawk instead which made absolutely no sense.

It seems like the same thing, they wanted to have an ending where people said "I didn't see that coming", but sometimes the reason you didn't see it coming was because it was too stupid to consider, not because it was astoundingly clever.

[Derthric]

Damon what now?

The guy who did Lost.

That's exactly him. He has a storytelling style that just puts me off and the endings fit that style. He also co-wrote Star Trek Into Darkness, Prometheus and other SF works. It's all questions and overly simplistic philosophy and themes that just by being there are supposed to be representative of deep thought. And some of the defenses of the ending "It made you feel something" or "questions for everyone" just smacks of that style.

On a more positive note, I am looking forward to the time post DAI where we can start seeing more about the next ME.

[Psyren]

The guy who did Lost.

Though I think the problem was that they wanted the ending to be unpredictable. They didn't want to do an ending where you used the catalyst and it blew up the Reapers and that was just it (with variation depending on your level of war assets to determine whether your victory was convincing or merely phyrric and showing the specific war assets you had collected in some kind of cutscenes or background in the fight), even though that was basically the logical outcome of the story.

It's more like the case of the Monarch in DC Comics. There was a big old buildup storyline for the Monarch, and everyone guessed in advance it was going to be Captain Atom, which had been the original plan. But because everyone guessed it DC changed at the last minute for it to be Hawk instead which made absolutely no sense.

It seems like the same thing, they wanted to have an ending where people said "I didn't see that coming", but sometimes the reason you didn't see it coming was because it was too stupid to consider, not because it was astoundingly clever.

I've heard that rumor - that they swerved hard right simply because people guessed/leaked what may have been the original ending - and I honestly don't buy it. I'm more inclined to go with Karpyhsyn's interview where he said his ending wasn't all that different and would likely have p*ssed a lot of people off too.

My gut instead says they simply looked at the dark energy stuff and said "you know, this would be a great way to continue the franchise post-Reapers, let's focus on the AI thing for this go-round instead." Which to me makes sense - if the big bad of the current war is a super AI, for the next set of games to also be about AI would just be treading water. Galactic decay/physics dying is instead a way we can raise the stakes.

On a more positive note, I am looking forward to the time post DAI where we can start seeing more about the next ME.

Same here. I love me some Dragon Age... but setting and gameplay-wise ME rules the roost for me, and the possibility of seeing this universe through the eyes of someone other than Shepard is going to make it even more exciting/fresh.

[Kiero]

At the risk of dragging this back to playing the games, I've now completed Eden Prime on my first ever replay game. Having all that high-spec gear and being level 50 is a bit weird, but I guess everything has been scaled up?

[Anteros]

I don't think it is unless you actually turned up the difficulty. It's just that levels in ME1 don't mean much except for accessing the skill capstones.

I could be wrong of course.

[GloatingSwine]

I've heard that rumor - that they swerved hard right simply because people guessed/leaked what may have been the original ending - and I honestly don't buy it. I'm more inclined to go with Karpyhsyn's interview where he said his ending wasn't all that different and would likely have p*ssed a lot of people off too.

I don't think it's necessarily "people guessed the ending so they changed it" specifically, but more that they didn't want to use the "obvious" ending where you just blow up the reapers and win. They wanted the ending to seem clever, but what they created was an ending which was thematically wrong for the game and series, which was far worse than just doing the obvious thing.

That's because the obvious thing is obvious because it's the thematically appropriate thing to happen.

Compare it with the ending of Dragon Age. At the end of Dragon Age you kill the archdemon and all the darkspawn go away. It's the obvious thing to happen and so it happens, and that means that all the outcomes of that are logical, whether the warden lives or dies, whether a companion dies in their place because you said so, or because they decided so (if you are in a romance with Alastair he will always sacrifice himself for you), or whether you took Morrigan's offer and escaped that way. Those all alter the context of the ending in ways that respect the player's choices in gameplay, but in all of them the logical thing happens.

Mass Effect 3's ending, beginning with the starchild, what determines the choices you get, the nature of those choices (Control is thematically presented as a false hope due to it being presented by Tim whilst blatantly indoctrinated and Synthesis is never thematically presented at all), and what some of their outcomes are, does not logically follow from the theme of the game, and they did that because they wanted to be "clever".

[Dienekes]

I don't think it's necessarily "people guessed the ending so they changed it" specifically, but more that they didn't want to use the "obvious" ending where you just blow up the reapers and win. They wanted the ending to seem clever, but what they created was an ending which was thematically wrong for the game and series, which was far worse than just doing the obvious thing.

That's because the obvious thing is obvious because it's the thematically appropriate thing to happen.

Compare it with the ending of Dragon Age. At the end of Dragon Age you kill the archdemon and all the darkspawn go away. It's the obvious thing to happen and so it happens, and that means that all the outcomes of that are logical, whether the warden lives or dies, whether a companion dies in their place because you said so, or because they decided so (if you are in a romance with Alastair he will always sacrifice himself for you), or whether you took Morrigan's offer and escaped that way. Those all alter the context of the ending in ways that respect the player's choices in gameplay, but in all of them the logical thing happens.

Mass Effect 3's ending, beginning with the starchild, what determines the choices you get, the nature of those choices (Control is thematically presented as a false hope due to it being presented by Tim whilst blatantly indoctrinated and Synthesis is never thematically presented at all), and what some of their outcomes are, does not logically follow from the theme of the game, and they did that because they wanted to be "clever".

You see, I don't see all that much a difference between DAO's ending and ME3's except in quality of set up.

In DAO you are told your job is to go slay the Archdemon, and only you can do it for some not particularly well explained reason.

When you finally set everything up, you find out that the path to doing so actually comes with a terrible cost that no one told you about; either your or Alistar's death.
There is a way around it, but it involves trusting the main villain of the game.
Then out of nowhere, Morrigan shows up with a strange plan that is never presented as even a remote possibility before the end and has very questionable motives for wanting her solution to work.

You reach the end of ME3 you are finally given your option to kill the reapers, but it comes with a terrible cost that no one told you about; the death of the Geth.
There is a way around it, but it involves trusting the main villain of the last game's solution.
And out of nowhere, Starkid shows up with a strange plan that is never presented as even a remote possibility before the end that has very questionable motives for wanting his solution to work.

The difference is mostly set up. Sure Morrigan's solution is strange, but we had a game to learn about Morrigan and how she thinks, while Starkid just shows up with the only set up for him coming from a DLC that wasn't even available when the game was released. Logaine is about as trustworthy as TIM and using them in the finale decision is off-putting, but can potentially lead to the best possible outcome (in my opinion anyway). And the main presented option just has a sucker punch added to it so that the other options become viable. But again, all these were handled much better in DAO where they seemed to flow from the story.

[GloatingSwine]

You reach the end of ME3 you are finally given your option to kill the reapers, but it comes with a terrible cost that no one told you about; the death of the Geth.

Who may or may not be already dead. But also you're given the option to control them literally five minutes after the mouthpiece for that option is shown to be under their control instead (which does not equate with Loghain, for this analogy to be accurate Loghain would have to be a Darkspawn collaborator not just making a political play* at the worst possible time), and yet it is a legitimate option, and you're given the never before foreshadowed option of "synthesis" which doesn't follow from any logic of anything presented before it. (Which Morrigan's actually does, it works for exactly the same reason that you need to die to keep the Archdemon dead)

And also the availability of these options is contingent directly on actions taken or not taken by an individual player, and not indirectly via the abstraction of "war assets" which bear no logical relation to what they are deciding.

* Which the cut content in Return to Ostagar actually shows was completely justified, he was actually right that Cailan was about to jump in bed with the Orlesians...

[Dienekes]

Let's make it fair here. We either use DLC are we don't.

If we use DLC then we go with Leviathan is in which does give you a concept of how far advanced the reaper tech is, and explains starkid and his problems. If we choose not to, then we do not know anything about Logaine except he's a dirty double crossing bugger.

Personally, I say no DLCs since that is the game as it was originally presented what was supposed to be a completed game. But I am fairly opposed to the current method of DLC distribution so it's up to you.

If the Geth are all dead, you just can destroy the Reapers guilt free. There's no real problem, not really sure why you brought that up.
My comparison to Logaine is more that you have no reason to trust Logaine to do what he says, even though if you do it is an entirely positive result. If you don't have the DLC he comes across as a completely untrustworthy, selfish, and quite possibly insane. Much like TIM. The option is presented to follow through on his offer, you do not have to do it though. It is in no way forced on you.
As to synthesis, I'm going to be honest. The space magic factor never really bothered me. Despite claims to following just using mass effect fields, it's always been pretty much just space magic that doesn't make sense. Here we have the single most advanced thing in the galaxy, saying that it can splice machines and man. It probably can. However, you are right that the presentation was wrong, it needed to be set up. We are given hints throughout DAO that Morrigan and Flemeth are up to something and then it's revealed what it is. We should have been given hints at something involving synthesis, more than the creation of human-reapers in any case.

[Psyren]

I don't think it's necessarily "people guessed the ending so they changed it" specifically, but more that they didn't want to use the "obvious" ending where you just blow up the reapers and win. They wanted the ending to seem clever, but what they created was an ending which was thematically wrong for the game and series, which was far worse than just doing the obvious thing.

I disagree about it being worse too. One positive thing this whole fiasco did was give EA a much-needed wake-up call about rushing the dev team, which in turn has led to DAI being pushed back instead of the whips and chains coming out to meet the original release date. (Time will tell if that extra time paid off, but prior to ME3 it would never have happened.) It also gave us Citadel, which may never have happened if Bioware and the VAs hadn't felt the need to write the fans a love letter of commiseration. And this ending gave us much, much more to talk about than "blow up the reapers, beers on beach" would have.

Compare it with the ending of Dragon Age. At the end of Dragon Age you kill the archdemon and all the darkspawn go away. It's the obvious thing to happen and so it happens, and that means that all the outcomes of that are logical, whether the warden lives or dies, whether a companion dies in their place because you said so, or because they decided so (if you are in a romance with Alastair he will always sacrifice himself for you), or whether you took Morrigan's offer and escaped that way. Those all alter the context of the ending in ways that respect the player's choices in gameplay, but in all of them the logical thing happens.

In ME you do the same thing - all three endings kill the Catalyst and the Reapers go away. And like the Warden, Shepard can make a big sacrifice to save himself or not. I'm not seeing the big difference there.

Also, both Control and Synthesis are brought up prior to the ending. Not nearly as much as they should have been, but they aren't nonexistent either. I agree that having TIM be the sole advocate for Control was a misstep, though even he made a few good points in its favor (e.g. EDI taking over Eva.)

[SiuiS]

I think this brings us back to "Show, don't tell" again.

Aye. The answer to that is "so?" And if it brings up that it's a statistical inevitability, tell him so is heat death and we will take our chances.

The idea that in billions of years, synthetics will finally wipe out organics so let's just not build any synthetics or lets murder everyone routinely is not a sound idea. And if organics are wiped out... So? They'll rise again. It's happened repeatedly, in fact, and we call it the reaper cycle and it's supposed to prevent itself from happening. No AI is going to destroy every last cellular trace from all planets. They likely won't give a fig about animals and may even want them to continue living because the biosphere is annoying to mechanize and it's not impossible for synthetics to respect life that isn't directly attacking them on a meaningful level.

I've heard that rumor - that they swerved hard right simply because people guessed/leaked what may have been the original ending - and I honestly don't buy it. I'm more inclined to go with Karpyhsyn's interview where he said his ending wasn't all that different and would likely have p*ssed a lot of people off too.

My gut instead says they simply looked at the dark energy stuff and said "you know, this would be a great way to continue the franchise post-Reapers, let's focus on the AI thing for this go-round instead." Which to me makes sense - if the big bad of the current war is a super AI, for the next set of games to also be about AI would just be treading water. Galactic decay/physics dying is instead a way we can raise the stakes.

The stakes do not need to be raised, that's piss-poor storytelling. I care infinitely more about Jenkins being shot by Geth drones than I do about anyone harvested on Horizon because there was a modicum of effort towards making me like him.

An intimate story with a small scale effect is better than just raising the stakes and trusting I'll adapt my expectations to yet another impending doom.

[Psyren]

Jenkins getting shot by drones is a great attention-grabbing moment, but it doesn't make a great story. A colony being abducted, that's a story, that's a conflict.

And no, raising the stakes is not bad story-telling - far from it. It showcases the growth and change in Shepard himself/herself, and the other characters that surround him/her. When you met Garrus, tracking down a two-bit organ smuggler taxed him to his limits. Then he went from that to becoming Turian Batman on the most lawless rock in the entire galaxy and living to tell the tale. That's how you sequel.

[GloatingSwine]

Let's make it fair here. We either use DLC are we don't.

If we use DLC then we go with Leviathan is in which does give you a concept of how far advanced the reaper tech is, and explains starkid and his problems. If we choose not to, then we do not know anything about Logaine except he's a dirty double crossing bugger.

We do, because Loghain gives his motivations at the Landsmeet, we know why he did what he did, what he believed in order to push him to those actions. The only difference in RtO is that we also know he was right (though he didn't know that).

I disagree about it being worse too. One positive thing this whole fiasco did was give EA a much-needed wake-up call about rushing the dev team, which in turn has led to DAI being pushed back instead of the whips and chains coming out to meet the original release date. (Time will tell if that extra time paid off, but prior to ME3 it would never have happened.) It also gave us Citadel, which may never have happened if Bioware and the VAs hadn't felt the need to write the fans a love letter of commiseration. And this ending gave us much, much more to talk about than "blow up the reapers, beers on beach" would have.

"This ending sucked so hard it ruined the series (and it did, I could not now go back and play the previous games because a huge part of their attraction is tracking what outcomes your actions have and I know the ending will **** all over that even in the extended cut) but that's okay because this other unrelated game might suck less now" is not a positive outcome in my book.

I'm not even going to buy Inquisition, Bioware have had their chances, it's over for me.

[Psyren]

"This ending sucked so hard it ruined the series (and it did, I could not now go back and play the previous games because a huge part of their attraction is tracking what outcomes your actions have and I know the ending will **** all over that even in the extended cut) but that's okay because this other unrelated game might suck less now" is not a positive outcome in my book.

I'm not even going to buy Inquisition, Bioware have had their chances, it's over for me.

Yeah, some folks are indeed scarred for life; all I can say is I wish them the best in their future gaming endeavors. *shrug*

[Dienekes]

We do, because Loghain gives his motivations at the Landsmeet, we know why he did what he did, what he believed in order to push him to those actions. The only difference in RtO is that we also know he was right (though he didn't know that).

He gives a bunch of reasons that seem like paranoid ramblings in the face of the cataclysmic disaster that's hitting his kingdom that he knows only the Grey Wardens can stop. His entire stance is based on idiocy and delusion.

[Rodin]

He gives a bunch of reasons that seem like paranoid ramblings in the face of the cataclysmic disaster that's hitting his kingdom that he knows only the Grey Wardens can stop. His entire stance is based on idiocy and delusion.

Loghain was the bit about DA:O that I bought the absolute least in the entire game. We're supposed to believe that he was willing to watch an entire army get slaughtered by demons "for the good of the country", while his entire army meekly follows him instead of rallying to their king (who, remember, the troops themselves have no reason to dislike), to then sit on his rear while the rest of the entire country is swallowed by Darkspawn, and then suddenly turn around and try to play himself off as a misguided good guy near the end of the game?

The entire basis of the plot was absurd. One of the many reasons why I prefer DA2 to Origins (and Mass Effect's story head-and-shoulders above either).

[Math_Mage]

He gives a bunch of reasons that seem like paranoid ramblings in the face of the cataclysmic disaster that's hitting his kingdom that he knows only the Grey Wardens can stop. His entire stance is based on idiocy and delusion.

The whole "Orlais is going to use this as an excuse to conquer us all!" thing didn't really fly because it obviously wasn't that kind of story. (Also because it didn't justify letting Cailan die or not, y'know, sending some troops out to fight darkspawn.) Presented differently, Loghain could have been an appropriately ambivalent character.

[Psyren]

I think he genuinely believed it wasn't a real Blight. Also, I'm not sure how many of the bannorn were with Cailan during Ostagar, but I don't think he had all of them - so Loghain was probably thinking "even if I need a few more lords and knights, I have them. I can safely get Cailan out of the way and be a hero without any Orlesian help."

Of course, given that it WAS a real Blight, he very nearly screwed all of Ferelden, if not Thedas. It ended up requiring all the remaining bannorn, and the dwarves (or dwarves + golems), and a dalish clan (or werewolves), and the mages (or templars), and the Denerim alienage.

[Dienekes]

Loghain was the bit about DA:O that I bought the absolute least in the entire game. We're supposed to believe that he was willing to watch an entire army get slaughtered by demons "for the good of the country", while his entire army meekly follows him instead of rallying to their king (who, remember, the troops themselves have no reason to dislike), to then sit on his rear while the rest of the entire country is swallowed by Darkspawn, and then suddenly turn around and try to play himself off as a misguided good guy near the end of the game?

The entire basis of the plot was absurd. One of the many reasons why I prefer DA2 to Origins (and Mass Effect's story head-and-shoulders above either).

Actually that part doesn't bother me. Why would the common soldier care about their king? Especially a new, untested king. Breaking ranks and charging would just be stupid. Hell, I can think of a few examples in history where the reserves see a battle and just say, screw it I'm out of here.

Now, Loghain's actions after that point seem strange to me, as, as far as I can tell, he does nothing outside of stupid evil actions, with a lot of emphasis on the stupid part. Trying to get an arl killed by blood mage assassin, using the support of Howe despite him aggressively destabilizing the kingdom, selling elves as slaves.

I'm fine with an amoral figure attempting to consolidate power in a corrupt way in what he thinks will strengthen his kingdom as well as his own position. That's fine, and can be an awesome character. Hell, that's pretty much Bhelen, who was a much more interesting character and a part of one of the better moral decisions Bioware has made (destroy/rewrite the Geth beat it, but I can't think of much else), at least until you find out the outcome of your decision at the end of the game.

It's just, Loghain seems to just do whatever evil crap the plot demands. It wasn't terrible, but not good. I wouldn't say DA2's better though, since the entire last third of the game involves every character acting just as stupid and evil for just as little reason. But, let's not go into that again. That's been done to death. Resurrected, and done to death again.

[Jayngfet]

I think this brings us back to "Show, don't tell" again. And really so much had to be conveyed in that ending, and its really a massive design failure that would have afflicted the dark energy ending too. At no point prior to the ending was the issue even addressed seriously aside from Javik, but he was DLC and not part of the standard game. That flaw in the ending couldn't be addressed by the EC really. And like I said it would have afflicted any ending they pushed other than 1. use crucible, 2 win! 3 beers with Garrus on beach.

What doesn't help is the very Damon Lindeloffian way they treated the ending. So the compounded a lack of story support with a style that expounds on that.

Dark Energy would probably have been a bit better, since it's the center of Tali's recruitment quest and was mentioned in both the trailers for game 1 and the first novel, so it's a concept they'd obviously been kicking around for much longer.

[SiuiS]

Jenkins getting shot by drones is a great attention-grabbing moment, but it doesn't make a great story. A colony being abducted, that's a story, that's a conflict.

And no, raising the stakes is not bad story-telling - far from it. It showcases the growth and change in Shepard himself/herself, and the other characters that surround him/her. When you met Garrus, tracking down a two-bit organ smuggler taxed him to his limits. Then he went from that to becoming Turian Batman on the most lawless rock in the entire galaxy and living to tell the tale. That's how you sequel.

Now explain how any of this applies to mass effect four, please? Because that's what we were explicitly talking about. The necessity of raising the stakes for the next, fourth, game in the series and so purposefully shooting the third game in the foot to make sure there's room.

Bigger, always, can be good storytelling, but it is not in and of itself, like is expected. Making the fourth game even biggerer in scope is stupid. Make me care about jim, not about The Delta Quadrant. If it's bigger as a natural consequence, bully. If it's bigger because bigger means more scope means better! Then someone had a failure of design choice there.

[NEO|Phyte]

Why exactly does Mass Effect 4 have to have bigger stakes than the previous games? Unless it got changed to be more Shepard, it's a new story, it can start small again.

[Avilan the Grey]

We do, because Loghain gives his motivations at the Landsmeet, we know why he did what he did, what he believed in order to push him to those actions. The only difference in RtO is that we also know he was right (though he didn't know that).

I have no recollection of RtO "proves him right". It rather just shows us how his paranoia causes him to read the absolutely worst of a situation.

[GloatingSwine]

I have no recollection of RtO "proves him right". It rather just shows us how his paranoia causes him to read the absolutely worst of a situation.

There are letters you can find in the ruins of Cailan's tent which show that, at the prompting of the Arl of Redcliffe he was intending to divorce Anora on the basis that she was childless and seek a "permanent alliance" with Orlais.

[Psyren]

Why exactly does Mass Effect 4 have to have bigger stakes than the previous games?

I never said this at all. I'm starting to think we're talking past each other.

Now explain how any of this applies to mass effect four, please?

Two things:

1) I was responding to your silly claim that raising stakes is "piss-poor storytelling."

2) ME4 does not need big stakes, I agree. All I was saying was that if they wanted to do a second trilogy (4,5 and 6) - the dark energy stuff is a good way to do it. And whatever stakes they bump us back down to for 4, if the there is going to be an overarching story and/or common protagonist with the next 3, another upwards ramp from 4 (not necessarily from/compared to 1,2 and 3) is likely.

[LibraryOgre]

2) ME4 does not need big stakes, I agree. All I was saying was that if they wanted to do a second trilogy (4,5 and 6) - the dark energy stuff is a good way to do it. And whatever stakes they bump us back down to for 4, if the there is going to be an overarching story and/or common protagonist with the next 3, another upwards ramp from 4 (not necessarily from/compared to 1,2 and 3) is likely.

I hear about Dark Energy, and start thinking of Schlock Mercenary and the Dark Matter Entities.

[Avilan the Grey]

There are letters you can find in the ruins of Cailan's tent which show that, at the prompting of the Arl of Redcliffe he was intending to divorce Anora on the basis that she was childless and seek a "permanent alliance" with Orlais.

All that proves is that Loghain's daugher no longer would be queen. It does NOT mean "traitor" or to let Orlais occupy the country. AFAIK he wasn't suggesting MARRYING her, he was sleeping with her, besides a permanent military alliance is the SMART thing to do.