Mass Effect 3 Ending, opinions and feelings?

[DuneMuadDib]

Wouldn't have been hard to try if they didn't make the story completely focused on Shepard.

Hell, just staying consistent with the previous two games would have helped.

It wouldn't have been any problem at all really. Assign NPCs to various fronts on Earth just like assigning roles for the Suicide Mission. Make the War Assets actually show up in the fight, not just be a number to reach for what ending you reach. Hell, you could even have it so that you could assign some of the assets during the assault to affect how it worked.

Or just phone it in with "earn so many numbers to win" and shove Synthesis down gamers' throats.

 

[Wes R]

or they could have followed Drew's hard work he did creating the first two games and not throw out everything he wrote.

 

[Nwerke]

Funny?

Commander Shepard is Still Alive - YouTube

Sort of. More wistful I think.

 

[Jeyl]

Over at a Star Trek forum, I was doing my best to explain why I think making humanity the Reaper's enemy #1 was a big mistake, but every time I did I was always hit with the "humanity is special because we're so diverse in our genes! We are just so much better than all the other races in the galaxy!" Honestly, when writers put crap like that in, how am I supposed to get around it? Well, someone came in and brought up an interesting point.

"If humanity can offer so much for Reapers to turn into weapons, why do humans make the worst husks?"

Think about. What sounds scarrier? A Human Reaper lol) or an Ardat-Yakshi Reaper eek)?

 

[Wes R]

Sadly scifi has made humans so damned special all the time that people have actually bought into it. What i like about halo is that humanity has a chance to be special but they have to earn it and still get whooped all the time by other races. I found a contender for worst game i played this year up against ME3: Assassin's creed brotherhood.

 

[DuneMuadDib]

On the flip side, who in the general audience for movies or video games or whatever wants to see humans not be the center of attention? Can anyone honestly say that they'd be just as cool with Earth getting blown up in JJ-Trek and the heroes rushing to save Vulcan?

I think overall since we're all human (hopefully at any rate) we'll just emotionally connect more with human protagonists and protecting Earth than humans being unremarkable and protecting an alien world that's under attack because Earth "isn't worth attacking."

 

[Wes R]

True but it just seems like humanity's place as being special is just given to them. At least in the first Mass Effect you had to prove your worth but after that suddenly everything just landed in our lap.

 

[DuneMuadDib]

Shepard's just that good that s/he changed the galaxy's opinion of humanity single-handedly? :lol

ME2 the only thing that landed in my lap was a free ship. I had to go recruit 10 damned people, then fix their personal problems as well as the 2 who came with the ship before everyone could do their damn job properly and save the galaxy. At least in ME3 everyone was't too caught up with themselves to do the job.

 

[Jeyl]

I think overall since we're all human (hopefully at any rate) we'll just emotionally connect more with human protagonists and protecting Earth than humans being unremarkable and protecting an alien world that's under attack because Earth "isn't worth attacking."

Star Wars has no Earth, nor does it have any human centric planet that constantly needs saving. And despite the fact that our leading characters are human, they're a part of an Alliance that has various alien cultures who also serve as high ranking leaders. The Empire on the other hand is comprised of nothing but humans. The only time they work with any aliens is if they're bounty hunters, which even high ranking admirals will openly call them scum. Where does Star Wars rank on the "successful franchise" scale?

The issue with Mass Effect 3 in making it more Human/Earth focused is that it's out of character with the rest of series. Yes, Shepard is human, but where in the story does it say that it's because she is human that she was able to save the day? Why couldn't an Asari, Turian or even a Krogen do the things Shepard did? I don't recall the Prothean beacon being 'human specific' since Saren used it as well.

And just because Shepard is human also doesn't mean she has any allegiance to Earth either. Shepard has three origin paths to choose from. Space Born, Colony Born, or Earth Born. Two of which will never have Earth as her home. The Earth Born might work, until you look at what the description actually says:

"You were an orphan raised on the streets of the great megatropolises covering Earth. You escaped the life of petty crime and underworld gangs by enlisting with the Alliance military when you turned eighteen."

Earth doesn't really sound all that special when your own human hero joined the Alliance just to get away from it. It's kind of awkward that Earth seems to be the center stage of the Alliance Military even though previous games established that the Arcturus Station housed the Alliance Parliament.

 

[Jeyl]

But most importantly Dune, what makes the universe of Mass Effect unique compared to all the other scifi franchises? I can tell you it's not the Earth. Outside of Star Wars, if you're going to have humans in a science fiction story, Earth is almost guaranteed to be in it. How many other scifi franchises have the Asari, Krogen or Turian? Or for that matter...

Can anyone honestly say that they'd be just as cool with Earth getting blown up in JJ-Trek and the heroes rushing to save Vulcan?

Why not? Vulcan is a unique element to the Star Trek franchise that no other science fiction franchise has. Now that it's gone, the Star Trek universe just got a lot less special, especially since they're putting Earth in danger AGAIN for the third time in a row. Blowing up Earth I feel would also benefit Star Trek because than the mission of seeking out new life and new civilizations would have a much bigger importance. After all, the original series never dealt with their modern day Earth unless it involved traveling to the past. And with no Earth to save, the writers would actually have to 'work' in figuring out ways of trying to raise the stakes rather than rely on the the boring "Hey, the audience lives on Earth!" trope. It's cheap, unoriginal, boring and it's not what makes your franchise special.

 

[Jm419]

Why not? Vulcan is a unique element to the Star Trek franchise that no other science fiction franchise has. Now that it's gone, the Star Trek universe just got a lot less special, especially since they're putting Earth in danger AGAIN for the third time in a row. Blowing up Earth I feel would also benefit Star Trek because than the mission of seeking out new life and new civilizations would have a much bigger importance. After all, the original series never dealt with their modern day Earth unless it involved traveling to the past. And with no Earth to save, the writers would actually have to 'work' in figuring out ways of trying to raise the stakes rather than rely on the the boring "Hey, the audience lives on Earth!" trope. It's cheap, unoriginal, boring and it's not what makes your franchise special.

Actually, that sounds way better than what we got. I'd actually prefer that's what happened.

Wes, why the hate for Brotherhood? I really enjoyed it.

 

[DuneMuadDib]

Jeyl, what in the world does unique worlds have to do with writers being Earth-centic narcissists with their writing? The US has thousands of unique cities, it doesn't stop everything on tv being set in NYC. Trek '09 wasn't for the Trek fans, it was for people new to Trek or hadn't been fans of Trek before: people who don't care about Vulcan. Just because we as Trekkies gave a crap doesn't mean the wider view audience would.

Star Wars is the exception that I think proves the rule. There's no Earth to be the center of attention. How much Sci-Fi with interstellar travel is there that includes Earth that doesn't make Earth special for some reason?

I'm not sure why you're arguing exactly. I'm agreeing that it's lazy to always make Earth the most important planet, I'm merely positing WHY Earth is always the focal planet. We agree and you're arguing with me.