The Mass Effect ending support group

Rian Johnson would be so proud.

Personally, both of those would have been worse. Sorry, but killing a Reaper Dreadnought, especially the leader of them, in a fight would have been ridiculous. Far worse than fighting the baby in ME2. And I actually liked how TIM, who’s greatest strength was his mind, was defeated in a debate aka a battle of the minds. Not to mention still have to deal with the Reapers afterward.
Not saying they couldn’t have done anything better, just disagree those two being the final bosses would’ve been just as bad if not worse.

I don't agree with that statement. There's plenty of great writing in ME2 and it's tied to its characters. Going after the Collectors, which are assumed to be related to the Reapers, is no less viable a narrative than "let's go Prothean relic hunting" which may or may not have anything to do with Reapers. The Beacon, as far as we know, in the 2000 years since the Asari found the Citadel and started exploring the Milky Way, could be the only Prothean artifact left intact that had anything to do with the Reapers and even so, trying to find anything as specific, left over by the Reaper cleanup of the previous cycle, that can be anywhere in the Milky Way, of which we've explored only 10% is such an improbability, that even if you introduced Javik in ME2 to guide Shepard, it would still be nearly impossible to find and a huge asspull. Not to mention, we're doing the plot for the Starforge we did in KotoR again.


I don't think that comparison is accurate. Also

I can safely say, there's nothing Star Trek about Mass Effect. Yes, there are star ships, space station and people visiting planets. That's the extent of similarities between ME and Star Trek. You might as well argue that Farscape is Star Trek, SG: Atlantis is Star Trek or even Firefly is Star Trek. The problem is with taking Shamus word at face value and parading it as objective fact. It isn't. I understand you hold it in high regard, you can like it very much, you can even consider it the one truth. But I see problems in Shamus' rational all over. It's not as full proof as you may think it is, but honestly, I don't have the time, nor the patience, to go through point by point in Shamus' huge diatribe to write all its problems in a forum post.


Yes. But ME3 changed that. Are you interested in everything Star Wars after TLJ ruined Luke? I'm not. I can't even bring myself to watch the Mandalorian. I use to play every Bioware game on launch, since 1998. Of course I was open to ME1. Every new Bioware game, with the exception of BG2, took place in a new setting, with a new cast. I had no problems with it. DA:O was a new setting with a new cast. And even ME2 did, pretty much, what BG2 did. But DA2 came along and it was a cheap franchise flip, ME3 destroyed its own setting, I was never interested in ToR, because it was a WoW clone, with blasters, DA:I was terrible, even as it was a step away from DA2, Andromeda was ... do I even need to talk about Andromeda and Anthem? If Bioware wants me as a fan, they need to at the very least undo the narrative flaws of ME3, if they intend to keep using that franchise and expect me to buy it.


Did it work for Andromeda? I don't think it did. And I don't expect it to be any better for Will Continue. You can, if you wish to be such an optimist, but I'm not and I don't. ME3 did what TLJ or GoT season 8 did for their respective franchises. I am just not interested in these franchises, unless ME3 is explicitly changed, retconned out, or undone through a sequel. I don't understand how that is such a difficult thing to understand.

Let's say you have a friend. One day, that friend beats you up. No reason. Straight up sends you to the hospital. When you get out of the hospital, that same friend calls you up and tells you to go for beers, like nothing happened. Do you go out with that guy? I wouldn't. First of all, that friend would have to do impossible things to get me to forgive him and even if we ever do go out for beers again, our relationship is forever changed. Pre-ME3 and Post-ME3 are two different things. Similarly, pre-TLJ and post-TLJ Star Wars are two different things. I am not a consumer of Star Wars after it and I will not be, until TLJ is completely taken back and erased from canon. Better yet, the entire sequel trilogy.


I didn't claim otherwise. But right now, or rather, as of yet, that is likely to change soon, MCU is still the biggest movie property, especially after the devaluation of Star Wars.

So it was better to talk with dumb, dumb, the one who controls the reapers, the one telling Shepard what choices he/she will have to end the reapers? I would say fighting Harbinger would be better. The only hard part is how to get inside the reaper to destroy it. I would have all squadmates, counting the one's from ME2. Before I continue, one thing I would add, is while Shepard and squad are on the derelict reaper in ME2, hologram edi is scanning the reaper. In ME3, those scans are used to find a way into Harbinger to get  to it's drive core to be destroyed. Once onboard, Shepard breaks up the squad into 3 teams. The player can choose who will lead two of the three teams. If ems is high enough, and enough squadmates survived ME2/3, Shepard and squad could survive.

The problem with that is he was being controlled by Leviathan Junior. It was trying to convince Shepard control is the way to go knowing it will never happen because it controls TIM. Look at what happened with the protheans. Thing indoctrinated a group of protheans wanting to control the reapers. The project ended up being sabotaged.

"I don't agree with that statement. There's plenty of great writing in ME2 and it's tied to its characters. Going after the Collectors, which are assumed to be related to the Reapers, is no less viable a narrative than "let's go Prothean relic hunting" which may or may not have anything to do with Reapers. The Beacon, as far as we know, in the 2000 years since the Asari found the Citadel and started exploring the Milky Way, could be the only Prothean artifact left intact that had anything to do with the Reapers and even so, trying to find anything as specific, left over by the Reaper cleanup of the previous cycle, that can be anywhere in the Milky Way, of which we've explored only 10% is such an improbability, that even if you introduced Javik in ME2 to guide Shepard, it would still be nearly impossible to find and a huge asspull. Not to mention, we're doing the plot for the Starforge we did in KotoR again."

Re-entry, is nonsense, Lazarus is nonsense. The Collectors knowing the exact pinpoint location of the SR1 despite just having left Warp 30 seconds ago, and the Stealth System being engaged, is total nonsense. I can go all all day pointing out all the absolute gibbering nonsense that makes up the plot of ME2 good sir. It being simply related to the Reapers abstractly is not a valid counter when the issues is the quality of the writing. 

You could even argue we’ve changed genres. Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 feel about as different as Star Trek the Motion Picture and Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Re-read that again, carefully, because your response was wholly irrelevant to this point, and in fact resembled a knee-jerk reaction. You say Shamus has flawed logic, but his analysis is based upon the logical flow of the story where we started. You simply don't care about the overarching story, and thus see no merit in the argument. This is not a viable counter for the logic presented. 

 "Did it work for Andromeda? I don't think it did."

Of course it didn't, but the bad characters aren't the sole reason why Andromeda failed, and you know it. Andromeda was poorly thought out in almost every way except combat. The tone of the writing is all wrong, feeling more like a teenage road trip than a serious survival situation. This alone does as much damage than the characters. The entire scripted had been Jossified for the worse.

The real irony is that your still not able to comprehend how analysis works. 

So did we all, when we watched the Borg episode.

I don't know man. I'm tired of this argument.
Yeah, they're different. Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 are different, as well. That's not even an argument, if that's the kind of argument you want to make.


Again, you're right, that's not the only problem and I never said it was. Customer base interest and game quality are two different things, though. Planescape: Torment, back in the day, was the best RPG only 500k people played. Everyone has a right to be interested in whatever they want, regardless of how a good or bad the end product may be.

What I meant is that there is nothing unique to Trek that can only be found in Mass Effect. If Trek is so influential that almost every other Sci-Fi property that involves getting a ship, going planet to planet and occasionally banging an alien is so common place, then it isn't that much about a unique Trek feel. In the same sense, ME2 is also Trek, just as much as ME1. Even the portion that you scan a planet, go down and investigate an anomaly, is also present in ME2 and even ME3. The only thing that is somewhat unique to ME1, of the three first games, is running around in a buggy, which was only done in Nemesis, if I recall correctly, possibly the worst of the Trek movies. Although Generations was hard to top.

That's a take I can follow.

For me, the Trek in Mass Effect is everywhere. Explore, seek out new life and new civilizations. Have sex with them. Possibly get put into a death match for honor or your second-in-command's wacky sex drive.

The only thing really missing, I mean reeeeally missing, is the Prime Directive.

BOLDLY BANG WHAT NO MAN HAS BANGED BEFORE!

I mean, I think it's very Trek-ish. It's a game that follows Trek's basic formula. Walk around the ship and talk to people, the very core of what Trek is. It is also the core of ME's narrative content. Hell ME1 even had the Staff meetings that TOS and TNG did where everyone sits around in a circle giving their opinions. 

No. The Borg weren't written badly. They were a collective of technorganic races, assimilated into furthering their cause of total assimilation. Their capability to process information, adapt to other technologies and perfectionism was umatched. And, therefore, so was their technological advancement. Think of them as a self-improving AI with trillions of drones. Processing power greater than the most advanced computer, all connected and then think of all that processing power being funneled into, say shield optimization, or structural integrity, or warp engines. What humans required centuries of refinement to achieve in warp travel, the Borg did in a few years. Similarly, the Collectors where or Reaper make and had access to everything related to Mass Effect technology. Stealth drive or not, the moment the Normandy jumped out of FTL to investigate that fake signal, the Collectors could detect them and could be on top of them in an instant. It was a trap!