Mass Effect 3 Message Board older than one year ago

#rumor To go with the mere announcement of new Mass Effect DLC from earlier today, a leak has turned up what looks like details - and images - of the new weapons and classes available. More »

#masseffect A new downloadable content pack for Mass Effect 3 will be out on July 17 for Xbox 360, Microsoft said today. More »

Mass Effect 3's 'Earth' multiplayer DLC launches on Xbox 360 next Tuesday, July 17, at a cost of zero space bucks. The content is multiplayer-focused, and that's about all we know - we're taking a wild guess that the locales it'll offer are based on Terra Firma regions.

That said, if rumors from back in June pan out, the DLC will head to Rio, Vancouver, and London, and several new human classes will be added. BioWare has yet to confirm any new details about the content, but we expect to hear more in the near future.

If you're going to give away nearly two gigs of extra content for your wildly successful game, you may as well give away the soundtrack that underscores it, right? The seven-song soundtrack to Mass Effect 3's Extended Cut DLC is now available for free directly from BioWare, provided you have an Origin or BioWare Social network login.

Composed by Sam Hulick, the album also comes packed with this note from The Mass Effect Team:

"It has been a long journey - for Shepard and for the team here at BioWare - and like Shepard, we couldn't have done it alone. The Mass Effect trilogy began as a vision of a small team, but over the years it has grown. That growth has been fueled and shaped by the feedback and support of our player community. Thank you for joining us on this journey, and we look forward to sharing further adventures with you in the Mass Effect universe."

The Extended Cut DLC for Mass Effect 3 was free, and now, so is the additional 16 minutes of music composed for its soundtrack. You can pick up the files from BioWare's website. More »

#masseffect More »

#masseffect3 The red ending. Is it canon? Who's to say? It's the only ending that differs greatly from the others and that's for one major reason. More »

#masseffect I'm always on the hunt for awesome new desktop and/or phone wallpaper (until recently when I settled on forever having it be of my cat). And I imagine you all find yourselves in a similar position, too. More »

This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. BioWare's free response to the Mass Effect 3 ending hoopla, the "Extended Cut" add-on, was released this week. In many ways, it acts as a direct response to the most common criticisms of the ending. If your primary problems were that the ending choices weren't properly explained beforehand, or that it was unclear what happened to the universe and the specific characters after the climax, the "Extended Cut" will be a notable improvement. But it doesn't actually change the quality of the ending, it just adds more content.

(Obviously, spoilers for the Mass Effect series follow.)

Welcome to IGNs comprehensive Mass Effect 3 walkthrough! In this installment we show you the additional changes made with the Extended Cut DLC.

#masseffect Whether you're happy with the Mass Effect 3 extended cut or still pissed about it all, there's no denying that the whole ending debacle has led to some pretty good humor. More »

I liked the ending of Mass Effect 3. I’ve said so before. I acknowledge there were plot holes, perhaps even mistakes, but not being a self-entitled giant fart of a human, I find that I’m able to accept that the ending of something does not have to meet my preconceived expectations, nor wrap up everything I’ve encountered in a neat bow – heck, I can even hate it without requiring it be changed. Human stories rarely end that way, and nor should all fiction have to. However, the farting was so loud and so smelly that BioWare felt a need to react. And so it is that new endings are available for the game. I’ve now seen all four. Clearly this involves hefty spoilers for the original game. I only discuss one of the new endings in any detail, however, but still you might want to see them for yourself first.

(more…)

#masseffect I didn't realize how important the Stargazer, the nameless old man who appears briefly after the credits in Mass Effect 3, was to me, at first. It took some significant changes to the way the game's final ten minutes are told for me to realize how crucial he always was to my story. More »

It feels like it was only yesterday that Mass Effect 3 producer Mike Gamble teased a new installment of DLC for the final game in BioWare's epic trilogy (oh wait, it was). Rather than wait for official word, some crafty folks from the BioWare Social Network cracked open the Mass Effect 3's Extended Cut DLC and found a file that may shed light on upcoming content for the game. Reportedly, what they found makes reference to a character by the name of "Leviathan."

While the file in question didn't describe Commander Shepard summoning an enormous water serpent to his crew's aid (we wish!), it noted that Leviathan is a traitorous Reaper that indoctrinated a Batarian colony for an entire decade.

Whether details on this DLC pack are legitimate remains to be seen. As always, we advise taking leaks like this with a grain of red sand. Joystiq has contacted BioWare to get their side of the quest line.

You may not be done with the Reapers yet, despite Mass Effect 3 having ended twice now.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but this week’s Extended Cut downloadable content for Mass Effect 3, which adds new sequences to the game’s ending and epilogue, will not be the last time BioWare will ask you to turn on Mass Effect 3 again.

"Would now be a good time to talk about how we're doing more DLC in the future?” said Mass Effect producer Michael Gamble on Twitter last night. “That was a trick question. We'll save the future DLC for future chats. Don't worry though...there's much more.”

It appears we may already know what the (first?) downloadable content is about, too. An inquisitive user on the BioWare message boards looked into the data featured within the Extended Cut, and found evidence of a new mission related to Leviathan, which appears to be a dormant, rogue Reaper mentioned in both Mass Effect and Mass Effect 3.

Hmm.

#masseffect I loved the Mass Effect 3 ending the way it was two weeks ago. It's a shame that many Mass Effect 3 fans didn't feel the same way. More »

#rumor Mass Effect 3 could get a new piece of downloadable content revolving around a Reaper named Leviathan, according to files extracted by a BioWare forum poster yesterday. More »

*SPOILER ALERT!* Have your decisions gotten you the Refusal Ending for Mass Effect 3?

*SPOILER ALERT!* See one of Mass Effect 3's multiple epic endings!

#masseffect Like almost every other game, Mass Effect 3 has official subtitles. But that's not what we're looking at today. No, what you're about to see is what happens when people record themselves playing Mass Effect 3, upload videos to YouTube then let Google's service try and guess what's being said on screen. More »

With the launch of Mass Effect 3's Extended Cut DLC today, you may think BioWare is ready to wash its hands of the series and move onto something new. Producer Mike Gamble hit Twitter today to tease future DLC for Mass Effect 3, something BioWare is apparently working on right now.

"Would now be a good time to talk about how we're doing more DLC in the future?" his first tweet teased earlier today. "That was a trick question. We'll save the future DLC for future chats. Don't worry though...there's much more," he responded later in the day. Gamble wouldn't go into specifics about when we'd hear about future Mass Effect 3 content - but we'll be in the captain's cabin, playing with our model ships while we wait.

Welcome to IGNs comprehensive Mass Effect 3 walkthrough! In this installment we show you one of the possible endings to the Extended Cut DLC. This ending is the Destroy Ending

Welcome to IGNs comprehensive Mass Effect 3 walkthrough! In this installment we show you one of the possible endings to the Extended Cut DLC. This ending is the Refuse Ending

Welcome to IGNs comprehensive Mass Effect 3 walkthrough! In this installment we show you one of the possible endings to the Extended Cut DLC. This ending is the Control Ending

#masseffect Commander Shepard's long goodbye in Mass Effect 3 got a little longer today, with the release of its Extended Cut DLC. Lots of little changes—and a few big ones—lurk inside the bigger, fan-demanded finale for BioWare's sci-fi action RPG. Watch this painstakingly assembled split-screen comparison footage above to see where the Normandy gets more damage, the camera changes and who kicks back with a beer after the galaxy-saving's done. More »

#masseffect Today's the day when hordes of Mass Effect fans have been waiting for. Thousands of them have already turned on their consoles and PCs to experience a newly expanded denouement to BioWare's Mass Effect trilogy. Some like it and some don't. More »

The term “entitled” is tossed around a little too easily, and I’m certainly guilty of that, too.

With BioWare delivering downloadable content to address fan complaints about Mass Effect 3’s ending today, it’s especially timely that Katsuhiro Harada, creative director and chief producer of fighting games at Namco Bandai, has unleashed what one would definitely characterize as a rant on Twitter this week.

As someone who has been working on the Tekken series for nearly two decades, Harada knows what it’s like to constantly interact with a legion of dedicated fans. The Tekken series may be less relevant these days, but there are plenty of players who still love the series, and have a deep sense of nostalgia for what Tekken means.

Straddling the line between appreciating that nostalgia and coming to grips with how technology evolves, how games evolve, and how creative approaches evolve can be its own challenge. Harada seems a bit fed up explaining that.

I’m just going to embed the whole text below, rather than pull out a few selections.

“I have something I want to say to the people who spam me with requests to "switch back(or Bring back) to the voice actors used previously".

I believe that, before whining and complaining about everything, you need practice at taking a step back and analyzing things objectively. And also at being an adult.

First, the voice you were listening to was 16 years ago, during the PlayStation period. The current generation of consoles are totally different in how they play back sound; both software-wise, and the internal circuitry

The playback program is different, as well as the sound effects added; reverb and 5.1 are examples of this. The comrpression rate, as well as the sound rate, is different today. Are you playing games on the same TV you used 16 years ago? What about your speakers? Headphones? They are all the same as 16 years ago? I wonder if it will sound like the same voice as 16 years ago, even with that data..
Also, you are assuming the voice actors themselves can reproduce the voice the recorded 16 years ago? Many voice actors decline work because their voice has changed since the original role, some have even retired. Sometimes they won't accept, even if we ask.

The recording studio and the equipment they use is also different. With all of this in mind, you still thing it is possible to recreate these voices?

Some might say "just pay them to reuse the voice data".

But, often the voice actors decline this, or their agency declines.

For example, Brian's laugh is the actual data from Tekken 3. As fans have requested, we've kept using the original, adapting the data recorded 16 years ago to be used on the PS2, and then PS3.

Even so, some people said it is a different voice in Tekken 6 than the original.

It can't be helped they might think that. As explained above, even though the master data is the same, all of the equipment used in adapting it has completely changed. That said, it isn't a good idea to try to reccreate the older recording environment because then the data sounds heavily compressed, with noise. More than that, it would sound out of place next to the voice data of the newer characters.

WHAT? You say some of the voices sound like they haven't changed at all?
I guess you didn't notice that the development team has re-recorded them, but made efforts for it to sound as close as possible to the original. And you probably didn't even notice.

Do you know that all of the voice work for a character is not always done by just one voice actor? Using Brian as an example, the laugh you guys love so much uses the original data from Tekken 3, but the short kiai voice uses a different voice actor, and the "come on!" voice also uses a different voice actor. A lot of other characters also use different voice actors for the spoken lines and for the shouts.

I did the voice work for Marshal and Forest for 15 years.

However, I can no longer produce that voice after Tekken 5, so we had a different voice actor for Tekken 6.

The Tekken series has continued for 17 years. The development environment, as well as the environment in which you all play games, has changed.

There are so many characters, and we can't keep using he same voice actors every time, for a variety of reasons.

I have even complied to the requests of you all spamming me to "bring back characters" from previous installments. You often say, "let's show the dev team how sincere we are by buying 2 copies if they bring back character X", but did you really go through with it? Expecting you to at least pre-order the game, I was met with more spam, after you apparently didn't notice that Jun and Michelle actually return.

I still have some characters left to be revealed that comply with some of your requests, even "bringing back" several others. Even so, none of them are paid DLC. I will continue to sincerely comply with fan requests.

However, I can't continue to engage the negative ones that, without knowing what you are talking about, or even thinking about what you are saying, blindly repeat "bring back, bring back, bring back..."

After this lengthy explanation, I will be quite surprised if there are still people who still don't get it.

Thanks for understanding or not understanding. Whatever.”

That last line is unbelievable, by the way.

#masseffect The Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut is the result of one of the largest fan outcries in the history of gaming, delivering a series of new endings to appease fans seeking more closure than the game initially provided. More »

While BioWare said that loading a save file that places Commander Shepard roughly two missions before the actual ending of Mass Effect 3 is necessary to experience the Extended Cut downloadable content, players can view the new ending of the game even more quickly.

To cut out the middleman (and potentially any fresh content included in the missions prior to the end of the game), players who have completed the game can load up an auto-save that zips Shepard to the end of the game, labeled (spoilers!) "Citadel: The Return." Again, while you might miss added scenes during the final missions in the game, you'll go straight to all the explanatory stuff at the end.

It's worth noting that we performed this act of trickery on Xbox 360, so we can't confirm that this works on PS3 or PC just yet.

#masseffect My copy of Mass Effect 3, well-loved and much-played, is on PC. As I look right now, Origin hasn't updated with the Extended Cut DLC yet, so I haven't been able to experience any of the new content for myself. My Shepards — Eve Shepard, who shall we say, chose to be controlling, and Kate Shepard, who chose to be destructive, remain frozen in time, sitting at autosaves created at the Point of No Return. More »