Mass Effect 3 "exclusives" are starting to pop up.

  • Two Factor Authentication is now available on BeyondUnreal Forums. To configure it, visit your Profile and look for the "Two Step Verification" option on the left side. We can send codes via email (may be slower) or you can set up any TOTP Authenticator app on your phone (Authy, Google Authenticator, etc) to deliver codes. It is highly recommended that you configure this to keep your account safe.

dotnetbeast

Mood Muzik
Feb 14, 2006
6,189
60
48
Washington D.C.
http://bit.ly/GRRdcX

This got really chewed up...

Anyway, for some people's sake, here is a spoiler tagged version of how Lord of the Rings would be if it was like Mass Effect (ftfa). It's 100% likely that this doesn't spoil anything, however it is your choice to read...
Let’s pretend for a moment that The Lord of the Rings was released not as a series of books, but a series of games. More importantly, the company behind the series decided to do something really hard but rewarding with the game — they were going to let you make decisions during play that substantively altered the elements of the story. That means that some of people playing through this Lord of the Rings story would end up with a personal game experience that was pretty much exactly like the one you and I all remember from reading the books, but that story is just sort of the default. Whole forums were filled up by fans of the series comparing notes on their versions of the game, with guides on how to get into a romantic relationship with Arwen (the obvious one), Eowyn (more difficult, as you have to go without any kind of romance option through the whole first game, but considered by many to be far more rewarding), or even Legolas (finally released as DLC for the third game).

And that’s certainly not all of possible permutations. Some players actually managed to save Boromir (though he leaves the party regardless, but gets you a whole extra army in the third game if he’s alive, and makes Denethor much less of a pain in the ass to deal with). Some folks don’t split up the party, and spend most of the game recruiting supporters through the South and North, from Aughaire down to Dol Imren. For some, Gimli dies at Helms Deep; for others only Merry escapes into Fangorn (which makes recruiting the Ents all but impossible). Hell, there are even a few weirdos who chose NOT to recruit Samwise back at the beginning of the story, and actually play through the whole first game without him (though the writers reintroduce him as a non-optional party member once you get ready to leave Lothlorien).

And what about the players who rolled the main character as a female? That changes a LOT of stuff, as you might well imagine. (Though, thankfully, all the dialogue options with Legolas are the same.)

Are you with me so far?

Okay, so you’re playing through this game — you’ve played through parts 1 and 2 several times, in fact, sometimes as a goody-two-shoes, and sometimes as a total bad-ass. You’ve got a version of the game where you’re with Arwen, one with Eowyn, one with Legolas, and one where you focus on Frodo and his subtle hand-holding bromance with Sam. You’re ready for Part Three, is what I’m saying, and out it comes.

And it’s awesome. You finally bring lasting alliance between Rohan and Gondor, you form a fragile-yet-believable peace between elves and dwarves, and even manage to recruit a significant strike-force of old Moria orcs who don’t so much like you as much as they just hate the johnny-come-lately Uruk-hai.

The final chapters open. You face down Saruman (who pretended to fund all your efforts through the second book, but then turned on you at the end of the Two Towers), which was really satisfying. You crawl up to the top of Mount Doom, collapse against a rock, and have a really touching heart to heart with Sam. It’s over. You know you have all your scores high enough to destroy the One Ring with no crisis of conscious and no lame “Gollum bit off my finger and then falls in the lava” ending, like the one you saw on the fanfic forums last year.

And then out comes this glowing figure from behind a rock, and it’s… Tom Bombadil.

And Tom explains your options.
with-me3-were-lotro.jpg

Oh, and you're totally going to die too. And all the roads and horses throughout all of middle earth vanish. And by the way did you know that Sauron and the Nazgul all actually just work for Bombadil? True story.

Now, let’s just ignore the fact that the company behind this game has been quoted many times as saying that the game will end with no less than sixteen different endings, to honor all the various ways the story could go, and focus on these three options.

None of them have anything to do with destroying the ring, do they?

Has ‘destroying the ring’ (alternately, destroying Sauron) been pretty much THE THING you’ve been working toward the whole game? Yeah, it has. In fact, it mentions “Rings” right there in the title of the series, doesn’t it? Rather seems to make The Ring a bit of a banner item, doesn’t it?

But no, none of these options are about the Ring; they’re about one of the b-plots in the series, and one which you pretty much already laid to rest a few chapters ago.

So… okay, maybe this isn’t the END ending, you think, and you pick one of the options…

And that’s it. A bunch of cut-scenes play, Mount Doom explodes with fiery red light, you die, and the credits roll. The end.

Ohhh-kay. Maybe that was the bad ending. Let’s reload a save and pick option 2…

Same. Exact. Cut scenes. Except Mount Doom’s explosion is green. What?

Alright… umm… let’s check #3…

Nope. Mount Doom’s explosion is Blue. That’s it.

And, absolutely inexplicably, every single one of these cut scenes shows Gandalf, Aragorn, and SAMWISE escaping the explosion on one of the eagles and crash-landing somewhere in Lorien where they all pat themselves on the back and watch the sun set together.

What? But… Sam was with you. Aragorn and Gandalf… did they start running away halfway through the last fight at the Black Gate? Your boys abandoned you?

So, given this example, it’s possible — even for someone who didn’t play Mass Effect — to understand the fan’s reaction. The ending has no real connection to the rest of the story; barring the last scene and one conversation with an unnamed Nazgul in Book 3, it would lift right out with no one even noticing. It completely takes away your choices at the end of a game about making world-altering choices. It effectively destroys the Middle Earth that you were fighting for 100 hours of gameplay to preserve — no magic? Maybe a completely wiped out dwarven race? No one can travel anywhere without painstakingly rebuilding roads for a couple hundred years and replacing horses with something else? Also, no matter what, no matter how much ass you kick, you’re dead? Yeah. No thanks, man.

:tup: for this post man.
 

SlayerDragon

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLADIES
Feb 3, 2003
7,666
0
36
40
So I have 20+ hours just on MP on this game and I think I'm getting burned out by it. Needs a lot more maps, there is only 1-2 that are any good (and, frankly, IMO, the best map was released in Resurgence). Also, Reapers are not any fun to play against thanks to the Banshee. 9/10 people have no idea how to deal with a single Banshee, let alone two banshees and brutes.

:lol: Yeah. Some characters are completely useless against those things anyway. I still haven't found one I like more than the Drell Adept, but Human Vanguard might be a close second. The Asari Vanguard is kind of shitty I think. I mostly see Geth Engineers and Infiltrators wrecking shit up so I guess I need those. Salarian Engineer is laughably bad.
 

Sir_Brizz

Administrator
Staff member
Feb 3, 2000
26,020
83
48
Human Vanguard is my favorite class. I can also handle Human Soldier. Most of the other classes have completely useless biotics. I can't stand Geth Engineer... but I do see tons of Geth Infiltrators running around without problems.

I think I need the Geth Shotgun. That thing tears crap up. The shotguns seem to be the only reasonable way to get rid of Banshees.
 

JohnDoe641

Killer Fools Pro
Staff member
Nov 8, 2000
5,330
51
48
41
N.J.
www.zombo.com
Human Vanguard is my favorite class. I can also handle Human Soldier. Most of the other classes have completely useless biotics. I can't stand Geth Engineer... but I do see tons of Geth Infiltrators running around without problems.

I think I need the Geth Shotgun. That thing tears crap up. The shotguns seem to be the only reasonable way to get rid of Banshees.
Yes, the Shotgun is a beast.
 

SlayerDragon

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLADIES
Feb 3, 2003
7,666
0
36
40
What.

The.

Fuck.

What a weird ending. What a complete lack of closure. Ah, well. The journey was well worth the investment.

In multiplayer I unlocked Drell Assassin as my first non-default character and I played that exclusively for a while because the default guys didn't really appeal to me. Reave is a fantastic skill, and those cluster grenades are devastating, and Pull is a great tool. I just kept him loaded up with just the default SMG and spammed powers forever, it was great.

I set him to rest to try out other classes, but nothing else has appealed to me quite as much. The Human Vanguard seems pretty good, but I need a better shotgun than the Katana. I can't get the hang of Infiltrator, but I have had moderate success with Batarian Sentinel just meleeing the shit out of everything and using the Striker "assault rifle" grenade launcher thingy.

The one thing I don't understand is why the hell you have to name each character. It never shows up or matters at all, so who gives a shit?
 

Sjosz

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Dec 31, 2003
3,048
0
36
Edmonton, AB
www.dregsld.com
What.

The.

Fuck.

What a weird ending. What a complete lack of closure. Ah, well. The journey was well worth the investment.

In multiplayer I unlocked Drell Assassin as my first non-default character and I played that exclusively for a while because the default guys didn't really appeal to me. Reave is a fantastic skill, and those cluster grenades are devastating, and Pull is a great tool. I just kept him loaded up with just the default SMG and spammed powers forever, it was great.

I set him to rest to try out other classes, but nothing else has appealed to me quite as much. The Human Vanguard seems pretty good, but I need a better shotgun than the Katana. I can't get the hang of Infiltrator, but I have had moderate success with Batarian Sentinel just meleeing the shit out of everything and using the Striker "assault rifle" grenade launcher thingy

Salarian Infiltrator is king. For a really solid infiltrator build you're going to want to spec Tactical Cloak to work with Sniper Rifles and damage to go for maximum burst damage when cloaked, and if you unlock either a Widow, Black Widow, Javelin or level up the Mantis a bit (and have a piercing weapon mod), you're set. Ignore Proximity Mines, and max all the other skills. Cloak takes long enough to deactivate that you can get either a power and a shot, or a couple of shots off in a multiple bullet heatsink weapon with the cloak's damage bonuses active. Energy drain for barrier/shield and sniper rifle for armor penetration plus cloak to help revive others or to escape makes Salarian Infiltrator super awesome.
 

SlayerDragon

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLADIES
Feb 3, 2003
7,666
0
36
40
Salarian Infiltrator is king. For a really solid infiltrator build you're going to want to spec Tactical Cloak to work with Sniper Rifles and damage to go for maximum burst damage when cloaked, and if you unlock either a Widow, Black Widow, Javelin or level up the Mantis a bit (and have a piercing weapon mod), you're set. Ignore Proximity Mines, and max all the other skills. Cloak takes long enough to deactivate that you can get either a power and a shot, or a couple of shots off in a multiple bullet heatsink weapon with the cloak's damage bonuses active. Energy drain for barrier/shield and sniper rifle for armor penetration plus cloak to help revive others or to escape makes Salarian Infiltrator super awesome.

Rad. I like the Mantis but I also hate it. It takes entirely too long to reload. The Viper has more shots and a faster reload time, it makes no sense.
 

Selerox

COR AD COR LOQVITVR
Nov 12, 1999
6,584
37
48
44
TheUKofGBandNI
selerox.deviantart.com
Why? Just.... why?

One of the primary "You fucked up the ending, you idiots" threads on the BioWare forums has now hit 3,821 pages.

Are they going to have any reputation left by the end of all of this? Probably not at this rate.

As for me, I've given up trying to count the plot holes in the last 15 minutes. Not to mention the bugs, of which there are more than both other ME games combined by an order or magnitude.
 

Sir_Brizz

Administrator
Staff member
Feb 3, 2000
26,020
83
48
What, you didn't like it when the camera shifted to one of your teammates and they were mysteriously invisible? ;)
 

ambershee

Nimbusfish Rawks
Apr 18, 2006
4,519
7
38
36
Nomad
sheelabs.gamemod.net
I had that in one level, it was more impressive because the character whose dialog spoke had been dead for some time and had been entirely absent from the game.

It crashed on the next checkpoint, but reloading it fromt he save it worked fine xD
 

UBerserker

old EPIC GAMES
Jan 20, 2008
4,798
0
0
Wasn't a bug like that present in ME2 too?
The Batarian codes and Hanar sub-missions are buggy and if you leave the Citadel before completing them, you won't be able to use the Terminals. Gibbed save editor can fix both though.

The endings shitsuck because all three of them are bad and give out bad outcomes
 
Last edited:

SlayerDragon

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLADIES
Feb 3, 2003
7,666
0
36
40
One of the primary "You fucked up the ending, you idiots" threads on the BioWare forums has now hit 3,821 pages.

Are they going to have any reputation left by the end of all of this? Probably not at this rate.

As for me, I've given up trying to count the plot holes in the last 15 minutes. Not to mention the bugs, of which there are more than both other ME games combined by an order or magnitude.

BSN is a vocal minority of their player base. It will blow over. They're probably going to break records with that Extended Cut DLC as well.
 

Sir_Brizz

Administrator
Staff member
Feb 3, 2000
26,020
83
48
Wasn't a bug like that present in ME2 too?
The Batarian codes and Hanar sub-missions are buggy and if you leave the Citadel before completing them, you won't be able to use the Terminals. Gibbed save editor can fix both though.

The endings shitsuck because all three of them are bad and give out bad outcomes
My favorite bug in ME2 was gently bumping into a blocking volume and then moonwalking into outer space.
 

UBerserker

old EPIC GAMES
Jan 20, 2008
4,798
0
0
You can easily glitch out of the Citadel and Normandy in this game too - sometimes leading you to your death by falling in the HOM void. Still less common than getting stuck by a Salarian walking back and forth between tables.