It doesn't have to be. It just has to be relatable to the sod who chose the synthesis-ended save game to import. See? Just because you don't play Shepard in ME4 doesn't mean you can't import stuff off a save.
An imported save system of any kind would be surprising. But seriously, you think that someone who chose Synthesis is going to be satisfied if the sum total of the difference between their world and the next is that theirs has glowy skin? If you give them the ability to import, they are going to want content that reflects that choice, not a merely aesthetic difference. The endings are so different that you should expect to see dramatic changes that are more than skin-deep (pun intended).
Also, dumping a save import will save a truely massive amount of time and money.
Well, I mean, not if the save import is limited to changing skin tones or whatever. Which it won't be. Because it won't exist. But if it did, that wouldn't be that expensive. It would be a terrible idea, but a cheap one.
If you consider the endings... the real consequences aren't that different. Much of it deals directly with Shepard, and can likely be discarded in favour of "Here is the monument of the great Shepard yadda yadda", with the exception of some influence or interference from the Über space tyrant Shepard if Control was chosen. What is left? Geth or no geth. Circuit skin or no circuit skin. Going further into it than just the ending, you have quarians or no quarians, and genophage or not. The asari and the turians are pretty much the same no matter what was chosen. Rachni, perhaps, but they will be a minor presence and can be ignored just the same. There are elcor, hanar, drell, volus etc to deal with no matter what Shepard did.
Sure, Synthesis would present some challenges. However, the visual impact could be pretty limited, in that most of these things can only be seen when up close. You could add various effects to the interface, such as wide-spectrum sight and the like, which wouldn't be too hard. You could add synthesis-only options in dialogue via computer interfacing to other people, you could have people not use mobile phones (not that they did before, much...) in favour of direct datalink. We're not talking about cybernetics, because those aren't needed if your entire being is a biomechanical hybrid. You'd just replace your arm with one that has a different functionality. As to the story, you're probably fine as long as you don't send people into the central issues of mechanical vs organic.
The story implications of Synthesis make it a no-go. The idiotic circuit skin is just a secondary concern, although also very visually unappealing.
You mean YOU consider it a no go. You have been spewing the line about synthesis being worse than rape since day one. Not everyone agrees with you.
360 is a dead console. I think that no new games will be coming out for it very soon.
This depends on the sales of the PS4/XB1. If they both rocket off into the stratosphere and shift many millions of units in the first year, then it's more likely we'll see developers shifting to the new consoles quite quickly. If sales are more cautious, developers will likely wait longer. The last PS2 games only came out a few months ago. And with roughly 160 million PS3s and XB360s out there, developers would be foolish to abandon them too soon.
You mean YOU consider it a no go. You have been spewing the line about synthesis being worse than rape since day one. Not everyone agrees with you.
I daresay the game's designers agree with him. A merging of organic and AI life should have dramatic, wide-ranging implications that cannot be anywhere near adequately covered by a game if left merely as an option. It would be nonsensical and incredibly dull to have such a fundamental change amount to nothing more than cosmetics. It boggles the mind that some of the people I've seen harshly criticize the ending of Mass Effect 3 for supposedly nullifying player choice are now advocating the reduction of all the choice players were given in the first three games to literal reskinning.
Thing is, they set themselves in this situation by even giving the option of a sequel. All the endings are like that. Destroy wipes out geth and every sort of mechanical intelligence everywhere. Which means the defining conflict of Mass Effect (according to their own words) is GONE. Delve deeply enough into it, and it's not likely to feel like Mass Effect. Control means there is a god made flesh around, toting a fleet of reapers, to force everyone to conform, which pretty much nullifies Mass Effect style adventuring. Synthesis means every biological life form is part mechanical, and vice versa, and according to you, that's impossible to deal with.
So any way they go, they are set up to fail. Or, they could try to deal with it in some way, and allowing import/choice is not the worst idea.
And, Scott, as usual you are implying that I said or did something I didn't do. Don't do that. I was one of the few who thought the original endings were pretty decent.
You mean YOU consider it a no go. You have been spewing the line about synthesis being worse than rape since day one. Not everyone agrees with you.
I think that any discussion becomes useless when one side starts to use words like "spewing" to describe the opinion of the other side. And, yep, Synthesis is you (Shepard) forcing a non-consensual intrusion into the body of everyone and everything organic and synthetic in the entire galaxy. Galactorape.
I definitely got the impression from the game that players were 'supposed' to go with Synthesis, as it unifies machine and organic elements as the trilogy had been advocating all along (through the Geth/Quarian relationship, the tech-driven resurrection of Shepard and the relationship between Joker and EDI) and is the least destructive. The consent thing is troubling, though, but without further information it's hard to say how troubling it is (everyone's skin glows for a few hours and then they go back to looking normal, just with tons of nanobots or something floating around inside them?).
Mind you, they also sabotaged that by having Synthesis as the only one where Shepard 100% dies and Destroy as the only one where Shepard (apparently) survives as a human form the same he/she was before the events of ME3. I always took that to mean that each option has positives and negatives and no one is 100% right; 'Control' is apparently the weakest option, but even that has the Citadel surviving when the rest suggest it is destroyed.
If they are going to go with a sequel, or a successor, they can really only do one of two things: either a cop-out, in which the game takes place on an exploration ship lost in another galaxy out of range of the effects of the Catalyst, or pick an ending and go with it, which is going to further nullify the whole theme of choice in the original trilogy.
Personally I don't see why they just don't go with a prequel, set in the First Contact War or the 30-odd-years between it and the trilogy. One of the problems with a sequel is that they might be tempted to introduce a new threat even bigger and more dangerous than the Reapers and go even more gonzoid in scale, which is really unnecessary.
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I always took that to mean that each option has positives and negatives and no one is 100% right;
As someone (a literatur professor) put it on the BioWare social forum: "All were thematically revolting".
I think it would have been much more in the spirit of the entire trilogy and especially the first two games if you could have earned yourself a "good" ending. One thing which defined Shepard prior to the horrible ending of ME3 was that s/he always managed to make a new option. Someone with far more eloquence than myself made a good stab at explaining how that could have been done in this essay here. Definitely worth a read, IMO.
Yes, sometimes it is good to see that there are people who can express your own ideas and wishes much better than oneself could. :)
Thing is, they set themselves in this situation by even giving the option of a sequel. All the endings are like that.
No, they're not.
Destroy wipes out geth and every sort of mechanical intelligence everywhere.
Only AIs. VIs are left intact.
Which means the defining conflict of Mass Effect (according to their own words) is GONE.
Synthetics vs. organics was one of the central conflicts of the original Mass Effect series. It's not the defining conflict of the universe.
Delve deeply enough into it, and it's not likely to feel like Mass Effect.
The absence of the Geth and Reapers isn't a huge deal. To give you an idea of how not-central they are to the universe, prior to the start of the first game neither of them were interacting with the rest of the galaxy at all.
Control means there is a god made flesh around, toting a fleet of reapers, to force everyone to conform, which pretty much nullifies Mass Effect style adventuring.
Which is why we probably won't see Control as the canon ending.
Synthesis means every biological life form is part mechanical, and vice versa, and according to you, that's impossible to deal with.
It's a concept that deserves to be treated with a level of detail that matches the dramatic scope of the change, and you can't do that feasibly without dedicating the game to it.
So any way they go, they are set up to fail.
No. Control will work fine.
Or, they could try to deal with it in some way, and allowing import/choice is not the worst idea.
It's a pretty bad idea.
And, Scott, as usual you are implying that I said or did something I didn't do. Don't do that. I was one of the few who thought the original endings were pretty decent.
My apologies.
I definitely got the impression from the game that players were 'supposed' to go with Synthesis,
I figured that the designers were giving tacit support to Destroy as the canon ending by virtue of the fact that it's the only one that allows Shepard to survive (if you worked hard enough).
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Nitpicking means you pretty much lost the argument.
VIs are not intelligences. They are just programs with sophisticated functions. No true sentience there.
To some, absence of Geth and the Reapers will be a huge deal. Mostly Geth. Do not equate what you feel like with what everyone else feels like.
Good. I don't want to have a GodShep pushing my character around.
Hopefully no syunthesis game either.
Control won't work fine. You will have a near omnipotent deity that will curbstomp you the moment you step out of line. Fun.
I agree. Import is a horrible idea.
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Well, there is some absurdist appeal to the idea that every time you screw up in the new game, a Reaper will land outside the building you're in, blow its Reaper horn and announce in the voice of Shepard that you are doing something wrong. :p
I always took that to mean that each option has positives and negatives and no one is 100% right;As someone (a literatur professor) put it on the BioWare social forum: "All were thematically revolting".
I think it would have been much more in the spirit of the entire trilogy and especially the first two games if you could have earned yourself a "good" ending. One thing which defined Shepard prior to the horrible ending of ME3 was that s/he always managed to make a new option. Someone with far more eloquence than myself made a good stab at explaining how that could have been done in this essay here. Definitely worth a read, IMO.
That second essay is the best thing I've read in months. When he describes how the ending could have been... Manly tear for what could've been.
More on topic, would people play a sequel based on the reject ending? A whole new group of races fighting off the reapers? Would people play a game without humans?
Maybe the humans could try doing what the Protheans did so there is a human PC... Conrad Verner, the last human, trying to save the galaxy.
I figured that the designers were giving tacit support to Destroy as the canon ending by virtue of the fact that it's the only one that allows Shepard to survive (if you worked hard enough).
Possibly, but then if Shepard isn't in the new series (which is the official word from BioWare), that shouldn't many any difference. I think Destroy only works if ME4 follows up on the argument that ME3 failed to let you make: that the Quarian/Geth alliance (if you managed to pull it off) and EDI's lack of interest in destroying organic life shows that coexistence is possible, so a future cycle of Reapers will not inevitably arise.
I do wonder if the Leviathans will play a key role in ME4. In the ME3 DLC they make it clear that they are only joining the alliance because the alternative is their own annihilation. With the Reapers gone or neutralised, the Leviathans have no reason to stay in hiding, and they make it clear that they consider all other races to be gnats who should be serving or worshipping them. That seems a ripe angle to explore in the sequels.
Nitpicking means you pretty much lost the argument.
That's not a nitpick. It's important to clarify that the vast majority of intelligent programs (whether "true" AIs or not) were not wiped out. In fact, since AIs were banned by the Council anyway, for the vast majority of the galaxy this changes nothing at all. They always assumed AIs didn't exist, and now they don't.
To some, absence of Geth and the Reapers will be a huge deal. Mostly Geth. Do not equate what you feel like with what everyone else feels like.
I'm not talking about the universe seeming the same to players. I'm talking about to people in the Mass Effect universe. Prior to the start of the game, no one really cared about either of those groups (save, the Migrant Fleet, obviously).
The universe shouldn't feel exactly the same to players. You don't want the game starting from the same place that the first series did. It needs to feel both familiar enough to be comforting to return to, while being different enough to be exciting. Destroy is the only ending that allows for that without requiring that the ramifications of the ending choice be reduced to near-meaninglessness.
Possibly, but then if Shepard isn't in the new series (which is the official word from BioWare), that shouldn't many any difference.
No, it shouldn't, you're right. I just figured that it was their acknowledgement that Destroy is the "good" ending. Even if that weren't the case, though, it's still far and away the cleanest choice.
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Destroy is the only ending that allows for that without requiring that the ramifications of the ending choice be reduced to near-meaninglessness.
Just another reason I disliked the endings of the trilogy. The more I read comments here and think about it myself, the more I hope the sequel takes place 4k years later.
Just another reason I disliked the endings of the trilogy. The more I read comments here and think about it myself, the more I hope the sequel takes place 4k years later.
Destroy is the only ending that allows for that without requiring that the ramifications of the ending choice be reduced to near-meaninglessness.
Where the galaxy would still be feeling the effects of Shepard's choices.
Well, at the very least I can give BioWare that they have the cojones to take one ending and stick to it. I had feared that they effectively had killed the future of their franchise with their prior stance of not wanting to invalidate the players individual endings and would try to make (meaningless to me) prequels. Good for them.
Well, at the very least I can give BioWare that they have the cojones to take one ending and stick to it. I had feared that they effectively had killed the future of their franchise with their prior stance of not wanting to invalidate the players individual endings and would try to make (meaningless to me) prequels. Good for them.
I'm of the same mind. I don't think they should just hand off ownership of their franchise to the player base like that. They'd be doing everyone a disservice. When you have a universe that's been hailed as the most important sci-fi world of our generation, it's kind of a tragedy to neuter it after a single trilogy of video games.
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if ME4 follows up on the argument that ME3 failed to let you make: that the Quarian/Geth alliance (if you managed to pull it off) and EDI's lack of interest in destroying organic life shows that coexistence is possible, so a future cycle of Reapers will not inevitably arise.
God now I'm angry about that again.
If I had to pick one, rooting for Control as long as Shepard is taking a hands-off approach. It says something when that was the least morally repugnant of all the options they gave us, but it also preserves the universe to the greatest degree(keeps the Relays, keeps the Geth an other synthetics, doesn't involve people sleeping with their toasters, etc.) while still changing the landscape.
And maybe actually do something with the Rachni while they're at it. >:C
Also, needs more yahg romance option.
It says something when that was the least morally repugnant of all the options they gave us, but it also preserves the universe to the greatest degree(keeps the Relays, keeps the Geth an other synthetics, doesn't involve people sleeping with their toasters, etc.)
But the toasters need some loving before they go to Silicon Heaven.
Why do you care if someone sleeps with their toaster??? Eh???
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Thinking on it some more and an earlier post:
If Control ending was what they went with, there would likely be numerous (possibly conflicting) cults of The Shepherd popping up throughout the galaxy.
If Shepard formed asari babby(see below), that child or other descendant would be a person of great interest to these religions, as a potential leader, tool, Justicar-like figure expected to live up to Shepard's legacy, etc.
Now how's that for a potential party member/player character? Or if there are multiple descendants, they could protagonists and antagonists along iwth bystanders caught in-between.
But what if your Shepard didn't hook up with Liara?
Well, remember how Liara does that mindmeld with you, no matter what? At first I thought it was a special thing because she was my main!Shep's romantic interest. But apparently she does it for everyone.
Remember how Asari reproduce? And remember how much Liara idolizes Shepard and wants to ensure that something of him/her endures?
But the toasters need some loving before they go to Silicon Heaven.
Why do you care if someone sleeps with their toaster??? Eh???
"It's always the quiet ones."[/namethatreference!]
So since it is a few years from the first game where she does that, either asari have veeeeeeeeeeeeery long pregnancies... or she has the baby during her hunt for the Shadow broker and never tells Shepard.......?
Mikaze is talking about the scene in the third game, where Liara does a mind-meld with Shepard, just before they start the final assault to get to the Beam of Suck.
But what if your Shepard didn't hook up with Liara?
Well, remember how Liara does that mindmeld with you, no matter what? At first I thought it was a special thing because she was my main!Shep's romantic interest. But apparently she does it for everyone.
I always interpreted that scene as even if you weren't romancing her she still had feelings for you, and at that point it is the gift she has left to give.
The absence of the Geth and Reapers isn't a huge deal. To give you an idea of how not-central they are to the universe, prior to the start of the first game neither of them were interacting with the rest of the galaxy at all.
The Reapers have had quite a lot of "interaction" with the universe prior to the start of the first game. :p
While the Geth aren't important, the absence of the Reapers kinda is. If the Catalyst is right, then Synthetics murdering all life in the universe is inevitable unless you murder all organics before it can happen.
Which really means that Synthesis is the only thing that actually works. Ignoring important questions like "how does 'turn organics into semi-synthetic beings' actually work?", "what is stopping semi-synthetic beings from building real synthetics that will inevitably murder them all?" and "am I the only one who think it's creepy how the toaster moans when I put a slice of bread in it?"
Of course, there's also the (fairly good) chance that the Catalyst is a total crackpot with no idea what it's talking about. Which makes the past umpteen instances of galaxy-wide genocide even more horrific (and anything but the 'Destroy' ending pretty terrible). The only things that really bother me about the original ending was how there's no option to go "dude, that makes no sense", and random space magic. That all this pointless mayhem was caused by a mad AI would have been a perfectly acceptable conclusion to the series.
IMHO.
The question is one of how to handle new concepts. Basically, there are three: Not use it, shape the use of it, and embrace it. Or, if you will, Destroy, Control and Synthesis. As it stands, organic species are creating mechanical servants, and the technology WILL spread. Some pretty great thinkers stood there before, and saw this exact problem, so long ago. They decided to use Control. It didn't work that well, did it? A godlike AI at the head of biomechanical reapers is what has been tried for millions of years. But maybe THIS TIME, it will work better, huh? If the reaper armada directly shapes policy everywhere, THEN the organic species will be safe from the pesky mechanicals, right?
Destroy is a pretty sad one, too. Your basic conclusion, given the means to shape the world to your thought, is "Nah. We can't ever deal with intelligence that is not biological, so f++* that. Everything was better just as it was. We should never change at all, better the mechanicals just die so we won't have to adapt."
Regarding synthesis: From what little we see, there is no profound, immediate change of FUNCTION from this hybridization. And regarding consent... you're not getting consent from anyone for anything you choose, but if you really want to discuss consent, I would say having been given leadership of the majority of the military forces available to each of the intelligent species of the galaxy is a pretty strong vote of confidence.
And yes, the alternative that you could ignore the Catalyst and defeat the reapers, making a better world based on the convictions that different people can live in peace, that should be there too. Given just a little while, however, I'd say that's smack dab what Synthesis will mean.
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There have been a number of ME games for mobile devices which didn't use Sheppard. I've got one - you basically play a rogue agent of the Illusive Man, but given the limits of the system it's basically a first-person shooter with limited character development (more so than the "main" ME games). My suspicion is that a ME "sequel" will probably, like this one, be set roughly contemporaneously with Sheppard but cover some other aspect - possibly parallel, possibly not. After all, it would be risky (commercially) to move the timeline so much as to make the setting moot (and all the visuals and so on which go with it) and dealing with the various complications of the different endings (which were controversial in themselves) could alienate fans who like to discuss these sorts of things. So my intuition (for what it is worth, which isn't much) is that you will find the game deals with maybe a parallel plotline to Sheppard, but won't actually change the outcome of the Sheppard trilogy directly. Personally, I also think that would be the correct way to do it - I'm not really interested in thousands of years hence as I'm quite invested in the current setting, I like shooting up Cerberus agents and Geth with a little bit of plot injected between fights. The "epic finale" aspect to the ME trilogy wasn't very well handled (it's so difficult to really get right in any setting, there is always the inevitable anti-climax) so something a bit lower key might work better.
The Reapers have had quite a lot of "interaction" with the universe prior to the start of the first game. :p
Certainly, but on the order of once per every few dozen millennia. In that respect, we ought to expect the next few games in the series to be absent of them even if they had merely retreated into dark space once more.
While the Geth aren't important, the absence of the Reapers kinda is. If the Catalyst is right, then Synthetics murdering all life in the universe is inevitable unless you murder all organics before it can happen.
I think one of the central arguments of the main series is that the Catalyst isn't necessarily right, and is more accurately guilty of a zealous overabundance of caution.
Of course, there's also the (fairly good) chance that the Catalyst is a total crackpot with no idea what it's talking about. Which makes the past umpteen instances of galaxy-wide genocide even more horrific (and anything but the 'Destroy' ending pretty terrible). The only things that really bother me about the original ending was how there's no option to go "dude, that makes no sense", and random space magic. That all this pointless mayhem was caused by a mad AI would have been a perfectly acceptable conclusion to the series.
...but that is the conclusion. From Shepard's point of view, at least, it's more than possible to have fostered a (shaky) peace between organics and synthetics. This outcome makes the Catalyst look less like a galactic protector in the form of a necessary evil and more like a terrible mistake created by a paranoid people. The point, however, is that regardless of what Shepard thinks about the Catalyst's existence, it's still the only way of stopping the Reapers. (Notably, the extended version of the ending provided a fourth ending option where you shoot the Catalyst and watch the Reapers annihilate civilization again.)
...but that is the conclusion. From Shepard's point of view, at least, it's more than possible to have fostered a (shaky) peace between organics and synthetics. This outcome makes the Catalyst look less like a galactic protector in the form of a necessary evil and more like a terrible mistake created by a paranoid people. The point, however, is that regardless of what Shepard thinks about the Catalyst's existence, it's still the only way of stopping the Reapers. (Notably, the extended version of the ending provided a fourth ending option where you shoot the Catalyst and watch the Reapers annihilate civilization again.)
Well, it was my conclusion based on the events of the games and what the Catalyst had to say, but I never got the sense from the actual conversation at the end that it was a conclusion I was supposed to reach, and Shepard didn't have any dialogue options (that I found, I only bothered with that long dreg of a walk three times) that really challenged the Catalyst's explanation.
But as I've said elsewhere, I don't really have an issue with the three possible endings (I mean, I think the space magic was kinda dumb, but that alone doesn't really hurt my opinion of the series as a whole). What I take issue with, is the Plot Exposition at the end, and how little sense it makes compared to roughly everything that has happened in game previously. If the writers meant for me to go "wait, that doesn't make any sense at all" they failed to get that across. Instead, they managed to make me sit back with the sense that whoever wrote the ending never actually played any of the games.
To me, it is at best an issue of failed communication, and at worst an issue of someone changing their mind about the main theme of the series in the last 10 minutes of it (or, even worse, not realizing that the series had a different message up 'till this point).
I don't really care which is true. At the end of the day I just can't be bothered with the series after that (I will, however, continue to play the heck out of ME3 multiplayer).
There are four possible endings...
Yeah, but I don't seem basing a sequel on the, "Shepard falls, everybody dies," ending that wasn't even in the original game ;)
That ME3 ending will haunt us forever maybe.
I'll refrain from expounding at length again about how much I hate the whole fiasco of the endings, because I am incredibly frustrated this evening anyway. No need to add to it.
There are four possible endings...
We were specifically discussing the original release of ME3.
I didn't notice that we were.
Hence the clarification.