Mass Effect 3

[Kraus]

Launch Trailer

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

I'm about to launch the reaper IFF mission in ME2 in my "one year anniversary" game.

Renegade female Shep (with soft spots for Tali and Liara). Trying to save all the crew this time.

I have really enjoyed playing through again. Love this trilogy and will miss Shepherd greatly.

Who did you lose? Was it due to loyalty or choosing characters that weren't quite fit for their roles (using Jacob as the biotic shield rather than Jack or Samara)?

First time I played the suicide mission through I lost Legion, Zaeed, and Garrus and dog cussed myself mercilessly.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Pro-tip:

No matter what your alignment, when you are on the Normandy and are put at the point of no return for the Omega 4 mission and you are shown at the Galaxy map from a low angle, choose the Renegade dialogue option. It's the best line in the entire series, IMO.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Who did you lose? Was it due to loyalty or choosing characters that weren't quite fit for their roles (using Jacob as the biotic shield rather than Jack or Samara)?

First time I played the suicide mission through I lost Legion, Zaeed, and Garrus and dog cussed myself mercilessly.

Oh, I'm talking about the nobodies that man the ship. I didn't realize that jacking around with extra stuff before the suicide mission prevented me from saving Ensign Chambers and etc.

I made it through the suicide mission unscathed (got lucky in assigning people the right roles).

Oh, and I'm romancing Liara this time around. Girl on blue girl action.

Legion is awesome. Does a nice job of putting a sentient face on the robots.

I made it to a second round of interviews as a writer with Bioware about 5 years ago. That would have been a load of fun.

[Pants]

ME1 will always be #1 for me. Shit, it's probably my 2nd most enjoyable single player experience of all time (the first being KOTOR, of course).

Sure, looking back at it, the gameplay was a little clunky. The story was so engrossing, though, that it made the clunky gameplay completely irrelevant. I didn't notice any of it when I was trying to discover WTF were these Protheans and what in the world were the Reapers all about. I sure as **** didn't notice it as I was exploring the Citadel and all the planets, getting every sidequest and listening to every possible bit of dialogue in the game.

I remember sitting there completely mind-blown while listening to or reading the codex entries. Every little detail was explained with such elegance. The universe was fleshed out to the fullest. I had my own goddamn space ship. With a goddamn Galaxy map. I could go and explore all these different planets. Holy shit the dialogue was amazing... Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that ME1 was a true masterpiece as far as I'm concerned. Don't get me wrong, I think the next two installments certainly lived up to the standard but never completely captured that perfect ME1 essence.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

Oh, I'm talking about the nobodies that man the ship. I didn't realize that jacking around with extra stuff before the suicide mission prevented me from saving Ensign Chambers and etc.

I made it through the suicide mission unscathed (got lucky in assigning people the right roles).

Oh, and I'm romancing Liara this time around. Girl on blue girl action.

Legion is awesome. Does a nice job of putting a sentient face on the robots.

I made it to a second round of interviews as a writer with Bioware about 5 years ago. That would have been a load of fun.

I didn't know that you wrote. I've thought about applying there, but given that I don't have the technical credentials (no MFA in creative writing and I've never attempted to send off creative works for publication) I figured it would go nowhere, even though I have an advanced degree in English.

Edit: I also can't *not* romance Liara. Romanced Ashley on the first playthrough, but she was a little too much of a culture warrior for my tastes. Besides, I love Liara's bookish shyness in the beginning and her development from girl to woman (which you can even notice in the pitch of her voice from 1 to 3).

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Pants

ME1 will always be #1 for me. Shit, it's probably my 2nd most enjoyable single player experience of all time (the first being KOTOR, of course).

Sure, looking back at it, the gameplay was a little clunky. The story was so engrossing, though, that it made the clunky gameplay completely irrelevant. I didn't notice any of it when I was trying to discover WTF were these Protheans and what in the world were the Reapers all about. I sure as **** didn't notice it as I was exploring the Citadel and all the planets, getting every sidequest and listening to every possible bit of dialogue in the game.

I remember sitting there completely mind-blown while listening to or reading the codex entries. Every little detail was explained with such elegance. The universe was fleshed out to the fullest. I had my own goddamn space ship. With a goddamn Galaxy map. I could go and explore all these different planets. Holy shit the dialogue was amazing... Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that ME1 was a true masterpiece as far as I'm concerned. Don't get me wrong, I think the next two installments certainly lived up to the standard but never completely captured that perfect ME1 essence.

I definitely understand and empathize with this sentiment. ME was nevw and as novel as a space opera gets. Aside from the gameplay, I love the latter part of the second and early third act of ME 3, when you see Shepard plugging away but slowly deteriorating (mentions of metabolic scans on his armor showing tremendous stress) under the, literal, galactic weight of his/her burden.

The codex entries are definitely worth reading all on their own.

I've thought about buying Karpyshyn's (sp?) novels, but never actually pulled the trigger.

As an aside, I find myself wasting too much brainpower considering how Ender Wiggin would have fought the Reapers, because, goddamn, do I hate deus ex machina.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

I definitely understand and empathize with this sentiment. ME was nevw and as novel as a space opera gets. Aside from the gameplay, I love the latter part of the second and early third act of ME 3, when you see Shepard plugging away but slowly deteriorating (mentions of metabolic scans on his armor showing tremendous stress) under the, literal, galactic weight of his/her burden.

Have you seen the theory that BioWare's original plan was to have the Reapers win? As I understand it, they made the ending way more ambiguous but it can still be construed as Reaper victory. In order for it to work, you only have to consider the possibility that everything taking place after London was all in Shepard's indoctrinated mind. The notion is rather unappealing to me (as it probably is to the rest of the stupid masses) but the evidence is out there and is pretty convincing.

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

The codex entries are definitely worth reading all on their own.

I've thought about buying Karpyshyn's (sp?) novels, but never actually pulled the trigger.

As an aside, I find myself wasting too much brainpower considering how Ender Wiggin would have fought the Reapers, because, goddamn, do I hate deus ex machina.

Is that a double entendre? Haha.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by Pants

Have you seen the theory that BioWare's original plan was to have the Reapers win? As I understand it, they made the ending way more ambiguous but it can still be construed as Reaper victory. In order for it to work, you only have to consider the possibility that everything taking place after London was all in Shepard's indoctrinated mind. The notion is rather unappealing to me (as it probably is to the rest of the stupid masses) but the evidence is out there and is pretty convincing.



Is that a double entendre? Haha.

The indoctrination theme has been debunked by the updated ending of ME3. It was a really clever theory and I honestly wish they'd had the stones for that to be true.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

I definitely understand and empathize with this sentiment. ME was nevw and as novel as a space opera gets. Aside from the gameplay, I love the latter part of the second and early third act of ME 3, when you see Shepard plugging away but slowly deteriorating (mentions of metabolic scans on his armor showing tremendous stress) under the, literal, galactic weight of his/her burden.

The codex entries are definitely worth reading all on their own.

I've thought about buying Karpyshyn's (sp?) novels, but never actually pulled the trigger.

As an aside, I find myself wasting too much brainpower considering how Ender Wiggin would have fought the Reapers, because, goddamn, do I hate deus ex machina.

I think Ender's approach would have been much like renegade Shepherd's. Sacrificing. Relentless. Unwilling to yield.

I dabble with fiction as well but have never had the stones to submit anything of yet. I have a fantasy epic that I've been kicking around for a few years, marinating, etc. but have had trouble making consistent progress before stopping and restarting.

But writing for a video game? The way Bioware breaks it up is pretty cool. They have an overall creative director who is in charge of the outline of the story and the major plot points. They typically assign each writer to a few of each of the characters for their RPGs. Those writers will also handle individual missions and story arcs within the overall story.

Essentially, you end up writing a module, like you would for a pen and paper game.

I could definitely get down for that. But oh well...

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Here was my plan that I wrote up on the BioWare forums for how to engage them:

Send in a scout fleet to zoom by Earth, drawing fire but trying to pull off some ships in a chase to weaken a flank.

The next thing I would do is recommend targeting the entire opening salvo on a Reaper flank. Rather than distributing the fire all around, angle the ships in a way (you have 3 billion miles to figure your angles out if you use scout ships) that allows you to weaken their left or right, increasing your chances for a partial encirclement.

I'd hold back a small contingent of Forlorn Hope evenly taken from each species, save for the Volus and Elcor who are numerically too small, to go directly into the teeth of the Reaper fleet after their attention has been drawn to whichever flank we attacked. These ships would be armed with dozens of nuclear weapons that they would seed amongst the fleet, which would detonate within their lines, hopefully causing mass confusion and some damage. If they turn to address these massive explosions, the main force can try to further outmaneuver the main Reaper contingent, again fighting them in smaller groups with a numerical superiority.

I think that you have to fight the battle where you have, or could conceivably have, tactical advantages. We know that a single dreadnought cannot take down a Sovereign class Reaper. However, it may be fair to assume that a dreadnought would at least be an equal match for a Destroyer, provided that the dreadnought destroyed on Earth in a 1-1 matchup was a bit of an outlier.

If that's the case, I think that you could target and destroy a large number of their destroyers. That should help remove a lot of their tactical flexibility, as they are the true shock troops in their invasions and make up the numerical bulk of the fleet.

Avoid head to head matchups wherever possible.

IMO, ships escorting Hammer forces into London should drop thermobaric weapons a safe distance from Command FOB, but enough around the city to wipe out a large amount of the Reaper ground forces. Such a weapon wouldn't destroy the beam, but would likely incinerate all Reaper soldiers it came into contact with.

Infiltrators and Geth Hunters should act as paratroopers to try and make it to the beam first, as they have the element of surprise. Avoid direct contact and you may be able to slip in largely undetected.