Mass Effect universe discussion thread

[JackO'Neill]

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

Ha ha, anyone else get the new pop up thing telling you to stop being mean toward the Bioware staff.

That was there prior to Mass Effect 3 and was due to the cyber bullying of Jennifer Hepler. Some of Bioware's "fans" are the nastiest little people around. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Bioware's recent decisions, harassing and abusing their staff for months on end is not acceptable.

[gotthammer]

Yeah. That whole thing w/ Hepler was weird/over the line.

The more recent funny thing that happened on the forum was when Priestly locked down the ME3 Spoiler section of the Forums (where the 'retake' thingy is mostly at) for a bit after that 'behind the scenes' App (the Final Hours) came out and a big discussion flared up.

[DigiFluid]

Agreed. It's one thing to voice your complaints and do so as loudly and frequently as you can.

But, as the one link that gott posted points out, trolling review sites and personal attacks on employees are crossing a line. Not only do they undermine 'the cause', but they also cross a line of decorum, respect, and good taste.

[DigiFluid]

I was just playing a bit of Dragon Age and recognized Dr Chakwas' voice, so I decided to look up the actress. An interesting geek-cred career she's had!

She....

• auditioned for the role of Dr Crusher in Star Trek TNG
• ended up doing three guest spots on TNG, a different role each time
• guested on Quantum Leap four times; once as a one-off and the other times as a single character
• played Mrs Templeton in the Star Trek VOY episodes Cathexis and Persistence of Vision
• has a numerous Star Wars credits, including: Shmi Skywalker in the Episode I game, a couple of unnamed pilots in Force Commander, Mon Mothma in Jedi Outcast and Empire at War, Admiral Dodonna and Helena Shan in Knights of the Old Republic, Administrator Adare in Knights of the Old Republic II
• was also the voice of Queen Myrrah in the Gears of War series

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

Fact is feel there is a serious disconnect between most people who buy and enjoy Bioware games and the so called Bioware "fans" who inhabit the Bioware Social network. I think Bioware must have the patience of saints to deal with them, but it worries me that Bioware get's player feedback mostly through them, and that forum is inhabited by some very unpleasant people. They often launch personnel attacks and bully Bioware Staff, berate anyone who happens to actually profess to liking Bioware's games and after every game Bioware releases, there are always plenty of threads saying Bioware is ruined and they'll never buy another Bioware game, though of course when the next one comes out, they still do, after all, otherwise how could they complain and berate the Bioware Staff. This is not some new problem, that has just happened with the endings, but has been long going on.

Anyway having now finished the game, I'll give my thoughts on the endings.

Spoiler:

They weren't that good, but they were hardly the world ending thing some people made them out to be. I liked the general theme of Shepard sacrificing himself to destroy the reapers and the relays being taken out. I also like the idea of the reapers essentially pruning all galactic life. One of the themes running through all the games, is the conflict between organic and synthetic life. Organic life when it advances to a certain point creates synthetic life, which often turns against it's creators, and runs the risk of overrunning the galaxy and wiping out all other life. The reapers remove civilisation that have got to the stage of creating synthetic life, while leaving primitive species alone. They essentially ensure organic life continues.

Still much of the ending felt contrived, especially the bit with the Normandy, (where the hell is it going, why is everyone back on board?) and I would definitely like some clarification and plot hole repair, especially over the Star child.

The endings do leave a lot open up to interpretation, such as how bad the relay explosions were, they could have wiped out a lot of life, or they might have been a lot less devastating. But there's plenty of space for future stories, normal FTL travel mean people aren't stranded, just travel is a lot slower. You could have plenty of interesting games set after this, maybe a few decades or centuries afterwards, the galaxy recovering, colonies becoming isolated and going off on their own. Maybe have the galaxy getting back on its feet, with faster FTL or rebuilding relays, but then having new threats taking advantage of the chaos to emerge, such as the Yagh, or some unknown new race from the Terminus system, or a threat from outside the galaxy that the reapers kept at bay.

Would such a game feel different to the first trilogy? Yes undoubtedly, but it was always going to feel different. By the end of the game, potentially the geth and quarians could both be destroyed the krogan well on the way to extinction, earth was a total ruin and so on. Change is good and franchises that stick to the same old start to fade, I'm looking at you Stargate.

In the end it annoys me that 99.9% of the game is brilliant, and you have people who obsess over the last 10 minutes. Yes, they were an important 10 minutes, and yes I'd like to see some dlc clarification, maybe even for free seeing as how the ending is not Bioware's finest hour, but it irks that you have this huge game, and go on the Bioware forums and you'll be hard pressed to find anything but complaints about the ending.

The ending wasn't very good, but it was the one blip in an otherwise great game. It's not the first great game to do this, Half Life 2 was a great game, with a bloody horrible ending. The ending does the job, the threat is gone, and galactic life goes on in some form or another.

We now live in age where if the ending of a game is not too hot, it can be tweaked or clarified with dlc, but rather than giving polite feedback to Bioware, hey your endings not so hot it could do with some improvement, it's the same old story of people attacking Bioware, calling for them to be fired, they've ruined everything for ever, etc. Maybe if some of the people at the Bioware social network actually knew how to ask for something politely, they might get it. And it's quite clear that while there are many who want plot holes fixed, despite claims to the contrary, there are quite a few who just wanted an ending where they made alien babies and had Wrex bake them a cake.

If they do alter the endings then I really hope the keep

Spoiler:

the mass relays being destroyed. If they have it so Shepard lives with his interest, and stuff like that, I don't mind if they keep this bit. This to me was very important, it was to me the one bit of the ending that actually really worked, it was part and parcel of the reapers being removed, the relays were reaper tech after all, and it showed there were serious consequences to the end of this war. It also had the potential to take the universe to some very interesting places of trying to cope with this, rather than just having a copout ending of, everything's fixed, life goes back to normal.

In the end it really annoys that Bioware makes a great game and stumble at the last step, nd rather than the fanbase helping them up, politely suggesting that could be fixed, instead many of them seem as eager as possible to beat Bioware into the ground. I know that there are plenty of fans, including the people who post on this thread who are more polite about it, and want to provide useful feedback to Bioware about what could be improved, but this goes back to my opening paragraph, I worry that the polite reasonable voices such as us will be drowned out but people raging away, calling for people to be fired, etc. And if Bioware get to much of that there just as likely to say "screw it," and not do anything about the ending.

[gotthammer]

Yeah. Lots of sci-fi stuff.
Gah...Star Trek. Haven't seen any ST stuff in years (over a decade for a full episode of TNG?)...
So, for DA:O, is she the forgetful sister inserting food into the chant?
I have KotOR installed, as well as SW:EaW, so I guess I can check it out (I honestly don't remember those characters, 'cept for Mon Mothma, but I don't remember the voice for that character...)

I kinda wish Chakwas (heck, as well as the other squad mate NPCs) had longer dialogue/roles in ME3.
In retrospect, a lot of the time I spent (total game time around 52 hours. Not sure if it counts while the game is 'paused') was sweeping locations to make sure I didn't miss missions or dialogue (all the decks of the ship and the only 'hub' in the game, the Citadel)
The cynic/skeptic in me is now thinking that maybe the reason the mission list doesn't update/track missions is so that the player will be forced to roam, back and forth (esp. for 'completionists' like moi). Time padding? *shrugs*

In any case, my current playthrough doesn't have Chakwas (I have Dr. Michel, instead), along w/ those two engineers. All dead from ME2.
Kinda not in the mood to play it, at the moment, even if this is supposed to be a playthrough to match the ending/s...oh well, take a break from ME, I suppose.

[Col.Foley]

just finished ME3. I chose red ending. To be honest I don't know what to say. I spent 100+ hours playing all three games, bought collectors' editions for the first and third parts, bought several dlcs and now I'm bit dissapointed. I think almost everything was said about the ending, it sucks, I agree. I saw better ending in petitions. I also highly doubt the new dlc "The truth" will somehow fix it.

Bu what I hated most from the last part was, that it was more like idiotic CoD, than amazing RPG from Bioware. And now I blame EA, not only for this, but also for ignoring central europe's players who weren't able to download Arrival, Shadow Broker. EA sucks. They obviously want to create stupid games for mindless people.

I don't know. Supposedly they had no input over the development process of the game so that wsa the fault of...whoever developed the game. And while I sympathise with anyone who didn't get their product delievered when they should've EA gets a lot of credit in my eyes for making the rather 'ingeious' descision of breaking out of these stupid console exclusives cliche's for the PS3 people to enjoy. We never would've had the opprotunity otherwise.

However on the other hand I will say that.

Spoiler:

the end of the game was quite bizzare because all of the games previous and long standing mechanics sudenly dissapeared. As people have noted no UI, Shepard gets a gun with infinity bullets, and just the whole crawling thing. And no apparent concern for squad mates. Which could be understandable but their fates weren't revealed until we saw them on the Normandy.

I agree about the Normandy

Spoiler:

Fleeing Earth.
When I saw it I just thought ummm, whats happening here?
I can only think that maybe the Normandy was retreating as when you go for the laser, everyone thinks no one made it, and there is a retreat order.
Thats how I see it anyway, but it was abit random...

Spoiler:

Yeah but the whole event wsa highly out of character for Joker. And as it stands Joker would've had to flown to London, or do a Shuttle extraction, in the middle of a bunch of Reapers, pick up the squad, fly back to the Charon Relay all in the time that it took Shepard to get to the control pannel.
Plus your idea is good but its still out of character given that A. It was only Hammer that was fraked, Sword and shield were still fighting strong and as far as I could tell not ordered to retreat. So B. It would have been out of character for Joker to just pack up and leave and C. Even if it were true that he tried to escape because of Hammer being almost wiped out they then got the message about the Crucible and Shepard confirming that he was still alive which would've invalidated his reasonings and he should've turned around.

I was just playing a bit of Dragon Age and recognized Dr Chakwas' voice, so I decided to look up the actress. An interesting geek-cred career she's had!

She....

• auditioned for the role of Dr Crusher in Star Trek TNG
• ended up doing three guest spots on TNG, a different role each time
• guested on Quantum Leap four times; once as a one-off and the other times as a single character
• played Mrs Templeton in the Star Trek VOY episodes Cathexis and Persistence of Vision
• has a numerous Star Wars credits, including: Shmi Skywalker in the Episode I game, a couple of unnamed pilots in Force Commander, Mon Mothma in Jedi Outcast and Empire at War, Admiral Dodonna and Helena Shan in Knights of the Old Republic, Administrator Adare in Knights of the Old Republic II
• was also the voice of Queen Myrrah in the Gears of War series

Wow She would've made an awesome Doctor Crusher!

[gotthammer]

While 'hovering' over the BSN boards, I saw an...interesting (educational) post (more related to the 'retake' thingy than ME3, itself, but still interesting).
Oh, and no spoilers, if memory serves, but I put it under spoiler tags since it's a wall of text

Spoiler:

posted by: redknight38

I sigh at myself. I really did promise to stay out of this, but that's clearly me lying to myself since last night. I've been involved...

So I am about to get a PhD in military history, with a specialty on insurgencies and conflict management. I'm not active military but what the hell. The gentleman in active duty was right-- this movement needs to get organized. Bioware has been getting better at playing by the PR handbook because they're getting a handle on things. Therefore they are in for the long haul and therefore people here have to be as well. That means getting organized and having consistent, coherent, simple and clear tactics and messaging. The Tea Party and the Occuppy movements both had to do that, hence their staying power after initial passionate outbursts.

How do insurgencies or even COIN ops operate?

1) Get a message out. So this Retake movement has to get a message out. Some suggestions have been offered: google bombing and review bombing. I have a lot of qualms about the latter because it has the potential to irreparably drive down the reviews to the point of not being able to repair it. Later, when this movement has become more articulated, you might be able to promise to attempt to drive that review rating up, however.

Either way, find a way to spread this on the Internet and build awareness for it. Have simple talking points and try to agree on them.

I suggest remaining polite and even being a little positive. You like ME, you don't hate Bioware. You just want changes. That'll build a sympathetic message because a key point in COIN and insurgencies is winning over neutrals.

2) Repeat the message as often as you can. Self-explanatory. However, it can't just be "I hate the ending" or "hold the line." You'll have to keep repeating your simple, bullet-pointed list of complaints. Groups like the IRA don't repeat long treatises (as I've been seeing on the boards) on their complaints. Nobody will read that. Keep it simple and keep it consistent.

That clearly means people on this forum will have to come to an agreement of the basic points they all agree with. The majority of resistance movements have internal problems and divisions that are often more important than external ones. The IRA, the VC, Mao, they all killed as many or more of their own members as their enemies. Failed insurgencies like the Philippine NPA did so to the detriment of their mission.

Incidentally, that means that instead of saying "bump" or "hold the line" or "I support this thread" you might want to say "don't play SP or MP" in trying to bump it. Something constructive. The message.

3) Disrupt the enemy's internal cohesion. Attacking Bioware people is highly counter-productive so no ambushing or isolating. These people are just doing their jobs and I sincerely doubt they're maliciously laughing at your discontent. Neither are they having money fights at your expense. Come on people, this is the gaming industry, not Goldman Sachs. These people are not rolling in it.

They try to humanize themselves to win your sympathy. DO THE SAME. Stop attacking Casey Hudson and the like but instead tell them you love the game, you always liked his writing and you always had faith in him. This will be easier because it's essentially true. Tell them you don't hate them, that you'll go back to the fold if they meet your demands.

What you are trying to do is build sympathy and win defectors. The biggest prize for an insurgency movement are defectors, especially high profile ones. In the case of this Retake thing, you want to do it so that during their meetings there will be someone advocating for you. Hopefully more than one someone. Incidentally, this might involve having to accept paid ending DLC. Much earlier in this thread I opined why it would have to be paid: remember, they claim the game is done. The story is finished to their satisfaction. Any ending DLC they release they can legitimately (i.e. in court) claim as bonus. You don't need to get it.

Be careful of them trying to do the same. They'll try to win you over so someone here will suddenly be advocating for them. Hence the skepticism regarding Mr. Lee. He came here and suddenly everybody was telling others to back off, the Bioware guys had a long week. This is true, and don't be rude to him. However, nobody was, but people were losing their skepticism and resolve.

4) Disrupt the enemy logistics which means disrupting sales. Since you can't meet them head-on, this is one thing you can do. However, threatening to boycott products not yet made is absolutely meaningless. Newsflash, if you threaten not to buy something a company has not yet made, what will they do? Not make them. Bioware hasn't lost money on products not yet made because they haven't sunk resources into making them and marketing them. If you threaten not to buy it, they will find another product, one which does not cater to you. The next Bioware game could therefore very well be a multiplayer game or a shooter. That being said, threatening to boycott Bioware in the future is not a bad idea since AGTHunter noted that it turned you into cautious consumers. You just have to do more.

However, they have ME3 now. I can guarantee you the sales of ME3 and its future content are part of their current budget plan and profit projection. It's part of their logistics. Disrupt that and you are actually making a message regarding their money.

You don't need to do anything dramatic but it might be hard. Too hard. Not playing SP and MP is honestly the best way to do it-- they track your playtime so by not playing you are telling them you are unhappy with the current product and will therefore not buy future DLC or anything of the sort. Since they alread have money sunk into your product, one likely response from Bioware is to attempt to find ways of luring you back since that would be easier than making an entirely new game. If you keep emphasizing you would love to be lured back if they meet your demands, even better. Remember that video games are actually cheaper than you think and a lot of their profitability comes from DLC so you do hold some leverage here.

Discouraging others from buying it works as well.

Not playing MP seems a no go since too many people want to. So be it-- it's their right and they're being smart consumers still. They paid for it, why not enjoy it? Don't criticize them for it. Someone suggested continuing the protest on MP and if it is possible change your name to reflect Retake or Hold the Line. Add it to your online avatar's name. I don't know if that's possible.

Basically-- if you kids are serious about this, remember a) this won't be easy and it'll take a while, b) there will be no clear win, insurgencies or COIN ops don't end cleanly, c) there is risk. There is always risk and you'll have to accept that. The biggest risk is that Bioware might simply abandon you and ME3. Another is that you might damage Bioware to the point that it can't make its games. I don't like that, you don't like that and it's why a lot of "haters" are mad at you. They have good cause, but that's beside your point.

One last cynical thing you can offer Bioware: if they meet your demands and you are happy... well you can essentially offer this online advocacy network to them. Most companies would give their right arms to have a passionate, far-reaching and dedicated group of people pushing their products for free.

So good luck to you kids.

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

While 'hovering' over the BSN boards, I saw an...interesting (educational) post (more related to the 'retake' thingy than ME3, itself, but still interesting).
Oh, and no spoilers, if memory serves, but I put it under spoiler tags since it's a wall of text

If by educational you mean it shows how over dramatic the Bioware Social Network is, then yes, I'd agree. Speaking as a Masters Student of War and Contemporary Conflict, if this bloke is actually doing a PHD in military history then he's not very good at it. Applying poor analogies to situations that don't fit doesn't make you some kind of expert.

Campaigns, be they political or commercial, are not insurgencies, and are not comparable, they do not work in the same way. Hell his explanations about insurgencies and COIN, and how they work are rubbish, he don't actually explain insurgencies or COIN at all, "attack the enemies logistics, weaken his cohesion" that's just general military maxims, none of which are crucial to explaining how an insurgency or counterinsurgency works. I'd seriously actually question this guys credentials, because he actually doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. More to the point, none of it applies to this situation in any way whatsoever. Bioware aren't the enemy, there isn't a war going on, there's a bunch of disgruntled customers who aren't entirely happy with their product. Either Bioware will value it's customer base and feel that to prevent damage in the future to its profits it needs to placate us, or it will decide the costs outweigh the benefits and do nothing. It's nothing more simple than that.

I really do despair with the Bioware social network sometimes. Go into a shop with a product you are not entirely happy with and if you politely but insistently make a fuss, you are quite likely to get a replacement or refund. Act like an idiot, start screaming, "YOU ARE THE ENEMY, HOLD THE LINE!!! YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!!!" and you'll get dismissed as a nut and get nothing you want. The same applies here, and if people could actually realise that, they might get what they want.

[gotthammer]

Well, I'm not too well-versed on insurgencies/counter-insurgencies (except for a very basic understanding of the concepts, even if we have one of the insurgency groups mentioned in that post in this country ...my general interest is still in armoured, and, thus, conventional warfare, even if that isn't so 'relevant' considering how most conflicts now seem to be 'low intensity'), so, at the very least, it was 'amusing'.

And, while I do agree w/ the general thrust of the 'retake' thingy, I do agree w/ how everything feels quite over dramatic (like one of Shep's cringe-inducing speeches in ME3 ). While I have posted a few 'hold the line' posts, more for lols than anything, the whole thing is getting tiring/tedious to look at (kinda the whole reason I ditched the damned BSN for the better part of a year, maybe I should do so, again )

I do hope some change/occurs, tho' (soon, too. 'cause I thought I was getting a new game this week, 'til I found out that Op. Raccoon City for PC wasn't coming out 'til May )
Speaking of new game (ok, not new): is Bioware's 'Jade Empire' worth getting? I still haven't played it and I saw a CE tin at a local store.

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

Well, I'm not too well-versed on insurgencies/counter-insurgencies (except for a very basic understanding of the concepts, even if we have one of the insurgency groups mentioned in that post in this country ...my general interest is still in armoured, and, thus, conventional warfare, even if that isn't so 'relevant' considering how most conflicts now seem to be 'low intensity'), so, at the very least, it was 'amusing'.

And, while I do agree w/ the general thrust of the 'retake' thingy, I do agree w/ how everything feels quite over dramatic (like one of Shep's cringe-inducing speeches in ME3 ). While I have posted a few 'hold the line' posts, more for lols than anything, the whole thing is getting tiring/tedious to look at (kinda the whole reason I ditched the damned BSN for the better part of a year, maybe I should do so, again )

I do hope some change/occurs, tho' (soon, too. 'cause I thought I was getting a new game this week, 'til I found out that Op. Raccoon City for PC wasn't coming out 'til May )
Speaking of new game (ok, not new): is Bioware's 'Jade Empire' worth getting? I still haven't played it and I saw a CE tin at a local store.

Armoured warfare is always more fun than insurgencies. I get to be all nerdy and talk about tanks and attack helicopters anytime my course touches on modern manoeuvre warfare.

And yes things are getting tiresome with the Bioware Social Network. How hard is it to basically come up with a statement, "Dear Bioware we feel the ending was poorly paced and had plot holes and inconstancies. To improve what we feel was a great game let down at the last minute, please release some dlc expanding upon the ending, preferably free, to show that you are still a company that cares about fan feedback, showing that you are a company we can support for years to come." Then get lots of people to sign a petition supporting that to show it's not a small group of kooks.

Instead it's all rage and disinformation. I've seen posts saying that Bioware have ruined, not just Mass Effect, but all gaming. I mean really? This is getting silly. If people keep going on like that, Bioware are pretty much going to assume that whatever they do, people will still accuse them of ruining everything, and say "stuff it" and do nothing.

And while at the end certain bits of the ending seem confusing and inconsistent, it has also become clear that a lot of the fanbase have no clue about the lore themselves.

Spoiler:

The destruction of the Mass relays would not lead to the end of civilisation, or the fleets being marooned around earth. Normal FTL drives can go at least 12 light years a day, the reapers can manage 30. That means at most it would take 25 years to travel across the galaxy, and obviously a lot less if the distance is closer. The Krogan could be home within a couple of years, which is nothing for a species that live for a thousand years and can survive without food or water for extended periods of time. While ships need to refuel and discharge their drive cores, those are both easy to do, ships use Helium 3 to refuel, which is readily available, especially in gas giants, and can use planets to discharge their drive cores. It's also worth noting that these FTL speeds are actually much faster than many scifi universes, like Star Trek, it's hardly the end of galactic civilisation some make it out to be.

If they could get their act together, get the facts and implications of the ending correct, and approached Bioware in a calm considered manner, they might actually get somewhere.

And yes, Jade Empire is pretty good, I'd say it's worth getting.

[gotthammer]

Ever read 'Hundred Miles of Bad Road'? 'Fun' (if dark/tragic) read, that. Armour guy in Vietnam. *recalls that bit in the book about a guy being blown out the back of an M1113 after the front got hit by an RPG, and using the sheet metal as improvised protection*
Hopefully I can get into that 'line of work' (even if it just means 'wheeled' stuff).

Well, some folks are 'trying' to get the messier bunch of the 'retake folks' organized (I saw a page sometime earlier about a general statement for the entire movement, something like yours). Haven't really checked again.

re: lore

Spoiler:

Yeah. Not the 'end', but the lack of near instantaneous interstellar travel is guaranteed to make stuff messy. I guess the quantum entanglement comms (those weren't negated, right?) thingy can mitigate the loss of the mass relays, but with the big increase in travel times, stuff like the Citadel fleet-type setup (as peacemakers of sorts) will probably cease to be as effective. So...every race for themselves? (e.g., I guess folks will be ditching the treaty of Farixen? ) As much as I hate the ending, the mess left behind is quite interesting. By the way, M6P, how'd you like the fleet battle for Earth?

re: Jade Empire
Yeah, decided to get it. About to install it now...
(only complaint so far: the tin case has rust )

[Col.Foley]

Armoured warfare is always more fun than insurgencies. I get to be all nerdy and talk about tanks and attack helicopters anytime my course touches on modern manoeuvre warfare.

And yes things are getting tiresome with the Bioware Social Network. How hard is it to basically come up with a statement, "Dear Bioware we feel the ending was poorly paced and had plot holes and inconstancies. To improve what we feel was a great game let down at the last minute, please release some dlc expanding upon the ending, preferably free, to show that you are still a company that cares about fan feedback, showing that you are a company we can support for years to come." Then get lots of people to sign a petition supporting that to show it's not a small group of kooks.

Instead it's all rage and disinformation. I've seen posts saying that Bioware have ruined, not just Mass Effect, but all gaming. I mean really? This is getting silly. If people keep going on like that, Bioware are pretty much going to assume that whatever they do, people will still accuse them of ruining everything, and say "stuff it" and do nothing.

And while at the end certain bits of the ending seem confusing and inconsistent, it has also become clear that a lot of the fanbase have no clue about the lore themselves.

Spoiler:

The destruction of the Mass relays would not lead to the end of civilisation, or the fleets being marooned around earth. Normal FTL drives can go at least 12 light years a day, the reapers can manage 30. That means at most it would take 25 years to travel across the galaxy, and obviously a lot less if the distance is closer. The Krogan could be home within a couple of years, which is nothing for a species that live for a thousand years and can survive without food or water for extended periods of time. While ships need to refuel and discharge their drive cores, those are both easy to do, ships use Helium 3 to refuel, which is readily available, especially in gas giants, and can use planets to discharge their drive cores. It's also worth noting that these FTL speeds are actually much faster than many scifi universes, like Star Trek, it's hardly the end of galactic civilisation some make it out to be.

If they could get their act together, get the facts and implications of the ending correct, and approached Bioware in a calm considered manner, they might actually get somewhere.

And yes, Jade Empire is pretty good, I'd say it's worth getting.

OK fair enough but you are also forgetting two things.

Spoiler:

One that the galactc civilizations have gotten used to Mass Relay travel. It is the thing that makes that Galaxy tick in any meaningful way, sure they could possibly make it all the way back to their potential homeworlds but the question becomes will they realizze it?

Two that the Relays have been known to cause Super Nova like explosions when they...explode. Now this is just an assumption but in the endings it looked like the 'single' traveled petty far beyond the Relays and that 'could be' evidence of a Super Nova. THus wiping out every major Capitol world except for I think Dekuna. Even if that is not the case in the non effective military rating victory thing the Destruction option caussed Earth to burn which indicates that the signle itself, at least in that ending, could be potentially dangerous in and of itself.

Nevermind the fact that many of the ships were potentially damaged, enough where they might not be capable of FTl. And nevermind the fact that food is going to be pretty scarce and there is no gurantee that the races other then the Krogan brought enough food to sustain such a long journey. Especially in the case of the Turians or the Quarians.

And the main reason why I think a lot of people are peeved at the destruction of the Relays is that it destroys what made the universe the universe it was. It would be like destroying the entire Gate network and then still calling the show 'stargate'.

Ever read 'Hundred Miles of Bad Road'? 'Fun' (if dark/tragic) read, that. Armour guy in Vietnam. *recalls that bit in the book about a guy being blown out the back of an M1113 after the front got hit by an RPG, and using the sheet metal as improvised protection*
Hopefully I can get into that 'line of work' (even if it just means 'wheeled' stuff).

Well, some folks are 'trying' to get the messier bunch of the 'retake folks' organized (I saw a page sometime earlier about a general statement for the entire movement, something like yours). Haven't really checked again.

re: lore

Spoiler:

Yeah. Not the 'end', but the lack of near instantaneous interstellar travel is guaranteed to make stuff messy. I guess the quantum entanglement comms (those weren't negated, right?) thingy can mitigate the loss of the mass relays, but with the big increase in travel times, stuff like the Citadel fleet-type setup (as peacemakers of sorts) will probably cease to be as effective. So...every race for themselves? (e.g., I guess folks will be ditching the treaty of Farixen? ) As much as I hate the ending, the mess left behind is quite interesting. By the way, M6P, how'd you like the fleet battle for Earth?

re: Jade Empire
Yeah, decided to get it. About to install it now...
(only complaint so far: the tin case has rust )

While I'm not him I loved the battle

[DigiFluid]

Jade Empire is an awesome awesome world, with some really cool lore. I got really frustrated with the terrible combat system though, and quit my first playthrough. I really should try it again. Even my frustrated ragequit was a bit half-hearted, I liked the game world so much.

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

Ever read 'Hundred Miles of Bad Road'? 'Fun' (if dark/tragic) read, that. Armour guy in Vietnam. *recalls that bit in the book about a guy being blown out the back of an M1113 after the front got hit by an RPG, and using the sheet metal as improvised protection*
Hopefully I can get into that 'line of work' (even if it just means 'wheeled' stuff).

I'll look out for that book, sounds cool. A lot of my course (perhaps too much imo) is focused on Insurgencies, terrorism and cyber warfare. Gets a bit samey after a while. At least for my dissertation I'm examining whether we will see any third generation, conventional warfare in the future, I finally get to dust off my copy of Guderian's Panzer Leader, which has been sitting on my shelf, unloved for much of the course.

Well, some folks are 'trying' to get the messier bunch of the 'retake folks' organized (I saw a page sometime earlier about a general statement for the entire movement, something like yours). Haven't really checked again.

Maybe, although I fear they'll go over the top. Fingers crossed, I do think the game needs some ending dlc to make the ending actually satisfying. I'm less upset about the ending than most but even I'd like to go "that was awesome" rather than "meh that ending was alright if I try not to think about the plot holes too much."

re: lore

Spoiler:

Yeah. Not the 'end', but the lack of near instantaneous interstellar travel is guaranteed to make stuff messy. I guess the quantum entanglement comms (those weren't negated, right?) thingy can mitigate the loss of the mass relays, but with the big increase in travel times, stuff like the Citadel fleet-type setup (as peacemakers of sorts) will probably cease to be as effective. So...every race for themselves? (e.g., I guess folks will be ditching the treaty of Farixen? ) As much as I hate the ending, the mess left behind is quite interesting. By the way, M6P, how'd you like the fleet battle for Earth?

Spoiler:

Oh no doubt the fabric of galactic civilisation has changed, there will be no more council, at least for quite a while. The various races will be more independent. But that's kind of the point I think, it's been made clear that the way the galaxy works, the relays, the citadel, the council, it's all a product of the Reapers controlling and manipulating civilisation so they can harvest it. Once they go their system will collapse.

But galactic life will go on.
There will still be comms thanks to the quantum entanglement tech, and there would still be widespread space travel, the Alliance, or at least the core of it wouldn't collapse.

As for the Space Battle it was really cool. My main complaint was it didn't last for 10 minutes. But it was still really good imo, liked the massive scale, I think it's the biggest I've seen on "screen". Plus I liked that while later on they move into close combat, at least for the opening salvos, they actually showed a great deal of distance between the fleets.

re: Jade Empire
Yeah, decided to get it. About to install it now...
(only complaint so far: the tin case has rust )

Rust, tin case? What are these things? I thought every game was downloaded off the net now?

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

OK fair enough but you are also forgetting two things.

Spoiler:

One that the galactc civilizations have gotten used to Mass Relay travel. It is the thing that makes that Galaxy tick in any meaningful way, sure they could possibly make it all the way back to their potential homeworlds but the question becomes will they realizze it?

Two that the Relays have been known to cause Super Nova like explosions when they...explode. Now this is just an assumption but in the endings it looked like the 'single' traveled petty far beyond the Relays and that 'could be' evidence of a Super Nova. THus wiping out every major Capitol world except for I think Dekuna. Even if that is not the case in the non effective military rating victory thing the Destruction option caussed Earth to burn which indicates that the signle itself, at least in that ending, could be potentially dangerous in and of itself.

Nevermind the fact that many of the ships were potentially damaged, enough where they might not be capable of FTl. And nevermind the fact that food is going to be pretty scarce and there is no gurantee that the races other then the Krogan brought enough food to sustain such a long journey. Especially in the case of the Turians or the Quarians.

And the main reason why I think a lot of people are peeved at the destruction of the Relays is that it destroys what made the universe the universe it was. It would be like destroying the entire Gate network and then still calling the show 'stargate'.

re your points.

Spoiler:

Firstly, are you implying that the best and brightest of the galaxy are complete cretins? Cause that's the only way they wouldn't use the normal FTL travel. That very same tech they have being using for the past few thousand years to get to the systems without mass relays (the majority of them) Using FTL drives only isn't some giant leap, because they already use them.


As for the relays, the assertion that relays always cause a super nova level explosion when destroyed is a shaky one at best. You have one past example, of one very specific relay (the alpha relay) destroyed in a very specific way (by having a planetoid smashed into it). We have no previous examples of relays being destroyed by alien star children. It's perfectly possible that because of the way they were destroyed, it was less devastating.

And even if for a moment we do assume that all the homeworlds were wiped out, that doesn't really matter, at least not for galactic civilisation overall. All the homeworlds were trashed by the reapers anyway, the remains of galactic civilisation would be centered around many of the more out of the way colonies in systems without mass relays, regardless of whether the homeworlds were destroyed, hell regardless of whether the relays were destroyed.

As you yourself point out, the destruction signal only kills everything if you have low amount of war assets, the implication being that not enough people were assigned to build it, and it wasn't constructed properly. In the better endings, when it is constructed properly, the crucible only affects the reapers in the destroy ending.

With food, I don't see why you assume only the krogan brought enough food, in fact they're the race likely to have the least food, since they can go without for a long time. As for the turians and the quarians, the quarians have liveships with can grow food compatible to both. Also the turians control this big stretch of space called the turian hierarchy, you don't have to get to palaven to find a ready supply of turian food, since they have colonised all over the galaxy. Also it's quite likely all the other races have at least some compatible food on their words, since the races intermingled and travelled to each other's worlds frequently.

Also the relays were not inherently important to the structure of the universe, mass effect technology, the technology to change the mass of an object, which lead to FTL, artificial gravity, advanced weapons etc, was the inherent thing that made the universe the way it was. Relays are just one use of that tech. Their end may cause changes, but the fundamental thing that makes the Mass Effect universe work, Mass Effect tech, still exists. The games, I would remind you, are called "Mass Effect", not "Mass Relay" and unlike the stargate network, this universe can go on without the relays.

You knew, going in that there were going to be drastic changes to the universe. The entire premise of the game is centred around that, the reapers were central to the Mass Effect verse as we know it, they shaped the galaxy around their cycle, created the relays, and at the end of this game you knew the threat would be dealt with. Any stories or games set after this would be drastically different because of their absence. If such a major piece of the Mass Effect verse was about to be removed, I fail to see why the relays are any different.

[gotthammer]

I liked Panzer Leader. A good portion of it, tho', makes me want to somehow resurrect Hitler just so I can strangle him.
I still have a pile to read (still haven't finished Tigers in the Mud, Lost Victories. Haven't even started on a book about the development of Soviet and German armour doctrines...got sidetracked. Games, and fictional material, are generally more fun than reading stuff which can be a bit 'dry' ), and I have Thunder Run on order.

re: ME3
Yeah. As I said, I 'hate' the ending, but my brain can sort out the mess/plot holes and say, 'oook, I get it...'
Of course, I'd rather say that the ending is 'awesome!', too.
As for 'over the top' in regard to the whole 'retake' thing: I think someone already filed a complaint w/ the FTC or something. The 'retake' people are distancing themselves from that one, tho'.

re: space battle

Spoiler:

yeah. would've been nicer if it were longer.
I was kinda hoping they'd show 'lore-based' fighting more (I, too, liked that bit where they show the Alliance ships firing, then cut to the Reapers, looking toward where the Alliance fleet isn't really even visible yet, on the receiving end of the barrage).
Not sure I liked the idea of rushing into 'knife fight' range w/ all those ships, tho'. Well, it worked for Nelson...
Hmm, is it the biggest fleet action I've seen 'on screen'...yeah, I think so. Legend of the Galactic Heroes should've been 'bigger', but, since it's hand drawn animation, they kinda cheat (lots of dots in the distance...I don't think anyone's nuts enough to draw all 100k ships in the conflict lol).

In general, tho', I liked how many FMV/cinematics there were. Some were pretty long, too. And, for the most part, they were pretty damn...well, pretty.
Plus there were some transition scenes (like when going to a mission. that very cinematic just showing the cargo bay of the Normandy) and the loading screens are very nice. It reminded me a bit of the time (the 90s) where games had a lot of cinematics.

re: Jade Empire
Yeah. I thought about downloading it off Steam, too (I actually had to call my bro to check if I didn't already have it in Steam), but...
Physical copy > digital, as far as I'm concerned.

<--- still a sucker for pretty packaging (and as much as I'm pretty annoyed/angry over the whole ME3 thing, I still want a physical CE over my digital Origin CE thingy)

In any case, JE works. No need to look for patches, right? (I got the Special Edition thingy)

edit:
re: Mass Relays

Spoiler:

having not played Arrival in long time (i.e., since it was released), I'd forgotten about the destruction of the Relay in that one. So when the 'light show' of ME3's ending happened, I just assumed the relays got cooked (but not the systems where they're at) and, voila, 'dark age'.
It's entirely possible that the 'coloured beam' from the Catalyst/Citadel drew energy from the relays to keep bouncing from one relay to another to generate the intended effects depending on 'colour'; which, in turn, may have prevented a 'big boom' as what happened in Arrival.

The entire bouncing 'signal' thingy actually reminded me of that SG-1 episode where they used the 'gates in coordination w/ the weapon on Dakara <sp? Jaffa council world thingy>

[DigiFluid]

Look for patches? Isn't that something you only have to do if you have some archaic obsolete medium?

[gotthammer]

Warning: the following contain profanity and spoilers

Angry Joe "10 reasons we hate ME3's ending"


Angry Joe ME3 review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFq53...eature=channel

edit 2:
quick thought:
differences aside...
Architect (Matrix Rev.) > god/star child (ME3)
...at least the Architect tried to add words to my vocabulary.