[MatthTheGeek]

They are not "traped". The mass relays may be gone, but you still got ships and tehy still have FTL drives. They are slow compared to mass relays and what took minutes/hours now takes months.

Proof of this ?

From what I know of the ME universe, it could take centuries to standard FTL travel between two mass relays.

[TrashMan]

Wow, Trashman is defending ME3's writing. We're so far down the rabbit hole that we're climbing up the rabbit's ass.

Yeah, paradoxical, isn't it. Never tough I of all people would be defending ME3.
But then again, I'm not entrenched in the "must hate everything about ME3" mentality. Or the opposite. Extremism and having blinders on is bad, M'Kay?

I argued against ME3 writing in places where it was bad.
And I'll argue for ME3 writing in places where it isn't. Altough in this case I shouldn't say "writing", but rather "design/story decisions". Because ME3 writing IS bad, but the decision to make an ending that changes the universe? Nope.

Forcing Sheps death? Not bad.
Forcing mass relays always blown? Not bad.
Forcing Normandy crash landing? Not bad.   People are free to hate those and I can perfeclty understand way. Loss of a beloved character can totaly ruin the whole story for some people. A tonal shift can totaly ruin the whole story for some people.
But that ruination is totally subjective and not "bad" in of itself. It comes down to expectations and what one wants.

[TrashMan]

no, you're not counter-balancing them, you're just covering them up with your ****ty posts (which are fairly ****ty btw)

I can crap out stuff that's less ****ty than your posts...you got a point?


I guess you don't.

[TrashMan]

From what I know of the ME universe, it could take centuries to standard FTL travel between two mass relays.

There was a lore bit on expeditions to a system or two not connected with relay networks, and the travel time was measured in years. Can't recall exactly but it was 1 or 2 years.

[Scotty]

Just gonna point out that a completely meaningless and entirely (and purposefully) flame-filled post like the above is the kind of stuff that got you banned from GD.  You've also obviously confused "I hate the last 15 minutes of ME3" with "I hate everything about ME3" mentalities.  The former is the generally agreed upon consensus by the vast majority of people I've heard who've finished the game.  The latter has been entirely absent from this thread except for your inane rantings up until release.

Also I ****ing love how you're is talking about subjective quality in your posts.  I almost care enough to go dig up the 50 posts before this that *****ed about how quality is absolute.

[TrashMan]

Just gonna point out that a completely meaningless and entirely (and purposefully) flame-filled post like the above is the kind of stuff that got you banned from GD. 

You know what? F*** YOU!

MY posts are flame-filled? MINE? You got to be kidding me! Since when was I making personal attack? I was talking about ME3 and ONLY ME3, while some people constantly keep taking cheap shots at me.
You know? Ad Hominems? Not actually adressing what I say, but just calling what I say garbage and inane ramblings? Thinly vailed attampts at "I don't like what you say, GTFO".

Also, I'm glad I got banned from GD. I moved on to forums with more civil discussions and fewer poeple with a stick up their arse.

You've also obviously confused "I hate the last 15 minutes of ME3" with "I hate everything about ME3" mentalities.  The former is the generally agreed upon consensus by the vast majority of people I've heard who've finished the game.  The latter has been entirely absent from this thread except for your inane rantings up until release.

I was reffering to myself there. So you missed the mark.
Also, your Argument Ad Populaum is meaningless.

and here we go..more Ad Hominems. Classy. Real classy.

Also I ****ing love how you're is talking about subjective quality in your posts.  I almost care enough to go dig up the 50 posts before this that *****ed about how quality is absolute.

More or less it is. But how one judges it is important.
There is a difference between "I don't like this, therefore it sucks" and "I don't like this, but it's not bad, it jsut isn't what I would like". Planety of people are incapable of makign that destinction.

[Herra Tohtori]

There's a correlation between not liking something, and thinking it's bad.

That doesn't mean there's always a causation between the two, and even less that the causative reaction is always "Don't like this" -> "It's bad".


People usually tend to dislike things they think are badly done, but not liking something doesn't always automatically lead to thinking it's badly done.


In the case of ME3 endings, it's not what happens in the endings that makes majority of the people dislike them, but instead people think they are badly done in terms of story-telling and their dislike stems from that.

[NGTM-1R]

I hearby declare this Irony Day, alternately know as "Trashman Stars Out His Own **** You Day".

To celebrate, I offer you his own inescapable failure to meet his own standards.

I can crap out stuff that's less ****ty than your posts...you got a point?

You know what? F*** YOU!

Ad Hominems? Not actually adressing what I say, but just calling what I say garbage and inane ramblings?

Now, to actually accomplish something useful with this post:

There was a lore bit on expeditions to a system or two not connected with relay networks, and the travel time was measured in years. Can't recall exactly but it was 1 or 2 years.

Citation plz, commentary in the game has never made specific references, most likely so we wouldn't end up seeing them in a position to break them. It has, however, indicated that trips by conventional FTL between relay distances are completely impractical, in part because the nature of Eezo-powered FTL drive means that it cannot be used for great time periods. (I have vague memories of about two weeks for most civilian ships but cannot swear to it.) You have to discharge the drive core or it grounds and melts your engineering spaces, forcing you to system-hop between groups of planets and spend an awful lot of dead time eating food and breathing air while not actually traveling. Without the relays it's probable that you'd be trapped in a galactic arm at the least, since ME2 made it clear that the core is out of bounds. Assuming you don't run into any areas lacking in planets or supplies you can pick up. (Which is an if.)

Earth is in a different galactic arm from Tuchanka, judging from the map. Those Krogan ain't never going home.

tl;dr the games have made it clear that conventional FTL is primarily useful on a micro-strategic scale within a group of systems, macro-strategic movement across the galaxy is dependent on the relays.

[TrashMan]

There's a correlation between not liking something, and thinking it's bad.

That doesn't mean there's always a causation between the two, and even less that the causative reaction is always "Don't like this" -> "It's bad".


People usually tend to dislike things they think are badly done, but not liking something doesn't always automatically lead to thinking it's badly done.

Well put. Indeed, thereis no DIRECT connection. My point was that a lot of poeple don't bother asking themselves "why"?
Why does I like this.
Why is this bad?

Event X not making sense is bad. Period. If you don't like it, that's fine. And it's a legitimate complaint.
Character Y dying is not bad. That's not a legitimate complaint.

In the case of ME3 endings, it's not what happens in the endings that makes majority of the people dislike them, but instead people think they are badly done in terms of story-telling and their dislike stems from that.

True. Badly written. Altough I'm not sure of your "majority" claim is trully correct.
At least not the impression I'm getting from BSN forums.
There's a lot of people with legitimate concerns, who criticze writing, plot holes and delivery in several instances. Then there's also a lot of posts of people complaining how the crew beign stranded is the worst ending ever, or how the inability to save the mass relays is the worst thing ever.


Personally, there's a LOT of things I don't like about ME3. A LOT.
The kid (and the entire begining of the game actually), the stupid reapers, all the plot holes, TIM and Cerberus, etc, etc.... but only for some of those I can truly say they are bad decisions.

[TrashMan]

I hearby declare this Irony Day, alternately know as "Trashman Stars Out His Own **** You Day".

To celebrate, I offer you his own inescapable failure to meet his own standards.

Well excuse me for finally responding to REPEATED provocations.
Both threads on ME3 have been full of you and your ilk taking stabs at me.. and I've been letting it pass unchallenged so far. But when I respond in kind? Oh noes! We can't have that?

"TM finally had enough! He is a such a bad, bad man!". I'm willing to bet everything you wouldn't be nearly as patient as me. In fact, that's a bet I already won because its' clear it wasn't me who started with the veiled insults.


Now I know you can't stand me having an opposite oppinion, but I hope I can at least expect more civility and less open hostility. Not that I'm holding my breath, but a guy's gotta hope.

[Dark RevenantX]

The scientists who built the Crucible could probably come up with a vastly improved star drive that will allow travel to Earth in a matter of weeks or months instead of decades.  I mean, the fleets are not in any immediate danger by being in the Local Cluster but they will need to leave eventually.  Problem is travel to Tuchanka would be many decades while travel all the way to Rannoch would be a matter of centuries with the fleet's FTL speed, so it requires new technology.  Either way, it's not the end of the world.  And honestly, I'd be surprised if many people actually expected Shepard to live.

Nobody really cares about what end result was, except perhaps the destroy ending's destruction of the Geth and of EDI.  But they hate the retarded storytelling, anemic writing, and the Gainax-style ****ing conclusion to a 100+ hour series.  And they hate how the final words are spoken by Buzz Aldrin, who sounds like the creepiest ****ing old man I've ever heard.

[Herra Tohtori]

The scientists who built the Crucible could probably come up with a vastly improved star drive that will allow travel to Earth in a matter of weeks or months instead of decades.  I mean, the fleets are not in any immediate danger by being in the Local Cluster but they will need to leave eventually.  Problem is travel to Tuchanka would be many decades while travel all the way to Rannoch would be a matter of centuries with the fleet's FTL speed, so it requires new technology.  Either way, it's not the end of the world.

True, it isn't. However the Turians and Quarians trapped in Sol system face a dire food shortage. If the Quarians brought some life ships with them, they can sustain their population, but the Turians never had need for those and they are going to run out of supplies at some point. At which point the Turians will probably try to take over Quarian life ships, causing conflict between them. The only solution to this conflict of interests is to reduce the population of both Turians and Quarians in the system untl the lifeships can sustain both populations - and that's just assuming there are any life ships in the system.

Garrus will probably end up eating Tali after Normandy's fabrication facilities fail. And possibly before it, but that's a different story.

Meanwhile, there are also a lot of Krogan in the system, and while they probably didn't take females there with them so there won't be a krogan population explosion in the Sol system, they will still be present in significant numbers.

Furthermore, Earth is pretty much wrecked - the infrastructure is largely demolished, diseases and famine will be rampant, and to top it all, Earth wasn't all that healthy ecologically to begin with. One of the key reasons why humanity had to colonize as much planets as possible, as fast as possible, was because Earth's resources were getting pretty low and the population was really high.

The population probably won't be a problem until a few decades, however, considering how much damage the Reapers did (which we were never told, actually). And this isn't even touching on the amount of debris that will be raining down on Earth in quite significant chunks.

And honestly, I'd be surprised if many people actually expected Shepard to live.

But she DID live! It's canon! Which, of course, is one of the key factors why I think there may be something more than just idle fan speculation in the dream/hallucination/indoctrination theory...

Nobody really cares about what end result was, except perhaps the destroy ending's destruction of the Geth and of EDI.  But they hate the retarded storytelling, anemic writing, and the Gainax-style ****ing conclusion to a 100+ hour series.  And they hate how the final words are spoken by Buzz Aldrin, who sounds like the creepiest ****ing old man I've ever heard.

Hey, don't be too hard on Aldrin. He's not Alec Guinness, so he can't make retarded dialogue sound good and iconic, but he did a good job in my opinion, all things considered.

[Flipside]

1: Calm down Trashman, and stop letting your buttons be pushed.
2: At least the Princess wasn't in a another castle...

[The E]

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-masses-are-effected

Watch it.

[TrashMan]

Nobody really cares about what end result was, except perhaps the destroy ending's destruction of the Geth and of EDI.

Perfectly valid ending as far as endings go.
I know some people want to destroy the reapers abd save the geth, but you don't always get what you want.
I wanted to ally with TIM, but the game didn't give me that choice. Not gonna demand the devs get fired for it tough.

[TrashMan]

http://penny-arcade.smugmug.com/photos/i-dfFJj7N/0/L/i-dfFJj7N-X2.jpg

[Dilmah G]

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-masses-are-effected

Watch it.

Concur with this.

It was a **** ending, sure, but if someone won't petition an author for a less ****ty ending to their book that leaves them unsatisfied then I don't see how it's any more valid to demand the same of a videogame. I had no idea the ****ing thing was called 'Take back mass effect 3' until just now and it makes me want to start defending the choice of coloured explosions as opposed to seeing a ****ing retarded precedent set where gamers can just demand that the people who make the game simply recraft it when they don't like it. (Although it's been brought to my attention that this has already been done. Whatever.)

IMO it's a case of Caveat Emptor. You take the risk with any piece of entertainment that the developers may have cocked it up by your standards but you take the plunge anyway hoping to be entertained. You can't just chuck a hissy-fit and ask them to change it because of it.

[General Battuta]

It was a **** ending, sure, but if someone won't petition an author for a less ****ty ending to their book that leaves them unsatisfied then I don't see how it's any more valid to demand the same of a videogame. I had no idea the ****ing thing was called 'Take back mass effect 3' until just now and it makes me want to start defending the choice of coloured explosions as opposed to seeing a ****ing retarded precedent set where gamers can just demand that the people who make the game simply recraft it when they don't like it. (Although it's been brought to my attention that this has already been done. Whatever.)

IMO it's a case of Caveat Emptor. You take the risk with any piece of entertainment that the developers may have cocked it up by your standards but you take the plunge anyway hoping to be entertained. You can't just chuck a hissy-fit and ask them to change it because of it.

Huge, expensive pieces of entertainment get their endings changed to improve them all the time. Blade Runner was a piece of **** in its original incarnation, and now it's considered the greatest science fiction movie ever made.

I don't think people should be listening to outlets like Penny Arcade and IGN when these websites have clear financial interests in staying in bed with developers. The Retake Mass Effect guys have been civilized, rational, and funny and they've condemned people who've gone too far in their attacks against BioWare. Yet apparently if you're good-natured and articulate you're '****ing retarded' and 'chucking a hissy-fit'. (Maybe you should save those terms for the people filling FTC complaints against BioWare.)

On top of all that BioWare has stated again and again that Mass Effect development is - in their own words - a collaboration between the developers and the fans! It's almost as if BioWare values and looks for fan input!

e: wow, this thread has gotten pretty bad 

[The E]

IMHO, the Mass Effect series is like a Neal Stephenson novel. A great ride that leads to a somewhat lackluster ending. But that doesn't mean that the money and time spent on it was in any way wasted; for me, the last ten minutes of ME3 do not invalidate the fun I've had playing in the universe for close to a hundred hours before.

I, personally, think that everything that could be said about the ending has been said, whining about it some more won't change it. Whining about it here will certainly have no effect whatsoever.

For me, the worst thing about ME3 wasn't the ending. It was Kai Leng, who seemingly stepped out of the pages of some weird Mary-Sue-ish fanfiction, complete with ninja fangirls. Seeing Thane kick his ass thoroughly was immensely satisfying, as was shooting him in the face with a Widow.

I don't think people should be listening to outlets like Penny Arcade and IGN when these websites have clear financial interests in staying in bed with developers. The Retake Mass Effect guys have been civilized, rational, and funny and they've condemned people who've gone too far in their attacks against BioWare. Yet apparently if you're good-natured and articulate you're '****ing retarded' and 'chucking a hissy-fit'. (Maybe you should save those terms for the people filling FTC complaints against BioWare.)

Hang on. Penny Arcade? I don't think these guys have a 'need' to 'stay in bed' with developers. Developers have a need to stay in bed with them, as far as I can tell.

Singling out Retake ME3 for their poor choice of title isn't really fair, but then the FTC complaint was too new for CheckPoint (which is made by the nice people of LoadingReadyRun, not Penny Arcade) to take into account. I certainly agree that the FTC complaint is a new degree of silliness, but it's like the tip of a very silly iceberg at the moment.

[newman]

I've heard all kinds of bull**** analogies to justify the idea that Bioware should stick it out. From general "artistic integrity" comments to actually having it compared to a great painter changing a famous painting because the "fans" liked green sunflowers better.

The analogies are bull****. Mass Effect 3 isn't art, it features some art - there's a fundamental difference. Pure art doesn't have to conform to mass user standards. It can be whatever it's author wants it to be. Mass Effect is a mass consumer product, a piece of pulp, an entertaining space game where you make a lot of galaxy-affecting choices in an effort to save it. It's a piece of escapism, a fictional universe-based epic story to get lost in after a hard day's work. It is not a piece of classic literature meant to have us ponder about the reality of man's existence. It's a game where you command a space ship, seduce blue alien babes and shoot at zombie like things, feeling unique and like a galaxy saving hero - something most of us can really only experience through interactive fiction like this.

So, once you spent 5 years (or so) telling the fans to keep their saves, presenting them with options and decisions that you keep promising will have a meaningful impact on the endings, and then fail to deliver that, it's basically false advertising. When you spend that same time making them care about the characters, and then fail to provide any sort of closure regarding them, it's not false advertising, but it is bad storytelling. As is a plot hole ridden end that really makes no sense.

So why shouldn't we get a DLC that at least expands on the endings, fixes the plot holes, and puts things in context? I agree with the general concensus that the worst problems of the endings are the fact that they throw your choices out the window, and contain massive plot holes. People say they're fine with sad endings as long as these issues are addressed. I'm fine with them too, but in a game that's all about player choices, why force only sad endings? What is so wrong about coming home from work, immersing into a fantastic sci fi universe, winning over the blue alien babe and saving the galaxy while we're at it? I know dark and gloomy is fashionable these days, but damn it I just want a happy hero ending, and no - I don't think it's a bad thing.

But "artistic choices" and "artistic integrity" aside, there's a simple reason why this should be fixed. Before ME3 even came out, I always had a plan to first import my ME2 savegame, complete it, and then replay all 3 games in sequence. I don't want to now. The last few minutes of the game completely killed the replay value of the franchise - at least for me. For 3 games that can play quite differently each time you play them, that's a shame.