Mass Effect Series Thread

[Xenos]

Can someone explain to me why the PS3 porting of the games are so terrible?

 

I'm not sure if this stuff is the same in the 360 version, but if it is my God. Both Mass Effect 2 & 3 run at 30fps, which is fine if the framerate is stable. But it's not. Both games can barely hold 30fps together, especially in cutscenes, which I'm not really understanding why. The games are pretty, mind, but they're far from graphically taxing, so why is the fps so bad? Not to mention the constant goddamn freezing. Mass Effect 3 has made me so livid with it's freezing I gave up on the playthrough I was doing and decided to do a new playthrough on Mass Effect 2 with a different class. That was going fine aside from the usual fps drops, but I was used to it by then.

 

But then a massive issue I have with ME2 rears it's ugly head; the morality system.

 

I usually don't mind these, hell I like them even if they can be kind of binary at times, but Mass Effect 2's is just bull. You know those bars Shep has on the squad screen? Those are a lie. Those bars actually don't really mean anything other than aesthetics. The game lets you unlock high level Paragon/Renegade options through some hidden variable.

 

Each time you have the opportunity to take a Paragon/Renegade option in anything, you get points right? The game actually accumulates these points without telling you, so there is a total amount for a Renegade and a total amount for a Paragon. The more times you miss a chance to gain these points, the harder it is to match the total. If you don't match the total at certain points you will not be able to use that morality route. So if you're wondering why your bar looks so full but you're locked out of an option regardless, there you go.

 

This led to me losing Miranda's loyalty when she argued with Jack (which I hate, considering this renders her loyalty mission utterly fucking pointless) the paragon option for this argument is extremely difficult due to both Miranda and Jack being Renegades, whereas the Renegade option for Tali and Legion works the same way since they are both Paragons. So I went to the Team Status from my PMs terminal to see the lovely image of me losing Miranda's loyalty. Then, exactly right there, without warning, the game glitches up and freezes.

 

Right there, it just outright, freezes.

 

I think I'm seriously done with this trilogy until I can play it on a good gaming PC at 60fps with no hiccups. I'm just really sick of trying to deal with all of this crap ruining otherwise, a good experience.

[Mania Pipe]

Can someone explain to me why the PS3 porting of the games are so terrible?

 

I'm not sure if this stuff is the same in the 360 version, but if it is my God. Both Mass Effect 2 & 3 run at 30fps, which is fine if the framerate is stable. But it's not. Both games can barely hold 30fps together, especially in cutscenes, which I'm not really understanding why. The games are pretty, mind, but they're far from graphically taxing, so why is the fps so bad? Not to mention the constant goddamn freezing. Mass Effect 3 has made me so livid with it's freezing I gave up on the playthrough I was doing and decided to do a new playthrough on Mass Effect 2 with a different class. That was going fine aside from the usual fps drops, but I was used to it by then.

 

But then a massive issue I have with ME2 rears it's ugly head; the morality system.

 

I usually don't mind these, hell I like them even if they can be kind of binary at times, but Mass Effect 2's is just bull. You know those bars Shep has on the squad screen? Those are a lie. Those bars actually don't really mean anything other than aesthetics. The game lets you unlock high level Paragon/Renegade options through some hidden variable.

 

Each time you have the opportunity to take a Paragon/Renegade option in anything, you get points right? The game actually accumulates these points without telling you, so there is a total amount for a Renegade and a total amount for a Paragon. The more times you miss a chance to gain these points, the harder it is to match the total. If you don't match the total at certain points you will not be able to use that morality route. So if you're wondering why your bar looks so full but you're locked out of an option regardless, there you go.

 

This led to me losing Miranda's loyalty when she argued with Jack (which I hate, considering this renders her loyalty mission utterly fucking pointless) the paragon option for this argument is extremely difficult due to both Miranda and Jack being Renegades, whereas the Renegade option for Tali and Legion works the same way since they are both Paragons. So I went to the Team Status from my PMs terminal to see the lovely image of me losing Miranda's loyalty. Then, exactly right there, without warning, the game glitches up and freezes.

 

Right there, it just outright, freezes.

 

I think I'm seriously done with this trilogy until I can play it on a good gaming PC at 60fps with no hiccups. I'm just really sick of trying to deal with all of this crap ruining otherwise, a good experience.

 

I fucking hated that part after doing Jack's Loyalty Mission. I had to choose either Jack's side, lose Miranda's loyalty or Miranda's side, lose Jack's loyalty or both of them to get over their differences/shut it. What the problem with that part for me was how fucking finicky that both option was, because of how much Paragon/Renegade points did you need to select that option. It took me over an hour to try and figure out what the hell was going on and build up more Paragon points because I clearly had well over enough points to choose any paragon option, but for some reason the game decided not light up that option! Meaning; I had to do the mission over and over and over again until I finally got the option to select it. This was my second run through of the game with the ME1 Import so there was no excuse for that happening.

[Patticus]

You know how zombie modes and spin-offs were a big thing in games this past generation (Red Dead and Assassin's Creed 3)? Well... why not do something similar with Mass Effect?

Instead of just doing a zombie spin-off or alternate universe though, I think it'd be really cool if Bioware did a War of the Worlds-Mass Effect spin-off. It could be set in 1900s England, as the original story is, or it could be a more contemporary 2180s affair, with Shepard as the protagonist, meeting up with his/her comrades along the way. Everyone would be dressed up in attire fitting for the time (nods to Doctor Who?), and the Martians would obviously be the Reapers, and the game would take a more survival and stealth-based approach, perhaps featuring a new movement system.

If that's too impractical, maybe they could give it to TellTale and have them tell the story in their typical comicbook style, using all the original cast. The score would (preferably) be inspired by the Jeff Wayne War of the Worlds musical, and the events would (mostly) be familiar to fans of the original story, but I think it'd kick a lot of arse, giving us more time with Shepard and co in a totally new setting.


Edit: In regards to how ME3 ended, was advised to read through this article, which I guess gives an insider's perspective on the whole affair:
 

Patrick Weekes has been writing Mass Effect story from the first game, but ever since the scandal about Mass Effect 3′s ending broke, Weekes revealed that he and others were locked out of game’s ending, leaving the conclusion to none other than franchise executive producer Casey Hudson. Many have reached out to Hudson for a response on this latest revelation, however he’s said nothing.

This whole problem stemmed from Bioware advertising Mass Effect 3 as having many, many endings, but when gamers played the game, they realized it didn’t matter how they played, or what class they chose, Mass Effect 3′s ending was the same. A massive failure on Bioware ‘s end, who’ve, in the past, made multiple endings for the popular WRPG.

Patrick Weekes’ Tells All

When the scandal became overwhelming, Mass Effect writer Patrick Weekes decided that he’d reveal what really happened behind the scenes, making known that he and others had nothing to do with how the game ended because they were essentially banned from even giving input, adding that what you experience in Mass Effect 3′s conclusion is completely Casey Hudson’s take on the franchise.

Here’s 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, 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.

And honestly, it kind of shows.

Every other mission in the game had to be held up to the rest of the writing team, and the writing team then picked it apart and made suggestions and pointed out the parts that made no sense. This mission? Casey and our lead deciding that they didn’t need to be peer-reviewed

And again, it shows.

If you’d asked me the themes of Mass Effect 3, I’d break them down as:

Galactic Alliances

Friends

Organics versus Synthetics

In my personal opinion, the first two got a perfunctory nod. We did get a goodbye to our friends, but it was in a scene that was divorced from the gameplay — a deliberate “nothing happens here” area with one turret thrown in for no reason I really understand, except possibly to obfuscate the “nothing happens here”-ness. The best missions in our game are the ones in which the gameplay and the narrative reinforce each other. The end of the Genophage campaign exemplifies that for me — every line of dialog is showing you both sides of the krogan, be they horrible brutes or proud warriors; the art shows both their bombed-out wasteland and the beautiful world they once had and could have again; the combat shows the terror of the Reapers as well as a blatant reminder of the rachni, which threatened the galaxy and had to be stopped by the krogan last time. Every line of code in that mission is on target with the overall message.

The endgame doesn’t have that. I wanted to see banshees attacking you, and then have asari gunships zoom in and blow them away. I wanted to see a wave of rachni ravagers come around a corner only to be met by a wall of krogan roaring a battle cry. Here’s the horror the Reapers inflicted upon each race, and here’s the army that you, Commander Shepard, made out of every race in the galaxy to fight them.

I personally thought that the Illusive Man conversation was about twice as long as it needed to be — something that I’ve been told in my peer reviews of my missions and made edits on, but again, this is a conversation no writer but the lead ever saw until it was already recorded. I did love Anderson’s goodbye.

For me, Anderson’s goodbye is where it ended. The stuff with the Catalyst just… You have to understand. Casey is really smart and really analytical. And the problem is that when he’s not checked, he will assume that other people are like him, and will really appreciate an almost completely unemotional intellectual ending. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it.

And then, just to be a dick… what was SUPPOSED to happen was that, say you picked “Destroy the Reapers”. When you did that, the system was SUPPOSED to look at your score, and then you’d show a cutscene of Earth that was either:

a: Very high score: Earth obviously damaged, but woo victory

b: Medium score: Earth takes a bunch of damage from the Crucible activation. Like dropping a bomb on an already war-ravaged city. Uh, well, maybe not LIKE that as much as, uh, THAT.

c: Low score: Earth is a cinderblock, all life on it completely wiped out

I have NO IDEA why these different cutscenes aren’t in there. As far as I know, they were never cut. Maybe they were cut for budget reasons at the last minute. I don’t know. But holy crap, yeah, I can see how incredibly disappointing it’d be to hear of all the different ending possibilities and have it break down to “which color is stuff glowing?” Or maybe they ARE in, but they’re too subtle to really see obvious differences, and again, that’s… yeah.

Okay, that’s a lot to have written for something that’s gonna go away in an hour.

I still teared up at the ending myself, but really, I was tearing up for the quick flashbacks to old friends and the death of Anderson. I wasn’t tearing up over making a choice that, as it turned out, didn’t have enough cutscene differentiation on it.

And to be clear, I don’t even really wish Shepard had gotten a ride-off-into-sunset ending. I was honestly okay with Shepard sacrificing himself. I just expected it to be for something with more obvious differentiation, and a stronger tie to the core themes — all three of them.”

In recent days we’ve seen Amazon and Origin refund disgruntled gamers, and the ‘Take Mass Effect Back‘ movement collect more than $40,000 to raise awareness of the RPG’s ending. We’ll reach out to Hudson for a response on this damning write up by Weekes.

I've had some time to think since reading the piece, and... wow. I mean, how the hell did that happen? It seems clear to me that one of the defining reasons that makes ME a great series and an amazing sci-fi universe to spend time in is the writing team, the whole team. When that team was essentially locked out of arguably the most important part of the story (the climactic finale), the writing team's George Lucas ran amok and... I dunno. We lost something.

 

I don't hate ME3's ending by any stretch, but knowing now what might have been... would a rewrite really hurt any? I mean, part of what would need to be added are extra scenes on Earth (so, more of an expansion), maybe some altered dialogue with your squadmates. The big thing would be the Crucible scenes at the very end, the Intelligence, and I don't think even I would complain about that.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Really, I wanted something like ME2's Suicide Mission but on a much bigger scale and with even greater stakes.

 

When I reached Earth, I could feel the stakes, mainly because of all the damn Banshees and Brutes I had to fight. Anything more than that would have been icing on the cake so long as I could actually beat it.

 

But the sacrifice felt pointless after reaching the Crucible. I wouldn't mind if Shepard had died, and I certainly wouldn't have minded if Shepard had a chance to live - either way, I was expecting it to be dependent on what I did all throughout the three titles culminated at the end. But that's the thing, my actions should have lead to my reward, punishment, or bittersweet victory. I was expecting that, should I live, I could finally kick it with my love interest when the galaxy rebuilds, or that should I die, the galaxy rebuilds with a strong memory of the sacrifices lost.

 

But I'm not gonna ramble about what I expected specifically, because either way it goes, those endings we got were ass.

[Candescence]

I amused by how what Casey Hudson wrote has been described as 'intellectual', because it really isn't. It's just meaningless navel-gazing on top of ridiculous circular logic. The extended cut only made it worse - why should you trust and follow the instructions of an AI that is clearly defective? And that's on top of the other stupidity, such as readiness rating being worthless, among other things. And one of the ending choices is just patently ridiculous.

 

Intellectual? Oh, no. I'd say the ending is intellectually insulting.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I amused by how what Casey Hudson wrote has been described as 'intellectual', because it really isn't. It's just meaningless navel-gazing on top of ridiculous circular logic. The extended cut only made it worse - why should you trust and follow the instructions of an AI that is clearly defective? And that's on top of the other stupidity, such as readiness rating being worthless, among other things. And one of the ending choices is just patently ridiculous.

 

Intellectual? Oh, no. I'd say the ending is intellectually insulting.

And what's more intellectually insulting is the gaming press's defense of that shit...

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

And what's more intellectually insulting is the gaming press's defense of that shit...

 

Defense of that artistic integrity, thank you very much.

 

I still want to punch out whatever lawyer coached them that

[Patticus]

Artistic integrity means that the artist in question will not compromise him/herself or his/her work for profit. That means that the work is not done for money, it isn't subsidized, and won't be sold out. Sadly, that is simply not the case here - there was probably no artistic integrity to begin with, at least in regards to ME3. Perhaps it was there before Bioware was bought by EA, back when Mass Effect was more a labor of love than just another EA moneyspinner, I don't know... Anyway, my point is that changing the ending post-mortem with the full co-operation of the writing team (perhaps placing it at the beginning of ME4 as an exciting opener; "it was all a horrible dream thought up by a gravely wounded Shepard in the Citadel control room") would not breach the artistic integrity of Hudson or Bioware, because it's not there anyway.

 

It has been two years though, so changes are at this point extremely unlikely to happen, but they'd hardly be impossible to pull off and would go some way towards restoring ME to the top of many people's top game series lists.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

By the way, if it hasn't been brought up yet, here's an excellent review of ME3's original ending:

[8ther]

So rumor has it the ME trilogy could be coming to PS4 and XB1.
 

The Mass Effect trilogy of games may have a new-gen re-release in its future, if a listing on a Chilean retail site is to be believed.

NeoGAFer Rushersauce recently noticed listings for Mass Effect Trilogy on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on the retail site, ZMart. You can find the listing for the PlayStation 4 version of the game here, and the Xbox One version here. Neither listing offers a price or release date, but it does allow customers to sign up to receive a notification when the games are available.

Earlier this month, the Last of Us' PlayStation 4 edition similarly leaked on Sony's online store.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/04/27/xbox-one-and-ps4-mass-effect-trilogy-listings-appear-on-chilean-retail-site.aspx

[Chaos Incarnate]

This doesn't sound all too surprising, especially since Mass Effect 4 will likely be going Next Gen as well. If you want to give your audience some exposure, then you may as well port it all over.

 

I'm curious as to if they're going to add some extra content, like including all the DLC.

[Teoskaven]

Considering it's EA we are dealing with and they didn't made a promotion like that when they made the Collection for PS3, i highly doubt that.

 

The idea makes sense, in order to maintain the continuity each player has chosen; the only problem is that it will kinda be a pain in the ass to replay all 3 game over again just to set that.

[Jeroscope]

How have I not found this yet?

 

TL;DR version, whats been said so far?

[Xenos]

This is good news, but I really hope there's more incentive than just "Buy the same PS3 trilogy but with even more DLC!"

 

I mean, that's great and all, but what about people that already have all the DLC? And I'm sure that's quite a few, long as the series has been around. It might be a stretch, but maybe updated textures and visuals all around to give the trilogy all the same look? (The jump from ME1 to the next 2 is jarring) Update Mass Effect 1's gameplay a little so it isn't as difficult to get into? And a decent framerate that doesn't fluctuate would be nice. 60fps isn't a stretch on a console like the PS4 I imagine.

 

Yeah I'm asking for a lot, but this next bit is something I'd just like to see personally; better/more customization options for a Shepard perhaps? A lot of the time it could be difficult making a custom Shep that didn't look at least slightly uncanny valley.

 

 

At least two or so of these things would solidify me buying the games again.

[Marcello]

Sure, why not. I have all three on 360, but seeing as PS4 will be my main platform this generation, it'll be nice to have everything on one platform. Plus, I could finally play Mass Effect 1 in English and all of the DLC for 1 and 3 (Assuming it would be in). Any improvements in graphics, frame rate etc. would be great.

[Jeroscope]

I dont have to worry about all that BS cause I have them on PC. PC Master Race.

[ImPantsAtThis]

I don't want to alarm/excite you, but ME:Next is looking more likely to be at E3.

 

Via Twitter:

 

 

Aaryn Flynn ‏@AarynFlynn  9h

For #E3 @CaseyDHudson and I should have taken this Mass Effect inspired jet! #Fitting #N7 pic.twitter.com/fZ7fb40NK1

 

 

 

User

I just want someone to acknowledge the next Mass Effect. Give me a logo. A title. Gimmie SOMETHIN'!

 

User 2

paging @AarynFlynn ahem AHEM

 

Aaryn Flynn ‏@AarynFlynn

Stay tuned... 

 

 

Yanick Roy ‏@YanickRRoy 

Excited to be heading to LA for E3 this morning. My last visit was 8 years ago!

 

 

 

Yanick is Studio Director for BioWare Montréal, the team working on ME:N, and Aaryn is the General Manager for both the Edmonton and Montréal studios (meaning he's likely there for DA:I).

[Patticus]

I can't see them giving us more than a teasery teaser; a logo and a voice-over and nothing more. Next year will be the year of ME4, not this year.

[ImPantsAtThis]

Likely -- they wouldn't want to draw any tangible amount of hype away from Inquisition. Still, an announcement trailer that barely hints at anything, maybe just confirming the title, would be good enough for me.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Uh...yo, not trying to restart the discussion (despite knowing damn well it will), but for anyone interested....

 

Someone actually did the impossible in remaking the endings with a remake called the Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod. It is chaotic, it is brutal, and intense. It is every bit as hellish as the original scenes, but actually makes everything worth it in the end. Best of all, it makes some goddamned sense. Also, no fucking star kid in it. If anything, might actually settle the lame ass ending we original got and make you move on much better.

 

Enjoy.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Y7F54VA10

[Jeroscope]

I wasnt convinced. I remember there being an interesting fanfic where the Star Child was actually Harbinger and Shepard had somehow created another option through the dialogue wheel. Basically, the Normandy bombed the shit out of the Harby hologram and deactivated the Reapers.

[ImPantsAtThis]

Ah, MEHEM. Definitely admire those guys' passion. If I had the PC version, I'd probably use it; I love the idea and the execution is suprisingly good. They keep doing new stuff with it that's very impressive -- that vid proves it.

[Jeroscope]

GUIS GUIS. WE'S GOTS MORE NEWS.

 

Check out the Microsoft News Conference from E3 this year. There's a section where Bioware comes in and talks about the next Mass Effect. In it, more images are shown, such as the new N7 armor (which means you're probably human which is totally expected) and that it's going to be in the future in a different region of space. The environments they have made so far are BEAUTIFUL and the new armor looks badass. This is gonna be a cool one.

 

Mass Effect: TNG. It's coming.

[Gabz Girl]

There was hardly anything at E3 about ME4, which really disappointed me because this game has been in development for what, 2 years now? EA's conference was bad enough with all the prototype footage but I was expecting a lot more from Bioware by now!

Maybe this means the game really is going to be something special though, and if that's so, I guess I can wait one more year. The final product should be amazing!

[Emmett L. Brown]

If it means they're not rushing the development like they did with ME3, I'm very happy to wait. I'll be double-happy if they announce that ZERO PERCENT of the development cycle is going towards a multiplayer aspect.