mass effect 3 - buy now or wait for dlc bundles ?

[Madia]

This is why I have only ever bought DLC for Fallout 3. I recently played Deus Ex Human Revolution. Game is $16 now. Guess how much the DLC is? $15. lol not happening.

Some of the DLC prices are getting absurd and Deus Ex's DLC was one of them. Skyrim's Dawnguard ($20!) was another. The thing with those though is that they'll end up on sale eventually. Deus Ex's DLC was just 75% off and Dawnguard was half off. Bioware's DLC on the other hand is never on sale. All of the ME2 DLC's are the same price as they were when they were released:

http://social.bioware.com/page/me2-dlc

Even though Dragon Age Origins Complete was just on the steam holiday sale for $7.50 if you just picked up the regular edition and wanted some of the DLC they're still the same price as 3 years ago:

http://social.bioware.com/page/da1-dlc

Even the terrible ME1 DLC pinnacle station is still $5:

http://store.origin.com/store/ea/en_US/pd/productID.152041300

I thought that with ME3 on Origin you might see the DLC on sale eventually but so far no luck.

As for the op I don't blame you on passing at those prices (although the cost is $20 for both, not $25 IIRC). You're still going to want to check out shadowbroker on youtube and I'd still recommend considering it especially if your shepard is romancing Liara.

 

[KentState]

Is ME3 MP still active? I have never tried it out.

 

[Mem]

Is ME3 MP still active? I have never tried it out.

Yep just did 8 maps today,plenty of players in MP(4 max) even if you only have 2 in your group others will join you in wave 2,3 etc...unless you have it set for private( set to public anybody can join in up to 4 max in a group ,quickest way to get players) .

Now what do I do with my 8 million credits lol.....got most of the ultra rare weapons,guess I work on getting them up to MK X(10) from store if I get lucky on PSP(Premium Spectre Packs).


I'll say ALL the DLC made for ME3 MP which is free btw is worth downloading, you get new maps,classes,weapons etc..a must for any MP gamer,do note MP in ME3 is you and three others against NPC bots,its not PvP,however you have different difficulty levels ie Bronze,Silver,Gold,Platinum,noobs should try(select) Bronze first and work your way up until you find your own level.

Most stay on Bronze or Silver,unless you are really good or hard core,key is work as a team, wave 11 is last round if you are wondering(takes 15-20 minutes on average depending on difficulty level and team skill).

 

[Red Hawk]

Yeah well that's not people's fault anyway, it's a DLC, and it's not free.

It should have been part of the game from day one if it was that important to start with (and it is). The same applies with From Ashes. At least there's other ways to learn about what you'd be missing by not buying the DLCs though, namely YouTube, or to some extent the Mass Effect Wiki (not as good as YouTube footage of the DLCs though, but better than nothing, and free).

I'd change your sentence from "crazy that most people will play this game without ever seeing what it brings to the story", to "crazy that BioWare/EA didn't delay the game for a few extra months to implement very important and relevant story-related content to the final game". The thing is, the devs or the publishers clearly don't care if the consumers don't get the "whole story picture" by not buying the DLCs in question, as long as you buy the basic game your job as the consumer that you are is done, and nothing else from you is necessary, nor is anything else from the devs and publisher necessary either. The rest is just "extra", however "important to the story" it may be.

I can't wait to see how many story-related "DLCs" Mass Effect 4 will have.

I agree. "Leviathan" really should have been in the main game. It would have drastically cut down on the "wtf" factor of the ending because

Spoiler

it sets up that their is an AI in control of the Reapers which was designed with the purpose of keeping synthetics from destroying organics, rather than coming out of the blue in the last 10 minutes.

This is why I have only ever bought DLC for Fallout 3. I recently played Deus Ex Human Revolution. Game is $16 now. Guess how much the DLC is? $15. lol not happening.

At least the Fallout, Deus Ex, and Skyrim DLCs are all on Steam, so they get discounted during sales. The Mass Effect (and individual Dragon Age) DLCs are only available through BioWare (or Origin, for ME3), so they never get discounted.

 

[darkewaffle]

I didn't play Leviathan prior to the ending but, while it's interesting stuff finding out about

Spoiler

the Leviathans and how they were the first race harvested and how the reapers were kind of modeled after them

, I don't really consider it crucial information.

Spoiler

I mean, the reapers are machines after all. I guess all along I figured they were either a hivemind like the Geth or under some sort of direction like a run of the mill droid is. The catalyst/citadel is their shackle, just like the Normandy is/was EDI's shackle and how the Geth are still dependent on essentially central hub servers.

Spoiler

To me, the most interesting information was a question it raised instead of an answer it gave really. How were the Leviathans harvested in the first place? "Apex" creatures, seemingly telekinetic/psychic powers, ageless, physically resilient (so it appears), and most importantly the reapers had no "reapers" yet.

They're not cheap but considering I probably got ME/ME2/ME3 DD for less than $30 collectively, I don't mind 'making up for it' with DLC. Still a tremendous value ultimately.

 

[Topweasel]

I didn't play Leviathan prior to the ending but, while it's interesting stuff finding out about

Spoiler

the Leviathans and how they were the first race harvested and how the reapers were kind of modeled after them

, I don't really consider it crucial information.

Spoiler

I mean, the reapers are machines after all. I guess all along I figured they were either a hivemind like the Geth or under some sort of direction like a run of the mill droid is. The catalyst/citadel is their shackle, just like the Normandy is/was EDI's shackle and how the Geth are still dependent on essentially central hub servers.

Spoiler

To me, the most interesting information was a question it raised instead of an answer it gave really. How were the Leviathans harvested in the first place? "Apex" creatures, seemingly telekinetic/psychic powers, ageless, physically resilient (so it appears), and most importantly the reapers had no "reapers" yet.

They're not cheap but considering I probably got ME/ME2/ME3 DD for less than $30 collectively, I don't mind 'making up for it' with DLC. Still a tremendous value ultimately.

Spoiler

You missed something rather important in Leviathan if you are asking those questions still. They developed the reapers or more to the point the catalyst, to figure out how to manage all of the sub races and in the end had a Geth/Quarian type war. They built them and set them free to manage the universe under them and they turned around and decided that as an Apex race (maybe THE apex race) the Leviathan needed to be removed first. That they would fight the decisions that they made. It was probably them taking down the Leviathan that cemented their plan for the cycles. To make sure no race ever reached that level of evolution again.

 

[Red Hawk]

I didn't play Leviathan prior to the ending but, while it's interesting stuff finding out about

Spoiler

the Leviathans and how they were the first race harvested and how the reapers were kind of modeled after them

, I don't really consider it crucial information.

Spoiler

I mean, the reapers are machines after all. I guess all along I figured they were either a hivemind like the Geth or under some sort of direction like a run of the mill droid is. The catalyst/citadel is their shackle, just like the Normandy is/was EDI's shackle and how the Geth are still dependent on essentially central hub servers.

Spoiler

To me, the most interesting information was a question it raised instead of an answer it gave really. How were the Leviathans harvested in the first place? "Apex" creatures, seemingly telekinetic/psychic powers, ageless, physically resilient (so it appears), and most importantly the reapers had no "reapers" yet.

They're not cheap but considering I probably got ME/ME2/ME3 DD for less than $30 collectively, I don't mind 'making up for it' with DLC. Still a tremendous value ultimately.

Crucial information? Perhaps not (and apparently BioWare agreed with you). But remember what one of the big problems with the ending was.

Spoiler

The Catalyst "starchild" shows up in the last 10 minutes of the game, dumps completely new information about how it created and controls the Reapers, and doesn't give any real information about itself or the Reapers' origins. It literally comes from out of nowhere, which reeked of deus ex machina and was just poorly executed overall. The extended cut made the Catalyst talk a bit more about the origins of itself and the Reapers, but it really couldn't address the problem that the Catalyst had not been set up or foreshadowed earlier because that was beyond the scope of the EC.

Spoiler

Leviathan actually fixes this. You meet the Leviathans before the battle for Earth, and they tell you how they identified the problem of organics vs. synthetics, created an AI to solve the problem, and that AI then used them to create the first Reaper and started the cycle. When the Catalyst appears at the end, then, the player's reaction is "Oh, so you must be the AI controlling the Reapers to keep organics and synthetics balanced" rather than the initial "Who the fuck are you? You want me to do what? Fuck off!" I have a friend who didn't finish the ME3 story until recently, after playing Leviathan, and he said that Leviathan felt as important as any other part of the story.

Spoiler

So, while Leviathan may not be crucial in understanding the story, it is crucial in making sure the story is told well.

 

[darkewaffle]

Spoiler

You missed something rather important in Leviathan if you are asking those questions still. They developed the reapers or more to the point the catalyst, to figure out how to manage all of the sub races and in the end had a Geth/Quarian type war. They built them and set them free to manage the universe under them and they turned around and decided that as an Apex race (maybe THE apex race) the Leviathan needed to be removed first. That they would fight the decisions that they made. It was probably them taking down the Leviathan that cemented their plan for the cycles. To make sure no race ever reached that level of evolution again.

Spoiler

It is my understanding that the Leviathans did not build reapers. The Leviathans wrote the Catalyst to 'manage' the relationship between their 'subservient' races and those races' synthetic constructions, yes. But I am under the impression that it was only after the Leviathans themselves were harvested first that the Catalyst constructed the first reaper, Harbinger, in their image.

I think most of what you're saying is correct but it still never addresses how, without the power of the/a reaper, the/any Leviathans were ever defeated in the first place.

 

[darkewaffle]

Crucial information? Perhaps not (and apparently BioWare agreed with you). But remember what one of the big problems with the ending was.

Spoiler

The Catalyst "starchild" shows up in the last 10 minutes of the game, dumps completely new information about how it created and controls the Reapers, and doesn't give any real information about itself or the Reapers' origins. It literally comes from out of nowhere, which reeked of deus ex machina and was just poorly executed overall. The extended cut made the Catalyst talk a bit more about the origins of itself and the Reapers, but it really couldn't address the problem that the Catalyst had not been set up or foreshadowed earlier because that was beyond the scope of the EC.

Spoiler

Leviathan actually fixes this. You meet the Leviathans before the battle for Earth, and they tell you how they identified the problem of organics vs. synthetics, created an AI to solve the problem, and that AI then used them to create the first Reaper and started the cycle. When the Catalyst appears at the end, then, the player's reaction is "Oh, so you must be the AI controlling the Reapers to keep organics and synthetics balanced" rather than the initial "Who the fuck are you? You want me to do what? Fuck off!" I have a friend who didn't finish the ME3 story until recently, after playing Leviathan, and he said that Leviathan felt as important as any other part of the story.

Spoiler

So, while Leviathan may not be crucial in understanding the story, it is crucial in making sure the story is told well.

Spoiler

I don't know that I agree that it really comes out of nowhere. I mean, you're inside the Citadel after all.

We've known since game one that ultimately the Council races know very little about the Citadel, with them thinking originally it was a benevolent Prothean relic. We've known since ME1 that the Citadel is a Reaper construct (though in retrospect it may actually be a Leviathan construct or some sort of 'upgrade' the Catalyst gave itself). We know that the Citadel is central to the Reaper invasion (prior to Prothean interference at least) and that Reapers bear some ability to 'interface' with it (a la Sovereign). The Keepers of the Citadel are suspected to be a harvested race or reaper construct. The Reapers purposefully designed the Citadel to act as the "hub" of galactic civilization and to 'efficiently accelerate' organics to the point of harvest. The Reapers themselves plan to use it as the "hub" of their invasion. I didn't think it was any great surprise that it's central to even more than that personally.

Further, taken with what we know of machines in the ME universe, I think that even though it was never explicitly stated that the Reapers had a 'supervisor', it's certainly not illogical either. I think initially players might be misled as we meet reapers with "names" and probably assume each Reaper is some individual personality. In actuality we learn reapers are more similar to a mobile geth platform, amalgamations of individual processes and that the names are more like names of ships than names of individuals. Essentially I think it's an advanced hybrid of the way geth and EDI function. The catalyst can control a reaper directly like EDI controls parts of the Normandy, but at the same time the catalyst can abdicate/abstain from control of a 'platform' and it still has the necessary processes to go about it's mission independently.

Again, much of this is realized in retrospect but I think the groundwork is certainly there.

 

[Topweasel]

Spoiler

It is my understanding that the Leviathans did not build reapers. The Leviathans wrote the Catalyst to 'manage' the relationship between their 'subservient' races and those races' synthetic constructions, yes. But I am under the impression that it was only after the Leviathans themselves were harvested first that the Catalyst constructed the first reaper, Harbinger, in their image.

I think most of what you're saying is correct but it still never addresses how, without the power of the/a reaper, the/any Leviathans were ever defeated in the first place.

Spoiler

My Memory could be a little bit weary on this, but my interpretation and memory of the Leviathan play through and 2 plays of 2 and 3. That they aluded or directly came out an said that they "Liviathan" were above and outside the normal aspects of the Universe (unlike say the Protheans that subjugated everything, or group alliances like that of the races in "modern" ME time). That they as almost god like races watched through generations of Cycles with Geth like Synthetics where those races were wiped out. So they made the Catalyst which we call the catalyst but in reality is the "chicken" that laid the first egg. Whether it built with or without support the first reapers. It was a plan they supported until the reapers/catalyst that decided for galactic stability that the Leviathan had to go as well. Harbinger wasn't the first reaper and the general reapers where built in their image, it was that much like the cyborg terminator reaper baby in ME2. Harbinger was the first "named ship" Reaper built from collected and processed materials of a reaped race.

I think it is pretty clear from the conversation that they either by creating the Catalyst and possibly working with the Catalyst they created the Reapers. I guess the Harbinger part makes it more confusing because it makes it seem like each Reaper is a single race. But I think that applies to particular ones "named" ones if you will.