Mass Effect universe discussion thread

[Teddybrown]

In order for your whole team to survive, and all the crew, you need to make everyone loyal, keep their loyalty as well (since several can lose their loyalty due to arguments with other members of the team), have the ship fully upgraded, go through the Omega 4 relay as quickly as possible and once their choose the right squad members for each task, so who leads the second fire team, who do you send through the pipes, etc.

Quite a tall order, although I managed all of that on my first play through, without a guide, the week Mass Effect 2 came out. *feels smug*

Hmmm, I had everyone loyal to me except Miranda.
I chose Miranda to lead the 2nd team and Tali to go up the pipe, then I had Samara protecting me in the forcefield.
I always took Garrus and Jacob in my team.
Oh, and I sent Grunt back to the ship with the crew members.
I didnt have enough resources this playthrough to upgrade the ship, but this playthrough I think Ill upgrade the ship.
With all those things my playthrough ended up with Garrus, Jacob, Samara and Grunt surviving...

I think Im going to not link my ME2 account yet to ME3.
Ill do the predetermined route without a linked account, then on my 2nd playthrough of ME3, Ill link my ME2 account.
Also, I realised why I couldnt get Wrex in ME2, because I cant lnk me ME1 and ME2 accounts, the predetermined game has Wrex dying in ME1, so I wont be able to get Wrex in ME2 unless I can figure out how to link the accounts.
Does ME2 have multiplayer? Or is it just ME3?

[DigiFluid]

Multiplayer is new in the franchise, to ME3. You can kind of tell it was tacked on after the fact--it's really nothing to write home about. I don't mean it's bad, it's just nothing special either. I can't see it having a very large player base a year or two down the line.

Which I guess kind of begs the question: once nobody's playing online anymore, how do you get your Galactic Readiness up?

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

Which I guess kind of begs the question: once nobody's playing online anymore, how do you get your Galactic Readiness up?

Doesn’t matter, there are apparently enough war assets in the main game that you can get the readiness bar up to maximum without playing multiplayer.

[DigiFluid]

Doesn’t matter, there are apparently enough war assets in the main game that you can get the readiness bar up to maximum without playing multiplayer.

Nope.... You can collect all the resources in the game and it won't budge the Galactic Readiness percentage. I had (I believe) most of them, excepting Eden Prime for sure and the odd couple I might've missed here and there, even got the "Master and Commander" achievement ("Deliver most of the Galaxy at War assets to the final conflict"), but the Galactic Readiness doesn't move above 50% unless you play multiplayer.

[Starsaber]

Nope.... You can collect all the resources in the game and it won't budge the Galactic Readiness percentage. I had (I believe) most of them, excepting Eden Prime for sure and the odd couple I might've missed here and there, even got the "Master and Commander" achievement ("Deliver most of the Galaxy at War assets to the final conflict"), but the Galactic Readiness doesn't move above 50% unless you play multiplayer.

I think what he was saying was that even if you have a Readiness Percentage of 50, you can still hit the effective military strength for the top ending. I'll probably be finding that out pretty soon since I'm getting ready to go to

Spoiler:

the Asari homeworld

with Galactic Readiness of 52% or so and my EMS is in the mid-3000s or so.

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

Yeah basically it's a bit confusing but that green bar showing effective military strength is what matters. So if you fill it up, but still have a Galactic Readiness rating of 50% it doesn’t matter, you still get the best ending.

[Col.Foley]

Yeah now that I've had a night to sleep on it, I will say that I'm not overly impressed with the ending. The whole game was great, even up to those final moments, but those last moments were kind of....eh. Disappointing. But that's IMO, maybe I'll come around if you lot all have some positive things to say. At the moment I can only think of aggravations, but I'll save those for when you guys finish up.


Definitely not as long as 1 or 2. Where 2 took me ~46 hours on my last re-play (including all DLCs), I finished 3 in about 36-37. Not that I'm complaining--that's a very respectable game length these days, and that's just one playthrough. This game has the built-in replay value of needing to go through it several times to try things differently

I think most of the fans are ready to have a revolution. Should be interesting when I get to it considering I am such a societal rebel and all.

[DigiFluid]

The more I think on it, the more disappointed that I'm finding I really am. Everything up to the last 5 minutes was wonderful, then it just took a sharp left turn and ended on a note that seemed like it had nothing to do with the series--either factually or thematically.

Hurry up and finish, I want to post things I see dosed says he's done, I just want to get one more in on it before I start talking

[Col.Foley]

The more I think on it, the more disappointed that I'm finding I really am. Everything up to the last 5 minutes was wonderful, then it just took a sharp left turn and ended on a note that seemed like it had nothing to do with the series--either factually or thematically.

Hurry up and finish, I want to post things I see dosed says he's done, I just want to get one more in on it before I start talking

Wait you mean we discover that the Reapers were actually cute pink bunny rabbits?

But that does sound serious so...uh oh.

And I thought GWs spoiler policy was you really couln't post spoilers...without tags anyways...till a year after the release date of something? I mean that is what I ahve heard anyways. But yeah I am sure I am going to be talking to a lot of people when I finish...sometime this week.

[Teddybrown]

Started playing ME3 today...
Didnt link my account in the end so Im playing the pre set past story which is almost what I chose anyway...
The first cutscene and level is actually quite hard hitting, especially the last scene where

Spoiler:

Shepard gets into the transport then sees the boy he tried to save get into another transport, only for a Reaper to blow it up =(

Is the team smaller for this game?
Ive unlocked

Spoiler:

Garrus =), EDI, the soldier whos name I cant remember, and the other alien who took down the Shadow Broker, who I also cant remember her name.
Met Miranda and Mordin, and I have Ashley in hospital at the moment, but Im guessing she joins my team later.

Up to the part where you need to save the Krogan team and the other representatives team, after meeting up with

Spoiler:

Mordin

Took awhile for me to get used to the combat again in this game, always have to change afew controls and stuff.
Enjoying it so far.

[DigiFluid]

Of course they change some stuff up. The games came out years apart

And man....I don't know how you can be forgetting character names. They're all so memorable!

[Col.Foley]

Of course they change some stuff up. The games came out years apart

And man....I don't know how you can be forgetting character names. They're all so memorable!

One of the most memorable collection of characters ever. Even the ones you hate you remember. Even the side characters that you don't get in some versions of the game AKA Conrad Verner.

[Starsaber]

Started playing ME3 today...
Didnt link my account in the end so Im playing the pre set past story which is almost what I chose anyway...
The first cutscene and level is actually quite hard hitting, especially the last scene where

Spoiler:

Shepard gets into the transport then sees the boy he tried to save get into another transport, only for a Reaper to blow it up =(

Is the team smaller for this game?
Ive unlocked

Spoiler:

Garrus =), EDI, the soldier whos name I cant remember, and the other alien who took down the Shadow Broker, who I also cant remember her name.
Met Miranda and Mordin, and I have Ashley in hospital at the moment, but Im guessing she joins my team later.

Spoiler:

Yeah, the bit with the kid was rough for both me and Shepard.

I'm pretty sure you end up with 6-7 depending on whether you have the DLC or not. Not sure if you get substitute characters if Tali or Garrus didn't survive ME2.

One advantage of importing your character from ME2 is that you get to start at whatever level they were at the end of ME2. I started with a Level 30 Shepard with 59 skill points to allocate right off the bat.

One of the most memorable collection of characters ever. Even the ones you hate you remember. Even the side characters that you don't get in some versions of the game AKA Conrad Verner.

No kidding.

Spoiler:

For a while there, I was afraid that at some point I'd get a popup "War Asset: Conrad Verner" and it would have negative strength

[gotthammer]

After more than 52 hours, I've finished it. Also, I hate Banshees.

Hmm. So...the ending. Hmm. W-T-H?
I've only done one

Spoiler:

destroy option

, I'll try it again later, I guess.

So I go back to looking at that pit of negativity and toxicity (i.e., Bioware Social Network)...and look! Petitions to change the ending.
Normally, I'm not the sort to ask for stuff like that, but, maybe just this once...
(a recent game I'd have preferred a better ending to would've been Deus Ex:HR. It wasn't the content/message of the ending that irked me, but the presentation <i.e., I want a longer/'beefier' cinematic>, which kinda felt 'cheap' compared to the rest of the game)

Other than some stuff (like the ending), ME3 has been a solid game. Pretty, fun, epic, dramatic, solid. Some bits, tho', did feel cheesy or that they were 'trying too hard'.

edit:
ARGH

Spoiler:

while on the BSN boards, I came upon a post and got reminded of something: Deus Ex:HR's ending...and the choice style. Argh.

edit 2:
hmm...interesting short read, I think I like this one better than the one I got
: http://arkis.deviantart.com/art/Mass...LERS-289902125

[Teddybrown]

Of course they change some stuff up. The games came out years apart

And man....I don't know how you can be forgetting character names. They're all so memorable!

It was 1am when I was writing that... lol.
I can remember most of their names, but I get them muddled up sometimes.
I remember the awesome character names straight of like Garrus and Joker.
Forgot to write in that post about

Spoiler:

Cerberus betrayal, I had a feeling in ME2 that they would do something like this once the Reapers showed up.
And the fact that in this instalment, the enemies are so much more varied and theres alot more combat.
The graphics, like everyones said, are so much cleaner and in mission, the background graphics are awesome.

Also, when I started ME3, I was asked whether I wanted an action, role playing or something else storyline, I chose action, what did everyone else choose?