Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Psienesis wrote:
Given that ME4 is going to be in a galaxy "far, far away" and the events of ME1-3 are "a long, long time ago", I don't think the save states from the previous games are going to make that much of a difference.

Yeah, it's gonna be so long ago that most of the choices we made in the previous games are now just footnotes in history holograms

Depends what they rate as a really long time.. 500yrs regarding humanity is a really long time, long enough for huge changes in technology.. but Liara would still be a middle aged Asari.

If its thousands of years then aye I can see the issue.. but the weapon tech doesn't seem to have changed much for that much of a time skip.

As to EDI, I'm pretty sure it was already mentioned they would have a static choice of what happened to the universe.. obviously it means some folks are not going to have their choices match up.. but that was the main issue with the ending,, almost too drastic a final solution to the story.. left them no wiggle room.
For a lot folks its going to be further salt on the wounds, but I didn't mind the ME3 endings, and have already covered two of them with different Shepards.. so I am good no matter what Bioware decides.

The only game I can't play on this machine so far is dragon age inquisition, and only because it DEMANDS a quad core lol...

Has it demanded a blood sacrifice yet Melissia? lol.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Has it demanded a blood sacrifice yet Melissia? lol.

My computer, or the video game?

On a side note, just replaying ME3 again at the mo.. and finally got around to downloading the Citadel and Omega packs.. Citadel was a lot of fun and Omega has been so far, but damn, that Lancer from Citadel is OP, as is the pistol, but the auto reload by the lancer is just nasty.. nothing has troubled me since I got it.. nothing.

All the ME games I liked and yes the monkeying around with the endings in the last one was rather surreal.
Ends happen, for better or worse so I just live with it, I was entertained through them all.
So looking like a desert world thing? Cowboy genre / Firefly / Dune? Sure, why not? I like all of them.
Should I fire up "Steam Powered Giraffe" as the soundtrack? They may have a tie-in or perform some limited reboot for ME.
Little point in getting upset over something that is mostly done and frankly I hate previews "spoiling" the experience of a movie or a game.

On the hardware front, I am quite pleased that consoles have slowed down the insane pace PC's were made to progress due to lazy programmers not wanting limitations placed on them to optimize their code. X-box and PlayStation setting the standard for hardware targets I cannot thank enough.
The 5 year cycle is almost civilized.
Quite a while back I upgraded my processor to the max the motherboard could handle: 6 core AMD so it is banging away OK for now but the next level up will hurt for me.
Literally, my computer decided to have some pins break in one memory slot and would fry anything put in it, 2 expensive memory modules to the computer gods upgrade.

I got rather attached to different characters, I think this is what they do well, it would be nice to see an old one but I am excited to see anything new they come up with.
Though, I NEED to see another character like "HK-47" from KOTOR, Grunt was close but not long on talk.

 Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:
On a side note, just replaying ME3 again at the mo.. and finally got around to downloading the Citadel and Omega packs.. Citadel was a lot of fun and Omega has been so far, but damn, that Lancer from Citadel is OP, as is the pistol, but the auto reload by the lancer is just nasty.. nothing has troubled me since I got it.. nothing.

Citadel is an awesome piece of DLC. Perfect blend of tongue in cheek send up of the series and awesome action sequences. Wrex's hilarious lines ("Why shoot something once when you can shoot it 46 more times?"), Trainors toothbrush, finding out what almost happened to your Miniature Giant Space Hamster and fish...

And yeah, the Lancer is really, really good, especially with an extra ammo mod and when you master the art of never quite emptying the clip.

The lancer is often used in high-end multi runs too, if you can level it up properly and have it well equipped.

Me, I have bad luck with weapon drops.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In spite of buying hundreds of the various 99k packs, I still don't have the Lancer or the Javelin...

And I really want the Javelin.

Ah multiplayer.. not done that in ages.. think I might give it another go soon.. if its still got plenty of folks active.. have a much better connection now.

Mainly pondering it, as I am debating if I should try and raise my map.. all 50% at the mo, but readiness rating is just over eight thousand, and I'm only at the Sanctuary mission.. so pretty sure I'll get the best rating.

Hmm, thinking on it I might still have the 100% map achieve to unlock.

Your connection was awful when we played, MDS.

Yeah.. I was running less than 1mb.. not even sure how it was running

I have about 37mb now.. will be interesting to see what a difference it makes.

 Melissia wrote:

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Has it demanded a blood sacrifice yet Melissia? lol.

My computer, or the video game?

Both.

Also, I can't run DA:I smoothly on my PS4. It stutters noticeably on occasion, and even freezes up. And no, its not the PS4.

FFS people...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113286

That's a AMD FX-Vishera 6-Core 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ for less than a hundo.

I'd need to upgrade my motherboard and ram as well

Asus AM3+ mobo for just over fiddy bucks

8GB DDR3 1600 RAM.... fiddy bucks.

I just cannot get excited about a new ME game.

ME3 was handled so poorly that the universe is just ruined for me.

That they just lamely cut and pasted the ending from the original Deus Ex, and then so stubbornly defended it, with massive gaping plotholes and narrative inconsistencies extending even into the EC (with extremely passive aggressive "buck the starchild" option), I just can't bring myself to really care anymore.

I loved the ME series up until the last ~10 minutes of 3, and just can't get back into it.

 Psienesis wrote:
Asus AM3+ mobo for just over fiddy bucks

8GB DDR3 1600 RAM.... fiddy bucks.

That is well worth it.

I suggest to people right now is probably the best time to upgrade!

 Vaktathi wrote:
I just cannot get excited about a new ME game.

ME3 was handled so poorly that the universe is just ruined for me.

That they just lamely cut and pasted the ending from the original Deus Ex, and then so stubbornly defended it, with massive gaping plotholes and narrative inconsistencies extending even into the EC (with extremely passive aggressive "buck the starchild" option), I just can't bring myself to really care anymore.

I loved the ME series up until the last ~10 minutes of 3, and just can't get back into it.

Sounds like you just can't appreciate true artistic vision.

 Chongara wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I just cannot get excited about a new ME game.

ME3 was handled so poorly that the universe is just ruined for me.

That they just lamely cut and pasted the ending from the original Deus Ex, and then so stubbornly defended it, with massive gaping plotholes and narrative inconsistencies extending even into the EC (with extremely passive aggressive "buck the starchild" option), I just can't bring myself to really care anymore.

I loved the ME series up until the last ~10 minutes of 3, and just can't get back into it.

Sounds like you just can't appreciate true artistic vision.

I am causally Optimistic but I did say this about the MAss Effect 3 ending

" I loved the ending. I loved finally being told! HA Its a game. I love disempowering games. I love being an absolute jerk to the player."

and also

"Spec Ops: The Line is a brillant work of art."

I am crazy though.

This mass effect looks interesting but if it doesn't come out to PC I ain't buying it.

 Asherian Command wrote:
I am causally Optimistic but I did say this about the MAss Effect 3 ending

" I loved the ending. I loved finally being told! HA Its a game. I love disempowering games. I love being an absolute jerk to the player."

The problem was twofold, it was diametrically opposed to the narrative of the rest of the 3 games and DLC, and, somwhat more pointedly, the ending was simply copy-pasted in exacting detail from the original Deus Ex.

Deus Ex, coming out twelve years before ME3, gave you a "three door" ending, run and pick a corridor, one for Control AI, another for Destroy AI, and the last for Merge with AI, with the same Red/Blue/Green color coding. ME3's ending was literally just a straight re-skin of Deus Ex's ending, and not even a very good one at that.

I personally would have been much happier without any choices at the end. Defeat the illusive man, stumble half dead owards the button, as you move there are footsteps behind you. Collapse before you're able to press the button. Footsteps near you, reveal its your squaddies. They help you up, move forward, if Love Interest is there, they press The Button with you. Cue explosions and final (extended) cutscene as Destroy without the AI death thing (Unless that's a sequel plot point).

For bonus points do a 2 weeks later that's the inverse of the opening to the first game with Shepard touring the ship ready for a new adventure.


Like I've always said. Mass Effect isn't grimdark. It may be grim at times, it may be dark at others, but its never OTT grimdark 40k style. Dragon Age, on the other hand, is a completely different kettle of fish.

 Psienesis wrote:
Asus AM3+ mobo for just over fiddy bucks

8GB DDR3 1600 RAM.... fiddy bucks.

Man, I wish I had 200 bucks right now...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The problem was twofold, it was diametrically opposed to the narrative of the rest of the 3 games and DLC

It didn't do this.

At all.

EDIT: not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me

There was a lot wrong with that ending's from a narrative perspective. The entire premise of this vast, unknowable, unimaginably intelligent and powerful alien force seeking to kill everything was a pitfall of bad circular logic, who's premise you could demonstrably proved was remarkably poorly researched and demonstrably incorrect through Shepard's interactions in ME2 and ME3 long before you ever get to the ending (and thus destroys the narrative character menace of the Reapers, they just end up looking stupid). On top of it, this reasoning is explained by a hamfisted in character in the form of the starchild, who has no connection to anything else in the story and only shows up in the last 5 minutes but supposedly has been there the whole time, and then gives you a literal straight copy of another games ending, but presented in a manner where you're then forced to choose to do it "their way" (where the rest of the game was always about doing it "your" way) and the story threads end up looking like this, disconnecting the ending from the rest of the game's narrative.

I don't need to provide a reasons as long as you're making a bunch of vague, baseless assertions. Provide an actual argument next time.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The entire premise of this vast, unknowable, unimaginably intelligent and powerful alien force seeking to kill everything was a pitfall of bad circular logic, who's premise you could demonstrably proved was remarkably poorly researched and demonstrably incorrect through Shepard's interactions in ME2 and ME3 long before you ever get to the ending

For someone asking if I have an argument for what I said, you're not actually providing any evidence of your own. Shepard's actions from ME1 to ME3 are the reason why the AI has become confused. It is outside the bounds of its programming, explicitly because of Shepard. However, while there are three exceptional people that make it in the end, only Shepard, the AI reasons, has experienced the right events that make her worthy of being the one to provide user input to change the AI's direction.

 Vaktathi wrote:
(and thus destroys the narrative character menace of the Reapers, they just end up looking stupid)

Nope. It reminds me of old science fiction novels and movies where the protagonist has to provide an out of control AI with a reason to stop what it's doing. That's a perfectly valid and useful narrative.

 Vaktathi wrote:
On top of it, this reasoning is explained by a hamfisted in character in the form of the starchild, who has no connection to anything else in the story

So you didn't actually play Mass Effect 3, then, because you CAN'T play ME3 without having seen the connections. You can't skip the dream events, you can't skip the intro event.

It's patently obvious that "the starchild" is just an image pulled from Shepard's mind, used by the AI to make contact with her.

 Vaktathi wrote:
and only shows up in the last 5 minutes but supposedly has been there the whole time

The reapers are hinted at from Mass Effect 1. The idea of an AI going out of control and dominating biological life is a very common theme within science fiction.

 Vaktathi wrote:
and then gives you a literal straight copy of another games ending

Stop worshiping Deus Ex, it wasn't THAT great.

Melissia wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The entire premise of this vast, unknowable, unimaginably intelligent and powerful alien force seeking to kill everything was a pitfall of bad circular logic, who's premise you could demonstrably proved was remarkably poorly researched and demonstrably incorrect through Shepard's interactions in ME2 and ME3 long before you ever get to the ending

For someone asking if I have an argument for what I said, you're not actually providing any evidence of your own. Shepard's actions from ME1 to ME3 are the reason why the AI has become confused. It is outside the bounds of its programming, explicitly because of Shepard. However, while there are three exceptional people that make it in the end, only Shepard, the AI reasons, has experienced the right events that make her worthy of being the one to provide user input to change the AI's direction.

Which is absurd because it's not a system designed to have a user, it's its own user, and has clearly been able to adapt and change its programming, the very fact that it would recognize this fact is proof.

But, ultimately, more to the point, the ending really doesn't change based on your actions, whether you prove or disprove its fundamental premise, if all you do is run through, act like a jerkwad, kill everything, and whatnot, you're still given the same choices. It's "effect" was fundamentally disconnected from the "cause" of the previous sequences.

 Vaktathi wrote:
(and thus destroys the narrative character menace of the Reapers, they just end up looking stupid)

Nope. It reminds me of old science fiction novels and movies where the protagonist has to provide an out of control AI with a reason to stop what it's doing. That's a perfectly valid and useful narrative.

Relatively stupid AI's, basic cartoon-circular logic errors where you see their head explode for giggles. The far less advanced Geth certainly did not have this issue.

 Vaktathi wrote:
On top of it, this reasoning is explained by a hamfisted in character in the form of the starchild, who has no connection to anything else in the story

So you didn't actually play Mass Effect 3, then, because you CAN'T play ME3 without having seen the connections. You can't skip the dream events, you can't skip the intro event.

Yes there's the intro event, it does not portent anything like the ending, and the dream sequences likewise felt awkwardly hamfisted, they really just felt immersion breaking an ill-fitting throughout the entire game. But the character itself, as a narrative device, largely has no relevance to the greater story as a whole and only makes their appearance in the last few minutes, with only the very awkward dream sequences (that felt extremely out of character given the previous Mass Effect games) to have *any* interaction with the rest of the story.

 Vaktathi wrote:
and only shows up in the last 5 minutes but supposedly has been there the whole time

The reapers are hinted at from Mass Effect 1. The idea of an AI going out of control and dominating biological life is a very common theme within science fiction.

Yes, but dominating and obliterating biological life so that it doesn't create artificial life that obliterates biological life is the rather absurd part.

 Vaktathi wrote:
and then gives you a literal straight copy of another games ending

Stop worshiping Deus Ex, it wasn't THAT great.

I'm not worshipping Deus Ex, I'm pointing out that ME3's ending is simply a point for point copy of Deux Ex's ending. Three doors, three colors, red/blue/green, control AI/destroy AI/merge with AI. That's literally the same scene.

Again, it's not that I'm all hot and bothered over Deus Ex (which was still in it's own right a great game, just as ME1 and ME2 were), if they yoinked it from Call of Duty or Command & Conquer or Warcraft or whatever, it would still be irritating. The problem was that ME3's end scene was wholesale copied, same concepts, same execution, same methods, same color-coding, with the same ultimate outcomes (destroy AI and you destroy civilization, control AI and you control civilization, merge with AI and new paradigm is created).

It was delivered the exact same "pick one of three doors" way, with the same three choices, the same three concepts, the same three outcomes, and even the same three colors That's where the issue with Deus Ex comes in. And Deus Ex just did a much better job of building up to that particular scenario, in Mass Effect it comes largely out of nowhere and with a gajillion plotholes (some of which the EC tried to address...sort of). I'm far from the only person that felt that way. Bioware badly copied another game's ending and then got poorly defended is as their "artistic vision" when it blew up in their face.

There's taking inspiration from something and adapting it to a different narrative, and then there's copying something directly and hamfisting it into a narrative where it hasn't adequately been built up to.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Which is absurd because it's not a system designed to have a user,

Apparently, it is. Just one that doesn't HAVE to have one.

 Vaktathi wrote:
the ending really doesn't change based on your actions

The ending does change based on your actions. Just not in the way you want it to. But I don't think the way you want it to change would make for a good story.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The far less advanced Geth certainly did not have this issue.

Geth Heretics.

Q.E.D.

An AI doesn't have to be "stupid" to go through this. It simply has to be complex. A very complex AI with two or more competing but equally high priority objectives will act in ways that seem irrational and inconsistent.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yes there's the intro event, it does not portent anything like the ending

So what?

It doesn't have to. You're acting like the kid who died is the same thing that appeared before Shepard in the end.

This is a ridiculous assumption for an equally ridiculous argument.

Shepard was deeply impacted by seeing the child die like that. The death was a symbol, to Shepard, of all the lives lost. A symbol of her failures. It dominated her dreams and came up in her thoughts often.

This strong mental image was used as the AI's avatar.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yes, but dominating and obliterating biological life so that it doesn't create artificial life that obliterates biological life is the rather absurd part.

The reapers claim that they are "preserving" biological life. Didn't you actually play the damn game?

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm not worshipping Deus Ex, I'm pointing out that ME3's ending is simply a point for point copy of Deux Ex's ending. Three doors, three colors, red/blue/green, control AI/destroy AI/merge with AI. That's literally the same scene.

Superficial similarities at best.

 Melissia wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Which is absurd because it's not a system designed to have a user,

Apparently, it is. Just one that doesn't HAVE to have one.

Which is a rather ridiculous premise for an unimaginably powerful fleet of god machines that only comes up in the last 5 minutes of a ~120+ hour trilogy between three games and multiple DLC.

 Vaktathi wrote:
the ending really doesn't change based on your actions

The ending does change based on your actions. Just not in the way you want it to. But I don't think the way you want it to change would make for a good story.

And what exactly is it that you think I want? Because I don't think that, aside from what you're projecting onto me, I've really gotten into much how I would have done it.

I don't think my position that the ending was poorly handled was exactly a unique one either, I've never seen a game developer have to go back and put out two or three DLC's to fix their botched ending. I honestly cannot think of another game that had to go back and do something like that. I can't think of any other game that had the blowback ME3 had in regards to a story.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The far less advanced Geth certainly did not have this issue.

Geth Heretics.

Q.E.D.

An AI doesn't have to be "stupid" to go through this. It simply has to be complex. A very complex AI with two or more competing but equally high priority objectives will act in ways that seem irrational and inconsistent.

The Geth Heretics were not pursuing the same goal as the Reapers, they were, if anything, exactly what the Reapers were supposed to protect against...and this is the sort of logic sequence a 6th grader can be easily guided through, having god-like AI machines ruling the galaxy suffer from this kind of thing comes off as almost slapstick.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yes there's the intro event, it does not portent anything like the ending

So what?

It doesn't have to. You're acting like the kid who died is the same thing that appeared before Shepard in the end.

This is a ridiculous assumption for an equally ridiculous argument.

Shepard was deeply impacted by seeing the child die like that. The death was a symbol, to Shepard, of all the lives lost. A symbol of her failures. It dominated her dreams and came up in her thoughts often.

This strong mental image was used as the AI's avatar.

Shepard had already seen countless people die, often just as tragically and often much closer to her, never had any sort of episode like that before. The idea that this single child is what the Starchild should assume the form of was rather forced. Why not Kaiiden/Ash or any of the others that the player might actually develop emotional attachment to?

It was apparent that many people did not find the dream sequences to be fluid parts of the story when half the players (particularly before the EC) assumed it was part of some sort of Indoctrination process. The dream sequences were one of the most awkward story parts of ME3, particularly relative to ME1 and ME2.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yes, but dominating and obliterating biological life so that it doesn't create artificial life that obliterates biological life is the rather absurd part.

The reapers claim that they are "preserving" biological life. Didn't you actually play the damn game?

Yes, I played it. Can we drop that already?

The idea that the Synthetic Reapers have to kill Organics to prevent them from creating Synthetics that will kill Organics is still absolutely absurd logic (particularly when they're willing to use hostile anti-organic Synthetic Geth to destroy those Organics). There's a gargantuan number of problems with that line of thinking that simply do not match with the Reaper's intelligence. They clearly have the power to do more than simply destroy., They have control of interstellar communications and travel. They can outgun anything and everything. There are a near infinite array of alternatives that would be less slowed than the method that was chosen. Most fundamentally...why couldn't they just come in and destroy hostile synthetics...?

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm not worshipping Deus Ex, I'm pointing out that ME3's ending is simply a point for point copy of Deux Ex's ending. Three doors, three colors, red/blue/green, control AI/destroy AI/merge with AI. That's literally the same scene.

Superficial similarities at best.

They are literally the exact. same. scene.

You are given three doors. They each have the same concepts, destroy AI and destroy civilization, control AI and control civilization, merge with AI and create a new paradigm, exact same outcomes. They have the same three color codings, red/blue/green.

It's literally only the superficialities that are different.

*HOW* are they massively different?

 Vaktathi wrote:
that only comes up in the last 5 minutes of a ~120+ hour trilogy between three games and multiple DLC.

I saw hints of it in the first game.