Mass Effect 3

[ATimson]

Mr Light wrote:

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Dumb question... I'm not on X-Box Live so I don't get DLC missions... do any of them take place after the ending or alter the ending in anyway? Do we have any canon hints to what happens afterwards?

The Extended Cut DLC obviously alters the ending. And From Ashes gives you another party member, so he'll have some extra dialogue before the end.

But beyond that? What LeadHead said.

[Reverend]

ATimson wrote:

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The Extended Cut DLC obviously alters the ending. And From Ashes gives you another party member, so he'll have some extra dialogue before the end.

But beyond that? What LeadHead said.

I'll just add that the EC also gives something of a visual epilogue so you get more of a sense of what happens after the end than you did before. Not hugely insightful but it give you an idea as to where things are headed.

Oh and it also gives you an extra "choice" at the end, if you can call it that. If you're curious and not bothered about spoilers I'm sure there's a million gameplay videos on youtube you can check out.

[Mr Light]

I read the wikipedia page... so the Extended Cut basically changes "all FTL travel destroyed" to "the gates are only temporarily damaged"?

[The Mirrorball Man]

Mr Light wrote:

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I read the wikipedia page... so the Extended Cut basically changes "all FTL travel destroyed" to "the gates are only temporarily damaged"?

"All FTL travel destroyed" was just something that people came up with, it was not part of the original ending. The extended cut made explicit some things which were not spelled out before.

[Hartzilla2007]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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"All FTL travel destroyed" was just something that people came up with, it was not part of the original ending. The extended cut made explicit some things which were not spelled out before.

They came up with it becuase the Mass Relays exploded in the original cut scene. So it really wasn't them making something explicit they actually changed that.

[Reverend]

Mr Light wrote:

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I read the wikipedia page... so the Extended Cut basically changes "all FTL travel destroyed" to "the gates are only temporarily damaged"?

Yeah, but strictly speaking that wasn't a change as a clarification. The original ending didn't specifically depict what happened with the relays, just that the Charon relay went bang and the colourful space magic spread across the network.

Not saying that all the relays being destroyed wasn't a fair assumption given the way the cutscenes originally depicted thing, but from what I gather that wasn't the intent. As I said before, the original ending was obviously a rush job and that was hardly the only anomaly that the EC fixed. The fate of your two squadmates and the location of the Normandy leaps to mind.

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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"All FTL travel destroyed" was just something that people came up with, it was not part of the original ending. The extended cut made explicit some things which were not spelled out before.

The idea that *all* FTL was destroyed never made sense anyway. Even if the relays all went down, there were still plenty of ships that had FTL drives, they just couldn't get around anywhere near as quickly as the relays could.

The sticky point for me originally was that certain races were a *very* long way from home and getting back before the dextro-amino acid based rations ran out might be impossible.

[ATimson]

Reverend wrote:

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The idea that *all* FTL was destroyed never made sense anyway. Even if the relays all went down, there were still plenty of ships that had FTL drives, they just couldn't get around anywhere near as quickly as the relays could.

True, but it would certainly be an apocalyptic change. I don't remember the exact math, but IIRC "standard" FTL was about as fast as Voyager. When it takes 70 years to cross the galaxy, your galactic civilization is no longer tenable.

Reverend wrote:

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The sticky point for me originally was that certain races were a *very* long way from home and getting back before the dextro-amino acid based rations ran out might be impossible.

My understanding is that you have a one-in-four chance of any given planet evolving amino acids/sugars of the correct chirality (50/50 shot for each, you need both to match). Assuming that the chirality isn't influenced by some unknown property of local space, the odds seem decent that you'll find food within local FTL range.

In short, I don't think rations will be a problem as long as you have a working FTL ship.

[Reverend]

ATimson wrote:

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True, but it would certainly be an apocalyptic change. I don't remember the exact math, but IIRC "standard" FTL was about as fast as Voyager. When it takes 70 years to cross the galaxy, your galactic civilization is no longer tenable.

Over the long distances, sure, but what really holds a civilization together isn't the speed at which you can get around so much as the ability to communicate within it. With the QECs still up, people could still get messages out across any distance and depending on how intact the reapers left the com-buoy network, you only need one QEC to be in range to then patch into the conventional comm-net.

I'm not saying things would revert back to what they were. Clearly a *lot* would change politically and economically even if the relays never went down at all, but I can't see it plunging the galaxy into some new dark age.

Plus of course, what's a 70 year trip to an Asari or Krogan? A bit long sure, but not infeasible.

My understanding is that you have a one-in-four chance of any given planet evolving amino acids/sugars of the correct chirality (50/50 shot for each, you need both to match). Assuming that the chirality isn't influenced by some unknown property of local space, the odds seem decent that you'll find food within local FTL range.

In short, I don't think rations will be a problem as long as you have a working FTL ship.

I think it's a little more complicated than that. For one thing, we have no clue how well provisioned they fleet was when they set out, so we have no idea how long the existing supplies would last. Maybe there's a suitable planet withint range, or maybe the Quarian live-ships could produce enough to feed both themselves and the Turians, but what's the turn around on crop production? Even with heavy rationing would they be able to produce enough in time?

Of course it's all moot now, but at the time, the supply shortages seemed the biggest immediate problem if the fleets had indeed been stranded. That and the fact that for all we knew initially, the relays exploding had wiped out their home systems with them.

[Kadratis]

Last piece of DLC already? That's a shame. I suppose it's necessary because the game will be a year old when the DLC is released, in addition to all of the other projects BW has. Still Hard to believe it's been a whole year already.

[heavy lids]

Kadratis wrote:

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Last piece of DLC already? That's a shame. I suppose it's necessary because the game will be a year old when the DLC is released, in addition to all of the other projects BW has. Still Hard to believe it's been a whole year already.

I know. The new DLC seems interesting:

BioWare describes Citadel as "an emotional ride" featuring fan-favourite characters from the series. It will be "one final, sentimental journey with Commander Shepard and their squad".

"When a sinister conspiracy targets Commander Shepard, you and your team must uncover the truth, through battles and intrigue that range from the glamour of the Citadel's Wards to the top-secret Council Archives,"

I'm actually about to finish ME3 with female Shepard, so I think I'm going to wait until this is released. Then I'll beat ME3.

[Reverend]

^I'm in a similar situation with my infiltrator playthrough. Picked it up again last week after not touching it in months, managed to get from the Cerberus coup to the Thessia mission (doing Leviathan along the way) and was about to start it--with the intention of doing Omega after Horizon--when this new DLC was announced.

Now I think I'll wait since this DLC probably wouldn't fit very well in the latter third. Indeed, from what I gather, unlike other DLCs that unlocked right after the prologue missions, with this one you'll have to wait until *after* the Cerberus coup. Makes sense, based on the description, though I'm sure fans of Thane as a LI might feel a little short changed. Still, past experience has taught me to temper my expectations, especially when Bioware rave about how good they think it is.

Another little tidbit I found interesting; apparantly the Lancer AR mentioned in the MP DLC is to be the same Lancer from ME1, cooldown mechanic and all. One assumes that the design will just be a re-skinned Avenger.

[Jax]

Thank god I have a 3rd and final ME character in progress currently on ME2 so when I get to ME3 I can then play all this DLC my other 2 characters never got to play as part of the story.

[Kadratis]

I'm gonna have to start a new one myself! I have only played the trilogy as a renegade femShep. I've had no interest in playing manShep in 2 and 3 until recently. That way I'll also experience the paragon side of things. I'll be out of work/school for a week when it's released too!

[Mr Light]

I thought the point of the final scene, as I struggle to remember from a year ago, was an old man telling a child about the legend of the time when there was travel among the stars.

[heavy lids]

I've done a Paragon Male Shepard, current playing Paragon FemShep, and I'll probably do a third playthrough as a renegade MaleShep. I kind of want to play the game and be an asshole to everyone.