Jason Moyer on 20/3/2012 at 15:51
Quote Posted by van HellSing
EDIT: One glaring error I spotted was the whole Ardat-Yakshi monastery bit. In ME2, Samara said there were only three living Ardat-Yakshi known at that time (her daughters). The monastery obviously housed a few more.
I just finished ME2 a few days ago. If you keep talking to Samara, she tells you that those are the only ones she is aware of, and that there are probably more outside of Asari space. The codex entry for Ardat-Yakshi says the same thing.
Playing ME3 now. I have no idea how anyone can find the Benny Hill reaper chases to be worse than hours of PROBE AWAY. It took about 15 minutes to get 100% war assets on the first half-dozen systems. It also took just a few hours of co-op to bump my war readiness from 50% to 90%. Neither seem like a big deal, and the co-op is surprisingly fun with random people.
I'm amazed at how much worse the graphics and animation are compared to ME2; yay for having to optimize shit for 10 year old hardware. I'm also finding a surprising number of glitches that I can't imagine anyone could have missed in testing. Things like the collision detection being completely broken in a normal walking area in the Citadel's hospital, causing Shephard to walk around 5 feet off the ground.
Bioware's inability to deal with player agency is still baffling; for starters, if you create a Shephard in ME1 and play through the entire series, the face won't import into ME3. I mean...really? You didn't anticipate that people might play through all 3 games with one character? I enjoy how most of the decisions from the previous games have no effect whatsoever on the story, too. I sure am glad I took the high road and put Anderson on the Council so that ME3 could completely ignore that choice aside from a single line in Udina's codex entry (and no, I'm not reading a goddamn promotional book to see why Anderson resigned). I like how Liara gets nostalgic about our romantic encounter 3 years ago, even though I just pounded her stupid blue face a few months ago narrative-wise. I can probably assume, without trying it, that if I had played renegade through ME2 and worked with the illusive man that I'd still be flying an Alliance ship around and shooting Cerberus operatives. Bioware's always been weak on choices/consequences but jesus.
Edit: Good lord, Bioware. I didn't realize this was a PS1 port: (
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/6630/nextgenr.jpg)
Renault on 21/3/2012 at 16:58
So, is there anyway to say in very general terms, without spoiling anything, why there's all this nerdrage over the ending of ME3? Keep in mind I haven't played any of the ME games (although I fully intend to some day). Seems pretty odd that they're actually talking about redoing or changing it.
Pemptus on 21/3/2012 at 17:31
Quote Posted by Brethren
So, is there anyway to say in very general terms, without spoiling anything, why there's all this nerdrage over the ending of ME3? Keep in mind I haven't played any of the ME games (although I fully intend to some day). Seems pretty odd that they're actually talking about redoing or changing it.
I was incredibly lazy compared to the rest of the game, nonsensical in terms of lore and full of plot holes. Also, those relationships and choices you've made throughout three games?
Not adressed.Jason Moyer on 23/3/2012 at 21:59
The hate towards ME3's ending is getting filed in the manilla folder marked "evidence that most people are idiots". That was remarkably good.
Edit: By remarkably good, I mean the
synthesis ending. Seeing that the other 2 are basically the same thing is fairly disappointing. Surely they could have made 3 goddamn cutscenes.
Edit 2: :D (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPelM2hwhJA)
van HellSing on 23/3/2012 at 22:49
You misspelt SPACE MAGIC.
The only way the endings are worth anything is if
they're not real.Jason Moyer on 23/3/2012 at 23:54
I don't really mind the ending in terms of the variables/etc that go into deciding which of the endings you get; what I find incredibly shit is that they're all just slight variations on the same cutscene. If they do change anything, IMHO, they should just make new ending scenes for each of the possibilities. As far as relationship closure goes (which I've also seen people complain about) I thought having an entire level dedicated to nothing but talking to people before the final mission was sufficient.
Trance on 24/3/2012 at 13:54
Bit of inside information from someone on Bioware's writing staff. Apparently the ending was the work of only two people: Mass Effect 3's lead writer Mac Walters, and executive producer Casey Hudson.
(
http://www.gamesthirst.com/2012/03/22/mass-effect-3-writer-distance-himself-from-game-ending-blames-casey-hudson/)
Quote Posted by Patrick Weekes
I have nothing to do with the ending beyond a) having argued successfully a long time ago that we needed a chance to say goodbye to our squad, b) having argued successfully that Cortez shouldn’t automatically die in that shuttle crash, and c) having written Tali’s goodbye bit, as well as a couple of the holo-goodbyes for people I wrote (Mordin, Kasumi, Jack, etc).
No other writer did, either, except for our lead. This was entirely the work of our lead and Casey himself, sitting in a room and going through draft after draft.
Malf on 24/3/2012 at 16:09
Nice to see some honesty from one of the writers, but you don't shit where you eat in the games industry. He's at the very least facing disciplinary action and at the worst out of a job with no prospect of being hired thanks to all other developers losing trust in him.
Trance on 24/3/2012 at 16:41
To be fair, the possibility has not been completely discounted that the post was made by someone other than Weekes like a hacker or another Bioware employee gaining access to his account. One of Bioware's community support reps supposedly asked Weekes about the post and Weekes denied making it.
It's far more likely, though, that Weekes wrote it up and then realized what he could be doing to himself, and so the denial and the deletions meant he preserved his employment.
