Mass Effect

[CharlesPhipps]

A loos which writers? Drew K kinda butchered Revan for me.

Ehhhh....

He was given one book to wrap up and tie into a story he didn't create. It was always going to be a trainwreck.

Remember, Revan was going to be captured and insane as well as the Exile killed due to the fact that was writen into the Old Republic beforehand.

He just had to write how that happened.

Sort of like RA Salvatore didn't have a choice about killing Chewbacca.

[Karha of Honor]

A loos which writers? Drew K kinda butchered Revan for me.

Ehhhh....

He was given one book to wrap up and tie into a story he didn't create. It was always going to be a trainwreck.

Remember, Revan was going to be captured and insane as well as the Exile killed due to the fact that was writen into the Old Republic beforehand.

He just had to write how that happened.

Sort of like RA Salvatore didn't have a choice about killing Chewbacca.

Ok thanks. Alexander Freed on the other hand did a great job.

[Independent George]

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of exploring what a 'Control' ending would mean with a Paragon Shepherd as God-Emperor of the galaxy - possibly with at least a faction of the Geth worshipping him as a literal God the way some of them did with Sovereign.

Imagine the story picking up maybe a thousand years into the future, with only Liara and Grunt still alive to remember the original Shepherd, and his connection to humanity gradually diminishing as all his friends die off. Paragon would be canon, so he's trying to do right... which is often subjective and contradictary. Since he's neither omniscient nor omnipotent, there are unforseen consequences with everything he does.

Think about all the minor little side quests Shepherd carried out in the original trilogy (such as what medical care a complete stranger should give her child, or finding an Asari's lost locket) - what would that mean if you extrapolated that kind of behavior to the most powerful being in the galaxy. How much will a Paragon God Emperor try to micromanage the galaxy at large? I'd imagine Shepherd would probably step in directly to prevent further wars between species, often leading to resentment and bitterness between the factions he's intervening with. Would he resort to some form of indoctrination to ensure his will is carried out?

There are a lot of possibilities to see how various societies develop with a living God around to enforce his will - often on a resisting populace. It would be an interesting exploration on how far he's willing to go in the name of 'the greater good' - and what happens to the people who still inevitably fall into the cracks. What if he subtly favors the descendants of his old allies, leading to arrogance and privilege among those chosen few, and resentment from their rivals? What happens if he withdraws that favor? What happens over time as some factions decide to test just how far they can go before inviting reprisals from God - then start acting up and stopping just short of the point where he would smite them?

[CharlesPhipps]

Were Bioware to hire me, I would use the "Deus Ex" model of "all endings happening" to explain what happened.

It would go like this:

It's been fifty years since the end of the Reaper War. The vast majority of them were destroyed by the activation of the Crucible but not all. Some of them were left braindead and controlled by unscrupulous individuals who have plundered their secrets, advancing technology in unpredictable ways. Cybernetics have become dramatically more common-place due to this and A.I. exist alongside mankind as equals for the first time.

The fate of Commander Shepard, Hero of the Galaxy, remains uncertain as they disappeared after the battle. Some believe to carry out covert work to secure the rebuilding of the galaxy while others believe to a well-deserved retirement. A few even believe the Commander died during the activation and it was covered up as to not affect morale. Only Shepard's closest friends and companions know the truth.

Either way, the galaxy remains a chaotic place of shifting allegiances, crime, corporate greed, and politics.

Change some of the dialog based on a tree for your choices like having the Geth rebuilt by the Quarians or the Geth having settled the Quarian civilians who'd been left out of the battle and the Genophage finally cured after the Reaper War.

[Independent George]

Were Bioware to hire me, I would use the "Deus Ex" model of "all endings happening" to explain what happened.

That feels weak to me. One of the big criticisms of ME3 is that it made a joke of the notion that your choices mattered throughout the trilogy; doing what you suggest basically makes even Red/Green/Blue ending even more meaningless. Not only did they deny you any real chance to have an impact at the end of ME3, now they'd be writing that off as well. It's saying, "Screw it - all of them are true, and Shepard's story doesn't get a proper resolution. Have fun with this new cyberpunk world we've put you in!"

The best way I can think to incorporate all three would be to treat them as parallel universes created by the Crucible, whose true purpose was to re-shape reality to defeat the reapers. Out of all the infinite possibilities, it was able to determine only three possible ends where the Reapers are defeated - Destroy, Control, and Synthesis. Shepard's role was to serve as an organic computer to evaluate which route was the best - shockingly, a hastily mashed-together superweapon built by disparate cultures tens of thousands of years apart who somehow don't even know WTF they were building is not 100% reliable.

Instead of creating a single new reality, it created three of them... and now they're starting to meld and overlap, randomly re-writing the universe over and over again. The PC, for technobabble reasons, is one of the few individuals who somehow manages to notice something is wrong. Your objective is to explore where the three universes diverge, and figure out a way to fix it.

[CharlesPhipps]

Maybe but I'm thinking of things they could realistically program for a sequel. The thing about choices in Telltale and Bioware is they can always affect individual lives but the actual settings have to eventually settle into one single tableau.

But that's just my view of it.

[excalibur]

I think one of the problem with a choose your own adventure in a video game format is that it is impossible without an incredible amount of money. Mass Effect from the start is still a one way path to a predetermined end that's always the same regardless of Paragon or Renegade, just a few people are killed or alive in the end. The main plots will always be generally the same. They aren't going to program it where you don't fight the reapers or not go to the dead Reaper. We were always going to decide where to control or destroy the Geth, and we will always fight for Earth.

To truly have meaning in our choices, Bioware would need a ton of man hours crafting several very different paths and effects and half entire routes opened to only certain choices, but that might not be possible in video game tech we have now. We will either get a singular ending or cookie cutter pasted endings

[TGLS]

We will either get a singular ending or cookie cutter pasted endings

Course, that's the thing. At the end of three, there's no reason not to let you pick a one of many radically different endings. There's no need to keep any kind of status quo because it's the end.

[excalibur]

Because Bioware got lazy at the end. They changed the original ending and then made up a shitty ending to satisfy deadlines. The Extended ending sorta made it worse when the Normandy just showed up in the middle to pick everybody up

[CharlesPhipps]

We will either get a singular ending or cookie cutter pasted endings

Course, that's the thing. At the end of three, there's no reason not to let you pick a one of many radically different endings. There's no need to keep any kind of status quo because it's the end.

Yes, except for the fact fans didn't want it to be the end and it led to the idea of having to go to another galaxy for more Mass Effect