Nothing I've ever proposed or said has even, for a second, been to destroy "joy" in what people like. If you like something, why would you even let that happen in the first place?

Hell, that's all I even need to say in response to that ridiculousness. The entire rest of your post is just a big rant. It's not about empathy. I'm not bringing the world into depression with negativity. I'm most certainly not the hatemonger you'd like me to be. I'm just passionate, and if that's a problem for you, you best get used to it. Like or dislike, I enjoy a good argument, and for some reason, you absolutely hate it, and still do it.

I still do it because you're a hateful prick and you refuse to let people enjoy things.

You're a hateful prick and you refuse to let me hate things!

Dunno, seemed about as sensible as what you said.

Ok, you boys need a time out, seriously.

Um. Obviously they're making a free DLC to patch up the ending, which was a widely criticized flaw in an otherwise very well-received game, despite the fact that it was well-received, not because it wasn't.

I played ME3, it would have been fine were there not day 1 DLC, it had a few more months in the oven, and the ending wasn't... it.
Stop getting so angry at video games guys.

Yep, it is.

I finally finished ME3.. I rushed towards the end because I was getting bored. I feel it was dumbed down and turned into an action game. ME1 > ME2 > ME3

Personally I liked ME2 the most.

You're being polite? Well I'm sorry to say that somehow I can't really appreciate the fact that first you're basically calling BS on me because you posted some list of refutations that you claimed I couldn't even address, and then when I go to lengths to address them all in great detail (providing all kinds of lore from the new game that you're probably not even familiar with), you simply choose to ignore me. And then going on to say I didn't address your points at all isn't polite either.

And then a few posts later you claim to enjoy a good argument.

You know what, forget it. I just so happen to love the **** out of this game, and I was hoping to convince you to give the game a chance.

Even if you don't like the ending, the game itself is fan-freaking-tastic. Everything is ramped up: the war, the drama, the gameplay. The consequences of your choices in previous games can greatly and wildly affect several key dramatic moments in the game, such as the Genophage and the Quarian/Geth situation, as well as the lives of some of your friends. The gameplay is better than ever. Also, enemies aren't just in front of you any more. (At least, not per se / not all the time) Everything is just more emotion and more adrenaline. Except for the side-quests, which are just chores. The real missions (and there are tons of epic ones) more than make up for that shortcoming, IMO.

The game is WELL worth playing, EVEN if you hate the ending. Trust me. It is by far the most engaging of the three games. Unless, of course, you're expecting to hate it, in which case you might be too busy looking for faults to enjoy it for what it is.




You can't say that if you haven't played the game. But thanks for saying it, because you just gave a me a new idea that is real horror show.

The Crucible could basically be a Reaper trap. Nobody knows its origin. It is even being speculated upon in the game that it might be a Reaper Doomsday Device, for all they know. It's pretty suspicious that the plans persist to be around after thousands of cycles of harvesting. It's pretty suspicious that the Reapers would leave a path open to the heart of their fortress, only guarded by a single reaper. It's pretty suspicious the Reapers aren't swarming all over the Crucible.

For all we know, the Extended Cut could turn out to be the thing that nobody wants:

Indoctrination is true, except for the fact that it was inescapable. The Crucible was the Reapers' most sadistic trap. They let organics construct their own demise, cycle, after cycle, after cycle. Shepard was indoctrinated at the end of this cycle, and all the endings were an illusion, including the destroy ending in which Shepard survives. No matter what we choose, we all end up in the Reaper 'Matrix' anyway. The reapers were right. It was inescapable. It will always be. The reapers are the top dogs, and always will be, they told us so from the beginning. It would explain all the ridiculous garden-planet fairy-tale endings where your friends inexplicably flee and survive, and build a new future. Shepard's finally seeing it like the Illusive Man does.

The 'time capsule' will be dug up in the next cycle. Shepard will be known as the grand hero from the previous cycle, yet not even (s)he was able to defeat the Reapers.

Mass Effect is the story about the end of the human race. We went down, just like all who came before us. But in grand style, and nobody can say we didn't try.

Bioware will flip us the finger and say 'you asked for it'.

If this is what they'll do, remember I called it here.

Okay, what's your point? The critical response is valid with respect to the ending, but not with respect to the game as a whole?

No... I agree with it fully heartedly. That's it. It might be a good game up to the ending, and I've never said otherwise. I've only had issues with these things: EA, Origin, and the ending. But according to Antony I'm not allowed to keep discussing that after the introduction of this indoctrination interpretation (which may be the intended one if Antony wasn't making **** up about the writer admitting this).

I said before the game came out that I wouldn't buy it until it was $2 on Amazon, or if it was put on Steam, and I'm sticking to that. The issues with the story wouldn't keep me from buying it. I just don't like it.

Why do I even bother.

Wait, shepard's a girl?

If you're playing it right, she is. (The female voice actor is way, way better btw)

I guess this is appropriate then.

What happened to the text in that image?

Looks intact to me.

Well at least that's one thing we can agree on.

For those who may have missed the news: the Extended Cut is coming out tomorrow.

http://www.masseffect.com/about/extended_cut/

I think you mean today.

26th

Oh. So I just started replaying the games. First time I've had an internet connection since playing the games. Is the dlc worth getting? I have 1200 points, so what should I get?

My readiness level is back to 50%. And I'm supposed to play through the end again? Oh well, wasn't going to pick green anyway...

Squirrel King, so far all of the DLC has been free. 2 multiplayer packs + Extended ending. I've had a great time with the advancements in multiplayer, the new characters and weapons are worth getting.

Edit: Oh there was the $10 DLC with the Prothean character. It's ok but you can enjoy the game without it.

So was anything new besides Hacket at the very end? It's a little more clear, but parts of the indoctrination theory still hold up. One thing I noticed was that there is actually no way for Anderson to get ahead of Shepard on the citadel. There's only one entrance to the chamber where TIM shows up.

Somethings. Mass relays are apparently rebuildable. And the two people you take on the final mission die.

I read that they reduced the EMS needed to get all the choices to 3000. I still played a few rounds to get my Galactic Readiness up just in case but I had nowhere near the EMS I had when I first beat the game and I had all options presented.




As you walk along the first corridor Anderson says the walls were shifting and the place was realigning itself. That whole chasm area before the control panel could rotate for all we know.



The two I took with me (Garrus and Tali) were evac'd by the Normandy before Shepard took Harbinger's laser to the face. I guess your EMS needed to be higher?

Basically the new parts were the goodbye before Hammer got wiped out by Harbinger, the ability to question the Star Child before making your choice, an additional fourth ending, and bonus scenes to flesh out the other three endings (like why Joker was piloting the Normandy away from Earth through the relays, what happened to the various planets and species afterwards, how the other races managed to avoid being trapped on Earth forever more, etc.)

And it looks like they tweaked the original cutscenes as well. Rather than the mass relays blowing up completely the rotating rings break away and part of the prongs snapped off near the end. Joker also looked and acted a lot calmer as the energy release was catching up to the Normandy, which also didn't seem to take any real damage when it got enveloped this time.

Long story short: as if the indoctrination theory wasn't shot to hell already, it DEFINITELY is now. So much for the devs supporting it!


Not only does every ending show what happens completely, but there's also a new "refusal" option. None of these even leave an ounce of room for indoctrination. It shows (almost) everyone being alive, and in one of the endings, it even shows Shepard possibly surviving. Only the refusal ending really seems like a "bad" one now, although control is downright creepy, but yet not precisely evil.


I like being right.

Ah, but the indoctrination theory was great because it was so subtle.

The indoctrination theory implied that one choice (destroy) was actually the correct one because you could defeat the indoctrination.

With the new ending layouts, there's absolutely no way to "beat the indoctrination", so if you want to go ahead and keep believing it, it's a pretty crappy end. Frankly, I think the normal ending is better than trying to force this through.

I'm more at peace with the extended edition. I noticed quite a few changes. More dialogue options with the star child. You find out what he actually is, which was nice. Having a detailed explanation of each solution was also appreciated as was the extended epilogue. They also changed the obnoxious text after the credits that thanked you for playing the game and encouraged you to go get some DLC. The new one is more of a "thank you" to the fans for their support.

I'm not a highly critical person, so I don't really look for plot holes and mistakes the first go around. Any thoughts or observations?

Why do threads always go silent after I post?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Actually, the indoctrination theory wasn't shot down by the EC at all.

Bioware said two things:

- EC is not going to conform or deny the Indoctrination Theory
- EC is not going to be prescriptive about how to interpret the ending

Still, EC is providing more clues as we speak.

- When you arrive on the Citadel, there's a Keeper that takes off a helmet from a soldier. Fly-cam footage revealed this to be Major Coates. Then when you regain control of Shepard, the body is gone.

They intentionally put this in there, because it's a new sequence.

- The "Catalyst" 's voice being doubled by the voices of female and male Shepard has been made much more audible. At one point, Shep's voice becomes so loud that you can't hear the kid any more. They clearly want you to notice this.

- The end sequence where a soldier is surrounded by husks has a very noticeable difference for the destroy ending. In control and synthesis, the soldier shoots one husk, then gets thrown to the ground by another, being overcome. In destroy, the soldier shows much more resolve, shoots down multiple husks, and is never overcome by them. The shockwave simply finishes them off. This is another thing that is indicative of Shepard's willpower being stronger in destroy, and Shepard's willpower being reflected in his/her vision.

And that's just the EC.

The latest discoveries for IT before the EC came out were quite chilling. As you may or may not know, the codex entry on indoctrination (as well as the first game) establishes that Reapers use infrasound as a means of indoctrination.

Now it turns out that every scene that shows an indoctrinated character, has infrasound added to it. Now, infrasound is of course such a low frequency that it's inaudible for the human ear, however... they did a frequency analysis for the audio of several scenes, and it clearly shows 'peaks' of infrasound during specific scenes. It's very consequent. For example, every time you see major Coates, there's infrasound, and it's gone immediately as soon as he's out of the picture. (Coates being indoctrinated became part of the indoctrination theory at some point because there are several clues for it).

So, they added a clue that no one could pick up unless he did a frequency analysis of the audio in certain scenes.

Now before you say 'glitch' or 'interference', they took the infrasound and upsampled (pitch-shifted) it to a more audible frequency, and it's not just noise. It's clearly a fabricated sound. It sounds a bit like a tech/computer/machine sound. I've heard it myself and it's clearly a fabricated sound instead of just brown noise.

This discovery is pretty recent and they're still analysing other scenes. However, as soon as the discovery was posted, Bioware's sound department applauded the find and confirmed they intentionally put all kinds of hints and easter eggs in the audio files.

Here's a video on it. Ignore the end of it, because the maker was clearly expecting the EC to confirm/deny IT. Frequency analysis is shown from 3:15 onward.

Just beat the game finally after restarting it a week ago after several months of hiatus.

Seriously, I plan on replaying numerous times like I have the first two time. The stupid kid in the forest **** is gonna really piss me off. Wasting those precious minutes of my life. But really.

I comletely forgot which ME2 play thru to use, like I forgot which ME1 to use. I never end up choosing the one play thru I romanced anyone, so I haven't been able to continue with that, but that doesn't matter. Just wish you could view all the options of your choices when importing a game. (I think you can, but not right off the bat which would be helpful)

I enjoyed it. I'm gonna play thru it now again on a different character and see whats up. Jack wasn't at the biotic compound like the first time I started playing, she must have died in the game I picked this time. A lot less interesting without her. Hopefully I'll see some cooler things this time around with different story background.

You can romance without having previously romanced anyone. Kaiden and Liara are supposably easy.