Everything Wrong With Mass Effect 3 Redux by GCN

 What's the "another option" you have in mind?

Not a bad list, but some of these strike me as being fairly expensive.  I don't see how the ME3 budget could ever have been much bigger than it was and still get approved.

This option that posted a few years ago in a thread I created

Take away a couple of them, dlc for space hamster and working with Cerberus, the rest shouldn't be too bad depending on how they're added in the game.

Is this a serious question? That is bad writing. Period.

Ok. Now give me your thesis. Just saying this is bad writing is not evidence. This is just in opinion this is bad writing. 

Not to mention poor evidence, when one video is a joke video and you make no connection between the two other than it being bad writing.

See, the thing that I kind of have to point out is the council is not out of character in Mass Effect 2 between Mass Effect 1. 

When you actually look at the script and the words of the Council, they were always suspicious of Shepards Reaper claim and focused on the Saren threat as the top priority. Even with Sovereign in the Citadel mentioned by the Asari councilor, the issue we have is how washy the Council always was.  The scene in full in Mass Effect 2  where they argue the point is actually emblematic of their behavior for physical evidence in 1. (Minute 1:11 on)



Contrast this to both Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3. Notice how the Council always acts, very hesitantly, very cautiously, and honestly, kind of foolish because of their own self-interests, like the Turian councilor throughout.  





So, where is the bad writing when the characters on the council, if saved mind you, are consistent?

If it's a claim that they contradict the ending speech in 1 with dismissing the reapers in 2, part of the problem now is personal view of it being bad writing. Thats is subjective without much else to prove it other than opinion.

If were following that blog you posted as the guideline, I have one big issue with it, its that he never really gives a compelling argument to this point:

Mass Effect 1's tone was not necessarily always about knowledge and exploration, though it was a selling point of its design. That is basically thrown out the window on Eden Prime when Shepard IS set up as the 'chosen one' due to the Reaper beacon and the singular pursuit against Saren.

Exploration was a side-gig, almost an afterthought to the main narrative that lots of people did by driving with tank controls. In fact, when that became the primary theme was mostly in Andromeda of all games.

And one of the reasons I can say that is authorial intent. Developer interviews at the time more or less contradict that as being a primary theme. It is part of the design first, and all talk of exploration is tied directly to that. To quote Hudson specifically from IGN in 2007,



I feel the writer of the blog mistook the core themes and replaced it with their driving force of enjoyment. This is actually fine, but we should acknowledge authorial intent before we start projecting what we think the games are about, especially if were arguing facts.

So we can argue poor writing for a two year gap of events happening to make a 'status quo', but the issue at hand is this was the state BioWare wanted. They wanted someone special for their protagonist, and you kind of got that.

I fall along the lines of Gervais and his analysis here (minute 34:13) when he talks about 'seasons of a TV show' and 'Cerberus being the only game in town.' It's functional, but jarring, but also necessary due to time, cost and budget.





So yeah. This is why you make poor arguments honestly. 

"This is what the author wanted to do, therefor the writing makes total sense". I'm sorry that's not an argument. The author can be wrong about their decisions. Deciding they want to change something does not just automatically mean the change makes sense because that is what the author wants. You say the blog writer mistook the themes, but I counter that, because I don't think Bioware actually knew what themes they wanted. Because as you say, changes happen. As far as "author intent" regarding the first and second game? According to Shepards last line of dialogue, the author failed miserably. Shepard walks off saying their going to find a way to stop them. After that moment Shepard never spends another second actually trying to do that until ME3. Sure Shep stops them from harvesting colonies for now, but their not trying to stop them, overall. They are making no effort to actually find out anything about them. THAT is the story the ending of 1 clearly implies. To suggest otherwise is being intentionally difficult. 

Assuming that another squadmate can use the Virmire beacon without ending up like Manuel, of course. We don't know the percentage of people who can use a beacon without going nuts.

also 1 for Saren. He didn't go nuts, he just surrendered to despair.

Speaking of Conrad Verner, he's a complete childish and a retarded grown ass man. Why does he act like a child around people, and a massive hero worshipper of the main character in the worst way? This is why I despise the Hero Worship tropes on mature video games. Unless, he's a 8 year old child who wants to be a soldier of the Alliance when he grows up, and seeing Commander Shepard and wanted to be like him/her. That would be an entire different story if he was a kid.

With a PhD in black hole theory.....figure THAT shit out.

Conrad Verner was designed to be an in-joke playing on the common tropes of these games, sort of like Jenkins, who was also a play on the popular Leeroy Jenkins meme. I mean, dude dies a hilarious death in any of the games if you don’t complete the quests in either. 

Are they wrong, tho?

Joker cracked jokes and they didn't killed him off in the game. That is just a poor excuse to kill off a character because they're are a "gag character." If anything, they could've made him die in a heroic way, like sacrificing himself to save the colonists from a horde of Geth and mutated husks. Or died by saving a little girl from being mutilated from husks/indoctrinated humans.

But they have to kill him off to get a new character in their team. Which it was very stupid decision.