Mass Effect 3

[Knightsaber]

How much “change” is really in the patched endings? From where I sit there was very little actual change; all that was done was clean up the really half-assed effort that shipped with the game.

When I get an option for my happy ending, then your complaint becomes relevant.

This ^^

I always wondered when I was reading through this thread (and it’s been fun, sort of), how many people screeching about how Bioware ‘changed’ the ending, actually played and sat through the ‘new’ one.

It’s a little bit longer, slightly more coherent, and almost exactly the same as it was to start out with.

[Nesrie]

I would describe the article as “pro-player tuning,” but based on “data mined metrics” and not on what players say they want. So, you are both right. It also says there is a place for that Playstation franchise, metal something, approach where the maker just does whatever he thinks makes a great game, regardless of what players think.

Artistic vision is fine. Other industries have it, but they don’t expect to sell millions upon millions of dollars with those kinds works. The gaming industry seems to want to have it both ways, and I don’t think they will get it. If you want to do the artistic vision, screw what players want, go for it… just don’t expect to sell at COD levels. Indie films typically don’t.

[Soma]

This ^^

I always wondered when I was reading through this thread (and it’s been fun, sort of), how many people screeching about how Bioware ‘changed’ the ending, actually played and sat through the ‘new’ one.

It’s a little bit longer, slightly more coherent, and almost exactly the same as it was to start out with.

The original ending (no matter the colour) heavily implied that with the mass relay network destroyed, interstellar travel becomes difficult (i.e. the crew of Normandy being stuck on the planet with two moons).

In the extended cut, no such thing happened. Relay network is fixed one way or another.

For a sci-fi series based on mass relays, and to quote Joe Biden, that is a “big fucking deal”.

[rhinohelix]

The original ending (no matter the colour) heavily implied that with the mass relay network destroyed, interstellar travel becomes difficult (i.e. the crew of Normandy being stuck on the planet with two moons).

In the extended cut, no such thing happened. Relay network is fixed one way or another.

For a sci-fi series based on mass relays, and to quote Joe Biden, that is a “big fucking deal”.

Hey, hey, hey, per Bioware:

What can fans expect from the Extended Cut DLC?
For fans who want more closure in Mass Effect 3, the DLC will offer extended scenes that provide additional context and deeper insight to the conclusion of Commander Shepard’s journey.
Are there going to be more/different endings or ending DLCs in the future?
No. BioWare strongly believes in the team’s artistic vision for the end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned.
What is BioWare adding to the ending with the Extended Cut DLC?
BioWare will expanding on the ending to Mass Effect 3 by creating additional cinematics and epilogue scenes to the existing ending sequences. The goal of these new scenes is to provide additional clarity and closure to Mass Effect 3.

So any thing else that was going on was just headcannon.

[Knightsaber]

The original ending (no matter the colour) heavily implied that with the mass relay network destroyed, interstellar travel becomes difficult (i.e. the crew of Normandy being stuck on the planet with two moons).

In the extended cut, no such thing happened. Relay network is fixed one way or another.

For a sci-fi series based on mass relays, and to quote Joe Biden, that is a “big fucking deal”.

To be perfectly honest I think they only changed the relay network because they realized Mass Effect 4 or whatever it will be named, would be terribly boring with no interstellar travel.

[Brad_Grenz]

To be perfectly honest I think they only changed the relay network because they realized Mass Effect 4 or whatever it will be named, would be terribly boring with no interstellar travel.

There was still ftl travel between star systems, just not instant transgalactic trips.

[mjgreeny75]

To be perfectly honest I think they only changed the relay network because they realized Mass Effect 4 or whatever it will be named, would be terribly boring with no interstellar travel.

I allready said this earlier in the thread when someone else suggested this, but again: seriously? It’s not as if they finished 3 and thought: right, what shall we do in 4…? Mass Effect 4, or at the very least it’s story, was in production long before the original ME 3 ending was finished. So unless both production teams didn’t even speak to each other all that time, I’d say the chances of the above being true are very very slim…

[Murbella]

I allready said this earlier in the thread when someone else suggested this, but again: seriously? It’s not as if they finished 3 and thought: right, what shall we do in 4…? Mass Effect 4, or at the very least it’s story, was in production long before the original ME 3 ending was finished. So unless both production teams didn’t even speak to each other all that time, I’d say the chances of the above being true are very very slim…

Seems possible given some of the stories on the person who decided the ending of mass effect 3 not speaking to the rest of the team.

[Knightsaber]

Once again I must realize the futility of expressing an opinion about anything regarding Mass Effect 3. Love it.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

There was still ftl travel between star systems, just not instant transgalactic trips.

But I doubt non-instant space travel would work for a sequel, is his point.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

I allready said this earlier in the thread when someone else suggested this, but again: seriously? It’s not as if they finished 3 and thought: right, what shall we do in 4…? Mass Effect 4, or at the very least it’s story, was in production long before the original ME 3 ending was finished. So unless both production teams didn’t even speak to each other all that time, I’d say the chances of the above being true are very very slim…

This sounds like speculation on your part. I would very much believe they hadn’t fleshed out ME4 yet, in fact there may well have been a time when they planned on making this a trilogy and doing nothing more with it, until EA stepped in and said “Hell NO.” to that idea.

[mjgreeny75]

This sounds like speculation on your part. I would very much believe they hadn’t fleshed out ME4 yet, in fact there may well have been a time when they planned on making this a trilogy and doing nothing more with it, until EA stepped in and said “Hell NO.” to that idea.

Well, you are right, it is speculation, in a sense that I don’t know exactly when they started working on ME4. There where rumors as early as july 2011 though. And every professional company would at least consider the option of another sequel to a well-selling series at an early stage, so I’m sure Bioware did just that, and I don’t really doubt they started thinking about the story early on. But I can’t prove it, fair enough.

[Ed_Solomon]

Picked this up for $10 Gamer’s Gate and I’m really enjoying it. I was afraid the war readiness gimmick would seem forced and artificial, but, so far at least, it’s pretty natural.

I dig the surprise with the renegade option. When the 90 pound journalist chick decked me, I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

[Brad_Grenz]

But I doubt non-instant space travel would work for a sequel, is his point.

Sure it could. You spent a lot of time hopping around within star clusters scanning for resources and lost baubles in ME3. My point it ME4 need not rely on literally going from one end of the galaxy to the next. They can get plenty of variety and intrigue within a single region of the Milky Way.

[ville]

I just finished this with Extended Cut and Leviathan installed.

I didn’t hate the original ending, but I didn’t love it either. To me, Bioware’s big stories are just generic messianic soap operas that think too much of themselves, but I like the characters. I’m not really sure why. But that’s where my emotional investment lay, and the payoff could have been better.

I like having to make the final choice, but only if there are no more Mass Effect games. An ambiguous, choose-your-own-future type ending is fine, but a new game will piss on that, especially since the endings are mutually exclusive.

Also, the star child was a rather clumsy storytelling vessel, and it’s pretty clear that going into three, Bioware didn’t know what the fuck the reapers were. Maybe Casey is a Lost fan. Anyway, Leviathan, of course, makes sense of the kid, but also introduces the leviathans as the most retarded “apex race” imaginable, so it doesn’t really help, no matter if the content was originally planned to be a part of the game.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

Sure it could. You spent a lot of time hopping around within star clusters scanning for resources and lost baubles in ME3. My point it ME4 need not rely on literally going from one end of the galaxy to the next. They can get plenty of variety and intrigue within a single region of the Milky Way.

You can’t push a very “seat of your pants, everything is about ready to explode!” type of story when it takes months to travel from one point to another. Not that ME3 worried too much about giving you a timetable or anything.

[ville]

Isn’t that kind of the issue with several games of this type? “I know the world is about to end, but I need you to find my lost kitten.”

And there’s really no reason why you couldn’t do a story with a real sense of urgency in a smaller scale.

[davidf]

Any new news on the citadel expansion? Sorry giving up talking on the ending and just focusing on maybe some new content with some actual RPG choices in it, rather than a linear action run.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

Isn’t that kind of the issue with several games of this type? “I know the world is about to end, but I need you to find my lost kitten.”

And there’s really no reason why you couldn’t do a story with a real sense of urgency in a smaller scale.

You definately could do that. It wouldn’t really be a Mass Effect game.

I don’t really have a dog in this show though, so if you guys feel like a game where you crawl along with FTL would enhance the story, more power to you. I’m probably skipping ME4 regardless, unless BioWare make some big changes regarding how their games play in general.

[unbongwah]

There was still ftl travel between star systems, just not instant transgalactic trips.

IIRC, somewhere on the ME wiki it mentions that regular FTL engines are capable of traveling about a dozen lightyears per day (I presume they found a way to “fix” relativity); so it would take decades to cross the galaxy end-to-end. The real limiting factor, though, is that Mass Effect FTL engines have to be discharged into planetary atmospheres every few days to eliminate…I dunno, static buildup or something, or the engines explode. Furthermore, there’s the question of whether ships built to exploit the Mass Relay network could carry the supplies, fuel, etc. necessary for months or years of “slow” FTL travel. My Honda Civic may last 200K+ miles, but I’m not getting that far on a single tank of gas and no oil changes! Heck, the Normandy was lucky if it could make it to two systems and back without running outta fuel.

Not that I know if what’s on the wiki counts as canonical. For that matter, even if it is, there’s nothing to prevent Bioware from just hand-waving it away with technobabble come ME4. But my point is that destroying the mass relays ought to cripple the galaxy’s infrastructure because nobody is likely to be equipped to handle the challenges of long-distance conventional FTL travel, except maybe the quarians.