The reviews are very, very positive so far. At least they didn't Matrix it.

Also negative sounds though, like the co-op MP part potentially affecting the singleplayer game ending.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/06/mass- ... ur-ending/

And the (paid) DLC and phone games also can contribute towards the "readiness" stat so it's a little bit of a mess. This, plus the paid day 1 DLC, makes it something of a bummer. I guess I'll wait and pay for the 'real' complete game (GOTY).

A day one DLC screwing up the multiplayer gameplay of a traditionally single-player game? I can't say I'm surprised. However, I'll be waiting on this game too. GOTY sounds like a fine idea. That should be around Christmas probably. :p

Lol good to see CAD is still putting out some good comics. I've had nothing but ME3 all weekend; down my mates Saturday night had him and my boyfriend both playing it, one on 360 with a Shepard from #1 and the other on PS3 with the comic + 2 choices. It's quite interesting to see all the differences. Seems a bit buggy though; boyfriend got stuck with "Checking downloadable content" on the main screen first time he tried to play it and both have had a few freezes. PS3 version also seems to like skipping the sound quite often if you play for prolonged periods. Also EA have once again fucked up their servers; they did it with Battlefield in October and have done it again with ME3; try to log on to any other EA games and they just refuse to authenticate. Irritating when I'm in a Sims building mood! *shakes fist at EA*

http://www.gamespot.com/news/mass-effec ... ty-6366183

People are not happy with ME3. Very cool way to show it, mankind still has some hope .

Very nice way to show your displeasure. Lol at the "spoilers" though, there's nothing spoiler-ish in that at all

I don't want to know anything about it in the sense of spoilers, but I do wonder what's so bad abotu the ending.

ANyone know if the problem with the ending is 'just' that it's too bleak? Instead of that the ending is ridiculous?

I can handle a bleak ending. Hell, I wouldn't mind if the universe was ravaged in its entirety by the reapers by me failing to mount a proper defense. Not everything needs to have a happy ending. But if the ending is completely silly like "Shepard achieves Super Saiyan form and becomes a reaper and destroys them all in his reaper berserker form", yeah that'd probably be pretty suck.

again, no spoilers. Just want to see if anyone knows what is so wrong about the ending.

Fanbois?

Personally, I don't know, nor do I want to know, until I buy the GOTY version.

Well I finished the game and all I can say is that i'm happy/sad.

Make no mistake, the opera has been one epic ride. Sure there have been some technical limitations and such but the true worth of the game for me is defined how I feel about it afterwards and i'm hurt, in a good way. Its not the level of sadness when someone has passed away but rather like a good friend who moved to another country even while knowing that they are only a skype call away but still knowing that their company as a human being is lost to me.

In the end what got to me was the good-byes before the final battle. The writing was no longer a dialogue between the characters on screen but it was written so one could understand that the companions were talking to the person behind Commander Shepard. It was written so that the underlying meaning was "sure you can replay the game but you know our story ends here." Even if they should make an appearance in some other ME game, the story is no longer about them or Shepard or THE Reaper threat.

For a game to leave such a hurting feeling, for me its not a game of the year material, it is the game, a benchmark against which all future games will measured against.

As for which companion I liked most, I guess it would be Ashley, who turned out to be a black girl masquerading as a white girl. If you scroll up a little to check the CAD comic and then watch the Video in my link (at 5:00) you should get a little smile out of the joke.

Tales from the Trenches

Not everybody is a soulless asshole.
12/30/2014

I’ve been in the “internet” industry for a while. Most of the problems that game testing run into are a sickening parallel here, however, I’ve not come into anything as bad as what happened to my wife once one of your precious games doesn’t come out exactly as you’d like.

Some gamers quickly become frothing, spiteful misogynists once their game waifu’s honor is slighted.

During a rough patch in my career (red tape surrounding a promised raise, par for the course, right?), she got a job to help make ends meet. She found a job working for EA’s Origin Account Support. EA made the onboarding process fairly smooth, worked with her around my schedule as to allow for ride-sharing, and the pay/benefits package wasn’t horrible based on the type of work she’d be doing. Training was sufficient, and her coworkers are mostly human. Everything was fine for the first month.

Then Mass Effect 3 came out.

I’m not going to exactly spoil it for those of you not privy to the story, but an important character dies. Fans were livid and they called. And called. And called.

Remember: she works for account support, a department that never gets ahold of writers, artists, coders, or decision makers.

Some asked for lukewarm things like refunds, credits and the like, but there are some of you that just can’t leave well enough alone. Personal attacks dealing with her gender (“Get a man on the phone, you won’t understand my complaint”), her moral compass being compromised based on her association with EA (“You’re actively ruining my hobby. You.”), death threats, and hour-long tirades picking apart the story (Think “Han Shot First” type rants) were her bread-and butter.

This is where EA could have easily come to the rescue for their employees, but all of us knowing EA, this should not come as a surprise. My wife’s manager told her team they are never, under any circumstances, allowed to end a customer call. The customer must hang up. Managers do not have the ability to override this, they say, which is bullshit. Every VoIP administration box can just shut a phone off.

She managed to get through a week on the floor after ME3’s release before she called me in tears, asking to leave her job.

To put her mental constitution into context, she did a tour in Iraq, and was honorably discharged on medical grounds (repetitive motion disorder).

It’s just a game, everybody. Calm the fuck down, and remember that whenever you need to call support for any reason, they are humans.

http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/not ... ss-asshole

Hey, I did internet tech support. I got screamed at because someone's internet connection dropped and their Evercrack character walked off a cliff. I always treat anyone I call on the phone with respect and calm unless they intentionally start screwing with me. Even then, I'll just ask for a manager. Yelling and screaming doesn't help. After my skin thickened in that job a bit, I would just screw with anyone that was an asshole. Or yell back at them. Some people actually respond well to being yelled at, believe it or not.

Yeah, we have a phone team a few rooms away from us. They're part of our project so they deal with the same stuff as we do, just in a different language and on the phone. Some of these people...good lord. Most people on the phone go through a hazing phase where they are almost broken down, then they either quit or become masters of conflict, either becoming really good at calming people down or fucking with them.

Most of the ones who cracked are the ones who can't control their anger and start raising their voice. Like not in a controlled "I'm gonna tell you to fuck off now" manner, but really getting riled up. You'd see how some people would constantly get into shouting matches while others almost never did. If you take that over a period of a few weeks, you see that the problem in those cases is usually not the customer, but the support agent who takes things too personally. Not that it's hard to do so, some of the people that call you are pretty revolting excuses for human beings.