RobbyB1982 wrote:I think the ending choices all made sense from a *story* perspective. As in, yeah, there's no legitimate way to actually fight the reapers no matter how much you unite the universe, and the lead character's personal choices and beliefs get challenged in a way you don't expect, Were it the ending to a movie or a novel any of the three choices would have been fine.
Unfortunately, they were all terrible from a *gameplay* perspective, where you wanted your choices to have mattered and assembling an army to have made a difference. And yes, betrayed everything you'd been building.
They of course later patched in a fourth choice where you try to fight and just get wrecked so its the survivors 10,000 years later that get to try... and that's not a satisfying game experience either, even if it works as actual story.
I think I disagree with them being "good" story endings. The fact that we don't know where the Crucible actually comes from makes all three endings crap - imo. The only way a bad ending might have ended up being good - story wise - would be if the Reapers were the makers of the Crucible. Just have them say several previous "harvests" committed mass suicide when they realized they stood no chance of surviving, let alone defeating the Reapers. Have the reapers create the Crucible as some sort of symbol of hope. Hell, have the Protheans not deploy the Crucible because they realized it was not going to do anything. Maybe have some of the scientist working on it wonder why the Protheans never deployed it considering the tech they had at their disposal all throughout the game.
That I think would be more book like and more satisfying. "You never stood a chance, and your great hope? we made it to give you a reason to fight, a reason to survive long enough for the Harvest to be completed." Cue a few more thousand reapers ascending from Earth and joining the fight.
That, at least to me, would be a better bad ending. No more Prothean infighting, no more deus ex machina crucible design. Just an enemy playing chess while you're learning checkers.
If Chuck or a mod reads this feel free do delete my account. I would do it myself but I don't seem to be able to find a delete account option. phpBB should have such an option but I guess this isn't stock phpBB.
I think the ending of the game could have been much more organically done. You could also reduce it to a conversation with Harbinger.
If you have over 5,000 Resources:
Shepard: "You need to leave the galaxy."
Harbinger: "We are immortal, infinite, etermal."
Shepard: "No, you are not. You are A.I. filled with the memories and collective history of ten thousand dead races. Except our technology is based on yours. We've adapted and increased ours until we've started to kill you. Dozens of Reapers, immortal and infinite destroyed."
Harbinger: "You cannot win."
Shepard: "We don't have to. We just have to destroy as many of you as we can. We're willing to fight and die for our cause. You've won all the previous cycles despite the fact you weren't. You fought with proxies and tools as well as deception. Because you're cowards. Tell me, Harbinger, are willing to die for this cycle because we can't destroy all the Reapers but we certainly kill you."
Harbinger: ...
Shepard: "Now get the hell out of my galaxy."
Last edited by CharlesPhipps on Fri Mar 09, 2018 1:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
CharlesPhipps wrote:I think the ending of the game could have been much more organically done. You could also reduce it to a conversation with Harbinger.
If you have over 5,000 Resources:
Shepard: "You need to leave the galaxy."
Harbinger: "We are immortal, infinite, etermal."
Shepard: "No, you are not. You are A.I. filled with the memories and collective history of ten thousand dead races. Except our technology is based on yours. We've adapted and increased ours until we've started to kill you. Dozens of Reapers, immortal and infinite destroyed."
Harbinger: "You cannot win."
Shepard: "We don't have to. We just have to destroy as many of you as we can. We're willing to fight and die for our cause. You've won all the previous cycles because you weren't. You fought with proxies and tools as well as deception. Because you're cowards. Tell me, Harbinger, are willing to die for this cycle because we can't destroy all the Reapers but we certainly kill you."
Harbinger: ...
Shepard: "Now get the hell out of my galaxy."
While that would have been funny - and the comment as a whole made me look up the books you're advertising - I don't think the Reapers would react like that.
If Chuck or a mod reads this feel free do delete my account. I would do it myself but I don't seem to be able to find a delete account option. phpBB should have such an option but I guess this isn't stock phpBB.
RobbyB1982 wrote:I think the ending choices all made sense from a *story* perspective.
I would disagree with this, since one of the central themes of each game has been either to beat seemingly impossible odds, or succeed at things where everyone else has failed. I don't see it being too big a stretch to defeat the Reapers "conventionally" but getting that sort of ending should have required a near perfect trilogy play-through in terms of resources & allies amassed. Bioware could have done a scaling effect of endings based on how well you've done, and give the best/most rewards to those that choice well in all 3 games, and also actually just played through all 3 games.
AlucardNoir wrote:While that would have been funny - and the comment as a whole made me look up the books you're advertising - I don't think the Reapers would react like that.
Thanks!
I do think the problems with the set up in 3 are a lot and needed to follow more from the previous installments of the franchise.
1. The Crucible, itself, is a problem because the Protheans were destroyed almost instantaneously in the original Mass Effect game. The Citadel was shut down, all of the Mass Effect systems were shut down, and the Reapers could eliminate/harvest every planet that was cut off from one another. There's no way they could have conceived of the Crucible let alone build it.
Also, the Protheans aren't any more advanced than the people of Modern Day Galaxy because a lot of the things which the Asari thought were Prothean Supertech (The Citadel, Mass Effect Relays) were created by the Reapers.
2. Mass Effect 2 was setting up the idea the Reapers were harvesting races because Mass Effect technology disrupted Suns if they were overused. So they allowed races to advance to a point where they disrupt suns then harvest them. They changed this as "too cerebral" (like the Matrix originally used human brains as processors to allow the Machines to dream) to creating Reapers.
3. A lot of the games kept banging the drum of "if the races were united they could fight the Reapers." After all, we saw Sovereign defeated by conventional military technology. None of that plays into the final game because it doesn't matter if it's an entire galaxy versus the reapers or just one--neither has a chance against them.
My biggest issue is the white washing of the Geth and the fact that logically if you don't have Legion period... You as Shepard have NO reason to side with or even believe anything the Geth VI sales yet a large chunk of the Rannoch arc is The poor Geth they didn't know what they were getting into
"When you rule by fear, your greatest weakness is the one who's no longer afraid."
Wargriffin wrote:My biggest issue is the white washing of the Geth and the fact that logically if you don't have Legion period... You as Shepard have NO reason to side with or even believe anything the Geth VI sales yet a large chunk of the Rannoch arc is The poor Geth they didn't know what they were getting into
I believe the Geth were whitewashed a bit but even in ME1, they had the Geth be the victims of an attempted genocide by the Quarians. My only issue with the Geth is the fact they're treated as complete victims versus people who retaliated to the attempted deactivation of their race with their own genocide.
Not cool, Bioware.
To get back to Dragon Age 2, I think it's actually one of my all time favorite video games. I think its flawed but I do like the more limited scope of the game and the fact it is about a bunch of awful things happening to people and the fact you can only affect the general events versus changing the tide of history.
If I was to rewrite the game, I'd probably make the following changes:
1. Move ACT II and Act III.
2. Have Sebastian as a character in Act I
3. Have your mother die in Act III for maximum drama.
4. Have your sister or brother permanently return for ACT III.
5. Have the Qunari invasion a full invasion of the continent you can derail.
6. Either way, the story ends with you as Viscount with a troubled brow.
I just read a few summaries for the upcoming film adaptation of the 2018 Tomb Raider which is a adaptation, supposedly, of Tomb Raider: A Survivor is Born and Rise of the Tomb Raider and one point I kept thinking about while reading these summaries was Chuck's speeches about why Hawke failed as a character and I couldn't help but compare it to the Lara in the film and why she fails as a character in that film but works in the game.
Lara in the film has no reason to be in the film, at best she's an observe for the real hero of the film and at worst she makes things worse because she is the only reason the villains get as close to Himiko as they do. Not helping matters is the fact the removal of key plot elements and characters, chief amount them Samantha Nishimura who was a key character, and in doing so the film creates plot holes that weren't present in the game.
I bring this up because it really highlights Chukc's point he made against DA2 as like Hawke, Lara has no real goal and she isn't important and it really shows just how bad writing can ruin a good story. That and I really needed to rant about this for a bit so feel free to ignore this comment.
Mass Effect 3 has a lot of problems.
One of them is the complete lack of consequences of choice, all the other games had the whole your choices matter.
Mass Effect 2 was an excellent example of choices in that your choices determined what kind of ending you got.
Also one thing i don´t understand is the whole "killing" Shepard thing, it seems something alot of games does.
Oh we have this hero character and at the end of the game well he/she just dies or ascend to a higher plan of eksistens or something like that.
To me this reeks of lack of creativity.
There are plenty of ways i think they could have handled the ending of mass effect 3 without killing Shepard off.
Lets take the ending where we get enough points to get the good ending (this is done WITHOUT the whole multiplayer bs).
The Reapers are defeated yes the casualties are huge but they are slowly and surely defeated.
The Reapers are strong and to any single civilization standing on their own they are unstoppable, just like a human can easily kill a bee with a slap from his hand, so can the reapers easily extinguish an isolated civilisation.
However just like a swarm of killer bee´s can kill a fully grown man, so to can the reapers be defeated if the entire galaxy turn their combined strength against them.
The Harbringer furious at the defeat of the reapers threatens, that if they go they will take everything they created with them.
meaning both the citadel and the mass relays will blow up, if they got their way.
Here again choices come into play.
If you done the right research into the keepers of the citadel, you find a way to cut off the Harbringers access to the mass Relays meaning it can´t blow them up or shut them down.
Angrily it tries to blow up the citadel by either having it self destruct or crash into the earth.
Here once choice matters, if Shepard got all of the species to work on the Crucible, the Rachni queen will contact Shepard telling him/her of a way to boost citadel away from Earth.
And at the same time the Geth will try to infiltrate the station at use their combined might to keep Harbringer from changing the course or try to access the relays.
As the citadel fly away from earth, Harbring manages to pull off the self destruction.
And Shepard has to try and get away from the station, here once again the relationship with your companions matter.
If you got either enough loyalty or fear from them, you will get rescued in the nick of time badly wounded, but alive.
If you didn´t get enough of either or you didn´t like in Mass Effect 2 get certain upgrades to your ship, they will either fail to come to Shepard´s rescue or die in the attempt.
As Shepard lay in the hospital bed recovering from his/her wounds once again fear or loyalty will decide Shepard´s fate.
If you made Shepard´s companions fear him/her, an "accident" will happen and unfortunately Shepard died from his/her wounds or in other words Shepard´s companions killed him/her.
If loyal Shepard will survive and but the wounds will be bad enough, that he/she won´t be able to return to the front lines again so to speak.
Once again depending on your choices and the kind of man/woman you made Shepard he she will either take a promotion and will be more of a manager overseeing military operations, than an actual front line solider.
He/she might take a more political role either in the council or as an ambassador.
Or he she will just leave the whole thing behind an settle down somewhere, maybe in the house he/she got in the first Mass Effect game.
Depending on whether he romanced one of his/her companions, whatever choice he/she makes, that companion might join him/her.
As for whether they start a family or not again, all depends what choices you made in the game.
In short i really missed more choices in the game and they actually, meaning something.
As for DA:2 many have brought up the whole you are confided to a single city and it surrounding areas, and you just can´t make a complete game on such a small area.
I disagree there, i think a game set in a single city and it surrounding area can work, with no problems at all.
However what you lack in size you have to make up for in content real content not just padding.
That was another problem i think the game had the content just wasn´t there and there was ALOT of needless padding.
Ohh you found an amulet of Dumat, what could this mean? Might the be a secret cabal of Tevinter mages, secretly fueling the conflict between the mages and Templar in order to weaken Ferelden.
Or maybe a cult of mages is trying to summon the spirit of the arch demon, maybe they are trying to recreate the ancient ritual to walk into the fade.
Maybe Merideth planted it there for Hawk to find it and bring it to the authorities in order for her to justify her actions against the mages.
Maybe maybe nothing all it does is give you a quest to deliver it back to mage and all he will say is "Don´t wave that around... i mean thanks."
You get some exp, some gold and a codex entry on Dumat.................... yay..
Oh you got a letter from the black emporium, ohh what could this mean probably a bunch of new quests tied to the underground trade network.
Maybe Hawke gets to earn a little side money and influence by helping Xenon the Antiquarian... Nope all it is is a shop nothing more.
Again that is one of DA:2 great weakness it wants to tell a more tight story, but doesn´t add the content to fill the smaller area to make it seem just as big as the original game.
Winter wrote:I just read a few summaries for the upcoming film adaptation of the 2018 Tomb Raider which is a adaptation, supposedly, of Tomb Raider: A Survivor is Born and Rise of the Tomb Raider and one point I kept thinking about while reading these summaries was Chuck's speeches about why Hawke failed as a character and I couldn't help but compare it to the Lara in the film and why she fails as a character in that film but works in the game.
Lara in the film has no reason to be in the film, at best she's an observe for the real hero of the film and at worst she makes things worse because she is the only reason the villains get as close to Himiko as they do. Not helping matters is the fact the removal of key plot elements and characters, chief amount them Samantha Nishimura who was a key character, and in doing so the film creates plot holes that weren't present in the game.
I bring this up because it really highlights Chukc's point he made against DA2 as like Hawke, Lara has no real goal and she isn't important and it really shows just how bad writing can ruin a good story. That and I really needed to rant about this for a bit so feel free to ignore this comment.
Ah, where exactly are you getting all that? The movie isn't even out yet, so there are only trailers to judge it by.
