Citadel DLC - Spoiler Free Poll (polls open)

@dem, releasing a reveal and charging for it would be company suicide. Not only the image SNAFU, but serious legal issues are connected with that.

So, I agree with you that/if something is revealed, it will be through a patch/update.
But that's actually nothing new. And to be honest, we had these emotions etc. several times now.

People thought the EC would be it - although it made no real sense to assume that an ARPG planned over the course of a year would have its culmination a few months after the start.

People thought Leviathan would be it - although it has the DLC problem I mentioned above. Though, all in all Leviathan was received quite well by most ITers.

People thought Omega would be it and heavily hint at IT - and it didn't.

People thought Citadel would change the endings significantly - and it didn't (although it added bugs...).

If there was ever to be a release, it would:

a) NOT be announced via twitter or other social media in advance.
b) NOT be labelled as a reveal.
c) NOT be optional content/content you have to pay for (=not a DLC).

How long will it take? As others also pointed out, I'll probably check out any new developments for the next month or so and then do other stuff and then maybe check in on ME4.
And to reiterate:
The DLC itself is fun, but it is not really Mass Effect and is totally out of place.

A reveal in a sequel would probably be fine as well. People would be pissed off perhaps, but there's nothing illegal or fishy about it. I don't remember any whining when Halo 4 was revealed to have Master Chief still alive.

Andromidius wrote:A reveal in a sequel would probably be fine as well. People would be pissed off perhaps, but there's nothing illegal or fishy about it. I don't remember any whining when Halo 4 was revealed to have Master Chief still alive.

I may have also brought up the point with Half Life 2, where the Citadel blows up, and during the opening scene of Episode 1 is where you find Gordon in the rubble. People had to wait 3 years to find that out.

magnetite wrote:

Andromidius wrote:A reveal in a sequel would probably be fine as well. People would be pissed off perhaps, but there's nothing illegal or fishy about it. I don't remember any whining when Halo 4 was revealed to have Master Chief still alive.

I may have also brought up the point with Half Life 2, where the Citadel blows up, and during the opening scene of Episode 1 is where you find Gordon in the rubble. People had to wait 3 years to find that out.

And Fallout 3's Broken Steel first dialog line is something along:
"Everything will be fine, your safely in the Citadel..."

Andromidius wrote:A reveal in a sequel would probably be fine as well. People would be pissed off perhaps, but there's nothing illegal or fishy about it. I don't remember any whining when Halo 4 was revealed to have Master Chief still alive.

Because we played ODST and Reach.

Good points about Half Life and Fallout.

Also with Half Life 2, Gordon (and Alex) is saved from a huge explosion directly to the face, and are safely teleported down a considerable distance from the top of the Citadel.

At least we know it was a combination of the G Man and the Vortigants.

Feck... Half Life 2 spoilers :O ... lol.
Continuing Half Life 2 was also on my pile of shame (including DE:HR, Skyrim, GTA IV...).

demersel wrote:

SwobyJ wrote: as long as they have Internet really.

Moot point - Mass Effect 3 has "always online" DRM on all the systems.

You can't really play the game if you're not connected to the internet. (well, you can on origin - but no DLC whatsoever this way only the very bare bone experience.)

Ohohohoho.... all forms of DRM can be cracked. I still remember when whoever made Assassin's Creed 2 claimed it was impossible and that if anyone ever succeeded they'd disable the DRM they had in everyone's copies through an update or whatever. Low and behold, it was cracked successfully by hackers and they stayed true to their word.

Heck, I've heard the new SimCity is going to be cracked.... it's full online DRM, you absolutely need to be online to play it. Yet hackers have casually decided to crack it, like.... "Oh, new DRM? We don't give a flying fuck."

Maybe, most hackers are Honey Badgers

They've also cracked ME3 AND it's DLC... on all systems I might add. Of course, you can't play online. Online is only crackable when the game relies on other players hosting the servers. Like source games or whatever.

There's a lot of bloody Citadels around nowadays, isn't there? ME3, Fallout 3, Half-Life 2... any more for any more?

ElSuperGecko wrote:There's a lot of bloody Citadels around nowadays, isn't there? ME3, Fallout 3, Half-Life 2... any more for any more?

It is weird... a conspiracy theorist could invent a video game Illuminati lulz

magnetite wrote:
Kind of how if Shepard lives, a lot of people didn't like the ending, because the Reapers were still there. The war isn't over yet. I may have mentioned in other threads about the war lasting more than one game, and this is just the battle to retake Earth as said during the pre-release statements.

Well the thing is we didn't really get to retake earth either. But it was promised by the trailer and marketing compaign. The sold us the game with the slogan Take Earth Back. So i'm totally OK with the reaper war not over in ME3. What I am not ok with - is not getting to take earth back.

@Ironic Particle - If you crack our DRM - no free support or updates for you. ))


About Half-Life 2 (major spoilers follow):

Spoiler:

@Andro - no them revealing that shepard is alive in the next game would not be acceptable. And here's why.

1. If Shepard is alive - then the crucible didn't fire, and the reapers are still not beaten, and thus - we have not yet Taken the Earth Back. Which was promised to us by marketing for Mass Effect 3. No one made them promise us to take earth back, in fact many very trully surprised what is such a big deal with earth in the first place when the reapers are sett to kill everybody everywhere. And they can't just say - oh yeah, shepard is alive and you've taken the earth back - we need to actually do it ourselves, not be told that we did it YAY!.

2. Next Mass Effect game is confirmed to be developed on a different engine and that might also mean that it is being developed for the next gen consoles. - that way you won't be able to import yoursaves on the consoles. (PC is master race, but we have to suffer due to those cheapsakes)

I actually think the other consoles will have save file conversion - just PS4 is confirmed to not CURRENTLY have backwards compatibility for games. (but they want to roll it out gradually at some point)

SwobyJ wrote:I actually think the other consoles will have save file conversion - just PS4 is confirmed to not CURRENTLY have backwards compatibility for games. (but they want to roll it out gradually at some point)

But you have to agree, that since Mass Effect went multiplatform - they have been giving PS3 preferentiasl treatment. In fact - their offer on the trilogy pack on PS3 is much better than on the X-box.

For example right now - my father is getting very interested in Mass Effect, but doesn't want to play it on the PC - he want's to do that comfortably sitting on the couch in the living room, in front of big screen - so we are considering buying a console, and Mass Effect Trilogy pack. The pack on PS3 has much more value to it, + PS3 has in-built blue-ray. so that might tip us over to favour PS3 rather than X-box.

demersel wrote:

SwobyJ wrote:I actually think the other consoles will have save file conversion - just PS4 is confirmed to not CURRENTLY have backwards compatibility for games. (but they want to roll it out gradually at some point)

But you have to agree, that since Mass Effect went multiplatform - they have been giving PS3 preferentiasl treatment. In fact - their offer on the trilogy pack on PS3 is much better than on the X-box.

For example right now - my father is getting very interested in Mass Effect, but doesn't want to play it on the PC - he want's to do that comfortably sitting on the couch in the living room, in front of big screen - so we are considering buying a console, and Mass Effect Trilogy pack. The pack on PS3 has much more value to it, + PS3 has in-built blue-ray. so that might tip us over to favour PS3 rather than X-box.

More and more, I'm just hooking up the PC to the TV and using my wireless Xbox controller. That was fun with Mirror's Edge - max graphics on games!

It's just too soon to judge when it comes to save file conversion. Maybe they'll have a way for it - but we could also just have another 'comic' to recap all our main decisions too.

I don't see it as a concern, is all.

demersel wrote:
Well the thing is we didn't really get to retake earth either. But it was promised by the trailer and marketing compaign. The sold us the game with the slogan Take Earth Back. So i'm totally OK with the reaper war not over in ME3. What I am not ok with - is not getting to take earth back.

Well most of the Reapers were in London, think Anderson said something about that during the course of the game. I know, people were probably wanting to see stuff flying everywhere and bombers blowing up marauders and such, but I've probably wondered if the whole Priority Earth mission was some kind of nightmare and didn't really happen.

magnetite wrote:

demersel wrote:
Well the thing is we didn't really get to retake earth either. But it was promised by the trailer and marketing compaign. The sold us the game with the slogan Take Earth Back. So i'm totally OK with the reaper war not over in ME3. What I am not ok with - is not getting to take earth back.

Well most of the Reapers were in London, think Anderson said something about that during the course of the game. I know, people were probably wanting to see stuff flying everywhere and bombers blowing up marauders and such, but I've probably wondered if the whole Priority Earth mission was some kind of nightmare and didn't really happen.

No. In fact none of the reapers were in london -They are quite big - but you can't see any of them during areal shots and gameplay, and mission.
And I don't count destroyers as reapers. And and even of those there is only two that we can see. Compare that with the opening in vancouver - London certainle doesn't feel like Most of the Reapers are there.

OK, have played quite a bit of Citadel now, so time to give my thoughts.

I like it.

As a stand alone DLC - playing JUST the DLC content, from a legacy save - it's OK. I expected more from the mzin DLC mission - if terms of revelations, hints, foreshadowing and simple additions to the story - but it was entertaining enough. And playing from a legacy save, everything done at once, it does seem out of place.

However where this DLC will REALLY shine is when added to the game as a whole.

Complete the DLC mission right after the Citadel coup, then use the social content to break up the missions that follow and it's worth it's weight in gold.

It's worth trying? Yes it is. It this how imagined this trilogy would end? Nope, not even close. This DLC has stuff that should have been there since the beginning, the social part at least.

Lombus wrote:This DLC has stuff that should have been there since the beginning, the social part at least.

Indeed! That's how I feel. To be fair, the same could be said about From Ashes, Leviathan, the EC and even Omega.. but the Social side of the Citadel DLC is mostly stuff people wanted to see from the start.

I'm looking forward to doing a complete New Game + with all the DLC installed...

ElSuperGecko wrote:

Lombus wrote:This DLC has stuff that should have been there since the beginning, the social part at least.

Indeed! That's how I feel. To be fair, the same could be said about From Ashes, Leviathan, the EC and even Omega.. but the Social side of the Citadel DLC is mostly stuff people wanted to see from the start.

I'm looking forward to doing a complete New Game + with all the DLC installed...

Me too...maybe it will give a different vibe to the whole game. I can only hope really. Some things seem so out of place.
I think giving a party after either: killing Udina and seeing Thane die, seeing Legion and maybe Tali dying, and specially after Thessia it's completely stupid. It kinda disrespects the whole thing if you want to go there, who celebrates after losing a friend or failing to save hundreds of people? Shepard apparently.

I enjoyed the DLC. I thought the clone plot was both surprising and pretty cool. I was disappointed in the lack of post ending content and how short Citadel's main story was. Overall, I would recommend it.

Opening old wounds.

I was idly looking through metacritic and noticed Citadel had its own ratings. So I checked it out.

The difference in the user scores is ridiculous, with reviews either being 'near perfect' or 'very bad', little in between. And reading them, holy shit I think I agree with the negative reviews the most.

Wall of text quote:

"Bioware comes full circle with this DLC to prove, once and for all, that they have absolutely no clue how to tell a coherent story anymore. After the depressing, deflating ending of the entire series Bioware vehemently defended ME3 as completely intentional, explaining to fans how they wanted a "dark" feel to the whole trilogy. They then jam this piece of self-congratulatory crap in the middle of that story. Similar to how they originally claimed they intended for Shepard NOT to be a homosexual option in the first Mass Effect in order to duck questions why it wasn't included (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/02/08/bioware-shepherd-is-heterosexual-by-choice/1), they then spring that option out of the blue in the third installment. Well, which way do they want to spin things this time? They wanted Mass Effect 3 to be dark, but the final DLC should have been sold with a laugh-track. Shepard decides to throw a party in his disgustingly high-end apartment sometime between his long, dark dreams about the slaughter of his home planet (and by that point the rest of the galaxy) and worrying about refugees on the Citadel having a terrible plight. But wait, if you hold off long enough you can do this right before confronting one of the most nonsensical computers in story-telling history and getting FREE multi-tint picture endings that don't talk about Shepard at all! This company thinks people pay no attention and don't mind how incongruous a story is. They want to sell content, not tell a good story. There is no more integrity to be found with their statements or their products. Ironically enough, if an ending that actually showed Shepard defeating the reapers and surviving existed, this content would have made perfect sense afterward (minus a few flaws I thought existed with how various characters acted within this DLC). There would likely be plenty of fans left around to purchase it, too."

Words can't describe how much I agree with this in retrospect. Now the shock is worn off, all the nostalgia and fan-hype has died down, I can safely say this DLC was shocking in overall quality.

The good things about this DLC show they put effort into it. The scenery is nice, the background chatter is mostly excellent, the combat is decent and some of the dialogue is good. But its completely outweighed by the bad.

The story plain sucks. Its a bad 90's action movie clichéstorm. The numerous disconnects and plot holes are so glaring they feel intentional. A lot of the dialogue is cheesy and self-parodying, as if it was either done as a joke or by a fan.

Worst of all is the 360 turn from the main story's theme. ME3 was dark and depressing, with only hints of hope and friendship pulling it forwards. Citadel is light hearted, jokey, casual and has no sense of urgency. The one time where Shepard seemed to be in trouble it was treated as a joke, and was resolved almost instantly by Glyph.

NO NO NO NO NO! This is not how you end a trilogy, Bioware! THIS IS NOT HOW IT IS DONE! Fanservice bullshit is excusable post-ending, as this DLC clearly feels like, but right before the most important and devastating battle in the last 50,000 years against billion year old legions of giant God-Machines?

NO!

I think Citadel is now firmly at the bottom of my DLC list. Omega looks near perfect in comparison (though I do like Omega, despite its many issues).

Totally agree Andro

it's like a really bad joke.

this ones quite good.

"I guess I'm in the minority here, so far anyway. I can barely give this a 5 but I'm giving and extra point for effort. I have a feeling that the individuals who are posting 10's are quite a bit younger than I am and easily impressed. Had this come out a loooong time ago, I would have loved it as a nice addition, but still not 15 bucks worth to me anyway. When your totally engaged in the ME experience (and I've played the whole series through 6 times) the additional character interaction would have been kinda cool. So down to it. Here is what you get for your money. 1. a short combat mission which is mildly entertaining for as long as it lasts. It has a twist, which frankly would have been nice to see really played out further, much further. 2. a whole lot of interaction with team mates, which in the middle of the ME moment would have been good, but going back just to play this dlc is kinda like too little too late, like that person you've been wanting to get with for a long time and you finally do and there is just no chemistry. So the interactions are okay, and add a little fun but would have been much better like a year ago or even six months ago, in the heat of the moment so to speak. Most of us have moved on. 3. you get a combat arena. This last point is probably the best part of the pack. It adds some value that is lacking elsewhere. 4. You get tons of mini-games. Ok. But in my head Shepherd is focused on saving the universe from imminent destruction, earth is occupied and going down fast, I don't know about your Shepherd, but my Shepherd isn't stopping in the arcade to wile away the hours just now. I'm not one for mini-games anyway, unless I'm really bored. But some of you may get your kicks hanging around in the virtual arcade with a digital PC. You get a new weapon (not impressed) and I think 2 new mods. That's it. Not a ten, no way, no how, not"