[Megathread] Mass Effect 3

[Adam Jensen]

I don't understand though, how would it have changed if you had seen the like 15 seconds of footage it took for them to get on back to the normandy? Seriously the part where Joker gets the order to retreat in the EC is what 10 seconds of cutscene? How does it change your overall outlook to have that filled in when you basically ALREADY KNOW IT through a simply act of thinking about it.

True. It's just left me a bit . . . uncertain, I guess. Yes, I could assume the Normandy picked them up, but now that I *know* the Normandy picks them up, it fixes the hole and makes me feel a lot better about the end.

In every story, yes the reader needs to exercise some imagination, I'll agree with that. I just felt the ending could have been handled better by the talent at BioWare, and they redeemed themselves (for the most part) with the EC.

[Glorious Leader]

I think it came from one of those Dev Q&A's, but I'm not certain. I could be talking out of my ass here. lol

No no no I had read that somewhere as well but i can't remember where. I kinda figured that's what the star child was doing because it's a fairly standard thing that happens in science fiction. Like in that movie with jodie foster. Contact.

[Deleted]

you basically ALREADY KNOW IT through a simply act of thinking about it.

Assumptions arent facts.
Something that gets muddled up too frequently when ME3 ending is discussed.

[Glorious Leader]

True. It's just left me a bit . . . uncertain, I guess. Yes, I could assume the Normandy picked them up, but now that I *know* the Normandy picks them up, it fixes the hole and makes me feel a lot better about the end.

In every story, yes the reader needs to exercise some imagination, I'll agree with that. I just felt the ending could have been handled better by the talent at BioWare, and they redeemed themselves (for the most part) with the EC.

I'm glad you guys feel that way. I hope they continue to add stuff to the ending like they did with EC and with Leviathan. If it makes the experience overall richer and fuller why the hell not?

---------- Post added 2012-08-04 at 10:33 AM ----------

Assumptions arent facts.
Something that gets muddled up too frequently when ME3 ending is discussed.

You can make a reasonable assumption and have it turn out to be true. In the case of joker being ordered to retreat that's exactly what happened. Conversely if your assumptions prove to be inaccurate your head will not explode. I see no problem with assuming the crew was picked up by joker and he was ordered to retreat. That's exacly what happened but even if that didn't turn out to be what happened it was as valid an explanation as any.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

No no no I had read that somewhere as well but i can't remember where. I kinda figured that's what the star child was doing because it's a fairly standard thing that happens in science fiction. Like in that movie with jodie foster. Contact.

Yeah, I don't know if it was from BW or fan speculation, but it makes sense to me.

[Deleted]

Don't recall saying they were. Simply that you can make a reasonable assumption and have it turn out to be true. In the case of joker being ordered to retreat that's exactly what happened.

And it was tossed around like a fact pre-EC when it was nothing more than assumption.
It could as much had been that the reapers were winning and Sword was decimated or the crew had become indoctrinated yadda yadda and so forth.
Or Joker just remembered he left a stove on Ilium on.

[Rukh]

I don't understand though, how would it have changed if you had seen the like 15 seconds of footage it took for them to get on back to the normandy? Seriously the part where Joker gets the order to retreat in the EC is what 10 seconds of cutscene? How does it change your overall outlook to have that filled in when you basically ALREADY KNOW IT through a simply act of thinking about it.

As for the star child it's pretty easy to figure that one out to. Given that the Reapers and by extension their creators have the ability to influence minds, it's not hard to see that the star child AI had influenced sheps perception so that it appeared to him as some recent traumatic memory. Such as the child dying at the start.

---------- Post added 2012-08-04 at 10:21 AM ----------



Yea I had read something along those lines as well but I wasn't sure if it was official or anything. Was that from BW directly?

I never had an issue it took the form of the kid; the kid was a reoccurring theme and metaphor for shepard's subconscious regrets, so that was perfect, it's just that the catalyst was so literally deus ex machina thrown in there. Like they didn't know what to do and so they went, oh we have an idea, boom drop the god robot.

The extended cut didn't change that so I still rate the ending as mediocre, but that's ok. The game was tons of fun. The ending is enough that it doesn't ruin the game.

The ending does however give you enough info to feel like you really did end a saga though, instead of a few brief segments they slapped together on their day off.

[Glorious Leader]

And it was tossed around like a fact pre-EC when it was nothing more than assumption.
It could as much had been that the reapers were winning and Sword was decimated or the crew had become indoctrinated yadda yadda and so forth.
Or Joker just remembered he left a stove on Ilium on.

Theirs assumptions and then theirs reasonable assumptions. Joker leaving because he was ordered to retreat is fairly reasonable. Indoctrination is also FAIRLY reasonable as well although a bit of stretch once the developers said no not so much. Joker leaving to go turn off the stove is not reasonable in the slightest. I guess people do have imaginations lawl

---------- Post added 2012-08-04 at 10:40 AM ----------

I never had an issue it took the form of the kid; the kid was a reoccurring theme and metaphor for shepard's subconscious regrets, so that was perfect, it's just that the catalyst was so literally deus ex machina thrown in there. Like they didn't know what to do and so they went, oh we have an idea, boom drop the god robot.

The extended cut didn't change that so I still rate the ending as mediocre, but that's ok. The game was tons of fun. The ending is enough that it doesn't ruin the game.

The ending does however give you enough info to feel like you really did end a saga though, instead of a few brief segments they slapped together on their day off.

Deus EX Machina is not anything new in Mass Effect though. As I said before the star child is more or less mass effect 3s vigil just without the ability to investigate and figure his shit out as much.

[Deleted]

Theirs assumptions and then theirs reasonable assumptions. Joker leaving because he was ordered to retreat is fairly reasonable. Indoctrination is also FAIRLY reasonable as well although a bit of stretch once the developers said no not so much. Joker leaving to go turn off the stove is not reasonable in the slightest. I guess people do have imaginations lawl

You can toss the word "reasonable" around all you like but assumptions are as good as any, and video game developers will often go with insane themes, events and whatnot which disqualifies any merit a reasonable assumption have.

Riding a underwater ATLAS to find the Leviathan of Dis that wiped out the batarians to make it join you is not a reasonable assumption of how it would go.
And thats just assuming thats what they will have it as, you can ride Leviathan up from the sea to the citadel at the very end like a futuristic captain nemo.

[Rukh]

Theirs assumptions and then theirs reasonable assumptions. Joker leaving because he was ordered to retreat is fairly reasonable. Indoctrination is also FAIRLY reasonable as well although a bit of stretch once the developers said no not so much. Joker leaving to go turn off the stove is not reasonable in the slightest. I guess people do have imaginations lawl

---------- Post added 2012-08-04 at 10:40 AM ----------



Deus EX Machina is not anything new in Mass Effect though. As I said before the star child is more or less mass effect 3s vigil just without the ability to investigate and figure his shit out as much.

Nah not even close. Simply because we already knew of the protheans, we knew they were advanced, we saw messages from them, etc etc. Vigil was part of that whole thing. He was a VI left behind by the protheans. We had seen plenty of VI through the game so one that was prothean wasn't really much of a plot twist. He didn't change anything major, he just revealed what this conduit that we kept hearing about was. He didn't up-end the entire story and cause a major continuity rift.

[Glorious Leader]

You can toss the word "reasonable" around all you like but assumptions are as good as any, and video game developers will often go with insane themes, events and whatnot which disqualifies any merit a reasonable assumption have.

Riding a underwater ATLAS to find the Leviathan of Dis that wiped out the batarians to make it join you is not a reasonable assumption of how it would go.

I assume the sun will rise here shortly. That's a fairly reasonable assumption I think given that it always does. I assume that my wife won't cheat on me because we've been married for all those years and she's happy and I've been a good husband. Reasonable assumptions are fine. Going off half cock and assuming that the world will end 2012 or that the stock market will crash tmmrw are extremely poor assumptions. Their are degrees that are valid.

---------- Post added 2012-08-04 at 10:51 AM ----------

Nah not even close. Simply because we already knew of the protheans, we knew they were advanced, we saw messages from them, etc etc. Vigil was part of that whole thing. He was a VI left behind by the protheans. We had seen plenty of VI through the game so one that was prothean wasn't really much of a plot twist. He didn't change anything major, he just revealed what this conduit that we kept hearing about was. He didn't up-end the entire story and cause a major continuity rift.

Actually Vigil was a HUGE deus ex machina as far as ME 1 is concerned. He explained what the citadel was and gave you a way to get back to it in time to prevent Saren from letting the reapers get through. Without him it would have been over. Literally he was a machine of the gods (Protheans in this case) that determined the fate of the heroes and allowed them to over come an obstacle they normally wouldn't have been able to. Deus Ex Machinas aren't necesarilly plot twists.

A deus ex machina ( /ˈdeɪ.əs ɛks ˈmɑːkiːnə/ or /ˈdiːəs ɛks ˈmækɨnə/ day-əs eks mah-kee-nə;[1] Latin: "god from the machine"; plural: dei ex machina) is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.

In this vase Vigil helps them figure out how to get back to the citadel in time to stop the reapers. Vigil himself is a new character who had proper context. The star child didn't have as much context when the game first came out. If you could investigate him in as much detail as you could with vigil then it wouldn't have been so bad.

[Deleted]

I assume the sun will rise here shortly. That's a fairly reasonable assumption I think given that it always does. I assume that my wife won't cheat on me because we've been married for all those years and she's happy and I've been a good husband. Reasonable assumptions are fine. Going off half cock and assuming that the world will end 2012 or that the stock market will crash tmmrw are extremely poor assumptions. Their are degrees that are valid.

NAIVE!
Expecting a human to act selflessly is a unreasonable assumption.
Those that act selflessly do it to show off their selflessness, which is selfish in itself.

The world follows the laws of physics, but not video games.
There are no assumptions less or more reasonable than other, as they have often shown to be anything but what was "reasonably" assumed.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

Expecting a human to act selflessly is a unreasonable assumption.Those that act selflessly do it to show off their selflessness, which is selfish in itself.

The cynicism is strong with this one. :P

[Glorious Leader]

NAIVE!
Expecting a human to act selflessly is a unreasonable assumption.
Those that act selflessly do it to show off their selflessness, which is selfish in itself.

The world follows the laws of physics, but not video games.
There are no assumptions less or more reasonable than other, as they have often shown to be anything but what was "reasonably" assumed.

LoL that's not naive in the slightest. The assumption that she will stay with me is not only based on the fact that I'm a good husband to her but it's also that it's in her best interest to stay with me because I make her happy. That is a reasonable assumption, just as it's reasonable to assume if I begin to beat her and neglect her and the children she will be unhappy and leave me.

In fact people act selflessly all the time and it's not unreasonable to expect say a Nun to do exactly that. It's called Altruism and it happens all the time.

You can make an argument that people should never assume because every so often it will turn out wrong. That's fine. That's the ASS out of U and ME argument. I don't think however you can make an argument that their are no such things as reasonable assumptions even if it it's a bad idea to follow ANY assumption.

[Deleted]

LoL that's not naive in the slightest. The assumption that she will stay with me is not only based on the fact that I'm a good husband to her but it's also that it's in her best interest to stay with me because I make her happy. That is a reasonable assumption, just as it's reasonable to assume if I begin to beat her and neglect her and the children she will be unhappy and leave me.

Assuming she keeps the affair a secret so you dont know about it.

The cynicism is strong with this one. :P

The EC is the same thing.
"We do it because we love the players" etc.
They went on alot of PR to improve their image after the hordes massed up in their anger, so their games will sell more.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I don't give a damn what their motivations were if the EC makes me happy, which it did. lol

[Deleted]

Fair enough.

[Glorious Leader]

Assuming she keeps the affair a secret so you dont know about it.

Again not a likely assumption given we both live and work together. Theirs reasonable assumptions and then theirs not.

---------- Post added 2012-08-04 at 11:04 AM ----------

The EC is the same thing.
"We do it because we love the players" etc.
They went on alot of PR to improve their image after the hordes massed up in their anger, so their games will sell more.

As you have no actual proof of that, could we not say that is also an assumption? I'm sure you think it's a reasonable though don't you? Given that you have no proof other than experience and jaded cynicism...

[Deleted]

As you have no actual proof of that, could we not say that is also an assumption? I'm sure you think it's a reasonable though don't you? Given that you have no proof other than experience and jaded cynicism...

All the goodwill PR instead of simply tossing it out because "its done from the feedback." which they said was the reason the ending was left "unfinished" in the original game and leave it at that.
It indicates that they simply wanted to show off their selflessness.

But, no i dont consider it reasonable as its just an assumption, even if i find it to be highly likely.

[Glorious Leader]

All the goodwill PR instead of simply tossing it out because "its done from the feedback." which they said was the reason the ending was left "unfinished" in the original game and leave it at that.
It indicates that they simply wanted to show off their selflessness.

But, no i dont consider it reasonable as its just an assumption, even if i find it to be highly likely.

ahh alright. Will you accept that I considered the assumption that joker picked them up in the Normandy to be a highly likely one? I don't think it's likely that my wife will cheat on me either and this leads me to the make the reasonable assumption that she wont.