Mass Effect (1)

[John Clark]

My primary Shep was probably mostly paragon, but I made a few of the harsher choices as it fit this particular Shep. A few of those renegade actions may have been "combat" related, but were not the only ones I made that way.

One I made that the character would regret but seemed to be the right decision at the time was on Mordin's loyalty mission on 2. I'm not going to go back and change it for a perfect ending though.

I am currently gameplaying a Shep throughout all 3 to see if I can minimise the EMS as much as possible. Zero would be great, but I don't think it's going to be doable

 

[Ood Sigma]

Just as an update, I'm basically s.o.l. I copied to the flash drive, no luck. Started a new game and that one shows up just fine. I think my last save got corrupted due to the crappy flash drive I have. Even though there's 800k of data in that career it's just not recognizing it. So I started over. About 2 hours in and just finished the first trip to the citadel. Think I'm going to go get Javik next. Seems to be going faster as I skip through the dialog. Hopefully in a couple weeks I can get back to where I was.

 

[TheGodBen]

Man, that's awful. I was really interested in hearing your opinion on the endings. Hopefully you can still enjoy the game as you replay it and not resent the fact that it ate youe save.

When I designed her I came up with some basic personality traits and have since fleshed it out over the course of the games into a character I'm very familiar with. I never think "should i pick the paragon or reneagde option", I think "what would she say"? Indeed, I know her so well by this point I barely have to think it and just shoot from the hip.

Yeah, I have a complex relationship with my main Shep. It's like a part of him is an extension of me, but he's clearly a different person. I know him, and I know how he'd react, yet I'm also the one controlling him and deciding those actions. I suppose that must be how writers and actors feel.

As you said, I don't make decisions based on paragon and renegade concerns, I just act like how I imagine the character would, and what I think Shep thinks will lead to the best outcome. Sometimes I screw up and people die, war assets are lost, but that makes the times I make the right call even sweeter. Losing Thane because I made a bad decision during the suicide mission felt crappy, but making it out of there with everyone else alive felt amazing! Not to mention how vindicated I felt when I found out that handing the Collector base over to Cerberus meant you got 10 more war asset points than destroying it.

 

[Reverend]

Sorry to hear that Ood! This is why I generally have TONS of saves for all of my Shepards, Hawkes and Wardens. Generally I save right at the start of a mission, again as soon as I get back to the hub (Normandy/home/campsite) and at any point I think something significant is about to happen (romance decision, funny/memorable character moment, point-of-no-return etc.) I also quick save after every firefight and right before every conversation just in case. It's saved my arse dozens of times over the years!

As you said, I don't make decisions based on paragon and renegade concerns, I just act like how I imagine the character would, and what I think Shep thinks will lead to the best outcome. Sometimes I screw up and people die, war assets are lost, but that makes the times I make the right call even sweeter. Losing Thane because I made a bad decision during the suicide mission felt crappy, but making it out of there with everyone else alive felt amazing! Not to mention how vindicated I felt when I found out that handing the Collector base over to Cerberus meant you got 10 more war asset points than destroying it.

Yeah and those ten extra points really make a *huge* difference!

I am currently gameplaying a Shep throughout all 3 to see if I can minimise the EMS as much as possible. Zero would be great, but I don't think it's going to be doable

I'm actually planning a complete trilogy playthrough right now, in which I intend to get as many people killed as possible.

Spoiler: ME3 ending

That is, without picking the "refuse" ending, because that's just cheating. I figured out how to get just about every squadmate killed except James, Liara & Javik. I know two of them can die in the beam run if I have a low enough EMS, but I don't know how low it needs to be and if it precludes the "destroy" ending being available. If it does then I can't kill EDI. I suppose I could leave Javik in stasis, but that feels like a cop out. Suggestions?

 

[ATimson]

I'm actually planning a complete trilogy playthrough right now, in which I intend to get as many people killed as possible.

Spoiler: ME3 ending

That is, without picking the "refuse" ending, because that's just cheating. I figured out how to get just about every squadmate killed except James, Liara & Javik. I know two of them can die in the beam run if I have a low enough EMS, but I don't know how low it needs to be and if it precludes the "destroy" ending being available. If it does then I can't kill EDI. I suppose I could leave Javik in stasis, but that feels like a cop out. Suggestions?

Spoiler: ending

My understanding is that destroy is always available.

As for leaving Javik in stasis... to pull this off, are you going to be getting both Kasumi and Zaeed? If you leave either one of them out, no reason you can't do the same with Javik. After all, he's supposedly not core content...

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Not to mention how vindicated I felt when I found out that handing the Collector base over to Cerberus meant you got 10 more war asset points than destroying it.

Not as much fun as the feeling of vindication that I got from not handing it over when you find out that that evil organization [that creates biotic death camps, kills admirals who ask to many questions experiment on husks (even as far back as Mass Effect), Thorian Creepers, and Rachni and generally makes a mess I have to clean up not to mention killing innocent researchers because of their idiocy, and is responsible for Overlord (My personal point for realizing that Shepard is working with the devil in Mass Effect 2)] is working with the Reapers in Mass Effect 3 and that by giving them the base you made sure the Reapers have it back.

Plus after my most recent play through of Mass Effect where I did what I think was all of the Cerberus related missions. My Shepard as of Mass Effect 2 is a dotting the strategy of screwing over Cerberus as long as the mission isn't negatively whenever possible so blowing up the base this time will be all the sweeter

But, seriously why does giving Cerberus stuff in Mass Effect 3 help you their one of the major enemies if anything renegades should be screwed over.

Besides 10 more war assets aren't really worth it in the long run seeing as I probably get some better goodies from other choices I made in the previous games that would totally cancel out the bad fallout of that decision and then some, like the continued existence of a really powerful Asari dreadnought who's captain might want a little pay back.

 

[John Clark]

I'm actually planning a complete trilogy playthrough right now, in which I intend to get as many people killed as possible.

Spoiler: ME3 ending

That is, without picking the "refuse" ending, because that's just cheating. I figured out how to get just about every squadmate killed except James, Liara & Javik. I know two of them can die in the beam run if I have a low enough EMS, but I don't know how low it needs to be and if it precludes the "destroy" ending being available. If it does then I can't kill EDI. I suppose I could leave Javik in stasis, but that feels like a cop out. Suggestions?

It should be doable.

Pre-EC if you had less than 1750EMS and picked destroy then it should have been workable as from what I've heard:-

Spoiler: Spoilers

Earth survived, but it didn't look like much of the way of life did.
The Normandy crashed and Joker didn't come out. (Don't know if that's been changed for the EC).
Javik also apparently mentions dieing at some point if you don't talk him out of looking at his memory shard. - You probably won't see if him do anything, but if the Normandy crashes with no survivors?

I don't know if any of that has been changed by the EC though

 

[Ood Sigma]

I do save frequently, but for some reason my entire career got hosed. And xbox won't even let you copy the career, you can only move or delete it, so you can only ever have one copy in existence. Sucks.

 

[TheGodBen]

*snip*

"Wah wah wah!" 110 > 100. I was right and you were wrong. Saving the base was, overall, beneficial to the war effort even if only by an absurdly small amount. Just accept it like a big boy, like I have had to do many, many times with my choices.

Spoiler: ending

My understanding is that destroy is always available.

Spoiler: final choice

It depends on the choice you made at the end of ME2. If you destroyed the Collector base then only destroy will be available, but if you chose to take control of the base then only control will be available.

The low EMS destroy ending causes he relays to explode, which will wipe out most life in the galaxy (according to the catalyst). The low EMS control ending just causes the relays to be damaged like in the other endings, and doesn't wipe out most life in the galaxy. This is yet another example of how taking control of the Collector base was the right choice.

 

[Reverend]

I do save frequently, but for some reason my entire career got hosed. And xbox won't even let you copy the career, you can only move or delete it, so you can only ever have one copy in existence. Sucks.

Well in that case have you tried sticking the thumb drive into your PC and delete only the most recent save file?

When modding ME2 saves I noticed that there is no file specifically for career information, the game just gets it from whichever save is the most recent. So if that one is corrupted, then it might explain why the career isn't even showing up and so deleting the corrupt one should make the game look at the next most recent (hopefully not corrupted) and your career should be visible again.

A long shot, but worth a try I think.

I'm actually planning a complete trilogy playthrough right now, in which I intend to get as many people killed as possible.

Spoiler: ME3 ending

That is, without picking the "refuse" ending, because that's just cheating. I figured out how to get just about every squadmate killed except James, Liara & Javik. I know two of them can die in the beam run if I have a low enough EMS, but I don't know how low it needs to be and if it precludes the "destroy" ending being available. If it does then I can't kill EDI. I suppose I could leave Javik in stasis, but that feels like a cop out. Suggestions?

Spoiler: ending

My understanding is that destroy is always available.

As for leaving Javik in stasis... to pull this off, are you going to be getting both Kasumi and Zaeed? If you leave either one of them out, no reason you can't do the same with Javik. After all, he's supposedly not core content...

Spoiler: ME3 endings

I did plan of recruiting Kasumi & Zaeed, yes. I've worked out it'll be pretty easy to get them killed and save those who I can easily kill later in ME3.

Part of the purpose of this is to try and see just how many familiar voices I can get in the dreams and how many slides I can get to appear in the EC, so leaving Javik in the tube won't add to that. I'm inclined to leave Liara as the sole survivor if can't get them all.

I'm actually planning a complete trilogy playthrough right now, in which I intend to get as many people killed as possible.

Spoiler: ME3 ending

That is, without picking the "refuse" ending, because that's just cheating. I figured out how to get just about every squadmate killed except James, Liara & Javik. I know two of them can die in the beam run if I have a low enough EMS, but I don't know how low it needs to be and if it precludes the "destroy" ending being available. If it does then I can't kill EDI. I suppose I could leave Javik in stasis, but that feels like a cop out. Suggestions?

It should be doable.

Pre-EC if you had less than 1750EMS and picked destroy then it should have been workable as from what I've heard:-

Spoiler: Spoilers

Earth survived, but it didn't look like much of the way of life did.
The Normandy crashed and Joker didn't come out. (Don't know if that's been changed for the EC).
Javik also apparently mentions dieing at some point if you don't talk him out of looking at his memory shard. - You probably won't see if him do anything, but if the Normandy crashes with no survivors?

I don't know if any of that has been changed by the EC though

Spoiler: ME3 Endings

That's a point. If I go the low EMS route then I probably won't get the memorial scene will I? So assuming I want to see how few are left then I'll have to either get high EMS or pick control, which means EDI survives too...
Bugger. Mass homicide just ain't as easy as it used to be!

 

[TheGodBen]

When modding ME2 saves I noticed that there is no file specifically for career information, the game just gets it from whichever save is the most recent. So if that one is corrupted, then it might explain why the career isn't even showing up and so deleting the corrupt one should make the game look at the next most recent (hopefully not corrupted) and your career should be visible again.

Is that possible with Xbox saves? Saves on Xbox are stored in a single career file, you can't access individual saves from the system menu to delete them. I suppose it's possible to transfer that career file to a PC and use some third-party software made by fans to modify the career file, but I don't know enough about that sort of thing to know if that's the case.

 

[Ood Sigma]

I have not tried putting the flash drive in my PC. I assumed that when the XBox formats the drive, it's in some proprietary format that PCs can't read (at least, not without special software, which I am led to believe do exist). So I never even tried it. I may give it a whirl to see if it's possible. My most recent manual save (other than my last one) was just before the Cerberus base, so I'd really only have to replay that mission.

I'm a little wary about using special software to modify my saves, but I don't think it's possible to screw it up more than it already is. I also don't know if it's considered legal or not.

 

[Reverend]

I admit I have no idea how things work on the Xbox, but I do know that xbox saves are moddable because Gibbed's ME3 save editor has a drop down option for '.xbsav' as well as '.pcsav'. It's at least worth a quick look.

As for it being legal. Of course it's legal, it's your data, you can do what you want with it. The worst that can happen is you get banned from MP and only then if you're fiddling with the .ini files to cheat.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

*snip*

"Wah wah wah!" 110 > 100. I was right and you were wrong. Saving the base was, overall, beneficial to the war effort even if only by an absurdly small amount. Just accept it like a big boy, like I have had to do many, many times with my choices.

Meh, I still think that absurdly small amount is still too much since the frickin Reapers are the ones that end up with the damned thing unless the Illusive Man suddenly changed his mind about giving stuff to the Alliance for no reason what so ever.

If anything I think giving the base to Cerberus should have made their soilders more husk like and harder to kill

Besides again 10 points is chump change when I can probably make that up just grind characters on MP or all the Mass Effect stuff I have coming over.

Spoiler: the end

Besides my Sheppard will still alive in the end and capable of have sex, where as yours is a disembodied voice with a god complex

 

[Ood Sigma]

Now convinced that this memory stick is a complete dud. When I put it on my computer the first time, I could see the XBox360 directory and all the data files. Unfortunately I had to reboot after installing .NET 4 (the irony of a developer without .NET on his home computer) and now I can't get my PC to read the damn memory stick. And here I thought the XBox was being a snob about it. I think I have all the necessary tools to at least attempt to fix my save file but I gave up last night after about 20 minutes of plugging the drive in repeatedly. I'll try again later.

Should have some opportunity tonight & this weekend to advance my second game. I was almost 40 hours in on the first game but I think I can get back to where I was in 20-25 hours just by skipping the dialogue scenes, and actually knowing what the heck I'm doing. For example the first time around Vancouver probably took me nearly an hour but I did in in about 20 minutes this time.

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah, once you've played through the game once, you should be able to get through it again much more quickly. Especially if you're skipping some or most of the dialogue.

 

[Reverend]

This scanning guide might also make things go a lot faster.

 

[Ood Sigma]

I promise not to bore everyone with a ton of updates, but it's worth noting that I'm 18 hours in on my second game, and I just completed the geth dreadnought mission. So I'm probably more than halfway back to where I was.

Btw, what happens at certain key points if characters didn't make it to me3 alive? I guess some missions you don't even get, but what happens on Tuchanka if Moridin had died at the end of me2?

 

[John Clark]

Without going into spoilers too much, in general, other people take their places.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Mordin's replacement character is actually surprisingly good, too. This means a lot coming from me, as Mordin is probably my favorite squadmate in the series, mind you. But it's probably worth chucking him off a cliff somewhere at the end of ME2 just once, because the conversations with his replacement are quite different, and quite good.

And quite funny.