Edit: Pls delete this post

 

Probably should have linked this in my last post, but it slipped my mind:

Drew Karpyshyn, the original ME lead writer, reveals his intended endings for ME3.

Frankly, I don't like that either. It doesn't fit the space opera theme very well, or address the key talking points of the series (the values of organic vs. synthetic life, tolerance of other species, working together to solve problems, etc). Also, how can the Reapers be fighting against the side-effects of eezo usage... and then use eezo technology themselves, in addition to propagating it to the other species? Isn't that just furthering the problem? Plus it seems like the only way to halt it would be to stop using element zero, and since that's the backbone of galactic structure, you're left with the same pointless regression that the ending we have leaves us with after the Relays are destroyed.

I would be more than fine if the Reapers' motives were simply to gather all worthy races into synthetic group-consciousnesses in a misguided attempt at "ascension."

 

That's the problem with attempting to explain the motivations of beings that commit genocide.

No matter what, they're always going to be shit reasons.

If they wanted to leave some goddamn mystery in the series, that could have been accomplished simply by not explaining why the reapers do anything.

Like THIS. FUCKING THIS.

Isn't that a better mystery than "DID EVERYONE DIE? OOO, SCARY, THEY PROBABLY DID, BUT YOU'LL NEVER KNOW 'CUZ YER DEAD TOO"

 

Well the original ending would have needed a few more hints in ME2 and ME3 and a good prologue but it could have worked. At least it would have been somewhat original. But yeah the ascension thing would have worked a lot better.
And am I the only one who didn´t get that the key point of the series is synthetics vs organic? For me it was just stopping the reapers (are the even real synthetics? I always thought that they were some mix between organic and synthetic ( like the middle end)) .

 

Yes, it is. Something to consider is that the galactic readiness percentage modifies your war asset point score. So with 50% readiness, you actually had 3850 war asset points, instead of 7700.

That article made me lol a little bit, with how it seems to be giving us the emotionally abusive spouse guilt trip. The gist of it seemed to be "You're really hurting our feelings, but that's okay, we'll still work hard to make you happy."

 

I won't bore anyone with my feelings regarding endings, but needless to say I agree that they sucked. I don't hate them for what they were, but they didn't fit the series in any way.

Fun fact: If you look up Technological Singularity on Wikipedia, you'll find mentions of someone anyone on DLP would know.

 

Yes, you need 4000 points at 100% war readiness or 8000 points at 50% war readiness for Shepard to survive at the end. As I stated earlier, you need to have almost a perfect import from ME1 and ME2 to even have a shot at 8000 without coalesced editing and no multiplayer.

So of the more commonly missed war assets:

Kelly Chambers (Ex-Cerberus Engineers) (10)
Supporting Dockworker (7)
Supporting Shopowner (5)
Leaving Dr. Chakwas behind (10)
David Archer (From Overlord) (5)
Civilian Consultant Authorization (7)
Full Minerals from ME2 (100)
Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani (not punching her from ME1-->ME3) (5+5)
Not recruiting Ashley Williams/Kaidan Alenko (25)
Asari Commandos (Liara chat with Matriarch on Presidium Commons) (25)
Conrad Verner alive (5)
Supporting Admiral Xen (45)
Supporting Admiral Gerrel (25)

 

Thx.. missed mostly the ones where you have to leave someone behind.. seems like I will have to play some multiplayer.. but that can wait till the patch/DLC (if they make it a DLC and I have to pay for it Bioware/EA can be sure that I will never buy something from them again) .

 

Watching this conversation again after so long makes me sad. I liked Mass Effect 2 and 3, but neither can compare to the first game in the series and the sense of discovery and mystery it had.

That conversation had amazing writing, and nothing written in the next two games even came close to how well Saren and Sovereign were done in ME1.

 

Seems like bioware is going to change the ending.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17458208

 

Maybe. Honestly it read really, really insincerely.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...to-fans-for-the-mass-effect-3-ending-sort-of/

Forbes commented on that as well, I believe.

 

That address said nothing about changing the ending, just providing "clarity and closure." That could mean anything. It was just vague PR bullshit. Leave it to reporters to not have any reading comprehension.

And I can't fucking believe some of the retarded monkeys talking about "gamer entitlement" or how "you shouldn't change art." Uh, yes, you're entitled (as in, have the right) to a better product if the one you paid for is faulty, and that ending is nowhere near art. It's like saying you can't go back and ask for a better meal if the one you paid for was undercooked and made you vomit.

 

I just played the ME2 Arrival DLC, so figured I comment on the Mass Relay destruction stuff.

Whoever said that the asteroid was only around 4-5km wide was way off. We know the Normandy is at least a few hundred meters long (the shuttle is ~10m long, and you could probably line up at least 10-20 along the Normandy's length), if not more, and when you leave the asteroid, it's nothing but a speck of light against the surface. That points to the asteroid being more on the order of multiple hundreds of km in diameter. Kenson also talks about crashing "a small planet" into the relay.

On relay size, it's a bit tricky. We do see the Normandy next to the relays a lot, but it's always from an angle that doesn't show how close they are. My guess is that you're still a significant distance away when the relay launches you. Second, Charon (aka the Sol System mass relay) has a diameter of over 1200km - whittling that down to a few km would take a long time, but a few hundred would be a lot more reasonable.

So no, the asteroid is not moving slowly - it's just a matter of frame of reference.

Doesn't explain why no one else ever thought about it though - my guess would be a combination of M.A.D. (the relays are the lifelines of the galaxy) and the assumption that the relays were indestructible.

 

Not always. Here's a screen from the first Mass Effect (click to make it bigger)



If you can't see Normandy, it's the ship-shaped speck of black below the light. That scene is the first time you ever see a relay and it's the one that always stuck with me. Relays are huge.

 

You still can't tell the distance between them (the only angles that could show that would be head-on or directly behind the relay), but it does give a better sense of the size. I agree; relays are enormous, and the asteroid they hit the Alpha relay with was bigger (or at least taller) than the relay itself.

 

Mass Effect: Revelation says that the Relays are about fifteen kilometers long.

EDIT: The actual quote, from early in the novel:

 

Retcon then? Because the ME1 relay was huge and the Arrival relay was huge. No getting around that.

 

Probably. In ME3 the loading screens between systems have the Normandy pretty big compared to that image coleam posted.

Could be just the angle?

As for the "spousal guilt trip" thing bioware's trying to give.

Look I can get trying to go for the artsy fartsy ending but what the hell. The previous two games have never done that. Sure ME2 was less hard science then ME1 but at least it had an ending that was in line with the theme of the game. Reapers. Humans going missing. Collectors. Defeat Collectors. Reapers are coming.

TADAH.

ME3: Reapers are here. Unite Galaxy. Kill Reapers with Dues ex Machina. And end with seemingly disjointed shots and no attempt at closing out the stories to any of the characters we've come to know. Great.

It had always been about the science fiction space opera thing. I've seen arguements that ME1 was the 70s-80s and ME2 80s-90s and ME3 is the 00's-

But I dont see how that supports the nonsensical ending we get.

What I really dread in the back of my mind is that the writers wrote themselves into a corner and decided "to hell with it" and just threw that on there.

I like the Indoctrination theory. But I know its grasping at straws.

Back to the Dues ex Machina:

We didnt actually expect a LITERAL God from the machine to kill the Reapers. Especially when it starts trotting out the attitude "I know better and you have to go along with everything I say."

Not to mention the lack of closure. What happened to everyone? Hell what happened to the systems? Arrival established that Mass Relays exploding is bad news for the system its in...

What about the Fleet on Earth? How the hell are they supposed to survive? Quarian Liveships can only support so many and thats assuming they survived. Probably not since you know giant ass target sitting right there.

I mean great Shepard dies, color happens and... then... Nothing. Great.

Thats how the great Trilogy ends. With nothing.

"If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn't." - Roger Ebert

 

Everyone brings this up, and I wondered about it too almost immediately after seeing the ending cutscene. I just assumed that whatever brand of space magic you picked altered the nature of the energy released to a specific form that was mostly non-destructive, using the same energy that would otherwise have destroyed the local star system to transmit the control/destroy/synthesis wave.

Sort of like the difference between a radio tower that blasts random EM noise across all possible wavelengths (harmful and otherwise), and one that broadcasts a coherent signal on a specific frequency.